An Unwelcome Child.-But suppose the mother does not succeed in her attempts against the life of her child, as she may not ; what fearful results may … - John Harvey Kellogg

Evil Associations.-A child may have been reared with the greatest care. From infancy he may have been carefully shielded from all pernicious influences, so that by the age of ten or twelve, when he is for the first time sent away to school, he may be free from vice; but when he associated with his fellow-students, he soon finds them practicing a habit new to him, and being unwarned, he speedily follows their filthy example and quickly becomes fascinated with the vice. Thousands have taken their first lessons in this debasing habit at school. Teachers and scholars testify that it is often practiced even in school hours, almost under the teacher’s eyes ; but where the infection most quickly spreads is in the sleeping apartments, where more than one occupy the same bed, or where several sleep in the same room. Nothing is more indispensable to purity of body and of morals than a private sleeping room and a single bed for each student. Such an arrangement would protect the youth from the reception of much evil, and would allow an opportunity for privacy which every young man or youth needs for his spiritual as well as physical benefit. Not the least benefit of the latter class is the opportunity for a thorough cleansing of the whole body every morning, which is almost as indispensable to purity of morals as cleanliness of body. The same suggestion is fully as applicable to the sleeping arrangements of girls. The exceptional cases in which this plan would not be the best are very few indeed.

When the habit and its effects are of very short duration, a cure is very readily accomplished, especially in the cases of children and females, as in them the evils begun are not continued in the form of involuntary pollutions. In cases of longer standing in males, the take is more difficult, but still the prospect of recovery is very favorable, provided the cooperation of the patient can be secured ; without this, little can be done. But in those cases the patient may as well be told at the outset that the task of undoing the evil works of years of sin is no easy matter. It can only be accomplished by determined effort, by steady perseverance in right doing, and in the application of necessary remedies. Those who have long practiced the vice, or long suffered severely from its effects, have received an injury which will inevitably be life-long to a greater or lesser extent in spite of all that can be done for them. Yet such need not despair, for they may receive inestimable benefit by the prevention of greater damage, which they are sure to suffer if the disease is allowed to go unchecked.

10. Untrustworthiness appearing in a child should attract attention to his habits. If he has suddenly become heedless, listless, and forgetful, so that he cannot be depended upon, though previously not so, lay the blame upon solitary indulgence. This vice has a wonderful influence in developing untruthfulness. A child previously honest, under its baneful influence will soon become an inveterate liar.