The Pascagoula democrat-star. (Pascagoula, Miss.) 1878-1920, 1896-12-04
SSISSIPPI. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 4, 1896
and imbuing those particles with their
own individuality.

own individuality.
Dear mother, whose whispered
" Yes" is working in its efforts on the
children gathered around you, and
will work on generations of men whom
your eye shall never behold strong
father, whose purpose Of life has been
to win and TO honor that wife with
worldly goods and moral purity, l
thrill at the knowledge that thou
sands of eyes like yours look over these
written words. Let. me put to you
question. How will you answer
your child when with puzzled look
and growing sense OF its own exist
ence 1t comes to ask, Where did l
come from?" Will you evade the
question with blushings and confus-
ion, and tell the child some story
about storks or gooseberry bushes?
So surely as you do you will soon
lind it listening with avidity TO
the story told by some more knowing
companion, and your silence and evas-
ion will seem to it like an association
Of impurity and shame with the child's
existence. Learning about holy things
at the unhOly fountOf inllamed guess
ings, little wonder if later in life the
child should regard love and marriage
as merely refined names for lust and
disqualification.
cannot do better at this point than
quote beautiful passage written by
DR.. Mary Wood Allen: "But suppos,
ing, at the time~wllen the innocent
child came with his honest query, the
mother had taken him in her arms
and with holy words had told him Of
the days when he had been Il part OF
her own life, when held in her close
and protecting embrace he had grown
with the beating of her heart, and
| been nodded by the touch OF her
thought, when her love had unfolded
him, and her prayers had created the
tenor of his own thoughts, when
through long days she had dreamed Of
| him. and worked for him, and pre-
pared for his coming, and finally had
gone down into the vale of physical
pain, perhaps even to the gates Of
death, with Il brave courage to well
come Inn to his independent earthly
existence. Do you not believe that
the holiest Of feelings would have
been aroused in that child's heart,
and hchccfor!h to him mother would
be the tendcrcSt hoicst word, and
love and marriage be sy mbOlic of un-
selfish loyalty and most sacred re-
sponsibility? When the sweet story
fell upon the ear OF one child, he
threw his arms around his mothers
neck, exclaiming, Now, mamma, /
know why | love you best OF all the
world"
No apology is needed for bringing in
this subject here. Just as "intencst
love begets the tercest hate" so the
uplift and the downfall of our race
both are implied in sex differences.
Homes and all the associated arts
that 60 to adorn and sustain them
take their origin primarily from the
fact that man seeks woman for his
own, aud she takes him for herself
alone. Yet those very sex differences,
through misapprelension of all that
they mean, through the criminal ST.
lence Of parents, through the prudent
prudery of the professedly pure, are
fateful to overthrow and render null
and void all the grandeur that is pos
sible in our race. The differences are
at once the Heaven and the llades OF
our life, and wise is he who chooses
the path that is right, and blessed be
they who guide him therein.