a character reap a destiny both in this world and in that which is eternal.  It is mere selfishness, unconscious, no doubt, but none the less fatal, when parents to suit their own convenience omit to inculcate obedience, self-restraint, habits of order and unselfishness in their children.  Youth is the time when the soul is apt to be shaken by sorrow’s power and when stormy passions rage.  The tiny rill starting from the mountainside can be readily deflected east or west, but the majestic river hastening to the sea is beyond all such arbitrary directions.  So it is with the human being:  the character and habit are directed easily in infancy, with difficulty during childhood, but they are well-nigh impossible of direction by the time adolescence is established.  Those fathers and mothers who desire to have happiness and peace in connection with their adolescent boys and girls must take the trouble to direct them aright during the plastic years of infancy and childhood.  All natural instincts implanted in us by Him who knew what was in the heart of man are in themselves right and good, but the exercise of these instincts may be entirely wrong in time or in degree.  The sexual instinct, the affinity of boy to girl, the love of adult man and woman, are right and holy when exercised aright, and it is the result of “spoiling” when these good and noble instincts are wrongly exercised.  All who love their country, all who love their fellow men, and all who desire that the kingdom of God should come, must surely do everything that is in their power to awaken the fathers and mothers of the land to a sense of their heavy responsibility and of their high privilege.  In this we are entirely separated from and higher than the rest of the animal creation, in that on us lies the duty not only of calling into life a new generation of human beings, but also the still higher duty, the still greater privilege and the wider responsibility of bringing up those children to be themselves the worthy parents of the future, the supporters of their country’s dignity, and joyful citizens of the household of God.

Another characteristic of adolescence is to be found in gregariousness, or what has been sometimes called the gang spirit.  Boys, and to almost as great a degree girls, form themselves into companies or gangs, which frequently possess a high degree of organisation.  They elaborate special languages, they have their own form of shorthand, their passwords, their rites and ceremonies.  The gang has its elected leader, its officers, its members; and although it is liable to sudden disruption and seldom outlasts a few terms of school-life, each succeeding club or company is for the time being of paramount importance in the estimation of its members.  The gang spirit may at times cause trouble and lead to anxiety, but if rightly directed it may be turned to good account.  It is the germ of the future capacity to organise men and women into corporate life—­the very method by which much public and national work is readily accomplished, but which is impossible to accomplish by individual effort.