Now, it is here that I earnestly desire to give you, if I possibly can, some helpful, practical suggestions, for I feel that it is not in the recognition of a duty, but in its performance, that the difficulty lies which is arresting so many educated mothers at the present time.

With very young children, whether girls or boys, there should be no difficulty whatever.  They are too young to understand.  Only, when they come to you asking their innocent little questions as to where the little baby brother or sister comes from, I would earnestly ask you never to allow yourself, or your nurse, to inflict on them the usual popular fables, that the baby was brought by the doctor or that it was found under the gooseberry-bush.  A child is far quicker than we think to detect that mother is hiding something, and the first tiny seed of evil curiosity is sown.  Make no mystery about it; look your child full in the face, and say, “My child, you have asked me a question about what is very, very sacred.  If I were to try to explain it to you, you would not be old enough to understand; for the present you must be content to know that the baby comes from God; how it comes mother will tell you when you grow old enough to understand; only promise me that you will never ask any one but mother about it.”  The child will then see that you are hiding nothing, and will be satisfied to wait for the explanation that mother has promised.

But what when the child is old enough to understand?—­an age which doubtless varies in different children, but which with boys must come before their first school, if you are to occupy the ground of his heart with good seed, which leaves no room for the devil’s sowing.

Well, with regard to the facts of birth, I do not think we ought to find much difficulty.  You can point out how the baby seed has a soft, downy place provided for it in the pod of the parent plant till it has ripened and is fit to be sown, when the pod opens and lets it fall to the earth, and it becomes a plant in its turn.  You can point out that the egg in a similar way is carried in the mother bird’s body till the shell has hardened and is fit to be laid, when she warms it with her own breast, patiently sitting on it for days, while the father bird feeds her, till the little chick is strong enough to break the walls of its tiny house, and come forth and peck and fend for itself.  You can explain how the little kitten the child plays with has in the same way a safe place provided for it in the mother’s body, where it grows and grows till all its organs are formed, and it can breathe and suck, when, like the seed from the pod, and the chick from the egg it leaves the mother’s body, and is born, a blind and helpless baby kitten, to be fed and tenderly cared for by the mother cat.  You will explain that the baby comes in just the same way so far as its infant body is concerned, growing like the kitten from a tiny cell—­borne by the mother till all the organs are formed which it needs for its earthly life, when it also is born and laid in its mother’s arms, to be nourished and cared for by the love of both father and mother, not for a few weeks, as with animals, but through long years of helplessness.  And you mean to tell me that the sacred truth would not endear you to your child far more than the usual cock-and-bull story about the doctor and the gooseberry-bush?