with other young men of his own standing.  Whether it be at college, or in the army, or in business, he will inevitably be influenced by the views of the men he associates with, which he will enlarge into the opinion of the world in general, and will probably come home, if not to contradict his mother, at least to patronize her and go his own way, smiling at her with an air of manly superiority and with a lofty consciousness that he knows a thing or two which lie beyond a woman’s ken.  Probably enough he takes up with views on religion, or politics, or social questions which are emphatically not yours, and which make you feel left very far behind, instead of the old familiar “walking together” which was so sweet.  Worse still, he may evince for a time a cynical indifference to all great questions, and all your teaching may seem to be lost in a desert flat.  The days of the latch-key and the independent life have come, and you often seem to stand outside the walls which once admitted you into their dearest recesses, left with but little clue as to what is going on within.

But have patience.  Early teaching and influence, though it may pass for a time into abeyance, is the one thing that leaves an indelible impress which will in the end make itself felt, only waiting for those eternal springs which well up sooner or later in every life to burst into upward growth; it may be a pure attachment, it may be a great sorrow, it may be a sickness almost unto death, it may be some awakening to spiritual realities.  I often think of that pathetic yet joyful resurrection cry, “This is our God, we have waited for Him”—­waited for Him, possibly through such long years of disappointment and heart hunger—­only to cry at the last, “This is our God, we have waited for Him, and He has saved us.”

But it is not all waiting.  If with early manhood the “old order” has to give place to new, and old methods and instruments have to be laid aside as no longer fitted for their task, God puts into the hands of the mother new instruments, new methods of appeal, which in some ways are more powerful than the old.  In early manhood she can appeal to the thought of the future wife.  I believe that this appeal is one of the strongest that you can bring to bear upon young men.

I once had to make it myself under circumstances of unparalleled difficulty; and I was struck with the profound response that it evoked.  It was on the occasion of the inaugural White Cross address to the students of the Edinburgh University, now one of the first medical schools in the world.  The date of the address had been fixed, the hall taken, when an unforeseen difficulty arose.  Eminent man after eminent man was asked to give the address, but all with one consent began to make excuse.  Spirit and flesh quailed before so difficult and rowdy an audience on so difficult and perilous a subject.  At last the professor who was chiefly interested implored me to give the address myself, or the whole thing