and to extirpate, even if, so far as after-taint is concerned, it can
ever be wholly extirpated.

In another case a widowed mother came to one of my meetings, and was
profoundly alarmed at what I said about the dangers of our schoolboys.
It had never occurred to her that her gentlemanly little lad of twelve
could have any temptations of the kind. Unlike the father I have
mentioned, she resolved to speak to him that same evening. She found
that he was fighting a battle against the whole school, standing up
alone for the right, guided by some blind instinct of purity to resist
the foul suggestions which were inflicted upon him, threatening him
with the most terrible consequences in after-life if he did not yield
and do as the other boys did. Think of it, ye mothers! a child of twelve
without a hand to guide him, without a voice to cheer him, refused the
knowledge that would have saved him from his deadly peril, his own
mother deaf and dumb and blind to his struggles, leaving him to fight
his little forlorn hope absolutely alone. I need scarcely say how
thankfully he poured forth his sore heart to his mother when once she
had opened the door, till now kept locked by her own ignorance; and how
she was able to explain to him that, far from reaping any evil
consequences from doing what is right, like Sir Galahad, "his strength
would be the strength of ten" if he kept himself pure. She probably took
steps to remove him from so corrupt an atmosphere as prevailed in that
preparatory school, but of this I do not know.

But here let me guard myself from being misunderstood. I am not making
out that every schoolboy is exposed to these temptations; there are boys
so exceptionally endowed that they seem to spread a pure atmosphere
around them which is respected by even the coarsest and loosest boys in
the school. All I do maintain, with Dr. Butler, is that no school is