The Perils of Young Women by L. M. CROSS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 7, 1912

The Perils of Young Women

By L. M. CROSS

L. M. CROSS

THE average life of the large class of unfortunate women is said to be seven years. A brief existence! but who can estimate the eternity of wretchedness and human degradation crowded into these few miserable years? These women are dying by the hundreds and the thousands everywhere, in hovels, almshouses, and penal institutions. Over sixty thousand girls are annually led into a life of shame, and many of them come from refined Christian homes.

Upon whom does the responsibility rest?—Mainly upon the mothers, because to them is given the first and greatest opportunity of molding the lives of their children. That influence is so potent that few of these sinful and sinned-against women would have become what they are if their own mothers had given them, when children, proper information.

A superintendent of one of our rescue homes, some time ago made the statement that about two hundred girls had been cared for, and that in a personal interview with each one, every one said that she had received no particular warning from her mother. The keeper of a notorious haunt of vice said to a mission worker, who was visiting its inmates: “Yes, you may come and talk to the girls all you want to; but I tell you, if their mothers had talked to them at home, there would be none of them now to need you.”

If young women are to be saved from this dreadful fate, it is certain that they must be forearmed by correct and healthy views of the nature and uses of those wonderful functions with which God has endowed them. They can not be kept in ignorance. As soon as they become conscious of the new powers stirring within them, they will seek to know the why and the wherefore. To attempt to keep them in ignorance is to drive them, through their curiosity, to impure sources, and pernicious ways may be suggested of viewing matters that should be sacred and holy.

A reverent knowledge is the surest safeguard of innocence, and it is every mother’s duty to see that the young girl committed to her charge is duly forearmed by being forewarned of the dangers that lie about her.

More and more, mothers are realizing the vital importance of imparting this information, but they shrink from doing it, because they do not know how. They desire their own daughters to avoid the snares and pitfalls that everywhere lie in wait for them, but they are naturally fearful that in approaching this delicate matter they may, by suggestion, do harm rather than good. Thoughtful and good mothers feeling this way will welcome an excellent book, written by a Christian physician,—herself a wife and mother,—Dr. Mary Wood-Allen, entitled “What a Young Woman Ought to Know.”

Mrs. Lillian M. N. Stevens, president of the National Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, was one of the first to commend this wonderful book. She says: “There is great need for carefully, delicately written books upon the subjects treated in this series. I am gratefully glad that the author has succeeded so well, and I feel that a great and enduring good will be the result.”

Mrs. Mary Lowe Dickinson, the general secretary of the Order of the King’s Daughters, says: “Any young woman knowing all that this volume teaches has an essential foundation for whatever other knowledge she may acquire. Get a copy of this book, mother. Read it yourself, and pass it on to your daughter. It will prove of priceless worth.”