It was the highly-cultivated and thoughtful women who, amidst the storm of obloquy that beat upon me from every quarter, first ranged themselves by my side, perceiving that the best way to avoid a danger is not to refuse to see it.

Some were women already in the field in connection with Mrs.
Butler's movement, to which our nation owes so much, some were roused by my words.
In all our large towns where I formed Associations for the Care of Friendless Girls I was in the habit of reporting my work to the clergy of my own church, whose sympathy and cooperation I shall ever gratefully acknowledge.

Ultimately, the leading laity, as well as some Nonconformist ministers, joined with us; often these conferences were diocesan meetings--to which, however, Nonconformists were invited--with the Bishop of the diocese in the chair; and after my address free discussion took place, so that I had the advantage of hearing the opinions and judgments of many of our leading men in regard to this difficult problem, and getting at men's views of the question.
The matter that I lay before you, therefore, has been thoroughly and repeatedly threshed out at such conferences, as well as in long, earnest, private talks with the wisest and most experienced mothers and teachers of our day; and it is in their name, far more than in my own, that I ask you to ponder what I say.
Do not, however, be under any fear that I intend in these pages to make myself the medium of all sorts of horrors.

I intend to do no such thing.
It is but very little evil that you will need to know, and that not in detail, in order to guard your own boys.

We women, thank God, have to do with the fountain of sweet waters, clear as crystal, that flow from the throne of God; not with the sewer that flows from the foul imaginations and actions of men.