It is natural that parents should long for children, and it is only proper that those who are barren should seek by all judicious and proper means to secure fruitfulness. But we are sorry to say that there is a widely prevalent and unnatural desire upon the part of many wives, and sometimes of their husbands also, to evade conception. This desire oftentimes leads these unnatural parents to seek the destruction of unborn human life. If the testimony of medical authority upon this subject is to be believed, this mania for child-murder is verily the "terror that walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at noonday."

It is the duty of parents to protect the lives of their children, and the mother who desires or even consents to the murder of the infant in the cradle where God has placed it preparatory to its birth is as truly a murderer as when she strangles or stabs or poisons her infant in the cradle in which she has placed it after it is born. That the law recognizes the gravity of this crime is manifest by the fact that in nearly all the States of the Union this crime is regarded as murder, and punished accordingly. In some States, if the mother is proven guilty, the penalty is death, and in nearly all the States all who participate, have knowledge of, or assist, directly or indirectly, in producing such a result, are punished with imprisonment ranging from five to twenty years.

It has been supposed by some that where the beginnings of life are destroyed before the period of quickening, no crime is committed. This is a great mistake. From the moment that the spermatozoÖn penetrates the ovum and unites with it, life is present, and the destruction of that life is murder. The proposition is a very simple one. The only condition upon which the ovum may remain in the womb is by possessing life. As soon as it becomes dead it is rejected and cast out. If impregnated, while life continues in it, during its period of development, if nature is not interfered with, it is retained and nourished because it has life. The facts are simple enough: the germ is either dead or alive. If dead, nature casts it out; if alive, nature retains it. If nature retains it, and it is destroyed or removed by artificial means, the person or persons who produce such a result are guilty of murder.

There is no middle ground in this matter. Dr. H. S. Pomeroy, in his excellent book entitled "Ethics of Marriage," aptly says: "She who obtains a miscarriage at the earlier months of pregnancy feels comparatively virtuous because she draws the line at 'quickening.' This is moral jugglery and ethical hair-splitting; what evidence is there of soul at five months which may not be found at four? True, the unborn child of the latter age does not appear to move its legs and arms, while the other usually does. Is the spirit situated in the extremities, or is the movement of a muscle evidence of a soul? Considered from the low plane of physical life only, what reason is there for the distinction? There has been life from the first; there is no independent life until birth. It is reasonable to suppose that the Creator, who has been steadily at work for four months and fifteen days on one of the most delicate and complicated pieces in his whole laboratory, and has made no mistake thus far—the work being absolutely perfect as far as carried—considers it of little or no consequence to-day, but of the utmost importance and value when it shall have been in his hands a few hours longer!"

Dr. Napheys, in "Physical Life of Woman," says: "From the moment of conception a new life commences; a new individual exists; another child is added to the family. The mother who deliberately sets about to destroy this life, either by want of care, or by taking drugs, or using instruments, commits as great a crime, is just as guilty, as if she strangled her newborn infant, or as if she snatched from her own breast her six months darling and dashed out its brains against the wall. The blood is upon her head, and as surely as there is a God and a judgment that blood will be required of her. The crime she commits is murder, child-murder—the slaughter of a speechless, helpless being, whom it is her duty, beyond all things else, to cherish and preserve."

There is no division of opinion upon this subject. The world may hold up its hands in holy horror at the crime of Herod, but his crime is being perpetrated to-day in thousands of homes by "the slaughter of the innocents" at the hands of their own mothers. Dr. Pomeroy says: "We meet in our practice women who would hesitate to harm a fly, but who admit to having destroyed a half dozen or more of their unborn children, speaking of it as they would of the drowning of superfluous kittens." How are these thoughtless mother-murderesses to confront the souls of their unborn children on the day of Judgment? What of the declaration of Scripture, "Ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him"? While this passage of Scripture does not say that even a murderer may not be saved, yet it does say that one who commits murder is unsaved, and that salvation is not possible to him or her until they have sincerely repented.

The results of abortion are not only future and spiritual, but they are present, and affect serious temporal and physical results. Dr. Napheys says: "If they have no feeling for the fruit of their womb, if maternal sentiment is so calloused in their breasts, let them know that such produced abortions are the constant cause of violent and dangerous womb diseases, and frequently of early death; that they bring on mental weakness and often insanity; that they are the most certain means to destroy domestic happiness which can be adopted. Better, far better, bear a child every year for twenty years than to resort to such a wicked and injurious step; better to die, if need be, in the pangs of childbirth than to live with such a weight of sin on the conscience."

There can be no question but that many women are rendered incurable invalids by the violence which they do to nature by interrupting its work, destroying the growing life, and causing its expulsion in an unnatural way. Dr. Pomeroy aptly says: "Go into the orchard where there are ripe apples and others but half grown; try to pluck one of the latter; you pull, but it does not come; you twist this way and that way, and finally you secure a bruised apple with a torn and mutilated stem, and you leave behind a branch which bears unmistakable evidence of a violent and unnatural act. Turn now to the apples that are fully ripe; you put out your hand to take one, and as you touch it it falls gently and willingly into your open palm. If you now examine the stem and the branch from which it came you find no marks of violence; on the contrary, both will clearly show that nature had prepared for the separation.

"The two great dangers of childbearing are hemorrhage and fever; the first is caused directly and the second often indirectly by one and the same thing—the failure of the torn blood-vessel to close properly at the time of separation between mother and child. By the time the fruit is fully ripe Nature has so well arranged for this matter that the danger is small, but at an earlier period it is very considerable."

This attempt upon the part of parents to interfere with the order of nature has not only its terrible physical results for those who seek its perpetration, but it heaps upon the helpless unborn child terrible consequences from which it is powerless to escape. The attempt to destroy life is oftentimes a double failure. In spite of their murderous efforts, children are oftentimes born to such parents under circumstances which entail the most terrible and lifelong penalties. Children that might have been lovable in temper, companionable in disposition, healthy and happy, are born nervous, fretful and ill-tempered; and, because they were unwanted before they were born, the mother inflicts upon them a disposition which causes her ever after to wish they never had been born.

Something of what this result is will appear from a paragraph taken from an account by Helen H. Thomas, in "The Mothers' Journal," entitled "Unwanted," in which she thus narrates a visit to a friend:

"I found my friend half sick, and extremely nervous from lack of sleep, caused by her crying baby.

"But the child looked well, and the young mother assured me that it was constitutionally restless and out of sorts. She also said that she had lost more sleep since his advent—five months previous—than with all her other children—there are three of them—combined.

"After I had queried and wondered as to the why of it, for a time, the mother, with tears in her eyes, looked down at the little upturned face of the one cradled in her arms, and said:

"'It is all mother's fault, darling! She felt that her hands and heart were so full she had no room for you.' And then, looking me full in the face, she added, remorsefully: He is my only unwanted child! And so the dear little innocent suffers continually for my rebellious spirit prior to his birth. He seems restless and unhappy all the time; not at all like my other babies, who found a welcome awaiting them; and I realize now the mistake I made, in rebelling as I did, during those wearisome months, which I had planned so full of things which had to be put aside; and I am being punished for it, too. But I did not dream that by so doing I should bring suffering on my unborn child, as well as on myself."

Terrible as this picture may be, there is another thought which is still more terrible. When we remember that the mental condition of the mother during the period of gestation stamps itself upon the character of the child, what must be the character of a child who is born of a murderess—one who has either desired, planned for, or possibly undertaken and failed in the effort to murder her unborn child? How many of the murderers of to-day have inherited from their own mothers the predisposition to destroy human life? There is but little doubt that if the veil could be thrown off and the influence disclosed which molded the character and shaped the destiny of many of the children who are arraigned in the courts for the awful crime of murder, who seem possessed of an otherwise unaccountable predisposition to destroy human life, the terrible revelation would be made that during the period while their body was being formed and bent was being given to their character, prior to their birth, their mother was contemplating murder, and imparted this disposition to her own offspring.

Such thoughts not only mold the character of the unborn child, but they also affect the character of the parents themselves. The crime of child-murder must haunt them, and even if they do not suffer from the lashings of conscience, the moral character suffers irreparable damage.

But few persons are aware of the grave dangers which threaten health, and even life, when an abortion is performed. They are apt to think that it occasions only temporary inconvenience, from which they may recover in a few days, but all this is a very grave mistake.

Where accidental or unintentional miscarriage occurs, it is important both for the wife and for the husband to know that quite as much care needs to be exercised, and oftentimes for even as long a period, as for convalescence after confinement. A period of strict separation between husband and wife should be observed for a period of from six weeks to three months, according to circumstances. A failure to observe these necessities often results in serious and sometimes permanent disability upon the part of the wife.

The influences which prepare and pave the way in the minds of young women for the awful crime of child-murder are not difficult to find. One writer says: "The real beginning is in early life, when young people are taught, directly or by implication, that reproduction is a matter concerning which speech is indelicate, of which it is proper, even, to feel ashamed; as they grow older, and the period of marriage draws near, they learn to look upon parenthood as a responsibility and a burden which they may properly avoid if possible."

Parents are to blame for the total absence, during the education of their daughters, of proper instruction upon this subject. In the schools for the education of young women the course of study which has been especially arranged for the intellectual training and equipment of young men has been followed without being adapted to the special necessities of intelligent young women. They are taught many things which may serve a good purpose in securing mental discipline, but which are in every other respect impracticable, and, so far as the great purposes of their life are concerned, wholly useless. All the subjects which are best calculated to fit them for their intended position of wife and mother are studiously avoided; they are kept in profound ignorance on all subjects of special physiology, and the question of maternity dare not so much as be mentioned by the professors in the class-room. What adds to this condition is the sad fact that parents do not supplement by personal instruction this lack of teaching in the school. Hundreds of young women are married who are so stupid as never to have asked where children come from, have no idea of the marital relation and the legitimate purpose for which God instituted the relation. When conception takes place, they do not know how to take care of themselves or prepare for the event which could be robbed of its terrors by intelligence. The birth of their first child is attended with such anguish and agony that forever after the marital relation becomes to them one of great dread, and to escape the condition which is so full of terror to them they resort to the destruction of unborn human life.

To correct this great wrong, the first and most essential step is the widespread dissemination of intelligence upon this subject. Marriage needs to be lifted into the light of a sacred and divine institution. The tenderest and most sacred relations of human life need to be preserved in their purity, so that pure-minded parents may speak of these relations without shame and blushing. Young women of mature years should be made familiar with the physiological conditions which attend conception and maternity, and they need to know that from the moment of conception life exists in the embryo, and that from the moment the spermatozoÖn enters and assimilates with the ovum a separate individual life is really begun, and that she is, at that very moment, the mother of this life within her as truly as when, in the later months, she feels the quickening within her, or after its birth experiences the joy of a mother who clasps her newborn infant in her arms.

But the crime of abortion does not rest wholly with the mothers. A large part of the guilt also belongs to the fathers. We may warn the wives against the terrible sin and awful physical consequences of abortion, but so long as husbands are unwilling to govern their passions, or to regulate their marital relations in harmony with the teachings of Scripture, but insist upon unlimited self-indulgence, the evils cannot be wholly corrected. Husbands need to be taught to look at the question from the wife's standpoint. The wrong is not all upon one side.

In a meeting of women only, after an address by a physician upon these subjects, a woman rose and said substantially as follows: "After I was married two years I became the mother of a puny, sickly baby. It required incessant care and watching to keep it alive. When it was only seven months old, to my surprise, astonishment and horror, I felt quickening, and for the first time I knew I was pregnant again. I was abased, humiliated! The sense of degradation that filled my soul cannot be described. What had been done? The babe that was born and the babe that was unborn were both to be robbed of their just inheritance. In tears and shame I told my mother, but she said: 'My child, why should you grieve and go on as you do? Don't you know that your children are legitimate?' My whole being rose in rebellion. I stamped my foot and almost screamed: 'Although my husband is the father of my children, they are not legitimate. No man-made laws, no priestly rites, can make an act legitimate that deprives innocent children of their right to life and health.' And then, with sobs and moans, reaction came, and I fainted in my mother's arms. What was the sequel? Two years later both of these children, after a brief existence, were lying side by side in the city of the dead, and until my husband and I learned the great laws which God has written deep in our being, we were not able to have children that could live."

The following somewhat lengthy but impressive quotation is from "Chastity," by Doctor Dio Lewis:

"Before we married I informed my husband of my dread of having children. I told him I was not prepared to meet the sufferings and responsibilities of maternity. He entered into an arrangement to prevent it for a specified time. This agreement was disregarded. After the legal form was over, and he felt he could now indulge his passion without loss of reputation and under legal and religious sanctions, he insisted on the surrender of my person to his will. He violated the promise at the beginning of our united life. That fatal bridal night! It has left a cloud on my soul and on my home that can never pass away on earth. I can never forget it. It sealed the doom of our union as it has done of thousands.

"He was in feeble health; so was I; and both of us mentally depressed. But the sickly germ was implanted, and conception took place. We were poor and destitute, having made no preparations for a home, ourselves and child. I was a stricken woman. In September following we came to——, and settled in a new country. In the March following, my child, developed under a heart throbbing with dread and anguish at the thought of its existence, was born. After three months' struggle I became reconciled to my first unwelcome child. But the impress of my impatience and hostility to its existence previous to its birth was on my child, never to be effaced, and to this hour that child is the victim or an undesired maternity.

"In one year I found I was to be again a mother. I was in a state of frightful despair. My first-born was sickly and very troublesome (how could it be otherwise?) needing constant care and nursing. My husband chopped wood for our support. Of the injustice of bringing children into the world to struggle with poverty and misery I was then as sensible as now. I was in despair. I felt that death would be preferable to maternity under such circumstances. A desire and a determination to get rid of my child entered into my heart. I consulted a lady friend, and by her persuasion and assistance killed it. Within less than a year maternity was again imposed upon me, with no better prospect of doing justice to my child. It was a most painful conviction to me; I felt that I could not have another child at that time. All seemed dark as death. I had begged and prayed to be spared this trial again until I was prepared to accept it joyfully; but my husband insisted upon his gratification, without regard to my wishes and condition.

"I consulted a physician, and told him of my unhappy state of mind and my aversion to having another child for the present. He was ready with his logic, his medicines and instruments, and told me how to destroy it. After experimenting on myself three months, I was successful. I killed my child about five months after conception.

"A few months after this, maternity was again forced upon me, to my grief and anguish. I determined again on my child's destruction; but my courage failed as I came to the practical deed. My health and life were in jeopardy. For my living child's sake I wished to live. I made up my mind to do the best I could for my unborn babe, whose existence seemed so unnatural and repulsive. I knew its young life would be deeply and lastingly affected by my mental and physical condition. I became, in a measure, reconciled to my dark fate, and was as resigned and happy as I could be under the circumstances. I had just such a child as I had every reason to expect. I could do no justice to it. How could I?

"Soon after the birth of my child my husband insisted on his accustomed injustice. Without any wish of my own, maternity was again forced upon me. I dared not attempt to get rid of the child—abortion seemed so cruel, so inhuman, unnatural and repulsive. I resolved again, for my child's sake, to do the best I could for it. Though I could not joyfully welcome, I resolved quietly to endure its existence.

"After the birth of this child I felt that I could have no more to share our poverty and to suffer the wrongs and trials of an unwelcome existence. I felt that I would rather die at once, and thus end my life and my power to be a mother together. My husband cast the entire care of the family on me. I had scarcely one hour to devote to my children. My husband still insisted on his gratification. I was the veriest slave alive. Life had lost its charms. The grave seemed my only refuge and death my only friend.

"In this state, known as it was to my husband, he thrust maternity upon me twice. I employed a doctor to kill my child, and in the destruction of it, in what should have been the vigor of my life, ended my power to be a mother. I was shorn of the brightest jewel of my womanhood. I suffered as woman alone can suffer, not only in body, but in bitter remorse and anguish of soul.

"All this I passed through under the terrible, withering consciousness that it was all done and suffered solely that the passion of my husband might have a momentary indulgence. Yet such had been my false religious and social education that, in submitting my person to his passion, I did it in the honest conviction that in marriage my body became the property of my husband. He said so. All women to whom I applied for counsel said it was my duty to submit, that husbands expected it, had a right to it, and must have this indulgence whenever they were excited, or suffer, and that in this way alone could wives retain the love of their husbands. I had no alternative but silent, suffering submission to his passion, and then procure abortion or leave him, and thus resign my children to the tender mercies of one with whom it seemed I could not live myself. Abortion was most repulsive to every feeling of my nature, and at times rendered me an object of loathing to myself.

"When my first-born was three months old I had a desperate struggle for personal liberty. My husband insisted on his right to subject my person to his passion before my babe was two months old. I saw his conduct then in all its degrading and loathing injustice. I pleaded with tears and anguish, for my own and my child's sake, to be spared; and had it not been for my helpless child, I should have ended the struggle by bolting my legal bonds. For its sake I submitted to that outrage and my own conscious degradation. For its sake I concluded to take my chance in the world with other wives and mothers who, as they assured me, and as I then knew, were all around me, subjected to like outrages, and driven to the degrading practice of abortion. But even then I saw and argued the justice of my personal rights in regard to maternity and the relation that leads to it, as strongly as you do now. I saw it all as clearly as you do. I was then, amid all the degrading influences that crushed me, true and just to my womanly intuitions. I insisted on my right to say when and under what circumstances I would accept of him the office of maternity and become the mother of his child. I insisted that it was for me to say when and how often I should subject myself to the liability of becoming a mother. But he became angry with me, claimed ownership over me, insisted that I, as a wife, was to submit to my husband 'in all things,' threatened to leave me and my children, and declared I was not fit to be a wife. Fearing some fatal consequences to my child or to myself—being alone, destitute and far from helpful friends, in the far West, and fearing that my little one would be left to want—I stifled all expression of my honest convictions, and ever after kept my aversion and painful struggles in my own bosom. In every respect, as far as passional relations between myself and my husband are concerned, I have ever felt myself to be a miserable and abject woman. I now see and feel it most deeply and painfully. If I was with a child in my arms, I was in constant dread of all personal contact with my husband lest I should have a new maternity thrust upon me, and be obliged to wean one child before its time to give place to another. In my misery I have often cried out, 'O, God! is there no way out of this loathsome bondage?'

"It was not want of kindly feelings toward my husband that induced this state of mind, for I could and did endure every privation and want without an unkindly feeling or word, and even cheerfully for his sake. But every feeling of my soul did then, does now and ever must protest against the cruel and loathsome injustice of husbands toward their wives, manifested in imposing on them a maternity uncalled for by their own nature and most repulsive to it, and whose sufferings and responsibilities they are unprepared and unwilling to meet."

While we would not for a moment sanction the crime which this mother perpetrated, yet we are not prepared to say that she was the sole author of the crime. Every thoughtful man must admit that her husband was unreasonable, unwilling to govern his passion, cruel and unjust to his wife, and in his beastliness measurably drove her to the commission of the awful crime of which she was guilty.

The proper relation of husband and wife to the question of parenthood can never be properly and satisfactorily adjusted so long as either of these parties occupy extreme positions upon this question. It is absolutely wrong for the wife to take the position that she is to be wholly delivered from maternity and the care of children, and it is equally wrong for the husband to assume that the wife is created for no other purpose than to bear children in as rapid succession as nature renders conception possible. Upon the one hand it is the duty of the wife to arrange her thought and life with reference to maternity and the bearing of such a number of children as can be brought into the world in the highest state of physical, intellectual and moral equipment. Upon the other hand, the husband is to regard himself under obligation to practice such personal self-control and to bear such disadvantages as are incident to the greatest fidelity of the wife in her duties while the body and character of her child are being formed within her, and while it is being nursed, nurtured and cared for after its birth.

It is the grossest of insults not only to woman, but to her Maker, to assert that woman was created solely for reproduction. It is proper for a man in the discharge of certain duties and in the attainment of certain laudable ends to decline to marry and resolve to maintain a pure and celibate life throughout his entire existence; and it is equally right, and even commendable, for a woman with similar purposes and aims to decline marriage in order that she may devote herself with greater efficiency and success to some effort to elevate and bless mankind, if those ends could not be successfully accomplished in connection with the proper discharge of her duties as wife and mother. But when men and women do marry, they greatly mistake the object of this divine institution if they suppose that it was instituted solely for the purpose of producing the largest possible number of children—if they make quantity rather than quality the great purpose. Marriage was instituted for the highest good of the parents; it was instituted for the attainment of their best health and the largest intellectual and moral equipment. Their lives are to be shaped for the acquisition of the largest and best attainments. Unless they attain the best physical, intellectual and moral developments they cannot transmit these valuable qualities to their children. The children cannot inherit from the parents what the parents do not possess. Parents should seek to raise up, not the largest possible number, without regard to whether they are good, bad or indifferent; but there is no objection to their raising up the largest number consistent with the best possible equipment. One man is worth an innumerable number of monkeys, and we should seek to raise up not an innumerable horde of inferior beings, but only so large a number as is consistent with a sincere purpose not to evade the responsibilities and duties of parenthood, and with an earnest effort to raise up a race of superior men and women. There should be no consenting to deterioration, but a sincere desire and effort for the raising up of a new generation that shall be an advance upon all the generations that have preceded.

By what we have said it will be manifest that there is a culpable and criminal limitation of offspring; and there is also a reasonable and right regulation of the marital relation and a limiting of offspring—a designed and deliberate purpose to be self-contained with a view to intelligent, purposed parenthood.

There are times when it is positively wrong to beget and bring forth children. This is the case when there is such physical debility upon either the part of the husband or the wife as would render them incapable of transmitting or bearing healthy children; when, overburdened or broken down by excessive childbearing, nothing but puny, sickly, short-lived offspring could reasonably be expected; when the children are coming so rapidly that they interfere with each others' nutrition and imperil the mother's health, or when the mother is naturally so constituted that childbearing imperils her life. These, and other equally weighty reasons, are a sufficient justification for a careful study of duty and obligation in the matter of self-government, and the limitation, or even restriction, of childbearing by right and proper methods.

It is important, however, to say that married persons should never decide against childbearing, or even in favor of a very restricted parenthood, without the gravest considerations; nor is their own thought in the matter always sufficient to arrive at a wise and righteous conclusion. Their own judgment should always be supplemented by the counsel and advice of a well-qualified and thoroughly conscientious Christian physician. Where difficulties do exist, a conscientious consideration of them may often enable the parties to remove every barrier and secure the most blessed and gratifying results.

What we have intimated is aptly illustrated in the following instance given by Dr. Pomeroy in "The Ethics of Marriage": "A 'love match' resulted in the union of two persons who were of nervous temperament and poor physique, many 'incompatibilities,' and small means. Beside this, the wife was suffering from a difficulty which made maternity undesirable and well-nigh impossible. Under the circumstances, they questioned whether indefinite postponement of parenthood were not proper, and, in fact, clearly indicated. They considered the matter carefully, took the benefit of medical advice, and finally decided that their only honorable and safe course would be that they should have a family of healthy children as its objective point. The wife was placed under medical treatment, and in the course of a few months was in physical condition safely to undertake maternity.

"Recognizing their limitations and disadvantages from the outset, the pair determined to make every possible effort to give their children as good a birth as might be, under the circumstances. Each tried to cultivate health and strength of mind and body; the laws of heredity were studied; conscientious care was taken that the mother might have bright and cheery objects about her and loving thoughts in her mind during the period when each child gained all its influence from the outside world through her. Each child was also, during this period, a subject of prayer, that the Holy Spirit might enter into its developing life and cause it to be so generated that the afterwork of regeneration might, if possible, follow as the day follows the dawn.

"It would be too much to say that this course would in every case be followed by results as marked as were those of this instance; but in this family the children have proved to be, if not all that could be desired, at least much better than would have been expected in the ordinary course of events.

"They were symmetrical, sound in body, equable in temperament, and affectionate towards the parents and each other. They have never been more than half the trouble and care that children ordinarily are, although possessed of high spirit and a keen sense of justice. What may develop as they arrive at maturity no one can tell, but it is certain that they now bear the impress of prenatal love and care, and a good birth. This cost the parents some effort and self-denial, but they have been repaid fourfold in the ease with which the nursery has been managed; moreover, little differences of taste and opinion were laid on the altar of sacrifice to the interests of the children who should be born to them, and each, as it joined in the family circle, brought new degrees of harmony and joy.

"I have repeatedly heard the father of that family declare that he had no reason to believe himself a dollar poorer than he would have been if no children had come to claim his care. Just what might have been in that case it is impossible to tell, but it is certain that many a childless marriage which began under apparently happier auspices than this one ended in misery and divorce."

But the question arises, where it is found necessary to limit the number of offspring, How shall it be properly done? There are those who seem to think that medical science has some way by which to grant unrestricted sexual indulgence and yet avoid the results which nature intended. Dr. Pomeroy says: "It is surprising to what an extent the laity believe that medical science knows how to control the birthrate. Just here let me say that I know of but one prescription which is both safe and sure, namely, that the sexes shall remain apart. So thoroughly do I believe this to be a secret which nature has kept to herself, that I should be inclined to question the ability or the honesty of any one professing to understand it so as to be able safely and surely to regulate the matter of reproduction for those living in wedlock."

Because of the moral issues, physical consequences and terrible results which cluster about this question—one of the most delicate with which we have to deal—we have made a most careful examination of this entire subject. We have read a great deal more than has been pleasant to our contemplation, but we have been compelled to return, after each new investigation, to the conclusion which is held by all reputable physicians that the only safe and sure way is for husband and wife to remain strictly apart. There are methods which are sometimes suggested, by even well-meaning physicians, to those who desire to escape the results of the marital relation, but when pressed for the expression of a candid and honest conviction these same physicians are always compelled to admit that for absolute safety there is but one provision.

These various methods are not only unsatisfactory and unavailing, but are ruinous in their effects upon the individuals who practice them. In some instances nature does not visit her penalties immediately, but eventually the old declaration proves true that although justice travels with a sore foot it is sure to overtake the transgressor.

Where married people are willing to live according to the laws which are written deep in our nature, they find what Dr. Kellogg has said is true: "There would be less sexual enjoyment, but more elevated joy. There would be less animal love, but more spiritual communion; less gross, more pure; less development of the animal and more fruitful soil for the cultivation of virtue, holiness and all the Christian graces."

An entire renunciation of all conjugal privileges is, however, only perfectly just and proper when it meets with the mutual consent of both husband and wife.

Concerning such a rigid course, Dr. Napheys, in "Transmission of Life," says: "The objection nowadays urged against it is that it is too severe a prescription, and consequently valueless. This ought not to be. A man who loves his wife should, in order to save that life overwork and misery, and danger of death and wretchedly constituted children, be able and willing to undergo as much self-denial as everyone of his contingent bachelor acquaintances does, not out of high devotion, but for motives of economy, or indifference, or love of liberty. The man who cannot do this, or does not care to do it, does not certainly deserve a very high position.

"But while all this is granted, the question is still constantly put: Is this all? Is there no means by which we can limit our families without either injuring the health or undergoing a self-martyrdom which not one man in a thousand will submit to?"

In meeting the perplexities of this situation, Dr. Pomeroy, in "Ethics of Marriage," says: "There are circumstances under which means for the temporary avoidance of conception may be desirable and proper, as, for instance, to prevent too rapid childbearing on the part of women who cannot nurse their infants, or who have their usual periods while nursing—conditions which, I believe, our artificial life are responsible for—and so are liable to too frequent conception.

"For such and other legitimate causes nature has herself provided a means which, with the practice of a little self-denial, will give a reasonable degree of safety; beyond this it is neither safe nor proper to act without the advice of some physician who has sound judgment, both in medicine and in morals."

There is a Scriptural provision which is doubtless designed to meet this very condition, and which may be properly mentioned here because authorized by the Inspired Word. The law concerning this matter will be found in the fifteenth chapter of Leviticus, beginning with the nineteenth verse. In this passage a period of strict separation is prescribed for the woman during the period of her monthly issue, and the injunction is, that when "she is cleansed from her issue then she shall number to herself seven days, and after that she shall be clean." On the eighth day she was to appear before the priest with her offerings, when she was to be declared clean.

In this Old Testament provision God manifestly intended to make the children of Israel intelligent, not for the purpose of enabling them to avoid any reasonable and right increase in their families, but measurably to limit the number of offspring, so that the very best type of human life might be the fruitage of their homes. When literally followed, it would doubtless in a large majority of cases afford all necessary relief, and properly limit the number of offspring.

This passage also clearly indicates the importance of separation during the periodic sickness; and the basis for this Old Testament teaching of separation during such times is based not only upon the sense of delicacy and propriety upon the part of the wife, but also upon the physiological and sanitary principles of medical science.

It is neither necessary nor proper for us to go into a further discussion of this subject at this place. Those who find themselves laboring under the burdens, infirmities and unfitness we have indicated, should be free to seek such medical counsel and advice as will afford them what relief may be available in their particular case. We would warn all, however, that "those who take active measures to prevent conception are apt to carry the matter further than they intended; at the best they are tampering with Nature, and that is a dangerous thing in itself." In seeking medical counsel, let us carefully advise all to exercise the utmost caution in selecting a competent, conscientious, Christian physician. If, however, you expect that your interview will bring you such information as will enable you to indulge your passion unrestrained and avoid all consequences, allow us to say, before such an interview takes place, that you are expecting information which medical science does not possess. Dr. Pomeroy, in writing upon this subject, says: "As before noticed, it is surprising to what extent the laity believe that the course of Nature can be safely interfered with, even by those who understand her laws the least. Those who fear to turn back the hands of a watch lest they injure the complicated and delicate machinery do not hesitate to use violent means to interfere with the natural workings of the human mechanism, which is a thousandfold more complicated and delicate. Nature is tenacious of her rights; she resists grandly, but if forced to yield, she visits the offender with punishment which is no less sure because it is sometimes long-delayed. Few seem to know this; many act as though they considered Nature a sort of clever idiot, too stupid to recognize an injury or too amiable to resent it if discovered; while others seem to look upon Nature as rather intelligent and able, but a servant amenable to guidance and assistance in co-ordinating the forces of her laboratory. This is absurd, and even impious, for Nature is but another term for the Creator of all things, and He is infinitely wise. Nature cares more about correcting us than our mistakes and follies. Were she to go on indefinitely and patiently undoing our work we should go on indefinitely and persistently doing it, and our wrongdoing would be righted, but we should remain in the mental or moral or physical sin which had prompted it. Indeed, if the obvious results of our sin were promptly removed we should scarcely be aware that we were not in harmony with Nature's plans, and the race would deteriorate, and finally become extinct."

Where you do not obtain from a reputable, intelligent Christian physician the information you desire, or the relief you seek, do not make the fatal mistake of resorting to some quack or impostor who advertises only to beguile, deceive and rob you, and subsequently to leave you humiliated, with purse depleted and health ruined. Reputable physicians do not advertise, and the very fact that a man advertises may be accepted as sufficient evidence that he is not an accredited and reliable physician, and that you will most assuredly be subjected to deception and imposture.

Persons who recognize the propriety of limiting the number of offspring are seriously exposed to the danger of deferring and procrastinating to such an extent as to err greatly in the direction of too few rather than too many children. With most women the time for childbearing is quite like the time and location of a boil—any other time than the present, and any other place than where it is. A purposed parenthood is in danger of becoming a purpose to evade parenthood.

There is, however, a proper and all-important preparation for parenthood. After a careful examination of the subject no person can help but be deeply impressed with the fact that if the parents of this generation would realize their wonderful power to mold and fashion the succeeding generation, the children of the next decade would rise to the level of an entirely new plane. Some people seem to think that the matter of begetting a child, like the matter of selecting a wife or a husband, should be left wholly to blind chance. Neither of these two important events can be too much safeguarded by wise and thoughtful consideration. If conception is permitted to take place when either one or both of the parents are in ill health; if the wife is an unwilling mother, and the embryo is developed by her while her entire nature rebels against the admission into the family of a child who is not wanted, the children begotten and born under such circumstances can never be other than sickly, nervous and fretful during their entire childhood, and cross and uncompanionable throughout their entire lives.

In connection with childbearing there are three very important things: First, the preparation for parenthood; second, the mental state at the period of conjunction, and third, the mental state and physical condition of the mother during the months while the body and character of the child are being fashioned within her body.

The period and the character of the preparation for parenthood must always vary according to the physical condition of the intending parents. In some instances this preparation needs to extend over weeks, and in other instances even over years. No man or woman should consent to become a parent except at such times when physically and intellectually they are at their very best—indeed, the very best that is possible for them to attain by a course of careful preparation. Much of what might be said here will be learned under a subsequent chapter upon prenatal influences.

Medical authorities universally attach great importance to the mental condition at the moment of conjunction and conception. It is quite universally believed that this is a moment of unparalleled importance to the welfare of the future being. Dr. Hufeland, an eminent German writer, says: "In my opinion, it is of the utmost importance that this moment should be confined to a period when the sensation of collected powers, ardent passion, and a mind cheerful and free from care, invite to it on both sides." It is an awful crime to beget life carelessly, and when in improper and unworthy physical and mental states.

The ancients understood the importance of this moment, and frequently surrounded the nuptial couch with statues which should charm the mother by their beautiful outlines and physical proportions. It was claimed by them that a man who was himself deformed might in this manner become the father of children that were possessed of fine physical proportions. While this statement might carry with it too much presumption, yet it was not without a considerable element of truth.

Nearly eighteen centuries before Christ, the patriarch Jacob recognized this principle when he arranged with Laban to accept from among the flocks and herds "the speckled and the spotted" as the reward of his labor in attending the flocks of the herds of his father-in-law. There was nothing unnatural or miraculous in the result which Jacob secured. He sought to produce such mental impressions upon the minds of the flock at the time of conception as would secure the production of young marked after the manner most in accord with his personal interests. We are told that "Jacob took him rods of green poplar, and of the hazel and chestnut-tree, and pilled white streaks in them and made the white appear which was in the rods. And he set the rods which he had pilled before the flocks in the gutters in the watering-troughs, when the flocks came to drink, that they should conceive when they came to drink. And the flocks conceived before the rods, and brought forth cattle ring-streaked, speckled and spotted. And Jacob did separate the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ring-streaked, and all the brown in the flock of Laban: and he put his own flocks by themselves, and put them not unto Laban's cattle. And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods. But when the cattle were feeble he put them not in: so the feebler were Laban's, and the stronger Jacob's. And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle, and maid-servants and men-servants, and camels and asses."

Much of the differences which exist between children of the same parents may be easily attributed to the different bodily and mental conditions of the parents at the period of conjunction, the changed physical, intellectual and emotional states of the parents at the different periods of conception producing the corresponding differences in their offspring.

The results of purposed and prepared parenthood are so great and so desirable that a husband and wife should consider these matters carefully, make due preparations, and approach the period when they would beget offspring and bring immortal beings into the world with the greatest thoughtfulness, consideration, and also with prayer.

The writer well remembers the deep impression made upon his mind in an interview with a physician who was the first to present this phase of the subject to our consideration. The statement was so unusual that it made a lasting impression upon us. But why may it not be so? After a period of preparation why should not the intending parents unite at the throne of grace for God's blessing upon them in the act in which they are about to engage, and in the fulfillment of their desire for an heir who shall be possessed of the very best physical, intellectual and moral endowments?

There are certain signs of fruitful conjunction which are often recognized by women who are already mothers, but which may serve as no guide to a young wife who has never had any experience. With some women the act of conception is attended with great emotion, a sense of unusual pleasure, and even of a tremor, in which all parts of the body may participate. Sometimes it is followed by a sense of weakness. In ancient times the swelling of the neck was regarded as a sign of conception, and some modern authorities incline to the same theory. There are instances also in which the morning sickness begins immediately after conception.

It would be unsafe, however, to rely upon either the presence or absence of these indications. In most instances the cessation of the menses and the appearance of the morning sickness are the first reliable indications that conception has taken place.