11. SMALL STATURE.—In passing, I will just remark, that good size is important in wives and mothers. A small stature is objectionable in a woman, because little women {184} usually have too much activity for their strength, and, consequently, feeble constitutions; hence they die young, and besides, being nervous, suffer extremely as mothers.

12. HARD TIMES AND MATRIMONY.—Many persons, particularly young men, refuse to marry, especially "these hard times," because they cannot support a wife in the style they wish. To this I reply, that a good wife will care less for the style in which she is supported, than for you. She will cheerfully conform to your necessities, and be happy with you in a log-cabin. She will even help you support yourself. To support a good wife, even if she have children, is really less expensive than to board alone, besides being one of the surest means of acquiring property.

13. MARRYING FOR A HOME.—Do not, however, marry for a home merely, unless you wish to become even more destitute with one than without one; for, it is on the same footing with "marrying for money." Marry a man for his merit, and you take no chances.

14. MARRY TO PLEASE NO ONE BUT YOURSELF.—Marriage is a matter exclusively your own; because you alone must abide its consequences. No person, not even a parent, has the least right to interfere or dictate in this matter. I never knew a marriage, made to please another, to turn out any otherwise than most unhappily.

15. DO NOT MARRY TO PLEASE YOUR PARENTS. Parents cannot love for their children any more than they can eat or sleep, or breathe, or die and go to heaven for them. They may give wholesome advice merely, but should leave the entire decision to the unbiased judgment of the parties themselves, who mainly are to experience the consequences of their choice. Besides, such is human nature, that to oppose lovers, or to speak against the person beloved, only increases their desire and determination to marry.

16. RUN-AWAY MATCHES.—Many a run-away match would never have taken place but for opposition or interference. Parents are mostly to be blamed for these elopements. Their children marry partly out of spite and to be contrary. Their very natures tell them that this interference is unjust—as it really is—and this excites combativeness, firmness, and self-esteem, in combination with the social faculties, to powerful and even blind resistance—which turmoil of the faculties hastens the match. Let the affections of a daughter be once slightly enlisted in your favor, and then let the "old folks" start an opposition, and you may feel sure of your prize. If she did not love you before, she will now, that you are persecuted. {185}

17. DISINHERITANCE.—Never disinherit, or threaten to disinherit, a child for marrying against your will. If you wish a daughter not to marry a certain man, oppose her, and she will be sure to marry him; so also in reference to a son.

18. PROPER TRAINING.—The secret is, however, all in a nutshell. Let the father properly train his daughter, and she will bring her first love-letter to him, and give him an opportunity to cherish a suitable affection, and to nip an improper one in the germ, before it has time to do any harm.

19. THE FATAL MISTAKES OF PARENTS.—There is, however, one way of effectually preventing an improper match, and that is, not to allow your children to associate with any whom you are unwilling they should marry. How cruel as well as unjust, to allow a daughter to associate with a young man till the affections of both are riveted, and then forbid her marrying him. Forbid all association or consent cheerfully to the marriage.

20. AN INTEMPERATE LOVER.—Do not flatter yourselves, young women, that you can wean even an occasional wine drinker from his cups by love and persuasion. Ardent spirit at first, kindles up the fires of love into the fierce flames at burning licentiousness, which burn out every element of love and destroy every vestige of pure affection. It over-excites the passions, and thereby finally destroys it,—producing at first, unbridled libertinism, and then an utter barrenness of love; besides reversing the other faculties of the drinker against his own consort, and those of the wife against her drinking husband.

* * * * *

FIRST LOVE, DESERTION AND DIVORCE.

1. FIRST LOVE.—This is the most important direction of all. The first love experiences a tenderness, a purity and unreservedness, an exquisiteness, a devotedness, and a poetry belonging to no subsequent attachment. "Love, like life, has no second spring." Though a second attachment may be accompanied by high moral feeling, and to a devotedness to the object loved; yet, let love be checked or blighted in its first pure emotion, and the beauty of its spring is irrecoverably withered and lost. This does not mean the simple love of children in the first attachment they call love, but rather the mature intelligent love of those of suitable age.



{187}

2. FREE FROM TEMPTATIONS.—As long as his heart is bound up in its first bundle of love and devotedness—as long as his affections remain reciprocated and uninterrupted—so long temptations cannot take effect. His heart is callous to the charms of others, and the very idea of bestowing his affections upon another is abhorrent. Much more so is animal indulgence, which is morally impossible.

3. SECOND LOVE NOT CONSTANT.—But let this first love be broken off, and the flood-gates of passion are raised. Temptations now flow in upon him. He casts a lustful eye upon every passing female, and indulges unchaste imaginations and feelings. Although his conscientiousness or intellect may prevent actual indulgence, yet temptations now take effect, and render him liable to err; whereas before they had no power to awaken improper thoughts or feelings. Thus many young men find their ruin.

4. LEGAL MARRIAGE.—What would any woman give for merely a nominal or legal husband, just to live with and provide for her, but who entertained not one spark of love for her, or whose affections were bestowed upon another? How absurd, how preposterous the doctrine that the obligations of marriage derive their sacredness from legal enactments and injunctions! How it literally profanes this holy of holies, and drags down this heaven-born institution from its original, divine elevation, to the level of a merely human device. Who will dare to advocate the human institution of marriage without the warm heart of a devoted and loving companion!

5. LEGISLATION.—But no human legislation can so guard this institution but that it may be broken in spirit, though, perhaps, acceded to in form; for, it is the heart which this institution requires. There must be true and devoted affection, or marriage is a farce and a failure.

6. THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY AND THE LAW GOVERNING MARRIAGE are for the protection of the individual, yet a man and woman may be married by law and yet unmarried in spirit. The law may tie together, and no marriage be consummated. Marriage therefore is Divine, and "whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder." A right marriage means a right state of the heart. A careful study of this work will be a great help to both the unmarried and the married.

7. DESERTION AND DIVORCE.—For a young man to court a young woman, and excite her love till her affections are riveted, and then (from sinister motives, such as, to marry one richer, or more handsome), to leave her, and try {188} elsewhere, is the very same crime as to divorce her from all that she holds dear on earth—to root up and pull out her imbedded affections, and to tear her from her rightful husband. First love is always constant. The second love brings uncertainty—too often desertions before marriage and divorces after marriage.

8. THE COQUET.—The young woman to play the coquet, and sport with the sincere affections of an honest and devoted young man, is one of the highest crimes that human nature can commit. Better murder him in body too, as she does in soul and morals, and it is the result of previous disappointment, never the outcome of a sincere first love.

9. ONE MARRIAGE. One evidence that second marriages are contrary to the laws of our social nature, is the fact that almost all step-parents and step-children disagree. Now, what law has been broken, to induce this penalty? The law of marriage; and this is one of the ways in which the breach punishes itself. It is much more in accordance with our natural feelings, especially those of mothers, that children should be brought up by their own parent.

10. SECOND MARRIAGE.—Another proof of this point is, that second marriage is more a matter of business. "I'll give you a home, if you'll take care of my children." "It's a bargain," is the way most second matches are made. There is little of the poetry of first-love, and little of the coyness and shrinking diffidence which characterize the first attachment. Still these remarks apply almost equally to a second attachment, as to second marriage.

11. THE CONCLUSION OF THE WHOLE MATTER.—Let this portion be read and pondered, and also the one entitled, "Marry your First Love if possible," which assigns the cause, and points out the only remedy, of licentiousness. As long as the main cause of this vice exists, and is aggravated by purse-proud, high-born, aristocratic parents and friends, and even by the virtuous and religious, just so long, and exactly in the same ratio will this blighting Sirocco blast the fairest flowers of female innocence and lovliness, and blight our noblest specimens of manliness. No sin of our land is greater.



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{190}

Flirting and Its Dangers.



1. NO EXCUSE.—In this country there is no excuse for the young man who seeks the society of the loose and the dissolute. There is at all times and everywhere open to him a society of persons of the opposite sex of his own age and of pure thoughts and lives, whose conversation will refine him and drive from his bosom ignoble and impure thoughts.

2. THE DANGERS.—The young man who may take pleasure in the fact that he is the hero of half a dozen or more {191} engagements and love episodes, little realizes that such constant excitement often causes not only dangerously frequent and long-continued nocturnal emissions, but most painful affections of the testicles. Those who show too great familiarity with the other sex, who entertain lascivious thoughts, continually exciting the sexual desires, always suffer a weakening of power and sometimes the actual diseases of degeneration, chronic inflammation of the gland, spermatorrhoea, impotence, and the like.—Young man, beware; your punishment for trifling with the affections of others may cost you a life of affliction.

3. REMEDY.—Do not violate the social laws. Do not trifle with the affections of your nature. Do not give others countless anguish, and also do not run the chances of injuring yourself and others for life. The society of refined and pure women is one of the strongest safeguards a young man can have, and he who seeks it will not only find satisfaction, but happiness. Simple friendship and kind affections for each other will ennoble and benefit.

4. THE TIME FOR MARRIAGE.—When a young man's means permit him to marry, he should then look intelligently for her with whom he expects to pass the remainder of his life in perfect loyalty, and in sincerity and singleness of heart. Seek her to whom he is ready to swear to be ever true.

5. BREACH OF CONFIDENCE.—Nothing is more certain, says Dr. Naphey, to undermine domestic felicity, and sap the foundation of marital happiness, than marital infidelity. The risks of disease which a married man runs in impure intercourse are far more serious, because they not only involve himself, but his wife and his children. He should know that there is nothing which a woman will not forgive sooner than such a breach of confidence. He is exposed to the plots and is pretty certain sooner or later to fall into the snares of those atrocious parties who subsist on blackmail. And should he escape these complications, he still must lose self-respect, and carry about with him the burden of a guilty conscience and a broken vow.

6. SOCIETY RULES AND CUSTOMS.—A young man can enjoy the society of ladies without being a "flirt." He can escort ladies to parties, public places of interest, social gatherings, etc., without showing special devotion to any one special young lady. When he finds the choice of his heart, then he will be justified to manifest it, and publicly proclaim it by paying her the compliment, exclusive attention. To keep a lady's company six months is a public announcement of an engagement.

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{192}

A Word to Maidens.

1. NO YOUNG LADY who is not willing to assume the responsibility of a true wife, and be crowned with the sacred diadem of motherhood, should ever think of getting married. We have too many young ladies to-day who despise maternity, who openly vow that they will never be burdened with children, and yet enter matrimony at the first opportunity. What is the result? Let echo answer, What? Unless a young lady believes that motherhood is noble, is honorable, is divine, and she is willing to carry out that sacred function of her nature, she had a thousand times better refuse every proposal, and enter some honorable occupation and wisely die an old maid by choice.

2. ON THE OTHER HAND, YOUNG LADY, never enter into the physical relations of marriage with a man until you have conversed with him freely and fully on these relations. Learn distinctly his views and feelings and expectations in regard to that purest and most ennobling of all the functions of your nature, and the most sacred of all intimacies of conjugal love. Your self-respect, your beauty, your glory, your heaven, as a wife, will be more directly involved in his feelings and views and practices, in regard to that relation, than in all other things. As you would not become a weak, miserable, imbecile, unlovable and degraded wife and mother, in the very prime of your life, come to a perfect understanding with your chosen one, ere you commit your person to his keeping in the sacred intimacies of home. Beware of that man who, under pretence of delicacy, modesty, and propriety, shuns conversation with you on this relation, and on the hallowed function of maternity.

3. TALK WITH YOUR INTENDED frankly and openly. Remember, concealment and mystery in him, towards you, on all other subjects pertaining to conjugal union might be overlooked, but if he conceals his views here, rest assured it bodes no good to your purity and happiness as a wife and mother. You can have no more certain assurance that you are to be victimized, your soul and body offered up, slain, on the altar of his sensualism, than his unwillingness to converse with you on subjects so vital to your happiness. Unless he is willing to hold his manhood in abeyance to the calls of your nature and to your conditions, and consecrate its passions and its powers to the elevation and happiness of his wife and children, your maiden soul had better return to God unadorned with the diadem of conjugal and maternal love than that you should become the wife of such a man and the mother of his children. {193}



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{194}

POPPING THE QUESTION.



1. MAKING THE DECLARATION.—There are few emergencies in business and few events in life that bring to man the trying ordeal of "proposing to a lady." We should be glad to help the bashful lover in his hours of perplexity, embarrassment and hesitation, but unfortunately we cannot pop the question for him, nor give him a formula by which {195} he may do it. Different circumstances and different surroundings compel every lover to be original in his form or mode of proposing.

2. BASHFULNESS.—If a young man is very bashful, he should write his sentiments in a clear, frank manner on a neat white sheet of note paper, enclose it in a plain white envelope and find some way to convey it to the lady's hand.

3. THE ANSWER.—If the beloved one's heart is touched, and she is in sympathy with the lover, the answer should be frankly and unequivocally given. If the negative answer is necessary, it should be done in the kindest and most sympathetic language, yet definite, positive and to the point, and the gentleman should at once withdraw his suit and continue friendly but not familiar.

4. SAYING "NO" FOR "YES."—If girls are foolish enough to say "No" when they mean "Yes," they must suffer the consequences which often follow. A man of intelligence and self-respect will not ask a lady twice. It is begging for recognition and lowers his dignity, should he do so. A lady is supposed to know her heart sufficiently to consider the question to her satisfaction before giving an answer.

5. CONFUSION OF WORDS AND MISUNDERSTANDING.—Sometimes a man's happiness, has depended on his manner of popping the question. Many a time the girl has said "No" because the question was so worded that the affirmative did not come from the mouth naturally; and two lives that gravitated toward each other with all their inward force have been thrown suddenly apart, because the electric keys were not carefully touched.

6. SCRIPTURAL DECLARATION.—The church is not the proper place to conduct a courtship, yet the following is suggestive and ingenious.

A young gentleman, familiar with the Scriptures, happening to sit in a pew adjoining a young lady for whom he conceived a violent attachment, made his proposal in this way: He politely handed his neighbor a Bible open, with a pin stuck in the following text: Second Epistle of John, verse 5:

"And I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that we had from the beginning, that we love one another."



She returned it, pointing to the second chapter of Ruth, verse 10: "Then she fell on her face, and bowed herself to the ground, and said unto him. Why have I found grace in {197} thine eyes that thou shouldest take knowledge of me, seeing I am a stranger?"

He returned the book, pointing to the 13th verse of the Third Epistle of John: "Having many things to write unto you, I would not write to you with paper and ink, but trust to come unto you and speak face to face, that your joy may be full."

From the above interview a marriage took place the ensuing month in the same church.

7. HOW JENNY WAS WON.

On a sunny Summer morning, Early as the dew was dry, Up the hill I went a berrying; Need I tell you—tell you why?

Farmer Davis had a daughter, And it happened that I knew, On each sunny morning, Jenny Up the hill went berrying too.

Lonely work is picking berries, So I joined her on the hill: "Jenny, dear," said I, "your basket's Quite too large for one to fill."

So we stayed—we two—to fill it, Jenny talking—I was still.— Leading where the hill was steepest, Picking berries up the hill.

"This is up-hill work," said Jenny; "So is life," said I; "shall we Climb it each alone, or, Jenny, Will you come and climb with me?"

Redder than the blushing berries Jenny's cheek a moment grew, While without delay she answered, "I will come and climb with you."

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8. A ROMANTIC WAY FOR PROPOSING.—In Peru they have a romantic way of popping the question. The suitor appears on the appointed evening, with a gaily dressed troubadour, under the balcony of his beloved. The singer steps before her flower-bedecked window, and sings her beauties in the name of her lover. He compares her size to that of a pear-tree, her lips to two blushing rose-buds, and her womanly form to that of a dove. With assumed harshness the lady asks her lover: "Who are you, and what do you want?" He answers with ardent confidence: "Thy love I do adore, The stars live in the harmony of love, and why should not we, too, love each other?" Then the proud beauty gives herself away: she takes her flower-wreath from her hair and throws it down to her lover, promising to be his forever.



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{199}

The Wedding.



1. THE PROPER TIME.—Much has been printed in various volumes regarding the time of the year, the influence of the seasons, etc., as determining the proper time to set for the wedding day. Circumstances must govern these things. To be sure, it is best to avoid extremes of heat and cold. Very hot weather is debilitating, and below zero is uncomfortable.

2. THE LADY SHOULD SELECT THE DAY.—There is one element in the time that is of great importance, physically, especially to the lady. It is the day of the month, and it is hoped that every lady who contemplates marriage is informed upon the great facts of ovulation. By reading page {200} 245 she will understand that it is to her advantage to select a wedding day about fifteen or eighteen days after the close of menstruation in the month chosen, since it is not best that the first child should be conceived during the excitement or irritation of first attempts at congress; besides modest brides naturally do not wish to become large with child before the season of congratulation and visiting on their return from the "wedding tour" is over.

Again, it is asserted by many of the best writers on this subject, that the mental condition of either parent at the time of intercourse will be stamped upon the embryo; hence it is not only best, but wise, that the first-born should not be conceived until several months after marriage, when the husband and wife have nicely settled in their new home, and become calm in their experience of each other's society.

3. THE "BRIDAL TOUR" is considered by many newly-married couples as a necessary introduction to a life of connubial joy. There is, in our opinion, nothing in the custom to recommend it. After the excitement and overwork before and accompanying a wedding, the period immediately following should be one of rest.

Again, the money expended on the ceremony and a tour of the principal cities, etc., might, in most cases, be applied to a multitude of after-life comforts of far more lasting value and importance. To be sure, it is not pleasant for the bride, should she remain at home, to pass through the ordeal of criticism and vulgar comments of acquaintances and friends, and hence, to escape this, the young couple feel like getting away for a time. Undoubtedly the best plan for the great majority, after this most eventful ceremony, is to enter their future home at once, and there to remain in comparative privacy until the novelty of the situation is worn off.

4. IF THE CONVENTIONAL TOUR is taken, the husband should remember that his bride cannot stand the same amount of tramping around and sight-seeing that he can. The female organs of generation are so easily affected by excessive exercise of the limbs which support them, that at this critical period it would be a foolish and costly experience to drag a lady hurriedly around the country on an extensive and protracted round of sight-seeing or visiting. Unless good common-sense is displayed in the manner of spending the "honey-moon," it will prove very untrue to its name. In many cases it lays the foundation for the wife's first and life-long "backache."

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{201}

Advice to Newly Married Couples.



1. "BE YE FRUITFUL AND MULTIPLY" is a Bible commandment which the children of men habitually obey. However they may disagree on other subjects, all are in accord on this; the barbarous, the civilized, the high, the low, the fierce, the gentle—all unite in the desire which finds its accomplishment in the reproduction of their kind. Who {202} shall quarrel with the Divinely implanted instinct, or declare it to be vulgar or unmentionable? It is during the period of the honeymoon that the intensity of this desire, coupled with the greatest curiosity, is at its height, and the unbridled license often given the passions at this time is attended with the most dangerous consequences.

2. CONSUMMATION OF MARRIAGE.—The first time that the husband and wife cohabit together after the ceremony has been performed is called the consummation of marriage. Many grave errors have been committed by people in this, when one or both of the contracting parties were not physically or sexually in a condition to carry out the marriage relation. A marriage, however, is complete without this in the eyes of the law, as it is a maxim taken from the Roman civil statutes that consent, not cohabitation, is the binding element in the ceremony. Yet, in most States of the U.S., and in some other countries; marriage is legally declared void and of no effect where it is not possible to consummate the marriage relation. A divorce may be obtained provided the injured party begins the suit.

3. TEST OF VIRGINITY.—The consummation of marriage with a virgin is not necessarily attended with a flow of blood, and the absence of this sign is not the slightest presumption against her former chastity. The true test of virginity is modesty void of any disagreeable familiarity. A sincere Christian faith is one of the best recommendations.

4. LET EVERY MAN REMEMBER that the legal right of marriage does not carry with it the moral right to injure for life the loving companion he has chosen. Ignorance may be the cause, but every man before he marries should know something of the physiology and the laws of health, and we here give some information which is of very great importance to every newly-married man.

5. SENSUALITY.—Lust crucifies love. The young sensual husband is generally at fault. Passion sways and the duty to bride and wife is nor thought of, and so a modest young wife is often actually forced and assaulted by the unsympathetic haste of her husband. An amorous man in that way soon destroys his own love, and thus is laid the foundation for many difficulties that soon develop trouble and disturb the happiness of both.

6. ABUSE AFTER MARRIAGE.—Usually marriage is consummated within a day or two after the ceremony, but this is {203} gross injustice to the bride. In most cases she is nervous, timid, and exhausted by the duties of preparation for the wedding, and in no way in a condition, either in body or mind, for the vital change which the married relation bring upon her. Many a young husband often lays the foundation of many diseases of the womb and of the nervous system in gratifying his unchecked passions without a proper regard for his wife's exhausted condition.

7. THE FIRST CONJUGAL APPROACHES are usually painful to the new wife, and no enjoyment to her follows. Great caution and kindness should be exercised. A young couple rushing together in their animal passion soon produce a nervous and irritating condition which ere long brings apathy, indifference, if not dislike. True love and a high regard for each other will temper passion into moderation.

8. WERE THE ABOVE INJUNCTIONS HEEDED fully and literally it would be folly to say more, but this would be omitting all account of the bridegroom's new position, the power of his passion, and the timidity of the fair creature who is wondering what fate has in store for her trembling modesty. To be sure, there are some women who are possessed of more forward natures and stronger desires than others. In such cases there may be less trouble.

9. A COMMON ERROR.—The young husband may have read in some treatise on physiology that the hymen in a virgin is the great obstacle to be overcome. He is apt to conclude that this is all, that some force will be needed to break it down, and that therefore an amount of urgency even to the degree of inflicting considerable pain is justifiable. This is usually wrong. It rarely constitutes any obstruction, and, even when its rupturing may be necessary, it alone seldom causes suffering.

There are sometimes certain deformities of the vagina, but no woman should knowingly seek matrimonial relations when thus afflicted.

We quote from Dr. C. A. Huff the following:

10. "WHAT IS IT, THEN, THAT USUALLY CAUSES distress to many women, whether a bride or a long-time wife?" The answer is, Simply those conditions of the organs in which they are not properly prepared, by anticipation and desire, to receive a foreign body. The modest one craves only refined and platonic love at first, and if husbands, new and old, would only realize this plain truth, wife-torturing would cease and the happiness of each one of all human pairs vastly increase. {204}

11. THE CONDITIONS OF THE FEMALE organs depend upon the state of the mind just as much as in the case of the husband. The male, however, being more sensual, is more quickly roused. She is far less often or early ready. In its unexcited state the vagina is lax, its walls are closed together, and their surfaces covered by but little lubricating secretion. The chaster one of the pair has no desire that this sacred vestibule to the great arcana of procreation shall be immediately and roughly invaded. This, then, is the time for all approaches by the husband to be of the most delicate, considerate, and refined description possible. The quietest and softest demeanor, with gentle and re-assuring words, are all that should be attempted at first. The wedding day has probably been one of fatigue, and it is foolish to go farther.

12. FOR MORE THAN ONE NIGHT it will be wise, indeed, if the wife's confidence shall be as much wooed and won by patient, delicate, and prolonged courting, as before the marriage engagement. How long should this period of waiting be can only be decided by the circumstances of any case. The bride will ultimately deny no favor which is sought with full deference to her modesty, and in connection with which bestiality is not exhibited. Her nature is that of delicacy; her affection is of a refined character; if the love and conduct offered to her are a careful effort to adapt roughness and strength to her refinement and weakness, her admiration and responsive love will be excited to the utmost.

13. WHEN THAT MOMENT ARRIVES when the bride finds she can repose perfect confidence in the kindness of her husband, that his love is not purely animal, and that no violence will be attempted, the power of her affection for him will surely assert itself; the mind will act on those organs which nature has endowed to fulfil the law of her being, the walls of the vagina will expand, and the glands at the entrance will be fully lubricated by a secretion of mucous which renders congress a matter of comparative ease.

14. WHEN THIS RESPONSIVE ENLARGEMENT and lubrication are fully realized, it is made plain why the haste and force so common to first and subsequent coition is, as it has been justly called, nothing but "legalized rape." Young husband! Prove your manhood, not by yielding to unbridled lust and cruelty, but by the exhibition of true power in self-control and patience with the helpless being confided to your care! Prolong the delightful season of courting into and through wedded life, and rich shall be your reward. {205}

15. A WANT OF DESIRE may often prevail, and may be caused by loss of sleep, study, constant thought, mental disturbance, anxiety, self-abuse, excessive use of tobacco or alcoholic drink, etc. Overwork may cause debility; a man may not have an erection for months, yet it may not be a sign of debility, sexual lethargy or impotence. Get the mind and the physical constitution in proper condition, and most all these difficulties will disappear. Good athletic exercise by walking, riding, or playing croquet, or any other amusement, will greatly improve the condition. A good rest, however, will be necessary to fully restore the mind and the body, then the natural condition of the sexual organs will be resumed.

16. HAVING TWINS.—Having twins is undoubtedly hereditary and descends from generation to generation, and persons who have twins are generally those who have great sexual vigor. It is generally the result of a second cohabitation immediately following the first, but some parents have twins who cohabit but once during several days.

17. PROPER INTERCOURSE.—The right relation of a newly-married couple will rather increase than diminish love. To thus offer up the maiden on the altar of love and affection only swells her flood of joy and bliss; whereas, on the other hand, sensuality humbles, debases, pollutes, and never elevates. Young husbands should wait for an invitation to the banquet, and they will be amply paid by the very pleasure sought. Invitation or permission delights, and possession by force degrades. The right-minded bridegroom will postpone the exercise of his nuptial rights for a few days, and allow his young wife to become rested from the preparation and fatigue of the wedding, and become accustomed to the changes in her new relations of life.

18. RIGHTLY BEGINNING SEXUAL LIFE.—Intercourse promotes all the functions of the body and mind, but rampant lust and sexual abuses soon destroy the natural pleasures of intercourse, and unhappiness will be the result. Remember that intercourse should not become the polluted purpose of marriage. To be sure, rational enjoyment benefits and stimulates love, but the pleasure of each other's society, standing together on all questions of mutual benefit, working hand in hand and shoulder to shoulder in the battle of life, raising a family of beautiful children, sharing each other's joys and sorrows, are the things that bring to every couple the best, purest, and noblest enjoyment that God has bestowed upon man. {206}



Sexual Proprieties and Improprieties.

1. To have offspring is not to be regarded as a luxury, but as a great primary necessity of health and happiness, of which every fully-developed man and woman should have a fair share, while it cannot be denied that the ignorance of the necessity of sexual intercourse to the health and virtue of both man and woman is the most fundamental error in medical and moral philosophy.

2. In a state of pure nature, where man would have his sexual instincts under full and natural restraint, there would be little, if any, licentiousness, and children would be the result of natural desire, and not the accidents of lust.

3. This is an age of sensuality; unnatural passions are cultivated and indulged. Young people in the course of their engagement often sow the seed of serious excesses. This habit of embracing, sitting on the lover's lap, leaning on his breast, long and uninterrupted periods of secluded companionship, have become so common that it is amazing how a young lady can safely arrive at the wedding day. While this conduct may safely terminate with the wedding day, yet it cultivates the tendency which often results in excessive indulgencies after the honey-moon is over.

4. SEPARATE BEDS.—Many writers have vigorously championed as a reform the practice of separate beds for husband and wife. While we would not recommend such separation, it is no doubt very much better for both husband and wife, in case the wife is pregnant. Where people are reasonably temperate, no such ordinary precautions as {207} separate sleeping places may be necessary. But in case of pregnancy it will add rest to the mother and add vigor to the unborn child. Sleeping together, however, is natural and cultivates true affection, and it is physiologically true that in very cold weather life is prolonged by husband and wife sleeping together.

5. THE AUTHORITY OF THE WIFE.—Let the wife judge whether she desires a separate couch or not. She has the superior right to control her own person. In such diseases as consumption, or other severe or lingering diseases, separate beds should always be insisted upon.

6. THE TIME FOR INDULGENCE.—The health of the generative functions depends upon exercise, just the same as any other vital organ. Intercourse should be absolutely avoided just before or after meals, or just after mental excitement or physical exercise. No wife should indulge her husband when he is under the influence of alcoholic stimulants, for idiocy and other serious maladies are liable to be visited upon the offspring.

7. RESTRAINT DURING PREGNANCY.—There is no question but what moderate indulgence during the first few months of pregnancy does not result in serious harm; but people who excessively satisfy their ill-governed passions are liable to pay a serious penalty.

8. MISCARRIAGE.—If a woman is liable to abortion or miscarriage, absolute abstinence is the only remedy. No sexual indulgence during pregnancy can be safely tolerated.

9. It is better for people not to marry until they are of proper age. It is a physiological fact that men seldom reach the full maturity of their virile power before the age of twenty-five, and the female rarely attains the full vigor of her sexual powers before the age of twenty.

10. ILLICIT PLEASURES.—The indulgence of illicit pleasures, says Dr. S. Pancoast, sooner or later is sure to entail the most loathsome diseases on their votaries. Among these diseases are Gonorrhoea, Syphilis, Spermatorrhoea (waste of semen by daily and nightly involuntary emissions), Satyriasis (a species of sexual madness, or a sexual diabolism, causing men to commit rape and other beastly acts and outrages, not only on women and children, but men and animals, as sodomy, pederasty, etc.), Nymphomania (causing women to assail every man they meet, and supplicate and excite him to gratify their lustful passions, or who resort to means of sexual pollutions, which is impossible to describe without shuddering), together with spinal diseases and many disorders of the most distressing and disgusting character, {208} filling the bones with rottenness, and eating away the flesh by gangrenous ulcers, until the patient dies, a horrible mass of putridity and corruption.

11. SENSUALITY.—Sensuality is not love, but an unbridled desire which kills the soul. Sensuality will drive away the roses in the cheeks of womanhood, undermine health and produce a brazen countenance that can be read by all men. The harlot may commit her sins in the dark, but her countenance reveals her character and her immorality is an open secret.

12. SEXUAL TEMPERANCE.—All excesses and absurdities of every kind should be carefully avoided. Many of the female disorders which often revenge themselves in the cessation of all sexual pleasure are largely due to the excessive practice of sexual indulgence.

13. FREQUENCY.—Some writers claim that intercourse should never occur except for the purpose of childbearing; but such restraint is not natural and consequently not conducive to health. There are many conditions in which the health of the mother and offspring must be respected. It is now held that it is nearer a crime than a virtue to prostitute woman to the degradation of breeding animals by compelling her to bring into life more offspring than can be born healthy, or be properly cared for and educated.

14. In this work we shall attempt to specify no rule, but simply give advice as to the health and happiness of both man and wife. A man should not gratify his own desires at the expense of his wife's health, comfort or inclination. Many men no doubt harass their wives and force many burdens upon their slender constitutions. But it is a great sin and no true husband will demand unreasonable recognition. The wife when physically able, however, should bear with her husband. Man is naturally sensitive on this subject, and it takes but little to alienate his affections and bring discord into the family.

15. The best writers lay down the rule for the government of the marriage-bed, that sexual indulgence should only occur about once in a week or ten days, and this of course applies only to those who enjoy a fair degree of health. But it is a hygienic and physiological fact that those who indulge only once a month receive a far greater degree of the intensity of enjoyment than those who indulge their passions more frequently. Much pleasure is lost by excesses where much might be gained by temperance, giving rest to the organs for the accumulation of nervous force. {209}



How to Perpetuate the Honey-Moon.

1. CONTINUE YOUR COURTSHIP.—Like causes produce like effects.

2. NEGLECT OF YOUR COMPANION.—Do not assume a right to neglect your companion more after marriage than you did before.

3. SECRETS.—Have no secrets that you keep from your companion. A third party is always disturbing.

4. AVOID THE APPEARANCE OF EVIL.—In matrimonial matters it is often that the mere appearance contains all the evil. Love, as soon as it rises above calculation and becomes love, is exacting. It gives all, and demands all.

5. ONCE MARRIED, NEVER OPEN YOUR MIND TO ANY CHANGE.—If you keep the door of your purpose closed, evil or even desirable changes cannot make headway without help.

6. KEEP STEP IN MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.—A tree that grows for forty years may take all the sunlight from a tree that stops growing at twenty.

7. KEEP A LIVELY INTEREST IN THE BUSINESS OF THE HOME.—Two that do not pull together are weaker than either alone.

8. GAUGE YOUR EXPENSES BY YOUR REVENUES.—Love must eat. The sheriff often levies on Cupid long before he takes away the old furniture.

9. START FROM WHERE YOUR PARENTS STARTED RATHER THAN FROM WHERE THEY NOW ARE.—Hollow and showy boarding often furnishes the too strong temptation, while the quietness of a humble home would cement the hearts beyond risk. {210}

10. AVOID DEBT.—Spend your own money, but earn it first, then it will not be necessary to blame any one for spending other people's.

11. DO NOT BOTH GET ANGRY AT THE SAME TIME.—Remember, it takes two to quarrel.

12. DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELF EVER TO COME TO AN OPEN RUPTURE.—Things unsaid need less repentance.

13. STUDY TO CONFORM YOUR TASTES AND HABITS TO THE TASTES AND HABITS OF YOUR COMPANION.—If two walk together, they must agree.

* * * * *

How to Be a Good Wife.

1. REVERENCE YOUR HUSBAND.—He sustains by God's order a position of dignity as head of a family, head of the woman. Any breaking down of this order indicates a mistake in the union, or a digression from duty.

2. LOVE HIM.—A wife loves as naturally as the sun shines. Love is your best weapon. You conquered him with that in the first place. You can reconquer by the same means.

3. DO NOT CONCEAL YOUR LOVE FROM HIM.—If he is crowded with care, and too busy to seem to heed your love, you need to give all the greater attention to securing his knowledge of your love. If you intermit he will settle down into a hard, cold life with increased rapidity. Your example will keep the light on his conviction. The more he neglects the fire on the hearth, the more carefully must you feed and guard it. It must not be allowed to go out. Once out you must sit ever in darkness and in the cold.

4. CULTIVATE THE MODESTY AND DELICACY OF YOUR YOUTH.—The relations and familiarity of wedded life may seem to tone down the sensitive and retiring instincts of girlhood, but nothing can compensate for the loss of these. However, much men may admire the public performance of gifted women, they do not desire that boldness and dash in a wife. The holy blush of a maiden's modesty is more powerful in hallowing and governing a home than the heaviest armament that ever a warrior bore.

5. CULTIVATE PERSONAL ATTRACTIVENESS.—This means the storing of your mind with a knowledge of passing events, and with a good idea of the world's general advance. If you read nothing, and make no effort to make yourself attractive, you will soon sink down into a dull hack of stupidity. If {211} your husband never hears from you any words of wisdom, or of common information, he will soon hear nothing from you. Dress and gossips soon wear out. If your memory is weak, so that it hardly seems worth while to read, that is additional reason for reading.



6. CULTIVATE PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS.—When you were encouraging the attentions of him whom you now call husband, you did not neglect any item of dress or appearance {212} that could help you. Your hair was always in perfect training. You never greeted him with a ragged or untidy dress or soiled hands. It is true that your "market is made," but you cannot afford to have it "broken." Cleanliness and good taste will attract now as they did formerly. Keep yourself at your best. Make the most of physical endowments. Neatness and order break the power of poverty.

7. STUDY YOUR HUSBAND'S CHARACTER.—He has his peculiarities. He has no right to many of them, and you need to know them; thus you can avoid many hours of friction. The good pilot steers around the sunken rocks that lie in the channel. The engineer may remove them, not the pilot. You are more pilot than engineer. Consult his tastes. It is more important to your home, that you should please him than anybody else.

8. PRACTICE ECONOMY.—Many families are cast out of peace into grumbling and discord by being compelled to fight against poverty. When there are no great distresses to be endured or accounted for, complaint and fault-finding are not so often evoked. Keep your husband free from the annoyance of disappointed creditors, and he will be more apt to keep free from annoying you. To toil hard for bread, to fight the wolf from the door, to resist impatient creditors, to struggle against complaining pride at home, is too much to ask of one man. A crust that is your own is a feast, while a feast that is purloined from unwilling creditors is a famine.

* * * * *

How to Be a Good Husband.

1. SHOW YOUR LOVE.—All life manifests itself. As certainly as a live tree will put forth leaves in the spring, so certainly will a living love show itself. Many a noble man toils early and late to earn bread and position for his wife. He hesitates at no weariness for her sake. He justly thinks that such industry and providence give a better expression of his love than he could by caressing her and letting the grocery bills go unpaid. He fills the cellar and pantry. He drives and pushes his business. He never dreams that he is actually starving his wife to death. He may soon have a woman left to superintend his home, but his wife is dying. She must be kept alive by the same process that called her into being. Recall and repeat the little attentions and delicate compliments that once made you so agreeable, and that fanned her love into a consuming flame. It is not beneath the dignity of the skillful physician to study all the {214} little symptoms, and order all the little round of attentions that check the waste of strength and brace the staggering constitution. It is good work for a husband to cherish his wife.



2. CONSULT WITH YOUR WIFE.—She is apt to be as right as you are, and frequently able to add much to your stock of wisdom. In any event she appreciates your attentions.

3. STUDY TO KEEP HER YOUNG.—It can be done. It is not work, but worry, that wears. Keep a brave, true heart between her and all harm.

4. HELP TO BEAR HER BURDENS.—Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of love. Love seeks opportunities to do for the loved object. She has the constant care of your children. She is ordained by the Lord to stand guard over them. Not a disease can appear in the community without her taking the alarm. Not a disease can come over the threshold without her instantly springing into the mortal combat. If there is a deficiency anywhere, it comes out of her pleasure. Her burdens are everywhere. Look for them, that you may lighten them.

5. MAKE YOURSELF HELPFUL BY THOUGHTFULNESS.—Remember to bring into the house your best smile and sunshine. It is good for you, and it cheers up the home. There is hardly a nook in the house that has not been carefully hunted through to drive out everything that might annoy you. The dinner which suits, or ought to suit you, has not come on the table of itself. It represents much thoughtfulness and work. You can do no more manly thing than find some way of expressing, in word or look, your appreciation of it.

6. EXPRESS YOUR WILL, NOT BY COMMANDS, BUT BY SUGGESTIONS.—It is God's order that you should be the head of the family. You are clothed with authority. But this does not authorize you to be stern and harsh, as an officer in the army. Your authority is the dignity of love. When it is not clothed in love it ceases to have the substance of authority. A simple suggestion that may embody a wish, an opinion or an argument, becomes one who reigns over such a kingdom as yours.

7. SEEK TO REFINE YOUR NATURE.—It is no slander to say that many men have wives much more refined than themselves. This is natural in the inequalities of life. Other qualities may compensate for any defect here. But you need have no defect in refinement. Preserve the gentleness and refinement of your wife as a rich legacy for your children, and in so doing you will lift yourself to higher levels. {215}

8. BE A GENTLEMAN AS WELL AS A HUSBAND.—The signs and bronze and callouses of toil are no indications that you are not a gentleman. The soul of gentlemanliness is a kindly feeling toward others, that prompts one to secure their comfort. That is why the thoughtful peasant lover is always so gentlemanly, and in his love much above himself.

9. STAY AT HOME.—Habitual absence during the evenings is sure to bring sorrow. If your duty or business calls you, you have the promise that you will be kept in all your ways. But if you go out to mingle with other society, and leave your wife at home alone, or with the children and servants, know that there is no good in store for you. She has claims upon you that you can not afford to allow to go to protest. Reverse the case. You sit down alone after having waited all day for your wife's return, and think of her as reveling in gay society, and see if you can keep out all the doubts as to what takes her away. If your home is not as attractive as you want it, you are a principal partner. Set yourself about the work of making it attractive.

10. TAKE YOUR WIFE WITH YOU INTO SOCIETY.—Seclusion begets morbidness. She needs some of the life that comes from contact with society. She must see how other people appear and act. It often requires an exertion for her to go out of her home, but it is good for her and for you. She will bring back more sunshine. It is wise to rest sometimes. When the Arab stops for his dinner he unpacks his camel. Treat your wife with as much consideration.



{217}

Cause of Family Troubles.



1. MUCH BETTER TO BE ALONE.—He who made man said it is not good for him to be alone; but it is much better to be alone, than it is to be in some kinds of company. Many couples who felt unhappy when they were apart, have been utterly miserable when together; and scores who have been ready to go through fire and water to get married, have been willing to run the risk of fire and brimstone to get divorced. It is by no means certain that because persons are wretched before marriage they will be happy after it. The wretchedness of many homes, and the prevalence of immorality and divorce is a sad commentary on the evils which result from unwise marriages.

2. UNAVOIDABLE EVILS.—There are plenty of unavoidable evils in this world, and it is mournful to think of the multitudes who are preparing themselves for needless disappointments, and who yet have no fear, and are unwilling to be instructed, cautioned or warned. To them the experience of mature life is of little account compared with the wisdom of ardent and enthusiastic youth.

3. MATRIMONIAL INFELICITY.—One great cause of matrimonial infelicity is the hasty marriages of persons who have no adequate knowledge of each other's characters. Two strangers become acquainted, and are attracted to each other, and without taking half the trouble to investigate or inquire that a prudent man would take before buying a saddle horse, they are married. In a few weeks or months it is perhaps found that one of the parties was married already, or possibly that the man is drunken or vicious, or the woman anything but what she should be. Then begins the bitter part of the experience: shame, disgrace, scandal, separation, sin and divorce, all come as the natural results of a rash and foolish marriage. A little time spent in honest, candid, and careful preliminary inquiry and investigation, would have saved the trouble.

4. THE CLIMAX.—It has been said that a man is never utterly ruined until he has married a bad woman. So the climax of woman's miseries and sorrows may be said to come only when she is bound with that bond which should be her chiefest blessing and her highest joy, but which may prove her deepest sorrow and her bitterest curse.

5. THE FOLLY OF FOLLIES.—There are some lessons which people are very slow to learn, and yet which are based upon {218} the simple principles of common-sense. A young lady casts her eye upon a young man. She says, "I mean to have that man." She plies her arts, engages his affections, marries him, and secures for herself a life of sorrow and disappointment, ending perhaps in a broken up home or an early grave. Any prudent, intelligent person of mature age, might have warned or cautioned her; but she sought no advice, and accepted no admonition. A young man may pursue a similar course with equally disastrous results.

6. HAP-HAZARD.—Many marriages are undoubtedly arranged by what may be termed the accident of locality. Persons live near each other, become acquainted, and engage themselves to those whom they never would have selected as their companions in life if they had wider opportunities of acquaintance. Within the borders of their limited circle they make a selection which may be wise or may be unwise. They have no means of judging, they allow no one else to judge for them. The results are sometimes happy and sometimes unhappy in the extreme. It is well to act cautiously in doing what can be done but once. It is not a pleasant experience for a person to find out a mistake when it is too late to rectify it.

7. WE ALL CHANGE.—When two persons of opposite sex are often thrown together they are very naturally attracted to each other, and are liable to imbibe the opinion that they are better fitted for life-long companionship than any other two persons in the world. This may be the case, or it may not be. There are a thousand chances against such a conclusion to one in favor of it. But even if at the present moment these two persons were fitted to be associated, no one can tell whether the case will be the same five or ten years hence. Men change; women change; they are not the same they were ten years ago; they are not the same they will be ten years hence.

8. THE SAFE RULE.—Do not be in a hurry; take your time, and consider well before you allow your devotion to rule you. Study first your character, then study the character of her whom you desire to marry. Love works mysteriously, and if it will bear careful and cool investigation, it will no doubt thrive under adversity. When people marry they unite their destinies for the better or the worse. Marriage is a contract for life and will never bear a hasty conclusion. Never be in a hurry!

* * * * *

{219}

Jealousy—Its Cause and Cure.

* * * * *

Trifles, light as air Are to the jealous confirmations strong, As proofs of holy writ.—SHAKESPEARE.

Nor Jealousy Was understood, the injur'd lover's hell.—MILTON.

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock The meat it feeds on.—SHAKESPEARE.

* * * * *

1. DEFINITION.—Jealousy is an accidental passion, for which the faculty indeed is unborn. In its nobler form and in its nobler motives it arises from love, and in its lower form it arises from the deepest and darkest Pit of Satan.

2. HOW DEVELOPED.—Jealousy arises either from weakness, which from a sense of its own want of lovable qualities is not convinced of being sure of its cause, or from distrust, which thinks the beloved person capable of infidelity. Sometimes all these motives may act together.

3. NOBLEST JEALOUSY.—The noblest jealousy, if the term noble is appropriate, is a sort of ambition or pride of the loving person who feels it is an insult that another one should assume it as possible to supplant his love, or it is the highest degree of devotion which sees a declaration of its object in the foreign invasion, as it were, of his own altar. Jealousy is always a sign that a little more wisdom might adorn the individual without harm.

4. THE LOWEST JEALOUSY.—The lowest species of jealousy is a sort of avarice of envy which, without being capable of love, at least wishes to possess the object of its jealousy alone by the one party assuming a sort of property right over the other. This jealousy, which might be called the Satanic, is generally to be found with old withered "husbands," whom the devil has prompted to marry young women and who forthwith dream night and day of cuck-old's horns. These Argus-eyed keepers are no longer capable of any feeling that could be called love, they are rather as a rule heartless house-tyrants, and are in constant dread that some one may admire or appreciate his unfortunate slave.

5. WANT OF LOVE.—The general conclusion will be that jealousy is more the result of wrong conditions which cause uncongenial unions, and which through moral corruption, artificially create distrust, than a necessary accompaniment of love.



{221}

6. RESULT OF POOR OPINION.—Jealousy is a passion with which those are most afflicted who are the least worthy of love. An innocent maiden who enters marriage will not dream of getting jealous; but all her innocence cannot secure her against the jealousy of her husband if he has been a libertine. Those are wont to be the most jealous who have the consciousness that they themselves are most deserving of jealousy. Most men in consequence of their present education and corruption have so poor an opinion not only of the male, but even of the female sex, that they believe every woman at every moment capable of what they themselves have looked for among all and have found among the most unfortunate, the prostitutes. No libertine can believe in the purity of woman; it is contrary to nature. A libertine therefore cannot believe in the loyalty of a faithful wife.

7. WHEN JUSTIFIABLE.—There may be occasions where jealousy is justifiable. If a woman's confidence has been shaken in her husband, or a husband's confidence has been shaken in his wife by certain signs or conduct, which have no other meaning but that of infidelity, then there is just cause for jealousy. There must, however, be certain proof as evidence of the wife's or husband's immoral conduct. Imaginations or any foolish absurdities should have no consideration whatever, and let everyone have confidence until his or her faith has been shaken by the revelation of absolute facts.

8. CAUTION AND ADVICE.—No couple should allow their associations to develop into an engagement and marriage if either one has any inclination to jealousy. It shows invariably a want of sufficient confidence, and that want of confidence, instead of being diminished after marriage, is liable to increase, until by the aid of the imagination and wrong interpretation the home is made a hell and divorce a necessity. Let it be remembered, there can be no true love without perfect and absolute confidence. Jealousy is always the sign of weakness or madness. Avoid a jealous disposition, for it is an open acknowledgment of a lack of faith.



{222}

The Improvement of Offspring.

* * * * *

Why Bring Into the World Idiots, Fools, Criminals and Lunatics?



1. THE RIGHT WAY.—When mankind will properly love and marry and then rightly generate, carry, nurse and educate their children, will they in deed and in truth carry out {223} the holy and happy purpose of their Creator. See those miserable and depraved scape-goats of humanity, the demented simpletons, the half-crazy, unbalanced multitudes which infest our earth, and fill our prisons with criminals and our poor-houses with paupers. Oh! the boundless capabilities and perfections of our God-like nature and, alas! its deformities! All is the result of the ignorance or indifference of parents. As long as children are the accidents of lust instead of the premeditated objects of love, so long will the offspring deteriorate and the world be cursed with deformities, monstrosities, unhumanities and cranks.

2. EACH AFTER ITS KIND.—"Like parents like children." "In their own image beget" they them. In what other can they? "How can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit?" How can animal propensities in parents generate other than depraved children, or moral purity beget beings other than as holy by nature as those at whose hands they received existence and constitution?

3. AS ARE THE PARENTS, physically, mentally and morally when they stamp their own image and likeness upon progeny, so will be the constitution of that progeny.

4. "JUST AS THE TWIG IS BENT THE TREE'S INCLINED."—Yet the bramble cannot be bent to bear delicious peaches, nor the sycamore to bear grain. Education is something, but parentage is everything; because it "dyes in the wool," and thereby exerts an influence on character almost infinitely more powerful than all other conditions put together.

5. HEALTHY AND BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN.—Thoughtless mortal! Before you allow the first goings forth of love, learn what the parental conditions in you mean, and you will confer a great boon upon the prospective bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh! If it is in your power to be the parent of beautiful, healthy, moral and talented children instead of diseased and depraved, is it not your imperious duty then, to impart to them that physical power, moral perfection, and intellectual capability, which shall ennoble their lives and make them good people and good citizens?

6. PAUSE AND TREMBLE.—Prospective parents! Will you trifle with the dearest interests of your children? Will you in matters thus momentous, head-long rush

"Where angels dare not tread?"

Seeking only mere animal indulgence?—Well might cherubim shrink from assuming responsibilities thus momentous! Yet, how many parents tread this holy ground completely unprepared, and almost as thoughtlessly and ignorantly as brutes—entailing even loathsome diseases and {224} sensual propensities upon the fruit of their own bodies. Whereas they are bound, by obligations the most imperious, to bestow on them a good physical organization, along with a pure, moral, and strong intellectual constitution, or else not to become parents! Especially since it is easier to generate human angels than devils incarnate.

7. HEREDITARY DESCENT.—This great law of things, "Hereditary Descent," fully proves and illustrates in any required number and variety of cases, showing that progeny inherits the constitutional natures and characters, mental and physical, of parents, including pre-dispositions to consumption, insanity, all sorts of disease, etc., as well as longevity, strength, stature, looks, disposition, talents,—all that is constitutional. From what other source do or can they come? Indeed, who can doubt a truth as palpable as that children inherit some, and if some, therefore all, the physical and mental nature and constitution of parents, thus becoming almost their fac-similes?

8. ILLUSTRATIONS.—A whaleman was severely hurt by a harpooned and desperate whale turning upon the small boat, and, by his monstrous jaws, smashing it to pieces, one of which, striking him in his right side, crippled him for life. When sufficiently recovered, he married, according to previous engagement, and his daughter, born in due time, and closely resembling him in looks, constitution and character, has a weak and sore place corresponding in location with that of the injury of her father. Tubercles have been found in the lungs of infants at birth, born of consumptive parents,—a proof, clear and demonstrative, that children inherit the several states of parental physiology existing at the time they received their physiological constitution. The same is true of the transmission of those diseases consequent on the violation of the law of chastity, and the same conclusion established thereby.

9. PARENT'S PARTICIPATION.—Each parent furnishing an indispensable portion of the materials of life, and somehow or other, contributes parentally to the formation of the constitutional character of their joint product, appears far more reasonable, than to ascribe, as many do, the whole to either, some to paternity, others to maternity. Still this decision go which way it may, does not affect the great fact that children inherit both the physiology and the mentality existing in parents at the time they received being and constitution.

10. ILLEGITIMATES OR BASTARDS also furnish strong proof of the correctness of this our leading doctrine. They are generally lively, sprightly, witty, frolicsome, knowing, {225} quick of perception, apt to learn, full of passion, quick-tempered, impulsive throughout, hasty, indiscreet, given to excesses, yet abound in good feeling, and are well calculated to enjoy life, though in general sadly deficient in some essential moral elements.

11. CHARACTER OF ILLEGITIMATES.—Wherein, then, consists this difference? First, in "novelty lending an enchantment" rarely experienced in sated wedlock, as well as in power of passion sufficient to break through all restraint, external and internal; and hence their high wrought organization. They are usually wary and on the alert, and their parents drank "stolen waters." They are commonly wanting in moral balance, or else delinquent in some important moral aspect; nor would they have ever been born unless this had been the case, for the time being at least, with their parents. Behold in these, and many other respects easily cited, how striking the coincidence between their characters on the one hand, and, on the other, those parental conditions necessarily attendant on their origin.

12. CHILDREN'S CONDITION depends upon parents' condition at the time of the sexual embrace. Let parents recall, as nearly as may be their circumstances and states of body and mind at this period, and place them by the side of the physical and mental constitutions of their children, and then say whether this law is not a great practical truth, and if so, its importance is as the happiness and misery it is capable of affecting! The application of this mighty engine of good or evil to mankind, to the promotion of human advancement, is the great question which should profoundly interest all parents.

13. THE VITAL PERIOD.—The physical condition of parents at the vital period of transmission of life should be a perfect condition of health in both body and mind, and a rigorous condition of all the animal organs and functions.

14. MUSCULAR PREPARATION.—Especially should parents cultivate their muscular system preparatory to the perfection of this function, and of their children; because, to impart strength and stamina to offspring they must of necessity both possess a good muscular organization, and also bring it into vigorous requisition at this period. For this reason, if for no other, let those of sedentary habits cultivate muscular energy preparatory to this time of need.

15. THE SEED.—So exceedingly delicate are the seeds of life, that, unless planted in a place of perfect security, they must all be destroyed, and our race itself extinguished. And what place is as secure as that chosen, where they can {226} be reached only with the utmost difficulty, and than only at the peril of even life itself? Imperfect seed sown in poor ground means a sickly harvest.

16. HEALTHY PEOPLE—MOST CHILDREN.—The most healthy classes have the most numerous families; but that, as luxury enervates society, it diminishes the population, by enfeebling parents, nature preferring none rather than those too weakly to live and be happy, and thereby rendering that union unfruitful which is too feeble to produce offspring sufficiently strong to enjoy life. Debility and disease often cause barrenness. Nature seems to rebel against sickly offspring.

17. WHY CHILDREN DIE.—Inquire whether one or both the parents of those numerous children that die around us, have not weak lungs, or a debilitated stomach, or a diseased liver, or feeble muscles, or else use them but little, or disordered nerves, or some other debility or form of disease. The prevalence of summer complaints, colic, cholera infantum, and other affections of these vital organs of children is truly alarming, sweeping them into their graves by the million. Shall other animals rear nearly all their young, and shall man, constitutionally by far the strongest of them all, lose half or more of his? Is this the order of nature? No, but their death-worm is born in and with them, and by parental agency.

18. GRAVE-YARD STATISTICS.—Take grave-yard statistics in August, and then say, whether most of the deaths of children are not caused by indigestion, or feebleness of the bowels, liver, etc., or complaints growing out of them? Rather, take family statistics from broken-hearted parents! And yet, in general, those very parents who thus suffer more than words can tell, were the first and main transgressors, because they entailed those dyspeptic, heart, and other kindred affections so common among American parents upon their own children, and thereby almost as bad as killed them by inches; thus depriving them of the joys of life, and themselves of their greatest earthly treasure!

19. ALL CHILDREN MAY DIE.—Children may indeed die whose parents are healthy, but they almost must whose parents are essentially ailing in one or more of their vital organs; because, since they inherit this organ debilitated or diseased, any additional cause of sickness attacks this part first, and when it gives out, all go by the board together.

20. PARENTS MUST LEARN AND OBEY.—How infinitely more virtuous and happy would your children be if you should be healthy in body, and happy in mind, so as to beget in {227} them a constitutionally healthy and vigorous physiology, along with a serene and happy frame of mind! Words are utterly powerless in answer, and so is everything but a lifetime of consequent happiness or misery! Learn and obey, then, the laws of life and health, that you may both reap the rich reward yourself, and also shower down upon your children after you, blessings many and most exalted. Avoid excesses of all kinds, be temperate, take good care of the body and avoid exposures and disease, and your children will be models of health and beauty.

21. THE RIGHT CONDITION.—The great practical inference is, that those parents who desire intellectual and moral children, must love each other; because, this love, besides perpetually calling forth and cultivating their higher faculties, awakens them to the highest pitch of exalted action in that climax, concentration, and consummation of love which propagates their existing qualities, the mental endowment of offspring being proportionate to the purity and intensity of parental love.

22. THE EFFECTS.—The children of affectionate parents receive existence and constitution when love has rendered the mentality of their parents both more elevated and more active than it is by nature, of course the children of loving parents are both more intellectual and moral by nature than their parents. Now, if these children and their companions also love one another, this same law which renders the second generation better than the first, will of course render the third still better than the second, and thus of all succeeding generations.

23. ANIMAL IMPULSE.—You may preach and pray till doomsday—may send out missionaries, may circulate tracts and Bibles, and multiply revivals and all the means of grace, with little avail; because, as long as mankind go on, as now, to propagate by animal impulse, so long must their offspring be animal, sensual, devilish! But only induce parents cordially to love each other, and you thereby render their children constitutionally talented and virtuous. Oh! parents, by as much as you prefer the luxuries of concord to the torments of discord, and children that are sweet dispositioned and highly intellectual to those that are rough, wrathful, and depraved, be entreated to "love one another."



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{229}

Too Many Children.



1. LESSENING PAUPERISM.—Many of the agencies for lessening pauperism are afraid of tracing back its growth to the frequency of births under wretched conditions. One begins to question whether after all sweet charity or dignified philanthropy has not acted with an unwise reticence. Among the problems which defy practical handling this is the most complicated. The pauperism which arises from marriage is the result of the worst elements of character legalized. In America, where the boundaries of wedlock are practically boundless, it is not desirable, even were it possible, that the state should regulate marriage much further than it now does; therefore must the sociologist turn for aid to society in his struggle with pauperism.

2. RIGHT PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS OF BIRTH.—Society should insist upon the right spiritual and physical conditions for birth. It should be considered more than "a pity" when another child is born into a home too poor to receive it. The underlying selfishness of such an event should be recognized, for it brings motherhood under wrong conditions of health and money. Instead of each birth being the result of mature consideration and hallowed love, children are too often born as animals are born. To be sure the child has a father whom he can call by name. Better that there had never been a child.

3. WRONG RESULTS.—No one hesitates to declare that it is want of self-respect and morality which brings wrong results outside of marriage, but it is also the want of them which begets evil inside the marriage relation. Though there is nothing more difficult than to find the equilibrium between self-respect and self-sacrifice, yet on success in finding it depends individual and national preservation. The fact of being wife and mother or husband and father should imply dignity and joyousness, no matter how humble the home.

4. DIFFERENCE OF OPINION AMONGST PHYSICIANS.—In regard to teaching, the difficulties are great. As soon as one advances beyond the simplest subjects of hygiene, one is met with the difference of opinions among physicians. When each one has a different way of making a mustard plaster, no wonder that each has his own notions about everything else. One doctor recommends frequent births, another advises against them.

5. DIFFERENT NATURES.—If physiological facts are taught to a large class, there are sure to be some in it whose impressionable natures are excited by too much plain {230} speaking, while there are others who need the most open teaching in order to gain any benefit. Talks to a few persons generally are wiser than popular lectures. Especially are talks needed by mothers and unmothered girls who come from everywhere to the city.

6. BOYS AND YOUNG MEN.—It is not women alone who require the shelter of organizations and instruction, but boys and young men. There is no double standard of morality, though the methods of advocating it depend upon the sex which is to be instructed. Men are more concerned with the practical basis of morality than with its sentiment, and with the pecuniary aspects of domestic life than with its physical and mental suffering. We all may need medicine for moral ills, yet the very intangibleness of purity makes us slow to formulate rules for its growth. Under the guidance of the wise in spirit and knowledge, much can be done to create a higher standard of marriage and to proportion the number of births according to the health and income of parents.

7. FOR THE SAKE OF THE STATE.—If the home exists primarily for the sake of the individual, it exists secondarily for the sake of the state. Therefore, any home into which are continually born the inefficient children of inefficient parents, not only is a discomfort in itself, but it also furnishes members for the armies of the unemployed, which are tinkering and hindering legislation and demanding by the brute force of numbers that the state shall support them.

8. OPINIONS FROM HIGH AUTHORITIES.—In the statements and arguments made in the above we have not relied upon our own opinions and convictions, but have consulted the best authorities, and we hereby quote some of the highest authorities upon this subject.

9. REV. LEONARD DAWSON.—"How rapidly conjugal prudence might lift a nation out of pauperism was seen in France.—Let them therefore hold the maxim that the production of offspring with forethought and providence is rational nature. It was immoral to bring children into the world whom they could not reasonably hope to feed, clothe and educate."

10. MRS. FAWCETT.—"Nothing will permanently offset pauperism while the present reckless increase of population continues."

11. DR. GEORGE NAPHEYS.—"Having too many children unquestionably has its disastrous effects on both mother and {231} children as known to every intelligent physician. Two-thirds of all cases of womb disease, says Dr. Tilt, are traceable to child-bearing in feeble women. There are also women to whom pregnancy is a nine months' torture, and others to whom it is nearly certain to prove fatal. Such a condition cannot be discovered before marriage—The detestable crime of abortion is appallingly rife in our day. It is abroad in our land to an extent which would have shocked the dissolute women of pagan Rome—This wholesale, fashionable murder, how are we to stop it? Hundreds of vile men and women in our large cities subsist by this slaughter of the innocent."

12. REV. H. R. HAWEIS.—"Until it is thought a disgrace in every rank of society, from top to bottom of social scale, to bring into the world more children than you are able to provide for, the poor man's home, at least, must often be a purgatory—his children dinnerless, his wife a beggar—himself too often drunk—here, then, are the real remedies: first, control the family growth according to the family means of support."

13. MONTAGUE COOKSON.—"The limitation of the number of the family—is as much the duty of married persons as the observance of chastity is the duty of those that are unmarried."

14. JOHN STUART MILL.—"Every one has aright to live. We will suppose this granted. But no one has a right to bring children into life to be supported by other people. Whoever means to stand upon the first of these rights must renounce all pretension to the last. Little improvement can be expected in morality until the production of a large family is regarded in the same light as drunkenness or any other physical excess."

15. DR. T. D. NICHOLLS.—"In the present social state, men and women should refrain from having children unless they see a reasonable prospect of giving them suitable nurture and education."

16. REV. M. J. SAVAGE.—"Some means ought to be provided for checking the birth of sickly children."

17. DR. STOCKHAM.—"Thoughtful minds must acknowledge the great wrong done when children are begotten under adverse conditions. Women must learn the laws of life so as to protect themselves, and not be the means of bringing sin-cursed, diseased children into the world. The remedy is in the prevention of pregnancy, not in producing abortion."

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{232}

Small Families and the Improvement of the Race.

1. MARRIED PEOPLE MUST DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES.—It is the fashion of those who marry nowadays to have few children, often none. Of course this is a matter which married people must decide for themselves. As is stated in an earlier chapter, sometimes this policy is the wisest that can be pursued.



2. DISEASED PEOPLE.—Diseased people who are likely to beget only a sickly offspring, may follow this course, and so may thieves, rascals, vagabonds, insane and drunken persons, and all those who are likely to bring into the world beings that ought not to be here. But why so many well-to-do folks should pursue a policy adapted only to paupers and criminals, is not easy to explain. Why marry at all if not to found a family that shall live to bless and make glad the earth after father and mother are gone? It is not wise to rear too many children, nor is it wise to have too few. Properly brought up, they will make home a delight and parents happy.

3. POPULATION LIMITED.—Galton, in his great work on hereditary genius, observes that "the time may hereafter arrive in far distant years, when the population of this earth shall be kept as strictly within bounds of number and suitability of race, as the sheep of a well-ordered moor, or the plants in an orchard-house; in the meantime, let us do what we can to encourage the multiplication of the races best {233} fitted to invent and conform to a high and generous civilization."

4. SHALL SICKLY PEOPLE RAISE CHILDREN?—The question whether sickly people should marry and propagate their kind, is briefly alluded to in an early chapter of this work. Where father and mother are both consumptive the chances are that the children will inherit physical weakness, which will result in the same disease, unless great pains are taken to give them a good physical education, and even then the probabilities are that they will find life a burden hardly worth living.

5. NO REAL BLESSING.—Where one parent is consumptive and the other vigorous, the chances are just half as great. If there is a scrofulous or consumptive taint in the blood, beware! Sickly children are no comfort to their parents, no real blessing. If such people marry, they had better, in most cases, avoid parentage.

6. WELFARE OF MANKIND.—The advancement of the welfare of mankind is a most intricate problem: all ought to refrain from marriage who cannot avoid abject poverty for their children; for poverty is not only a great evil, but tends to its own increase by leading to recklessness in marriage. On the other hand, as Mr. Galton has remarked, if the prudent avoid marriage, while the reckless marry, the inferior members will tend to supplant the better members of society.

7. PREVENTIVES.—Remember that the thousands of preventives which are advertised in papers, private circulars, etc., are not only inefficient, unreliable and worthless, but positively dangerous, and the annual mortality of females in this country from this cause alone is truly horrifying. Study nature, and nature's laws alone will guide you safely in the path of health and happiness.

8. NATURE'S REMEDY.—Nature in her wise economy has prepared for overproduction, for during the period of pregnancy and nursing, and also most of the last half of each menstrual month, woman is naturally sterile; but this condition may become irregular and uncertain on account of stimulating drinks or immoral excesses.



{234}

The Generative Organs.



THE MALE GENERATIVE ORGANS AND THEIR STRUCTURE AND ADAPTATION.

1. The reproductive organs in man are the penis and testicles and their appendages.

2. The penis deposits the seminal life germ of the male. It is designed to fulfill the seed planting mission of human life.

3. In the accompanying illustration all the parts are named.

4. URETHRA.—The urethra performs the important mission of emptying the bladder, and is rendered very much larger by the passion, and the semen is propelled along through it by little layers of muscles on each side meeting {235} above and below. It is this canal that is inflamed by the disease known as gonorrhoea.

5. PROSTRATE GLAND.—The prostrate gland is located just before the bladder. It swells in men who have previously overtaxed it, thus preventing all sexual intercourse, and becomes very troublesome to void urine. This is a very common trouble in old age.

6. THE PENAL GLAND.—The penal gland, located at the end of the penis, becomes unduly enlarged by excessive action and has the consistency of India rubber. It is always enlarged by erection. It is this gland at the end that draws the semen forward. It is one of the most essential and wonderful constructed glands of the human body.

7. FEMALE MAGNETISM.—When the male organ comes in contact with female magnetism, the natural and proper excitement takes place. When excited without this female magnetism it becomes one of the most serious injuries to the human body. The male organ was made for a high and holy purpose, and woe be to him who pollutes his manhood by practicing the secret vice. He pays the penalty in after years either by the entire loss of sexual power, or by the afflictions of various urinary diseases.

8. NATURE PAYS all her debts, and when there is an abuse of organ, penalties must follow. If the hand is thrust into the fire it will be burnt.

* * * * *

THE FEMALE SEXUAL ORGANS.

* * * * *



1. The generative or reproductive organs of the human female are usually divided into the internal and external. Those regarded as internal are concealed from view and protected within the body. Those that can be readily perceived are termed external. The entrance of the vagina may be stated as the line of demarcation of the two divisions. {236}



2. HYMEN OR VAGINAL VALVE.—This is a thin membrane of half moon shape stretched across the opening of the vagina. It usually contains before marriage one or more small openings for the passage of the menses. This membrane has been known to cause much distress in many females at the first menstrual flow. The trouble resulting from the openings in the hymen not being large enough to let the flow through and consequently blocking up the vaginal canal, and filling the entire {237} internal sexual organs with blood; causing paroxysms and hysterics and other alarming symptoms. In such cases the hymen must be ruptured that a proper discharge may take place at once.

3. UNYIELDING HYMEN.—The hymen is usually ruptured by the first sexual intercourse, but sometimes it is so unyielding as to require the aid of a knife before coition can take place.

4. THE PRESENCE OF THE HYMEN was formerly considered a test of virginity, but this theory is no longer held by competent authorities, as disease or accidents or other circumstances may cause its rupture.

5. THE OVARIES.—The ovaries are little glands for the purpose of forming the female ova or egg. They are not fully developed until the period of puberty, and usually are about the size of a large chestnut. The are located in the broad ligaments between the uterus and the Fallopian tubes. During pregnancy the ovaries change position; they are brought farther into the abdominal cavity as the uterus expands.

6. OFFICE OF THE OVARY.—The ovary is to the female what the testicle is to the male. It is the germ vitalizing organ and the most essential part of the generative apparatus. The ovary is not only an organ for the formation of the ova, but is also designed for their separation when they reach maturity.

7. FALLOPIAN TUBES.—These are the ducts that lead from the ovaries to the uterus. They are entirely detached from the glands or ovaries, and are developed on both sides of the body.

8. OFFICE OF THE FALLOPIAN TUBES.—The Fallopian tubes have a double office: receiving the ova from the ovaries and conducting it into the uterus, as well as receiving the spermatic fluid of the male and conveying it from the uterus in the direction of the ovaries, the tubes being the seat of impregnation.



9. STERILITY IN FEMALES.—Sterility in the female is sometimes caused by a morbid adhesion of the tube to a portion of the ovary. By what power the mouth of the tube is directed toward a particular portion of an ovary from which the ovum is about to be discharged, remains entirely unknown, as does also the precise nature of the cause which effects this movement.

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{238}

THE MYSTERIES OF THE FORMATION OF LIFE.



1. SCIENTIFIC THEORIES.—Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, Tyndall, Meyer, and other renowned scientists, have tried to find the missing link between man and animal; they have also exhausted their genius in trying to fathom the mysteries of the beginning of life, or find where the animal and mineral kingdoms unite to form life; but they have added to the vast accumulation of theories only, and the world is but little wiser on this mysterious subject.

2. PHYSIOLOGY.—Physiology has demonstrated what physiological changes take place in the germination and formation of life, and how nature expresses the intentions of reproduction by giving animals distinctive organs with certain secretions for this purpose, etc. All the different stages of development can be easily determined, but how and why life takes place under such special condition and under no other, is an unsolved mystery.

3. OVARIES.—The ovaries are the essential parts of the generative system of the human female in which ova are matured. There are two ovaries, one on each side of the uterus, and connected with it by the Fallopian tubes. They are egg-shaped, about an inch in diameter, and furnish the {239} germs or ovules. These germs or ovules are very small, measuring about 1/120 of an inch in diameter.

4. DEVELOPMENT.—The ovaries develop with the growth of the female, so that finally at the period of puberty they ripen and liberate an ovum or germ vesicle, which is carried into the uterine cavity of the Fallopian tubes. By the aid of the microscope we find that these ova are composed of granular substance, in which is found a miniature yolk surrounded by a transparent membrane called the zona pellucida. This yolk contains a germinal vesicle in which can be discovered a nucleus, called the germinal spot. The process of the growth of the ovaries is very gradual, and their function of ripening and discharging one ovum monthly into the Fallopian tubes and uterus, is not completed until between the twelfth and fifteenth years.

5. WHAT SCIENCE KNOWS.—After the sexual embrace we know that the sperm is lifted within the genital passages or portion of the vagina and mouth of the uterus. The time between the deposit of the semen and fecundation varies according to circumstances. If the sperm-cell travels to the ovarium it generally takes from three to five days to make the journey. As Dr. Pierce says: "The transportation is aided by the ciliary processes (little hairs) of the mucous surface of the vaginal and uterine walls, as well as by its own vibratile movements. The action of the cilia, under the stimulus of the sperm, seems to be from without, inward. Even if a minute particle of sperm, less than a drop, be left upon the margin of the external genitals of the female, it is sufficient in amount to impregnate, and can be carried, by help of these cilia, to the ovaries."

6. CONCEPTION.—After intercourse at the proper time the liability to conception is very great. If the organs are in a healthy condition, conception must necessarily follow, and no amount of prudence and the most rigid precautions often fail to prevent pregnancy.

7. ONLY ONE ABSOLUTELY SAFE METHOD.—There is only one absolutely safe method to prevent conception, entirely free from danger and injury to health, and one that is in the reach of all; that is to refrain from union altogether.



{240}

PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION.



1. The question is always asked, "Can Conception be prevented at all times?" Certainly, this is possible; but such an interference with nature's laws is inadmissible, and perhaps never to be justified in any case whatever, except in cases of deformity or disease.

2. If the parties of a marriage are both feeble and so adapted to each other that their children are deformed, insane or idiots, then to beget offspring would be a flagrant wrong; if the mother's health is in such a condition as to forbid the right of laying the burden of motherhood upon her, then medical aid may safely come to her relief. If the man, however, respects his wife, he ought to come to her relief without the counsel of a physician. {241}

3. FORBEARANCE.—Often before the mother has recovered from the effects of bearing, nursing and rearing one child, ere she has regained proper tone and vigor of body and mind, she is unexpectedly overtaken, surprised by the manifestation of symptoms which again indicate pregnancy. Children thus begotten cannot become hardy and long-lived. By the love that parents may feel for their posterity, by the wishes for their success, by the hopes for their usefulness, by every consideration for their future well-being, let them exercise precaution and forbearance until the wife becomes sufficiently healthy and enduring to bequeath her own rugged, vital stamina to the child she bears in love.

4. IMPOSTORS.—During the past few years hundreds of books and pamphlets have been written on the subject, claiming that new remedies had been discovered for the prevention of conception, etc., but these are all money making devices to deceive the public, and enrich the pockets of miserable and unprincipled impostors.

5. THE FOLLIES OF PREVENTION.—Dr. Pancoast, an eminent authority, says: "The truth is, there is no medicine taken internally capable of preventing conception, and the person who asserts to the contrary, not only speaks falsely, but is both a knave and a fool. It is true enough that remedies may be taken to produce abortion after conception occurs; but those who prescribe and those who resort to such desperate expedients, can only be placed in the category of lunatics and assassins!"

6. PATENT MEDICINES.—If nature does not promptly respond, there are many patent medicines which when taken at the time the monthly flow is to begin, will produce the desired result. Let women beware; for it is only a question of a few years when their constitution, complexion, and health will be a sorry evidence of their folly. The woman who continually takes a drug to prevent conception, cannot retain her natural complexion; her eyes will become dull, her cheeks flabby, and she will show various evidences of poor health, and her sexual organs will soon become permanently impaired and hopelessly diseased.

7. FOOLISH DREAD OF CHILDREN.—What is more deplorable and pitiable than an old couple childless. Young people dislike the care and confinement of children and prefer society and social entertainments and thereby do great injustice and injury to their health and fit themselves in later years to visit infirmities and diseases upon their children. The vigilant and rigid measures which have to be resorted to in order to prevent conception for a period of years unfits many a wife for the production of healthy children. {242}

8. HAVING CHILDREN under proper circumstances never ruins the health and happiness of any woman. In fact, womanhood is incomplete without them. She may have a dozen or more, and still have better health than before marriage. It is having them too close together, and when she is not in a fit state, that her health gives way. Sometimes the mother is diseased; the outlet from the womb, as a result of laceration by a previous child-birth, is frequently enlarged, thus allowing conception to take place very readily, and hence she has children in rapid succession.

Besides the wrong to the mother in having children in such rapid succession, it is a great injustice to the babe in the womb and the one at the breast that they should follow each other so quickly that one is conceived while the other is nursing. One takes the vitality of the other; neither has sufficient nourishment, and both are started in life stunted and incomplete.