3. The general law that the reproductive act is performed only when

desired by the female, is sufficient ground for supposing that such should be the case with the human species also. The opinions of writers of note are given in the following quotations:-- "The approach of the sexes is, in its purest condition, the result of a natural instinct, the end of which is the reproduction of the species. Still, however, we are far from saying that this ultimate result is, in any proportion of cases, the actual thought in the minds of the parties engaged." "The very lively solicitations which spring from the genital sense, have no other end than to insure the perpetuity of the race."[12] [Footnote 12: Dr. Gardner.] "Observation fully confirms the views of inductive philosophy; for it proves to us that coitus, exercised otherwise than under the inspirations of honest instinct, is a cause of disease in both sexes, and of danger to the social order."[13] [Footnote 13: Mayer.] "It is incredible that the act of bringing men into life, that act of humanity, without contradiction of the most importance, should be the one of which there should have been the least supposed necessity for regulation, or which has been regulated the least beneficially."[14] [Footnote 14: Dunoyer.] "But it may be said that the demands of nature are, in the married state, not only legal, but should be physically right. So they are, when our physical life is right; but it must not be forgotten that few live in a truly physical rectitude."[15] [Footnote 15: Gardner.] "Among cattle, the sexes meet by common instinct and common will; it is reserved for the human animal to treat the female as a mere victim to his lust."[16] [Footnote 16: Quarterly Review.] "He is an ill husband that _uses his wife as a man treats a harlot_, having no other end but pleasure. Concerning which our best rule is, that although in this, as in eating and drinking, there is an appetite to be satisfied, which cannot be done without pleasing that desire, yet since that desire and satisfaction were intended by nature for other ends, they should never be separated from those ends." "It is a sad truth that many married persons, thinking that the flood-gates of liberty are set wide open, without measures or restraints (so they sail in the channel), have felt the final rewards of intemperance and lust by their unlawful using of lawful permissions. Only let each of them be temperate, and both of them modest."[17] [Footnote 17: Jeremy Taylor.] Says another writer very emphatically, "It is a common belief that a man and woman, because they are legally united in marriage, are privileged to the unbridled exercises of amativeness. This is wrong. Nature, in the exercise of her laws, recognizes no human enactments, and is as prompt to punish any infringement of her laws in those who are legally married, as in those out of the bonds. Excessive indulgence between the married produces as great and lasting evil effects as in the single man or woman, and is nothing more or less than legalized prostitution." Results of Excesses.--The sad results of excessive indulgences are seen on every hand. Numerous ailments attributed to overwork, constitutional disease, or hereditary predisposition, know no other cause and need no other explanation. _Effects upon Husbands_.--No doubt the principal blame in this matter properly falls upon the husband; but it cannot be said that he is the greatest sufferer; however, his punishment is severe enough to clearly indicate the enormity of the transgression, and to warn him to a reformation of his habits. The following is a quotation from an eminent medical authority:-- "But any warning against sexual dangers would be very incomplete if it did not extend to the excesses so often committed by married persons in ignorance of their ill effects. Too frequent emissions of the life-giving fluid, and too frequent excitement of the nervous system are, as we have seen, in themselves most destructive. The result is the same within the marriage bond as without it. The married man who thinks that because he is a married man he can commit no excess, however often the act of sexual congress is repeated, will suffer as certainly and as seriously as the unmarried debauchee who acts on the same principle in his indulgences--perhaps more certainly from his very ignorance, and from his not taking those precautions and following those rules which a career of vice is apt to teach the sensualist. Many a man has, until his marriage, lived a most continent life; so has his wife. As soon as they are wedded, intercourse is indulged in night after night, neither party having any idea that these repeated sexual acts are excesses which the system of neither can bear, and which to the man, at least, are absolute ruin. The practice is continued till health is impaired, sometimes permanently, and when a patient is at last obliged to seek medical advice, he is thunderstruck at learning that his sufferings arise from excesses unwittingly committed. Married people often appear to think that connection may be repeated as regularly and almost as often as their meals. Till they are told of the danger, the idea never enters their heads that they are guilty of great and almost criminal excess; nor is this to be wondered at, since the possibility of such a cause of disease is seldom hinted at by the medical man they consult." "Some go so far as to believe that indulgence may increase these powers, just as gymnastic exercises augment the force of the muscles. This is a popular error; and requires correction. Such patients should be told that the shock on the system each time connection is indulged in, is very powerful, and that the expenditure of seminal fluid must be particularly injurious to organs previously debilitated. It is by this and similar excesses that premature old age and complaints of the generative organs are brought on." "The length to which married people carry excesses is perfectly astonishing." "Since my attention has been particularly called to this class of ailments, I feel confident that many of the forms of indigestion, general ill health, hypochondriasis, etc., so often met with in adults, depend upon sexual excesses.... That this cause of illness is not more generally acknowledged and acted on, arises from the natural delicacy which medical men must feel in putting such questions to their patients as are necessary to elicit the facts." "It is not the body alone which suffers from excesses committed in married life. Experience every day convinces me that much of the languor of mind, confusion of ideas, and inability to control the thoughts, of which some married men complain, arise from this cause."[18] [Footnote 18: Acton.] The debilitating effects of excessive sexual indulgence arise from two causes; viz., the loss of the seminal fluid, and the nervous excitement. With reference to the value of the spermatic fluid, Dr. Gardner remarks:-- "The sperm is the purest extract of the blood.... Nature, in creating it, has intended it not only to communicate life, but also to nourish the individual life. In fact, the re-absorption of the fecundating liquid impresses upon the entire economy new energy, and a virility which contributes to the prolongation of life." Testimony of a French Physician.--A French author of considerable note,[19] remarks on the same subject:-- "Nothing costs the economy so much as the production of semen and its forced ejaculation. It has been calculated that an ounce of semen was equivalent to forty ounces of blood.... Semen is the essence of the whole individual. Hence, Fernel has said, 'Totus homo semen est.' It is the balm of life.... That which gives life is intended for its preservation." [Footnote 19: Parise.] It may be questioned, perhaps, whether physiology will sustain to the fullest extent all the statements made in the last quotation; but perhaps physiology does not appreciate so fully as does pathology the worth of the most vital of all fluids, and the fearful results which follow its useless expenditure. Continence of Trainers.--"The moderns who are training are well aware that sexual indulgence wholly unfits them for great feats of strength, and the captain of a boat strictly forbids his crew anything of the sort just previous to a match. Some trainers have gone so far as to assure me that they can discover by a man's style of pulling whether he has committed such a breach of discipline over night, and have not scrupled to attribute the occasional loss of matches to this cause."[20] [Footnote 20: Acton.] A Cause of Throat Disease.--The disease known as "_clergyman's sore throat_" is believed by many eminent physicians to have its chief origin in excessive venery. It is well known that sexual abuse is a very potent cause of throat diseases. This view is supported by the following from the pen of the learned Dr. X. Bourgeois:-- "We ought not, then, to be surprised that the physiological act, requiring so great an expenditure of vitality, must be injurious in the highest degree, when it is reiterated abusively. To engender is to give a portion of one's life. Does not he who is prodigal of himself precipitate his own ruin? A peculiar character of the diseases which have their origin in venereal excesses and masturbation is chronicity." "Individual predispositions, acquired or hereditary, engender for each a series of peculiar ills. In some, the debility bears upon the pulmonary organs. Hence results the dry cough, prolonged hoarseness, stitch in the side, spitting of blood, and finally phthisis. How many examples are there of young debauchees who have been devoured by this cruel disease!... It is, of all the grave maladies, the one which venereal abuses provoke the most frequently. Portal, Bayle, Louis, say this distinctly." A Cause of Consumption.--This fatal disease finds a large share of its victims among those addicted to sexual excesses, either of an illicit nature or within the marriage pale, for the physical effects are essentially identical. This cause is especially active and fatal with sedentary persons, but is sufficiently powerful to undermine the constitution under the most favorable circumstances, as the following case illustrates:-- The patient was a young man of twenty-two, large, muscular, and well developed, having uncommonly broad shoulders and a full chest. His occupation had been healthful, that of a laborer. Had had cough for several months, and was spitting blood. Examination of lungs showed that they were hopelessly diseased. There was no trace of consumption in the family, and the only cause to which the disease could be attributed was excessive sexual indulgence, which he confessed to have practiced for several years. Effects on Wives.--If husbands are great sufferers, as we have seen, wives suffer still more terribly, being of feebler constitution, and hence less able to bear the frequent shock which is suffered by the nervous system. Dr. Gardner places this evil prominent among the causes "the result of which we see deplored in the public press of the day, which warns us that the American race is fast dying out, and that its place is being filled by emigrants of different lineage, religion, political ideas, and education." The same author remarks further on the results of this with other causes which largely grow out of it:-- "It has been a matter of common observation that the physical status of the women of Christendom has been gradually deteriorating; that their mental energies were uncertain and spasmodic; that they were prematurely care-worn, wrinkled, and enervated; that they became subject to a host of diseases scarcely ever known to the professional men of past times, but now familiar to, and the common talk of, the matrons, and often, indeed, of the youngest females in the community." So prevalent are these maladies that Michelet says with truth that the present is the "age of womb diseases." Every physician of observation and experience has met many cases illustrative of the serious effects of the evil named. Some years ago, when acting as assistant physician in a large dispensary in an Eastern city, a young woman applied for examination and treatment. She presented a great variety of nervous symptoms, prominent among which were those of mild hysteria and nervous exhaustion, together with impaired digestion and violent palpitation of the heart. In our inquiries respecting the cause of these difficulties, we learned that she had been married but about six months. A little careful questioning elicited the fact that sexual indulgence was invariably practiced every night, and often two or three times, occasionally as many as four times a night. We had the key to her troubles at once, and ordered entire continence for a month. From her subsequent reports I learned that her husband would not allow her to comply with the request, but that indulgence was much less frequent than before. The result was not all that could be desired, but there was marked improvement. If the husband had been willing to "do right," entire recovery would have taken place with rapidity. Another case came under our observation in which the patient, a man, confessed to having indulged every night for twenty years. We did not wonder that at forty he was a complete physical wreck. The Greatest Cause of Uterine Disease.--Dr. J. R. Black remarks as follows on this subject:-- "Medical writers agree that one of the most common causes of the many forms of derangement to which woman is subject consists in excessive cohabitation. The diseases known as menorrhagia, dysmenorrhoea, leucorrhoea, amenorrhoea, abortions, prolapsus, chronic inflammations and ulcerations of the womb, with a yet greater variety of sympathetic nervous disorders, are some of the distressing forms of these derangements. The popular way of accounting for many of these ills is that they come from colds or from straining lifts. But if colds and great strain upon the parts in question develop such diseases, why are they not seen among the inferior animals? The climatic alternations they endure, the severe labor some of them are obliged to perform, ought to cause their ruin; or else in popular phrase, 'make them catch their deaths from cold.'" Legalized Murder.--A medical writer of considerable ability presents the following picture, the counterpart of which almost any one can recall as having occurred within the circle of his acquaintance; perhaps numerous cases will be recalled by one who has been especially observing:-- "A man of great vital force is united to a woman of evenly-balanced organization. The husband, in the exercise of what he is pleased to term his 'marital rights,' places his wife, in a short time, on the nervous, delicate, sickly list. In the blindness and ignorance of his animal nature, he requires prompt obedience to his desires; and, ignorant of the law of right in this direction, thinking that it is her duty to accede to his wishes, though fulfilling them with a sore and troubled heart, she allows him passively, never lovingly, to exercise daily and weekly, month in and month out, the low and beastly of his nature, and eventually, slowly but surely, to kill her. And this man, who has as surely committed murder as has the convicted assassin, lures to his net and takes unto him another wife, to repeat the same programme of legalized prostitution on his part, and sickness and premature death on her part." Prof. Gerrish, in a little work from which we take the liberty to quote, speaks as follows on this subject:-- "One man reckless of his duty to the community, marries young, with means and prospects inadequate to support the family which is so sure to come ere long. His ostensible excuse is love; his real reason the gratification of his carnal instincts. Another man, in exactly similar circumstances, but too conscientious to assume responsibilities which he cannot carry, and in which failure must compromise the comfort and tax the purses of people from whom he has no right to extort luxuries, forbears to marry; but, feeling the passions of his sex, and being imbued with the prevalent errors on such matters, resorts for relief to unlawful coition. At the wedding of the former, pious friends assemble with their presents and congratulations, and bid the legalized prostitution Godspeed. Love shields the crime, all the more easily because so many of the rejoicing guests have sinned in precisely the same way. The other man has no festival gathering.... Society applauds the first and frowns on the second; but, to my mind, the difference between them is not markedly in favor of the former." "We hear a good deal said about certain crimes against nature, such as pederasty and sodomy, and they meet with the indignant condemnation of all right-minded persons. The statutes are especially severe on offenders of this class, the penalty being imprisonment between one and ten years, whereas fornication is punished by imprisonment for not more than sixty days and a fine of less than one hundred dollars. But the query very pertinently arises just here as to whether the use of the condom and defertilizing injections is not equally a crime against nature, and quite as worthy of our detestation and contempt. And, further, when we consider the brute creation, and see that they, guided by instinct, copulate only when the female is in proper physiological condition and yields a willing consent, it may be suggested that congress between men and women may, in certain circumstances, be a crime against nature, and one far worse in its results than any other. Is it probable that a child born of a connection to which the woman objects will possess that felicitous organization which every parent should earnestly desire and endeavor to bestow on his offspring? Can the unwelcome fruit of a rape be considered, what every child has a right to be, a pledge of affection? Poor little Pip, in 'Great Expectations,' spoke as the representative of a numerous class when he said, 'I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends.' We enjoin the young to honor father and mother, never thinking how undeserving of respect are those whose children suffer from inherited ills, the result of the selfishness and carelessness of their parents in begetting them. "These accidental pregnancies are the great immediate cause of the enormously common crime of abortion, concerning which the morals of the people are amazingly blunted. The extent of the practice may be roughly estimated by the number of standing advertisements in the family newspapers, in which feticide is warranted safe and secret. It is not the poor only who take advantage of such nefarious opportunities; but the rich shamelessly patronize these professional and cowardly murderers of defenseless infancy. Madame Restell, who recently died by her own hand in New York, left a fortune of a million dollars, which she had accumulated by producing abortions." A husband who has not sunk in his carnality too far below the brute creation will certainly pause a moment, in the face of such terrible facts, before he continues his sensual, selfish, murderous course. Indulgence during Menstruation.--The following remarks which our own professional experience has several times confirmed, reveal a still more heinous violation of nature's laws:-- "To many it may seem that it is unnecessary to caution against contracting relationships at the period of the monthly flow, thinking that the instinctive laws of cleanliness and delicacy were sufficient to refrain the indulgence of the appetites; but they are little cognizant of the true condition of things in this world. Often have I had husbands inform me that they had not missed having sexual relations with their wives once or more times a day for several years; and scores of women with delicate frames and broken-down health have revealed to me similar facts, and I have been compelled to make personal appeals to the husbands."[21] [Footnote 21: Gardner.] The following is an important testimony by an eminent physician[22] upon the same point:-- "Females whose health is in a weak state ... become liable, in transgressing this law, to an infectious disorder, which, it is commonly supposed, can only originate or prevail among disreputable characters; but Dr. Bumstead and a number of other eminent authorities believe and teach that gonorrhoea may originate among women entirely virtuous in the ordinary sense of the term. That excessive venery is the chief cause that originates this peculiar form of inflammation, has long been the settled opinion of medical men." [Footnote 22: Dr. J. R. Black.] It seems scarcely possible that such enormity could be committed by any human being, at least by civilized men, and in the face of the injunctions of Moses to the Jews, to say nothing of the evident indecency of the act. The Jews still maintain their integrity to the observance of this command of their ancient lawgiver. "Reason and experience both show that sexual relations at the menstrual period are very dangerous to both man and woman, and perhaps also for the offspring, should there chance to be conception."[23] [Footnote 23: Mayer.] The woman suffers from the congestion and nervous excitement which occur at the most inopportune moment possible. Man may suffer physical injury, though there are no grounds for the assertions of Pliny that the menstrual blood is so potent for evil that it will, by a mere touch, rust iron, render a tree sterile, make dogs mad, etc., or that of Paracelsus that "of it the devil makes spiders, fleas, caterpillars, and all the other insects that people the air." Effects upon Offspring.--That those guilty of the transgression should suffer, seems only just; but that an innocent being who had no part in the sin--no voice in the time or manner of its advent into the world--that such a one should suffer equally, if not more bitterly, with the transgressors themselves, seems anything but just. But such is nature's inexorable law, that the iniquities of the parents shall be visited upon the children; and this fact should be a most powerful influence to prevent parental transgression, especially in this direction, in which the dire consequences fall so heavily and so immediately upon an innocent being. Says Acton, "The ill effects of marital excesses are not confined to offending parties. No doubt can exist that many of the obscure cases of sickly children, born of apparently healthy parents, arise from this cause; and this is borne out by investigations amongst animals." Breeders of stock who wish to secure sound progeny will not allow the most robust stallion to associate with mares as many times during the whole season as some of these salacious human males perform a similar act within a month. One reason why the offspring suffer is that the seminal fluid deteriorates very rapidly by repeated indulgence. The spermatozoa do not have time to become maturely developed. Progeny resulting from such immature elements will possess the same deficiency. Hence the hosts of deformed, scrofulous, weazen, and idiotic children which curse the race, and testify to the sensuality of their progenitors. Another reason is the physical and nervous exhaustion which the parents bring upon themselves, and which totally unfits them to beget sound, healthy offspring. The effects of this evil may often be traced in a large family of children, nearly all of whom show traces of the excesses of their parents. It commonly happens, too, that such large families are on the hands of poor men who cannot earn enough to give them sufficient food and comfortable clothing, with nothing whatever to provide for their education. The overburdened mother has her strength totally exhausted by the excessive demands upon her system incident to child-bearing, so that she is unable to give her children that culture and training which all children need. More than as likely as not she feels that they were forced upon her, and hence she cannot hold for them all that tender sympathy and affection a mother should feel. The little ones grow up ignorant and often vicious; for want of home care drives them to the street. Thus does one evil create another. It is certainly a question which deserves some attention, whether it is not a sin for parents to bring into the world more children than they can properly care for. If they can rear and educate three children properly, the same work would be only half done for six; and there are already in the world a sufficiency of half-raised people. From this class of society the ranks of thieves, drunkards, beggars, vagabonds, and prostitutes, are recruited. Why should it be considered an improper or immoral thing to limit the number of children according to the circumstances of the parents? Ought it not to be considered a crime against childhood and against the race to do otherwise? It is seriously maintained by a number of distinguished persons that man "is in duty bound to limit the number of his children as well as the sheep on his farm; the number of each to be according to the adequacy of his means for their support." Indulgence during Pregnancy.--Transgressions of this sort are followed by the worst results of any form of marital excess. The mother suffers doubly, because laden with the burden of supporting two lives instead of one. But the results upon the child are especially disastrous. During the time when it is receiving its stock of vitality, while its plastic form is being molded, and its various organs acquiring that integrity of structure which makes up what is called constitutional vigor,--during this most critical of all periods in the life of the new being, its resources are exhausted and its structure depraved--and thus constitutional tendencies to disease produced--by the unnatural demands made upon the mother. Effect upon the Character.--Still another terrible consequence results from this practice so contrary to nature. The delicate brain, which is being molded, with the other organs of the body, receives its cast largely from those mental and nervous sensations and actions of the mother which are the most intense. One of the most certain effects of sexual indulgence at this time is to develop abnormally the sexual instinct in the child. Here is the key to the origin of much of the sexual precocity and depravity which curse humanity. Sensuality is born in the souls of a large share of the rising generation. What wonder that prostitution flourishes in spite of Christianity and civil law? It is scarcely necessary to say that all medical testimony concurs in forbidding indulgence during gestation. The same reasons require its interdiction during the nursing period. The fact that fecundation would be impossible during pregnancy, and that during this period the female, normally, has no sexual desire, are other powerful arguments in favor of perfect continence at this time. We quote the following from a work on health by Dr. J. R. Black:-- "Coition during pregnancy is one of the ways in which the predisposition is laid for that terrible disease in children, epilepsy. The unnatural excitement of the nervous system in the mother by such a cause cannot operate otherwise than by inflicting injury upon the tender germ in her womb. This germ, it must be remembered, derives every quality it possesses from the parents, as well as every particle of matter of which it is composed. The old notion of anything like spontaneity in the development of the qualities of a new being is at variance with all the latest facts and inductions concerning reproduction. And so is that of a creative fiat. The smallest organic cell, as well as the most complicated organism, in form and quality, is wholly dependent upon the laws of derivation. "These laws are competent to explain, however subtle the ultimate process may be, the great diversities of human organization and character. Impressions from without, the emotions, conduct, and play of the organic processes within, are never alike from day to day, or from hour to hour; and it is from the aggregate of these in the parents, but especially of those in the mother immediately before and after conception, that the quality of the offspring is determined. Suppose, then, that there is every now and then an unnatural, excited, and exhausted state of the nervous system produced in the mother by excessive cohabitation, is it any wonder that the child's nervous system, which derives its qualities from those of its parents, should take its peculiar stamp from that of the parent in whom it lives, moves, and has its being? "In the adult, epilepsy is frequently developed by excessive venery; and the child born with such a predisposition will be exceedingly liable to the disease during its early years when the nervous system is notoriously prone to deranged action from very slight disturbing causes. "The infringement of this law regulating intercourse during pregnancy also reacts injuriously upon the mental capacity of the child, tending to give it a stupid, animalized look; and, there is also good reason to believe, aids in developing the idiotic condition." A Selfish Objection.--The married man will raise the plea that indulgence is to him a necessity. He has only to practice the principles laid down for the maintenance of continence to entirely remove any such necessity should there be the slightest semblance of a real demand. Again, what many mistake for an indication of the necessity for indulgence, to relieve an accumulation of semen, is in fact, to state the exact truth, but a call of nature for a movement of the bowels. How this may occur, has already been explained, as being due to the pressure of the distended rectum upon the internal organs of generation situated at the base of the bladder. It is for this reason, chiefly, that a good share of sexual excesses occur in the morning. But, aside from all other considerations, is it not the most supreme selfishness for a man to consider only himself in his sexual relations, making his wife wholly subservient to his own desires? As a learned professor remarks, in speaking of woman, "Who has a right to regard her as a therapeutic agent?" Brutes and Savages More Considerate.--It is only the civilized, Christianized (?) male human being who complains of the restraint imposed upon him by the laws of nature. The untutored barbarian, even some of the lowest of those who wear the human form, together with nearly all of the various classes of lower animals, abstain from sexual indulgence during pregnancy. The natives of the Gold Coast and many other African tribes regard it as a shameful offense to cohabit during gestation. In the case of lower animals, even when the male desires indulgence, the female resents any attempt of the sort by the most vigorous resistance. Are not these wholesome lessons for that portion of the human race which professes to represent the accumulated wisdom, intelligence, and refinement of the world? Those who need reproof on this point may reflect that by a continuance of the evil practice they are placing themselves on a plane even below the uncouth negro who haunts the jungles of Southern Africa. We quote the following from the pen of a talented professor in a well-known medical college:-- "I believe we cannot too strenuously insist upon this point--that sexual intercourse should never be undertaken with any other object than procreation, and never then unless the conditions are favorable to the production of a new being who will be likely to have cause to thankfully bless his parents for the gift of life. If this rule were generally observed, we should have no broken-nosed Tristram Shandys complaining of the carelessness of their fathers in begetting them."[24] [Footnote 24: Dr. Gerrish.] What May Be Done?--But what is the practical conclusion to be drawn from all the foregoing? What _should_ people do? what _may_ they do? Dr. Gardner offers the following remarks, which partially answer the questions:-- "We have shown that we can 'DO RIGHT' without prejudice to health by the exercise of continence. Self-restraint, the ruling of the passions, is a virtue, and is within the power of all well-regulated minds. Nor is this necessarily perpetual or absolute. The passions may be restrained within proper limitations. He who indulges in lascivious thoughts may stimulate himself to frenzy; but if his mind were under proper control, he would find other employment for it, and his body, obedient to its potent sway, would not become the master of the man." What are the "proper limitations," every person must decide for himself in view of the facts which have been presented. If he find that the animal in his nature is too strong to allow him to comply with what seems to be the requirements of natural law, let him approximate as nearly to the truth as possible. "Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind," and act accordingly, not forgetting that this is a matter with serious moral bearings, and, hence, one in which conscience should be on the alert. It is of no use to reject truth because it is unpalatable. There can be nothing worse for a man than to "know the truth and do it not." It is but fair to say that there is a wide diversity of opinion among medical men on this subject. A very few hold that the sexual act should never be indulged except for the purpose of reproduction, and then only at periods when reproduction will be possible. Others, while equally opposed to the excesses, the effects of which have been described, limit indulgence to the number of months in the year. Read, reflect, weigh well the matter, then fix upon a plan of action, and, if it be in accordance with the dictates of better judgment, do not swerve from it. If the suggestion made near the outset of these remarks, in comparing the reproductive function in man and animals--viz., that the seasons of sexual approach should be governed by the inclination of the female--were conscientiously followed, it would undoubtedly do away with at least three-fourths of the excesses which have been under consideration. Before rejecting the hint so plainly offered by nature, let every man consider for a moment whether he has any other than purely selfish arguments to produce against it. Early Moderation.--The time of all others when moderation is most imperatively demanded, yet least likely to be practiced, is at the beginning of matrimonial life. Many a woman dates the beginning of a life of suffering from the first night after marriage; and the mental suffering from the disgusting and even horrible recollections of that night, the events of which were scarred upon her mind as well as upon her body, have made her equally as wretched mentally as bodily. A learned French writer, in referring to this subject, says, "The husband who begins with his wife by a rape is a lost man. He will never be loved." We quote the following very sensible words from Dr. Napheys:-- "It sometimes happens that marriage is consummated with difficulty. To overcome this, care, management, and forbearance should always be employed, and anything like precipitation and violence avoided." Cases have come under our care of young wives who have required months of careful treatment to repair the damage inflicted on their wedding night. A medical writer has reported a case in which he was called upon to testify in a suit for divorce, which is an illustration of so gross a degree of sensuality that the perpetrator certainly deserved most severe punishment. The victim, a beautiful and accomplished young lady, to please her parents, was married to a man much older than herself, riches being the chief attraction. She at once began to pine, and in a very few months was a complete wreck. Emaciated, spiritless, haggard, she was scarcely a shadow of her former self. The physician who was called in, upon making a local examination, found those delicate organs in a state of most terrible laceration and inflammation. The bladder, rectum, and other adjacent organs, were highly inflamed, and sensitive in the highest degree. Upon inquiring respecting the cause, he found that from the initial night she had been subjected to the most excessive demands by her husband, "day and night." The tortures she had undergone had been terrific; and her mind trembled upon the verge of insanity. She entered suit for divorce on the charge of cruelty, but was defeated, the judge ruling that the law has no jurisdiction in matters of that sort. In another somewhat similar case which came to our knowledge, a young wife was delivered from the lecherous assaults of her husband--for they were no better--by the common sense of her neighbor friends, who gathered in force and insisted upon their discontinuance. It is only now and then that cases of this sort come to the surface. The majority of them are hidden deep down in the heart of the poor, heart-broken wife, and too often they are hidden along with the victim in an early grave. PREVENTION OF CONCEPTION: ITS EVILS AND DANGERS. The evil considered in the preceding section is by far the greatest cause of those which will be dwelt upon in this. Excesses are habitually practiced through ignorance or carelessness of their direct results, and then to prevent the legitimate result of the reproductive act, innumerable devices are employed to render it fruitless. To even mention all of these would be too great a breach of propriety, even in this plain-spoken work; but accurate description is unnecessary, since those who need this warning are perfectly familiar with all the foul accessories of evil thus employed. We cannot do better than to quote from the writings of several of the most eminent authors upon this subject. The following paragraphs are from the distinguished Mayer, who has already been frequently quoted:-- "The numerous stratagems invented by debauch to annihilate the natural consequences of coition, have all the same end in view." Conjugal Onanism.--"The soiling of the conjugal bed by the shameful maneuvers to which we have made allusion, is mentioned for the first time in Gen. 38:6, and following verses: 'And it came to pass, when he [Onan] went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. And the thing which he did displeased the Lord; wherefore he slew him.' "Hence the name of _conjugal onanism_. "One cannot tell to what great extent this vice is practiced, except by observing its consequences, even among people who fear to commit the slightest sin, to such a degree is the public conscience perverted upon this point. Still, many husbands know that nature often succeeds in rendering nugatory the most subtle calculations, and reconquers the rights which they have striven to frustrate. No matter; they persevere, none the less, and by the force of habit they poison the most blissful moments of life, with no surety of averting the result that they fear. So, who knows if the infants, too often feeble and weazen, are not the fruit of these in themselves incomplete _procreations_, and disturbed by preoccupations foreign to the generic act? Is it not reasonable to suppose that the creative power, not meeting in its disturbed functions the conditions necessary for the elaboration of a normal product, the conception might be from its origin imperfect, and the being which proceeded therefrom, one of those monsters which are described in treatises on teratology?" "Let us see, now, what are the consequences to those given to this practice of conjugal onanism. "We have at our disposition numerous facts which rigorously prove the disastrous influence of abnormal coitus to the woman, but we think it useless to publish them. All practitioners have more or less observed them, and it will only be necessary for them to call upon their memories to supply what our silence leaves. 'However, it is not difficult to conceive,' says Dr. Francis Devay, 'the degree of perturbation that a like practice should exert upon the genital system of woman by provoking desires which are not gratified. A profound stimulation is felt through the entire apparatus; the uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries enter into a state of orgasm, a storm which is not appeased by the natural crisis; a nervous super-excitation persists. There occurs, then, what would take place if, presenting food to a famished man, one should snatch it from his mouth after having thus violently excited his appetite. The sensibilities of the womb and the entire reproductive system are teased for no purpose. It is to this cause, too often repeated, that we should attribute the multiple neuroses, those strange affections which originate in the genital system of woman. Our conviction respecting them is based upon a great number of observations. Furthermore, the normal relations existing between the married couple undergo unfortunate changes; this affection, founded upon reciprocal esteem, is little by little effaced by the repetition of an act which pollutes the marriage bed; from thence proceed certain hard feelings, certain deep impressions which, gradually growing, eventuate in the scandalous ruptures of which the community rarely know the real motive.' "If the good harmony of families and their reciprocal relations are seriously menaced by the invasion of these detestable practices, the health of women, as we have already intimated, is fearfully injured. A great number of neuralgias appear to us to have no other cause. Many women that we have interrogated on this matter have fortified this opinion. But that which to us has passed to the condition of incontestable proof, is the prevalence of uterine troubles, of enervation among the married, hysterical symptoms which are met with in the conjugal relation as often as among young virgins, arising from the vicious habits of the husbands in their conjugal intercourse.... Still more, there is a graver affection, which is daily increasing, and which, if nothing arrests its invasion, will soon have attained the proportions of a scourge; we speak of the degeneration of the womb. We do not hesitate to place in the foremost rank, among the causes of this redoubtable disease, the refinements of civilization, and especially the artifices introduced in our day in the generic act. When there is no procreation, although the procreative faculties are excited, we see these pseudo-morphoses arise. Thus it is noticed that polypi and schirrus [cancer] of the womb are common among prostitutes. And it is easy to account for the manner of action of this pathogenetic cause, if we consider how probable it is that the ejaculation and contact of the sperm with the uterine neck, constitutes, for the woman, the crisis of the genital function, by appeasing the venereal orgasm and calming the voluptuous emotions under the action of which the entire economy is convulsed." "We may, we trust, be pardoned for remarking upon the artifices imagined to prevent fecundation that there is in them an immense danger, of incalculable limits. We do not fear to be contradicted or taxed with exaggeration in elevating them into the proportions of a true calamity." The following is from an eminent physician[25] who for many years devoted his whole attention to the diseases of women and lectured upon the subject in a prominent medical college:-- "It is undeniable that all the methods employed to prevent pregnancy are physically injurious. Some of these have been characterized with sufficient explicitness, and the injury resulting from incomplete coitus to both parties has been made evident to all who are willing to be convinced. It should require but a moment's consideration to convince any one of the harmfulness of the common use of cold ablutions and astringent infusions and various medicated washes. Simple and often wonderfully salutary as is cold water to a diseased limb, festering with inflammation, yet few are rash enough to cover a gouty toe, rheumatic knee, or erysipelatous head with cold water.... Yet, when in the general state of nervous and physical excitement attendant upon coitus, when the organs principally engaged in this act are congested and turgid with blood, do you think you can with impunity throw a flood of cold or even lukewarm water far into the vitals in a continual stream? Often, too, women add strong medicinal agents, intended to destroy by dissolution the spermatic germs, ere they have time to fulfill their natural destiny. These powerful astringents suddenly corrugate and close the glandular structure of the parts, and this is followed, necessarily, by a corresponding reaction, and the final result is debility and exhaustion, signalized by leucorrhoea, prolapsus, and other diseases. "Finally, of the use of intermediate tegumentary coverings, made of thin rubber or gold-beater's skin, and so often relied upon as absolute preventives, Madame de Stael is reputed to have said, 'They are cobwebs for protection, and bulwarks against love.' Their employment certainly must produce a feeling of shame and disgust utterly destructive of the true delight of pure hearts and refined sensibilities. They are suggestive of licentiousness and the brothel, and their employment degrades to bestiality the true feelings of manhood and the holy state of matrimony. Neither do they give, except in a very limited degree, the protection desired. Furthermore, they produce (as alleged by the best modern French writers, who are more familiar with the effect of their use than we are in the United States) certain physical lesions from their irritating presence as foreign bodies, and also, from the chemicals employed in their fabrication, and other effects inseparable from their employment, ofttimes of a really serious nature. "I will not further enlarge upon these instrumentalities. Sufficient has been said to convince any one that to trifle with the grand functions of our organism, to attempt to deceive and thwart nature in her highly ordained prerogatives--no matter how simple seem to be the means employed--is to incur a heavy responsibility and run a fearful risk. It matters little whether a railroad train is thrown from the track by a frozen drop of rain or a huge bowlder lying in the way, the result is the same, the injuries as great. Moral degradation, physical disability, premature exhaustion and decrepitude are the result of these physical frauds, and force upon our conviction the adage, which the history of every day confirms, that 'honesty is the best policy.'" [Footnote 25: Dr. Gardner.] Within the last ten years we have had under treatment many hundred cases of ladies suffering from ailments of a character peculiar to the sex; and in becoming acquainted with the history of individual cases we have, in many instances, found that the real cause of the disease which had sapped the vitality and undermined the constitution slowly but surely until cheerful health and freshness had given place to suffering, debility, and, in many cases, most deplorable melancholy, was the very crime against nature mentioned in the preceding paragraphs. The effects of these sins against nature are frequently not felt for years after the cause has been at work, and even then are seldom attributed to the true cause. In some instances we have known persons to suffer on for many years without having once suspected that the cause of their sufferings was a palpable violation of nature's laws. Uterine diseases thus induced are among the most obstinate of diseases of this class, being often of long standing, and hence of a very serious character. Dr. Wm. Goodell of Philadelphia has recently called attention to the fact that the prevention of conception is one of the most common causes of prolapsus of the ovaries, a very common and painful disease. Not infrequently, too, other organs, particularly the bladder, become affected, either through sympathy or in consequence of the congested condition of the contiguous parts. A difficulty which we have often met with has been the inability to convince those who have been guilty of the practices referred to, of the enormity of the sin against both soul and body. In spite of all warnings, perhaps supplemented by sufferings, the practice will often be continued, producing in the end the most lamentable results. Too often it is the case that this reluctance to obey the dictates of Nature's laws is the result of the unfeeling and unreasonable demands of a selfish husband. Shaker Views.--The Shakers do not, as many suppose, believe wholly in celibacy. They believe in marriage and reproduction regulated by the natural law. They, also, would limit population, but not by interfering with nature; rather, by following nature's indications to the very letter. They believe "that no animals should use their reproductive powers and organs for any other than the simple purpose of procreation." Recognizing the fact that this is the law among lower animals, they insist upon applying it to man. Thus they find no necessity for the employment of those abominable contrivances so common among those who disregard the laws of nature. Who will not respect the purity which must characterize sexual relations so governed? Such a method for regulating the number of offspring is in immense contrast with that of the Oneida Community, which opens the door to the unstinted gratification of lust, separates the reproductive act entirely from its original purpose, and makes it the means of mere selfish, sensual, beastly--worse than brutish--gratification. Those who are acquainted with the history of the founder of this community are obliged to look upon him as a scheming sensualist who well knows the truth, but deliberately chooses a course of evil, and beguiles into his snares others as sensual as himself. The abominations practiced among the members of the community which he has founded are represented by those who have had an inside view of its workings as too foul to mention. It seems almost wonderful that Providence does not lay upon this gigantic brothel his hand of vengeance as in ancient times he did upon Sodom, which could hardly have been more sunken in infamy than is this den of licentiousness. It is, indeed, astonishing that it should be tolerated in the midst of a country which professes to regard virtue and respect the marriage institution. We are glad to note that popular opinion is calling loudly for the eradication of this foul ulcer. Only a short time ago a convention of more than fifty ministers met at Syracuse, N. Y., for the express purpose of considering ways and means for the removal of this blot "by legal measures or otherwise." We sincerely wish them success; and it appears to us that the people in that vicinity would be justified should they rise _en masse_ and purge their community of an evil so heinous, in case no civil authority can be induced to do the work of expurgation.[26] [Footnote 26: Just as this edition is going to press we receive the gratifying information that the younger members of the Community have become disgusted with their sensual life and announced that their former vile practices will be discontinued. Mr. Noyes with a few followers has sought refuge in Canada.--J. H. K.] Moral Bearings of the Question.--Most of the considerations presented thus far have been of a physical character, though occasional references to the moral aspect of the question have been made. In a certain sense--and a true one--the question is wholly a moral one; for what moral right have men or women to do that which will injure the integrity of the physical organism given them, and for which they are accountable to their Creator? Surely none; for the man who destroys himself by degrees, is no less a murderer than he who cuts his throat or puts a bullet through his brain. The crime is the same--being the shortening of human life--whether the injury is done to one's self or to another. In this matter, there are at least three sufferers; the husband, the wife, and the offspring, though in most cases, doubtless, the husband is the one to whom the sin almost exclusively belongs. Unconsidered Murders.--But there is a more startling phase of this moral question. It is not impossible to show that actual violence is done to a human life. It has been previously shown that in the two elements, the ovum of the female, and the spermatozoon of the male, are, in rudimentary form, all the elements which go to make up the "human form divine." Alone, neither of these elements can become anything more than it already is; but the instant that the two elements come in contact, fecundation takes place, and the individual life begins. From that moment until maturity is reached, years subsequently, the whole process is only one of development. Nothing absolutely new is added at any subsequent moment. In view of these facts, it is evident that at the very instant of conception the embryonic human being possesses all the right to life it ever can possess. It is just as much an individual, a distinct human being, possessed of soul and body, as it ever is, though in a very immature form. That conception may take place during the reproductive act cannot be denied. If, then, means are employed with a view to prevent conception immediately after the accomplishment of the act, or at any subsequent time, if successful, it would be by destroying the delicate product of the conception which had already occurred, and which, as before observed, is as truly a distinct individual as it can ever become--certainly as independent as at any time previous to birth. Is it immoral to take human life? Is it a sin to kill a child? Is it a crime to strangle an infant at birth? Is it a murderous act to destroy a half-formed human being in its mother's womb? Who will dare to answer "No," to one of these questions? Then, who can refuse assent to the plain truth that it is equally a murder to deprive of life the most recent product of the generative act? Who can number the myriads of murders that have been perpetrated at this early period of existence? Who can estimate the load of guilt that weighs upon some human souls? and who knows how many brilliant lights have been thus early extinguished? how many promising human plantlets thus ruthlessly destroyed in the very act of germinating? It is to be hoped that in the final account the extenuating influence of ignorance may weigh heavily in the scale of justice against the damning testimony of these "unconsidered murders." The Charge Disputed.--It will be urged that these early destructions are not murders. Murder is an awful word. The act itself is a terrible crime. No wonder that its personal application should be studiously avoided; the human being who would not shrink from such a charge would be unworthy of the name of human--a very brute. Nevertheless, it is necessary to look the plain facts squarely in the face, and shrink not from the decision of an enlightened conscience. We quote the following portions of an extract which we give in full elsewhere; it is from the same distinguished authority[27] whom we have frequently quoted:-- "There is, in fact, no moment after conception when it can be said that the child has not life, and the crime of destroying human life is as heinous and as sure before the period of 'quickening' has been attained, as afterward. But you still defend your horrible deed by saying: 'Well, if there be, as you say, this mere animal life, equivalent at the most to simple vitality, there is no mind, no soul destroyed, and, therefore, there is no crime committed.' Just so surely as one would destroy and root out of existence all the fowls in the world by destroying all the eggs in existence, so certain is it that you do by your act destroy the animal man in the egg and the soul which animates it.... Murder is always sinful, and murder is the willful destruction of a human being at any period of its existence, from its earliest germinal embryo to its final, simple, animal existence in aged decrepitude and complete mental imbecility." [Footnote 27: Gardner.] Difficulties.--Married people will exclaim, "What shall we do?" Delicate mothers who have already more children on their hands than they can care for, whose health is insufficient to longer endure the pains and burdens of pregnancy, but whose sensual husbands continue to demand indulgence, will echo in despairing tones, while acknowledging the truth, "What shall _we_ do?" We will answer the question for the latter first. Mr. Mill, the distinguished English logician, in his work on "The Subjection of Woman," thus represents the erroneous view which is popularly held of the sexual relations of the wife to the husband: "The wife, however brutal a tyrant she may be chained to--though she may know that he hates her, though it may be his daily pleasure to torture her, and though she may feel it impossible not to loathe him--he can claim from her and enforce the lowest degradation of a human being, that of being made the instrument of an animal function contrary to her inclinations." Woman's Rights.--A woman does not, upon the performance of the marriage ceremony, surrender all her personal rights. The law recognizes this fact if her husband beats her, or in any way injures her by physical force, or even by neglect. Why may she not claim protection from other maltreatment as well? or, at least, why may she not refuse to lend herself to beastly lust? She remains the proprietor of her own body, though married; and who is so lost to all sense of justice, equity, and even morality, as to claim that she is under any moral obligation to allow her body to be abused? Since the first edition of this work was published, we have many times been appealed to by suffering wives in the most pathetic terms. In many instances the poor wife was suffering with local disease of a serious character, making sexual approaches in the highest degree painful as well as repugnant; yet notwithstanding this, the demands of the husband for the gratification of his bestial passions were, in many instances, in no degree lessened by a knowledge of the facts in the case. In cases like these it is often a very delicate and exceedingly difficult task to point out the duty of the suffering wife and mother. The duty of the husband is very plain, and to him the wise physician will appeal in a manner which cannot fail to arouse him to a sense of his duty if there is yet left unconsumed by the fires of lust even a vestige of genuine manhood. What to Do.--Now to the question as asked by the first parties--married people who together seek for a solution of the difficulties arising from an abandonment of all protectives against fecundation. The true remedy, and the natural one, is doubtless to be found in the suggestion made under the heads of "Continence" and "Marital Excesses." By a course of life in accordance with the principles there indicated, all of these evils and a thousand more would be avoided. There would be less sensual enjoyment, but more elevated joy. There would be less animal love, but more spiritual communion; less grossness, more purity; less development of the animal, and a more fruitful soil for the culture of virtue, holiness, and all the Christian graces. "But such a life would be impossible this side of Heaven." A few who claim to have tried the experiment think not. The Shakers claim to practice, as well as teach, such principles; and with the potent aids to continence previously specified, it might be found less difficult in realization than in thought. A Compromise.--There will be many, the vast majority, perhaps, who will not bring their minds to accept the truth which nature seems to teach, which would confine sexual acts to reproduction wholly. Others, acknowledging the truth, declare "the spirit willing" though "the flesh is weak." Such will inquire, "Is there not some compromise by means of which we may escape the greater evils of our present mode of life?" Such may find in the following facts suggestions for a "better way," if not the _best_ way, though it cannot be recommended as wholly free from dangers, and though it cannot be said of it that it is not an _unnatural_ way:-- "Menstruation in woman indicates an aptitude for impregnation, and this condition remains for a period of six or eight days after the entire completion of the flow. During this time only can most women conceive. Allow twelve days for the onset of the menses to pass by, and the probabilities of impregnation are very slight. This act of continence is healthful, moral, and irreproachable."[28] [Footnote 28: Gardner.] It should be added to the above that the plan suggested is not absolutely certain to secure immunity from conception. The period of abstinence should certainly extend from the beginning of menstruation to the fourteenth day. To secure even reasonable safety, it is necessary to practice further abstinence for three or four days previous to the beginning of the flow. Many writers make another suggestion which would certainly be beneficial to individual health; viz., that the husband and wife should habitually occupy separate beds. Such a practice would undoubtedly serve to keep the sexual instincts in abeyance. Separate apartments, or at least the separation of the beds by a curtain, are recommended by some estimable physicians, who suggest that such a plan would enable both parties to conduct their morning ablutions with proper thoroughness and without sacrificing that natural modesty which operates so powerfully as a check upon the excessive indulgence of the passions. Many will think the suggestion a good one and will make a practical application of it. Sleeping in single beds is reputed to be a European custom of long standing among the higher classes. This subject cannot be concluded better than by the following quotations from an excellent and able work entitled, "The Ten Laws of Health"[29]:-- "The obvious design of the sexual desire is the reproduction of the species.... The gratification of this passion, or indeed of any other, beyond its legitimate end, is an undoubted violation of natural law, as may be determined by the light of nature, and by the resulting moral and physical evils." "Those creatures not gifted with erring reason, but with unerring instinct, and that have not the liberty of choice between good and evil, cohabit only at stated periods, when pleasure and reproduction are alike possible. It is so ordered among them that the means and the end are never separated; and as it was the all-wise Being who endowed them with this instinct, without the responsibility resulting from the power to act otherwise, it follows that it is HIS LAW, and must, therefore, be the true copy for all beings to follow having the same functions to perform, and for the same end. The mere fact that men and women have the power and liberty of conforming or not conforming to this copy does not set them free from obedience to a right course, nor from the consequences of disobedience." "The end of sexual pleasure being to reproduce the species, it follows, from the considerations just advanced, that when the sexual function is diverted from its end, reproduction, or if the means be used when the end is impossible, harm or injury should ensue." "Perhaps the number is not small of those who think there is nothing wrong in an unlimited indulgence of the sexual propensity during married life. The marriage vow seems to be taken as equivalent to the freest license, about which there need be no restraint. Yet, if there is any truth in the law in reference to the enjoyment of the means only when the end is possible, the necessity of the limitation of this indulgence during married life is clearly as great as for that of any other sensual pleasure. "A great majority of those constituting the most highly civilized communities, act upon the belief that anything not forbidden by sacred or civil law is neither sinful nor wrong. They have not found cohabitation during pregnancy forbidden; nor have they ever had their attention drawn to the injury to health and organic development, which such a practice inflicts. Hence, a habitual yielding to inclination in this matter has determined their life-long behavior. "The infringement of this law in the married state does not produce in the husband any very serious disorder. Debility, aches, cramps, and a tendency to epileptic seizures, are sometimes seen as the effects of great excess. An evil of no small account is the steady growth of the sexual passion by habitual unrestraint. It is in this way that what is known as libidinous blood is nursed as well among those who are strictly virtuous, in the ordinary meaning of the term, as among those who are promiscuous in their intercourse. "The wife and the offspring are the chief sufferers by the violation of this law among the married. Why this is so, may in part be accounted for by the following consideration: Among the animal kind it is the female which decides when the approaches of the male are allowable. When these are untimely, her instinctive prompting leads her to resist and protect herself with ferocious zeal. No one at all acquainted with the remarkable wisdom nature invariably displays in all her operations, will doubt that the prohibition of all sexual intercourse among animals during the period of pregnancy must be for a wise and good purpose. And, if it serves a wise and good purpose with them, why should an opposite course not serve an unwise and bad purpose with us? Our bodies are very much like theirs in structure and in function; and in the mode and laws that govern reproduction there is absolutely no difference. The mere fact that we possess the power to act otherwise than they do during that period, does not make it right. "Human beings having no instinctive prompting as to what is right and what is wrong, cohabitation, like many other points of the behavior, is left for reason or the will to determine; or, rather, as things now are to unreason; for reason is neither consulted nor enlightened as to what is proper and allowable in the matter. Nature's rule, by instinct, makes it devolve upon the female to determine when the approaches of the male are allowable. "But some may say that she is helpless in the matter. No one dare to approach her without consent before marriage; and why should man not be educated up to the point of doing the same after marriage? She is neither his slave, nor his property; nor does the tie of marriage bind her to carry out any unnatural requirement." [Footnote 29: J. R. Black, M.D.] INFANTICIDE AND ABORTION. Few but medical men are aware of the enormous proportions which have been assumed by these terrible crimes during the present century. That they are increasing with fearful rapidity and have really reached such a magnitude as to seriously affect the growth of civilized nations, and to threaten their very existence, has become a patent fact to observing physicians. The crime itself differs little, in reality, from that considered in the last section, the prevention of conception. It is, in fact, the same crime postponed till a later period. We quote the following eloquent words on this subject:-- "Of all the sins, physical and moral against man and God, I know of none so utterly to be condemned as the very common one of the destruction of the child while yet in the womb of the mother. So utterly repugnant is it that I can scarcely express the loathing with which I approach the subject. Murder!--murder in cold blood, without cause, of an unknown child; one's nearest relative; in fact, part of one's very being; actually having, not only one's own blood in its being, but that blood momentarily interchanging! Good God! Does it seem possible that such depravity can exist in a parent's breast--in a mother's heart! "'Tis for no wrong that it has committed that its sweet life is so cruelly taken away. Its coming is no disgrace; its creation was not in sin, but--its mother 'don't want to be bothered with any more brats; can hardly take care of what she has got; is going to Europe in the spring.' "We can forgive the poor deluded girl--seduced, betrayed, abandoned--who, in her wild frenzy, destroys the mute evidence of her guilt. We have only sympathy and sorrow for her. But for the married shirk who disregards her divinely-ordained duty, we have nothing but contempt, even if she be the lordly woman of fashion, clothed in purple and fine linen. If glittering gems adorn her person, within there is foulness and squalor."[30] [Footnote 30: Gardner.] Not a Modern Crime.--Although this crime has attained remarkable proportions in modern times, it is not a new one by any means, as the following paragraph will suffice to show:-- "Infanticide and exposure were also the custom among the Romans, Medes, Canaanites, Babylonians, and other Eastern nations, with the exception of the Israelites and Egyptians. The Scandinavians killed their offspring from pure fantasy. The Norwegians, after having carefully swaddled their children, put some food into their mouths, placed them under the roots of trees or under the rocks to preserve them from ferocious beasts. Infanticide was also permitted among the Chinese, and we saw, during the last century, vehicles going round the streets of Pekin daily to collect the bodies of the dead infants. To-day there exist foundling hospitals to receive children abandoned by their parents. The same custom is also observed in Japan, in the isles of the Southern Ocean, at Otaheite, and among several savage nations of North America. It is related of the Jaggers of Guinea, that they devour their own children."[31] [Footnote 31: Burdach.] The Greeks practiced infanticide systematically, their laws at one time requiring the destruction of crippled or weakly children. Among all the various nations, the general object of the crime seems to have been to avoid the trouble of rearing the children, or to avoid a surplus, objects not far different from those had in view by those who practice the same crimes at the present time. The destruction of the child after the mother has felt its movements is termed infanticide; before that time it is commonly known as abortion. It is a modern notion that the child possesses no soul or individual life until the period of quickening, an error which we have already sufficiently exposed. The ancients, with just as much reason, contended that no distinct life was present until after birth. Hence it was that they could practice without scruple the crime of infanticide to prevent too great increase of population. "Plato and Aristotle were advocates of this practice, and these Stoics justified this monstrous practice by alleging that the child only acquired a soul at the moment when it ceased to have uterine life and commenced to respire. From hence it resulted that, the child not being animated, its destruction was no murder." The prevalence of this crime will be indicated by the following observations from the most reliable sources:-- "We know that in certain countries abortion is practiced in a manner almost public, without speaking of the East, where it has, so to speak, entered into the manners of the country. We see it in America, in a great city like New York, constituting a regular business and not prevented, where it has enriched more than one midwife." "England does not yield to Germany or France in the frequency of the crime of infanticide."[32] [Footnote 32: Jardien.] "Any statistics attainable are very incomplete. False certificates are daily given by attending physicians. Men, if they are only rich enough, die of 'congestion of the brain,' not 'delirium tremens;' and women, similarly situated, do not die from the effects of abortion, but of 'inflammation of the bowels,' etc." "Infanticide, as it is generally considered (destroying a child after quickening), is of very rare occurrence in New York, whereas abortions (destroying the embryo before quickening) are of daily habit in the families of the best informed and most religious; among those abounding in wealth, as well as among the poor and needy."[33] [Footnote 33: Gardner.] "Perhaps only medical men will credit the assertion that the frequency of this form of destroying human life exceeds all others by at least fifty per cent, and that not more than one in a thousand of the guilty parties receive any punishment by the hand of civil law. But there is a surer mode of punishment for the guilty mother in the self-executing laws of nature."[34] [Footnote 34: Black.] "From a very large verbal and written correspondence in this and other States, I am satisfied that we have become _a nation of murderers_."[35] [Footnote 35: Reamy.] Said a distinguished clergyman of Brooklyn in a sermon, "Why send missionaries to India when child-murder is here of daily, almost hourly, occurrence; aye, when the hand that puts money into the contribution-box to-day, yesterday or a month ago, or to-morrow, will murder her own unborn offspring? "The Hindoo mother, when she abandons her babe upon the sacred Ganges, is, contrary to her heart, obeying a supposed religious law, and you desire to convert her to your own worship of the Moloch of Fashion and Laziness and love of Greed. Out upon such hypocrisy!" Writers tell us that it has even become the boast of many women that they "know too much to have babies." Says the learned Dr. Storer, "Will the time come, think ye, when husbands can no longer, as they now frequently do, commit the crime of rape upon their unwilling wives, and persuade them or compel them to allow a still more dreadful violence to be wreaked upon the children nestling within them--children fully alive from the very moment of conception, that have already been fully detached from all organic connection with their parent, and only re-attached to her for the purposes of nutriment and growth, and to destroy whom 'is a crime of the same nature, both against our Maker and society, as to destroy an infant, a child, or a man?'"[36] [Footnote 36: "Is It I?"] Says another well-known author, "Ladies boast to each other of the impunity with which they have aborted, as they do of their expenditures, of their dress, of their success in society. There is a fashion in this, as in all other female customs, good and bad. The wretch whose account with the Almighty is heaviest with guilt too often becomes a heroine."[37] [Footnote 37: A Woman's Thoughts about Women.] Causes of the Crime.--Many influences may combine to cause the mother ruthlessly to destroy her helpless child: as, to conceal the results of sin; to avoid the burdens of maternity; to secure ease and freedom to travel, etc., or even from a false idea that maternity is vulgar; but it is true, beyond all question, that the primary cause of the sin is far back of all these influences. The most unstinted and scathing invectives are used in characterizing the criminality of a mother who takes the life of her unborn babe; but a word is seldom said of the one who forced upon her the circumstances which gave the unfortunate one existence. Though doctors, ministers, and moralists have said much on this subject, and written more, it is reasonable to suppose that they will never accomplish much of anything in the direction of reform until they recognize the part the man acts in all of these sad cases, and begin to demand reform where it is most needed, and where its achievement will effect the most good. As was observed in the remarks upon the subject of "Prevention of Conception," this evil has its origin in "marital excesses," and in a disregard of the natural law which makes the female the sole proprietor of her own body, and gives to her the right to refuse the approaches of the male when unprepared to receive them without doing violence to the laws of her being. The Nature of the Crime.--"The married and well-to-do, who by means of medicines and operations produce abortions at early periods of pregnancy, have no excuse except the pretense that they do not consider it murder until the child quickens. "No, not murder, you say, for 'there has not been any life in the child.' Do not attempt to evade, even to man, a crime which cannot be hidden from the All-seeing. The poor mother has not herself felt the life of the child perhaps, but that is a quibble only of the laws of man, founded indeed upon the view, now universally recognized as incorrect, that the child's life began when its movements were first strong enough to be perceptible. There is, in fact, no moment after conception when it can be said that the child has not life, and the crime of destroying human life is as heinous and as sure before the period of 'quickening' has been attained as afterward. But you still defend your horrible deed by saying, 'Well, if there be, as you say, this mere animal life, equivalent at the most to simple vitality, there is no mind, no soul destroyed, and therefore, there is no crime committed.' Just so surely as one would destroy and root out of existence all the fowl in the world by destroying all the eggs in existence, so certain is it that you do by your act destroy the animal man in the egg, and the soul which animates it. When is the period that intelligence comes to the infant? Are its feeble first strugglings any evidence of its presence? Has it any appreciable quantity at birth? Has it any valuable, useful quantity even when a year old? When, then, is it, that destruction is harmless or comparatively sinless? While awaiting your metaphysical answer, I will tell you when it is sinful. Murder is always sinful, and murder is the willful destruction of a human being at any period of its existence, from its earliest germinal embryo to its final, simple, animal existence in aged decrepitude and complete mental imbecility."[38] [Footnote 38: Gardner.] "There are those who would fain make light of this crime by attempting to convince themselves and others that a child, while in embryo, has only a sort of vegetative life, not yet endowed with thought, and the ability to maintain an independent existence. If such a monstrous philosophy as this presents any justification for such an act, then the killing of a newly-born infant, or of an idiot, may be likewise justified. The destruction of the life of an unborn human being, for the reason that it is small, feeble, and innocently helpless, rather aggravates than palliates the crime. Every act of this kind, with its justification, is obviously akin to that savage philosophy which accounts it a matter of no moment, or rather a duty, to destroy feeble infants, or old, helpless fathers and mothers."[39] [Footnote 39: Black.] Instruments of Crime.--"The means through which abortions are effected are various. Sometimes it is through potent drugs, extensively advertised in newspapers claiming to be moral!--the advertisements so adroitly worded as to convey under a caution the precise information required of the liability of the drug to produce miscarriages. Sometimes the information is conveyed through secret circulars; but more commonly the deed is consummated by professed abortionists, who advertise themselves as such through innuendo, or through gaining this kind of repute by the frequent commission of the act. Not a few women, deterred by lingering modesty or some sense of shame, attempt and execute it upon themselves, and then volunteer to instruct and encourage others to go and do likewise."[40] [Footnote 40: Black.] Results of this Unnatural Crime.--It is the universal testimony of physicians that the effects of abortion are almost as deadly upon the mother as upon the child. The amount of suffering is vastly greater; for that of the child, if it suffer at all, is only momentary, in general, while the mother is doomed to a life of suffering, of misery, if she survives the shock of the terrible outrage against her nature. It has been proved by statistics that the danger of immediate death is _fifteen times as great as in natural childbirth_. A medical author of note asserts that a woman suffers more injury from one abortion than she would from twenty normal births. Says Dr. Gardner on this point:-- "We know that the popular idea is that women are worn out by the toil and wear connected with the raising of large families, and we can willingly concede something to this statement; but it is certainly far more observable that the efforts at the present day, made to avoid propagation, are ten thousand-fold more disastrous to the health and constitution, to say nothing of the demoralization of mind and heart, which cannot be estimated by red cheeks or physical vigor." An Unwelcome Child.--But suppose the mother does not succeed in her attempts against the life of her child, as she may not; what fearful results may follow! Who can doubt that the murderous intent of the mother will be stamped indelibly upon the character of the unwelcome child, giving it a natural propensity for the commission of murderous deeds? Then again--sickening thought--suppose the attempts to destroy the child are unsuccessful, resulting only in horrid mutilation of its tender form; when such a child is born, what terrible evidences may it bear in its crippled and misshapen body of the cruel outrage perpetrated upon it! That such cases do occur is certain from the following narrative, which we might confirm by others similar in character:-- "A lady, determined not to have any more children, went to a professed abortionist, and he attempted to effect the desired end by violence. With a pointed instrument the attempt was again and again made, but without the looked-for result. So vigorously was the effort made, that, astonished at no result being obtained, the individual stated that there must be some mistake, that the lady could not be pregnant, and refused to perform any further operations. Partially from doubt and partially from fear, nothing further was attempted; and in due process of time the woman was delivered of an infant, shockingly mutilated, with one eye entirely put out, and the brain so injured that this otherwise robust child was entirely wanting in ordinary sense. This poor mother, it would seem, needs no future punishment for her sin. Ten years face to face with this poor idiot, whose imbecility was her direct work--has it not punished her sufficiently?" The Remedy.--Whether this gigantic evil can ever be eradicated, is exceedingly doubtful. To effect its cure would be to make refined Christians out of brutal sensualists; to emancipate woman from the enticing, alluring slavery of fashion; to uproot false ideas of life and its duties,--in short, to revolutionize society. The crime is perpetrated in secret. Many times no one but the criminal herself is cognizant of the evil deed. Only occasionally do cases come near enough to the surface to be dimly discernible; hence the evident inefficiency of any civil legislation. But the evil is a desperate one, and is increasing; shall no attempt be made to check the tide of crime and save the sufferers from both physical and spiritual perdition? An effort should be made, at least. Let every Christian raise the note of warning. From every Christian pulpit let the truth be spoken in terms too plain for misapprehension. Let those who are known to be guilty of this most revolting crime be looked upon as murderers, as they are; and let their real moral status be distinctly shown. All of these means will do something to effect a reform; but the radical cure of the evil will only be found in the principles suggested in the section devoted to the consideration of "Marital Excesses." The adoption of those principles and strict adherence to them would effectually prevent the occurrence of circumstances which are the occasion of abortions and infanticides. Murder by Proxy.--"There is, at the present time, a kind of infanticide, which, although it is not so well known, is even more dangerous, because done with impunity. There are parents who recoil with horror at the idea of destroying their offspring, although they would greatly desire to be disembarrassed of them, who yet place them without remorse with nurses who enjoy the sinister reputation of never returning the children to those who have intrusted them to their care. These unfortunate little beings are condemned to perish from inanition and bad treatment. "The number of these innocent victims is greater than would be imagined, and very certainly exceeds that of the marked infanticides sent by the public prosecutor to the Court of the Assizes." THE SOCIAL EVIL. Illicit intercourse has been a foul blot upon humanity from the earliest periods of history. At the present moment, it is a loathsome ulcer eating at the heart of civilization, a malignant leprosy which shows its hideous deformities among the fairest results of modern culture. Our large cities abound with dens of vice whose _habitues_ shamelessly promenade the most public streets and flaunt their infamy in the face of every passer-by. In many large cities, especially in those of Continental Europe, these holds of vice are placed under the supervision of the law by the requirement that every keeper of a house of prostitution must pay for a license; in other words, must buy the right to lead his fellow-men "down to the depths of hell." In smaller cities, as well as in large ones, in fact, from the great metropolis down to the country village, the haunts of vice are found. Every army is flanked by bands of courtesans. Wherever men go, loose women follow, penetrating even to the wildness of the miner's camp, far beyond the verge of civilization. But brothels and traveling strumpets do not fully represent the vast extent of this monster evil. There is a class of immoral women--probably exceeding in numbers the grosser class just referred to--who consider themselves respectable; indeed, who are considered very respectable. Few are acquainted with their character. They live in elegant style and mingle in genteel society. Privately, they prosecute the most unbounded licentiousness, for the purpose of gain, or merely to gratify their lewdness. "Kept mistresses" are much more numerous than common prostitutes. The numerous scandal and divorce suits which expose the infidelity of husbands and wives, are sufficient evidence that illicit commerce is not confined to the unmarried; but so many are the facilities for covering and preventing the results of sins of this description it is impossible to form any just estimate of their frequency. The incontinence of husbands and the unchastity of wives will only appear in their enormity at that awful day when every one shall "stand before the judgment-seat" and hear the penalty of his guilty deeds. Unchastity of the Ancients.--We are prone to believe that the present is the most licentious age the world has ever known; that in the nineteenth century the climax of evil has been reached; that the libidinous blood of all the ages has culminated to produce a race of men more carnal than all predecessors. It is a sickening thought that any previous epoch could have been more vile than this; but history presents facts which disclose in ancient times periods when lust was even more uncontrolled than now; when vice was universal; and when virtue was a thing unknown. A few references to historical facts will establish this point. We do not make these allusions in any way to justify the present immorality, but to show the part which vice has acted in the overthrow of nations. From the sacred record we may judge that before the flood a state of corruption prevailed which was even greater and more general than any that has ever since been reached; only eight persons were fit to survive the calamity which swept into eternity that lustful generation with their filthy deeds. But men soon fell into vice again, for we find among the early Assyrians a total disregard of chastity. Her kings reveled in the grossest sensuality. No excess of vice could surpass the licentiousness of the Ptolemies, who made of Alexandria a bagnio, and all Egypt a hot-bed of vice. Herodotus relates that "the pyramid of Cheops was built by the lovers of the daughter of this king; and that she never would have raised this monument to such a height except by multiplying her prostitutions." History also relates the adventures of that queenly courtesan, Cleopatra, who captivated and seduced by her charms two masters of the world, and whose lewdness surpassed even her beauty. Tyre and Sidon, Media, Phoenicia, Syria, and all the Orient, were sunk in sensuality. Fornication was made a part of their worship. Women carried through the streets of the cities the most obscene and revolting representations. Among all these nations a virtuous woman was not to be found; for, according to Herodotus, the young women were by the laws of the land "obliged, once in their lives, to give themselves up to the desires of strangers in the temple of Venus, and were not permitted to refuse anyone."[41] [Footnote 41: Bourgeois.] St. Augustine speaks of these religious debaucheries as still practiced in his day in Phoenicia. They were even continued until Constantine destroyed the temples in which they were prosecuted, in the fourth century. Among the Greeks the same corruptions prevailed in the worship of Bacchus and Phallus, which was celebrated by processions of half-nude girls "performing lascivious dances with men disguised as satyrs." In fact, as X. Bourgeois says, "Prostitution was in repute in Greece." The most distinguished women were courtesans, and the wise Socrates would be justly called, in modern times, a libertine. The abandonment to lust was, if possible, still more complete in the times of the Roman emperors. Rome astonished the universe "by the boldness of its turpitudes, after having astonished it by the splendor of its triumphs." The great Caesar was such a rake that he has been said to have "merited to be surnamed every woman's husband." Antony and Augustus were equally notorious. The same sensuality pervaded the masses as reigned in the courts, and was stimulated by the erotic poems of Ovid, Catullus, and other poets of the time. Tiberius displayed such ingenuity in inventing refinements in impudicity that it was necessary to coin new words to designate them. Caligula committed the horrid crime of incest with all his sisters, even in public. His palace was a brothel. The Roman empress, Messalina, disguised herself as a prostitute and excelled the most degraded courtesans in her monstrous debaucheries. The Roman emperor Vitellius was accustomed to take an emetic after having eaten to repletion, to enable him to renew his gluttony. With still grosser sensuality he stimulated his satiated passions with philters and various aphrodisiac mixtures. Nero, the most infamous of the emperors, committed rapes on the stage of the public theaters of Rome, disguised as a wild beast. If this degraded voluptuousness had been confined to royalty, some respect might yet be entertained for the virtue of the ancients; but the foul infection was not restrained within such narrow bounds. It invaded whole empires until they fell in pieces from very rottenness. What must have been the condition of a nation that could tolerate such a spectacle as its monarch riding through the streets of its metropolis in a state of nudity, drawn by women in the same condition? Such a deed did Heliogabalus in Rome. In the thirteenth century, virtue was almost as scarce in France as in ancient Greece. Nobles held as mistresses all the young girls of their domains. About every fifth person was a bastard. Just before the Revolution, chastity was such a rarity that a woman was actually obliged to apologize for being virtuous! In these disgusting facts we find one of the most potent agents in effecting the downfall of the nations. Licentiousness sapped their vitality and weakened their prowess. The men who conquered the world were led captive by their own beastly passions. Thus the Assyrians, the Medes, the Grecians, the Romans, successively fell victims to their lusts, and gave way to more virtuous successors. Even the Jews, the most enlightened people of their age, fell more than once through this same sin, which was coupled with idolatry, of which their seduction by the Midianites is an example. Surely, modern times present no worse spectacles of carnality than these; and will it be claimed that anything so vile is seen among civilized nations at the present day? But though there may be less grossness in the sensuality of to-day, the moral turpitude of men may be even greater than that of ancient times. Enlightened Christianity has raised the standard of morality. Christ's commentary upon the seventh commandment requires a more rigorous chastity than ancient standards demanded, even among the Jews; for had not David, Solomon, and even the pious Jacob more wives than one? Consequently, a slight breach of chastity now requires as great a fall from virtue as a greater lapse in ages past, and must be attended with as severe a moral penalty. We have seen how universal is the "social evil," that it is a vice almost as old as man himself, which shows how deeply rooted in his perverted nature it has become. The inquiry arises, What are the causes of so monstrous a vice? so gross an outrage upon nature's laws? so withering a blight upon the race? Causes of the "Social Evil."--A vice that has become so great an evil, even in these enlightened times, as to defy the most skillful legislation, which openly displays its gaudy filthiness and mocks at virtue with a lecherous stare, must have its origin in causes too powerful to be ignored. Libidinous Blood.--In no other direction are the effects of heredity to be more distinctly traced than in the transmission of sensual propensities. The children of libertines are almost certain to be rakes and prostitutes. History affords numerous examples in illustration of this fact. The daughter of Augustus was as unchaste as her father, and her daughter was as immoral as herself. The sons of David showed evident traces of their father's failing. Witness the incest of Amnon, and the voluptuousness of Solomon, who had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. Solomon's son was, likewise, a noted polygamist, of whom the record says, "He desired many wives." His son's son manifested the same propensity in taking as many wives as the debilitated state of his kingdom enabled him to support. But perhaps we may be allowed to trace the origin of this libidinous propensity still further back. A glance at the genealogy of David will show that he was descended from Judah through Pharez, who was the result of an incestuous union between Judah and his daughter-in-law. Is it unreasonable to suppose that the abnormal passion which led David to commit the most heinous sin of his life in his adultery with Bath-sheba and subsequently procuring the death of her husband, was really an hereditary propensity which had come down to him through his ancestors, and which, under more favorable circumstances, was more fully developed in his sons? The trait may have been kept dormant by the active and simple habits of his early years, but asserted itself in full force under the fostering influence of royal idleness and luxury. In accordance with the known laws of heredity, such a tendency would be the legitimate result of such a combination of circumstances. The influence of marital excesses, and especially sexual indulgence during pregnancy, in producing vicious tendencies in offspring, has been fully dwelt upon elsewhere in this work, and will not be reconsidered here, it being only necessary to call attention to the subject. Physiology shows conclusively that thousands of parents whose sons have become libertines and their daughters courtesans, have themselves implanted in their characters the propensity which led to their unchastity. Gluttony.--As a predisposing cause, the influence of dietetic habits should rank next to heredity. It is an observed fact that "all libertines are great eaters or famous gastronomists." The exciting influence upon the genital organs of such articles as pepper, mustard, ginger, spices, truffles, wine, and all alcoholic drinks, is well known. Tea and coffee directly excite the animal passions through their influence upon the nerve centers controlling the sexual organs. When children are raised upon such articles, or upon food with which they are thoroughly mingled, what wonder that they occasionally "turn out bad"? How many mothers, while teaching their children the principles of virtue in the nursery, unwittingly stimulate their passions at the dinner table until vice becomes almost a physical necessity! Nothing tends so powerfully to keep the passions in abeyance as a simple diet, free from condiments, especially when coupled with a generous amount of exercise. The influence of tobacco in leading to unchastity has been referred to in another connection. This is assuredly a not uncommon cause. When a boy places the first cigar or quid of tobacco to his lips, he takes--if he has not previously done so--the first step in the road to infamy; and if he adds wine or beer, he takes a short cut to the degradation of his manhood by the loss of virtue. Precocious Sexuality.--The causes of a too early development of sexual peculiarities, as manifested in infantile flirtations and early signs of sexual passion, were dwelt upon quite fully in a previous connection, and we need not repeat them here. Certain it is that few things can be more dangerous to virtue than the premature development of those sentiments which belong only to puberty and later years. It is a most unnatural, but not uncommon, sight to see a girl of tender age evincing all those characters which mark the wanton of older years. Man's Lewdness.--It cannot be denied that men are in the greatest degree responsible for the "social evil." The general principle holds true here as elsewhere that the supply is regulated by the demand. If the patrons of prostitution should withdraw their support by a sudden acquisition of virtue, how soon would this vilest of traffics cease! The inmates of brothels would themselves become continent, if not virtuous, as the result of such a spasm of chastity in men. Again, the ranks of fallen women, which are rapidly thinned by loathsome diseases and horrid deaths, are largely recruited from that class of unfortunates for whose fall faithless lovers or cunning, heartless libertines are chiefly responsible. The weak girl who, through too much trust, has been deceived and robbed of her dearest treasure, is disowned by relatives, shunned by her acquaintances, and turned out upon a cold world without money, without friends, without a character. What can she do? Respectable employment she cannot find, for rumor follows her. There seems to be but one door open, the one which she herself so unintentionally opened. In despair, she enters the "open road to hell," and to her first sad error adds a life of shame. Meanwhile, the villain who betrayed her still maintains his standing in society, and plies his arts to win another victim. Is there not an unfair discrimination here? Should not the seducer be blackened with an infamy at least as deep as that which society casts on the one betrayed? Fashion.--The temptation of dress, fine clothing, costly jewelry, and all the extravagances with which rich ladies array themselves, is in many cases too powerful for the weakened virtue of poor seamstresses, operatives, and servant girls, who have seen so much of vice as to have lost that instinctive loathing for it which they may have once experienced. Thinking to gain a life of ease, with means to gratify their love of show, they barter away their peace of mind for this world, all hope for the next, and only gain a little worthless tinsel, the scorn of their fellow-creatures, and a host of loathsome diseases. Lack of Early Training.--It is needless to demonstrate a fact so well established as that the future character of an individual depends very largely upon his early training. If purity and modesty are taught from earliest infancy, the mind is fortified against the assaults of vice. If, instead, the child is allowed to grow up untrained, if the seeds of vice which are sure to fall sooner or later in the most carefully kept ground are allowed to germinate, if the first buds of evil are allowed to grow and unfold instead of being promptly nipped, it must not be considered remarkable that in later years rank weeds of sin should flourish in the soul and bear their hideous fruit in shameless lives. Neglect to guard the avenues by which evil may approach the young mind, and to erect barriers against vice by careful instruction and a chaste example, leaves many innocent souls open to the assaults of evil, and an easy prey to lust. If children are allowed to get their training in the street, at the corner grocery, or hovering around saloons, they will be sure to develop a vigorous growth of the animal passions. The following extract is from the writings of one whose pen has been an inestimable blessing to American youth:-- "Among the first lessons which boys learn of their fellows are impurities of language; and these are soon followed by impurities of thought.... When this is the training of boyhood, it is not strange that the predominating ideas among young men, in relation to the other sex, are too often those of impurity and sensuality.... We cannot be surprised, then, that the history of most young men is, that they yield to temptation in a greater or less degree and in different ways. With many, no doubt, the indulgence is transient, accidental, and does not become habitual. It does not get to be regarded as venial. It is never yielded to without remorse. The wish and the purpose are to resist; but the animal nature bears down the moral. Still, transgression is always followed by grief and penitence. "With too many, however, it is to be feared, it is not so. The mind has become debauched by dwelling on licentious images, and by indulgence in licentious conversation. There is no wish to resist. They are not overtaken by temptation, for they seek it. With them the transgression becomes habitual, and the stain on the character is deep and lasting."[42] [Footnote 42: Ware.] Sentimental Literature.--In another connection, we have referred particularly to the bawdy, obscene books and pictures which are secretly circulated among the youth of both sexes, and to their corrupting influence. The hope is not entirely a vain one that this evil may be controlled; but there seems no possible practicable remedy for another evil which ultimately leads to the same result, though by less gross and obscene methods. We refer to the sentimental literature which floods the land. City and school libraries, circulating libraries, and even Sunday-school libraries, are full of books which, though they may contain good moral teaching, contain, as well, an element as incompatible with purity of morals as is light with midnight darkness. Writers for children and youth seem to think a tale of "courtship, love, and matrimony" entirely indispensable as a medium for conveying their moral instruction. Some of these "religious novels" are actually more pernicious than the fictions of well-known novelists who make no pretense to having religious instruction a particular object in view. Sunday-school libraries are not often wholly composed of this class of works, but any one who takes the trouble to examine the books of such a library will be able to select the most pernicious ones by the external appearance. The covers will be well worn and the edges begrimed with dirt from much handling. Children soon tire of the shallow sameness which characterizes the "moral" parts of most of these books, and skim lightly over them, selecting and devouring with eagerness those portions which relate the silly narrative of some love adventure. This kind of literature arouses in children premature fancies and queries, and fosters a sentimentalism which too often occasions most unhappy results. Through their influence, young girls are often led to begin a life of shame long before their parents are aware that a thought of evil has ever entered their minds. The following words from the pen of a forcible writer[43] present this matter in none too strong a light:-- "You may tear your coat or break a vase, and repair them again; but the point where the rip or fracture took place will always be evident. It takes less than an hour to do your heart a damage which no time can entirely repair. Look carefully over your child's library; see what book it is that he reads after he has gone to bed, with the gas turned upon the pillow. Do not always take it for granted that a book is good because it is a Sunday-school book. As far as possible, know _who_ wrote it, who illustrated it, who published it, who sold it. "It seems that in the literature of the day the ten plagues of Egypt have returned, and the frogs and lice have hopped and skipped over our parlor tables. "Parents are delighted to have their children read, but they should be sure as to what they read. You do not have to walk a day or two in an infested district to get the cholera or typhoid fever; and one wave of moral unhealth will fever and blast the soul forever. Perhaps, knowing not what you did, you read a bad book. Do you not remember it altogether? Yes! and perhaps you will never get over it. However strong and exalted your character, never read a bad book. By the time you get through the first chapter you will see the drift. If you find the marks of the hoofs of the devil in the pictures, or in the style, or in the plot, away with it. "But there is more danger, I think, from many of the family papers, published once a week, in those stories of vice and shame, full of infamous suggestions, going as far as they can without exposing themselves to the clutch of the law. I name none of them; but say that on some fashionable tables there lie 'family newspapers' that are the very vomit of the pit. "The way to ruin is cheap. It costs three dollars to go to Philadelphia; six dollars to Boston; thirty-three dollars to Savannah; but, by the purchase of a bad paper for ten cents you may get a through ticket to hell, by express, with few stopping places, and the final halting like the tumbling of the lightning train down the draw-bridge at Norwalk--sudden, terrific, deathful, never to rise." [Footnote 43: T. De Witt Talmage.] Poverty.--The pressing influence of poverty has been urged as one cause of prostitution. It cannot be denied that in many cases, in large cities, this may be the immediate occasion of the entrance of a young girl upon a life of shame; but it may still be insisted that there must have been, in such cases, a deficiency in previous training; for a young woman, educated with a proper regard for purity, would sooner sacrifice life itself than virtue. Again, poverty can be no excuse, for in every city there are made provisions for the relief of the needy poor, and none who are really worthy need suffer. Ignorance.--Perhaps nothing fosters vice more than ignorance. Prostitutes come almost entirely from the more ignorant classes, though there are, of course, many exceptions. Among the lowest classes, vice is seen in its grossest forms, and is carried to the greatest lengths. Intellectual culture is antagonistic to sensuality. As a general rule, in proportion as the intellect is developed, the animal passions are brought into subjection. It is true that very intellectual men have been great libertines, and that the licentious Borgias and Medicis of Italy encouraged art and literature; but these are only apparent exceptions, for who knows to what greater depths of vice these individuals might have sunk had it not been for the restraining influence of mental culture? Says Deslandes, "In proportion as the intellect becomes enfeebled, the generative sensibility is augmented." The animal passions seem to survive when all higher intelligence is lost. We once saw an illustration of this fact in an idiot who was brought before a medical class in a clinic at Bellevue Hospital, New York. The patient had been an idiot from birth, and presented the most revolting appearance, seemingly possessing scarcely the intelligence of the average dog; but his animal propensities were so great as to be almost uncontrollable. Indeed, he showed evidences of having been a gross debauchee, having contracted venereal disease of the worst form. The general prevalence of extravagant sexual excitement among the insane is a well-known fact. Disease.--Various diseases which cause local irritation and congestion of the reproductive organs are the causes of unchastity in both sexes, as previously explained. It not unfrequently happens that by constantly dwelling upon unchaste subjects until a condition of habitual congestion of the sexual organs is produced, young women become seized with a furor for libidinous commerce which nothing but the desired object will appease, unless active remedial measures are adopted under the direction of a skillful physician. This disease, known as _nymphomania_, has been the occasion of the fall of many young women of the better classes who have been bred in luxury and idleness, but were never taught even the first lessons of purity or self-control. Constipation, piles, worms, pruritis of the genitals, and some other less common diseases of the urinary and genital systems, have been causes of sexual excitement which has resulted in moral degradation. Results of Licentiousness.--Apparently as a safeguard to virtue, nature has appended to the sin of illicit sexual indulgence, as penalties, the most loathsome, deadly, and incurable diseases known to man. Some of these, as _gonorrhea_ and _chancroid_, are purely local diseases; and though they occasion the transgressor a vast amount of suffering, they may be cured and leave no trace of their presence except in the conscience of the individual. Such a result, however, is by no means the usual one. Most frequently, the injury done is more or less permanent; sometimes it amounts to loss of life or serious mutilation, as in cases we have seen. And one attack secures no immunity from subsequent ones, as a new disease may be contracted upon every exposure. By far the worst form of venereal disease is _syphilis_, a malady which was formerly confounded with the two forms of disease mentioned, but from which it is essentially different. At first, a very slight local lesion, of no more consequence--except from its significance--than a small boil, it rapidly infects the general system, poisoning the whole body, and liable forever after to develop itself in any one or more of its protean forms. The most loathsome sight upon which a human eye can rest is a victim of this disease who presents it well developed in its later stages. In the large Charity Hospital upon Blackwell's Island, near New York City, we have seen scores of these unfortunates of both sexes, exhibiting the horrid disease in all its phases. To describe them would be to place before our readers a picture too revolting for these pages. No pen can portray the woebegone faces, the hopeless air, of these degraded sufferers whose repentance has come, alas! too late. No words can convey an adequate idea of their sufferings. What remorse and useless regrets add to the misery of their wretched existence as they daily watch the progress of a malignant ulceration which is destroying their organs of speech, or burrowing deep into the recesses of the skull, penetrating even to the brain itself! Even the bones become rottenness; foul running sores appear on different portions of the body, and may even cover it entirely. Perhaps the nose, or the tongue, or the lips, or an eye, or some other prominent organ, is lost. Still the miserable sufferer lingers on, life serving only to prolong the torture. To many of them, death would be a grateful release, even with the fires of retributive justice before their eyes; for hell itself could scarcely be more awful punishment than that which they daily endure. Thousands of Victims.--The venturesome youth need not attempt to calm his fears by thinking that these are only exceptional cases, for this is not the truth. In any city, one who has an experienced eye can scarcely walk a dozen blocks on busy streets without encountering the woeful effects of sexual transgression. Neither do these results come only from long-continued violations of the laws of chastity. The very first departure from virtue may occasion all the worst effects possible. Effects of Vice Ineradicable.--Another fearful feature of this terrible disease is that when once it invades the system its eradication is impossible. No drug, no chemical, can antidote its virulent poison or drive it from the system. Various means may smother it, possibly for a life-time; but yet it is not cured, and the patient is never safe from a new outbreak. Prof. Bumstead, an acknowledged authority on this subject, after observing the disease for many years, says that "he never after treatment, however prolonged, promises immunity for the future."[44] Dr. Van Buren, professor of surgery at Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, bears the same testimony. [Footnote 44: Venereal Disease.] Prof. Van Buren also says that he has often seen the disease occur upon the lips of young ladies who were entirely virtuous, but who were engaged to men who had contracted the disease and had communicated it to them by the act of kissing. Virtuous wives have not infrequently had their constitutions hopelessly ruined by contracting the disease from husbands who had themselves been inoculated either before or after marriage, by illicit intercourse. Several such unfortunate cases have fallen under our observation, and there is reason to believe that they are not infrequent. The Only Hope.--The only hope for one who has contracted this disease is to lead a life of perfect continence ever after, and by a most careful life, by conforming strictly to the laws of health, by bathing and dieting, he may possibly avoid the horrid consequences of the later stages of the malady. Mercury will not cure, nor will any other poison, as before remarked. The following strong testimony on this subject we quote from an admirable pamphlet by Prof. Fred. H. Gerrish, M.D.:-- "The diseases dependent upon prostitution are appallingly frequent, a distinguished surgeon recently declaring that one person in twenty in the United States has syphilis, a malady so ineradicable that a profound observer has remarked that 'a man who is once thus poisoned will die a syphilitic, and, in the day of Judgment, he will be a syphilitic ghost.' Prof. Gross says: 'What is called scrofula, struma, or tuberculosis, is, I have long been satisfied from careful observation of the sick and a profound study of the literature of the subject, in a great majority of cases, if not invariably, merely syphilis in its more remote stages.' Though there are doubtless many of us who believe that a not inconsiderable proportion of scrofulous and phthisical cases are clearly due to other causes than syphilis, we must admit that this statement contains a very large element of truth." Hereditary Effects of Venereal Disease.--The transgressor is not the only sufferer. If he marries, his children, if they survive infancy, will in later years show the effects of their father's sin, exhibiting the forms of the disease seen in its later stages. Scrofula, consumption, cancer, rickets, diseases of the brain and nerves, decay of the bones by caries or necrosis, and other diseases, arise in this way. But it generally happens that the child dies before birth, or lingers out a miserable existence of a few days or weeks thereafter. A most pitiable sight these little ones are. Their faces look as old as children of ten or twelve. Often their bodies become reduced before death to the most wretched skeletons. Their hollow, feeble cry sends a shudder of horror through the listener, and impresses indelibly the terrible consequences of sexual sin. Plenty of these scrawny infants may be seen in the lying-in hospitals. No one can estimate how much of the excessive mortality of infants is owing to this cause. In children who survive infancy, its blighting influence may be seen in the notched, deformed teeth, and other defects; and very often it will be found, upon looking into the mouth of the child, that the soft palate, and perhaps the hard palate as well, is in a state of ulceration. There is more than a suspicion that this disease may be transmitted for several generations, perhaps remaining latent during the life-time of one, and appearing in all its virulence in the next. Man the Only Transgressor.--Man is the only animal that abuses his sexual organization by making it subservient to other ends than reproduction; hence he is the only sufferer from this foul disease, which is one of the penalties of such abuse. Attempts have been made to communicate the disease to lower animals, but without success, even though inoculation was practiced. Origin of the Foul Disease.--Where or when the disease originated, is a mystery. It is said to have been introduced into France from Naples by French soldiers. That it originated spontaneously at some time can scarcely be doubted, and that it might originate under circumstances of excessive violation of the laws of chastity is rendered probable by the fact that gonorrhea, or an infectious disease exactly resembling it, is often caused by excessive indulgence, from which cause it not infrequently occurs in the newly married, giving rise to unjust suspicion of infidelity on both sides. Read the following from a noted French physician:-- "The father, as well as the mother, communicates the syphilitic virus to the children. These poor little beings are attacked sometimes at their birth; more often it is at the end of a month or two, before these morbid symptoms appear. "I recall the heart-rending anguish of a mother whom I assisted at her fifth confinement. She related to me her misfortune: 'I have already brought into the world four children. Alas! they all died during the first months of their existence. A frightful eruption wasted them away and killed them. Save me the one that is about to be born!' cried she, in tears. The child that I delivered was sickly and puny. A few days after its birth, it had purulent ophthalmia; then, crusted and ulcerated pustules, a few at first, numerous afterward, covered the entire surface of the skin. Soon this miserable little being became as meager as a skeleton, hideous to the sight, and died. Having questioned the husband, he acknowledged to me that he had had syphilis."[45] [Footnote 45: Bourgeois.] Cure of the "Social Evil."--With rare exceptions, the efforts of civil legislation have been directed toward controlling or modifying this vice, rather than extirpating it. Among other devices adopted with a view to effect this, and to mitigate in some degree the resulting evils, the issuing of licenses for brothels has been practiced in several large cities. One of the conditions of the license makes it obligatory upon the keepers of houses of ill-repute and their inmates to submit to medical examination at stated intervals. By this means, it is expected to detect the cases of foul disease at the outset, and thus to protect others by placing the infected individuals under restraint and treatment. It will be seen that for many reasons such examinations could not be effective; but, even if they were, the propriety of this plan of dealing with the vice is exceedingly questionable, as will appear from the following considerations:--