We approach this chapter with a degree of reluctance, because of the varying opinions entertained by many good people, and because of the false notions which have crept into the conception of its responsibilities, its duties, its privileges, its rights, and its wrongs.

When the marital state is entered in the spirit of Him who ordained it, no sanctuary is more sacred; when entered in the misconception of many men and women of modern times, no relation is more of the abode of darkness and sin.

Rightly interpreted, and its privileges not abused, its influence upon the individual and united lives, is second to none for the development of strong noble character. Wrongly interpreted, and its liberties used as a license for unbridled desire, while the great object for which the relation was instituted is not only not recognized, but by every means avoided and abused, it becomes a snare and degradation to the nobler instincts and aspirations, and lets in a legion of evil spirits which lead farther and farther away from truth and righteousness.

When the marriage state is entered with the fixed determination to avoid parenthood, while giving rein to lust, can we wonder at the looseness of character developed and the deadening of conscience to all sin? And what have been the causes which have led up to this state of things? False notions of life, low ideas of happiness, lack of individuality and self-assertion where principle is concerned, leaving God out of the question of marriage, and vain, untaught mothers—these are the influences which have caused this state of things.

A late writer of a magazine article has said “If the recording angel is still keeping account of human things, there are crimes going on record constantly against women, and among the blackest of these are the millions of sins chalked down against mothers who are guilty of teaching this degrading error to their daughters, that the gewgaws of fashion, the luxury of a city home, is the price for their daughter’s body, soul, honor, health and happiness. Alas! the only happiness these modern girls, raised for the matrimonial market, know, is found in the few years of innocence while they are still in the nursery. And the remedy for this evil, is there none? There is none in law or virtue, for those who have sold their womanhood for a mess of pottage. But the young may be spared. Teach your daughters, mothers, that happiness and health for themselves, and strong bodies for their offspring, are what should be dearest to a woman; that they are more to be valued than all the riches of Golconda; that marriage should be guided by nature, not commercialism. And, young women, be true to yourselves. Seek happiness and joy where they may be found. Be true to yourself, and loyal to your own womanhood. Don’t believe that love is old-fashioned or obsolete. It is eternal. It is nature’s finger pointing the way to marriage that will always be happy.”

No life can be imagined more miserable, when the first glamour is worn off, no matter how much of wealth and position and social standing is thrown in, than a loveless marriage. Every responsibility becomes a hard fact, every duty an unrequited labor, every privilege, at least to one of the contracting parties, an unwelcome and nauseous gratification, life itself a burden.

How different when love smooths the way, and finds excuse for every trifling inconsistency; when sorrows are shared, not doubled, when rights are respected, when home means wife, husband, children, happiness, with God over all.

But we will put aside all the sad pictures and think of marriage as it should be, and then measure its responsibilities. Hitherto you have, since your majority, in large measure sought your own pleasure; now you have the pleasure of another to seek; and you do it gladly. Not what is best for you alone, but what is best for you two united in making a home, in adding to the strength of both in the united life.

Much has been said, in these later days, derogatory to the clause in our older marriage ceremonies which promises obedience. In true marriages there is no thought of obedience or disobedience. Each seeks willingly the opinions and wishes of the other, and, so far as possible and best, follows them; but there must be no arbitrary wilfulness on the part of either, and each must acknowledge the individuality of the other and respect the differences of opinion. A ready yielding of trifling differences is a small price to pay for conjugal harmony, and every time it is done it adds loveliness to the one who yields.

In a late number of The Ladies’ Home Journal, Mrs. Burton Kingsland says, “A readiness to give up in little things is the most tactful appeal possible for a return of courtesy, at other times when the matter may be of importance to us. It is a high attainment in politeness to allow others to be mistaken. Let a trifling misstatement pass unnoticed where no principle is involved, and when a mistake is past remedy, it is best to let the subject drop. The argument of the ‘I told you so’ character is always quite superfluous.”

In no relation of life is self-control so needed, in no relation can it be so subservient to our higher nature.

In the aggressive part of the human family,—aggressive in these relations,—there is great danger of allowing the lower nature to dominate the higher. Passion, when master, overrides all other considerations, and the selfishness, which is so dangerous a part of human nature, sees but one thing,—the accomplishment of desire. No thought of the possible results hinders him, and while nothing is hazarded on his part, everything on hers—even this for the moment is forgotten; and afterward he may well wonder how his better self was so lost to the tender sympathetic love and consideration in which he should always hold her.

Be guarded, O husband! It is woman’s nature to forgive, and when she loves, this impetuosity of passion uncontrolled, can be many times forgiven. Aye, even when too frequent maternity is thrust upon her; but there comes a time when love and forgiveness have reached their limit, and love struggles vainly to rise above disgust and loathing, but it can never again attain to anything but tolerance.

But the wife is not always guiltless, when this sad state of things has resulted, in what should have been a happy married life. While the husband is the aggressive one, yet she may, by many little carelessnesses, and thoughtless acts, invite attentions which she afterward repels. The womanly modesty which characterized her girlhood, should always be preserved and observed; and this innate dignity, this strongly asserted individuality, will tide them gloriously over many hard places.

The custom in many English homes of each having a room, which is peculiarly one’s own, may seem to our freedom-loving natures, a cold custom; but is not this better when a proper self-control seems difficult, than a freedom which degenerates into license? True, the door between these two rooms should seldom be shut, but the fact that there are two rooms relieves of many temptations, and prevents the familiarity, which even in married life, breeds contempt.

There is a wise Eastern proverb which fits very beautifully here. “To satisfy the appetite is not always good. This will the beasts do whenever they find provender. Man alone can say to himself, thou shalt fast, because I have willed it. Appetite thus conquered, maketh man king over beasts; thus is he set apart from them, and so do his thoughts soar above the earth, even unto the region of the heavens.”

Every young person should be taught before marriage, that the closest conjugal relation should never be allowed without a willingness on the part of both that pregnancy should follow. Of course this does not always follow; but allowed with the fear, the dread, the unwillingness that it may result, it becomes a positive sin. This may seem strong meat, which almost borders on fanaticism, to some; but we are sure when it is considered in the light of the primal object of the marriage relation, it will not be thought fanatical. The very fact that conception may result at any time, proves that the conjugal relation was not instituted primarily for the gratification of the lower nature, but for procreation.

I trust I will not be misunderstood, in my statements upon this subject, for in writing upon so delicate a theme as this it is very difficult to make one’s self understood by all. If all will read carefully the statement I have just made, I think they will have no great difficulty in seeing the ground I take, and which I believe is held by all fair-minded people, namely: That while God ordained the marriage relation primarily, for the purpose of the perpetuity of the human race, as his first command to the pair in Eden would indicate, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” Yet this is to be taken with all that is comprehended in the terms, home, husband, and wife.

Therefore when I say, that every young person should be taught before marriage, that the closest conjugal relation should never be allowed, without a willingness on the part of both that pregnancy should follow, I mean simply what I hope I shall make clear throughout my book; that there shall be no pandering to sexual indulgence, while there is unwillingness to bear as many children, as a proper manly and womanly Christian temperance in these things will allow.

To fix an absolute rule of practice in these things, and consider it binding upon all, would be going out of my province, and the province of this book. In this, each pair must be judges for themselves: but there needs must be, behind all their thoughts upon this subject, right conceptions upon the holy relation they have entered into.

With the above rule fixed, no other limitations, or restrictions need be made. Everything will adjust itself to this rule, and harmony and mutual respect will be engendered.

Fix also the fact that the marriage relation is not one of license, but of liberty—liberty for both equally. Not liberty for one, and the grossest bondage for the other. Nowhere does the wife’s opinion deserve greater respect and tolerance than here. Nowhere should her negative be so willingly accepted.

There is a higher plane of loving and living than the sexual nature furnishes. This has, we doubt not, been proven to most married people during those weeks and months when continence has been necessary. Then why should this overmaster other and higher considerations?

That many marriages are little better than licensed prostitution, seems a hard thing to say; but when the lower nature is petted and indulged at the expense of the higher, it is a just thing to say, however harsh it may seem. In such cases the higher nature becomes more and more dwarfed, the animal nature more and more dominant. Let the husband learn the sweetness of conquest, in the love he bears his wife, in the tender consideration for her comfort and wishes.

There is a vast amount of vital force used in the production and expenditure of the seminal fluid. Wasted as the incontinence of so many lives allows it to be, and prostituted to the simple gratification of fleshly desire, it weakens and depraves. Conserved as legitimate control demands it to be, it adds so much, and more to the mental and moral force of the man, because it lifts him to a higher plane of being, and gives to the mental and moral the vital force otherwise wasted.

Rightly conceived and lived, the marriage relation rounds out and completes character as nothing else can. It gives ample room for the cultivation of all the gifts and graces, it discourages selfishness, it mellows and softens and beautifies the individual, and gives a broader outlook on life. Wrongly conceived and lived, its results are the opposite. It narrows the life and takes all the sweetness out of it. And the products of loveless marriages, what of them? How can the children of such parents be other than disinherited from birth? Out of their lives has gone the sweetness and tender loveliness that comes of true mating, true living.

The world is full of dwarfed minds and bodies, dwarfed by their loveless and unwilling conception; paranoiacs, cranks, feeble-minded, idiotic, epileptic, diseased children, for whom their parents are in great measure responsible. And this state of things will obtain just as long as marriage is made a marketable thing, and not the heart union of two lives.

I am well aware that many writers do not agree with me in these stronger sentiments, but studying the question in the light of creative purpose I feel certain the arguments in favor of unbridled license in these things cannot be justified.

Further, there are times when by common consent there should be no amorous approaches made to the wife, and when none should be invited. Study the question as I will, I can see no law or reason which justifies the husband in approaching the wife for the purpose of sexual gratification, at any time during pregnancy. It cannot but be a drain upon the strength of the wife, and certainly can have no wholesome influence upon the unborn child, and assuredly not upon the love and respect which the wife feels for the husband.

I cannot forbear quoting an “illustrative case” entire, from Dr. Holbrook’s book entitled, Stirpiculture: “How great is the influence on unborn offspring of the mother’s mental condition, as well as the effect over them of pleasant surroundings, is shown by the following case. A young girl attracted attention by her beauty and by the superiority of the type she exhibited over that of either of her parents, and on her mother being spoken to on the subject she remarked: ‘In my early married life my husband and I learned how to live in holy relations, after God’s ordinance. My husband lovingly consented to let me live apart from him during the time I carried this little daughter under my heart, and also while I was nursing her. These were the happiest days of my life. Every day before my child was born, I could have hugged myself with delight at the prospect of becoming a mother. My husband and I were never so tenderly, so harmoniously, or so happily related to each other, and I never loved him more deeply than during those blessed months. I was surrounded by all beautiful things, and one picture of a lovely face was especially in my thought. My daughter looks more like that picture than she does like either of us. From the time she was born she was like an exquisite rosebud—the flower of pure, sanctified, happy love. She never cried at night, was never fretful or nervous, but was all smiles and winning baby ways, filling our hearts and home with perpetual gladness. To this day, and she is now fourteen years old, I have never had the slightest difficulty in bringing her up. She turns naturally to the right, and I never knew her to be cross or impatient or hard to manage. She has given me only comfort; and I realize from an experience of just the opposite nature that the reason of all this is because my little girl had her birthright.’”

The future experience of this lady was however of a very different nature. She added: “A few years later I was again about to become a mother, but with what different feelings! My husband had become contaminated with the popular idea that even more frequent relations were permissible during pregnancy. I was powerless against this wicked sophistry, and was obliged to yield to his constant desires. But how I suffered and cried; how wretched I was; how nervous and almost despairing. Worst of all, I felt my love and trusting faith turning to dread and repulsion.

“My little boy, on whom my husband set high hopes, was born after nine of the most unhappy, distressing months of my life, a sickly, nervous, fretting child—myself in miniature—and after five years of life that was predestined by all the circumstances to be just what it was, after giving us only anxiety and care, he died, leaving us sadder and wiser. I have demonstrated to my own abundant satisfaction that there is but one right, God-given way to beget and rear children, and I know that I am only one of many who can corroborate this testimony.”

Again Dr. Holbrook says: “We have evidence among primitive people that they understand the necessity of limiting offspring, and practice it in a perfectly healthful way. The natives in Uganda, a region in Central Africa, offer an illustration: ‘The women rarely have more than two or three children; the practice being that when a woman has borne a child she is to live apart from her husband for two years, at which age children are weaned.’ Seaman, speaking of the Fijians, says: ‘After childbirth, husband and wife keep apart three and even four years, so that no other baby may interfere with the time considered necessary for suckling children.’”

It occasionally happens that the wife during pregnancy is troubled with a passion far beyond what she has ever experienced at any other time. This in every instance is due to some unnatural condition, and should be considered a disease, and for it the physician should be consulted.

The husband rightly rejoices in the name of protector of his wife, and how quick is he to resent any slight or fancied insult which may be offered her. Nowhere can he show more loyally his love and respect for her, than in the tender appreciation which he shows her in the control of her own person. Nay, more than yielding simply to her wishes, he should be the leader in these things if necessary, and guide her into the stronger way.

The sedentary life of many men renders them a prey to the gratification of their lower natures. To all such men exercise becomes a religious duty, and should be practiced most persistently until their physical natures are well tired, and the sexual nature will not then dominate the finer and nobler instincts of their being.

I was pained by the remark of a cultured lady, when speaking of continence in the married life, a few days ago in my office. She said: “Does it not seem a strange thing, doctor, that among those who seem most careless in these things, are many ministers and other good men from whom we should expect higher and nobler living.” I could but assent to this, for doctors, unfortunately for their comfort, listen to many confessions of sadness and unrighteousness in marital relations, and some of them come from sources which the world would little dream of.

The lady added: “I have an intimate friend, a few years younger than myself, who married a minister, and one who stands high in the denomination of which he is a member. They have had seven children, almost as fast as it is possible to have them, and the wife is a broken-down woman, spiritless and unhappy, a common drudge at an age when she should be full of life and joy, were things as they should be. One remark shows the feeling which this state of affairs has engendered. When I asked her why her husband allowed such a state of things to exist, she said, ‘He doesn’t care,’ and she said it with such a dispirited and utterly discouraged air that my heart ached for her.”

When will a brighter day dawn for woman and for man in these things? When our young people are trained to see these great questions in the light of God’s purposes and have strength of character sufficient to make them conquerors over the false opinions of the world, the temptations of the flesh, and the wiles of the devil.

Ignorance and misconception are at the bottom of all that is wrong in the marital relation. No loving husband would for a moment allow himself to yield to the demands of his lower nature did he consider and appreciate rightly all that it meant to his wife, his unborn children and to the generations to come.

There is such an incompatibility in the life of the man of high and noble instincts, of generous nature, and lofty aspirations, in so pandering to the lustful, so making provisions for the flesh, and at such terrible cost to the one whom he should and does hold most dear!

Let us pray and work that a brighter day may dawn speedily, when the marital relation shall be freed from all that is gross and sensual, and shall be the synonym for purity, truth, and righteousness.

In the Greek, the word for man—and this is the generic term, comprehending woman—means a being with his face turned upward. When we are looking upward our lives will be all the time tending upward, and we shall draw our inspiration from Him who lives above and ever leads His children into paths of truth and purity.

CHAPTER VIII.
PREPARATION FOR MOTHERHOOD.

“Motherhood is not a remote contingency, but the common duty and the common glory of womanhood.”

“They should know that the less children and the more servants in the home, the less health and happiness, other things being equal. It is natural for women to bear children, and unnatural to evade this function; the everlastingly recurrent congestion of the generative organs, month after month, year in and year out, without the rest of generation, promotes a true disease of these organs, and favors all the various growths which afflict so large a proportion of our women.”

With the prevailing ignorance, which has been the heritage of our daughters for so many generations, no thought of preparation for motherhood has exercised them. On the other hand, much the larger majority of our young women come to the marriage altar, far better informed in the methods of preventing conception, or producing abortion after conception has really taken place, than of any proper preparation for motherhood. Who are their teachers? Many who should blush with shame that they lend their influence to this nefarious business; this education in invalidism, murder and suicide. Many, who should be the teachers in truth and purity. Mothers, mothers-in-law, sisters, aunts, “friends,” young matrons, who have become adepts in the business, and whose punishment has not yet overtaken them—all these, and many more. Christians? Yes, professing Christians; but who would hardly like to have their advice in these things written along side of their confession of faith in the records of the church. They should remember that it is written in a larger book than that of a church, and written so large that all the world can read it by and by.

In the first steps of preparation for motherhood, the mother should be the teacher. That so few mothers are capable of teaching their daughters as they should, emphasizes the need of right teaching along these lines, and the necessity of plain talks with mothers and daughters.

From a recent paper I clipped the following: “There is a story going the rounds, that the last convention of the National Mothers’ Congress, was not entirely successful, owing to the fact, that only about one out of every ten delegates was even married. Since the object of the organization is the better care, discipline and rearing of the young, it has been determined that every delegate to the convention next month, must show her right to be there. While many unmarried women are probably more capable of rearing children than many who are trying to, no exceptions will be made to the rule of making the organization exclusively for mothers and wives.”

To my mind the writer of this criticism has shown far less wisdom than those who appointed as delegates, unmarried women. What better preparation for motherhood, than listening to the wise discussions relative to the care and training of children? Hence the convention is conserving the wisest purpose when it admits as delegates the young and unmarried women. Had I the appointing power I would make at least half the delegates from this class.

All the way from childhood onward, the wise mother will be instilling truths into the minds of her daughters, that will be along the line of preparation for motherhood. The early teaching of truth, the early knowledge of self and sex relations, the right estimate of marriage, all these lessons are preparing the way for the later knowledge that precedes motherhood.

From the wedding day, the young matron should shape her life to the probable and desired contingency of conception and maternity. Otherwise she has no right or title to wifehood.

While it has been proven that transient states of the parents have far less influence upon the offspring, than fixed habits of mind, yet much can be done by way of amending defects, and fixing admirable and desired traits in character, which before had been transient, and thus influencing with greater power the minds of the offspring.

Let this be always remembered that the stronger and more beautiful the mother becomes, the more lovely will be her children. Soul-gardeners should all mothers be in a peculiar sense, that the children which shall be given her, may have good soil in which to generate and grow during antenatal life.

No sacrifice should be considered too great for her to make, that this end may be conserved. As soon as she discovers herself pregnant, she should modify her clothing to the comfort and healthfulness of herself and baby. If she have already learned how to dress healthfully, she will need to make few changes in the early months. No weight of clothing should be allowed to rest upon the hips; everything must be supported from the shoulders. The skirt and waist can be fashioned in one garment, and so made that they can be let out to accommodate themselves to the growing need. The dainty and pretty maternity gowns are everything that can be desired, and can be so diversified that they meet all the wants of taste and change. Patterns for these can be bought at any reliable pattern house, and the gown can be made as elaborate as fancy dictates.

The union suit of underclothing, the union skirt and waist combined, and the gown, are all that should be worn throughout the entire period. If more warmth is needed it should be given in the undergarments.

Exercise must be taken daily as a religious duty. The common work which is to be done about the home, is as good as any system of physical exercise which can be devised for development and healthfulness throughout pregnancy; however, other movements for the special strengthening of the muscles of the back and abdomen may be taken with profit.

Beginning with the fourth month sitz baths (a bath taken in a sitting posture with only the parts about the hips submerged) should be taken as often as twice weekly for the following three months, and after this to the close of the period, every night just before retiring. The water should be as hot as can well be borne, and the bath continued for at least fifteen or twenty minutes, while a half hour can do no harm if it be enjoyed. Warm water should be added to keep the bath at an even temperature. Of course this should be taken in a warm room where there is no danger of a chill at the time or after.

With proper exercise and the baths, there will be no need of bandaging to hold up the pendant abdomen, for the strengthened muscles will do their work better than art can do it.

A word right here will not be out of place, upon the subject of threatened miscarriages. Young wives who are uninformed on these things will often be greatly troubled at symptoms which to them may seem alarming, which are not so at all, while on the other hand they may pass over too lightly other symptoms that are really grave in character.

At any time throughout the pregnancy a flow of blood, even if slight, must be considered grave enough to call for the counsel of the physician. Pains simulating menstrual pains, if at all aggravated must be looked after, and not be allowed to continue. Great care should always be taken at what would have been were she not pregnant, the regular monthly period, as the greatest danger of miscarriage comes at these times. No undue exercise should be taken, but instead, all the work, recreation and exercise should be rather under the ordinary, at these periods.

If miscarriage threatens, the first symptom to cause alarm will be a flow of more or less amount, and, on the appearance of this the physician should be at once consulted. Following this there should be enforced rest, preferably in a reclining position, for several days, until all fears that there will be a return are allayed, then the usual cares must be resumed with caution.

To guard against threatened miscarriage any young wife need only observe the rules which govern right living and carefulness, and she need have no fear.

All this for preservation and care; now a further word.

It has been remarked by travellers in Italy, that many of the native children bear a striking resemblance to the pictures of the child Jesus, from the adoration which the mothers give the Madonnas. The same truth is here again taught, that we not only become like what we most love, and think most about, but that we may transmit this likeness to our little ones. O mothers! what an incentive to high and noble thinking, and to worthy objects for our loves.

So far as inheritance goes this is too true, but there is another side which we must not fail to emphasize. Surroundings and education, with the grace of God, may do very much to eradicate harmful hereditary tendencies. Yet the truth remains that the prevailing tendencies of a life are inborn, and unless they are set in the right direction, we do battle against them at fearful odds, and with an expenditure of a vast amount of strength, that used otherwise would give us a long push in the successful journey of life.

Harriet Prescott Spofford has in her inimitable way put the truth of this mother inheritance in these words: “No intelligence, no cunning, no benevolence, could evade the inevitable. For what she was, that her child was. You do not gather figs from thistles. What she had made herself, she had made her child; what she had become that her child became also. In being born the child became all that.”

That we may train the more systematically our little unborn babes, it will be well for us to study the five stages of prenatal culture. In giving these stages, I would not have you understand that at no other time except at these periods are the given characteristics of mind and body cultured and strengthened; but that in these special periods they receive their strongest impetus and determination. Throughout the entire ten lunar months should we foster and culture all the sweet graces, but especially in these times.

In the first two of the ten lunar months of pregnancy the physical nature of the little one is shaped. During this time the mother should pay especial attention to physical exercises which will add to her strength and insure vigorous health through the remaining months. In other words, she should fix her habits of exercise in this period and adhere to them as closely as possible throughout the entire ten months. As far as may be, put pleasure and diversion into your exercise.

Look at beautiful pictures, study perfect pieces of statuary, forbid as far as possible the contemplation of unsightly and imperfect models. Make your reading tend toward the same end and you will be rewarded with beautiful, vigorous children. If it be true, as we know it is, that the dog-fancier can produce you a dog at will, that will be marked as you order, why may not this same law be demonstrated in the human family? Remember the story of Jacob’s sheep and the “pilled rods” for illustration in the animal kingdom.

During the third and fourth months the vital instincts are determined. Then the domestic and social affections and loves, love of home and family, are implanted. How very much the future mother may do by making the home at this time the fairest place on earth; and becoming so in love with it herself, that her child may forever in its after life repeat this affection.

“In the fifth and sixth months the observing, or perceptive powers are cultured and engrafted. Individuality, form, weight, color, calculation, time, tune, language and the five external senses.”

Surely, enough variety in study for this period. If you are not observing, learn to be, by persistent exercise; assert your individuality; study independence in thought and action; be self-reliant, self-contained. Study form and outline until you can take them in at a glance. If you have never cultivated an artistic taste do so at this time. If you have not the time, talent or money to learn to execute pictures yourself, you can at least study the beautiful things done by others, and can implant the love for these things, which may be highly developed in your child. Many an ideal to which you have never been able to give expression will thus be wrought out in the most glowing imagery hereafter by your children. The things you have longed to be will find expression in their lives.

Many a poet, I believe, has been born of parents whose lives were poems, but who were never able to express a couplet in rhyme or meter. “Susanna Wesley, with the song of praise and the gospel of peace in her heart, bore and gave to the world two sons, whose spiritual achievement in song and sermon set in motion a wave of blessing that has carried peace to thousands of souls the world over, and will carry to the end of time. Herself no singer or preacher, but living the song and the sermon that found expression in her sons.”

Truly nowhere does seed-sowing bring a hundredfold more surely, than that implanted in the prenatal life of our babies.

“In the fourth stage we develop the constructive and beautifying powers; as constructiveness, ideality, sublimity, mirthfulness, imitation, suavity, etc.” How much, by giving during this period, these faculties in your own mind full play, and judicious cultivation, can you add of blessing and happy helpfulness to the little life growing to maturity under your heart.

“The fifth and last stage of two months we may call the humanitarian and beneficent. In this period, the religious or worshipful aspirations, spiritual or upward looking powers, as hope, veneration, benevolence, charity, etc., etc., receive their impetus.”

How beautiful is the thought that in the last two months while waiting for the little one to come into her arms, the mother’s thoughts should be especially directed toward the highest and noblest possibilities of her nature, and that by so doing she may endow her child with these characteristics.

O mother, mother! As you learn these things, prove them in your own life; and then your work is only begun; for you are bound by all the ties of our common sisterhood to pass them on to mothers less favored than you, that they too may learn the possibilities bound up in motherhood.

A noble rule among the early Christians was this: “Whenever you learn a new and good thing, go and find some one that does not know it, and tell him of it.” A blessed rule for us as mothers to follow. We who have had some of the higher opportunities have a great responsibility resting upon us.

I found a few months ago, in one of our religious papers a little poem that appealed to me in its beauty and truthfulness. I cut it out and read it over many times until the words were learned. It is too true, I said to myself, but need it be so? No; it need not, if we reach out for the noblest within us and claim our privileges.

I caught up my pen and in the meter that had sung itself into my heart, I copied my own thoughts on the subject, and I will give them both to you.

CHAPTER IX.
PREPARATION FOR FATHERHOOD.

Webster defines “Replenish”: To stock abundantly, to make complete or perfect.

“It is a sad fact that many persons assume the responsibility of parents without any clear appreciation of its obligations. To provide a shelter from the storm, a proper amount of rations, and an irregular and spasmodic administration of discipline, chiefly regulated by the nervous susceptibility of the parents, rather than by the deserts of the child, is their idea of parental duty.”

Far more has been written in these latter days concerning the preparation for motherhood, than the preparation for fatherhood. One would almost conclude that no especial fitting were needed to prepare young men to become parents. Because of the lack of strong public sentiment along these lines, the many sons come to marriage with no adequate idea of the duties and responsibilities before them, with no thought or knowledge of what they have, or should have, to give to the next generation.

Suppose a set of questions something like the following were handed to young men the week before their marriage, what think you would be their answers?

Do you bring to your bride the same purity that you expect from her?

What in your life and habits have you hidden, and would you still hide from her?

What mental reservation do you make in respect to your liberties after marriage, to indulge these habits?

What companions have you, whom you would not care to bring to your home or introduce to your wife?

What “wild oats” have you sown that have left their seeds in your constitution to be transmitted to your children, and they in turn to their children down through the generations?

How many hours of thought have you given to the wise, earnest fitting for good fatherhood?

Do you, in the sight of God, consider yourself fit to become the husband, which all this close relation involves, of a pure, sweet, true woman?

These questions are simple questions, and should in every allowable marriage, admit of but one answer. No father or mother should ever give their consent to companionship, much less to marriage of their daughters, with men whom they have any reason to suppose could not answer these questions unblushingly, and with honest eyes, in the presence of the woman they seek as wife.

Dear young woman, you should know, as you value your peace of mind, what the young man really is to whom you plight your troth. What he may seem to be to you, what you have idealized him to be, is not sufficient. You owe it to yourself and to your unborn children, to know what he really is; and if he resents the questioning of your parents, say the “no,” now, rather than live it, in agony, all your after life.

Much that might have been said in this chapter I have already said in the chapter on the choice of a husband, and we will not repeat.

That there are many young men, noble, true, conscientious and pure in their sterling manhood we know; and for such as these the warnings in this chapter are not written. That there are parents who fully realize the necessity of training their children for parenthood, and have all the way along given line upon line, precept upon precept, toward this training, we all know; but that the number is not greater, we sadly deplore.

Young men need to realize that sowing wild oats will never bring a harvest of wheat; and that a bed of thistles will never yield a garland of flowers. Like will produce like, as long as the world stands, and we can never change it.

In preparation for fatherhood there is much that the best among young men would wish to change in their lives, and they have this to comfort them; that by painstaking perseverance any resolute person can do very much toward eradicating inborn tendencies, and hereditary evils. Poor soil well enriched and carefully tended, watered with the dew of God’s grace, will bring a marvelous harvest of good things, and transform all future products; while the best of fields, with the wisest of care and tillage in the years past, may grow to weeds and wastefulness in this generation, if neglected. Therefore, while we have much to be grateful for in a good heritage, and that we have a name which, unlike poor little Patsy’s, will wash, yet too much dependence cannot be placed upon this. “Say not that ye have Abraham to your father; I say unto you that God is able of these stones to raise up children unto Abraham.”

Young man, what sort of soil are you preparing for the growth of the next generation, when you allow, for a little time even, looseness of morals and wayward habits? Late hours, tippling, mingling with the unclean, the coarse jest and the coarser practice following, are not good soil for the implantation later on of the higher virtues; the danger is, the desire for such implantation will be lost, or if it in a measure remains, the roots of the old weeds are there, and the soil is cursed with the noisome seeds which will spring up and choke the wheat. Mayhap both may grow together, and a harvest of wheat and tares be gathered, but at what a cost of time and strength, that might have been used in better things.

The use of alcoholics and tobacco enfeeble the mind and constitution, and this enfeeblement accentuated is transmitted to the next generations. Many wives are struggling along in ill health that is directly traceable to the inhaling, night after night, of the breath of the husband, poisoned with nicotine. Many a little one is wailing through its infancy, and if it have strength sufficient, inherited from its remote ancestors, to pull it through, yet will it all its life suffer from its antenatal and postnatal poisoning; and the chances are that as soon as it is old enough it will take up the habit which is already acquired, to pass down along the line a more and more enfeebled heritage.

But the young are not all to blame, they have not been instructed. They have floated along, many times unmindful of the rapids they were nearing, and have not awakened until they were engulfed. And our daughters are not guiltless in this thing even. How many times when the escort asks, “Is tobacco offensive to you?” have our thoughtless girls answered, “Oh, no,” when at heart it was repulsive and sickening. By and by, after months of endurance it becomes bearable, and they can make the reply with a degree of truthfulness; for tobacco, like sin,