CHAPTER XXIV.

RECREATIONS.

_Walking._

It is well to bear constantly in mind that all exercise, even walking

on level ground, is objectionable in clothing that compresses the

body; and as exercise is the law of the development of muscle, the

only safe thing to do is so to dress that every muscle has free and

unrestrained motion. Walking to be beneficial should be out of doors,

with some pleasant motive, and taken with some degree of energy. The

length of the walk should be proportional to the strength of the

girl--short at first, and increasing as strength increases. The erect

attitude should be maintained, and the walking not prolonged to

exhaustion.

Walking slowly home from school, laden with books and intent on

conversation with others, will not fulfill the demands of walking for

exercise. It makes no demand on breathing power, does not develop

depth of chest or strength of limb.

_Running._

This is an admirable exercise if the dress be suitable. Long skirts

are an impediment. Running on the toes develops the calf of the leg.

The swift motion causes deep breathing, which expands the chest. If

violent or long-continued, it may make too urgent a demand on the

heart and lungs, and so be detrimental. The counsel of a physician is

safest for those whose heart and lungs are weak.

_Riding._

Horseback riding is a vigorous exercise, which would be especially

beneficial were it not for the cramped position women are forced by

custom to assume. It cannot be recommended to those who have a

tendency to lateral curvature of the spine or weak back, or prolapsed

internal organs. Such girls should by proper care be put into a better

physical condition before attempting to ride. Harvey advises learning

to ride on either side of the horse, so as to bring opposite sets of

muscles into play, and counteract the curvature which physicians who

have the opportunity to observe say is produced by riding. That being

true, why not adopt the sensible fashion of riding on both sides of

the horse at once, as men do? I saw a young lady so mounted the other

day, and the sight was far more agreeable than the twisted attitude

compelled by the side-saddle. Medical men also assert that riding

tends to produce round shoulders, and as the greatest muscular strain

comes on the back, it is not helpful to weak backs.

_Skating._

Skating is a fine exercise. It quickens the circulation and the

respiration, aids digestion, exercises a great number of muscles, both

of limbs and trunk of body, strengthens the ankles, and incidentally

the nerves. Evils are to be found in wrong habits of dressing, the

tendency to overdo through the fascination of the sport, the danger of

taking cold by carelessly sitting down to rest when heated, or driving

home after being warmed up by the severe exertion. A girl of good

judgment, properly clothed, ought to be benefited by this charming

out-door sport.

It should be begun very gradually at the opening of the skating

season, and not undertaken if the internal organs are prolapsed.

_Rowing._

Rowing is an exercise that develops the upper back and back of

shoulders, and therefore needs to be counteracted by exercise that

calls into play the muscles of the front of the chest.

_Cycling._

The dangers of cycling arise principally from lack of judgment. The

temptation to overdo is very great, and injury is done in attempts to

ride longer, farther and faster than the strength will safely allow.

The whole dress should be so arranged as to give perfect freedom of

movement, the skirt short enough to clear the dangerous part of the

mechanism, the saddle adjusted to the individual both in its make and

height, and the girl be taught to sit properly and to adjust her

weight so that the pressure will not be undue upon the perineum.

Rectal and other local irritations are produced by the pressure of the

whole weight resting on the saddle.

The position should not be absolutely erect, but leaning _slightly_

forward, so as to allow the weight to be distributed between the

handle-bars, the pedal, and the saddle. This slightly inclined

attitude also maintains the proper and harmonious relation of the

internal organs, so that the bowels do not crowd down on the pelvic

organs.

If the girl is taught to sit on the machine properly, to distribute

her weight, to sit on the large gluteal muscles, and not on the

perineum, to use judgment in the amount of exercise taken at a time,

there is no reason why a girl in a normal condition of health should

not be benefited.

There may be particular reasons why some girls should not undertake to

ride, and these can be determined by the physician.

_Tennis._

This is a game that demands great activity, consequently there is

especial need of entire freedom of movement. All constrictions of

clothing are especially injurious.

It is claimed by some that, being essentially a one-sided exercise,

there is a possibility, if unwisely indulged in, that it may produce

injurious results, especially to the spine.

_Swimming._

Swimming is not only a valuable exercise, but it really conduces to

the safety of life in these days of constant boat travel, and there

are no adequate reasons why girls should not learn. The younger they

begin, the more readily will they become expert. It is not wise to

indulge in this exercise while menstruating, nor immediately after

eating.

_Skipping._

There is some prejudice against this form of exercise from the fact

that it can be overdone, and also from the popular idea that it is

injurious to girls to jump.

If they are properly dressed, and their muscles are gradually

developed, and they use good common sense as to amount, there are

practically no dangers in skipping. It is admirably adapted to

strengthen a great variety of muscles, as those of the legs, back,

abdomen, and neck. It strengthens the knees and the arches of the

feet, thereby tending to overcome flat foot. It strengthens weak

backs, increases circulation and respiration and promotes digestion,

and, if practised out of doors, is one of the most perfect forms of

exercise. Of course the judgment dictates that when the pelvic organs

are heavy with the menstrual congestion it would not be advisable.

_Dancing._

Dancing, in itself considered, is a pleasant and beneficial exercise.

It develops grace and muscular strength, increases circulation and

respiration, and is cheering because of rhythm. One wishes that it

could be unqualifiedly commended. But when we take into account the

late hours, the heated rooms, the promiscuous company, the late

unwholesome suppers, the improper dress, the dangers of taking cold,

the immodest freedom of the round dance, and the not infrequent evils

resulting therefrom, it would seem unwise to commend an exercise so

surrounded by objectionable concomitants. It is observed that young

church members who become interested in the dance soon lose all their

interest in church work.

If dancing could be conducted in the daytime, out of doors, among

well-known home friends and companions, in proper dress, and with _no

round dances_, there would be much to commend, and little to condemn.

_Card-playing._

I can find little to say in favor of this form of amusement. It

contains no exercise for the body. It continues the cramped attitudes

to which most people are condemned during the day.

It certainly contributes nothing to the higher forms of enjoyment. It

stimulates emulations, which St. Paul enumerates among things to be

avoided; it is the accompaniment of gambling and low society; and,

while we must admit that a pack of cards in itself is not evil, yet it

can be and often is made most detrimental to the best interests of

morality and righteousness.

The young woman who respects her own intellectual and moral powers

will see little charm in manipulating cards in a way to gain a

momentary success over another and perhaps arousing unkind feelings,

it may be even passions, that may culminate in bloodshed.

_Theatre-going._

It is natural that we should enjoy pictorial representation of human

life with living actors and audible words; and, understanding this,

many good people have had the hope that the stage might be purified

and made a teacher of morals. Certainly valuable lessons of life might

be most strongly presented in this concrete form, and thus appeal with

wonderful power to the young and inexperienced. But that it might be

so used does not insure that it will be, and observation shows us that

it is not.

The modern play concerns itself principally with a delineation of

those phases of life which we condemn when they become reality, and

the teaching power of the stage becomes a lesson in wrongdoing which

to the young and inexperienced is potent in its suggestiveness.

The costumes of actresses are often immodest, and many of these women

are immoral in character. It would not be just to condemn all actors

with the sweeping assertion of immorality, but all will admit that the

temptations are great, and that great moral force is needed to resist

the influences that lead towards wrong.

That many of our great actors will not permit their children to become

actors, or, in some cases, even to enter the theatre as a witness of

its performances, speaks strongly on the matter.

In the consideration of this subject the girl may safely decide that

she will not be a permanent loser if she is not a frequenter of the

theatre. It is safer to keep the mind pure and untainted from all

pictures of sin, more especially if they are made attractive by the

glamour of jewels and silken attire, of music, dancing, and lifelike

portrayal.

PART III.

LOVE; HEREDITY; ENGAGEMENTS.

CHAPTER XXV.

LOVE.

In our study we have first learned of general and then of special

physiology, so, in continuing the same study in mental and moral

fields, we first learn of the general and then of our special relation

to others. We cultivate body, mind and spirit because it is our duty

to develop ourselves for our own interests; but it is also our duty to

cultivate all our powers because of our responsibility in regard to

others. This responsibility I will include in the one word, "love."

What is love? The idea of love occupies much of the thought of old and

young, and in different persons it will have very different meanings.

To one it means merely pleasurable sensations aroused by either the

thought of a person, or by the actual presence of that person. To

another it means an opportunity to sacrifice inclination and pleasure

in order to promote the happiness or welfare of a certain person.

Much that passes in the world as love is principally love of self. The

man loves the woman because she satisfies his sense of beauty; her

presence causes thrills and ecstasies; she contributes to his

happiness and comfort. That is, he loves himself through her. The

woman loves the man because he protects her, he surrounds her with

luxury, his presence brings thrills and ecstasies to her. She loves

herself through him. Is not this but the essence of selfishness? In

another case the man loves the woman so tenderly that he cannot do

enough to prove his devotion. If her welfare demands his absence, he

gladly foregoes the pleasure of her society. If her comfort requires

his unremitting toil, he gives his days, and even his nights, to the

task of labor for her. His only anxiety is to know her wants and to

supply them. He effaces himself and his wishes to serve her. He would

die to secure her good. He gives, and asks nothing. Or, in the same

way, the woman loves the man so that her whole thought is not what she

can obtain from him, but what she can give him. True love desires only

to give. Self-love strives only to secure.

Emerson says, "All the world loves a lover," and conversely we may say

a true lover loves all the world. The affection kindled in the heart

by one worthy individual goes out in a kindlier feeling for all the

world. A poet once said that the world was brighter and all humanity

dearer because he loved truly one worthy woman. He was more gentle

with little children; the very beggar on the street corner seemed to

be a brother in distress. Because the woman he loved had given him her

heart, he wanted to give something to every one he met. This is the

spirit of true love, to go out in blessings towards the beloved

object, and so on towards every created thing.

I was once asked if I believed in love at first sight. How can love

spring up in a minute? There may be admiration of beauty, there may be

appreciation of intellectual qualities, there may be a recognition of

magnetic personal attraction, but none of these is love. Love, to be

worthy the name, must be a superstructure built upon a firm foundation

of acquaintance with each other's true qualities. Love is not a

balloon, in which two young people may go sailing among the clouds,

away from all regions of every-day life. Those who try it with that

idea find the cloud-world cold and uncomfortable, and not at all the

rosy, gold-tinted region it looked at a distance.

Love is rather like a building with foundations set into the

earth--foundations solid, firmly laid and durable. How can people love

when they do not know each other? Acquaintance first, then friendship,

comradeship; then, if the sentiment grows, love. But how are young

people to get really acquainted? They meet under unreal conditions.

They see each other in society, in Sunday dress and with Sunday

manners. They doubtless do not mean to deceive each other, but there

is little to draw out the real self. There is nothing to disturb or

irritate, nothing to prove the honesty, the neatness, the industry,

the persistence, the business ability; nothing to disclose the true

ideas in matters of serious import, of health, religion, duties of

husbands and wives, the government of the home; and too often the

intimacy of marriage discloses many personal peculiarities of temper,

habits and manners that, if seen in time, would have prevented

marriage.

The trouble does not originate with young people themselves, but with

older people; but as the young people of to-day will be the older

people of the future, it would be well for them to realize what the

trouble is. The fact is, that in the present conditions of society the

association of young people is unnatural. From earliest childhood boys

and girls are taught to think of each other only in sentimental ways.

The little boys and girls in school are playing at "lovering," and

their conversation is often more about beaus and sweethearts than

about the plays of childhood, which alone should occupy their

thoughts. You remember that little miss of ten who asked you, when you

were sixteen, who was your beau. You recall her look of surprise when

you replied that you had none, and her exclamation, "Have no beau!

Why, how do you get along without one?" What made such a mere child

imagine a beau to be an essential agent of a girl's life? Because she

had been taught by the jests and suggestions of her elders that every

boy was a possible lover, and, young as she was, that thought was

woven into her very life. It is pitiable to see how early the mind of

the child is tainted by sentimentality, by the unwise suggestions of

older friends. I remember hearing of a child of six who was talking of

getting married. Some one said, "You are too little to think of

getting married," and the child replied, "Why, I have thought of it

since I was two years old." And doubtless she had, because it had been

continually impressed on her mind by the conversation of parents and

friends, and the direction they had given her thought in regard to her

relation to everything masculine.

Parents are often very unwilling to teach their daughters the facts of

sex, and yet quite willing to emphasize the consciousness of sex by

intimating the possibility of flirtations, love affairs, etc. And this

false, pernicious idea of the relation of men and women is too often

called love. The central idea of romances is this passionate

attraction of the sexes. The plot gathers in intensity around the

lovers, and culminates in their marriage, after which life is presumed

to move on without a jar, and silly girls and impulsive boys imagine

that the sweet pain that accompanies the touch of hands or the glance

of the eyes is love, and is a sufficient guarantee for the forming of

a life partnership.

Let us face this question fairly. What is love? Of what is it made?

Can you judge with any certainty of its lasting qualities? How can you

know the true from the false?

Unfortunately we have but the one word, "love," to designate many

phases of kindly regard. The mother loves her child, the child loves

the mother, yet love differs much in these two instances. The one is

protecting, anxious, self-sacrificing, unstinted care, unqualified

devotion; the other is sweet dependence, unquestioning acceptance,

asking all and giving little. The love of brother and sister differs

from that of brother for brother, or sister for sister. The love of

man for woman differs from all other emotions of love. It contains

elements not found in other forms. It may have the same quality of

giving or accepting, of protecting or yielding, but with all this

there is an added quality that is not found in any other relation of

life, a quality that rises to the intensity of a passion, and which,

if thwarted or distorted, may become murderous or lead to insanity.

This overwhelming, domineering sway of feeling inheres in the fact of

sex. It is the expression of the whole nature, through the physical;

it is the vital creative force endeavoring to reach a tangible result.

Holy in its inception, it can be degraded to the vilest uses. Forming

the distinctive feature of love between the sexes, it is too often

imagined to be the all, and a strong physical attraction without the

basic friendship, which can only come through acquaintance, is not

infrequently supposed to be worthy of the name of love, and found,

alas! to be the most unsubstantial of chimeras.

Love, to be worthy of the name, must rest, not on the fact of

admiration for beauty, not on the physical attraction manifested in

sweet electric thrills. Love should include intellectual congeniality

and spiritual sympathy, as well as physical attraction. Lacking any

one of these three ingredients, the interest of two people in each

other should not be called love.

In order that it may be determined whether there is the true basis of

love, there should be opportunity for unsentimental acquaintance. If

we could free the minds of young people from the romantic idea, and

allow them to associate as intelligent beings, and so form

acquaintance on the basis of comradeship, we should make things safer

for them.

But if the older people do not know how to secure this desirable state

of affairs, the young people themselves might secure it if they

understood its desirability. You, as a young woman, can have much

influence in the right directions, supposing that you drop from your

mind the idea of sentimental relations with young men and meet them

on the ground of a friendly comradeship.

Don't indulge in _tête-à-têtes_, or in lackadaisical glances of the

eye. Don't permit personal familiarities, hand pressures, or caresses.

Don't simper, and put on the airs which mean, though the girl may not

understand it, an effort to arouse the admiration and the physical

feeling of love. Refuse to be flattered, to be played with, to be

treated as a female, but insist on being treated as a woman with

intelligence, with a capacity to understand reasonable things.

Manifest an interest in the movements of the world, of politics,

literature, art, religion, athletics. Talk of the things that interest

the young man as a citizen of the world, and not merely of those

things which appeal to him as a male. Be frank, be lively, be witty,

be wise, but do not be sentimental.

When a young man calls, don't let him get the idea that you have to be

secluded in a room apart from the rest of the family. You will be

better able to judge of him if you see him with your brothers, if you

note his manner towards your mother, if you hear him converse with

your father, if you mark his conduct towards the younger children. He

will talk sense, if he can, when he meets your family, while in a

_tête-à-tête_ conversation with yourself he may be able to hide his

lack of wisdom under the glamour of sweet nothings and soft nonsense.

Then be yourself when he comes. Let him see you in your home life, at

your domestic duties, sewing, helping mother, reading to father,

caring for the little ones. Be an honest, free-hearted, companionable

girl, and put sentimentality out of mind. You can have many such

friends, and by and by, out of these you will probably find one whom

you admire more and more as time goes on. You hear his sentiments

always expressed in favor of truth and probity. You come to know

something of his business principles, you see his courtesy to old and

young, you learn of his home, his family, his social position, and out

of this intimate knowledge there springs the attachment, blended with

deep respect, which assures you that he is worthy of your heart and

hand, and indeed of your whole life.

Little by little the comradeship has grown more intimate. You have not

been sentimental. You have treated each other with respect, you have

maintained your self-respect, you have held a tight rein over your

fancies and emotions, but now you are convinced that you may allow

them to have sway. You begin to acknowledge to yourself that you love.

And he, too, begins to manifest a deeper interest in you. You see this

with a certain pride in the fact that he is not self-deceived He

knows you, has seen you in your daily life, has sounded the depth of

your intellect, knows of your religious beliefs, and in all he has

found you coming up to his ideals. His eye meets yours with a new

tenderness in its glance that touches you, because you know it is not

an earthly fire of passion that glows therein. It is you, the real,

immortal you, that he seeks; not merely the pleasures of sense through

you; and feeling the response in your own heart, your glance kindles

with the same divine fire, and your true selves have spoken to each

other. You have gradually grown into the knowledge of love. You have

not fallen in love. And yet there have been no words, and in maiden

shyness you await his speech. Your womanly reserve has won his

respect, and he makes no attempts to win privileges of endearments

before he confesses his love, but frankly and manfully pleads his suit

and wins.

Oh, my dear child, this has been no matter for jesting; it has been

serious, and we who have watched this dawning love have realized that

the great drama of life, so full of tragic possibilities, is being

here enacted. We do not laugh, nor jest, but with the tenderest

prayers we welcome you into the possibilities of God's divinest gift

of human love.

CHAPTER XXVI.

RESPONSIBILITY IN MARRIAGE.

You are beginning to feel a peculiar interest in one young man more

than in any other. You think of him in his absence; you welcome his

coming; his eyes seem to caress you; the clasp of his hand thrills

you; you begin to think that you have passed from the domain of

friendship into that of love.

Before you really make that admission, let us "reason together." Let

us take a fair look at matters, and see whether it is wiser to pass

the border line, or to remain only friends. Who is this young man? You

tell me his name, but that means nothing. Who is he? What is he in

himself? What are his talents, capacities, habits, inherited

tendencies? Who is his father, his mother? What is their worth? I do

not mean in money, but in themselves? What ancestral diseases or

defects may he transmit to his posterity, which will be your posterity

if he becomes your husband? Are the family tendencies such that you

would be willing to see them repeated in your children?

There is no indelicacy in asking yourself these questions, nor in

making the investigations which will enable you to answer them

satisfactorily. The woman who marries, marries not only _into_ her

husband's family, she also marries his family; she is to become one of

it, to live with it in closer and closer companionship as her

children, bearing the family temperament, disposition and tendencies,

gather one by one around her hearth.

Is the family one of the type that she will desire to associate with

intimately all the days of her life? You may feel that it does not

matter if you do not love your husband's mother, or admire his

sisters; no matter if you do not have respect for his father, you will

live so far away from them that it will not be oftener than once in

several years that you will be obliged to meet them. It might even

happen that you would never see them, and yet it be a very serious

matter that they were not respectable or lovable people, for they

constitute one-half of the ancestry of your children. Their most

undesirable characteristics may, perchance, be the endowment of your

sons and daughters, and your heart ache, or even break, over the

habits, or, it may be, criminality, which may disgrace your home

through the paternal inheritance that you chose for them. Viewed in

this light, marriage becomes a most serious matter. It is unfortunate

that girls generally have the idea that it is not modest to think of

marriage further than the ceremony. Of the responsibilities and duties

they are not only ignorant, but think it ladylike to remain

uninformed until experience teaches them, and that teaching is often

accompanied by heart-breaking sorrow. If you should make inquiry you

would discover that a large proportion of mothers have buried their

firstborn children, and should you ask them why, they would in all

probability say, almost without exception, that it was because they

did not know how to give them a dower of health, or how to care for

their physical needs.

Again, investigation would show you that children go astray, become

wild, dissipated, or even criminal, because parents have not known how

to train them, how to keep their confidence, how wisely to guide them

in ways of righteousness.

We all believe it very important that mothers should know how to

direct and govern their children, and yet we do not train the future

mothers for this important office. We teach girls how to sew or cook,

how to embroider and play the piano. We do not expect them to know,

without instruction, how to mingle the ingredients for a cake or

pudding, but we imagine that they will know by intuition how to secure

the best results in the mingling of heterogeneous compounds in the

formation of the characteristics of a human being.

When we speak of the mother's privilege, we think of the actual

mother, whose privilege is to care for and guide her real children.

But the mother's privilege in fact begins in her own childhood, when

by her habits of life and thought she is deciding her own character,

and at the same time creating, in great degree, the talents and

tendencies of her possible children. It is her privilege to secure a

measure of physical vigor for her descendants by her care of her own

health in her very girlhood. She can endow them with mental power by

not frittering away her own powers of mind in foolish reading or

careless methods of study. By her own self-respecting conduct she

helps to give them the reverence for self which will insure their

acting wisely. All this is the mother's privilege; and still one more

great privilege is hers, and that is to choose one-half the ancestry

of her descendants. She cannot choose their ancestry that comes to

them through herself; that is a fixed fact. Her parents must of

necessity be her children's grandparents. Her family characteristics

are also their inheritance. The only thing she can do in regard to

their inheritance through her is to modify the objectionable traits,

and to cultivate the good traits herself, so that family faults may in

her be weakened and the probability of transmission lessened, and the

family virtues be strengthened and their probable transmission

intensified. But she has the power to decide what shall be the

paternal ancestry of her household; and if she is duly impressed with

the responsibility of this power, she will not allow herself to fall

in love and marry a man of whose family she knows nothing, or knows

facts that do not promise well for posterity.

CHAPTER XXVII.

THE LAW OF HEREDITY.

I once heard of a man who on his death-bed made a singular will. He

had no houses or lands to bequeath his children, but he had observed

that they had inherited much from him, and so he made a formal bequest

to them of that which they already possessed.

He wrote: "I bequeath to my son John my big bony frame and the

slouching gait I acquired by carelessness, also my inherited tendency

to consumption. To my daughter Mary I bequeath my sallow complexion

and torpid liver, which are the result of my gross living; also my

melancholy disposition and tendency to look on the dark side of life.

To my son Samuel I give my love for alcoholic liquors and my irritable

disposition; to my daughter Jane my coarseness of thought and my

unwillingness to be restrained in my desires, and also my tendency to

commit suicide."

"A very strange will," said everybody, and yet it was a will that was

probated long before the testator's death. That it gave perfect

satisfaction I will not assert, but it was never contested and paid no

fees to lawyers.

Just such wills are being made daily by the lives and conduct of

young people, though they are not put into writing. Some time in the

future, however, they will be written into "living epistles, known and

read of all men."

Other wills are being made daily that through sober, virtuous,

youthful lives will bequeath to posterity dowers of health, strength,

purity and power.

This being true, it seems only a part of prudent foresight to study in

youth the law that governs the transmission of personal

characteristics to the future "denizens of life's great city." This

law is known as Heredity, and its first written record is in the first

chapter of Genesis, where it is written that "Every plant and animal

shall bring forth after its kind." We are so accustomed to seeing the

results of this law that we give it little or no thought. We see that

grass springs up each year on our lawns and meadows. We know that if

we put the seeds of a certain flower in the ground, that kind of

flower will always spring up, never another kind. The farmer is not

anxious, after he sows wheat, for fear that the crop will be rye or

barley. We expect that the young of cats will be kittens, of geese

will be goslings, of men will be human children, and we are never

disappointed. The law holds good under all circumstances.

We see, too, that there are certain race characteristics that

maintain. The Mongolian race has peculiar high cheek-bones, sallow

complexions and eyes set in bias, and we recognize the Japanese or

Chinese at once, even though dressed in the garb of our country. So,

too, we recognize the African or the Caucasian by certain marked

characteristics. This transmission of racial traits we call race

heredity.

Then each race has its own traits, physical or mental, which we

recognize as national, and so speak of them. We always mention thrift

as an attribute of the Teutonic nations; the Irishman we characterize

as witty and pugnacious; the Frenchman as polite; the American as

progressive.

Each individual has not only his human inheritance, his race

inheritance and his national characteristics, but he has also an

endowment of family traits.

But we are not made up of odds and ends of ancestral belongings alone.

We have in ourselves something that is original, that makes us

different from each other, and from all others. I have sometimes

thought that we are somewhat like patchwork quilts, the parti-colored

blocks being set together by some solid-colored material; or, better

still, we are like "hit and miss" rag carpets, with a warp of our own

individuality, filled in with a woof made of qualities and capacities

of all those who have preceded us. You know, in making "hit and miss"

rag carpets we take little strips and bits of various materials and

all colors, and sew them together without regard to order or

arrangement, and these long strips are woven back and forth in the

warp until the carpet is woven, showing no set pattern, but a mingling

of tints and shades that is sometimes crude and unsightly, sometimes

soft and artistic.

I used, in childhood, to find great delight in seeking among the

blended colors in the carpet for scraps of clothing which I recognized

as having belonged to father or mother, or perhaps even to

grandparents. Even now, in my maturer years, I am interested in

finding in myself the physical, mental or moral characteristics of

those same ancestors; and you, no doubt, can do the same, while some

of your traits seem to be yours entirely, constituting individual

variations upon ancestral inheritances.

Nature has been doing for centuries, unheeded, what the photographer

of to-day thinks is a modern discovery, that is, making composite

photographs of us all.

Through this law of inheritance have arisen the intellectual, the

moral or the criminal types of humanity, and the process is

continuing; the types are becoming more and more marked, or modifying

influences are being brought in to change the type.

These influences are also the result of law, even though we may not be

able to trace them to their cause. Knowing this, however, we begin to

see that heredity is not fatality; that the power to modify the

endowments of future generations is ours. To know how to employ it, we

should study the law as far as we have opportunity.

This subject is a large one, and no doubt you will some day want to

give it a thorough investigation. Just now, however, you will have to

accept my statements. I will not make them technical, but strictly

practical to you as a young woman desiring that knowledge which shall

best fit you for the responsibilities of future life.

A superficial study is rather discouraging. We see with what certainty

evil characteristics are transmitted, and we feel that the law is a

cruel one; but if we have patience we shall find that, like all laws

of God, its purpose is for the benefit of the race. Before we begin to

take comfort from the law let us first learn its warnings, one of

which is that all weakening of the individual, either in bodily

strength, in intellectual power or moral fiber, tends to produce a

like weakness in posterity. This is why I say to you that the young

people of the present have in their hands the welfare of the future.

Their habits to-day are moulding the possibilities of the race. Young

women may feel that their individual violation of the laws of health

is of no importance, but when they realize that the girls of to-day

are the mothers of the future, and that the physical strength or

weakness of each individual girl affects the average health of the

nation, not only now, but it may be through her posterity for

centuries, we can see that each girl's health is a matter of national

and of racial importance.

But it is not alone in the physical organization that we can trace the

law of heredity in the transmission of undesirable qualities. We find

that evil traits and tendencies of mind or morals are transmissible.

Galton finds that a bad temper is quite sure to be passed on from one

generation to the next, and any peculiarity of disposition in either

parents is quite likely to become an inheritance of the child. This

fact makes our little faults seem of vastly more importance than

otherwise. We can endure them in ourselves, but they strike us very

unpleasantly when we are obliged to see them manifested in our

children. As the poet says:

"Little faults unheeded, which I now despise;

For my baby took them with her hair and eyes."

It may not strike us very unpleasantly when we speak disrespectfully

to our parents, but when our own children show us lack of courtesy and

cheerful obedience it cuts deeply, and all the more deeply if we see

in their conduct but a repetition of our own.

Of course, if these minor faults are transmissible, we will not be

surprised that graver moral defects are passed on. The grandson of a

thief began to steal at three years of age, and at fourteen was an

expert pickpocket. The police records show the same family names

recurring year after year.

These cases are so grave as to attract attention, while we overlook

the fact that the smaller immoralities are as apt to be transmitted,

and perhaps with increased power. I should be afraid that slight lack

of strict integrity in the father might appear as actual crime in the

son.

I would not omit to mention also the law of Atavism, in this

discussion of heredity. This is that expression of the law in the

omission of one generation in the transmission of a quality. We

sometimes see the peculiarities or defects of a man or woman not

manifested in their children, but reappearing in their grandchildren.

Not long ago I was in a family where both parents and all the children

had dark hair but one, and she had long, bright auburn ringlets. I

asked, "Where did you get your hair?"

"From my red-headed grandmother," she answered, with a laugh,

indicating that the matter had been so often discussed in her hearing

that she understood it quite fully.

To cover the whole scope of the law of heredity would take more time

than we have to spare. You can follow out the line of thought, and

make practical application of the facts and principles here laid

down.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

HEREDITARY EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, ETC.

Civilized life in its progress is accompanied by certain customs and

habits which are detrimental to the individual health, and therefore

to national health. The dress of women is not merely an unimportant

matter, to be made the subject of sneers or jests. Fashions often

create deformities, and are therefore worthy of most philosophic

consideration, especially when we know that the effects of these

deformities may be transmitted.

The tightly-compressed waist of the girl displaces her internal

organs, weakens her digestion, and deprives her children of their

rightful inheritance. They are born with lessened vitality, with

diminished nerve power, and are less likely to live, or, living, are

more liable not only to grow up physically weak, but also lacking in

mental and moral stamina. This weakness may manifest itself in immoral

tendencies, or in some form of inebriety. It is now recognized that

alcoholism will produce nerve degeneration, but it is not so well

understood that nerve degeneration may be a factor in producing

inebriates from alcohol or other poisons.

Dr. Crothers says: "Hysteria, convulsions, unreasonable anger,

excitement, depression, credulity, skepticism, most unusual

emotionalism and faulty reasoning, are some of the signs of nerve

degeneration," and adds that this central failure of nerve and brain

power is often accompanied by a resulting alcohol or drug inebriety.

That is, the weak and degenerate nerves crave a stimulant, and the

weak will yield to the demand, and inebriety result. If this

degeneration of nerve comes from the low vitality given by the mother,

because of her unhealthful habits of dress and life, is it not wise

that in her early womanhood she should know of this possibility, and

guard against it through her care of herself?

She ought also to understand the effect of alcohol and other poisons

in producing nerve degeneration in the individual, and its probability

in his posterity.

George McMichaels says: "The hereditary nature of the abnormal

condition of which inebriety is the outward sign is not understood,

even by physicians, as it should be. It is still, I regret to say,

looked upon as a vice acquired by the individual, the outcome of

voluntary wrongdoing. In some few cases this may be true, but in the

majority of instances inquiry into the family history will reveal the

presence of an inherited taint, such families usually showing a

neurotic condition. No position in the social or intellectual world

is, or ever has been, entirely free from the tendency towards

alcoholism, and a study of the family history of the great men who

have fallen victims to alcohol will show that the cause has been

identical with the case among the most obscure of mankind, viz.: That

a degenerated nerve condition has been inherited which renders the

sufferer specially susceptible to this and allied neuroses, such as

epilepsy, idiocy and suicide. The inheritance of an unstable nervous

system makes the individual easily affected by what I must call

'alcoholic surroundings.' In other words, the provocation to drink

which would have no influence upon an ordinary, stable nervous

organization, is sufficient to turn the neurotic into a confirmed

drunkard."

As a young woman you hold great power over the race in yourself, and

through your influence over others, especially over young men. Your

influence, wisely used, may save more than one from a drunkard's fate,

and to use it wisely you should be instructed as to the real character

of alcohol and its effects on the system. I have not time to tell you

in minutiæ of the effects of alcohol, but I must take time to speak of

the law of heredity in this respect.

Idiocy and inebriety are on the increase among civilized peoples. This

startling fact should make us ask the reason.

T.D. Crothers, M.D., who is making a life study of inebriety, states

that from 1870 to 1890 inebriety increased in proportion to the

population over 100 per cent., and that a large proportion is the

result of inebriety in one or both parents. It is a sad fact that many

women, even of good social standing, are fond of alcoholic beverages.

I saw a very bright, pretty young woman not long since, at a

reception, refuse to take ice-cream or cake, but drink four glasses of

punch, with many jests as to her fondness for the same, apparently

without any glimmering of the thought that she was drinking to excess,

although her flushed face and loudness of manner were proof of this to

those who were witnesses. Many people have an idea that the finer

drinks, such as wine and its various disguises, do not intoxicate, but

in this they are mistaken. All alcoholics are intoxicating in just the

degree that they contain alcohol. The exhilaration of wine is but the

first step of intoxication, and that means always an accompanying lack

of judgment, a lessening of the sense of propriety.

One young woman who, under ordinary circumstances, was most modest in

deportment, drank at her wedding in response to the toasts to her

health, and grew very jovial, until at last she danced a jig on the

platform at the railway station amid the applause of her exhilarated

friends, who had accompanied the young husband and wife to the train,

as they started on their wedding-journey. What a sorrowful and

undignified beginning to the duties of marriage!

There is no absolute safety for either man or woman except in total

abstinence. The _débauché_ knows the effect of wine, and uses that

knowledge to lead astray the young girl who, if herself, would find no

charm in his blandishments, but who, after the wine supper, has no

will to resist his advances.

A young husband exacted of his bride a promise that she would never

take a glass of wine except in his company, and when asked the reason,

replied that he knew that no woman's judgment was to be trusted after

taking one glass of wine.

Another cause of inebriety in women is found in the patent medicines

advertised as a panacea for all pain, which chemical analysis shows to

be largely alcoholic. Many temperance women would be horrified to know

that they are taking alcohol in varying quantity, from 6 to 47 per

cent., in the bitters, tonics and restorative medicines they are

using, many of which are especially advertised as "purely vegetable

extracts, perfectly harmless, sustaining to the nervous system," etc.

The result of inebriety of parents in inflicting injury upon offspring

has not been well understood in the past, but is becoming recognized.

Dr. McMichael says:

"In every form of insanity the disease is more dangerous in the mother

than in the father, as far as the next generation is concerned. This

is a good and sufficient reason why the daughter of drunken parents,

very often attractive to some men by reason of their excitable,

vivacious, neurotic manner, should be carefully avoided by young men

in search of wives. The man who marries the daughter of an inebriate

not only endangers his own happiness, but runs the risk of entailing

upon his children an inheritance of degradation and misery.

"No woman should marry a man who, even occasionally, drinks to excess.

Further, the disposition of the sons of drunken parents ought to be

investigated before any girl becomes engaged to one of them. This is

one instance in which long engagements are not to be condemned, for,

if the man has inherited the alcoholic craving, it may become known in

time, and his _fiancée_ may be saved from the most terrible fate that

I can think of--becoming the wife of a drunkard.

"One word more before I leave this aspect of the subject. As the

majority of inebriates are sufferers from a disease which is partly

the result of hereditary predisposition, it is foolish for any woman

to marry a drunkard in the belief that she can reform him. If women

would realize that alcoholism is a disease and not a vice, they would

understand that, while the spirit which prompts their devotion and

self-sacrifice is praiseworthy, yet the probability of its success is

very remote. No doubt there are women who have made this experiment

and who have managed to 'reform,' as it is called, confirmed

inebriates; but such cases are by no means numerous. While it might

not be right to attempt to interfere with any effort to benefit any

representative of suffering humanity, it must be remembered that the

fate of the next generation is at stake, and that unborn children

certainly have rights, although we are very apt to disregard them.

Admitting, then, that anyone is at liberty to risk everything, even

life itself, to benefit another, nevertheless it cannot be said that

anyone has a moral right to jeopardize the future of a family to

satisfy any instinct or feeling of affection, however noble it may be.

If what I have written is true, no woman is justified in marrying a

drunkard."

The unstable nervous organization bequeathed by intemperate parents is

like a sword of Damocles over the heads of their unfortunate children,

and even moderate drinkers will not give vigorous bodies and strong

wills to their descendants. One man boasted that he had used a bottle

of wine daily for fifty years, and it had not injured him; but of his

twelve children, six died in infancy, one was imbecile, one was

insane, the rest were hysterical invalids.

And alcohol is not the only substance that inebriates. Opium,

morphine, chloral, cocaine, and all drugs of a similar nature, are

dangerous, and each not only inflicts its injury on the individual,

but transmits its results to posterity in that nerve degeneration

which renders the sufferer an easy victim to all forms of

intoxication, and intoxication is nothing more nor less than

poisoning. Opium and morphine are often prescribed by physicians, and

the patient, experiencing the sudden relief from pain, and perhaps not

knowing the danger of indulgence, resorts next time to the delightful

pain-quieter on his own responsibility, and almost before he knows it

the habit is formed, and the weak will that made the easy victim now

makes the unwilling slave, loathing his chains, yet unable to break

them; and these evil habits are, in their effects, transmitted.

Dr. Robertson says: "The part that heredity plays in all functional

diseases or states of the nervous system is not to be misunderstood.

It is safe to assert that no idiopathic case of insanity, chorea,

hysteria, megrim, dipsomania, or moral insanity, can occur except by

reason of inherited predisposition."

The evils of morphinism are even greater than those of alcoholism, and

their transmission no less sure. Especially is there loss of moral

power. Dr. Robertson says: "No matter how honorable, upright and

conscientious a man's past life may have been, let him become

thoroughly addicted to morphine, and I would not believe any statement

he might make, either with reference to the use of the drug or on any

other subject that concerned his habit. This extends further, and

clouds his moral perceptions in all relations of life."

Dr. Brush says: "Cocaine is the only drug the effects of which are

more dangerous and more slavish than the inhalation of the fumes of

opium."

The danger in the fast life of this age is that we try to find

something that will enable us to do our excessive undertakings with

less feeling of fatigue. We fail to see in this that we are exhausting

our reserve force, instead of adding to our store of force.

The _Popular Science News_ says that kola, cocoa, chocolate, coffee,

tea, and similar substances make nervous work seem lighter, because

they call out the reserve fund which should be most sacredly

preserved, and the result is nervous bankruptcy. Understanding that

nervous bankruptcy of the parent threatens the welfare of future

generations through the law of heredity, we will surely hesitate to

bring ourselves under the strain produced by the use of these

substances.

The most dangerous habit of the present would almost seem to be the

tobacco habit, because it is considered quite respectable and is

therefore almost universal. Men who are prominent, not only as

statesmen and business men, but also as moral leaders, smoke with no

apparent recognition of the evils, and lads can often sanction their

beginning of the habit by the fact that a certain pastor or

Sunday-school superintendent is a smoker.

But science has not been idle in regard to the investigation of the

effects of tobacco, and the discoveries made have been published, so

that we are not now ignorant of the tobacco heart, or tobacco throat,

or tobacco nerves, nor of the transmission of nerve degeneracy to the

children of smokers.

Girls sometimes think it is a great joke to smoke cigarettes for fun,

and some grow into the habit of smoking, but the injury is not

lessened by the fact that the use of the cigarette was begun in jest,

nor that the user is a woman.

In fact, the _Medical Times_ is quite inclined to assert that much of

the neurasthenia, including a general disturbance of the digestive

organs, now so common in that portion of the female sex who have ample

means and leisure to indulge in any luxury agreeable to their taste,

or which, for the time being, may contribute to their enjoyment, is

due to narcotics.

During the Civil War we are told that 13 per cent. of all men

examined were excluded as unfit for military service. We are now told

that 31 per cent. are found to be unfit. Nearly one-third of the young

men found physically incompetent to be soldiers! From what cause?

Certainly tobacco must bear a large share of the blame.

Some years ago Major Houston, of the Naval School at Annapolis, made

the statement that one-fifth of the boys who applied for admittance

were rejected on account of heart disease, and that 90 per cent. of

these had produced the heart difficulty by the use of tobacco.

Dr. Pidduch asserts that "the hysteria, the hypochondriasis, the

consumption, the dwarfish deformities, the suffering lives and early

deaths of the children of inveterate smokers, bear ample testimony to

the feebleness of constitution which they have inherited."

Girls sometimes have the idea that a little wildness in a young man is

rather to be admired. On one occasion a young woman left a church

where she had heard a lecture on the evils of using tobacco, saying,

as she went out, "I would not marry a young man if he did not smoke. I

think it looks manly, and I don't want a husband who is not a man

among men."

Years after, when her three babies died, one after the other, with

infantile paralysis, because their father was an inveterate smoker,

the habit did not seem to her altogether so admirable, and when she

herself became a confirmed invalid, because compelled to breathe night

and day a nicotine-poisoned atmosphere, she gave loud voice to her

denunciation of the very habit which in her ignorant girlhood she had

characterized as manly.

CHAPTER XXIX.

EFFECTS OF IMMORALITY ON THE RACE.

There is another influence at work in causing race degeneracy

concerning which the majority of girls are ignorant, and that is

immorality. The prevalent idea that young men must "sow their wild

oats" is accepted by many young women as true, and they think if the

lover reforms before marriage and remains true to them thereafter,

that is all they can reasonably demand. They will not make such

excuses for themselves for lapses from virtue, but they imbibe the

idea that men are not to be held to an absolute standard of purity,

and so think it delicate to shut their eyes to the derelictions of

young men. This chapter of human life is a sorrowful one to read, but

to heed its warnings would save many a girl from sorrow, many a wife

from heartache.

The law of God is not a double law, holding woman to the most rigid

code of a "thou shalt not" and allowing men the liberty of a "thou

mayest."

The penalty inflicted for the violation of moral law is one of the

most severe, both in its effects upon the individual transgressor and

upon his descendants. The most dreadful scourge of physical disease,

as well as moral degeneracy, follows an impure life. This disease,

known as syphilis, is practically incurable. It may temporarily

disappear, only to reappear in some other form later in life; and even

after all signs have become quiescent in the man, they may reappear in

his children in some form of transmission. Even one lapse from virtue

is enough to taint the young man with this dreadful poison, which may

be in after years communicated to his innocent wife or transmitted to

his children.

Dr. Guernsey says: "I do not overdraw the picture when I declare that

millions of human beings die annually from the effects of poison

contracted in this way, in some form of suffering or other; for, by

insinuating its effects into and poisoning the whole man, it

complicates various disorders and renders them incurable. This

horrible infection sometimes becomes engrafted upon other acute

diseases, when lingering disorders follow, causing years of misery,

and only terminating in death. Sometimes the poison attacks the

throat, causing most destructive alterations therein. Sometimes it

seizes upon the nasal bones, resulting in their entire destruction and

an awful disfigurement of the face. Sometimes it ultimates itself in

the ulceration and destruction of other osseous tissues in different

portions of the body. Living examples of these facts are too

frequently witnessed in the streets of any large city. Young men

marrying with the slightest taint of this poison in the blood will

surely transmit the disease to their children. Thousands of abortions

transpire every year from this cause alone, the poison being so

destructive as to kill the child _in utero_, before it is matured for

birth; and even if the child be born alive, it is liable to break down

with most loathsome disorders of some kind and die during dentition;

the few that survive this period are short-lived, and are unhealthy so

long as they do live. The first unchaste connection of a man with a

woman may be attended with a contamination entailing upon him a life

of suffering, and even death itself. Almost imperceptible in its

origin, it corrupts the whole body, makes the very air offensive to

surrounding friends, and lays multitudes literally to rot in the

grave. It commences in one part of the body, and usually, in more or

less degree, extends to the whole system, and is said by most eminent

physicians to be a morbid poison, having the power of extending itself

to every part of the body into which it is infused, and to other

persons with whom it in any way comes in contact, so that even its

moisture, communicated by linen or otherwise, may corrupt those who

unfortunately touch it."

If girls were aware of all this they would not only be careful how

they marry immoral men, but they would shrink from personal contact

with them as from a viper. Not one, but many girls who have held

somewhat lax ideas concerning the propriety of allowing young men to

be familiar have reaped the result in a contamination merely through

the touch of the lips. To-day a young woman in good social standing is

a sufferer from this cause. She was acquainted with a young man of

respectable family, but immoral life. His gaiety had a fascination for

her, and his reputed wildness only added to the charm. On one evening,

as he escorted her home, and took leave of her on the doorstep, she

allowed him to kiss her. It chanced that at the time she had a small

sore on her lip. The poisonous touch of his lips conveyed the

infection through this slight abrasion, and she became tainted with

the syphilitic virus, and to-day bears the loathsome disfigurement in

consequence. I do not need to multiply such cases. You can be warned

by one as well as by a hundred.[2]

A young woman of pure life married a man whose reputation was bad, but

whose social position was high. To-day she is suffering from the

horrible disease which he communicated to her, and her children have

died or are betraying to the world in their very faces the story of

their father's wrong deeds. Truly you cannot afford to be ignorant of

facts so grave as these.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] For an extended presentation of the character and diseases which

accompany vice, the reader is referred to the chapters which treat of

this subject in "What a Young Man Ought to Know." Every young woman

should be intelligent upon these important subjects. There is nothing

in this book to young men which a young woman approaching maturity may

not know, both with propriety and benefit, so that she may most

successfully protect herself from possible companionship with

well-dressed and polite but impure young men by discreetly placing the

book in the hands of her father and brothers, that they may become

intelligent concerning the dangers against which they can most

successfully protect her. It might not be improper for her, after due

acquaintance, to see that the book is placed in the hands of the one

who seeks to become her husband and the father of her children, that

she may at the proper time, and before it is too late, learn whether he

has always lived by the standards of social purity which are there set

up, and whether he is able to bring to the union the same unsullied

life and character which he expects and requires of her.

CHAPTER XXX.

THE GOSPEL OF HEREDITY.

I have often heard people say that God was unjust in making this law

of heredity and compelling innocent children to bear the sins of the

guilty parents, and at first thought it might so seem; but God is a

God of justice and also of mercy, and our study of His laws in their

ultimate outcome leads us to know that they are invariably made for

our welfare. Let us see, then, if we cannot find something encouraging

even in this law of heredity. Are the majority of people born straight

or deformed, sick or well, honest or dishonest? You may ask, Are all

of these conditions a matter of heredity? Certainly. The fact that we

are human beings instead of animals, that we have our due proportion

of organs and faculties, that we are not monstrosities or imbeciles,

are all hereditary conditions. We see, then, that the law of heredity

insures to us our full complement of organs and capabilities, as well

as the more pronounced characteristics which we the more readily

recognize as inheritances. The fact is that inheritance of good is so

universal that we fail to think of it.

When the baby is "well-favored" and straight-limbed, no credit is

given to heredity; but if he is in some way out of the ordinary, we

blame the law that has fixed on him some result of parental conduct.

If he possesses a good mentality, it scarcely occurs to us that this

is just as surely heredity as is the transmission of the mental

weakness of some ancestor.

By the Gospel of Heredity I mean this brighter side, this

"Good-tidings" of the law. In the first written Biblical record of the

law, where the statement is made that the sins of the fathers are

visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation, we have

also the statement of the "Good-tidings" that the Lord sheweth mercy

to thousands of them that love him and keep his commandments; and that

means not thousands of individuals, but thousands of generations.

Justice is meted to the third and fourth, but mercy to thousands of

generations.

All through the Scriptures we find this brighter phase of the law

enunciated. Perhaps you would like to study both the law and the

Gospel from the Bible. I will give you some texts and you can find

them for yourself. It would be interesting also for you to read the

lives of men and women of renown, and observe the transmission of

talents and capabilities.

Encouraging as this view of the subject may be, it is by no means the

brightest side of the subject of heredity, for if we have inherited

no special talents, and if we are handicapped by the transmitted

results of the sins of our ancestors, we may say "There is no hope for

us, nor for our children." To us then will come, as special

"Good-tidings of great joy," the news that heredity is not fatality.

We are not obliged to sit and quietly bear the fetters our ancestors

have forged for us. We can break the chains, we can free ourselves. It

may be difficult, but it can be done, and a great incentive to the

effort is found in the fact that by success we not only improve

ourselves, but we can pass on a better inheritance to our posterity.

We may cultivate our health by obedience to its laws so as to overcome

inherited weaknesses to a very great extent. We are not absolutely

obliged to die with consumption because one of our parents did. By

simple living, and especially by deep breathing of pure air, we may so

strengthen ourselves that we will have the power to resist the

encroachments of the germ of tuberculosis.

We may be born with weak digestive power, but by plain, wholesome

fare, by freedom from worry, by a careful attention to all healthful

habits, we may grow strong and free from dyspeptic symptoms.

We can by cultivation of our minds and morals not only increase our

own powers, but add to the powers of our posterity.

Then, too, the effects of mental education are transmissible; not the

education itself, but an increased capacity, a new tendency. Every

mental activity is accompanied by an actual modifying influence on

brain structure, so that we are really building our brains by our

thoughts, and this increase of our own brains is transmissible to

posterity.

I know that some of our philosophers assert strongly that acquired

characteristics are not transmitted, and their theories seem quite

plausible; but I would rather accept facts than theories any time, and

Professor Elmer Gates has demonstrated that this theory does not

accord with the facts. He has trained dogs until they could recognize

seven or eight shades of green or red. The brains of these dogs, so

trained, show under the microscope a great increase of brain-cells in

the visual area, proving that the education has created actual brain

material. The progeny of these dogs, to several generations, shows at

birth a much larger number of brain-cells in the visual area than is

the case where the ancestry has not been so strained.

Where the dogs have been brought up in absolute darkness there is a

great lack of cells in the visual area, both in these dogs and in

their progeny.

This is the brief statement of a most hopeful and encouraging fact.

We look to the dark side of the law of heredity for our warning. It

makes us solemnly thoughtful in view of our power over the race in the

transmitted result from our own wrongdoing; and then, when we feel

overwhelmed and discouraged, we turn towards the Gospel of Heredity

and take hope from the fact that good is transmissible; and, more than

that, we have it in our power so to modify our own characters,

tendencies and habits that we can, in all probability, give our

children a better dower than we received, and the earlier in life we

begin this making over of ourselves the better.

I have heard people excuse themselves for all manner of faults on the

plea that they were inheritances, and therefore could not be overcome.

That is to declare that we are slaves, with no chance to acquire

freedom, and I am not willing to admit that.

"Whereas in Adam all die, in Christ may all be made alive." That is,

that while under the Law of Heredity we are fettered, under the Gospel

of Heredity our chains may be broken and we become free.

There is much of encouragement in the poem of Ella Wheeler Wilcox on

heredity:

"There is no trait you cannot overcome.

Say not thy evil instinct is inherited,

Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life forlorn,

And calls for punishment that is not merited.

"Back of thy parents and grandparents lies

The great Eternal Will, that, too, is thine

Inheritance--strong, beautiful, divine;

Sure lever of success for one who tries.

"Pry up thy fault with this great lever--will;

However deeply bedded in propensity;

However firmly set, I tell thee firmer yet

Is that great power that comes from truth's immensity.

"There is no noble height thou canst not climb;

All triumphs may be thine in time's futurity,

If, whatsoe'er thy fault, thou dost not faint or halt,

But lean upon the staff of God's security.

"Earth has no claim the soul cannot contest;

Know thyself part of the supernal source,

And naught can stand before thy spirit's force;

The soul's divine inheritance is best."

BIBLE TEXTS BEARING ON THE SUBJECT OF HEREDITY.

_Natural Heredity._

_Law._--Gen. 1:12-24; Ex. 20:6; Num. 14:18.

_Sins visited._--Job 21:17-19; Ps. 37:28; Jer. 32:18.

_Blessings._--Gen. 22:17, 18; Deut. 4:40; 5:29; 30:19; Ps. 21:13;

37:18, 22, 26, 29; 103:17, 18; 112:1, 2; 128:3; Prov. 10:25; 11:19;

13:22; 17:6; 20:7; Isa. 48:18, 19; Jer. 32:18.

_Divine Heredity._

Isa. 43:16; Jer. 3:19; Mal. 2:10; Matt. 5:9, 45, 48; 6:4, 6, 9, 14,

15, 18, 26; John 20:17; Rom. 8:16, 17; Gal. 4:7; Eph. 4:6; 2 Peter

1:4; 1 John 3:2; 5:1.

CHAPTER XXXI.

REQUISITES OF A HUSBAND.

Having spent so much time in the study of principles and laws, we will

now return to the discussion of this concrete case. What can you

decide in regard to this individual young man to whom you think you

have given your heart? What is he in his inheritance? What is he in

himself? I do not ask that he shall have inherited wealth, for that

often proves a young man's ruin, but does he come of an honest,

industrious family? Have you just reason to suppose that he will make

a fair success of life? Is his father shiftless, lazy, improvident? If

so, it will be harder for him to be provident, business-like. Has he

true ideas of the dignity of life and his own responsibility? Is he

looking for an "easy job," or does he purpose to give a fair

equivalent for all that he receives? Would he rather toil at honest

manual labor than be supported by a rich father-in-law?

What are his ideas as to his responsibility in the founding of a home?

How will he look upon his wife? As an equal, a companion, or as a

plaything, a petted child, or a sort of upper servant? What value does

he put upon the wife's labor in the conducting of the household? Will

he consider that the money he hands over to her is a gift from him, or

only a fair recognition of the value of her work, a rendering to her

of her share in the family purse?

What is his estimate of woman? Is she an individual with rights, with

intellect and heart, with a judgment to be consulted, opinions worthy

of recognition, or only an appendage to man, created for his comfort

and to be held in her "sphere" by his will?

What are his defects of temper, or his weaknesses of body? Of course,

to you now he seems perfection, and yet he is a human being, fallible

and imperfect. If his faults are similar to yours, you double the

possibility of their inheritance by your children. If you both have a

tendency to lung trouble, the probabilities are that your children

will have consumption. If you both are of rheumatic proclivities, you

may expect a manifestation of the same early in the life of your

children. If you both are "nervous" or irritable in temper, both

jealously inclined, or are morbid and melancholy, you need not be

surprised at an intensifying of these qualities in your little ones.

If there are more serious family traits, such as insanity, epilepsy,

alcoholism and the like, it might even be your duty never to run the

risk of their transmission.

I once spoke on heredity when in the audience sat a young man by the

side of his _fiancée_, who, I was afterwards told, had been in an

insane asylum three times, and yet he purposed marrying her.

I know a clergyman who has wisely dedicated himself to a celibate life

because there is marked insanity in his family.

You chafe a little under this reiteration of the duty you owe to

children yet unborn, and who may possibly never exist, and perhaps you

say, as I have heard girls say, "Oh, I don't mean to have any

children;" and perhaps you add, "I don't see why people may not marry

and be happy just by themselves without having children."

It is not strange that you should not understand all that is involved

in such a statement. It is true that some married people do not have

children, and are comparatively happy, and yet perhaps if we could

read their hearts we should find that the one great longing of their

lives is for the blessing of a child.

It is natural to desire to know the joys of parenthood. In the home,

through the cares and love, the anxiety, self-sacrifice, tenderness

and patience which accompany parenthood, the education of the

individual is made most complete and perfect.

The girl who marries without a willingness to accept these

responsibilities is willing to sacrifice that which, rightly borne,

will bring her the highest development. If she purposes deliberately

to avoid motherhood she puts herself in a position of moral peril, for

such immunity is not often secured except at the risk of criminality.

I say not often, although I believe that if husband and wife are

actuated by the worthy motive of not inflicting on posterity some

dower of woe, they are justified in a marriage that does not

contemplate parenthood, if they are of lofty purpose enough to live

solely in mental and spiritual companionship. But all attempts to

secure the pleasure of a physical relation and escape its legitimate

results are a menace to the health and a degradation to the moral

nature. This subject, and the questions arising therefrom, will be

discussed more fully in the next book of this series, "What a Young

Wife Ought to Know."

But how is a girl to know all these things concerning her lover's

ideas, thoughts, principles, and purposes? Many of these you think

cannot be known until after marriage, and then it is too late. That is

true; therefore be wise and learn all you can of each other's habits,

peculiarities, opinions, and predilections now, before it is too late.

Talk over business matters. Find out what your lover's ideas are as to

the wife's right to a pecuniary recognition of the value of her labor

in making the home. Does he think that she earns nothing, and that

what he gives her of his money is a donation for which she gives no

return? I know a young woman who had been self-supporting before her

marriage who felt timid about asking her husband for money. So she

wore her wedding garments until they were shabby, went without money

when her own funds were exhausted, and kept silent for five years, and

her husband--a young clergyman--never thought to ask her if she needed

anything, never observed her growing shabbiness. When at last she

summoned courage to tell him her needs, he was overwhelmed with regret

for his own lack of thought and observation, and yet he could not

understand why she should hesitate to ask for money. "Why, it is all

yours, dear," he said. "You were only asking for what already belongs

to you." And many young husbands are just as obtuse, therefore they

should receive in advance the instruction that is needed to prevent a

possibility of such neglect. Have it understood that if you are worthy

to be trusted as a bearer of the name and a sharer of the fortunes of

a man, you are worthy to share also the burden of the knowledge of his

business experiences, and to bear the responsibility of economically

guarding his interests in the expenditure of money which, by your love

and care and labor, you have helped him to earn.

I think a young woman should know something of the personal habits of

her future husband. Does he like fresh air, or does he want the

windows hermetically sealed at night. Is he a believer in the

godliness of cleanliness? I have just read of two people who married

after a six week's acquaintance, knowing nothing of each other's

antecedents, personal habits, caprices or principles. The man proved

to be a regular hypochondriac, taking medicine constantly, at one time

with five doctors prescribing for him. He counted his pulse at every

odd moment, and looked at his tongue instead of at the eyes of his

wife, as he had done when a lover. He had a dread of pure air, and was

as averse to bathing as a cat. The woman had lived in the open air,

taken a daily morning bath, and was disgusted with those who did not

do likewise. The writer says, "She stormed, took her baths, and opened

the windows; he cried, took no baths, shut the windows, and called the

doctors." There is no need to depict the unhappiness of the home, and

yet no doubt the girl would have been shocked had anyone suggested

that she inquire into these facts concerning her lover. But if she had

been less romantic and more practical, if she had remembered that the

marriage contract would bind her for life to one who would be more

closely connected with her than anyone else could be, and this union

for life, by day and by night, constant, continuous, and not to be

annulled by any such small matters as bad breath or unpleasant

personal habits, perhaps she would have considered it no small matter

to discover the possible causes of disgust before they became fixtures

in her life.

And perhaps, also, she would have given her own personal habits more

consideration. True love will endure much, but it sometimes dies in

the presence of untidiness, of carelessness as to dress or room, or

lack of sweetness of person or of breath. If you demand much of a

husband, he has a right to demand just as much from you. If there are

habits concerning which you would rather he as a lover should be

ignorant, believe me that it is even more important that as a husband

he should not know them. Therefore employ your available time before

marriage to rid yourself of them. If a lover would be disenchanted to

see the room from which his blooming, beauteous adored one had

departed, bearing the marks of carelessness and disorder, with soiled

clothing, unmade bed, shoes, hose and dresses all in tumbled heaps on

chairs and floor, remember that the marriage ceremony does not make

such a room more attractive to the husband, who must not only see but

share its discomforts.

In addition to the knowledge of each other's personal peculiarities

there should be an understanding of each other's ideas as to the

duties and responsibilities of their proposed relation to each other.

I lately received a letter from a young woman who asks, "How freely do

you think two engaged young people may talk concerning their future

life? Would it not be indelicate for them to discuss their future

relations, the possibility and responsibilities of parenthood, etc.?"

I answer, that depends on the young people. If they have false ideas,

if they have little or no scientific knowledge, if their thoughts are

filled with wrong mental pictures, they will not know how to talk

wisely and beneficially. But these two young people are intelligent,

are scientifically educated, are Christians. Their hearts are pure,

their standards high, their motives praiseworthy. It would seem that

they might talk as freely as their inclination would prompt. In fact

there seems to me more indelicacy and more danger from long evenings

spent in murmuring ardent protestations of love and indulging in

embraces and endearments than in a frank, serious conversation on the

realities and responsibilities of marriage, an exchange of earnest

thoughts, voiced in chaste, well-chosen language--a conversation which

by its very solemnity is lifted out of the realm of sense-pleasure

into the dignified domain of science and morality.

CHAPTER XXXII.

ENGAGEMENTS.

There now sparkles on your finger a ring that symbolizes the promise

you have given to become a wife. You are engaged, and there now arises

in your mind the query as to the conduct of yourselves during this

period of engagement: How much of privilege shall you grant your

lover? As you are promised to each other for life, are you not

warranted in assuming towards each other greater personal familiarity?

May you not with perfect modesty allow endearments and caresses that

hitherto have not been permissible?

I take it for granted that you are not one of those unwise young women

who permit themselves to become engaged for fun; who consider an

engagement as of so little seriousness that it may be made and broken

without regret. I have known girls who even enter into engagements

just in order to feel justified in greater freedom of conduct without

compunction of conscience. If such engagements do not violate the code

of conventionalities they certainly infringe upon the moral code.

It is not strange that girls should fail to see all the dangers of

such conduct--that they should not comprehend that thus they become

sources of temptation to their lovers, and may even imperil their own

safety.

But your engagement is an honest one, your love is true, based upon

thorough acquaintance; you have mutual respect and entire confidence

in each other. May you not now throw aside much of the restrictions

that have surrounded your association and manifest your affection in

reciprocal demonstrations?

We often read the advice to young people not to enter upon long

engagements, and the reason given is that it exacts too much in the

way of self-control, is too great a nervous strain, is too full of

peril. I would like to quote just here a few words by Dr. C.W. Eaton:

"Away with the sexual argument against engagements, and let us all set

about that cultivation of will and purpose which can make the weakest

a tower of strength and the arbiter of his own destiny; and let us say

to our appetites, Thus far shalt thou come and no farther, neither

shalt thou presume to deny to thy master the best earthly

companionship which may come into his life. It may be a far harder

task than the ardent and poetical lover allows himself at first to

think, but the hardest battles are best worth the fighting; and what

manner of men should we become if we systematically evaded life's

conflicts, instead of meeting them squarely and fighting them through

manfully? Dr. Bourgeois says: 'The ancient custom of betrothals is the

safeguard for the purity of morals and the happy association of man

and wife. This institution was known to the Greeks, the Hebrews, the

Romans, and during the Middle Ages. In Germany it has still preserved

its poetical and moral character. The young people are sometimes

affianced many years before their marriage. We see the young man, thus

betrothed, with heart full of his chaste love, absent himself for a

time in order to finish his education, to perform his studies of

science or art, his apprenticeship to a trade, and to prepare himself

for manly life. He returns to his betrothed with a soul which has

remained pure, with a reason enlarged and fortified. Then both are

ripe for the austere duties of marriage.

"'Chaste love, consecrated by betrothals, can be cultivated in the

midst of work. It lightens toil, it banishes _ennui_, it illumines the

horizon of life with delightful prospects; it excites in the young man

the manly courage and the high intelligence to create for himself a

position in the world; in woman, the noble ambition to perfect herself

to become a worthy companion and good adviser.

"'During the stormy period of youth it is the only means of preserving

the virgin purity of the heart and of the body. Does anyone believe

that young men who in good season have in their hearts a love strong

and worthy of them would profane themselves, as they so often

otherwise do, in vile affections, in those relations of a day, giving

themselves a holocaust to beauty without soul, or even to

licentiousness without beauty?'"

Emerson says: "If, however, from too much conversing with material

objects the soul was gross, and misplaced its satisfaction in the

body, it reaped nothing but sorrow, body being unable to fulfill the

promise which beauty holds out; but if, accepting the hint of these

visions and suggestions which beauty makes to his mind, the soul

passes through the body and fails to admire strokes of character, and

the lovers contemplate one another in their discourses and their

actions, then they pass to the true palace of beauty, more and more

inflame their love of it, and by this love extinguishing the base

affection, as the sun puts out fire by shining on the hearth, they

become pure and hallowed. By conversation with that which is in itself

excellent, magnanimous, lowly and just, the lover comes to a warmer

love of these nobilities, and a quicker apprehension of them. Then he

passes from loving them in one to loving them in all, and so is the

one beautiful soul only the door through which he enters to the

society of all true and pure souls. In the particular society of his

mate he attains a clearer sight of any spot, any taint which her

beauty has contracted from this world, and is able to point it out,

and this with mutual joy that they are now able, without offense, to

indicate blemishes and hindrances in each other, and give to each all

help and comfort in curing the same. And beholding in many souls the

traits of the divine beauty, and separating in each soul that which is

divine from the taint which it has contracted in the world, the lover

ascends to the highest beauty, to the love and knowledge of the

Divinity, by steps on this ladder of created souls."

And this all means that when the thought of the sex-relation

constitutes in the mind of either the idea of marriage, then the

wedding ceremony will be supposed to remove all restrictions, and the

only limit of gratification will be the limit of desire. Under these

circumstances the close familiarity of a long engagement would be a

mental and physical tax, because the self-control exercised is felt to

be only temporary, and will be no longer needed when the wedding

ceremony has been said.

But if the idea of marriage is nobler, if the sex-relation is

consecrated to its highest purpose of reproduction, if marriage is

felt to be only an added opportunity for self-control, which will be

more difficult then because there will be no restraint except that

which is self-imposed, then the engagement will be felt to be a time

of gradual preparation for that closer relationship which needs more

will-power because opportunity is greater.

Under these conditions the lovers will be aiming towards an ideal

which recognizes that in wedded life all that is lasting in affection,

in tender courtesy, in most intimate companionship, in sweetest

demonstration, is possible without the physical union, which in itself

is the most transitory of pleasures, but which in unlimited indulgence

becomes the most domineering of passions, exhaustive of physical power

and of mental vigor, and absolutely annihilating all true love.

If you ask why there should exist this marvelous drawing of the sexes

towards each other if their relation is not based upon the exercise of

sex-functions, I reply that sex is more than its local expression; it

is inherent in mind as well as body, and therefore sexual power may be

expressed in masculine courage, energy or daring, or in feminine

constancy, self-abnegation, or sweet courtesy. Sexual attraction is

not limited to the local expression, nor creative power to

reproduction of kind, but may give a stimulus to the intellectual

companionship of men and women, and result in the creation of nobler

ideals and grander aspirations.

Having settled in your mind your attitude towards your lover, let us

consider what it shall be towards your family during these days of

the engagement. Naturally you will not feel a separation from the home

circle as keenly as do the other members of your family. You two are

so absorbed in each other, are so busy exchanging ideas, in becoming

acquainted, that you are oblivious to the change brought about in your

family. You think you two ought to be allowed the privilege of

_tête-à-têtes_, for of course you cannot talk freely together in the

hearing of others. This is true. You should have times of seclusion,

when, without a sense of oppression through fear of criticism or

jesting, you can rhapsodize, or quote poetry and open your hearts'

treasures to each other. But you still owe a duty to your home.

Doubtless your mother is not now as necessary to your happiness as you

are to hers. She is thinking of you with most tender solicitude, she

misses your presence, she already begins to feel the loneliness of the

inevitable separation. If you are thoughtful you will see to it that

the separation does not begin sooner than is necessary. Then, too,

your parents need to get acquainted with this new member whom you are

to introduce into the family, and he needs to know them. He will think

none the less of you if he sees that you do not allow him to

monopolize you entirely, that you recognize your obligations to the

family and that you expect him to recognize them also, and, in

addition, his obligations to show them due courtesy and attention. He

is not to absorb you entirely, to take you out of the home circle, but

he is to come in and be a part of it, even as you are to become one in

the home of which he is a member. You need to remember that he is son

and brother to women who loved him long before you knew him, and that

he still owes them attention and thoughtful, affectionate courtesy.

Never allow yourself to feel jealous of his mother or sisters. The

fact that he is a loving, thoughtful son and brother is in a measure a

guarantee that he will be a loving, thoughtful husband.

Let me add to this advice a word more. Do not allow yourself to feel

jealous of him in any way. Jealousy is the quintessence of

selfishness, and no other passion is so destructive of happiness, so

full of the contagion of evil. If your lover is not to be trusted, you

would be wise to end the engagement at once. If he is to be trusted,

that trust should be absolute. I said you should not allow him to

monopolize you, neither should you attempt to monopolize him. There

are other people in the world besides yourself, and other occupations

than the business of waiting on you. If you make him feel that he dare

not speak to anyone but you, that he dare not think of anything but

you, he will begin to chafe under the restraint and feel a desire to

break the bonds that are becoming fetters. If he were not your

acknowledged lover, if you were anxious to win his love, but were a

little uncertain as to your power to do so, you would not meet him

with tears and upbraidings because he had for one moment seemed to

forget you, but you would at once use every possible effort to make

yourself more attractive in his eyes than any other person could

possibly be. You will be wise to use those same tactics now, even

though his allegiance is pledged to you. Be so charming that no one

else can be considered so entertaining; that no one else can be so

wise, so witty, so sympathetic, so altogether lovely, that everything

but yourself is forgotten; and then believe in him so absolutely that

he could not possibly swerve in his fidelity to you. Have you ever

thought that to accuse one of a certain wrong act may be just the way

to suggest to him the possibility of committing it? If one trusts you

implicitly, that very trust is a constant suggestion to be true, and

doubt is a suggestion to act worthy of being doubted.

You must trust each other or you have no sure foundation for future

love and happiness. It needs a great deal of good common sense to

learn how to live happily in marriage. You may have chosen wisely. The

man may be honest, pure, kindly, intelligent, and Christian, but he is

human, therefore not perfect. He has faults, peculiarities, moods,

perhaps tempers, and he will probably not wait until you are married

to begin to show them. There will come differences of opinions,

divergences in desires, clashings in judgment. Now is the time to

display your tact, to learn how to express an opposing opinion without

arousing antagonism, to yield a desire for the sake of a greater love

than that of self, to adhere to principle without unpleasant

discussion; in short, to be dignified and womanly without pettiness or

littleness of any kind. You remember the words of Ruskin, that the

woman must be "incorruptibly good, instinctively, infallibly wise, not

for self-development, but for self-renunciation," and that will be the

highest development.

No doubt you will think that some of this advice should be given to

young men as well as to young women, and I think so too, and were I

talking to your lover I could say many warning words; but just now I

am telling you things that he does not need to hear, and I do not need

to tell you what, if I had the chance, I would say to him. You are to

train yourself and not him, and yet I would not have you ignorant of

your power over him in developing in him all that is noblest and best.

You should hold him ever to his highest ideals. He should never feel

so absolutely sure of your adoration as to imagine that it will endure

a lowering of his standards. You have been posing a little before each

other. Doubtless you were not aware of this, but, now that you have

each gained the heart of the other, you may sometimes feel that you

can relax; but this is a dangerous error. You should continue to be as

thoughtful, as courteous, as careful as ever; you should endeavor

really to be all that you have tried or appeared to be during these

days of courtship. You will be none too perfect even then.

Once, in talking to a group of women, I asserted that a wife should

exact of her husband as high a tone of morality as of her lover, that

she should not allow him to become lax in his conversation with her

any more than with any other woman. One woman thought me too strict.

She said men liked to feel that at home they could do as they pleased,

and would resent a wife's interference with their right to be loose in

their talk in their own home. I replied that the home is not the man's

nor the woman's alone; it is theirs jointly; that each has a right to

demand that the other shall not pollute or poison the air, the food,

the water or the moral atmosphere; and the wife who allows

contamination of the thought-atmosphere of the home is as culpable as

if she were to permit poison to be put into the food.

As a man admires the girl who respects herself too much to permit him

to tell her questionable stories, so will he reverence the wife who

refuses to allow him to degrade himself in her presence either by

speech or conduct. Love would not so often fail if wives knew the

secret of retaining it, and that is not by sacrifice of principle, nor

by tearful reproaches and upbraidings, but by being true to the

highest impulses, and while having the good common sense that can make

all reasonable allowance for fallibility, still permits no lowering of

moral standards, no willful falling short of the very best.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE WEDDING.

Said my friend:

There's to be a grand wedding, you know,

With no end to the fuss and parade,

With sixteen fair bridesmaids to stand in a row,

With sixteen young groomsmen to help out the show,

One to stand by the side of each maid.

Then there's a reception to be very fine,

With all sorts of magnificent things,

With silver to glitter and mirrors to shine,

With tropical fruit and famous old wine,

With odorous flowers and music divine,

Drawn forth from melodious strings.

In the minds of many girls the wedding means only this public show,

the display of elegant toilets, the reception of costly gifts; and the

preparation of marriage means too often merely the making of an

elegant _trousseau_. People generally do not ask concerning the

fitness of the young people to enter on the solemn duties of life--do

not ask how well they have been instructed concerning that which is

before them; but the questions are all about clothes and gifts and

ceremonials. No wonder, then, that the thought of the young woman

centers on these things, to the exclusion of nearly all else; indeed,

it may be to the detriment of health and the lessening of true

happiness. The prospective husband finds his _fiancée_ so absorbed in

sewing, shopping and interviews with dressmakers that she has few

moments to give to him, and these few occupied more with the thought

of gowns and personal adornments than with ideals of wedded happiness.

Perhaps she even excuses herself for lessening the number of his

visits on the plea that very soon now she will be all his, and so he

is left to spend his last days of bachelorhood in loneliness, and made

to feel that raiment is more than love. Worse still, it may be that on

the wedding-day he takes to his heart a bride so wearied, so nervously

exhausted by the preparations of the _trousseau_ that she is at least

temporarily an invalid. I have known more than one bride so worn out

by the preparation for her wedding that instead of bringing

brightness, joy and beauty into the new life, she brought illness,

anxiety and care, and made demands at once upon the patience and

service of the husband, who had a right to expect health and vigor and

a power to enjoy.

I knew a sensible girl who said months before her marriage, "I am not

going to bring to my new life a remnant of health, a shattered nervous

system and a tattered temper," and she kept her word. Her sewing was

done by degrees, and was all out of the way weeks before the wedding.

Shopping and dressmaking were never allowed to interfere with the

walks and drives, the chats and moonlight strolls. "We shall not be

able to repeat this experience," she wisely said, and so her lover

found her ever ready to give him her society and her thought. Her

_trousseau_ was not elaborate, her wedding-dress was simple, but in it

she shone like a flower of the morning, full of brightness and health

and joy.

She was wise in other respects. Only her intimate friends were invited

to the wedding ceremony, and to these she said, "I want you to feel

that it is you I invite, not your gifts. If your love impels you to

give me some simple memento of yourself it will be cherished, but I'd

rather have a pincushion made by your own hand, or a little flower

painted by yourself, than the most costly purchased picture or most

elegant piece of silver that you bought, because you thought it was

expected. And if, when you come, you bring no gift but your love and

blessing, I shall feel that that is the richest treasure."

There was no display of presents to a vulgar curiosity, no collection

of duplicate butter-knives or berry-spoons to be secretly disposed of

after the wedding. The gifts were few and not costly, but each told

its own story of personal affection, and therefore really had a

meaning.

This sensible young woman introduced another innovation into her

wedding. She would not listen to the suggestion of a bridal tour. "I

do not want to be stared at and commented on by strangers," she said.

"Let us go to some quiet spot in the mountains or by the sea, and let

us live with each other and with nature." In after years she often

said, "I would not miss from my memory the picture of those happy days

for anything that any trip on railway trains and sojourns at hotels

could give me. We had time and opportunity to learn each other's souls

as we could not have done amid 'the madding crowd;' and we have loved

each other more truly, I know, because in those early wedded days we

sat with Nature and Nature's God in the true companionship which such

solitude alone can bring."

I never see the parade of a fashionable wedding that I am not reminded

of her and of a sad contrast to her experience, when two young people

were married amid a blaze of light, a rain of flowers, and under the

curious eyes of hundreds of strangers took their wedding tour, while

the papers glowingly described the dress and beauty of the bride, the

necktie and the trousers of the groom, and pictures of the two were

labeled "The Happy Couple." In two years the bride came home to her

parents wrecked in health and broken in heart.

There is a beauty in a golden wedding that truly celebrates a happy

union of half a century. But when life is all untried, when perhaps

the two young people know nothing of what is before them, it may be

are but little acquainted with each other, and have mistaken the

thrill of passion for the steady exaltation of love, then it would

seem wiser to make the occasion one of most solemn import, free from

glitter and show, and full of that deep meaning which makes the heart

stand still in reverence for life's deepest mysteries.

O, gallant young groom, it may seem a slight thing

To take this young girl as your bride;

To place on her finger the plain golden ring,

Around her these bright flower-festoons to fling,

But have you e'er thought what the future will bring

To you in this life so untried?

Have you thought how your temper may often be tried?

That you may grow gouty and old,

That the fair smiling face of your bonnie young bride

May grow pale and haggard, and wrinkled, beside,

Or she prove a sloven and scold?

And you, bonnie bride, on this glad wedding day,

In the midst of the curious crowd,

Do you fancy that life will be always so gay?

Can you work, can you wait, do you know how to pray,

Can you suffer, and not cry aloud?

Can you watch out the hours by sad beds of pain?

Can you bear and forbear and forgive?

Can you cheerfully hope e'en when hoping is vain,

And when hope is dead, and to die you would fain,

Can you still feel it right you should live?

O, touchingly solemn and tender the hour,

So full of deep meaning the vow

You have uttered. And sorely you need Divine power

To guide you and guard you in sunshine and shower,

For trouble will come and love's delicate flower

Be crushed, you can scarcely tell how.

And yet, dear heart, there is nothing that has such unconquerable

vitality as love; but it must be true love, not self-love, not

sentimentality, not passion, not any of the spurious emotions that

masquerade under the name of love, and which wither with the slightest

adverse wind.

Love is not an exotic, growing only in the conservatories of wealth.

It is a hardy plant, covering desolate places with verdure, glowing

amid the snows of mountain peaks, blossoming by night as well as by

day, hiding defects, clinging to ruins, enduring drouth and heat and

cold.

I know a woman who says that there should never be marriage where

there are unpleasant peculiarities, idiosyncrasies, or even

mannerisms; but should we act on that principle, few would marry. Love

is sometimes said to be blind in the days of wooing, but wearing

magnifying glasses after wedlock. True love is never blind, but he is

capable of judging of true relative values, and will count as naught

the slight defect when measured by the overwhelming perfection. Who

has not seen men devoted to wives who were homely or peculiar, but who

were genuinely pure and true?

"I don't care," said one woman, "if my husband is bald and cross-eyed,

he has a heart of gold."

True love is not blind, but with a deep, keen insight looks through

the encasing garment of human imperfections, and sees within the

divine ego, and because it recognizes the true inner self that is

worthy, hopeth all things, believeth all things, endureth all things,

and never faileth.

THE END.

Offices _of_ Publication

¶ IN THE UNITED STATES. The

Vir Publishing Company, 200-214

N. Fifteenth St., Philadelphia, Pa.

¶ IN ENGLAND. The Vir Publishing

Company, 4 Imperial B'l'd'g's,

Ludgate Circus, London, E.C.

¶ IN CANADA. Ryerson Press,

Cor. Queen and John Sts. Toronto,

Ontario.

"What a Young Girl Ought to Know."

BY MRS. MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M.D.

Condensed Table of Contents

PART I

The origin of life--One plan in all forms of life--How plants

grow from the seed--They feed on the soil, grow and

mature--How the plant reproduces itself--The flower, the

pollen, the pod, the seed--The office of bees and insects in

fertilization.

PART II

Fishes and their young--The parent fishes and the baby

fishes--The seeds of plants and eggs of fishes, birds and

animals--How fishes never know their baby offspring--Warm

blooded animals--Lessons from birds--Their nests, eggs and

little ones.

PART III

Animals and their young--The place which God has prepared for

their young--Beginning their independent life--Human babies

the most helpless and dependent of all creatures--The

relations of parent and child--The child a part of each

parent--Heredity and its lessons.

PART IV

The value of good health--The care of the body--The body a

temple to be kept holy--Girls should receive their instruction

from their mothers--The body the garment which the soul

wears--Effects of thoughts upon life and character--Value of

good companions, good books and good influences--What it is to

become a woman.

"What a Young Girl Ought to Know"

WHAT EMINENT PEOPLE SAY

Francis E. Willard, LL.D.

"I do earnestly hope that this book, founded on a strictly

scientific but not forgetting a strong ethical basis, may be

well known and widely read by the dear girls in their teens

and the young women in their homes."

Mrs. Elizabeth B. Grannis

"These facts ought to be judiciously brought to the

intelligence of every child whenever it asks questions

concerning its own origin."

Mrs. Harriet Lincoln Coolidge

"It is a book that mothers and daughters ought to own."

Mrs. Katharine L. Stevenson

"The book is strong, direct, pure, as healthy as a breeze from

the mountain-top."

Mrs. Isabelle MacDonald Alden, "Pansy"

"It is just the book needed to teach what most people do not

know how to teach, being scientific, simple and plain-spoken,

yet delicate."

Miss Grace H. Dodge

"I know of no one who writes or speaks on these great subjects

with more womanly touch than Mrs. Wood-Allen, nor with deeper

reverence. When I listen to her I feel that she has been

inspired by a Higher Power."

Ira D. Sankey

"Every mother in the land that has a daughter should secure

for her a copy of "What a Young Girl Ought to Know." It will

save the world untold sorrow."

"What a Young Wife Ought to Know."

BY MRS. EMMA F.A. DRAKE, M.D.

Condensed Table of Contents

HUSBAND AND HOME

The choice of a husband--One worthy of both love and

respect--Real characteristics necessary--Purity vs. "wild

oats"--What shall a young wife expect to be to her

husband?--His equal, but not his counterpart--His helpmeet

Wifehood and motherhood--Should keep pace with his mental

growth--Trousseau and wedding presents--The foolish and

ruinous display at weddings--Wedding presents and

unhappiness--Wise choice of furniture--The best adornments for

the home.

THE MARITAL RELATIONS

The marital state should be the most holy of sanctuaries--Its

influence upon character--Modesty--Reproduction the primal

purpose--Love's highest plane--The right and wrong of

marriage--The wrongdoings of good men.

PARENTHOOD

Preparation for motherhood--Motherhood the glory of

womanhood--Maternity productive of

health--Clothing--Exercise--Baths, etc., etc.--The child the

expression of the mother's thoughts--The five stages of

prenatal culture.

PREPARATION FOR FATHERHOOD

Questions which test the fitness of young men for

marriage--Many young men of startling worth--Effects of bad

morals and wayward habits--Tobacco and Alcoholics--Attaining

the best--The father reproduced in his children.

ANTENATAL INFANTICIDE

The moral responsibility of parents in heredity--The mother's

investment of moulding power--Parents workers together with

God--Ailments during expectant motherhood--Maternity a normal

state--Development of the foetus--Minuteness of the germ of

human life--Changes which take place--Life present the moment

conception takes place--The sin of tampering with the work of

the Infinite.

THE LITTLE ONE

Baby's wardrobe--The question that comes with fluttering signs

of life--Importance of wise choice of material and style of

dress--Choice of physician and nurse of real consequence--The

birth chamber--Surroundings and after-care of the mother--The

care of the baby--The responsibilities and joys of

motherhood--The mother the baby's teacher--Common ailments of

children and how to treat them--Guarding against vice--The

training of children--Body building--Helps for mothers.

"What a Young Wife Ought to Know"

WHAT EMINENT PEOPLE SAY

Mrs. Margaret E. Sangster

"Joyfully I send you my unqualified endorsement of the

excellent book, 'What a Young Wife Ought to Know.' I wish

every young and perplexed wife might read its pages."

Charles H. Parkhurst, D.D.

"It handles delicate matters in a manner as firm as it is

delicate, and dignifies even what is common by the purity of

the sentiment and nobility of intent with which it is

treated."

Marietta Holly (Josiah Allen's Wife)

"It is an excellent book; if every young wife of to-day would

read it and lay its lessons to heart it would make the

to-morrow much easier and happier for all of Eve's daughters."

W.G. Sperry, M.D.

"Young wives, for whom this book is intended, wilt receive

great benefits from heeding its wise words. It is good for

incitement, guidance, restraint."

Mrs. Joseph Cook

"It illuminates the Holy of Holies in the most sacred of

earthly relationships with the white light of truth and

purity."

Julia Holmes Smith, M.D.

"Be sure Dr. Drake's book is part of your daughter's outfit. I

have never read anything which so thoroughly met the use it

was designed for as this volume."

J.P. Sutherland, M.D.

"A subject difficult to treat has been handled by Dr. Drake

with delicacy, earnestness and straightforwardness. It is a

practical book destined to do good."

"What a Woman of Forty-five Ought to Know."

BY MRS. EMMA F.A. DRAKE, M.D.

Condensed Table of Contents

KNOWLEDGE OF CLIMACTERIC NECESSARY

Why women are not prepared to meet the climacteric--The fear

that unnerves many--Error of views concerning "Change of

Life"--Correct teaching stated--Influence of medical

literature--Three periods in a woman's life--Relation of early

habits to later aches and ills--The menopause--Conditions

which influence the period of the climacteric--The age

at-which it usually appears--Effects of heredity--Childless

women--Mothers of large families--Effects of different

occupations--Excesses.

HERALDS OF CHANGE--DISEASES AND REMEDIES

Mental states during menopause--Change in blood

currents--Flushes, chilliness, dizziness, etc.--Nervous

symptoms--Disturbed mental and nervous equilibriums--Nature as

woman's helper--Troublesome ailments--Mental troubles

considered--Suggested help--Cancer--Benefits

named--Apprehensions dispelled--How to banish

worry--Simplifying daily duty--An eminent physician's

prescription--A word to single women--Reluctance of unmarried

women to meet the menopause--How to prolong one's youth--Dress

during this period--The mother "At Sea"--Guarding against

becoming gloomy--Effects of patent medicine advertising--Drug

fiends--Lustful indulgence.

WHAT BOTH HUSBAND AND WIFE SHOULD REMEMBER

Slights and inattentions keenly felt by her--Need of

patience--A word of private counsel--Value of little

attentions--Wife's duty to her husband--Holding husband's

affections--Making home attractive--Unselfishness.

AUTO-SUGGESTION AND OTHER SUGGESTIONS

Influence of mind over body--The mind as a curative agent--How

to rise out of depression--Mental philosophy and physical

betterment--Relation of health to sight--Care of the

teeth--The hair--Constipation--Self cure--Choice of

foods--Exercise--Physical development--Exercise of mind and

soul.

"What a Woman of Forty-five Ought to Know"

PRAISED BY THE PRESS

"Will dispel apprehensions aroused by groundless

forebodings."--_Reformed Church Messenger._

"If the hygienic advice in this book is followed it will

lengthen the lives of women and make their closing years the

happiest and most useful of all,"--_Herald and Presbyter._

"In no line of literature, perhaps, is such a book so much

needed."--_New Haven Leader._

"Those who peruse the book only from prurient curiosity will

be disappointed."--_Cleveland World._

"Should be read by every woman nearing and passing middle

life."--_Pittsburg Gazette._

"Written in that wholesome sympathetic manner characteristic

of all the books in the Self and Sex Series."--_Cleveland

Daily World._

"Full of most admirable practical advice, and it is written in

a sympathetic manner which is the outcome of oneness of sex

between the author and those whom she addresses."--_Syracuse

Herald._

"There are some things that a woman of forty-five does not

know--things which she regards with more or less terror in the

expectation--which terror it is the object of Mrs. Drake to

dispel."--_Rochester Herald._

"There is nothing in the book that could not be proclaimed

from the house-tops, and there is everything in it that

intelligent and thoughtful women should read and keep for

their daughters to read when the proper time comes."--_Newark

Daily Advertiser._

A New Book by Charles Frederic Goss

More Important than the Simple or the Strenuous Life is the Home Life

"HUSBAND, WIFE AND HOME"

By CHARLES FREDERIC GOSS

Author of "The Redemption of David Corson," etc., etc.

"This is the kind of book that one desires to read aloud to

all the family. Its captivating stories, humorous often,

pathetic at times, will brighten one's face into a broad smile

or bring the tear unbidden. The stories are the windows that

Dr. Goss opens upon the practical themes that brighten every

page of this winsome book. It will drive away the "blues" and

make a cross and glum person look pleasant and feel pleasant.

The divorce courts would be forced to go out of business if

its blessed home truths were put into practice."

ENTHUSIASTICALLY ENDORSED BY THE PRESS

"There are nearly fifty short chapters. It boxes the compass

of its subject, skipping no point. Wide experience and keen

observation of real life yield material which is treated with

plain, common sense, good wit and no lack of humor. Thus it

hits the need of the average man and woman, and all others

that reckon themselves above the average. The whole book is

pervaded by strong and pure moral feeling, and the chapters

are well dotted with pithy anecdotes and amusing

stories."--_The Outlook._

"These talks are practical, pungent and full of the sap of

experience."--_Bookseller, Newsdealer and Stationer._

"The call of the hour is for such a book as this to be read

and heeded. Every chapter is on a subject bound to come up

sooner or later, and discussed plainly but from a high

Christian standpoint."--_Religious Telescope._

"This book is a wholesome, exceedingly digestible oatmeal of

literature which is better for the mental and moral stomach

than many a higher-flavored repast."--_St. Louis Republic._

Price, $1.50 net, post free

A NEW DEVOTIONAL BOOK

"Faces Toward the Light"

By Sylvanus Stall, D.D.

Every phase of the Christian life--its joys and sorrows, its

temptations and triumphs--is treated in a reverent and deeply

spiritual manner that is sure to prove helpful and inspiring

to every reader.

SOME CHAPTERS IN THE BOOK

Glory After Gloom. The Dangerous Hour. The Concealed Future.

Gleaning for Christ. Hunger and Health. Direction and Destiny.

God of the Valleys. Coins and Christians. Reserved Blessings.

Comfort in Sorrow. The Better Service. Not Knowing Whither.

Good, but Good for Nothing. No Easy Place. The Dead Prayer

Office. How God Reveals Himself. Starting Late. Source of

Power. Toiling at a Heavy Tow. What He Gave and What He Got.

Vacation Lessons. Wheat or Weeds. The Christian's Power.

Disclosures in the Cloud. Healing and Living Waters. The

Concealed Future. Suspended Animation. The Source of Power.

Lessons from the Leaves. Etc.

Just Published. New Revised Edition.

FIVE-MINUTE

OBJECT SERMONS

TO CHILDREN

Through Eye-Gate and Ear-Gate Into

the City of Child-Soul

By SYLVANUS STALL, D.D.

A book for preachers, teachers, parents and all interested in

the training and culture of children.

ENTHUSIASTICALLY COMMENDED

"These little delightful sermons are models at point and

brevity, and reach the little hearts through the eye and

ear."--_Christian Observer._

"Boys and girls will devour every one of them with relish,

whilst we children of a larger growth will be children

again."--_Lutheran Observer._

"These sermons cannot help being suggestive to every preacher

who would interest children, and they also have a much wider

scope than for the pulpit. The book should be eagerly sought

by all Sunday-School Teachers, leaders of children's meetings

and the clergymen of all churches."--_Wesleyan Methodist._

"Dr. Stall has the happy faculty of presenting to children,

sober truths in a manner interesting to them. The author's

object is to implant in the child's mind seeds of truth and

love, nobleness and justice, and all the virtues that go to

make a manly boy and womanly girl, as well as a God-loving

child."--_Boston Times._

Talks to the

King's Children

_Second Series of "Five-Minute

Object Sermons"_

By SYLVANUS STALL, D.D.

Invaluable in THE HOME, THE SUNDAY

SCHOOL, THE PASTOR'S LIBRARY,

THE MISSION FIELD

A CHILDREN'S PREACHER

"Dr. Stall has few equals in this particular line of writing.

He shows a fine reserve in not allowing the object used to

overshadow the truth taught."--_Nashville Christian Advocate._

"The Rev. Dr. Sylvanus Stall is one of the best preachers for

young people in the American pulpit. His 'Five-minute Object

Sermons' to children was an ideal book in its class. The

present volume is a second series of the same kind, and will

be found to have no less point and charm than the volume

published two years ago."--_New York Independent._

"The author is well-known in this community, having been a

pastor in Baltimore City for several years. He is an adept

certainly in furnishing bright, interesting talks to children.

He writes with a vigorous, irresistible pen."--_Baltimore

Methodist._

THE CHILDREN GOOD JUDGES

"Those who have had the genuine pleasure and profit of Dr.

Stall's first series of children's sermons will welcome this

second volume. We have read them with the children and commend

them very highly. The children know a good sermon when they

hear it."--_Reformed Church Messenger._

"Irresistibly interesting, especially to the young

mind."--_Christian Work._

JUST PUBLISHED

Two Important Booklets

By Mrs. Adolphe Hoffmann, who is widely known in France,

Germany and Switzerland as a talented writer, lecturer and

educator. She is also prominent in the great reform and

educational movements in Europe.

The Social Duty of Our Daughters

_A mother's talk with mothers and their grown daughters._

BY MRS. ADOLPHE HOFFMANN

An affectionate and confidential talk to mothers and their

daughters on the responsibility, power and maternal duties of

woman. These counsels should do much to dignify and elevate

parenthood to the place intended by the Creator.

Before Marriage

_A mother's parting counsel to her son on the eve of his

marriage._

BY MRS. ADOLPHE HOFFMANN

This booklet embodies the counsel of an earnest mother who

imparts to her son the information essential to the happiness

both of her son and his bride.

_Unique Original Uplifting_

God's Minute

A book of 365 daily prayers, 60 seconds long, arranged from

January 1st to December 31st, a prayer to each page, _written

expressly for this book_ by the most eminent preachers and

laymen in the English-speaking world. At the top of each page

is a selection of Scripture on encouragement to prayer.

Prayers by Drs. Wilfred T. Grenfell, W.W. Keen; Reverend

Doctors, F.B. Meyer, John Clifford, James M. Gray, Timothy

Stone, David James Burrell, Washington Gladden, Hugh Black;

Rev. W. Griffith Thomas; Bishops W.A. Quayle, Charles E.

Woodcock; President E.Y. Mullins, Mrs. Alice Hegan Rice,

author of "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch." Clinton Scollard

contributes an original poem.

_Full cloth bound, printed on thin Rag Feather-weight paper,

384 pages. Specially priced at 60 cents a copy, cloth; in

leatherette, $1.00; in art leather, $1.50._

THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA, PA., U.S.A.: 200 N. FIFTEENTH ST.

LONDON: 7, IMPERIAL ARCADE, LUDGATE CIRCUS, E.C.

CANADA: RYERSON PRESS, QUEEN AND JOHN STREETS

[Illustration]

"_Touchstones of Success_"

WRITTEN BY

_160 Present Day Men of Achievement Especially for This Book_

Opinions of Great Business Men

_From a California National Bank_: "Please find enclosed order

for five copies of 'Touchstones of Success,' which we will

keep in the bank for the present and future young men to read

at their leisure time at the expense of the bank."

_From a Widely Known California Engineer_: "I enclose check

for $10.00 for eight copies of Touchstones of Success'."

_From a Big Business Man, Boston, Mass_: "This is a splendid

book for young men and it ought to be of great value to them."

_From a Prominent Manufacturer in Detroit_: "Please send six

copies of the book. I want to distribute them among some of

the employees in our office."

_From a Great Manufacturing Concern of St. Louis_: "I am

passing copies of the book among the boys in our office

because it contains some wonderful messages."

_From a Widely Known New York Jurist_: "I am enclosing my

check for $25.00, which makes $50.00 that I have invested in

extra copies of this book, so you know what I think of it."

_Price, full cloth Bound, $1.25 net per copy_

THE PUBLISHERS:

_The_ VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY

200-214: NORTH 15TH STREET, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

_A Book About Our Wonderful Bodies_

Marvels of Our Bodily

Dwelling

_By_ MRS. MARY WOOD-ALLEN, M.D.

_Author of_ "What a Young Girl Ought

to Know," etc.

Introduction by SYLVANUS STALL. D.D.

In the form of an allegory--comparing each part of the human

body to its counterpart in a dwelling, the author has

succeeded in making this human study as interesting as a

Sherlock Holmes detective story. She has laid under

contribution the best scientific authorities and this book

will be found abreast of the Science of today.

_Cloth with cover in four colors, stamped in gold. 328 pages

with fine half-tone pictures and 72 line drawings._

_A Marvelous Book Upon a Marvelous Subject_

THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA. PA., U.S.A.: 200 N. 15th Street

LONDON: 7, Imperial Arcade, Ludgate Circus, E.C.

TORONTO: Ryerson Press, 29 Richmond Street. W.

Bible Selections for Daily Devotion

Selected and Arranged by

SYLVANUS STALL, D.D.

This book brings to family worship 365 passages best suited in

character and length to such service.

It is intended to relieve the father or mother of perplexity

and apprehension concerning the passages to be read, and to

enable them to bring to the service that frame of mind

indispensable to the conduct of real worship.

The Gospel narrative is chronologically arranged.

The text is from the Authorized version, while the verses are

merged into paragraphs as in the Revised edition.

Difficult words are pronounced.

The selections are suited not only for use in family worship,

but for the chapel service of colleges, universities, and by

teachers in the opening services of public schools.

Readings are from three to five minutes in length.

_Cloth. 686 pages. Price, $1.50 net._

THE VIR PUBLISHING COMPANY

PHILADELPHIA, PA., U.S.A.: 200 N. 15th Street

LONDON: 7, Imperial Arcade, Ludgate Circus, E.C.

TORONTO: Ryerson Press, Queen and John Streets

* * * * *