1. MANY CAUSES.--Many causes have operated to produce a corruption
of the public morals so deplorable; prominent among which may be
mentioned the facility with which divorces may be obtained in some of
the States, the constant promulgation of false ideas of marriage and
its duties by means of books, lectures, etc., and the distribution
through the mails of impure publications. But an influence not less
powerful than any of these is the growing devotion of fashion and
luxury of this age, and the idea which practically obtains to so great
an extent that pleasure, instead of the health or morals, is the great
object of life.
2. A MONSTROUS CRIME.--The abiding interest we feel in the
preservation of the morals of our country, constrains us to raise our
voice against the daily increasing practice of infanticide, especially
before birth. The notoriety that monstrous crime has obtained of late,
and the hecatombs of infants that are annually sacrificed to Moloch,
to gratify an unlawful passion, are a sufficient justification for our
alluding to a painful and delicate subject, which should "not even be
named," only to correct and admonish the wrong-doers.
3. LOCALITIES IN WHICH IT IS MOST PREVALENT.--We may observe that the
crying sin of infanticide is most prevalent In those localities where
the system of moral education has been longest neglected. This inhuman
crime might be compared to the murder of the innocents, except that
the criminals, in this case, exceed in enormity the cruelty of Herod.
4. SHEDDING INNOCENT BLOOD.--If it is a sin to take away the life even
of an enemy; if the crime of shedding innocent blood cries to heaven
for vengeance; in what language can we characterize the double guilt
of those whose souls are stained with the innocent blood of their own
unborn, unregenerated offspring?
5. THE GREATNESS OF THE CRIME.--The murder of an infant before its
birth, is, in the sight of God and the law, as great a crime as the
killing of a child after birth.
6. LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY.--Every State of the Union has made this
offense one of the most serious crimes. The law has no mercy for the
offenders that violate the sacred law of human life. It is murder of
the most cowardly character and woe to him who brings this curse upon
his head, to haunt him all the days of his or her life, and to curse
him at the day of his death.
7. THE PRODUCT OF LUST.--Lust pure and simple. The only difference
between a marriage of this character and prostitution is, that
society, rotten to its heart, pulpits afraid to cry aloud against
crime and vice, and the church conformed to the world, have made such
a profanation of marriage respectable. To put it in other words, when
two people determine to live together as husband and wife, and evade
the consequences and responsibilities of marriage, they are simply
engaged in prostitution without the infamy which attaches to that vice
and crime.
8. OUTRAGEOUS VIOLATION OF ALL LAW.--The violation of all law, both
natural and revealed, is the cool and villainous contract by which
people entering into the marital relation engage in defiance of the
laws of God and the laws of the commonwealth, that they shall be
unencumbered with a family of children. "Disguise the matter as you
will," says Dr. Pomeroy, "yet the fact remains that the first and
specific object of marriage is the rearing of a family." "Be fruitful
and multiply and replenish the earth," is God's first word to Adam
after his creation.
9. THE NATIONAL SIN.--The prevention of offspring is preeminently the
sin of America. It is fast becoming the national sin of America,
and if it is not checked, it will sooner or later be an irremediable
calamity. The sin has its roots in a low and perverted idea of
marriage, and is fostered by false standards of modesty.
10. THE SIN OF HEROD.--Do these same white-walled sepulchres of
hell know that they are committing the damning sin of Herod in the
slaughter of the innocents, and are accessories before the fact to the
crime of murder? Do women in all circles of society, when practicing
these terrible crimes realize the real danger? Do they understand that
it is undermining their health, and their constitution, and that their
destiny, if persisted in, is a premature grave just as sure as the
sun rises in the heavens? Let all beware and let the first and only
purpose be, to live a life guiltless before God and man.
11. THE CRIME OF ABORTION.--From the moment of conception a new life
commences; a new individual exists; another child is added to the
family. The mother who deliberately sets about to destroy this life,
either by want of care, or by taking drugs, or using instruments,
commits as great a crime, and is just as guilty as if she strangled
her new-born infant or as if she snatched from her own breast her six
months' darling and dashed out its brains against the wall. Its blood
is upon her head, and as sure as there is a God and a judgment, that
blood will be required of her. The crime she commits is murder, child
murder--the slaughter of a speechless, helpless being, whom it is her
duty, beyond all things else, to cherish and preserve.
12. DANGEROUS DISEASES.--We appeal to all such with earnest and with
threatening words. If they have no feeling for the fruit of their
womb, if maternal sentiment is so callous in their breasts, let them
know that such produced abortions are the constant cause of violent
and, dangerous womb diseases, and frequently of early death; that they
bring on mental weakness, and often insanity; that they are the most
certain means to destroy domestic happiness which can be adopted.
Better, far better, to bear a child every year for twenty years than
to resort to such a wicked and injurious step; better to die, if need
be, of the pangs of child-birth, than to live with such a weight of
sin on the conscience.
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THE UNWELCOME CHILD.[Footnote: This is the title of a pamphlet written
by Henry C. Wright. We have taken some extracts from it.]
1. TOO OFTEN THE HUSBAND thinks only of his personal gratification;
he insists upon what he calls his rights(?); forces on his wife an
_unwelcome child_, and thereby often alienates her affections, if he
does not drive her to abortion.
Dr Stockham reports the following case: "A woman once consulted me who
was the mother of five children, all born within ten years. These were
puny, scrofulous, nervous and irritable. She herself was a fit subject
for doctors and drugs. Every organ in her body seemed diseased, and
every function perverted. She was dragging out a miserable existence.
Like other physicians, I had prescribed in vain for her many
maladies. One day she chanced to inquire how she could safely prevent
conception. This led me to ask how great was the danger. She said:
'Unless my husband is absent from home, few nights have been exempt
since we were married, except it may be three or four immediately
after confinement.'
"'And yet your husband loves you?'
"'O, yes, he is kind and provides for his family. Perhaps I might
love him but for this. While now--(will God forgive me?)--_I detest, I
loathe him_, and if I knew how to support myself and children, I would
leave him.'
"'Can you talk with him upon this subject?'
"'I think I can.'
"'Then there is hope, for many women cannot do that. Tell him I will
give you treatment to improve your health and if he will wait until
you can respond, _take time for the act, have it entirely mutual from
first to last_, the demand will not come so frequent.'
"'Do you think so?'
"'The experience of many proves the truth of this statement.'
"Hopefully she went home, and in six months I had the satisfaction of
knowing my patient was restored to health, and a single coition in
a month gave the husband more satisfaction than the many had done
previously, that the creative power was under control, and that my
lady could proudly say 'I love,' where previously she said 'I hate.'
"If husbands will listen, a few simple instructions will appeal to
their _common sense_, and none can imagine the gain to themselves, to
their wives and children, and their children's children. Then it may
not be said of the babes that the 'Death borders on their birth, and
their cradle stands in the grave.'"
2. WIVES! BE FRANK AND TRUE to your husbands on the subject of
maternity, and the relation that leads to it. Interchange thoughts and
feelings with them as to what nature allows or demands in regard to
these. Can maternity be natural when it is undesigned by the father
or undesired by the mother? Can a maternity be natural, healthful,
ennobling to the mother, to the child, to the father, and to the
home, when no loving, tender, anxious forethought presides over thee
relation in which it originated?--when the mother's nature loathed
and repelled it, and the father's only thought was his own selfish
gratification; the feelings and conditions of the mother, and the
health, character and destiny of the child that may result being
ignored by him. Wives! let there be a perfect and loving understanding
between you and your husbands on these matters, and great will be your
reward.
3. A WOMAN WRITES:--"There are few, vary few, wives and mothers who
could not reveal a sad, dark picture in their own experience in their
relations to their husbands and their children. Maternity, and
the relation in which it originates, are thrust upon them by their
husbands, often without regard to their spiritual or physical
conditions, and often in contempt of their earnest and urgent
entreaties. No joy comes to their heart at the conception and birth of
their children, except that which arises from the consciousness that
they have survived the sufferings wantonly and selfishly inflicted
upon them."
4. HUSBAND, WHEN MATERNITY is imposed on your wife without her
consent, and contrary to her appeal, how will her mind necessarily
be affected towards her child? It was conceived in dread and in
bitterness of spirit. Every stage of its foetal development is watched
with feeling of settled repugnance. In every step of its ante-natal
progress the child meets only with grief and indignation in the
mother. She would crush out its life, if she could. She loathed
its conception; she loathed it in every stage of its ante-natal
development. Instead of fixing her mind on devising ways and means
for the healthful and happy organization and development of her child
before it is born, and for its post natal comfort and support, her
soul may be intent on its destruction, and her thoughts devise plans
to kill it. In this, how often is she aided by others! There are
those, and they are called men and women, whose profession is to
devise ways to kill children before they are born. Those who do this
would not hesitate (but for the consequences) to kill them after
they are born, for the state of mind that would justify and instigate
_ante-natal_ child-murder would justify and instigate _post-natal_
child-murder. Yet, public sentiment consigns the murderer of
post-natal children to the dungeon or the gallows, while the murderers
of antenatal children are often allowed to pass in society as honest
and honorable men and women.
5. THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXTRACT from a letter written by one who has
proudly and nobly filled the station of a wife and mother, and whose
children and grandchildren surround her and crown her life with
tenderest love and respect:
"It has often been a matter of wonder to me that men should, so
heedlessly, and so injuriously to themselves, their wives and
children, and their homes, demand at once, as soon as they get legal
possession of their wives, the gratification of a passion, which, when
indulged merely for the sake of the gratification of the moment, must
end in the destruction of all that is beautiful, noble and divine
in man or woman. I have often felt that I would give the world for a
friendship with man that should show no impurity in its bearing,
and for a conjugal relation that would, at all times, heartily and
practically recognize the right of the wife to decide for herself when
she should enter into the relation that leads to maternity."
6. TIMELY ADVICE.--Here let me say that on no subject should a man and
woman, as they are being attracted into conjugal relations, be more
open and truthful with each other than on this. No woman, who would
save herself and the man she loves from a desecrated and wretched
home, should enter into the physical relations of marriage with a man
until she understands what he expects of her as to the function of
maternity, and the relation that leads to it. If a woman is made aware
that the man who would win her as a wife regards her and the marriage
relation only as the means of a legalized gratification of his
passions, and she sees fit to live with him as a wife, with such a
prospect before her, she must take the consequences of a course so
degrading and so shameless. If she sees fit to make an offering of her
body and soul on the altar of her husband's sensuality, she must do
it; but she has a right to know to what base uses her womanhood is to
be put, and it is due to her, as well as to himself, that he should
tell beforehand precisely what he wants and expects of her.
Too frequently, man shrinks from all allusion, during courtship, to
his expectations in regard to future passional relations. He fears to
speak of them, lest he should shock and repel the woman he would win
as a wife. Being conscious, it may be, of an intention to use power
he may acquire over her person for his own gratification, he shuns
all interchange of views with her, lest she should divine the hidden
sensualism of his soul, and his intention to victimize her person to
it the moment he shall get the license. A woman had better die at
once than enter into or continue in marriage with a man whose highest
conception of the relation is, that it is a means of licensed animal
indulgence. In such a relation, body and soul are sacrificed.
7. ONE DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTIC of a true and noble husband is a
feeling of manly pride in the physical elements of his manhood. His
physical manhood, as well as his soul, is dear to the heart of his
wife, because through this he can give the fullest expression of his
manly power. How can you, my friend, secure for your person the loving
care and respect of your wife? There is but one way: so manifest
yourself to her, in the hours of your most endearing intimacies,
that all your manly power shall be associated only with all that
is generous, just and noble in you, and with purity, freedom and
happiness in her. Make her feel that all which constitutes you a man,
and qualifies you to be her husband and the father of her children,
belongs to her, and is sacredly consecrated to the perfection and
happiness of her nature. Do this, and the happiness of your home is
made complete Your _body_ will be lovingly and reverently cared for,
because the wife of your bosom feels that it is the sacred symbol
through which a noble, manly love is ever speaking to her, to cheer
and sustain her.
8. WOMAN IS EVER PROUD, and justly so, of the manly passion of her
husband, when she knows it is controlled by a love for her, whose
manifestations have regard only to her elevation and happiness. The
power which, when bent only on selfish indulgence, becomes a source
of more shame, degradation, disease and wretchedness, to women and to
children than all other things put together, does but ennoble her, add
grace and glory to her being, and concentrate and vitalize the love
that encircles her as a wife when it is controlled by wisdom and
consecrated to her highest growth and happiness, and that of her
children. It lends enchantment to her person, and gives a fascination
to her smiles, her words and her caresses, which ever breathe of
purity and of heaven, and make her all lovely as a wife and mother
to her husband and the father of her child. _Manly passion is to the
conjugal love of the wife like the sun to the rose-bud, that opens its
petals, and causes them to give out their sweetest fragrance and to
display their most delicate tints; or like the frost, which chills and
kills it ere it blossoms in its richness and beauty._
9. A DIADEM OF BEAUTY.--Maternity, when it exists at the call of the
wife, and is gratefully received, but binds her heart more tenderly
and devotedly to her husband. As the father of her child, he stands
before her invested with new beauty and dignity. In receiving from him
the germ of a new life, she receives that which she feels is to add
new beauty and glory to her as a woman--a new grace and attraction to
her as a wife. She loves and honors him, because he has crowned
her with the glory of a mother. Maternity, to her, instead of being
repulsive, is a diadem of beauty, a crown of rejoicing; and deep,
tender, and self-forgetting are her love and reverence for him who
has placed it on her brow. How noble, how august, how beautiful is
maternity when thus bestowed and received!
10. CONCLUSION.--Would you, then, secure the love and trust of
your wife, and become an object of her ever-growing tenderness and
reverence? Assure her, by all your manifestations, and your perfect
respect for the functions of her nature, that your passion shall be
in subjection of her wishes. It is not enough that you have secured
in her heart respect for your spiritual and intellectual manhood. To
maintain your self-respect in your relations with her, to perfect
your growth and happiness as a husband, you must cause your _physical_
nature to be tenderly cherished and reverenced by her in all the
sacred intimacies of home. No matter how much she reverences your
intellectual or your social power, if by reason of your uncalled-for
passional manifestations you have made your physical manhood
disagreeable, how can you, in her presence, preserve a sense of manly
pride and dignity as a husband?
[Illustration]
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