of population. For it will be considered "a sin to entail crime upon society, and equally a sin to make one's house a sepulcher, full of death and blight."

There has recently come to our knowledge a family of eight idiots, all grown to men's estate, with stalwart bodies, but not sufficient mental calibre to care for their personal wants any better than in early childhood. Their father and mother are cousins. Their family habit common to ignorant people, blood poisoned with whisky and tobacco, its tissues of the body built up on pork and corn; is it surprising that these old people are utterly discouraged in their poverty and the failure of all the objects of life? Would not legislation that would have interfered in preventing the marriage of such persons, or after their marriage, have interposed its beneficent restraints to have prevented these eight crimes from burdening the world have been wisely timed?

"This is the class that are damned into the world, not born." "It becomes the duty of scientists and reformers to see to it that this class of parasites do not drain the life of the parent tree."

Such are the penalties of ignorance and irresponsibility from a life of ignorant sensuality and irresponsibility in many families. This may be considered an extreme case. But do we not see results in degree all around us? How often do we hear of good men, ministers of the Gospel and devout Christians, having wild, vicious sons and unrefined daughters, and how often is the question asked, "Why should such God-fearing families be so afflicted?"

A great stride forward will have been taken when the religious and secular mind shall have been disabused of the popular error that God creates every child that is born, calls him forth into life by the fiat of His will. Here human responsibility is ignored by this imbecile and Divine Providence becomes the scapegoat for our sins and shortcomings. But this immunity does not extend to the breeding and improving of domestic animals. The farmer and stock raiser knows to a certainty that if he wishes fine cattle and spirited horses he must be wise in selection, careful to supply nutritious and abundant food and provide just enough exercise to insure the health and vigor of the male and female.

This point is aptly illustrated by a correspondent in a recent number of the Women's Journal. The writer, a wife and mother, is over-burdened by housekeeping and the care of her little children; her husband stupidly oblivious of the fact. She says: "Once we were riding at the foot of a hill he told me to get out and walk up as his mare might fall in pulling. My baby would be born in August.

He remembered to be kind to his horse and care for his colt in embryo. He knew his responsibility there, but he had no thought for his own child. This is not an unusual case, for, alas, it is the experience of many wives. Another one writes: "I have money in my work I can get on the sly." Meaning if he could find small coin in her husband's pocket he would take it, if he thought he would not miss it. He feels no responsibility in the matter. They are God's children and not his."

But it would make a vast difference in that man's conduct, and still more in the character of his children, if he believed himself to be a free moral agent in this matter for generations, and while holding the balance of power is largely responsible for the endowment of his children. "As he sows so shall he reap."

We are told that God wills the salvation of all souls, but he cannot and will not save souls without human help.

This knowledge will mark a new era in the history of human progress and reform. Men will seek their wives for their vigorous health, their moral and spiritual tendencies by inheritance and the effect of personal habits of life, and the probable result to their children from combination with their own peculiarities, before they legalize the welfare of offspring, who are so helplessly dependent upon the ancestors not only for the breath of life, but for qualities that will make their lives desirable, not an intolerable burden to themselves and society; that will endow them greatly, not impoverish them with discord and disease; crown them with transcendent talent, not blast them with imbecility.

When this great day shall have dawned upon the children of men, the work of the church—Christ's church on earth—will not be the expounding of doctrine, calling upon men to save their souls by sprinkling or immersion, but the healing of the sick and neglected bodies, the cleansing of sensual lives, the diminution of crime and poverty, the care and education of youth by every elevating and sanitary influence. Teachers and preachers must begin by casting out their own selfishness and cultivating virtue and purity in their own souls, and so manifest it in their lives that from them will emanate an attractive radiance that will draw the sin-sick and heart-weary unto them, to heal and bless. They must recognize physical law to be as divine and immutable as spiritual law, and impress upon the minds of the young that there can be no real virtue except when manifested through a healthy body. Therefore attention to and preservation of physical health becomes a cardinal virtue. And above all must we steadfastly live our principles of beneficence and purity to the extent of good to others. Especially must we live lives of sexual holiness and continence except for procreation, whether married or single. Sexual abuses are the great sin of our day. The social ulcer, the cancer at the heart that is draining our strength, consuming our life and vital force and leaving little children and the increase of crime, disease, premature death and all the sorrows that blast our lives, and make the path of life wastes and deserts.

False teachers have proclaimed the doctrine of "physical necessity," have wailed about "sexual starvation" and "over-population." Medical teachers and physicians have recommended marriage or concubinage as a specific for sexual diseases. All manner of protections and preventions to conception have been touted (which often means suicide), have been devised. Some have even proposed consecration of sexual indulgence, which props up the tottering foundation of future creation; but to me they are all false teachers, false prophets, that cry "peace, peace, when there is no peace."

\section{The Women's National Relief Association}

In the autumn of 1880, plans, considered by a few benevolently-minded women, culminated in the formation of the Women's National Relief Association, having its headquarters in Washington, D. C., the object of which is so to organize benevolent effort that the women of the nation, by concert of action, may have it in readiness for any sudden or imperative necessity, arising from conflagration or other disaster, epidemics, famine or war, such sanitary aid and material as the occasion calls for, and to insure their economical and equitable administration. It has also the present specific object of supplying without delay the United States Life-Saving Stations with beds, blankets, warm clothing, and other necessaries for the preservation of shipwrecked persons rescued from the sea.

It is desired that auxiliary societies shall be formed in every State as soon as possible, in order that much needed supplementary aid may be rendered to the life-saving service during the ensuing year, and that it may speedily follow the organization by a collection for efficient work in the other directions named.

One hundred and ninety-six life-saving stations are established and sustained by Government. Though enough has been written of late to familiarize the public with the details of this service, probably few realize how arduous are its duties. The force employed does not admit of relief relays. The same men who patrol the beach to detect the life-saving apparatus for miles on the sandy beach, man the life-boat, carry for hours the perilous work of rescue, and, exhausted themselves, work perhaps hours longer in preserving the lives they have saved.

A crew frequently returns to the station, after a racking labor of a whole day or night, faint with hunger, cold, drenched through and through, cut or bruised, almost spent with fatigue. They bear with them a weary group of the rescued, sometimes with women and children in the number, livid, ragged, half naked, hurt, famished, wet and frozen. The station fire is out or low; no food prepared; nothing ready; everything to be begun. The crews are so short-handed that none can be left to care for the home comforts and their precious freight. The fire must be renewed, the rooms must be made comfortable, with blankets to cover the chilled. There is a cot and blankets at each station for each man employed, and, as far as these will suffice, they are used for the wave-sent guests. The Government supplies no clothing, but the surfmen gladly give their own dry changes of apparel to replace the wet clothing of the rescued, themselves going wet for hours, and taking such rest as can be found on the hard benches around the station fire. Despoiled men should be outfitted with clothing. A man came ashore from the wreck of the A. S. Davis with only the band of his shirt left on him by the dragging, buffeting sea. Another was cast ashore without the vestige of a garment. One of the surfmen, from his own scanty store, supplied his wants. The Government makes no provision by which that surfman can be repaid. Is it enough that these poor