Those who submit to this treatment are not generally un-
married women who have lost their virtue, but the mothers



1 64 NEO-MALTHUSIANISIVt

of families, respectable Christian matrons, members of
churches, and walking in the better classes of society.
Testimony from all quarters, especially from New England,
has accumulated within the last few years to sap our faith
in the morality and religion of American women. Both
Bishop- Coxe and the Roman Catholic Archbishop Spaulding
have issued Pastorals upon this great crime." Well, which-
ever vice is the most prevalent, the effect on the moral
nature of the women and the nations is the same.
And now I think I have written as much as can conveniently
be written, in what must necessarily be a somewhat confined
space, upon this question of Neo-Malthusianism, the causes
which have brought the system into being, and its results.
One thing only now remains to be remarked, and that is, that
after having carefully examined most, if not all, of the European
and American literature on the matter, I observe that those
Neo-Malthusians who at first warmly took the matter in hand
and advocated its general adoption through evil and good
report, have, after the example of Mrs. Besant, receded from
their original position. They have at length been obliged to
admit that the monster which they helped to raise would
certainly devour the whole nation, and cause havoc and ruin
to morality in all directions. This is satisfactory. The
crucial example of France, and the effects of voluntary pre-
vention of conception there, have proved too much for them ;
and they have at length been obliged to come to the only
possible conclusion, namely, that this system merely substitutes
one evil for another.
