2 so NEO-MALTHUSIANISM

and cause millions, who ought not to be so doomed, to suffer
years of agony. " It is time, therefore, as we heard a brave
parson tell his flock lately, to have done with that blasphemous
whining which constantly tries to look at a motherless and
fatherless crowd of puny infants as a dispensation of mysterious
providence." {Evolution of Sex.)

People who are unfit to marry must be taught that, instead
of making life a blessing to others, they would, by their selfish
action, transform it into a curse. " These persons' lives are a
curse to themselves, and a cause of incessant suffering to their
best friends. When at length they succumb, all who cared
for them rejoice. Most people can picture for themselves
what the latter end of such a life is. The diseased one, an
object of horror and loathing to those who love him most,
praying (when not stupefied with drugs to deaden his pain) to
God for relief in death ; while those around echo the prayer in
hiding, and become impatient that their united prayers have
remained so long unanswered." Who, possessed of an atom
of pity or morality, would not refrain from bringing such Uves
into the world ? The time will assuredly come when a medical
certificate declaring fitness for marriage will be considered as
necessary as the certificate stating that the banns have been
published. It will be considered admirable self-denial, sound
wisdom, and which will become more and more apparent as
life draws on, for the diseased, or those with a tendency to
disease, to abstain from marriage both on moral and physical
grounds. We are all bound to teach and maintain that it is an
undoubted sin for diseased people to marry ; that they will, in
doing so, be guilty of a great wrong against the children whom
they would bring into the world, and also of an outrage against
all the higher laws of morality. "Few would deserve better
of their country than those who determine to live celibate
lives, through a reasonable conviction that their issue would
probably be less fitted than the generality to play their part as
citizens." (Gallon.)

We can look forward with some degree of confidence to the
cessation of all these wrongs if we appeal to the humane and
moral feelings of mankind. 