Heroism is a word to stir the highest enthusiasm in every heart, and we Britons are not supposed to lack in that glorious quality. While not despising nor making light of that heroism which shows an unflinching front on the battlefield, or in the face of any danger, and while recognising also and glorying in that other heroism of which the world hears less, but which is nevertheless very rich and far-reaching in results--I mean that brave heart which does not sink under adverse circumstances, which makes the best of everything, which can do, dare, and suffer for others, without notice or applause--there is yet another phase of heroism of which the world knows not at all, but which in my estimation is as great, if not greater, than any of these. It is a delicate theme, and yet in such a book as this are we not justified in touching upon it, reverently and tenderly as it deserves? There are some--more, I believe, than we dream of--who, being afflicted physically or mentally, and who, fearing some hereditary moral taint for which they have to suffer, though entirely blameless, deliberately abstain from marriage for the highest of all reasons--that they fear to perpetuate in their own children the weaknesses which are already so stupendous a curse to mankind. Oh that such examples could be multiplied, and that we were once thoroughly awakened to the solemn significance of the fact that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children! But when we look around we see the innocent made to suffer daily for the guilty; we see children whose lives even in infancy are but a burden to them, and whose later life can only be a cross, and we pray for a great baptism of light on this painful subject, for a great awakening to that personal, individual responsibility which is the only solution of a difficulty which concerns the future and the highest interest of the race.