"Nor is this all. Many women are so constituted that they cannot give birth to healthy, sometimes not to living children. Is it desirable, is it moral, that such women should become pregnant? Yet this is continually the case. Others there are who ought never to become parents; because, if they do, it is only to transmit to their offspring grievous hereditary diseases, which render such offspring mere subjects of misery throughout their sickly existence. Yet such women will not lead a life of celibacy. They marry. They become parents, and the sum of human misery is increased by their doing so. But it is folly to expect that we can induce such persons to live the lives of Shakers. Nor is it necessary; all that duty requires of them is to refrain from becoming parents. Who can estimate the beneficial effect which a rational moral restraint may thus have on the health and beauty and physical improvement of our race throughout future generations?" Let us now turn our attention to the case of unmarried youth. "Almost all young persons, on reaching the age of maturity, desire to marry. That heart must be very cold, or very isolated, that does not find some object on which to bestow its affections. Thus, early marriage would be almost universal did not prudential consideration interfere. The young man thinks, 'I cannot marry yet; I cannot support a family. I must make money first, and think of a matrimonial settlement afterwards.' "And so he goes to making money, fully and sincerely resolved in a few years to share it with her whom he now loves. But passions are strong and temptations great. Curiosity, perhaps, introduces him into the company of those poor creatures whom society first reduces to a dependence on the most miserable of mercenary trades, and then curses for being what she has made them. There his health and moral feelings are alike made shipwreck. The affections he had thought to treasure up for their first object are chilled by dissipation and blunted by excess. He scarcely retains a passion but avarice. Years pass on--years of profligacy and speculation--and his wish is accomplished, his fortune is made. Where now are the feelings and resolve of his youth? 'Like the dew on the mountain, Like the foam on the river, Like the bubbles on the fountain, They are gone--and forever.'