Dr. Storer says, if women would avoid consequences, they must make choice of time; but in the goodness and generosity of his heart, he fails to see that no choice is allowed them in many cases. They are not independent, but subject; and all teaching tends to keep them so. Here is just where the trouble begins. This is why they rebel. Save themselves from the _cause_ they cannot. The consequence is mainly within their power, and the temptation is strong to throw off the bond which confines them to the fireside. Domestic and maternal duties and joys, in moderate degree, make women nobler and better; but do not for a moment imagine that an almost absolute imprisonment at home, for ten years or more, as is common, with finances ranging as they ordinarily do, can tend to make wives more intelligent, more companionable, more Christian, _or more happy_. It may be duty, but of the stamp unmingled with joy. It is noticeable that happy wives, strong in the affectionate regard of considerate husbands, rarely attempt this violence. There is but one stronger element known to society than that of a true woman’s love for a worthy husband; one who is careful for her comfort and her preferences. It is generally admitted that women are not more selfish than men; that they are as ready to sacrifice comfort, to yield to inconvenience, as quick to appreciate consideration and to requite it, as men. Let such a woman, be she ever so slight and fragile, ever so much averse to motherhood, let her but be convinced that her husband would be happier with little voices singing in his home, and let him sustain her, and _pity her_, and she will bear it all, even to the end, cheerfully. No complaints will be heard, and the influence of that household will be pure. Do not accuse me of justifying abortion, or of seeking to lay blame upon innocent shoulders. Abortion is a crime, and women are guilty of it, but they sin not alone. While attention is being called to the fact, why not also to the cause? Wives’ burdens are too heavy, as blanched cheeks and early graves continually testify,—and the more intelligent they are, the more they recoil in disgust from the life they are led; for, mark it, it is not the ignorant class who are guilty of procuring abortion. But what shall we say for the unhappy, unfortunate women, by no means few or inferior, who are victims of selfish and gross husbands, who are allowed no choice of time or convenience, whose hearts ache with disappointment and degradation, who find the heaviest burdens of life heaped upon them without feeling, who go almost into the shadow of death, and yet return to make the pilgrimage again and again—what shall we say for them, if they do, in their desperation, find an escape from the consequences of what was unwillingly forced upon them? Will the Father of the sorrowful have no mercy on them? Surely they are in evil case, and their numbers are manifold. Thank God, there are yet some royal souls true to principle.