Upon carefully considering the whole subject, I am satisfied that though much has thus been accomplished by the Association towards enhancing the general weal, there is still further work to be done ere all that is necessary can be effected. In the prize essay referred to, I portrayed, and endeavored to do it with fidelity, the criminality of wilfully tampering with the life of the unborn child, and the physical injury sure, sooner or later, to result therefrom to the mother, ordinarily causing her, far sooner than would pregnancies naturally completed, to lose the bloom of her youth, and with it one of the securities of her husband’s love, predisposing her to a wide range of disease otherwise escaped, and in fact rapidly breaking her down in health and in hope, alike of things earthly and of things spiritual; for to most fœticidal women, after the climacteric, of so-called “turn of life,” has passed, there comes a realizing sense of the home they have lost through their own folly, their own sin. To stem the tide of fashion,—for it was fast becoming the way of the world to bear no children,—and to show matters in their true light by holding the mirror up to nature, was thus attempted by the Association. The nail upon which society is to hang its faith has been driven; to clinch it, and so to render its hold secure, another blow is needed. The necessity I proceed to show, and the stroke to give, only regretting that my feeble arm is not that of some one of the Association’s stronger men, and my pen tipped with the flame which should cause these words to burn their way to the very hearts of those to whom they are addressed.