The first time my attention was practically called to the case of a child in danger of dying before the time of delivery occurred over twenty years ago, when the mother of a highly respected family, then in my spiritual charge, was wasting away with consumption during her state of pregnancy. You know that we Catholics are very solicitous that infants shall not die without Baptism, because we believe that heaven is not promised to the unbaptized. I therefore directed the lady's husband to consult their family physician on the prospects of the case, and take timely precautions, so that, if death should come on the mother before her delivery, the infant might be reached at once and be baptized before it expired. The physician, a learned and conscientious practitioner, answered that we should not be solicitous; for that Nature had so provided that mothers in such cases rarely die before the child is born. He was right. The child was born and baptized; the mother died a few hours later; the little one lived several weeks before it went to join the angels in heaven. I learned from that occurrence the lesson which Wharton and Stillé inculcate that "the phenomena of pregnancy are often far more alarming in appearance than in reality, and we are rarely justified in interfering with the natural progress of gestation." To return to our subject. Abortion, or miscarriage, is often, as you know, gentlemen, the result of natural causes beyond human control; at other times it is brought on by unintentional imprudence on the part of the mother or her attendants. It is the duty of the family physician, when occasions offer, to instruct his pregnant patients and other persons concerned on the dangers to be avoided. A good Doctor should be to his patients what a father is to his children; very important matters are confided to him, and therefore grave responsibilities rest on his conscience. III. We are now ready to consider the chief question of this lecture, namely, whether there can be any cases in which a physician is justified in bringing about an abortion, or in prescribing a treatment from which he knows an abortion is likely to result. 1. It is evident that, if he acts with due prudence, and yet, from some cause which he did not foresee and could not have been foreseen, his treatment brings about a miscarriage, he cannot justly be held accountable for what he could not help.