Yet this is not all. Every physician knows, that there are many woman 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, the warnings of physicians to the contrary notwithstanding. Others there are, who ought never to become parents; because, if they do, it is only to transmit to their offspring grievous hereditary diseases; perhaps that worst of diseases, insanity. Yet they will not lead a life of celibacy. They marry. They become parents, and the world suffers by it. That a human being should give birth to a child, knowing that he transmits to it hereditary disease, is, in my opinion, an immorality. But it is a folly to expect that we can ever induce all 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 rational moral restraint may thus have, on the health, beauty, and physical improvement of our race, throughout future generations? But, apart from these latter considerations, is it not most plainly, clearly, incontrovertibly _desirable_, that parents _should have the power_[13] to limit their offspring, whether they choose to exercise it or not? Who _can_ lose by their having this power? and how many _may_ gain! may gain competency for themselves, and the opportunity carefully to educate and provide for their children! How many _may_ escape the jarrings, the quarrels, the disorder, the anxiety, which an overgrown family too often causes in the domestic circle? It sometimes happens, that individual instances come home to the feelings with greater force than any general reasoning. I shall, in this place, adduce one which came immediately under my cognizance. In June, 1829, I received from an elderly gentleman of the first respectability, occupying a public situation in one of the western states, a letter, requesting to know whether I could afford any information or advice in a case which greatly interested him, and which regarded a young woman for whom he had ever experienced the sentiments of a father. In explanation of the circumstances to which he alluded, he enclosed me a copy of a letter which she had just written to him and which I here transcribe verbatim. A letter more touching from its simplicity, or more strikingly illustrative of the unfortunate situation in which not one, but thousands, in married life, find themselves placed, I have never read. L***, KENTUCKY, MAY 3, 1829. DEAR SIR,