The countenance assumes, when thoughtful, the careworn aspect; the blanched cheek shows here and there a furrowed imprint; the lustre of the eye is dimmed; and, to drop from the figurative to the literal, the collar-bones, hitherto “overlaid with nature’s plastic moulding,” seem appointed only for union’s sake, lest the fabric of neck and shoulders should drop in pieces. Mark also the decayed health and spirits; hear the bitter grief of headaches, sideaches, nerveaches, and behold, perhaps, the puny offspring “mewling and puling in the nurse’s arms.” The bridegroom wears a sorrowful and thoughtful look. He may possess all the comforts which few inherit, but like Pharaoh’s lean kine, as chaff thrown before the wind, their purpose is opposed. This may be held as a ridiculous picture, but I defy denial of its unhappily too frequent illustration in real life. A word or two on the opposite extreme, _continence_. The reader will observe, in another page, the remark that every part, be it flesh, bone, or nerve, has its use. The reproductive organs have theirs; but it is not only for the propagation of the species—they afford an outlet for accumulated secretion—they aid in resolving the animal passions—they are the secret incentive to sexual love, and the bond of union between the sexes. They give an appetite that, like hunger, must be appeased, or nature revolts; and the harmony of society falls before the ungovernable fury of maniacal craving. Health, the source of all happiness, without the possession of which the world with its beauties would be, for all we cared, tenantless, materially rests upon a proper and moderate use of the copulative process. Entire continence, a rarity among mankind, establishes in both sexes the most miserable perversions of mind and body. In man, we have instances recorded of mania, melancholy, apoplexy, and foul skin-disorders. Blindness, deafness, and a host of evils, some greater, and few less than these just penned. It is true, continence is, as remarked, but seldom observed, especially in males, who, being denied sexual commerce, are estranged by the distressful habit of onanism; and thereby, in some measure, the enumerated maladies are avoided; but as masturbation, like other vices, grows with unbounded speed, a train of ills, far more distressful, await the sufferer, who, in addition, becomes, in the meridian of life, deprived of the very power he in youth was so improvident of. Continence in females, which all admit to be the brightest ornament a woman possesses, is attended with a poor requital; and its prevalence (to the honor of our countrywomen be it spoken) is truly attested by the miseries of hysteria, and other nervous derangements, that pervade the junior and elderly maiden branches of every family, and constitute so formidable an enemy to domestic felicity. A wide field is open for comment upon this subject, which is better adapted for the moralist than the physician.