How will this new and dreaded experience affect her mind towards her husband and the father of her child? As a lover, he had been so gentle, so delicate, and so considerate of her slightest wish, so thoughtful of her happiness, and so unwilling to say or do anything to grieve her spirit; as a bridegroom, he had promised to love and cherish her as his own soul; and she fondly trusted that no wrong or suffering would ever reach her through him; when, behold! in the very beginning of their united life, and before, physically or mentally, she was prepared to meet the great demand, he has imposed on her the necessity of yielding up her body and soul to the keenest suffering to which she can be subjected; and that without consulting her wishes, and contrary, it may be, to her earnest prayer. As she ponders on her situation, and the experience through which she must pass, and from which death to herself, or her child, or to both, is the only door of escape, how must she feel towards him who has placed her in this fearful condition? He has subjected her to the necessity, for weary months, of drinking the bitterest cup of life, and of passing through the valley and shadow of death, heart-sick, desponding and shrinking from the final result; and all this, not because she wished to be a mother, or he a father, nor that they might blend their bodies and souls in a new and beautiful life, to be an honor to themselves and the world,—no such motive prompted the relation in which conception originated; but solely his momentary gratification. She feels that his indulgence was had at her expense. No conscious pride and sense of matronly dignity, no high and noble aspirations, sustain her, as she reflects on her condition. Can she continue to love and respect him? He has done her the greatest wrong. He heeded not her prayers that he would control his passion, and spare her until she was ready joyfully to enter upon an office so grand in its nature, and so sublime in its bearing on the destiny of an immortal soul. To meet the responsibilities of such an office, and the physical and mental pain and anguish necessarily pertaining to it, what woman but needs a preparation? Who is sufficient for these things? Yet the dread liabilities are upon her, without a moment’s warning, and without, it may be, any interchange of thoughts and feelings with her husband and the father of her child. She knows not even that he wants a child, nor whether he will receive it with a blessing or a curse. She knows not what heart-support she will receive from him in the moment of her trial and her anguish. He has had no conversation with her on these subjects, and given her no assurance as to the natural results to her of his passional relations with her; expressed no anxiety, no expectations, no hopes, as to her liability to become a mother. He has had no further wish or anxiety, except for his own selfish gratification. He has, it