Your only object, it may be, in this relation, is _mere sensual indulgence_. Not one thought or care for the welfare of the child that may ensue enters your mind. Consequently, you are utterly indifferent to your physical or mental conditions, at the time. Your passion being excited, your only aim is, its gratification. Your wife may be in a state of utter prostration, physically and mentally,—severe toil, deep anxiety, sad disappointment, or some torturing care, may have exhausted her energies, and reduced her to a state of imbecility, for the time being. Despite all this, she is liable to conception. You heed not her conditions nor her wishes, but demand indulgence, regardless of her happiness or that of the child which may result therefrom. She submits, rather than contend. Maternity ensues. The mother imparts no vitality to the child in its conception. It is conceived in weakness, is developed in joyless, lifeless imbecility, or intense anguish. It is born an idiot, or without sufficient vital force to develop it into life with the ordinary energies and faculties of a man or woman. On all hands, society is full of the victims of such a relation,—of a maternity forced on woman when, from various causes, body and soul are prostrated, and too destitute of vital energy even for the ordinary demands of daily life; how much more destitute of that fulness and vigor of life, so necessary to the sublime and responsible act of true and healthy conception! If ever the current of life should flow with deep, concentrated, joyous energy in woman, it should be in the moment of conception, when she takes charge of the germ of a new and immortal life, and enters upon the sublime and overwhelming responsibilities of maternity. Then, indeed, she needs that all the energies of her womanhood should be in most perfect and healthful activity; then, if ever, she should be filled “with all the fulness of God.”