I cannot forbear quoting an “illustrative case” entire, from Dr. Holbrook’s book entitled, Stirpiculture: “How great is the influence on unborn offspring of the mother’s mental condition, as well as the effect over them of pleasant surroundings, is shown by the following case. A young girl attracted attention by her beauty and by the superiority of the type she exhibited over that of either of her parents, and on her mother being spoken to on the subject she remarked: ‘In my early married life my husband and I learned how to live in holy relations, after God’s ordinance. My husband lovingly consented to let me live apart from him during the time I carried this little daughter under my heart, and also while I was nursing her. These were the happiest days of my life. Every day before my child was born, I could have hugged myself with delight at the prospect of becoming a mother. My husband and I were never so tenderly, so harmoniously, or so happily related to each other, and I never loved him more deeply than during those blessed months. I was surrounded by all beautiful things, and one picture of a lovely face was especially in my thought. My daughter looks more like that picture than she does like either of us. From the time she was born she was like an exquisite rosebud—the flower of pure, sanctified, happy love. She never cried at night, was never fretful or nervous, but was all smiles and winning baby ways, filling our hearts and home with perpetual gladness. To this day, and she is now fourteen years old, I have never had the slightest difficulty in bringing her up. She turns naturally to the right, and I never knew her to be cross or impatient or hard to manage. She has given me only comfort; and I realize from an experience of just the opposite nature that the reason of all this is because my little girl had her birthright.’” The future experience of this lady was however of a very different nature. She added: “A few years later I was again about to become a mother, but with what different feelings! My husband had become contaminated with the popular idea that even more frequent relations were permissible during pregnancy. I was powerless against this wicked sophistry, and was obliged to yield to his constant desires. But how I suffered and cried; how wretched I was; how nervous and almost despairing. Worst of all, I felt my love and trusting faith turning to dread and repulsion. “My little boy, on whom my husband set high hopes, was born after nine of the most unhappy, distressing months of my life, a sickly, nervous, fretting child—myself in miniature—and after five years of life that was predestined by all the circumstances to be just what it was, after giving us only anxiety and care, he died, leaving us sadder and wiser. I have demonstrated to my own abundant satisfaction that there is but one right, God-given way to beget and rear children, and I know that I am only one of many who can corroborate this testimony.”