When will a brighter day dawn for woman and for man in these things? When our young people are trained to see these great questions in the light of God’s purposes and have strength of character sufficient to make them conquerors over the false opinions of the world, the temptations of the flesh, and the wiles of the devil. Ignorance and misconception are at the bottom of all that is wrong in the marital relation. No loving husband would for a moment allow himself to yield to the demands of his lower nature did he consider and appreciate rightly all that it meant to his wife, his unborn children and to the generations to come. There is such an incompatibility in the life of the man of high and noble instincts, of generous nature, and lofty aspirations, in so pandering to the lustful, so making provisions for the flesh, and at such terrible cost to the one whom he should and does hold most dear! Let us pray and work that a brighter day may dawn speedily, when the marital relation shall be freed from all that is gross and sensual, and shall be the synonym for purity, truth, and righteousness. In the Greek, the word for man—and this is the generic term, comprehending woman—means a being with his face turned upward. When we are looking upward our lives will be all the time tending upward, and we shall draw our inspiration from Him who lives above and ever leads His children into paths of truth and purity. CHAPTER VIII. PREPARATION FOR MOTHERHOOD. Motherhood the Glory of Womanhood.—Maternity Natural and Productive of Health.—Prevalence of Knowledge of Methods Used to Prevent Conception.—Mothers Should Prepare Their Daughters for Maternity.—Motherhood the Sanction for Wifehood.—Effect of Fixed Habits of Mother upon Offspring.—Adjustment of Clothing to Expectant Motherhood.—Importance of Proper Exercise.—The Sitz Bath.—Threatened Miscarriages.—Effects of Environment upon the Unborn.—Why Italian Children Resemble the Madonnas.—The Child the Expression of the Mother’s Thoughts.—The Five Stages of Prenatal Culture Stated and Illustrated.—The Mother of the Wesleys.—The Child the Heir and Expression of the Mother’s Thought and Life. “Oh in woman how Mighty is the love of offspring: ere Unto her wandering, untaught mind, unfolds The mystery that is half divine, half human, Of life, of birth, the love of unborn souls Within her, and the mother yearning creeps Through her warm heart, and stirs its hidden deeps And grows and strengthens with each riper year.”—ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. “Motherhood is not a remote contingency, but the common duty and the common glory of womanhood.”