How some of these cells are transformed into muscle, others into bone or cartilage or nerves, or brain, or connective tissue, when no difference can be distinguished in the various cells, is among the mysteries of life which science has not yet fathomed. That it does this we all know; how it does it belongs wholly within the knowledge of creative wisdom. In tracing the steps of progress in the life of the embryo, which I shall soon give, let every young person who reads these pages learn once and forever, that when she is tempted to rid herself of the product of conception, even the next moment after conception has taken place, she is tempted to murder, as surely as though the child were in her arms, a living visible bit of humanity, and she were plotting to take its life. It is a terrible thing to tamper with the work of the Infinite, and with nature’s inexorable laws, and punishment is sure to follow. When the embryo has finished its journey, and has settled itself for a long stay of nine months, not of rest, but of ceaseless activity, of growth and development so marvelous and sure, it begins to draw its life from the uterus, for the stored up food in the ovum is already exhausted. At first it draws by absorption through the membrane enclosing it, then through the placenta or “afterbirth,” which is created as the medium of communication for the life-giving force, between mother and child. Up to the close of the third month we call this little new life an embryo; after this time it is called a fœtus. For a full description of the embryo and fœtus, in the various stages of development, we copy from Leavitt’s Science and Art of Obstetrics. “_The First Month._—The embryo in the first week of gestation, is a minute, gelatinous and semi-transparent mass, of a greyish color, presenting to the unaided eye no definite traces of either head or extremities. The entire ovum measures but one-fourth of an inch, and the embryo but one-twelfth; but during the next week they double in dimensions. The coverings of the child are developed, and it is attached to the uterus, but does not yet draw its life from it. At the close of the month the ovum is about the size of a pigeon’s egg, and weighs about forty grains. The embryo is about three-fourths of an inch in extreme length, and about one-third of an inch in direct measurement as it is coiled up. The structures have so little bulk, that when ruptured they easily escape attention, in abortions, generally passing with a clot. “_Second Month._—At eight weeks the ovum is about the size of a hen’s egg, and it weighs from one hundred and eighty to three hundred grains, and is about two-thirds of an inch in length from head to caudal curve. Its independent circulatory system is forming: indications of the external generative organs are visible: and ossification has begun in several parts of the body.