In what emphatic language is the union of husband and wife enforced: “they twain shall be one flesh.” For the future their joys and their sorrows are to be identical. They are not separate individuals as two male persons are considered, but male and female—wife and husband—one. Alas! how frequently is this oneness marred and broken—a diversity of interest and feeling appears to exist between many married couples, and how often the adage of, “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” is verified. It would be well if such couples would oftener remember the solemn injunction—“they twain shall be one flesh.” It seems to an observer, that if such couples ever loved one another, they lavished and exhausted that love in the early days of marriage, and filled up the void by feelings of enmity and strife. This ought not to be the state of a domestic household; for though the wife may be possessed of the key of every drawer and cupboard in the house, if she does not possess the key of her husband’s heart, she is destitute of that which is of more value to her than every other earthly treasure. The husband may be affectionate, kind, and respectful to his wife, but if she is not identical with himself, the depository and confidante of all his feelings and aspirations, there is something amiss. It is an impossibility for married people to love and trust each other too much, and as impossible for them to feel a strong and deep affection for each other, if they do not consider their interests to be identical. [Illustration: _Conception. First Month. Second Month. Third Month. Fourth Month._] [Illustration: _Fifth Month. Sixth Month. Seventh Month. Eighth Month. Ninth Month._] [Illustration: _Position of a Child in the Womb just before delivery_] [Illustration: _Process of Delivery_] [Illustration: _The Action of Quickening._] [Illustration: _Position of the Embryos in a plural Conception._]