Part 34 (2/2)

3. SYMPTOMS.--A falling or weakness and uneasiness in the region of the loins, thighs and womb, pain in the small of the back, vomiting and sickness of the stomach, chilliness with a discharge of blood accompanied with pain in the lower portions of the abdomen. These may take place in a single hour, or it may continue for several days. If before the fourth month, there is not so much danger, but the flow of blood is generally greater. If miscarriage is the result of an accident, it generally takes place without much warning, and the service of a physician should at once be secured.

4. HOME TREATMENT.--A simple application of cold water externally applied will produce relief, or cold cloths of ice, if convenient, applied to the lower portions of the abdomen. Perfect quiet, however, is the most essential thing for the patient. She should lie on her back and take internally a teaspoonful of paregoric every two hours; drink freely of lemonade or other cooling drinks, and for nourishment subsist chiefly on chicken broth, toast, water gruel, fresh fruits, etc. The princ.i.p.al homeopathic remedies for this disease are ergot and cimicifuga, given in drop-doses of the tinctures.

5. INJURIOUS EFFECTS.--Miscarriage is a very serious difficulty, and the health and the const.i.tution may be permanently impaired. Any one p.r.o.ne to miscarriage should adopt every measure possible to strengthen and build up the system; avoid going up stairs or doing much heavy lifting or hard work.

6. PREVENTION.--Practice the laws of s.e.xual abstinence, take frequent sitz-baths, live on oatmeal, graham bread, and other nouris.h.i.+ng diet.

Avoid highly seasoned food, rich gravies, late suppers and the like.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN INDIAN FAMILY. THE SAVAGE INDIAN TEACHES US LESSONS OF CIVILIZATION.]

THE MURDER OF THE INNOCENTS.

1. MANY CAUSES.--Many causes have operated to produce a corruption of the public morals so deplorable; prominent among which may be mentioned the facility with which divorces may be obtained in some of the States, the constant promulgation of false ideas of marriage and its duties by means of books, lectures, etc., and the distribution through the mails of impure publications. But an influence not less powerful than any of these is the growing devotion of fas.h.i.+on and luxury of this age, and the idea which practically obtains to so great an extent that pleasure, instead of the health or morals, is the great object of life.

2. A MONSTROUS CRIME.--The abiding interest we feel in the preservation of the morals of our country, constrains us to raise our voice against the daily increasing practice of infanticide, especially before birth. The notoriety that monstrous crime has obtained of late, and the hecatombs of infants that are annually sacrificed to Moloch, to gratify an unlawful pa.s.sion, are a sufficient justification for our alluding to a painful and delicate subject, which should ”not even be named,” only to correct and admonish the wrong-doers.

3. LOCALITIES IN WHICH IT IS MOST PREVALENT.--We may observe that the crying sin of infanticide is most prevalent In those localities where the system of moral education has been longest neglected. This inhuman crime might be compared to the murder of the innocents, except that the criminals, in this case, exceed in enormity the cruelty of Herod.

4. SHEDDING INNOCENT BLOOD.--If it is a sin to take away the life even of an enemy; if the crime of shedding innocent blood cries to heaven for vengeance; in what language can we characterize the double guilt of those whose souls are stained with the innocent blood of their own unborn, unregenerated offspring?

5. THE GREATNESS OF THE CRIME.--The murder of an infant before its birth, is, in the sight of G.o.d and the law, as great a crime as the killing of a child after birth.

6. LEGAL RESPONSIBILITY.--Every State of the Union has made this offense one of the most serious crimes. The law has no mercy for the offenders that violate the sacred law of human life. It is murder of the most cowardly character and woe to him who brings this curse upon his head, to haunt him all the days of his or her life, and to curse him at the day of his death.

7. THE PRODUCT OF l.u.s.t.--l.u.s.t pure and simple. The only difference between a marriage of this character and prost.i.tution is, that society, rotten to its heart, pulpits afraid to cry aloud against crime and vice, and the church conformed to the world, have made such a profanation of marriage respectable. To put it in other words, when two people determine to live together as husband and wife, and evade the consequences and responsibilities of marriage, they are simply engaged in prost.i.tution without the infamy which attaches to that vice and crime.

8. OUTRAGEOUS VIOLATION OF ALL LAW.--The violation of all law, both natural and revealed, is the cool and villainous contract by which people entering into the marital relation engage in defiance of the laws of G.o.d and the laws of the commonwealth, that they shall be unenc.u.mbered with a family of children. ”Disguise the matter as you will,” says Dr. Pomeroy, ”yet the fact remains that the first and specific object of marriage is the rearing of a family.” ”Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth,” is G.o.d's first word to Adam after his creation.

9. THE NATIONAL SIN.--The prevention of offspring is preeminently the sin of America. It is fast becoming the national sin of America, and if it is not checked, it will sooner or later be an irremediable calamity. The sin has its roots in a low and perverted idea of marriage, and is fostered by false standards of modesty.

10. THE SIN OF HEROD.--Do these same white-walled sepulchres of h.e.l.l know that they are committing the d.a.m.ning sin of Herod in the slaughter of the innocents, and are accessories before the fact to the crime of murder? Do women in all circles of society, when practicing these terrible crimes realize the real danger? Do they understand that it is undermining their health, and their const.i.tution, and that their destiny, if persisted in, is a premature grave just as sure as the sun rises in the heavens? Let all beware and let the first and only purpose be, to live a life guiltless before G.o.d and man.

11. THE CRIME OF ABORTION.--From the moment of conception a new life commences; a new individual exists; another child is added to the family. The mother who deliberately sets about to destroy this life, either by want of care, or by taking drugs, or using instruments, commits as great a crime, and is just as guilty as if she strangled her new-born infant or as if she s.n.a.t.c.hed from her own breast her six months' darling and dashed out its brains against the wall. Its blood is upon her head, and as sure as there is a G.o.d and a judgment, that blood will be required of her. The crime she commits is murder, child murder--the slaughter of a speechless, helpless being, whom it is her duty, beyond all things else, to cherish and preserve.

12. DANGEROUS DISEASES.--We appeal to all such with earnest and with threatening words. If they have no feeling for the fruit of their womb, if maternal sentiment is so callous in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, let them know that such produced abortions are the constant cause of violent and, dangerous womb diseases, and frequently of early death; that they bring on mental weakness, and often insanity; that they are the most certain means to destroy domestic happiness which can be adopted.

Better, far better, to bear a child every year for twenty years than to resort to such a wicked and injurious step; better to die, if need be, of the pangs of child-birth, than to live with such a weight of sin on the conscience.

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