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"Third, insanity. By reflex action the brain not unfrequently takes on disease, and in place of a prattling baby, you may be saddled for the remainder of your life with a mad woman.
"Fourth, barrenness—a most common result. 'Circumstances' may change; it may seem the most desirable thing in the world that your family should 'increase,' but violated nature defies you. Pregnancy occurs often enough, but the womb gives up its contents at precisely the same term as you forced it to do before, and no art can come to your relief.
"Fifth, 'female weaknesses.' The long train of sad and tedious phenomena indicated by this popular term, is absolutely multifarious—congestions, ulceration, and prolapsus uteri, diseases of the bladder, urethra, and rectum, incontinence of urine, spinal irritation, sciatica, and other things, of which the greatest misfortune is that they do not kill, but simply render life insupportable. Now, Reverend sir, I have hastily and imperfectly scribbled off some of the prominent objections to your intended course. Pardon me if I have seemed severe. I have taken the trouble for two reasons: first, to save the life of a human being, and, second, to rescue you, but above all your excellent wife, from the commission of a sin of damnation.
"Respectfully, etc., ."
It is due to these parties to mention that the arguments set forth in the response, had the full effect intended, and that they now rejoice in the possession of the mature product of that pregnancy—a living refutation of the assertion that man can ever usurp the functions of Divine Providence. The health of the mother has been fully restored through the very process which, in the fallible judgment
