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"But there is a practice so universal that it may well be termed a national vice, so common that it is unblushingly acknowledged by its perpetrators, for the commission of which the husband is even eulogized by his wife, and applauded by her friends, a vice which is the scourge and the desolation of marriage ; it is the crime of Onan. "He spilled his seed upon the ground, lest children should be born. And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing."
Who can doubt that Almighty God, in this terrible punishment, wished to impart to man a positive moral instruction which should endure to the end of time, for the crime of Onan will have imitators while the world endures—as what crimes will not? But that these should be found among men of respectability would surpass belief, if the thing were not notoriously true. At any rate, the conjugal onanists in this age and country are more numerous than the exceptions. Ministers of the Gospel, prominent church members, the very elite of society, well-nigh monopolize the art, for it is far less common to find repugnance to offspring in the lower classes than in "upper-tendom."
This enormous crime is not in all cases confined to the husband; the wife too often becomes affected with the diabolical mania, and not only by consent, but often by voluntary effort, facilitates its accomplishment. "We know of cases in which this conduct has been the cause of domestic discord, through remonstrances on the part of the husband. In these instances the woman only was guilty of the crime. One example must suffice.
A physician states that he was consulted by a gentleman of the highest respectability, who complained that his wife had not only never borne him children, but was so con-
