HEREDITY. 
If every parent of to-day would study and profit by 
the revelation of heredity, the next generation would 
present humanity transformed and almost glorified. 
Why should such truths not be openly treated? Why 
must coarse jest, and sly hint, and curious and voluptu- 
ous thought run riot over a certain class of subjects, in 
themselves pure, while honest truth is covered with 
shame and mystery, or banished to dark corners ? It is 
due to the almost total ignorance of men and women as 
to the laws of being that the flood-tide of sin and mis- 
ery, known to every physician, has poured over the 
race. It is due to the wicked deceptions practiced upon 
the curious minds of children that the baleful power of 
half-truth and utter vulgarity takes such hold upon our 
youth. 
Are children mysterious ? Do you marvel that some 
good people should have such bad children, or that some 
indifferent people should have good children ? Do you 
wonder at the weak mind, the diseased or delicate body, 
the melancholy or malicious or licentious trait, the love 
of drink, or the obstinate predeliction for a certain pur- 
suit ? Let me quote one incident and leave the rest to 
the earnest thought of Christian women : 
A certain rough, uncouth family had in it one daugh- 
ter, who was a striking contrast to the rest—pretty, gen- 
tle, refined, book-loving. Mrs. Kirby inquired very 
closely into the reason of this contrast. The old mother 
knew ot none. In the months before this daughter came 
they were living down South in a rude cabin. She could 2 
recall no refining or cheering circumstances, except that 
a peddler had called with a pack of hooks. The poor 
mother saw one pretty volume in green and gold which 
attracted her admiration. It was Scott’s “ Lady of the 
Lake.” A keen desire for it possessed her, but the dol- 
lar was too much to spend. However, such was her 
longing for it the rest of the day and night that she rose 
from her bed, walked four miles to the village, roused 
the peddler, bought the book, and came home happy as 
a child. Through all that summer she read and com- 
mitted to memory the beautiful, musical tale. It ap- 
peared to her she was with those people by the lakes 
in the mountains. She saw “ Ellen ’’ stepping about so 
sweetly in the rhyme ; it seemed to her it was all true, 
especially after she could repeat it to herself. This was 
the explanation. The babe came to this world bearing 
on its delicate brain, and even on its little face the im- 
pression of the beautiful images which, had filled the 
mother’s thoughts. 
We could multiply instances of peculiar development 
of mind and body, of musical or other special talent, of 
sweetness or strength or piety ot disposition in thechil-. 
dren, resulting directly from the temporary efforts of the 
mother to direct her mind in these channels. And the 
opposites of these result with equally startling certainty 
from her moods and impressions. 
The great problem of the church is how to reach and 
save those who are held in chains to some over-master- 
ing appetite of sin, and those whose deliberate free-will 
seems to elect for evil. 0, mothers, and, secondarily, 
fathers, you hold the keys of these eternal issues! You 
can bequeath a disposition of a free-will that will turn 
to God and righteousness as the needle to the pole. 
“To fashion an infinite soul and send it forth on an 3 
infinite career—infinite susceptibilities laid open to the 
touch of infinite sorrow;—oh ! to him who has ever faced 
the facts of being—not death, not death, but this irre- 
vocable gift of life is the one solemnity, the awful sacra- 
ment !” 
A mother may mould the plastic atom of life into a 
saint or poet, or at least, into a strong and good human 
being; but she must prepare for it as an artist studies 
for a picture or an athlete trains for the race. In this 
pure temple must come no tread of fiery-footed passion. 
While the vital clay lies under her moulding hand she 
must be pure as a vestal and free as Diana. She must 
keep sweet and calm, and drink in strength from the 
blessed air and sunshine; she must have a reasonable 
degree of health and happiness, a good mind and a de- 
voted soul; she must be enlightened as to the laws of 
health and being, and she must yield herself to the in- 
fluences of the Holy Spirit. Inspiration itself acknowl- 
edges these principles; see Judges, xiii: 4, and Matthew, 
i: 25. 
Parentage must be lifted out of the depths of chance 
and animalism into the region of wise, calm, pure thought 
and election. In this realm the mother must be a free 
woman and a crowned queen; and the father must him- 
self be pure from physical and spiritual taint. An igno- 
ble progeny is the sequence of an enslaved motherhood. 
Prom a motherhood crippled, tortured, exhausted, op- 
pressed, debased, can come nothing unworthy the like- 
ness of God. 
Oh ! for a pen of fire to set before men the record of 
the agony and the defilement they have for centuries 
of ignorant selfishness poured out upon womanhood and 
childhood ’ They would fall sick and blinded in the 
dust, and writhe there for very misery of remorse. Even 4 
many good men in their not excusable blindness are verily 
guilty in this matter. When shall the healing branch 
be cast into this black and bitter fountain that is poison- 
ing so many lives? 
Jean Ingelow, in her poem of “ Margaret by the Mere 
Side,” tells, in her own sweet, dreamy fashion, the story 
of a fair girl—a woman in years, but dumb and always 
to be a child in intellect—who sat hour by hour, and 
day by day, “ on the grey stone beneath the sycamore,” 
innocent, wistful, sad, always waiting, always gazing 
down the mere. Her mother had come there a six- 
months’ bride, to see her husband’s boat go down the 
stream never to return. 
“And she with weeping sore 
Peered in the water-flags unceasingly. 
And, after, desolate she sat alone, 
And mourned, refusing to be comforted, 
On the grey stone—the moss-embroidered stone; 
Till, when the days grew short, a child was born 
To the dead father underneath the wave.” 
A child whose dumb, pensive soul was, by the subtle 
sympathy of nature, to be stamped for life with a grief 
she never knew. 
Look at another picture from Miss Philp’s u Silent 
Partner,” a scene in the pinched, worn, driven life of 
New England factory girls. Catty—poor, deaf, dumb, 
repulsive Catty—had fallen asleep. “ Her long fingers 
moved a little, framing broken words. Even in her 
dreahas, she listened for what she never iieard, and spoke 
that which no one understood. 
‘“Mother used to say,’ said Sip, under her breath, 
‘ that it was the noise.’ 
“ ‘The noise ?’ 
“ ‘ The noise of the wheels. She said they beat about 5 
in her head. She came home o’ nights and says to her- 
self, “The baby ’ll never hear in this world, unless she 
hear the wheels,” and, sure enough, Sip lifted her face 
to Perley’s with a look of awe, ‘ it is true enough, that 
(’atty hears the wheels, but never anything beside.’” 
Cowan and Mrs. Dutfey, and Joseph Cook, in his 
good, brave way, will tell us of scores of wonders like 
this, but let us take just one scene from Mrs. Kirby’s 
“ Transmission:” 
We see a young wife stung and tortured by the daily 
desertion and faithlessness of her husband. We see 
her patiently, bravely, resolutely, turning away from 
the sight and feeling of this torment. We see her—and 
we think she must have asked Heaven’s help—constantly 
and firmly putting aside and treading down every burn- 
ing thought, every vengeful feeling. She did this not 
for herself, but for the sake of the innocent soul which 
she knew would reflect her own. She had her reward 
in one who grew up before her—pure, sweet, strong, and 
calm. She had lifted him above dark and petty tilings 
into the bright, free atmosphere of great souls. 
When will the awful significance of these things dawn 
upon men and women ? When shall the ideal mother 
come to her high vocation, carefully and reverently, as 
ah artist comes to his marbles, clothed with strength, 
dowered with wisdom, and baptized with purity and 
love ? When shall she be upheld and comforted by a 
husband as pure, as reverent as herself? 
Do we see all the meaning of Miss Philp’s ideal mar- 
riage? “ With her he is a crowned creature ; with him 
she is a free one.” Husband of to-day, do you not see 
that so soon as you enslave this free creature your own 
royalty and that of your children is gone? So sure as 
you bind her down upon the altar of your own lower 6 
nature there shall creep forth, out of the ashes of sacri- 
ficed womanhood, a swarm of evil creatures—shapes of 
hate and pain and lust—that shall look at you and re- 
proach you, out of the eyes of your children. 
M. L. G. 
Published by the Washington Society for Moral Education.