eakened, human life shortened, and diseases multiplied. Compare
the average age of human beings of the present day, less than forty
years, with the longevity of the early members of the race, who lived
more than as many score of years. Some mighty deteriorating influence
has been at work; and we hazard nothing in the assertion that the
marriage of diseased persons and kindred violations of the laws of human
hygiene have been not unimportant factors in producing this most
appalling diminution in the length of human life.

Among the diseases which are most certain to be transmitted are
pulmonary tuberculosis, or consumption, syphilis, cancer, leprosy,
epilepsy, and some other nervous disorders, some forms of skin disease,
and insanity. The list might be extended; but these are the more common.
Persons suffering with these disorders have no right to marry, for at
least four reasons:--

(1) It is a sin against the offspring of such unions, who have a right
to be born well, but are forced to come into the world with weakly
constitutions, diseased frames, and the certainty of premature death.
The children of consumptive and syphilitic parents rarely survive
infancy. If they do, it is only to suffer later on, as they surely will,
and, perhaps, to communicate the same destructive diseases to other
human beings; but these diseases rarely extend beyond the third
generation, the line becoming extinct. The most heart-rending
spectacles we have ever met have been the children of parents suffering
with the diseases mentioned. Their appearance is characteristic; no
physician of experience can fail to detect the sins of a profligate
parent in a syphilitic child. Every feature indicates the presence of
a blighting curse.

There are those who assert that a man who has suffered with disease
of the character last mentioned may marry after the lapse of two or
three years from the disappearance of the active symptoms of the malady.
Such assertions we consider as most dangerous and pernicious. The
individuals who make them are well acquainted with the fact that of
all diseases this is the most difficult to eradicate when once the
system has become thoroughly infected by it. Not only three years but
thirty years may elapse after active symptoms disappear, yet the
disease may break out again in a new and still more serious and
complicated form. It may even lie entirely dormant or latent in the
system of the parent during his lifetime, but br