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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 fashion 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 passion, 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 God 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 LU