child-bearing. Mothers need to be taught that
the laws of nature cannot be broken without penalty. For every woman
whose health has been weakened through nursing her child, a hundred
have lost strength and health through marital excesses. The haste of
having children is the costly penalty which women pay for shirking the
mother's duty to the child.

10. LAW OF GOD.--So graciously has the law of God been arranged in
regard to the mother's strength, that, if it be obeyed, there will be,
as a rule, an interval of at least from eighteen months to two years
between the birth of one child and that of another. Every married
man should abstain during certain natural seasons. In this periodical
recurrance God has instituted to every husband the law of restraint,
and insisted upon self-control.

11. TO YOUNG PEOPLE WHO ARE MARRIED.--Be exceedingly careful of
license and excess in your intercourse with one another. Do not
needlessly expose, by undress, the body. Let not the purity of love
degenerate into unholy lust! See to it that you walk according to the
divine Word. "Dwelling together as being heirs of the grace of life,
that your prayers be not hindered."

12. LOST POWERS.--Many young men after their union showed a marked
difference. They lost much of their natural vivacity, energy, and
strength of voice. Their powers of application, as business men,
students, and ministers, had declined, as also their enterprise,
fervor, and kindliness. They had become irritable, dull, pale, and
complaining. Many cases of rheumatic fever have been induced through
impoverishment, caused by excesses on the part of young married men.

13. MIDDLE AGE.--After middle age the sap of a man's life declines
in quantity. A man who intends close application to the ministry, to
scientific or literary pursuits, where great demands are made upon
the brain, must restrain this passion. The supplies for the brain
and nervous system are absorbed, and the seed diverted through sexual
excesses in the marriage relationship, by fornication, or by any other
form of immorality, the man's power must decline: that to this very
cause may be attributed the failure and breakdown of so many men of
middle age.

14. INTOXICATING DRINKS.--By all means avoid intoxicating drinks.
Immorality and alcoholic stimulants, as we have shown, are intimately
related to one another. Wine and strong drink inflame the blood, and
heat the passions. Attacking the brain, they warp the j