will the offspring
deteriorate and the world be cursed with deformities, monstrosities,
unhumanities and cranks.

2. EACH AFTER ITS KIND.--"Like parents like children." "In their own image
beget" they them. In what other can they? "How can a corrupt tree bring
forth good fruit?" How can animal propensities in parents generate other
than depraved children, or moral purity beget beings other than as holy by
nature as those at whose hands they received existence and constitution?

3. AS ARE THE PARENTS, physically, mentally and morally when they stamp
their own image and likeness upon progeny, so will be the constitution of
that progeny.

4. "JUST AS THE TWIG IS BENT THE TREE'S INCLINED."--Yet the bramble cannot
be bent to bear delicious peaches, nor the sycamore to bear grain.
Education is something, but _parentage_ is _everything_; because it "_dyes
in the wool_," and thereby exerts an influence on character almost
infinitely more powerful than all other conditions put together.

5. HEALTHY AND BEAUTIFUL CHILDREN.--Thoughtless mortal! Before you allow
the first goings forth of love, learn what the parental conditions in you
mean, and you will confer a great boon upon the prospective bone of your
bone, and flesh of your flesh! If it is in your power to be the parent of
beautiful, healthy, moral and talented children instead of diseased and
depraved, is it not your imperious duty then, to impart to them that
physical power, moral perfection, and intellectual capability, which shall
ennoble their lives and make them good people and good citizens?

6. PAUSE AND TREMBLE.--Prospective parents! Will you trifle with the
dearest interests of your children? Will you in matters thus momentous,
head-long rush

"Where angels dare not tread?"

Seeking only mere animal indulgence?--Well might cherubim shrink from
assuming responsibilities thus momentous! Yet, how many parents tread this
holy ground completely unprepared, and almost as thoughtlessly and
ignorantly as brutes--entailing even loathsome diseases and {224} sensual
propensities upon the fruit of their own bodies. Whereas they are bound, by
obligations the most imperious, to bestow on them a good physical
organization, along with a pure, moral, and strong intellectual
constitution, or else not to become parents! Especially since it is easier
to generate human angels than devils incarnate.

7. HEREDITARY DESCENT.--This great law of things, "Hereditary Descent,"
fully