u see then the value of caring for yourself in youth, not only for
your own sake but for that of your children. Your mother did not know
that she would ever have children to be benefitted by her out-door life.
But one day she met a young man who pleased her, and as they grew to
know each other better they came to love each other so that they wished
to leave home and friends and make their own home and live their united
lives separate and apart from all the rest of the world. So they were
married, as we say. Marriage is the union of one man and one woman under
the sanction of the law. This is the closest and most sacred human
relation. In this relation the _spermatozoon_ of the man unites with the
germ or _ovum_ of the woman and a new life is begun. When your parents
knew that such a little life had begun in their home they felt a great
and holy joy, and desired that every good might surround it in its
development. You were the first to come into your father's home. After
your life had begun you were still so small as not to be visible to the
naked eye, and would have been lost had you come into the world. But a
home had been prepared for you in your mother's body, where day by day
you grew and grew. The food which she ate nourished you as well as
herself. The air which she breathed was life to you as well as to her.

"You have seen the father-bird bringing food to the mother-bird as she
sits upon her eggs and waits for the birdlings to come forth, and you
have thought it a pretty sight to watch his tender care of her. Even so
your father watched over your mother and you. He provided everything as
pleasant as possible, he removed every care from her path so that she
might be happy and so make you happy. His love for her took on a new and
strange tenderness it had not known before. And she, holding you warm
and close in the embrace of her body, thought of you and loved you. She
wondered how you would look; she dreamed of you; she fancied she could
feel the touch of your fluttering fingers; she made your little wardrobe
and with each stitch wove in some tender thought of the baby whom she
had never seen. Then one day she cried out with great anguish of body
but joy of heart, 'O my baby is coming.' Then through long hours she
suffered, going down almost to the gates of death that you might have
life. But she never murmured; in spite of all her pain and anguish of
body her very soul was full of rejoicing that soon she would ho