n in the community. Nature, therefore, has made
ample provision for preventing a decrease of population through failure
of reproduction.

She has also instituted laws to prevent its undue increase. It would
seem as if the extension of material mental and social comfort and
culture has a tendency to render marriage less prolific, and population
stationary or nearly so. So evident is this tendency, that it has been
laid down as a maxim in sociology by Sismondi, that 'where the number of
marriages is proportionally the greatest, where the greatest number of
persons participate in the duties and the virtues and the happiness of
marriage, the smaller number of children does each marriage produce.'
Thus, to a certain extent, does nature endorse the opinions of those
political economists who assert that increase of population beyond
certain limits is an evil happily averted by wars, famines, and
pestilences, which hence become national blessings in disguise. She,
however, points to the extension of mental and moral education and
refinement as gentler and surer means of reducing plethoric population
than those suggested by Malthus and Mill.

Many causes of sterility, it will therefore be seen, are beyond the
power of man to control. They operate on a large scale for the good of
the whole. With these we have little concern. But there are others which
may be influenced by intelligent endeavor. Some have been already
alluded to, and the remedy suggested; but we will proceed to give more
specific

ADVICE TO WIVES WHO DESIRE TO HAVE CHILDREN.

It has long been known that menstruation presents a group of phenomena
closely allied to fecundity. The first eruption of the menses is an
unequivocal sign of the awakening of the faculty of reproduction. The
cessation of the menstrual epochs is a sign equally certain of the loss
of the faculty of reproduction. When conception has taken place, the
periodical flow is interrupted. Labor occurs at about the time in which
the menses would have appeared. In short, it is a fact, now completely
established, that the time immediately before, and particularly that
after the monthly sickness, is the period the most favorable to
fecundation. It is said that, by following the counsel to this effect
given him by the celebrated Fernel, Henry II., the King of France,
secured to himself offspring after the long sterility of his wife before
referred to. Professor Bedford, of New York, says that he can po