recognising that Providence works through the common sense of individual brains.  We limit population just as much by deferring marriage from prudential motives as by any action that may be taken after it....  Apart from certain methods of limitation, the morality of which is gravely questioned by many, there are certain easily-understood physiological laws of the subject, the failure to know and to observe which is inexcusable on the part either of men or women in these circumstances.  It is worth noting in this connection that Dr. Billings, in his article in this month’s Forum, on the diminishing birth-rate of the United States, gives as one of the reasons the greater diffusion of intelligence, by means of popular and school treatises on physiology, than formerly prevailed.”

Thus has opinion changed in sixteen years, and all the obloquy poured on us is seen to have been the outcome of ignorance and bigotry.

As for the children, what was gained by their separation from me?  The moment they were old enough to free themselves, they came back to me, my little girl’s too brief stay with me being ended by her happy marriage, and I fancy the fears expressed for her eternal future will prove as groundless as the fears for her temporal ruin have proved to be!  Not only so, but both are treading in my steps as regards their views of the nature and destiny of man, and have joined in their bright youth the Theosophical Society to which, after so many struggles, I won my way.

The struggle on the right to discuss the prudential restraint of population did not, however, conclude without a martyr.  Mr. Edward Truelove, alluded to above, was prosecuted for selling a treatise by Robert Dale Owen on “Moral Physiology,” and a pamphlet entitled, “Individual, Family, and National Poverty.”  He was tried on February 1, 1878, before the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of Queen’s Bench, and was most ably defended by Professor W.A.  Hunter.  The jury spent two hours in considering their verdict, and returned into court and stated that they were unable to agree.  The majority of the jury were ready to convict, if they felt sure that Mr. Truelove would not be punished, but one of them boldly declared in court:  “As to the book, it is written in plain language for plain people, and I think that many more persons ought to know what the contents of the book are.”  The jury was discharged, in consequence of this one man’s courage, but Mr. Truelove’s persecutors—­the Vice Society—­were determined not to let their victim free.  They proceeded to trial a second time, and wisely endeavoured to secure a special jury, feeling that as prudential restraint would raise wages by limiting the supply of labour, they would be more likely to obtain a verdict from a jury of “gentlemen” than from one composed of workers.  This attempt was circumvented by Mr. Truelove’s legal advisers, who let a procedendo go which sent back the trial to the Old Bailey.  The second trial was