Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/291

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MARRIAGE.
271

of immortal man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within the limits of wealth or fame.

The good in human affections must have ascendency over the evil, and the spiritual over the animal, or Progeny. happiness will never be won. The attainment of this celestial condition would improve our progeny, diminish crime, give higher aims to ambition. Every valley of sin must be exalted, and every mountain of selfishness be brought low, that the highway of our God may be prepared in Science. The offspring of heavenly-minded parents inherit more intellect, better balanced minds, and sounder constitutions.

If some fortuitous circumstance places spiritual children in the arms of gross parents, these beautiful children often early droop and die, like tropical flowers born amid Alpine snows. If perchance they live to become parents in their turn, they may reproduce, in their own helpless little ones, the grosser traits of their ancestors. What hope of happiness, what noble ambition, can inspire the child who inherits propensities that must either be overcome, or reduce him to a loathsome wreck?

Is not the propagation of the human species a greater responsibility, a more solemn charge, than the culture of your garden, or raising stock to increase your flocks and herds? Nothing unworthy of perpetuity should be transmitted to children.

The formation of mortals must greatly improve, to advance mankind. The Scientific morale of marriage is spiritual unity. If the propagation of a higher human species is requisite to reach this goal, then its material conditions can only be permitted for the purpose of