SEXUAL HYGIENE 165 



many parents give their children in this very direction, 

 seemingly in utter ignorance of the enormity of the 

 evil which they are winking at or fostering. Parents 

 need enlightenment on this subject, and ought to be 

 aroused to the fact that it is one of the most momentous 

 questions that can arise in the rearing and training 

 of children. 



Polygamy.— One hundred years ago the public dis- 

 cussion of the propriety or impropriety of a plurality 

 of wives would have been impossible. Polygamy had 

 not obtained a foothold as an institution in any civil- 

 ized land. Being well known as not uncommon among 

 certain heathenish and barbarous tribes, it was looked 

 upon as a heathenish and debasing institution, the out- 

 growth of ignorance and gross sensuality, and a relic 

 of a sensual age. Now, this is no longer true. Even 

 in America, the most enlightened of all lands, where 

 there are most ample facilities for culture, for moral 

 and mental development, polygamy holds up its hid- 

 eous head in defiance of all the laws of God and man. 

 It is true that the perpetrators of this foul crime 

 against humanity and Heaven have been driven by the 

 indignation of outraged decency to seek a lurking place 

 in the Western territories ; yet the foul odors from this 

 festering sore are daily becoming more and more 

 putrescent, and in spite of the distance, are contami- 

 nating the already not overstrict morals in other local- 

 ities. ' 



A Defense of Polygamy,— We have read a treatise 

 justifying and advocating polygamy, purporting to 

 have been written by an evangelical clergyman. If so, 

 he was evidently not willing to own his work, for his 

 name is carefully excluded from the title page, and his 

 publisher put under an oath of secrecy. The argu- 



