238 REV. JAMES WHITE, M.A., ON 
man. Yet the writer of the paper has not a word to say about all 
this. He tells us on the other hand that ‘it is the duty of parents 
to put those children they have brought into the world in such a 
position by training, care of health, education, etc., that they may 
have a reasonable prospect of being able to maintain themselves in 
it.” This is very plausible and right enough if rightly judged. 
But under this specious pretence there lurks too often selfishness, 
love of pleasure and an unnatural determination to shirk the 
responsibilities of paternity. 
Among the well-to-do classes also parents too often require that 
their daughters, at all events, shall begin life with an affluence which 
they themselves have only attained after many years’ industry. This 
is pernicious and demoralizing. There is nothing more ennobling 
than the success which is the fruit of honest toil. 
But one of the most reprehensible sentences in the paper is the 
following: “the law of nature which Malthus seems to have dis- 
covered is more serious than at first appears. It is this, that the 
right to live is not inherent.” The author does not make it quite 
clear whether he himself would apply this to mankind. If he does, 
I do not wonder that he should add “ This is startling.” It certainly 
is startling in any case to find that any Christian should utter or 
repeat such a sentiment. The writer says that “when applied to 
biology it has been the most fruitful truth that has ever entered into 
that science.” Well, no doubt our Creator has given man authority 
over nature. The right of plants and animals to live is subject to 
the will of man. But the right of man to live is subject to the will 
of God, and the Divine decree has never yet been abrogated, ‘“‘ Whoso 
sheddeth man’s blood by man shall his blood be shed.” If the right 
to live is not inherent in human life are we to have Mr. Bernard 
Shaw’s lethal chamber set up for the destruction of the unfit? And 
by what tribunal is the unfitness to be determined? The author 
certainly has laid himself open to the suspicion that he strongly 
leans towards an approval of this diabolical doctrine, for he goes on 
to express his disapproval of “free education,” “free meals” and 
“ oratuitous feeding,” and threatens the “ strongest radical govern- 
ment” with the revenge of nature for thus seeking to “preserve the 
unfit.” What would he have his ideal non-radical government do 
with the weak and sickly and underfed childhood of the nation ? 
Leave them to suffer and die under the plea of the “elimination of 
