ed on
the two former occasions, if you have already stained your heart with
innocent blood, will you now refuse? Where are you going to draw the
line?

The passions of men are insatiate, even in modern society; the more you
yield to them, the stronger grows their craving. Let me illustrate my
meaning by a fact that happened a few years ago in Russia. It is just to
our point. During a severe winter, a farmer, having his wife and
children with him on a wagon, was driving through a wild forest. All was
still as death except the howling of wolves in the distance. The howling
came nearer and nearer. After a while a pack of hungry wolves was seen
following in the track of the wagon. The farmer drove on faster, but
they gained on him. It was a desperate race to keep out of their reach.
At last they are just back of the wagon. What can be done? The next
moment the wolves may jump on the uncovered vehicle. The children,
horrified, crouch near their trembling mother. Suddenly the father,
driven to despair, seizes one of the little children and flings it among
the pack of wolves, hoping that by yielding them one he may save the
rest. The hungry beasts stop a few moments to fight over their prey. But
soon they are in hot pursuit again, fiercer because they have tasted
blood. A second child is thrown to them, and after a while a third and a
fourth.

Human society, gentlemen, in this matter of sacrificing foetal life is as
insatiable as a pack of hungry wolves. Woe to any one of you if he
begins to yield to its cravings; there is no telling where he will stop.
In proof of my statement, let me read to you an extract from a lecture
on Obstetrics, delivered by Doctor Hodge, of Philadelphia, to the
medical students of the University of Pennsylvania: "We blush while we
record the fact, that, in this country, in our cities and towns, in this
city where literature, science, morality, and Christianity are supposed
to have so much influence; where all the domestic and social virtues are
reported as being in full and delightful exercise; even here
individuals, male and female, exist who are continually imbruing their
hands and consciences in the blood of unborn infants; yea, even medical
men are to be found who, for some trifling pecuniary recompense, will
poison the fountains of life, or forcibly induce labor, to the certain
destruction of the foetus and not infrequently of the parent.

"So low, gentlemen, is the moral sense of the communi