THE NATIONAL SIN.

Evening Star, Issue 12167, 11 April 1904, Page 3

THE NATIONAL SIN.

—A Bishops’ Opinion.— The Bishop of Melbourne (Dr Clark), in hia annual sermon to the Victorian Mothers’ Union, took for his text : • The Sacred Duties ot Mothehood.’ He declared that children were not a penalty nor a burden, but a favor and a gift in -the heritage that, cometh from the Lord.” Those who were mothers should teach first to their daughters and then to everyone within their union tee sacred duties of motherhood. Nothin" the world had to give could compare wit£ the sweet joy of children ; for, granted that they brought with them care and thought, the need of prudence, and the daily toil ot watchtul anxiety in their early years, it was Gods way of drawing up out'of one’s heart tee deepest and teuderest devotion. VVas there not a cause why he should speak of those things? Ail that was most sacred m tee home life had been openly made the subject of a cold, calculating selfishness which declared itself in open words. He might well have the subject where it had been placed in the past in the sacred silence of reserve if it had not been discussed quite openly, botn in private and in public. A great peril threatened tins State in common with other countries. Were nearly twenty centuries of Christian civilisation to lead them to the unholv resolve to commit race suicide? For people could no longer conceal from themselves that such a peril threatened in the Commonwealth. The Government of a neighboring .State, marking the decline of the birth-rate, had set themselves to inquire first into the fact, ana then into its causes. With pitiless legic had been demonstrated both the fact itself and its silent and wicked causes. The Commission hud proposed some dozen remedies within the power of the Government to apply, but they hail finally confessed their powerlessness to reach the ultimate causes, which were to bo found in moral deterioration, in the weakening of religious restraint, and in the free play given everywhere to selfishness. They turned then to clergy and parents, and "asked for their help in promoting the inculcation of religious principles in the young, and asserted that civilisation and progress must be based upon the religious character of the people. So long as Victoria continued to sow the wind of secularism it must expect to reap the u hiriwind qf .selfishness in its citizens. They were invited to institute, in the name of their common Christian faith, a general crusade of such an impressive character as would arouse the conscience of married people to a recognition of the immorality of deliberately restricting the number of children to be bom of them, to the degradation of the married state involved therein, and to the fact that histoiy and science combined in teaching that national degradation and decay must inevitably result from continuance of the practice. —A Medical Suggestion.— The March number of the ‘Australasian Medical Gazette,’ just published, has an article on the declining birth-rate, from which we make the following extracts: \Ve consider- the report of the Commission a masterpiece of exhaustive examination and investigation of a subject which, it is admitted on all hands, bristles with difficulties!. Briefly, the Commissioners have <V as a , °f their .investigations, that the decline of the birth-rate is due, in very large measure, not to anv physical degeneration or lack of fertility in the prosent generation of Australian women, but to deliberate checking by various artificial methods, thus nullifying one of the main objects of marriage. We must all heartily agree with the various suggestions made by the Commissioners with a view to checking the decline in the birth-rate and the prevention of the present high rate of mortality among infants, so that the normal rate of increase of population may be restored and maintained. But still it is doubtful how far these suggestive measures would succeed m their object, even if carried out to the letter. The use of all preventives in existence must be prohibited by law._ . . . The true remedy, in our optmon is one which can only be attained, if at all, with great difficulty. It mus t te instilled into the minds of young married women that barrenness is a disgrace and a sign of weakness. If a social stigma were attached to a woman who was known or believed to be deliberately attempting to defeat the ends of married life, and it became the fashion to have large families then we should hear no more about a declining birth-rate. This object might possibly be attained if some patrioticallyHuaded Ladies took the matter up, and by

the formation of mothers’ leagues or some similar institutions endeavored to educate the young womanhood of the community upon the moral and physical evil which results from the use of means to prevent conception. The glory of motherhood mast be emphasised.