Mankind would have been the happier, if some things which are now allowed had from the beginning been denied to them; if the sanction of religion could have prohibited practices inimical to health; if sanitary principles could in early ages have been invested with a superstitious awe.

But, living as we do far on in the world's history, we are no longer able to stamp at once with the impress of religion a new prohibition.

A free agent cannot have his fancies regulated by law; and the execution of the law would be rendered impossible, owing to the uncertainty of the cases in which marriage was to be forbidden.

Who can weigh virtue, or even fortune against health, or moral and mental qualities against bodily?
Who can measure probabilities against certainties?
There has been some good as well as evil in the discipline of suffering; and there are diseases, such as consumption, which have exercised a refining and softening influence on the character.

Youth is too inexperienced to balance such nice considerations; parents do not often think of them, or think of them too late.