5. Mothers, Does God Thus Put the endowment of your darlings into your moulding power? Then tremble in view of its necessary responsibilities, and learn how to wield them for their and your temporal and eternal happiness.
6. Qualities of the Mind.—The Qualities of the mind are perhaps as much liable to hereditary transmission as bodily configuration. Memory, intelligence, judgment, imagination, passions, diseases, and what is usually called genius, are often very markedly traced in the offspring.—I have known mental impressions forcibly impressed upon the offspring at the time of conception, as concomitant of some peculiar eccentricity, idiosyncrasy, morbidness, waywardness, irritability, or proclivity of either one or both parents.
7. The Plastic Brain.—The plastic brain of the foetus is prompt to receive all impressions. It retains them, and they become the characteristics of the child and the man. Low spirits, violent passions, irritability, frivolity, in the pregnant woman, leave indelible marks on the unborn child.
8. Formation of Character.—I believe that pre-natal influences may do as much in the formation of character as all the education that can come after, and that mothers may, in a measure, "will," what that influence shall be, and that, as knowledge on the subject increases, it will be more and more under their control. In that, as in everything else, things that would be possible with one mother would not be with another, and measures that would be successful with one would produce opposite results from the other.
9. A Historical Illustration.—A woman rode side by side with her soldier husband, and witnessed the drilling of troops for battle. The scene inspired her with a deep longing to see a battle and share in the excitements of the conquerors. This was but a few months before her boy was born, and his name was Napoleon.
10. A Musician.—The following was reported by Dr. F.W. Moffatt, in the mother's own language, "When I was first pregnant, I wished my offspring to be a musician, so, during the period of that pregnancy, settled my whole mind on music, and attended every musical entertainment I possibly could. I had my husband, who has a violin, to play for me by the hour. When the child was born, it was a girl, which grew and prospered, and finally became an expert musician."
11. Murderous Intent.—The mother of a young man, who was hung not long ago, was heard to say: "I tried to get rid of him before he was born; and, oh, how I wish now that I had succeeded!" She added that it was the only time she had attempted anything of the sort; but, because of home troubles, she became desperate, and resolved that her burdens should not be made any greater. Does it not seem probable that the murderous intent, even though of short duration, was communicated to the mind of the child, and resulted in the crime for which he was hung?