Letter from Father Stanislaus St. John, F.C., S.J.

114, Mount Street, London, W. I, December 11, 1917.

Dear Dr. Stopes,

I have read "Married Love" with deep interest. As a piece of thoughtful, scientific writing I find it admirable throughout, and it seems to me that your theme could not have been treated in more beautiful or more delicate language, or with a truer ring of sympathy for those who, through ignorance or want of thought, make shipwreck of their married happiness.

Your clear exposition of the rhythmic curve of sex-feeling and of the misinterpretation on the part of so many husbands of what they call their wives' contrariness, arising from their ignorance of its existence, should bring happiness to many married couples whose lives are drifting apart through want of knowledge. In the exercise of my ministry I have repeatedly traced the beginnings of the rift to this want of knowledge and consequently of sympathy.

So far we are in complete agreement, but our ways part when you treat of birth control.

You write primarily as a scientist (though a very human scientist), and so you are naturally mainly occupied with the facts and conditions of what I may call our earth-life. I, on the other hand, writing as a Catholic, regard our earth-life as essentially and inseparably connected with an eternal existence which reaches out beyond the grave. I look on this life as utterly meaningless in itself, as a period which is simply and solely a means to an end—Eternity—a period of which all the circumstances of pleasure and pain can only be explained and rightly used in their relation to this Eternity.

Let me take in illustration of my meaning the case you give of the worn-out mother of twelve. The Catholic belief is that the loss of health on her part for a few years of life and the diminished vitality on the part of her later children would be a very small price indeed to pay for an endless happiness on the part of all.

In our belief, then, the destruction of one spermatazoon is not the question, but the deliberate prevention of an eternally happy existence which, in the supposition, might arise from its preservation. Holding, as we do, that the marriage-act is the divinely ordained means by which man offers to God the opportunity of creating an immortal being, we do not believe that he may make use of this means and deliberately frustrate it of its end without doing grave wrong.

You do me the honour of suggesting that I should write a foreword to your book, but any foreword from me could obviously only derive value from my position as a Catholic priest, and that position is in opposition to this part of your work.

I cannot end without thanking you very sincerely for allowing me to read your book. Apart from what, as a Catholic, I object to in it, it contains so much most helpful matter that I feel sure it will bring to many a happiness in married life now wanting through the ignorance and the consequent want of sympathy which you so rightly deplore.

Believe me, dear Dr. Stopes, Yours very sincerely, S. ST. JOHN, S.J., C.F.

I publish this letter with sincere thanks to Father St. John for his permission to use it.—M. C. S.

Reply to Father St. John, S.J.

Leatherhead, December 12, 1917.

Dear Father St. John,—

Your letter wins my heart entirely by its appreciation and kindness. It is a great help and encouragement to find that we are so far in essential agreement, and that you are so well disposed toward even part of my effort.

But—and I wish I could say it in burning words—it is not because I am chiefly concerned with Time that I wrote Chapter IX., but just because I am so acutely and so persistently conscious that I am dealing with factors of Eternity. To me to-day is essentially a part of my Life Everlasting.

I cannot separate time and eternity, this world and the next, as religious people often seem able to do; to me this body is a tool in the service of (though not completely in the control of) my immortal soul. Now it seems to me that religious people—and even in your letter I fancy I detect the same tendency (forgive me if I am wrong)—are too ready to separate this world and the next, to act unreasonably or cruelly here and to trust to Eternity, or the Hereafter, to put all right. I do not think that is the way God wills us to work out His plans now that He is giving us the knowledge to do better.

Could there be anything more unreasonable or cruel than to bring into life half a dozen children doomed from birth to ill-health, poverty, and almost inevitable crime?

Christ forgave the thief upon the Cross, but He said, "Woe unto him through whom offences come. It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea." Would Christ approve of deliberately creating a thief by bringing forth a child who was one inevitably through predictable weakness of physique and mentality and an environment of poverty? ("Thief" stands for criminals in general.)

But more, what about others, born dead, born imbecile, thwarted of life by miscarriage, which tear and rend the overburdened mother so that she is forced to neglect the children she has, and her neglect turns them into thieves? The poor, uneducated mother commits this crime through ignorance: it is we who know and allow her to remain in ignorance who are really responsible. Is not our withholding God-given knowledge the greatest stumbling-block of offence to these little ones, and shall we not deserve the millstone round our necks?

Were everyone to have all the children physiologically possible (now that infant mortality is so much reduced by science) in a few centuries there would not be standing room on the earth, and nowhere for a blade of grass or an ear of corn to grow between the crowding feet. Is then a Roman Catholic mother, the increases to whose large family get punier and punier, to be privileged to go deliberately with that host of puny children at the expense of others, not only through that part of Eternity called Time, but through all Eternity?

But, dear Father St. John, it is not my place to preach or to argue with you, especially after your generous kindness and appreciation. And, alas! I fully realise that even were I granted the tongues of men and of angels, and I converted you to my thought in this matter, you as a Roman Catholic priest could not uphold a position in opposition to your Church.

Oh, that the Churches would look to Christ's own words instead of to the official Church interpretation of them!

I thank you very sincerely for your kindness to a stranger, and remain, always yours respectfully,

MARIE CARMICHAEL STOPES.