Now who can think it strange that such a mother should have had such a son?  Not only may the general corrupt character of the son be accounted for by the general corrupt influence of the mother, but the particular traits of the son’s character may also be traced to particular characteristics of the mother, as an effect to its legitimate cause.  The single fact that she was intemperate, and that her religion was confined to her fits of drunkenness, would explain it all.  Of course, the education of her son was utterly neglected.  No pains were taken to impress his mind with the maxims of truth and piety.  He was never warned against the power of temptation, but was suffered to mingle with the profane and the profligate, without any guard against the unhallowed influences to which he was exposed.  This, of itself, would be enough to account for his forming a habit of vice—­even for his growing up a profligate;—­for such are the tendencies of human nature, that the mere absence of counsel and guidance and restraint, is generally sufficient to insure a vicious character.  But in the case to which I refer, there was more than the absence of a good example—­there was the presence of a positively bad one—­and that in the form of one of the most degrading of all vices.  The boy saw his mother a drunkard, and why should he not become a drunkard too?  The boy saw that his mother’s religious professions were all identified with her fits of intoxication, and why should he not grow up as he did, without any counteracting influence? why should he not settle down with the conviction that religion is a matter of no moment? nay, why should he not become what he actually did become,—­a scoffer and an atheist?  Whenever I meet him, I see in his face, not only a reproduction of his mother’s features, but that which tells of the reproduction of his mother’s character.  I pity him that he should have had such a mother, while I loathe the qualities which he has inherited from her, or which have been formed through the influence of her example.

The other case forms a delightful contrast to the one already stated, and is as full of encouragement as that is full of warning.  Another of my playmates was a boy who was always noticed for being perfectly-correct and unexceptionable in all his conduct.  I never heard him utter a profane or indecent word.  I never knew him do a thing even of questionable propriety.  He was bright and playful, but never mischievous.  He was a good scholar, not because he had very remarkable talents, but because he made good use of his time—­because he was taught to regard it as his duty to get his lessons well, and he could not be happy in any other course.  His teachers loved him because he was diligent and respectful; his playmates loved him, because he was kind and obliging; all loved him, because he was an amiable, moral, well-disposed boy.  He evinced so much promise, that his parents, though not in affluent circumstances, resolved on giving him