l debasement than
this person presents. I sometimes meet him, and from early associations,
even take his hand; but I never do it without feeling myself in contact
with the very personification of depravity.

Now, I am not surprised at all this, when I go back to the time when he
had a mother, and remember what sort of a mother she was. She was coarse
and vulgar in her habits; and I well recollect that the interior of her
dwelling was so neglected, that it scarcely rose above a decent stable.
The secret of this, and most of her other delinquencies was, that she
was a lover of intoxicating drinks. I believe she sometimes actually
made a beast of herself; but oftener drank only so much as to make her
silly and ridiculous. It happened in her case, as in many similar ones,
that her fits of being intoxicated were fits of being religious; and
though, when she was herself, she never, to my knowledge, made any
demonstrations of piety or devotion; yet the moment her tongue became
too large for her mouth, she was sure to use it in the most earnest and
glowing religious professions. A stranger might have taken her at such a
time for a devoted Christian; but alas! her religion was only that of a
wretched inebriate.

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