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 a collegiate
education, and in due time he became a member of one of our highest
literary institutions. There he maintained a high rank for both
scholarship and morality, and graduated with distinguished honor. Not
long after this, his mind took a decidedly serious direction, and he not
only gave himself to the service of God, but resolved to give himself
also to the ministry of reconciliation. After passing through the usual
course and preparation for the sacred office, he entered it; and he is
now the able and successful minister of a large and respectable
congregation. He has already evidently been instrumental of winning many
souls. I hear of him from time to time, as among the most useful
minist