the neglect of parents has
suffered even careless habits on this point to be contracted. The
difficulties, however, though great, are not insuperable to those who
seek the freely-offered grace of God to help them in the conflict. The
resistance to temptation, the self-control, will indeed be more
difficult when the effort begins later in life; but the victory will be
also the more glorious, and the general effects on the character more
permanent and beneficial. Not that this serves as any excuse for the
cruel neglect of parents, for they can have no certainty that future
repentance will be granted for those habits of sin, the formation of
which they might have prevented.

Dwelling, however, even in thought, on the neglect of our parents can
only lead to vain murmurings and complainings, and prevent the
concentration of all our energies and interest upon the extirpation of
the dangerous root of evil.

In this case, as in all others, though the sin of the parent is surely
visited on the children, the very visitation is turned into a blessing
for those who love God. To such blessed ones it becomes the means of
imparting greater strength and vigour to the character, from the
perpetual conflicts to which it is exposed in its efforts to overcome
early habits of evil.

Thus even sin itself is not excepted from the "all things" that "work
together for good to them that love God."[36]

FOOTNOTES:

[36] Rom. viii. 28.

LETTER IV.

ENVY.

It is, perhaps, an "unknown friend" only who would venture to address a
remonstrance to you on that particular sin which forms the subject of
the following pages; for it seems equally acknowledged by those who are
guilty of it, and those who are entirely free from its taint, that there
is no bad quality meaner, more degrading, than that of envy. Who,
therefore, could venture openly to accuse another of such a failing,
however kind and disinterested the motive, and still be admitted to rank
as her friend?

There is, besides, a strong impression that, where this failing does
exist, it is so closely interwoven with the whole texture of the
character, that it can never be separated from it while life and this
body of sin remain. This is undoubtedly thus far true, that its
ramifications are more minute, and more universally pervading, than
those of any other moral defect; so that, on the one hand, while even an
anxious and diligent self-examination cannot always detect their
ex