I may bequeath to an innocent child! How noble a character a man may be who yet, after all, barely escapes destruction! I have read of one whose soul, for eight-and-twenty years, had to stand under arms, "like an unsleeping sentinel, guarding his appetite for strong drink." have read of another who, for forty years, got up every morning with the strong apprehension of being unable to resist that inherited craving for drink under which he sometimes fell, but against which, having a noble moral conviction, he fought a most heroic fight every day of his life. Think of the glory, the sainthood of such a victory, but oh! think also of the agony of such a struggle! Think of the remorse and shame which will eat into your own heart like fire in future days, if, when you have grown to manhood you see the life of your children after you poisoned by the blight and curse of evil tendencies which they owe to you and to you alone. CHAPTER VI. HABIT (continued). HABIT, then, is a law that alters our very constitution-affects and modifies the physical, the mental, the moral organism-gives its diathesis or normal bias to the Ego, the "I am" of every one of us. And so we see at once that if we be heirs of the past of our parents, we are far more the heirs of our own past. Each tomorrow of every one of us is moulded by many yesterdays, and alas! one day, one hour, nay, even one minute, may leave its terrible inheritance for years. Passively we have been modified by our homes and our childhood. Like the gleam of fire enclosed in the crystal of some magic ring, which, if it remains unquenched, is a sign that all is not lost, many (thank God!) carry to the very grave the sweet and serious thoughts, the beautiful and holy lessons which they learnt at their mother's knee. The old, old story does not pass from them, nor the visions of God's face, nor the whispers of His voice, nor the wings of angels which they seemed to hear among the waving trees. "I should have been an atheist," said an American statesman (J. Randolph), “but for memories of the days when my mother took my little hand in hers, and taught me to say, 'Our Father in heaven.'” If the vision has faded from your eyes, if the crown has fallen from your heads, if the faith have vanished from your hearts, is it not because you have sinned? And does not your conscience tell you that you need not have sinned? There is no Eden in which man will not find the tempting serpent and the forbidden fruit; but you need not listen to the seducing serpent, you need not eat the forbidden fruit. If you have done so, the fault has been your own, you suffered yourself to neglect the law of God, and to forget that His eye was on you; and your own hand broke down the hedge wherewith God fences the innocent conscience. Your will, your heart, CHAPTER VI. HABIT (continued). HABIT, then, is a law that alters our very constitution-affects and modifies the physical, the mental, the moral organism-gives its diathesis or normal bias to the Ego, the "I am" of every one of us. And so we s heirs of the past of more the heirs of mother's knee. The old, old story does not pass from them, nor the visions of God's face, nor the whispers of His voice, nor the wings of angels which they seemed to hear among the waving trees. "I should have been an atheist," said an American statesman (J. Randobb, but for memories of the days when my mother took my little Our Fa |