mental and physical; and consequently the life from the Divine Being flowing into him cannot but be modified and perverted accordingly; and hence he will manifest tendencies or propensities to evils such as his parent has indulged in. During the period of infancy, indeed, these evil propensities are covered over with a veil, as it were, of innocence, which belongs to the infantile age. But no discerning person will mistake such outside innocence for the real character of the child; for the young of all animals, even tigers and panthers, show a similar playfulness and harmlessness: but time infallibly tears off the bright envelopment and exposes the dark qualities within; or rather, these break through of themselves, and show their real character,—as the viper bursts its shell. Inherited evil tendencies indeed, derived from the one parent, may be modified in a degree by opposite qualities in the other; and they may also be, and ought to be, greatly counteracted by education; so that, with Divine aid, the son of a bad man may yet, if he will, grow up a good one.[1] Would that it were always so! But these considerations do not affect the truth of the law, which both sound reason and Revelation, as well as all experience, attest. "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me[2]," is the express declaration of the Divine Word; and the principles, which have been presented, explain the grounds of this truth.
Now, the existence of this great law of hereditary transmission (intended originally for man's good and happiness, but which, when perverted from its proper course, becomes, like every other good abused, a source of unhappiness) explains the fact of both evils
