sound of his footsteps. His children, notwithstanding the brutalizing
influence to which they have been subjected, have, by no means, sunk
down to _his_ standard of corruption; and some of them at least would
seem ready to hang their heads when they call him "father." I cannot at
this moment think of a more loathsome example of moral 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