blast of the desert, prostrating and destroying all over which it
passes.

The character of the mother often determines the course and the destiny
of her children. She imprints her own moral lineaments upon her
offspring. She moulds their habits and she transfuses into them the
feelings, motives, and principles which actuate herself. The influence
of the mother is often so perpetuated in her daughters that the
individual seems multiplied as she is faithfully reflected by them.
Where the mental and moral characteristics are marked, they are almost
sure to descend; and the character of Jezebel was one to leave its
impress.

Thus we find Athaliah worthy of the stock from which she sprang. She was
the true, as she seems to be the only daughter of Jezebel. Though early
allied to Jehoshaphat and removed into the kingdom of Judah, she
retained all the idolatrous prepossessions of her father's house, and
she exhibited all the traits which marked her race. She possessed the
qualities which had been so prominently displayed by the course and life
of Jezebel. The same desperate will, the same determined energy, the
same daring courage and dauntless resolution, and the same proud
ambition; and she was even more devoid than her mother of all the kinder
feelings, affections, and sympathies.

Jezebel had resolutely crushed all those affections and sympathies of
her nature which would be likely to check her progress in her career of
crime and power. She had trampled upon all that would obstruct her in
the attainment of her object. Yet some of the feelings of the woman, the
tenderness of the wife, the fondness of the mother, still seem to linger
in her proud heart. Unprincipled as she was, she did not abandon herself