"It has been written that the sins of the father shall be visited upon
the children, and the unthinking and worldly have sought refuge from
this law by declaring it harsh and cruel. Miserable and blind! For do we
not see that the wicked man, who in the pride of his power and vainglory
is willing to risk punishment to HIMSELF--and believes it to be
courage--must pause before the awful mandate that condemns an equal
suffering to those he loves, which he cannot withhold or suffer for? In
the spectacle of these innocents struggling against disgrace, perhaps
disease, poverty, or desertion, what avails his haughty, all-defying
spirit? Let us imagine, Clarence."

"Sir?" said the literal Clarence, pausing in his exercise.

"I mean," continued the priest, with a slight cough, "let the thoughtful
man picture a father: a desperate, self-willed man, who scorned the laws
of God and society--keeping only faith with a miserable subterfuge he
called 'honor,' and relying only on his own courage and his knowledge of
human weakness. Imagine him cruel and bloody--a gambler by profession,
an outlaw among men, an outcast from the Church; voluntarily abandoning
friends and family,--the wife he should have cherished, the son he
should have reared and educated--for the gratification of his deadly
passions. Yet imagine that man suddenly confronted with the thought
of that heritage of shame and disgust which he had brought upon his
innocent offspring--to whom he cannot give even his own desperate
recklessness to sustain its vicarious suffering. What must be the
feelings of a parent--"

"Father Sobriente," said Clarence softly.

To the boy's surprise, scarcely had he spoken when the soft protecting