or more--the good precept, the good example set before their sons
and daughters in childhood, at length springs up and bears fruit.

One of the most remarkable of such instances was that of the
Reverend John Newton of Olney, the friend of Cowper the poet. It
was long subsequent to the death of both his parents, and after
leading a vicious life as a youth and as a seaman, that he became
suddenly awakened to a sense of his depravity; and then it was
that the lessons which his mother had given him when a child
sprang up vividly in his memory. Her voice came to him as it were
from the dead, and led him gently back to virtue and goodness.

Another instance is that of John Randolph, the American statesman,
who once said: "I should have been an atheist if it had not been
for one recollection--and that was the memory of the time when my
departed mother used to take my little hand in hers, and cause me
on my knees to say, 'Our Father who art in heaven!'"

But such instance must, on the whole, be regarded as exceptional.
As the character is biassed in early life, so it generally
remains, gradually assuming its permanent form as manhood is
reached. "Live as long as you may," said Southey, "the first
twenty years are the longest half of your life," and they are by
far the most pregnant in consequences. When the worn-out
slanderer and voluptuary, Dr. Wolcot, lay on his deathbed, one of
his friends asked if he could do anything to gratify him. "Yes,"
said the dying man, eagerly, "give me back my youth." Give him but
that, and he would repent--he would reform. But it was all
too late! His life had become bound and enthralled by the
chains of habit.' (3)