never suspects.

Of this last class are almost all the actions of every-day life. The
child alluded to is scolded, at times, for default in matters which
pertain to rising, dressing, saying prayers, eating, drinking, playing,
speaking, running, teazing, or soiling its clothes or books, and a
thousand things too familiar to every one to render it necessary to
repeat.

Perhaps she eats too much, or eats greedily; or she inclines to be
slovenly, or indolent, or fretful. Now all these things are in general
merely forbidden or _rated_, or at most, shown to be contrary to
the will of the parents. They are seldom or never shown to be right or
wrong, in their own nature; nor is the child assured, upon the
authority of the parent, that there is a natural right or wrong to
them. Thus, what is not implanted, does not, of course, grow. All the
little actions and concerns of life, or almost all--and these, by their
number and frequent recurrence, make up almost the whole of a child's
existence--are, as it were, left wholly without the domain of
conscience; and the young woman grows up to maturity without a distinct
conviction that conscience has any thing to do with them.

And "what is bred in the bone," according to a vulgar maxim, "stays
long in the flesh." As is the child, so is the adult. It is one of the
most difficult things in the world to make a person conscientious in
all things, who has not been trained to be so. Hence the great
difficulty in the way of making every-day Christians. Our religion is
thought by some to have nothing to do with these ever-recurring small
matters. And when we are told that we should do every thing to the
honor and glory of God, although we may assent to the proposition, it