In this state of the case many sensible mothers and teachers, all over the land, have adopted a course dictated by their own common sense and their experience of the _nature_ of mind, as discovered in their attempts to train it. In pursuing such a course, many of them have taught simply the system of common sense, leaving out entirely the Augustinian contradictions. They have in various forms of language taught their little ones after this fashion: “Your heavenly Father made you to be happy and to make others happy. In order to this, he wishes that you should always have what you like best, except when it would injure you or others. But when what you like best and want the most, is not _best_ for you or _best_ for others, you must always choose what is _for the best_, and in so doing you act virtuously and please and obey God. And just so far as you do all that is best for yourself and for others, guided by the teachings of Christ, and with the desire and purpose to obey him, you become a virtuous, pious and holy child, and a true Christian.” In taking such a course as this, many mothers and teachers find themselves in antagonism with the teachings of the pulpit, the Sunday School and the great body of religious books, and yet they persevere. And sometimes they take their children from the Sunday School because the home training is there so directly assailed. And they would, in some cases, keep them from the church also, were not the theological technics so effective in protecting childhood from all comprehension of a large portion of pulpit teachings. It is such intelligent, cultivated and pious mothers and teachers that go to their pastors with their perplexities and troubles, and not unfrequently find that tender sympathy which those only can give who have suffered the same kind of distress. CHAPTER L. PRESENT POSITION OF YOUNG AMERICA. By the term “Young America,” as it is used at this day, seems to be intended that class of youthful minds who are striving to free themselves from all past ecclesiastical and conventional restraints, and who are aiming to think and act with entire freedom on all subjects. The most active and efficient of this class are those who by general reading and study have both strengthened their reasoning powers and been most affected by the causes before described, which have tended to lessen respect for the church founded on the Augustinian theory of such a depraved nature transmitted from Adam, that all unregenerate doings are “sin, and only sin.”