No sermon, no prayer, no belief, no Divine command, rendered me neutral towards those I disliked. Neither authority nor precept had force which gave no reason for amity. But when I came to understand Coleridge's saying that "human affairs are a process," I could see that patience and wise adaptation of condition was the true method of improvement, since the tendency to nobleness or baseness was alike an inheritance nurtured by environment. If tempest of the human kind came, precaution and not anger--which means ignorance taken by surprise--was the remedy. Pity takes the place of resentment. Clearly, vengeance did but add to the misfortune of destiny. I oft pondered Hooker's saying, that "anger is the sinew of the soul, and he that lacketh it hath a maimed mind." Nevertheless, I am content to be without that "sinew." Anger is rather the epilepsy of the understanding than the dictate of reason. I had come to see that there are no bad weeds in Nature--but much bad gardening. The reasons of amity had become clear to me, and that Helvetius was right. We should "go on loving men, but not expecting too much from them." Even Hooker could not win me back to the profitless pursuits of anger and retaliation. These bygone days left their instruction with me evermore. In them I learned consideration for others. Whatever my convictions, I was always the same to my mother. The wish to change her views never entered my mind. She had chosen her own. I respected her choice, and she respected mine. In after years, when I visited Birmingham, I would read the Bible to her. She liked to hear my voice again as she had heard it in earlier days. When her eyes became dim by time I would send her large type editions of the New Testament, and of religious works which dwelt upon the human tenderness of Christ. The piety of parents should be sacred in the eyes of children. Convictions are the food of the soul, which perisheth on any other diet than that which can be assimilated by the conscience.