As soon as they were withdrawn--"There sir," said the mother, "are three girls who will make three excellent wives. They were never at a ball or a play in their lives; and yet, though I say it, who should not say it, they are as highly accomplished as any ladies at St. James." I cordially approved the former part of her assertion, and bowed in silence to the latter. I took this opportunity of inquiring what had been her mode of religious instruction for her daughters; but though I put the question with much caution and deference, she looked displeased, and said she did not think it necessary to do a great deal in that way; all these things must come from above; it was not human endeavors, but divine grace which made Christians. I observed that the truth appeared to be, that divine grace _blessing_ human endeavors seemed most likely to accomplish that great end. She replied that experience was not on my side, for that the children of religious parents were not always religious. I allowed that it was too true. I knew that she drew her instances from two or three of her own friends, who, while they discovered much earnestness about their own spiritual interests, had almost totally neglected the religious cultivation of their children; the daughters in particular had been suffered to follow their own devices, and to waste their days in company of their own choosing and in the most frivolous manner. "What do ye more than others?" is an interrogation which this negligence has frequently suggested. Nay, professing serious piety, if ye do not more than those who profess it not, ye do less. I took the liberty to remark that though there was no such thing as hereditary holiness, no entail of goodness; yet the Almighty had promised in the Scriptures many blessings to the offspring of the righteous. He never meant, however, that religion was to be transferred arbitrarily like an heir-loom; but the promise was accompanied with conditions and injunctions. The directions were express and frequent, to inculcate early and late the great truths of religion; nay, it was enforced with all the minuteness of detail, "precept upon precept, line upon line, here a little, and there a little"--at all times and seasons, "walking by the way, and sitting in the house." I hazarded the assertion, that it would _generally_ be found that where the children of pious parents turned out ill, there had been some mistake, some neglect, or some fault on the part of the parents; that they had not used the right methods. I observed that I thought it did not at all derogate from the sovereignty of the Almighty that he appointed certain means to accomplish certain ends; and that the adopting these, in conformity to his appointment, and dependence on his blessing, seemed to be one of the cases in which we should prove our faith by our obedience.