But who can calculate the consequences? The fallow ground left unsown is soon sown by the winds with every vagrant seed of evil. One sin leads to another, the less generally to the greater; and by the inception of a single wrong principle in childhood, the young man who might have been a model of virtue becomes a curse to society, and the young woman who ought to have proved a priceless jewel turns out a mere package of dry goods if not something worse. True, these moral wrecks may possibly be recovered by converting grace; but such cases are extremely uncommon, and when they do occur they are regarded as miracles of mercy; and often, alas! the effect is as evanescent as the morning cloud and early dew. Generally, those who have grown up without religious restraint go on still in their trespasses, living without God and dying without hope. "As in individuals, so in nations," writes the Rev. Charles Kingsley, "unbridled indulgence of the passions must produce, and does produce, frivolity, effeminacy, slavery to the appetite of the moment, a brutalized and reckless temper, before which prudence, energy, national feeling, any and every feeling which is not centred in self, perishes utterly. The old French _noblesse_ gave a proof of this law which will last as a warning beacon to the end of time.... It must be so. The national life is grounded on the life of the family, is the development of it; and where the root is corrupt, the tree must be corrupt also." A fearful truth for the contemplation of Christian patriotism! Imagine an utter indifference to the morals of the rising generation all at once to prevail throughout the country, and all efforts for the spiritual culture of the young suddenly to cease; would not the frightful ruin rush over the land with the rapidity of an avalanche and the ubiquity of a deluge, instant and everywhere, in your highways and your byways, at your altars and your hearths, sweeping before it every thing pure and lovely--every thing valuable to existence, precious to recollection, or cheering in the visions of hope? This side of the subject is not pleasing; let us look at the obverse. No moral maxim is sounder than that of the royal sage: "Train up a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it." The principles of virtue early implanted insure the future saint and hero. A thoroughly good character impressed upon youth cleaves to the man forever.