God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations of them that hate me, and showing mercy to thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.” This is a much misunderstood passage. God does not arbitrarily choose to force a punishment upon an innocent child whose father ignorantly or viciously violated law any more than he breaks the leg or neck of a man who accidentally or with suicidal intent falls from the top of a building. God has wisely placed all men under a variety of laws. The laws are all planned for man’s good. If we keep all law, we develop manhood and womanhood. By the agency of heredity we transmit to our children the possibility of manhood and womanhood superior to that which we inherited. If we constantly violate law, we acquire physical, mental and moral degeneracy and transmit to our posterity defective conditions. In this way God has planned for each succeeding generation to become superior to the preceding one. The statement is made that the iniquities of fathers are visited upon their children unto the third and fourth generations, and that “righteousness” is shown unto “thousands of them” (generations). Why did God limit his first statement to the third and fourth generation? Because there is no fifth generation of continuous and unbroken iniquity. Here are two modern proofs of the truthfulness of this ancient text. =A modern proof.=--Two thousand erring girls were interrogated with reference to the sobriety of their parents. Seventy per cent. had either drunken fathers or drunken mothers, or both. In one state penitentiary the author found seventy-two per cent. of the inmates had either drunken fathers or drunken mothers, or both. Recent investigations in one of the state reformatories for women show eighty-five per cent, had either drunken fathers or mothers, or both. Twenty-two per cent. of the feeble-minded, the insane and the epileptic had the initials of their lives to take place during a drunken debauch. Here is a husband and wife; both are habitually under the influence of alcohol. Suppose their children follow their example and marry companions addicted to strong drink, and the children of the next generation follow the example of their parents and marry companions addicted to strong drink, and this is continued, what will be the result? There will be no fifth generation. In the first generation might have been found a daughter in the house of shame, a son in the chain gang of crime, a feeble-minded child, an epileptic, or one or more alcoholics. As a result of four generations of consecutive drunkenness, degeneracy would become so great as to result in complete sterility.