Children born amid these petty oppressions are not likely to be patterns of perfection. Then they are not allowed to be bad like other children, and to get, by degrees, rid of their inharmony. If they break windows or punch noses, they are considered fearfully depraved, and to reflect on the father. So they learn to consult appearances, and give up the only experience that would make men of them. Too much catechism and formal prayer during their early years must give a disgust for the solemnities, and create a distrust of earnest living and thinking, integrity and sincerity. Just in proportion to the degree of irrationality of the creed, are the chances for damaging the characters of the minister’s children. Love of Truth expands the soul; Fear of Evil cramps it. The most unproductive use one can put one’s mind and heart to, is hatred of evil, of meanness, falsehood, ugliness in others. It does not even prove that we possess the opposite virtues. Especially if we would convey to our children generosity, ingenuousness, and beauty, let our hearts be filled with admiration of these divine qualities. As I have shown, we reproduce that which most impresses us. If it is ugliness, _and we hate it_, still we reproduce it, because we have dwelt on it. Do not then, when _enciente_, permit yourself to analyze or dislike imperfections of either mind or body, for this puts the unborn _en rapport_ with that imperfection. VALUE OF TEMPORARY EFFORT. It certainly ought to encourage any mother to know, that no matter what her particular faults may be, she can lessen if not obliterate them in her child, by making a great effort in the right direction for so short a period as nine or even six months. That she should make _herself over entirely_ would appear a too formidable undertaking, but with such a motive she could aid her child. She may have, for instance, a quick temper, which she will determine to control; or she may lack order, or a good memory; or she may be wanting in quiet self-esteem (though she have inward self-respect). Either of these deficiences may be greatly lessened. I will here insert a letter which I received some time ago from a young woman who had become greatly interested in the subject before us, and who was remarkably wanting in what the phrenologist calls “concentrativeness,” and also in consecutiveness of thought: “You know what a day-dreamer I have always been. This has helped to confirm my ‘scatterbrains’ tendency. At first it did not seem to me reasonable that _intentional_ activity in any direction could have the desired effect. If circumstance _outside of one’s self_ aroused in a woman one or another set of faculties, naturally enough they might be prominent in the child. But this going to work with _malice prepense_, I feared, would avail but little. However, I made up my mind to give my child the benefit of the doubt.