A Solemn Appeal - James White

give them a notion, which has resulted in the habit
of solitary vice. This, the reader will say, is early
education with a vengeance. And yet, numbers of
instances of this kind are on record. The reader
must judge for himself how many are un-recorded.
In these cases, the victims, with a fatal precocity,
live but to linger a little, unless they are saved by
some happy influence next to miraculous.
The society of unchaste parents educates
children in unchastity. It is surprising to see how
early the child catches the traits of the parental
character. So intimate is the parental relation, that
to avoid this is quite impossible. The looks, the
gestures, the words, the insinuations, at first a
mystery to the child, are soon solved by its tiny
reflection. Children are listeners at a very early
age; and the smile of approbative indifference with
which the parent speaks of deeds of lewdness, as
they are occasionally occurring in community, is
very soon transmitted to the little listener; and the
child concluding, of course, that that cannot be
very wrong which is smiled over, learns to look
upon such deeds without abhorrence.
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