ENGLAND'S BEST HOPE. 87 Laxity of manners and of principles, act reciprocally : they are alternately cause and effect. Tender parents are, indeed, grieved at the indications of evil dispositions in their children ; but even worthy people do not always study the human character : they are too much disposed to believe the budding vice but acci- dental defect -a failing which time will cure. Time cures nothing ; time only inveterates, only exasperates, where religion is not called in as a corrective. It is in vain to hope to tame the head- strong violence of the passions by a few moral sentences ; - the curb is too weak for the natural ferocity of the animal. If the most religious education does not always answer the end, what end is an education in which religion does not predominate, likely to produce ? How is the Christian character likely to be formed, without the strict inculcation of religious principles, without the power-
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