The individual practice of respect, obedience, confidence; and
gratitude is necessary for the preservation of society; and in order
to render this practice easy for us, God, in loving goodness has
removed from those beautiful flowers of virtue, whose perfume should
embalm our whole life, the thorns that might pierce us. He has
confided their care to those to whom, after God, we owe our life, and
towards whom we are drawn by an invincible inclination of the heart.
When we merge into the noon-tide of life we find these virtues
already engrafted in our souls, with little trouble to us, for they
were planted there by the hands of good and pious parents; and, as a
reward for our fidelity to their instructions, those cherished
virtues take deep root in the heart and grow imperceptibly as we
advance in years.
But if, instead of being docile to their orders, we have stubbornly
resisted them, if, by some unaccountable egotism, the soul has become
concentrated in herself; and instead of giving our confidence and
love to those who have so generously given their life and means to
secure to us the happiness we enjoy, we rest satisfied with living on
the fruits of their labors without making them any return; we will
carry with us later on into the family of our choice only a withered
heart, dead to every noble and generous sentiment.
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