INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL HEREDITY 



51 



life, in Christian homes, of a higher spiritual 

 stock, who, in turn, shall produce their own kind, 

 free from the bondage of the body. 



Over against the advantage that evil seems to 

 have over good, however, is to be set a more 

 hopeful fact. It is, that evil always carries within 

 itself the seeds of decay, but that virtue and truth 

 have in themselves seeds of endurance and 

 growth. This truth never had more forcible ex- 

 pression than in the Ten Commandments, which 

 distinctly state that the consequences of sin run 

 through three and four generations, while the 

 results of righteousness endure to a thousand 

 generations. Wrong-doing may work ruin more 

 swiftly than virtue works blessedness, but the 

 result of the latter is more lasting. A father may 

 commit a crime and the taint of the evil may be 

 in his blood, but it will be purged from it in time, 

 while his virtues will continue their blessed influ- 

 ence long after the results of his evil have disap- 

 peared. This is one of the facts which tend to 

 make men optimists. It shows that heredity is 

 a potent factor in the regeneration, as it is also 

 sometimes in the degeneration, of the world. It 

 works for good under difficulty at present, owing 

 to the deep-seated taint in human nature. It 

 will achieve redemption far more speedily as that 



