62 HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



music, art, and pure companions ; while those who 

 grow to manhood in the midst of ignorance are 

 usually content to be ignorant. On the other 

 hand, remove a child of vice and illegitimacy to 

 pure and refining influences ; he will probably be 

 influenced by the life about him, although the 

 struggle with his passions will be severer and 

 longer, and without the constant restraint of good 

 environment there will be great danger of a 

 relapse. 



Some time ago one of our periodicals published 

 the story of a young woman who had been attached 

 to a missionary house in the tropics. Although 

 she had been educated in the habits of civilization, 

 after a time she returned to her own people, and 

 was soon living again in the nudity and savagery 

 that characterized her race. When she was with 

 Europeans, she adopted civilized customs ; when 

 she returned to her people, she reverted to theirs. 

 Her environment determined her habits. 



The influence of heredity, however, should never 

 be forgotten. It is sometimes said that if two 

 children were exchanged in their cradles, a child 

 of the slums being put in the place of a child of 

 wealth and culture, the former would grow up 

 cultivated and refined and the latter coarse and 

 degraded. It is quite probable ; yet, the conclu- 



