History is replete with illustrations of the dangers resulting from what may have been an altogether necessary reaction. The tension attending a long-delayed relief from trying conditions, often leads to an excess of revolt which may prove to be equally far removed from the normal and healthful plane of thought or life. The austerity of Puritanism was followed by a counter oscillation into the realm of ultra-liberalism, and the ethics of the last condition has been less wholesome than the first.
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe has recently been speaking of this matter, through the columns of the Christian Register, and in terms that merit the attention of all thoughtful people. She says
"I know, and I suppose that others do, that within the period of doubt and struggle some carefully educated families have been brought up without the habit of prayer, without knowledge of the Scriptures, without the custom of public worship. When the great trials of life shall overtake the young people thus trained, when even prosperity may bring with it a weariness and distaste for life itself, where will these our dear ones seek comfort and spiritual guidance? Where the true spiritual does not enter, the pseudo-spiritual will usurp its place. Where the right temper of philosophic question has not been inculcated, the insanity of universal negation may be looked for."
