FRANCIS. By no means, father. God forbid! But whom do you call your son? Him to whom you have given life, and who in return does his utmost to shorten yours.     

       OLD M. Oh, it is all too true! it is a judgment upon me. The Lord has chosen him as his instrument.     

       FRANCIS. See how filially your bosom child behaves. He destroys you by your own excess of paternal sympathy; murders you by means of the very love you bear him—has coiled round a father's heart to crush it. When you are laid beneath the turf he becomes lord of your possessions,       and master of his own will. That barrier removed, and the torrent of his profligacy will rush on without control. Imagine yourself in his place. How often he must wish his father under ground—and how often, too, his brother—who so unmercifully impede the free course of his excesses. But call you this a requital of love? Is this filial gratitude for a father's tenderness? to sacrifice ten years of your life to the lewd pleasures of an hour? in one voluptuous moment to stake the honor of an ancestry which has stood unspotted through seven centuries? Do you call this a son? Answer? Do you call this your son?     

       OLD M. An undutiful son! Alas! but still my child! my child!     

       FRANCIS. A most amiable and precious child—whose constant study is to get rid of his father. Oh, that you could learn to see clearly! that the film might be removed from your eyes! But your indulgence must confirm him in his vices! your assistance tend to justify them. Doubtless you will avert the curse of Heaven from his head, but on your own, father—on yours—will it fall with twofold vengeance.     

       OLD M. Just! most just! Mine, mine be all the guilt!     

       FRANCIS. How many thousands who have drained the voluptuous bowl of pleasure to the dregs have been reclaimed by suffering! And is not the bodily pain which follows every excess a manifest declaration of the divine will! And shall man dare to thwart this by an impious exercise of affection? Shall a father ruin forever the pledge committed to his charge? Consider, father, if you abandon him for a time to the pressure of want will not he be obliged to turn from his wickedness and repent? Otherwise, untaught even in the great school of adversity, he must remain a confirmed reprobate? And then—woe to the father who by a culpable tenderness   

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