It is to be supposed that children who survived this kind of treatment could be happy, since there was little left to excite their terror. Henry, when he steals a forbidden apple, is threatened with fire and brimstone and locked up in a dark room. The very frightfulness of all this would defeat its end, for if a child could live through it, and look up the next morning at an unclouded sky, or take his part in the cheerful concerns of men, the thing would come, in time, to have no meaning for him. It is clear that this happened with the Fairchild Family. They act and talk (save when they are made the mouthpieces of older persons) like healthy and ordinary children. They even dare to be naughty in an ordinary way. No sooner are Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild called away from home, than original sin begins to assert itself. This chapter is “_On the Constant Bent of Man’s Heart towards Sin_”.