Page:Whyte-Melville--Bones and I.djvu/120

 They take all, to give back nothing in exchange. And no sooner can the bird use its wings, the beast its limbs, than it abandons at once and for ever the parent whose sustaining care is no longer necessary to its existence.

With the human race, although I am far from affirming that, even in this age of bronze, filial piety has fled with other virtues from the earth, something of the same unequal barter holds good in the relationship of parent and child. The former gives gold, the latter does not always return silver. Do not deceive yourself You love your children more than your children love you. I can prove it in three words. They are dearer to you than your own parents. And this inequality of affection is but one more of the beautiful arrangements made by that Providence which bestows good so liberally in proportion to evil. Under the common