'...take the case of our very children, when our hearts being most interested to promote their happiness, we must be supposed most desirous of determining on right principles, and where therefore the real standard of our deliberate judgments may be indisputably ascertained: in their education and marriage, in their choice of their professions, in our comparartive consideration and judgments of the different parts of their several charcters, how little do we reflect that they are immortal beings? Health, learning, credit; the amiable and agreeable qualities; above all, fortune and success in life, are taken, and not unjustly taken into the account; but how small a share in forming our opinion is allowed to the probable effect which may be produced on their eternal interests? Indeed the subjects of our mutual inquiries, and congratulations, and condolences, prove but too plainly what considerations are in these cases uppermost in our thoughts.'
William Wilberforce, A Practical View of Christianity, p.104.
