This is exalted, because his ancestry is noble; that condemned for no
better reason than that he is born vile. Melchior! Melchior! our reason is
unhinged by subtleties, and our boasted philosophy and right are no more
than unblushing mockeries, at which the very devils laugh!"
"And yet the commandments of God tell us, Gaetano, that the sins of the
father shall be visited on the descendants from generation to generation.
You of Rome pay not this close attention, perhaps, to sacred writ, but I
have heard it said that we have not in Berne a law for which good warranty
cannot be found in the holy volume itself."
"Ay, there are sophists to prove all that they wish. The crimes and
follies of the ancestor leave their physical, or even their moral taint,
on the child, beyond a question, good Melchior;--but is not this
sufficient? Are we blasphemously, even impiously, to pretend that God has
not sufficiently provided for the punishment of the breaches of his wise
ordinances, that we must come forward to second them by arbitrary and
heartless rules of our own? What crime is imputable to the family of this
youth beyond that of poverty, which probably drove the first of his race
to the execution of their revolting office.
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