Our modern age has seen a shocking decline in the virtue of Reverence, otherwise known as respect, or in a classical sense, pietas. We have lost the sense that we pass through the earth, and leave it to our children as we have received it from our parents. We think that, rather than holding a sacred trust from our ancestors which it is our duty to maintain, and our delight to augment with greater glory for "The honour of God, our own credit and as a return for the pain of our fathers", we own the earth. We own our institutions and may alter them at will, with little or no thought for those who have entrusted them to us.
This generation fears nothing. Not God, not Justice, not the King, and has no reverence. Not for parents, the old, women, children, the weak, or the dead.
