It is all well.

You may hope that he is going to devote his life to the service of God; but you can not know, you can not even believe with any great confidence.

These appearances are not piety.

They are not conclusive evidences of it.

They are only, in the young, faint grounds of hope that the genuine fruits of piety will appear.
I am aware that there are many persons so habituated to judging with confidence of the piety of others from some such indications as I have described, that they will think I carry my cautions to the extreme.
Perhaps I do; but the Savior said, "By their fruits ye shall know them," and it is safest to follow his direction.
By the word "fruits," however, our Savior unquestionably does not mean the mere moral virtues of this life.