It is a vital part of it.

For childhood is the time when human nature is most easily moulded; and the bent that is given to it then is, in nine cases out of ten, decisive of its ultimate destiny.
It is clear, then, that if Man is to be "saved" by a _regime_ of mechanical obedience, his education in his childhood must be based on the same general conception of life and duty.

This means, in the first place, that the child must be brought up in an atmosphere of severity.

The God of the Old Testament--the Deity whose _nimbus_ overshadows the life of the West--combines in his own person the functions of law-giver, governor, prosecutor, judge, and executioner.
His subjects are a race of vile offenders, whose every impulse is bad, and whose nature turns towards evil as inevitably as a plant turns towards the light.

As he cannot trust them to know good from evil, he has had to provide them with an elaborate code of law; and he has had to take for granted that, left to themselves, they will break his commandments, and find pleasure in doing so.