CHAPTER XV.

THE FIRST-BORN.

ON one of those mornings in the latter end of Spring, which compel us by their loveliness to give up all occupation within doors, I accompanied my friend on one of his rambles the day promised much from its light and shade, and he seemed to be in a mood to extract the utmost both of contemplation and delight which surrounding objects could supply. Having crossed our valley, we toilsomely wound up a lofty but sharp and narrow ridge, by which we are separated from another valley running parallel to our own, but exhibiting in its straightened breadth a wilder character. From being exposed to the sun, and sheltered from the wind, we found the ascent very hot and close; but as soon as ever our heads began to peep above the brow

of the hill, a fresh breeze delightfully fanned our faces, and brought with it upon our ear soft swells of music and the merry pealing of bells. On looking down below upon a favorite view, we saw a flag flying upon the top of the village tower. Every thing denoted some unusual occasion of joyful festivity. We had not been speculating upon it long, before a peasant, in his way from the village, informed us that they were celebrating the birth of a son and heir newly born to the great proprietor of the valley.

It is very well, it is even very right, said my friend, after indulging a few moments in musing, that the first-born should be ushered into the world with more than ordinary welcome. I only wish that they would put their respect and joy upon a more suitable footing than is commonly done: that they would look to the dignity of character with which the moral constitution of society invests the son and heir, rather than to his large expectations. Society hails him as the person set apart by Providence to succeed in upholding and transmitting her institutions, as a future centre of union to a portion of her members, and point of support to her necessary relations. She sees in him one pledge more of her continuance, if not of her improvement; and in the

little world of home he is joyfully saluted as the future main trunk in which all the branches shall maintain their connexion, and the family still retain a root in earth. But how much more excellent is this dignity in a religions point of view. If we turn to the earliest state of God's church upon earth, there, in the first-born of the Patriarch, we behold the future High Priest, ordained to mediate with daily sacrifice between God and the household; we see the destined conservator of his oracles, the chosen channel of his blessings to convey them to nations unborn, the future king, to rule and dispense justice among his brethren; and though the only begotten Son of God, and first-born from the dead, be the sole Mediator and High Priest now, and the offices of his church have been committed to a peculiar class of men, still the son and heir is not entirely divested of spiritual privilege and responsibility. God still retains some of his peculiar claim upon the first-born. As long as society is bound together in bonds of Christianity, there, as future head of the family, as its future representative in the general assemblage of families, he is bound in an especial manner to qualify himself for discharging that high

situation faithfully and diligently, for his sake who was first-born among many brethren.

These, I own, are not the notions commonly entertained. Would that they were! Without these privileges, what, indeed, is the first-born? First, it may be said, to enjoy his mother's caresses; first to receive his father's instruction; first to taste all the blissful feelings which existence bestows; to have offered to him, as to one endowed with a sacredness of office, the first fruits of all earthly enjoyments; but, alas! is he not also first to taste the cup of sorrow? is it not his to shed the first tear, to heave the first sigh, and, in the natural course of things, first to quit the banquet of worldly happiness, to which he had been so fondly welcomed?

As he uttered these last words, the wind, blowing in a sudden fit of freshness, brought with it a full gush of the music, and of the merry peal of bells from below, and many a solitary glen reverberated the roar of cannon. The old man smiled. It would seem, he proceeded, as if the world had overheard me, and sent forth all its tongues in contradiction and defiance. But I am not singular: thus thought my father, and I have but put together, after the

long waste of years, the scattered fragments of his instructions.

Take heed to your ways, my child, (he would often say to our eldest brother,) keep a continual guard upon your goings, for in this our household you occupy, as one endued with royal privileges, a station which admits of no privacy. Every.step which you take is watched, every word which you speak is caught up, every thing which you are seen to do is immediately imitated by your younger brethren, who look to you as their model, and are eager, by means of the resemblance, to anticipate the claims and bearing of more advanced and privileged years. Oh then, my boy, not for your own sake only, but for theirs too, not only in prudence, but also in charity, be vigilant, and keep a jealous eye to all your proceedings. Be not to this little world of ours, comparatively innocent now, Oh, be not to it another first man, as it were, to bring sin into it. It had been better for you not to have been born than to offend one of these little ones. You stand upon an eminence, and, both from above and from below, are an object of earnest contemplation from below, to each of these younger ones; from above, to their angels in heaven. on, therefore, in all circumspection and diligence,

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