This bursting heart's presumption tame, Downcast on dust mine eyes; In hope for future, pain for past, F CHAPTER V. THE FIRST MEMBER SENT OUT INTO THE WORLD. It was a lovely morning in July, when having occasion to visit a remote part of my parish, I determined in my return to explore a glen which I had observed among the hills on viewing them from my churchyard, and had resolved to visit on the first opportunity. The woody tops of precipices which ran like walls upon each side, and were now lost, and now rose in rugged majesty, seemed to promise spots of no common beauty at their feet; and the distant roar which ever came from them before rain, (and it was a well-known presage,) with the quantity of water issuing into our river from that direction, confirmed the supposition. Nor was I in the least disappointed, and I may leave my reader to judge what scenes I found. I had arrived at a point where the glen opened enough to admit of a strip of fields of brightest green upon one side of the stream; they were divided by hedgerows, in which grew some remarkably fine oaks, and gave a great richness to the scene. The day was hot and sunny, and I made my way to sit in the shade of one which hung over the stream. Here, to my great surprise, I found my friend, who had been from the same reasons attracted to the same spot. After mutual congratulations on finding each other in so wellchosen a place, and canvassing each the other's opinion of its beauties, we gradually came upon the subject of our late conversations. Such, said he, was my dear home: more like a temple inhabited by a train of priests ordained to carry on the perpetual service of God, than an ordinary residence and if God ever shewed amid a family the special illumination of his presence, he did with us. Our service consisted not in the mere utterance of words, however earnest, nor succession of forms, however proper, but in the uninterrupted offering of the soul and body, through the lively exercise of our Christian duties; from the daily collision of hearts and minds brought together in the purity of the gospel, bright and beautiful sparks were struck out, and examples every moment elicited of filial duty, brotherly love, instant forbearance, caution against offence, singleness of heart, cheerfulness, gentleness, meekness, charity. What a topic of pride and delight it is with the children of a growing family to compare their stature, note their height, remark upon the growth of nerve and muscle daily accruing to them, and to make trial with each other of their improving strength and skill in the games and pastimes of the day. So too was it with our spiritual growth. Every day a nearer approach to the Christian standard was remarked, some deficiency was filled up, some new grace developed, or old confirmed, and a continual rivalry and challenging went on in the practice of godly offices. And while the children of this world hail their accessions of bodily and mental strength as assurances of being able to makę their way in the world, and if of generous temper, of being a shield and buckler to their family, so to us, growing up, as we deemed ourselves to eternity, every example of increasing spiritual strength was a pledge that the possessor would not fail to maintain the unity of our spiritual household in despite of the endeavours of the world against it; and holding, as we did, that this unity, spiritually established on earth, would also endure in heaven, every act of piety was an additional earnest of eternal union. Oh, what a blessed, what a happy home was mine! Unalterable as our union in spirit has proved to me to be, that in the flesh was now shortly to cease. The world is every day demanding its conscripts, and at last arrived the turn of my eldest brother. Oh! what a lively recollection I retain (and well I may, for it was the first proper event in our family) of that morning which began the diminution of our family circle. I then awoke as from a dream to the world which surrounded us, and which we could scarcely be said to have heard or seen. I awoke, and looked tremblingly forward to the day when my summons also should arrive. I can at this moment distinctly and feelingly recall to mind the early hour of meeting on that morning, the unusual candlelight, the comfortless cold, darkness, and bustle, the chilly dawn discovered in a low ruddy streak just as we emerged from the deep shade of the garden to attend my brother to the carriage at the gate, but, above all, the solemnity of my father's last charge and benediction, and the singular conflict evidently going on in my brother's mind, whose |