version was most judicious. His first care was to recommend his new opinions by greater kindness in domestic life. Strange rumours of his altered habits had preceded his arrival, and his mother was prepared to mourn over eccentric manners and enthusiastic principles. All that she observed was greater kindness and evenness of temper. "It may tend," he had written down, before he joined her, as a rule for his observance, "to remove prejudices of if I am more kind and affectionate than ever-consult her more, show respect for her judgment, and manifest rather humility in myself than dissatisfaction concerning others." His habitual cheerfulness, and the patient forbearance of a temper naturally quick, could not escape her notice; and her friend Mrs. Sykes, who had shared in her suspicions, remarked shrewdly, when they parted company at Scarborough: "If this is madness, I hope that he will bite us all." *

Insubordination is half an insult and half an injury; it is an insult to the superior and an injury to the inferior. In after-years the insubordinate remembers his rudeness with a pang, and is conscious that he has lost the benefit of discipline. At fifteen, St. Augustine was idle and vicious, and would not study Greek. If he had been more submissive in this particular, he would have deprived Winer of the occasion of saying that he everywhere betrays a shameful ignorance of that language.

We receive good from our parents; we must be content to receive inconvenience likewise. It is only fair, if

* "Life of Wilberforce," i. 118.

we have a legacy that we pay the legacy duty. That was an excellent adaptation of the golden rule by Isocrates: "Be such to your parents as you would wish your children to be to you." When one has read how Aurungzebe established his empire by fraud and the violation of the domestic affections, we see a just retribution in the fact that his sons imitated him in his disobedience to his father.

If any curse is ever likely to fall on a devoted head, it is the curse of an injured parent against an undutiful child. The reward promised to those who honour father and mother is, that their days shall be long; and this generally happens, for the character developed by an early and submissive life at home is calculated to preserve a youth from evils that are destructive to health and longevity. As for the undutiful child, the curse pronounced on Mount Ebal against him that setteth light by his father or his mother still hovers around him on his path through life, and the character developed by early disobedience at home provokes in the world outside assault and revenge, quarrels and death.

The happiness of children depends much upon parents, and the happiness of parents depends much upon children. A bad child is indeed 66 an implement of torture," * puncturing and lacerating the hearts from which its own life's blood is derived.

It is painful to observe among the poor that an aged parent is often cast aside as something refuse, the un

* Lady Anne Barnard says that Lord Byron addressed his infant in these words: "Oh! what an implement of torture have I acquired in you!"-Times, Sept. 7, 1869.

grateful child not reflecting that his kernel would never have ripened but for the shell he throws away.

Beware of an ungrateful child. He is not to be trusted. If he casts off a father, he will cast off a friend, a colleague, a wife, if he can. The dutiful son is like the

"Indian tree,

Which, howsoe'er the sun and sky

May tempt its boughs to wander free,
And shoot and blossom wide and high,
Far better loves to bend its arms

Downwards again to that dear earth,
From which the life that fills and warms
Its grateful being, first had birth.
'Tis thus, though wooed by flattering friends
And fed with fame (if fame it be),

This heart, my own dear mother, bends
With love's true instinct back to thee!"*

* T. Moore.

CHAPTER VIII.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS.

IT is a touching thought that those who grow up together in childhood, and sit at the same table and at the same fireside, may, in after-life, be separated by seas and continents, or by the valley of death. This reflection should tend to make them affectionate and kind to one another, so long as they are united under one roof.

It is indeed a pleasant sight to behold a family dwelling together in peace, and unity, and gladness. Neither the poet nor the painter can describe a happier scene. The account of the family at Bethany is very brief, yet the glimpse which we have is eminently popular. The domestic affections do not occupy a large space in Scripture, but the allusions are proportionately valuable. St. Paul, for instance, seems so much above the ordinary human standard, that it gives one pleasure to find that after all he was really a human being, and had a sister.

The first family does not seem to have been a happy one. Cain envies Abel, and slays him. The contests between Esau and Jacob began painfully early. Where there was so much selfishness, covetousness, and deceit, there could have been but small domestic joy.

Virgil probably gives a sketch of the ideal of a Roman sister in his description of Anna.* Dido, disappointed and abandoned, has committed suicide; her sister is struck to the heart by the news, tears herself and beats her bosom, and rushing through the crowd, calls her dying sister by name-exclaims that she is ready to die with her. Embracing her in her bosom, she wipes up the blood with her robe, and tries with her mouth to catch any straggling remains of breath about her lips.

The arrangement of brothers and sisters, of different ages and different tastes and unequal powers, and yet all closely related, is a providential and admirable arrangement. It is nature's school; it is the discipline of the small society preparing for the intercourse of the great society. There life-lessons are learnt; the younger looks up to the elder admiringly, and learns submission. The elder helps the younger, and learns philanthropy. All need to help each other, especially if the family is large, and thus become unselfish, for they have constant calls upon them, and owing to this healthy exercise, cannot subside into the self-love and self-care of an only child.

A striking proof of disinterestedness and brotherly affection was given by Archbishop Usher at the age of eighteen. Soon after the loss of his father a considerable estate came into his possession. He at once proceeded to share it with his brothers and sisters, reserving for himself only so much as would maintain him at

* Æn., iv. 684.