to separate from her for ever, and pursue your course to perdition? Will you seek the dreadful, the fatal distinction, of being alone in your family as the enemy of God, the captive of Satan? Shall a sister's solicitude for your salvation, and all the active efforts which it puts forth, be only a savor of death unto death to you? Pause and ponder, young man? Alter your purpose; take her by the hand, and say to her, "Your affection has conquered; I will go with you, for I know that God is with you." But, perhaps, instead of this, you are a persecutor. What, a persecutor of religion, and of a sister, at the same time? Yes, you reject with scorn these efforts for your salvation, and treat her with ridicule and unkindness by whom they are made. Is it so? What, wicked enough for this! What, carry your enmity to piety so far as to embitter the life of a sister, for no other reason than because she bows her heart to its influence! Recollect, the contest is not between you and her, but between you and God. It is not as a sister, but as a Christian, that she is the object of your displeasure, and, therefore, your ill will is against religion, and if against religion, then against God, for religion is the image of God in the soul of his rational creatures. Did you ever read or hear that fearful denunciation? If not, read it now," Wo to him that contendeth with his Maker." This wo is uttered against every persecutor of religion, and therefore is against you.

not follow them in their evil course; let no threats, no bribes, no persuasions, induce them to comply with the temptation to do what is wrong.

I have now to allude to the discharge of fraternal duties during the whole period of our lives, after the season of youth has passed away. This has been anticipated in part already. Families are soon broken up; the parents die, the children marry and form separate establishments, and bring around them separate families of their own. This division of the original stock does not, however, destroy, although it necessarily must weaken, the fraternal tie. Pope beautifully remarks,

"Thus beast and bird their common charge attend,
The mothers nurse it, and the sires defend:
The young dismissed to wander earth or air,
There stops the instinct, and there ends the care:
The link dissolves, each seeks a fresh embrace;
Another love succeeds, another race.

A longer care man's helpless kind demands;
That longer care contracts more lasting bands.
Still as one brood, and as another rose,
These natural love maintained, habitual, those.
Reflection, reason, still the ties improve,
At once extend the interest and the love;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities."

Great care is necessary, however, that when the centre of fraternal charities is gone, and each child becomes himself a centre of similar emotions and impulses, the interest of brothers and sisters in each other do not altogether cease. Brothers and sisters are brothers and sisters still, though they dwell in different quarters of the globe, are each at the head of families of their own, are distinguished in their circumstances by the varieties of affluence and poverty, and have attained to the age of threescore years and ten: and the tie that unites them ought to be felt coiling round their hearts, and its influence ought to be seen

relationship to the same parent certainly demands. The next generation may, from various causes, lose their interest in each other. Regard for remote relations becomes, in every country, less and less, according as law extends its protection, commerce diffuses its wealth, and civilization multiplies its comforts. Where clanship is necessary for mutual protection,

The responsibility of elder brothers and sisters, especially that of the FIRST BORN, is great indeed. They are looked up to by the younger branches of the family as examples, and their example has great influence, in some cases greater than that of the parent: it is the example of one more upon a level with themselves, more near to them, more constantly before them than that of the parent, and is, on these accounts, more influential. It is of immense consequence, therefore, to their juniors, how these conduct themselves. If they are bad, they are likely to lead all the rest astray; if good, they may have great power in leading them aright. They bring companions, books, recreations, before the rest, which are proper or im-in producing all those tender offices, which a common proper according as their own taste is. It is a most distressing spectacle to see an elder brother or sister training up younger ones, by his own conduct and precept, in the ways of wickedness. Such a youth is an awful character: like Satan, he goeth about seeking whom, by his temptations, he may destroy; but worse, in some respects more wicked and more cruel than his prototype, he marks out his own brother as the vic-"the families that spring from one common stock contim of his cruelty, and the dupe of his wiles. Whole tinue to cling to each other for aid, almost as if they families have, in some cases, been schooled in iniquity, lived together under the same roof; it is truly one by one unprincipled elder son. What will such a wide family, rather than a number of families; the brother have to answer for in the day of judgment, history of the tribe in its remote years of warfare and and what will be his torment in hell, when the souls of victory, is the history of each individual of the tribe; those whom he has ruined shall be near him, and by and the mere remembrance of the exploits of those their ceaseless reproaches become his eternal torment- who fought with one common object, around the reors! In other cases, what a blessing to a family has presentative of their common ancestor is like the feelbeen a steady, virtuous, and pious elder brother or sis-ing of the fraternal or filial relation, prolonged from age ter! Many a weak and sickly mother has given daily thanks to God for a daughter, who by her attentions was a kind of second mother to the younger members of the family, whom she did her uttermost to train up in her own useful and holy habits. Many a father has felt with equal gratitude the blessing of having in his first-born son, not only a help to himself in the cares of business, but in the work of education; a son who lent all the power of an amiable and religious example, to form the character of his younger brothers. Let such young persons consider their responsibility, and at the same time let those who are their juniors in the family consider their duty. If they have a good example in their elder brothers and sisters, they should make it not only the object of attention and admiration, but also of imitation: but, on the other hand, if, unhappily, the conduct of their seniors be bad, let them

to age." This is not the case, however, in that state of society in which we are placed, where the feeling of affectionate interest, of fraternal love, rarely survives the next generation from the father, and often dies long before that has completed its course. Brothers and sisters ought, however, to keep up, as long as they live, their mutual love. They should not suf fer new, and, it is confessed, still nearer relations, to produce a total oblivion of, or alienation from, each other. If dwelling in distant parts of the kingdom, epistolary correspondence should be maintained, sympathy in their mutual joys and sorrows should be cherished, occasional visits, as opportunity might allow, should be paid, and, every thing done, by mutual kind offices, to comfort each other, on the rough and stormy journey of life. If dwelling together in the same town, their intercourse should be such as to constrain

spectators to exclaim, "Behold how good and pleasant|ter, the multitude have erred on the other side. Men it is for brethren to dwell together in unity?" There or women of wealth, who choose to live in celibacy, should be that tenderness, which would lead to all the and who have needy brothers and sisters, are cruel and delicate attentions that affection delights to pay, and hard-hearted creatures, if they suffer such relatives to at the same time that confidence, which would prevent want any thing for their real comfort. "Whoso hath offence from being taken, when these were hindered this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and by accident from being paid. How utterly disgrace- shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how ful is it to see brothers and sisters dwelling together in dwelleth the love of God in him?" And what shall the same town; yet living in a state of continual strife, be said of those, who, in bequeathing their property, and sometimes in an utter suspension of all inter- forget their poor relations? The man who passes course! In such cases, there must be faults on both over a poor brother or sister and their families to ensides, though not, perhaps, in equal proportions. dow a hospital, or enrich the funds of a religious Those who marry into a family should be very cau- society, to which, perhaps, he gave next to nothing tious not to carry discord into it. Not unfrequently while he lived, offers robbery for a burnt-offering. has it happened, that brothers have been embroiled by their wives, and sisters by their husbands; and they who, till they were married, scarcely ever had an angry word from each other, scarcely ever lived in peace afterwards. Happy and honorable is that family, which though it consist of numerous branches, and those perhaps, nearly all married, and dwelling in the same vicinity, maintains, not, indeed, a state of coldness and formal intercourse, of which the highest praise is that it is free from strife, but a fellowship of sympathy, helpfulness and love!

I have now said all that appears to me to be important on the subject of fraternal duties. Is it necessary to call in the aid of motives to enforce the discharge of such obligations? If so,

often have the hearts of such been half broken by the Let your parents' comfort be a plea with you. How feuds of their children! And even where the calamibittered by the wrangles, quarrels, and perpetual ty has not gone to this extent, their cup has been imstrifes of those who ought to have lived in undisturbed

affection.

Your own comfort and honor are involved in an attention to these duties. You cannot neglect the claims of a brother or a sister, without suffering a diminution in your happiness or your reputation, or both.

If, by the vicissitudes of life, and the various allotments of divine Providence, one branch of the family has been more successful than the rest, peculiar care must be exercised, that the latter should not expect too much from him in the way of attention and relief, nor the former yield too little. For any man to be ashamed of his poor brothers and sisters, to treat them with The interests of society demand of you an attention to cold neglect or insulting pride, discovers a littleness fraternal claims. As a son, you learn to be a good of mind which deserves contempt, and a depravity of subject; as a brother, you learn to be a good citizen. heart which merits our severest indignation: it is at Rebellious children are traitors in the bud; and he once ingratitude to God and cruelty to man. It must who has none of the right feelings of a brother, is trainbe admitted, however, that it is extremely difficult to ing up for a parricide. meet the demands and satisfy the expectations of poor And as to religion, fraternal duties necessarily arise relations, especially in those cases where their poverty out of its general principles, are enforced by its preis the fruit of their own indolence or extravagance. vailing spirit more than by particular precepts, and are They have claims, it is acknowledged, and a good recommended by some of its most striking examples; brother or sister will readily allow and cheerfully meet for the first murder which stained the earth with human them; but it must be for prudence, under the guidance gore sprung from a want of brotherly affection; and of affection, to adjust their amount. It is unquestion- the family in which the Son of God found his loved reable, however, that though there are some few who treat on the earth was that where, in the persons of have most indiscreetly impoverished themselves to Mary, and Martha, and Lazarus, fraternal love was help a needy, perhaps an undeserving, brother or sis- limbodied and adorned.

CHRISTIAN FATHER'S PRESENT

TO HIS CHILDREN.

BY JOHN ANGELL JAMES,
AUTHOR OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY, THE FAMILY MONITOR, &c. &c.

"And thou, Solomon, my son, know thou the God of thy father, and serve him with a perfect heart, and with a willing mind. For the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts; if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.'

44

"I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.".

1 Chron. 28, 29. ...3 John 3.

NEW-YORK:

THOMAS GEORGE, JR. 162 NASSAU STREET.