MISCELLANEOUS THOUGHTS. 341 XVIII. Youth and Death. " Tener vitulus relictâ Matre, qui largis juvenescit herbis " In mea solad " Fronte curvatos imitates igues Tertium bum referentis ortum, " Quâ notam duxit niveus videri, " Cetera. fulvus. " HoaAT. While we read these lines of Horace, wherein he describes his young yellow calf with the white crescent in his forehead, while he paints out the pretty brute in most agreeable verse, one is ready to feel a sort of fond pity working in us, when we find that the creature is destined to speedy sacrifice : The poet himself, who devotes its blood to the altar, yet seems to dwell with a sert of compassion and mournful pleasure on the description of its beauty and sprightliness. A milk -white mark its spreading front adorns, Shap'd like a moon of three days old: The silver curve dividesits budding horns, And all besides is gold. The pretty creature, wild in wanton play, Now frisks about the flow'ry mead; Loose from the dam, it knows uo grief to -day, But must to-morrow bleed. When I see the youth of either sex arrived at that age wherein nature is just risen to its elegance and vigour, and when To this it may be repliA, [I.) Who can say that our, Saviour did not rise and ask the blessing on toe food, standing, though the others might sit. (2.) TheJewish custom and gesture at meals was something between lying and sitting, whereby it might become much more inconvenient to have all the guests rise up, and he down after, the food was set on the table, which must be very low, and near the ground, and mere external gestures are not so precisely necessary in suth short occasional arts of worship, as to break in upon the common conveniences of life. This was certainly the case when Christ fed the multitudes; for be ordered them to sit down, that they might all be disposed into proper ranks, which could not so well have been done while they were standing, and might change their places. (5.) If it could be proved that our Saviour himself, as well as themnititudes, sat at blessing the food, this could only prove the láwfulness of the gesture, but by no means the necessity of At ; because standing and kneel- ing are inure frequently described in scripture as gestures of prayer. It is certain,that standing, kneeling Or prostration, are natural tokens of rever- ence and supplication, which tatting is not: Now when any of the natural gestures of reverence and supplication may be used with equal conveniency, it seems more proper to use +. iem, and to worship God with flesh and spirit together. Whatever might be the Jewish custom then, yet it is the corsetant custom of our age now, to pray standing or kneeling; and this has made sitting at prayer appear much more indecent. Now where natural signs of reverence join with the customs of the age and country wherein we dwell, is it not much more proper to pay our addresses to .God in that posture, by which both nature and custom agree to express reverence and honour; though for reasons that are not obvious now, Christ might.heretofore indulge a posture which carries less appearance of rover. eoce iu it?
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