boy to the immediate service of his Maker, with as
much sincerity as Samuel was devoted to the worship
in the Temple by his parents. You must regard
him as a being separated from the rest of the world.
In childhood, in boyhood, you must surround him with
the pious and virtuous, and protect him to the utmost
of your power from the sight or hearing of any crime,
in word or action. He must be educated in religious
and moral principles of the strictest description.
Let him not enter the world, lest he learn to partake
of its follies, or perhaps of its vices. In short,
preserve him as far as possible from all sin, save
that of which too great a portion belongs to all the
fallen race of Adam. With the approach of his
twenty-first birth-day comes the crisis of his fate.
If he survive it, he will be happy and prosperous on
earth, and a chosen vessel among those elected for
heaven. But if it be otherwise”——The
astrologer stopped and sighed deeply. “Sir,”
replied the parent, still more alarmed than before,
“your words are so kind, your advice so serious,
that I will pay the deepest attention to your behests;
but can you not aid me farther in this most important
concern. Believe me, I will not be ungrateful.”
“I require and deserve no gratitude for doing
a good action,” said the stranger; “in
especial for contributing all that lies in my power,
to save from an abhorred fate the harmless infant
to whom, under a singular conjunction of planets,
last night gave life. There is my address; you
may write to me from time to time concerning the progress
of the boy in religious knowledge. If he be bred
up as I advise, I think it will be best that he come
to my house at the time when the fatal and decisive
period approaches, that is, before he has attained
his twenty-first year complete. If you send him
such as I desire, I humbly trust that God will protect
his own, through whatever strong temptation his fate
may subject him to.” He then gave his host
his address, which was a country-seat near a post town
in the south of England, and bid him an affectionate
farewell.
The mysterious stranger departed; but his words remained
impressed upon the mind of the anxious parent.
He lost his lady while his boy was still in infancy.
This calamity, I think, had been predicted by the
astrologer; and thus his confidence, which, like most
people of the period, he had freely given to the science,
was riveted and confirmed. The utmost care, therefore,
was taken to carry into effect the severe and almost
ascetic plan of education which the sage had enjoined.
A tutor of the strictest principles was employed to
superintend the youth’s education; he was surrounded
by domestics of the most established character, and
closely watched and looked after by the anxious father
himself. The years of infancy, childhood, and
boyhood, passed as the father could have wished.
A young Nazarene could not have been bred up with
more rigour. All that was evil was withheld from