Chap. I.]

THE DOMESTIC RELATIONS.

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sister. In truth “ the relation of brother and sister to one an-other, is one of the most beautiful which Providence has insti-tuted ; forbidding, from the different pursuits of the two sexes,any thing of that rivalry and interference, which is so often thebane of friendship among other equals, and without the possibilityof the sentiment being tainted with any alloy of passion ; findingscope for that peculiar tenderness, strength, and trustingness ofattachment, which belong to the relation of delicacy, dependence,and retirement on the one part, to energy, self-reliance, and en-terprise on the other. Nothing is more delightful than to wit-ness this relation sustained, as God, when he arranged it, de-signed that it should be. A mutual confidence and esteem, andsense of privilege in each other’s regard, evinced and renewedin every daily communication ; the sister watching the brother’sgrowing virtues and consequence with a modest pride, while shechecks his adventurousness with her well-timed scruples, andfinds for him a way to look more cheerfully on his defects, —■the brother, looking on the sister’s graces with a fondness thatwould be like a parent’s, only that it is gayer, more confident,and more given to expression, and studying with ambitious assi-duity to requite the gentle guidance to which his impetuous spiritdelights to yield itself; the one zealous and constant in all ac-ceptable kindnesses, in her secluded sphere, which God hasgiven her an intuitive sagacity to invent ; the other delighting tocommunicate all means of improvement, which his different op-portunities of education have prepared him to offer ; the onegratefully conscious of a protection as watchful as it will beprompt and firm ; the other of an interested love, which, wheth-er in silence or in words, can speak his praises the most moving-ly, where he may most desire to have them spoken. Is anything in the relations appointed by Him, who for wise and kindends ‘hath set the solitary in families,’ more delightful to wit-ness, than such a brotherly and sisterly devotion ? If therebe, it is what remains to be added to the picture. It is seen,when they who are thus united make the younger members oftheir band a common care, and turn back to offer the gentle andencouraging hand of a love more discreet than that of mereequals, and more familiar than the parental, to lead their childish,