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Scotch-Irish, generations back, perhaps, yet southern always, and by birth-right American, he might have been a war-lord of another land and day. No feudal baron ever dismounted with more assuredness at his own hall, to toss careless rein to a retainer. He stood now, tall and straight, a trifle rough-looking in his careless planter's dress, but every inch the master.
And he sold his birth-right unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles. GEN. xxv. 33, 34. ......So! I let fall the curtain; he was dead.
But, after all, the question still remains, How is he to get the will,—the good will,—in order to render him acceptable to God? Does he get it from nature—is it a part of his birth-right? No: from this he derives a depraved will, “free to evil only.” Is it vouchsafed to him from above? Is it a gift from God?
"Was it not enough that he usurped your father's birth-right, as Jacob usurped Esau's, keeping you out of it for years and years, but he must now deprive you of it for ever? Had you been dead had there been any urgent reason why you should not succeed Jan should have come in. Jan is the lawful heir, failing you. Mark me, Lionel, it will bring no good to Frederick Massingbird.
Or, having felt the power of the Divine anger; having obtained clear conceptions of the intense aversion of God towards moral evil; even the child of God sometimes lives under a cloud, because he does not dare to make a right use of this needed and salutary impression, and pass back to that confiding trust in the Divine pity which is his privilege and his birth-right, as one who has been sprinkled with atoning blood.
To show the truth of this, we need only observe, that they adopted Christianity from another race, the most obstinate and stiff-necked the world has ever seen, who, trained under the Old Dispensation to preserve the worship of the one true God, were too proud to accept the further revelation of God under the New, and, rejecting their birth-right, suffered their inheritance to pass into other hands.
If the birth-right was a mere matter of family pride, and the pottage of agreeable taste, Cave was not quite sure that Esau had not gotten the advantage in his famed bargain with the Father of Israel." Humility was Reynolds's highest card, and when out among the people he was always figuratively clothed in sackcloth and ashes.
Two epaulettes graced the shoulders of the hero; and before the picture was done, although it was somewhat at variance with republican principles, an aristocratical star glittered on its breast. Had he his birth-right, thought Julia, it would be there in reality; and this idea amply justified the innovation.
Can she withdraw her eyes from it, and look downward, and become a servant of time? Will she, will one thus nobly privileged, surrender her birth-right? If she comprehends its value, she cannot be other than an aspirant for the prize of life eternal. But how shall this prize be obtained?
It was received in some of the islands with a declaration, "that they possibly might, in some instances, endeavour to improve the condition of their slaves; but they should do this, not with any view to the abolition of the Slave Trade; for they considered that trade as their birth-right, which could not be taken from them; and that we should deceive ourselves by supposing, that they would agree to such a measure."
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