more than earthly skill and science have ever been able to ascertain, or
even hint at, concerning the relations which Himself ordained. He comes
to Manoah's wife with these words: "Now, therefore, beware, and drink
not wine nor strong drink, and eat not any unclean thing. For, lo! thou
shall conceive and bear a son; and no razor shall come on his head: for
the child shall be a Nazarite unto God from the womb." Can you discern
in this only an allusion to Jewish customs and ceremonies, long since
obsolete, and in no way interesting to us, except as a matter of
history? Can you not rather see gleaming out a golden rule which all
would be blessed in following? To us, in this history, Jehovah says,
"Mother, whatever you wish your child to be, that must you also in all
respects be yourself." Samson is to be consecrated to God by the most
solemn of vows all the days of his life, and the conditions of that vow
his mother is commanded to fulfill from the moment that she is
conscious of his existence until he is weaned, a period of four years at
least, according to the custom of her time.

These thoughts introduce to us a theme on which volumes have been
written and spoken. Men of deep research and profound judgment have been
ready to say to all the parents of earth, "Whatever ye are such will
also your children prove always, and in every particular to be;" and
there are not wanting multitudes of facts to strengthen and confirm the
position. In certain aspects of it it is assuredly true, since the
principal characteristics of the race remain from age to age the same.
Nor is it disproved by what seem at first adverse facts, for although
children seem in physical and intellectual constitution often the direct
opposite of their parents, yet a close study into the history of
families may only prove, that if unlike those parents in general
character, they have nevertheless inherited that particular phase which
governed the period from which they date their existence. No person