rson is led to follow a higher standard, and to live according
to God's will. Esau, in his faults and amiable points alike, is the very
image of the prevailing character amongst boys; sometimes violently
revengeful, as when Esau looked forward with satisfaction to the
prospect of his father's death, because then we should be able to slay
his brother Jacob; sometimes full of generosity, as when Esau forgot all
his grounds of complaint against his brother, and received him on his
return from Mesopotamia with open arms;--but habitually careless, and
setting the present before the future, the lower gratification before
the higher, as when Esau sold his birth-right for a mess of pottage. And
the point to be noted is, that, because of this carelessness, this
profaneness or ungodliness, as it is truly called in the New Testament,
Esau is distinguished from those who were God's people; the promises
were not his, nor yet the blessing. This is remarkable, because Esau's
faults, undoubtedly were just the faults of his age: he was no worse
than the great majority of those around him; he lived as we should say,
in our common language, that it was natural for him to live. He had,
therefore, precisely all those excuses which are commonly urged for the
prevailing faults of boys; yet it is quite certain that the Scripture
holds him out as a representative of those who were not on the side
of God,

If the Scripture has so judged of Esau and Jacob, it must be the model
for our judgments of those whose circumstances, on account of their
belonging to a society consisting wholly of persons young in age,
greatly resemble the circumstances of the early society of the world. I
lay the stress on the belonging to a society wholly formed of young
persons; for the case of young persons brought up at home, is extremely
different; and their circumstances would be best suited by a different
scriptural example. But here, with you, I am quite sure that the great
distinguishing mark between good and evil, is the endeavouring, or not
endeavouring, to rise above the carelessness of the society of which you
are members; the determining, or not determining, to judge of things by
another rule than that of school morality or honour; the trying, or not
trying, to please God, instead of those around you: for the notions and
maxims of a society of young persons are like the notions and maxims of
men in a half-civilized age, a strange mixture of right and wrong; or