enough in the word of God. In Deuteronomy xxi. 15-17,
there is explicit legislation on the subject. "_If a man have two
wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children,
both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be her's that
was hated: then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that
which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn
before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn: but he shall
acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a
double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his
strength; the right of the firstborn is his._" Joseph was evidently
grieved when Jacob blessed the younger with the blessing of the
firstborn, as though some sacred order had been violated: and the very
word "firstborn" is employed as a term of dignity and pre-eminence both
in the Old and the New Testament scriptures. I believe it to be for the
good of society that this order should exist; that the eldest son should
be looked upon as the representative of the family, while the younger
sons should regard it as their lot--and not the worse lot in the sight
of God and the angels--to carve out a new fortune for themselves. I
believe this to be a Divine institution, and that God contemplated it
when he established the family life as the basis of human society. But
just because it is an order ordained of God, man shall not make an idol
of it. A certain free play in the working of an order or an institution
is essential to the well-being and progress of society. If God had so
ordered all the dispensations, that the elder son was constituted
invariably the organ of His communication with the household, the tribe,
the race, it would have instituted a caste instead of a principle of
order, and the great majority of our race would, in that case, be
outcast from their birth. That this rule of the elder might not become a
tyrannous thing, that the younger sons of the house might feel that they
too had a man's part to play on the theatre of life, a part which might
easily become grander and more glorious than that of the firstborn, God,
at great critical moments, seems to have broken through the order, and
made the younger the heir of the promises and the organ of His
revelation to mankind. Jacob is a notable, a typical instance. The case
of David is hardly less remarkable, 1 Sam. xvi. 6-13. And Paul in the
spiritual family illustrates t