nded an ample view of the astral regions. The guest spent a part
of the night in ascertaining the position of the heavenly bodies, and
calculating their probable influence; until at length the result of his
observations induced him to send for the father, and conjure him in
the most solemn manner to cause the assistants to retard the birth, if
practicable, were it but for five minutes. The answer declared this to
be impossible; and almost in the instant that the message was returned,
the father and his guest were made acquainted with the birth of a boy.

The astrologer on the morrow met the party who gathered around the
breakfast-table with looks so grave and ominous, as to alarm the fears
of the father, who had hitherto exulted in the prospects held out by the
birth of an heir to his ancient property, failing which event it must
have passed to a distant branch of the family. He hastened to draw the
stranger into a private room. "I fear from your looks," said the father,
"that you have bad-tidings to tell me of my young stranger; perhaps God
will resume the blessing he has bestowed ere he attains the age of
manhood, or perhaps he is destined to be unworthy of the affection which
we are naturally disposed to devote to our offspring." "Neither the one
nor the other," answered the stranger, "unless my judgment greatly ere,
the infant will survive the years of minority, and in temper and
disposition will prove all that his parents can wish. But with much in
his horoscope which promises many blessings, there is one evil influence
strongly predominant, which threatens to subject him to an unhallowed
and unhappy temptation about the time when he shall attain the age of
twenty-one, which period, the constellations intimate, will be the
crisis of his fate. In what shape, or with what peculiar urgency, this
temptation may beset him, my art cannot discover." "Your knowledge,
then, can afford us no defence," said the anxious father, "against the
threatened evil?" "Pardon me," answered the stranger, "it can. The
influence of the constellations is powerful; but He who made the heavens
is more powerful than all, if his aid be invoked in sincerity and truth.
You ought to dedicate this boy to the immediate service of his Maker,
with as much sincerity as Samuel was devoted to the worship in the
Temple by his parents. You must regard him as a being separated from the
rest of the world. In childhood, in boyhood, you must surround him with
t