Then she adds that Mrs. Stowe’s twins are going to be christened in the afternoon, by the names of Esau and Jacob. And then I observe that Esau and Jacob indeed were twins, but that I hope the little Stowes will love one another more than they did; adding that, as if to show the universal sinfulness of the human heart, a remarkable instance was given us in them, that even the proverbial love of twins for one another was insufficient to prevent one from over-reaching the other. To which Phillis, with a grunt, rejoins, “The young Stowes ha’n’t got no birthright.”
In the afternoon Phillis generally comes in, and we read the prayers, psalms, and lessons together; but sometimes Miss Secker drops in, and then Phillis and I defer our reading till the evening, unless she goes to church. Miss Secker brings a sermon with her, and sometimes I speculate a little, beforehand, whether it will be by Barrow, or Bishop Wilson, or Jeremy Taylor, or by Douglas Forsyth, or Melville, or Henry Vaughan of Crickhowel. We generally talk it over afterwards, and though our remarks may not be very original or deep, they refresh and animate me, being my only intellectual intercourse during the day.
Often our remarks make us turn to our Bibles to verify and illustrate them; which sometimes unexpectedly opens up a new subject fertile in interest. Thus, last Sunday, we lighted on that wonderful statistical account of the ancient glory and wealth of Tyre, as vivid and minute as if the details were of yesterday:—how that its famous merchant-ships, the instruments of its mighty commerce, were built of deal from Senir, _i. e._ Mount Hermon, and their masts were of cedar from Lebanon, their oars of oak from Bashan, their benches of ivory from Chittim, their sails manufactured in Egypt, their awnings from the isles of Elishah; how that the mariners of these ships were from Sidon, their pilots picked men of Tyre, their caulkers the men of Gebal; and then the details of their armies, their merchants, their great fairs and markets, and the endless variety of merchandize brought to them from all parts of the civilised world. It gave us a great deal to think of:—and very likely it seemed as incredible to the Tyrians, that their proud city should ever become a mere desolate rock, on which the lonely fisherman should dry his nets, as it would to us that London should be reduced to its condition before the days of Julius Cæsar, when old King Lud changed its name from Trinovant to Lud-town.