guarder ( u silent)

[Eng. guard; -er.] One spirit of the slain enters the body of the slayer, and IMG:content-0816.png:[blocks in formation] I. Ordinary Language : 1. One who has the charge, care, or custody of any person or thing. "She speaks of him, her author, guardian, friend." Cowper: Charity, 399. *2. A repository or storehouse. "Col me skill, The sacred storehouse of his predece ors, And guardian of their bones. Shakesp.: Macbeth , ii. 4. II. Law : One who has the charge, custody, and supervision of any person not legally capable of managing his own affairs. "Of the several species of guardians , the first are guard . ians by nature-viz., the father and (in some cases) the mother of the child. This guardianship is a mere personal right in the father or other ancestor to the custody of the person of the infant, until he or she attains twenty one years of age. For if an estate be left to an infant, the father is by common law the guardian , and must account to his child for the profits. There are also guardians for nurture, which are the father, or, if he be dead, the mother, till the infant attains the age of fourteen years; a guardianship which, like that by nature, has no reference to the infant's property, but relates merely to his person."-Black stone: Commentaries , bk. i., ch. 13. becomes his guardian; in Tasmania a native has been heard to ascribe his deliverance from danger to the care of his deceased father's spirit; and the most important religious rite of a North American Indian is to obtain a patron genius. In Asia, in Africa, and among the Indians of South America, the belief in guardian-spirits obtains, as it did formerly among the Aryans of Northern Europe. But it is in cla ic paganism that it appeals to us most gracefully. Menander tells us of the good mystagogue given to every man at his birth, and the Demon of So crates has quite a bibliography of his own, beginning with Plato and ending with Cardinal Manning. In Roman times the guardian. spirit was represented as a lar among the household gods, and specially venerated on the anniversary of the birth of the guarded one, with festive rites. There are few more touching pa ages in Roman poetry than those in which Ovid describes his feelings in exile on the recurrence of the days sacred to his own and to his wife's guardian-spirits. [GUARDIAN-ANGEL.] *guard-i-an-age ( u silent; age as ig), s. [Eng. guardian ; -age .] Guardianship, protection, care. "During the time of my nonage (whiles I was under his guardian age ), he bare himself, not only valiant, but also true and faithful unto me."-P. Holland: Livius, P. 1,093. *guar-di-ançe ( u silent), s. [Eng. guardian ; -ce.] Guardianship, care, protection. ( Bp . Hall : On the Love of Christ , $8.)