IV Inversion of Truth.... .371 Jesus Christ. .244 John Anderson, My Joe.. 81 Present Aspect of Society, The..108 Proverbs of Nations Compared..163 Prairie Fire and the Rum Fire Kind Words.... 95 The..... .205 Kingdom of Darkness, The.... ..116 Poems of the Fifteenth Century..212 Katydid, The.... .143 Pilgrims in a Circle.... .321 Law and Eminent Rogues, The.. 40 Rain, The... 186 Lord's Prayer, The.. 65 Ruth.... .202 Little Girls Grave, The. .115 Read an Hour a Day. .273 Letter of a Dying Wife.. .138 Rain Drops, The... ..310 Lord's Prayer, The.. 239 Should I Study Law or Divinity?. 27 Lottery Frauds... 248 Sweet Sounds.... 32 Love's Law of Sacrifice. 341 Let Me In....... 352 St. Paul's Person and Thorn in the Flesh.... 80 Laura Amanda's Grave .380 My Spelling Book 33, 88, 97, 129, 177, 203 My Mother's Gold Ring.. 74 Spright, Earnest Young Man.The.100 Spirit of the Lord's Prayer, The..181 Spring Song of the Lovely, The..161 Sociability.. ..182 Memory of the Dead, The. 95 Soul's Aspirations, The. ..196 Mother's Grave... 144 Summer Visit, The.... ..221 Mary Magdalene. .158 Stanzas. .238 Magic Mirrors. .160 Sudden Death in Full Dress... .286 Mother Moulds the Man. The....162 The Late Thomas Hart Benton...145 Manger and the Cross, The. ...171 Tears and Blushes.... 63 Memory of the Dead... .189 The Two Voyagers.. 72 Mother of Pearl.. ..190 The Twin Fishers. 93 Model Mother, The.. .197 That Lonely Light.. .127 My Mother's Voice... Mischief Makers... .253 The Nails are Gone but the Marks ..273 are There. .141 Mechanics' Evening Hours. ..301 Two Years in Heaven .155 Ministry of Angels, The... .355 The Two Prophets.. .281 Man and Woman... .377 The Tulipomania. 314 New Year's Eve 5 Thoughts for The Guardian 329 Not Understood .176 The Marriage Relation... .380 Nick-Names .289 Unhappy Marriages... 223 Not Lost, but Gone Before. .313 Vespers... 49 Only One Life... 52 Working for a Good Name. 7 Old Hundredth. 59 Where are the Boys and Girls?.. 50 Our Earthly Friends in Heaven..106 Washington's Church,. ..123 Old Customs in Prayer... .193 Washington.... .174 Our Daily Bread.. 274 Old Garden, The. 308 What it is to Lie, and How Easy.206 Water Lily, The.. .295 Poor Boys and Great Men. Year One, The.. .375 THE very bonds of the social circle teaches us to love one another. A member of the family without love is nothing but a cold marble image, or, rather, a machine, an annoyance, a something in the way to vex and pain us. The social relations not only teach love, but demand it. Take any family, where there is a want of affectional unity-where there is selfish ambition or jealousy and distrust among the members of the household, and it must of necessity be a discordant and an unhappy family. There may be punctilious decorum and formal politeness, even "threatening urbanity," and yet with all this there is no true peace or happiness. The household wants love, and if it will not have that it must suffer; and it onght to suffer. It must be obvious, therefore, that a proper regard to this relation of brothers and sisters is essential to the peace and happiness of home. The duties of the fraternal relation are founded ultimately upon the will of God as expressed in the relation itself, and its inseparable connection with the well-being of the family. As in nature there are two great laws of harmony-the central gravitation and cohesive affinity, so in the domestic economy we have two great principles of social harmony -filial affection and fraternal affinity. The heart of the child that turns to the mother, is drawn to the brother or sister that was nurtured on the same bosom. Indeed, there can be no true filial affection that does not involve the fraternal, and when the relation exists to call it forth. They are inseparable as attraction and cohesion in nature. And ordinarily, as in these two forces of nature, the fraternal affinity is in proportion to the filial love. Children cannot truly love their parents without loving one another; but as in nature the central and cohesive forces may be disturbed and the harmony destroyed, so may there be admitted into the household counteracting moral forces, producing disorder and repulsion among the members of the family. And as the very charm of home-life depends essentially upon the affectional harmony among the younger members, this subject cannot fail to assume its just degree of importance in our portraiture of the home-scenes of the New Testament. There is doubtless a congenital affinity, an instinctive attraction between children of the same parentage. It is something more than mere congeniality, for that may not always exist between brothers and sisters. It is something more than friendship—an inborn feeling of affinity, more delicate, exquisite, and intense than the purest friendship. That there is such a natural affinity is evidenced by our own consciousness, and from the fact that no discords are so universally odious and repulsive as those existing among children of the same household. The very words expressive of the fraternal relation touch a responsive chord in every heart. When William Penn met the Indians, and uttered those noble terms of a common brotherhood, "We are one flesh, and one blood," they responded to the fraternal appeal in these memorable words, "We will live in love with William Penn and his children as long as sun and moon shall endure." But even stronger than this felt brotherhood of humanity, is the fraternity of the household. To those who in childhood and youth have answered to the call of brother and sister, the words acquire a beauty and sanctity that live in us forever. The natural affinity is fostered and strengthened by so many sweet memories aud hallowing associations. There is the nursery, where their infancy was watched by the same loving eye, their little sorrows soothed and forgotten on the same maternal bosom, and their nightly slumber wooed by the same cradle-song. There are the family gatherings, and winter evenings at home, and the rambles in summer fields, the excited sympathies about the couch of sickness, and perhaps in the chamber of death. O how these home joys and sorrows tend to fuse the hearts of the household in mutual sympathy and love. The very relation itself, with its manifold associations, all tend to inspire and foster the fraternal union and affection. It is manifest, then, that in the will of God, revealed in the domestic constitution, the welfare of its members, we find the true basis of the fraternal relation. The fraternal sentiment must, therefore, be in harmony with the manifested will of God in the domestic economy. "When true, the fraternal sentiment unites congeniality with consanguinity, and develops friendship from kindred blood, as the parted branches open into leaves and blossoms and fruits, kindred in their aims as their source." There is, indeed, no scene on earth more pleasant and lovely than that of brothers and sisters, who, with all their differences of taste and temperament, dwell together in mutual devotion, keeping the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace. "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is indeed like the dew of Hermon, that threw its silver veil over mountain and valley, and refreshed and beautified each tree and flower with a baptism from heaven.' The following extract from John Angell James, will serve to illustrate and enforce the design and moral beauty of fraternal affection and unity: "A family of grown up children should be the constant scene of uninterrupted harmony, where love, guided by ingenuity, puts forth all its powers to please, by those mutual good offices, and minor acts of beneficence, of which every day furnishes the opportunity, and which, while they cost little in the way either of money or labor, contribute so much to the happiness of the household. One of the most detightful sights in our world, where there is so much moral deformity to disgust, and so |