Is it not shameful that she who has borne all the pain, and care, and anxiety, and burden of his children, should ever have an unkind word or look from him?  Nay, is it not a meanness, an entirely unchristian meanness, that a husband should presume upon the very loveliness of his wife, upon the very affections of her pure heart, to treat her thus rudely?  And is it not as cowardly as it is mean, thus to act towards one whose only defense is in himself?  I say cowardly, for were many a husband to speak, and to act towards another woman as he allows himself to do and to speak towards his own wife, he would not always escape the punishment due his ungentlemanly conduct.  Let us, who are husbands and wives, endeavor all of us to be on the watch in this thing; and let it be our rule to treat no one in the world more kindly or more politely than we do our own wives and our own husbands.  Not long since, at the bedside of a dying wife, I heard a husband, with quivering lip and tearful eye, say, “Beloved wife, forgive me, if I have ever treated you unkindly.”  If you would be saved from the anguish of ever feeling that you needed forgiveness from the dying lips of your dearest earthly ones, be kindly affectioned, therefore, one to another.

Let us, in the next place, seek to apply this direction to the intercourse of brothers and sisters.  No association of beings on earth can be more interesting than that of the family; there are found the tenderest sympathies and the most endearing relations.  There the painter seeks for the sweetest scenes by which to exhibit his art, and the poet finds the inspiration which gives melody to his song.  The highest praise which we can give to any other association of men, whether in church or state, is to say that they dwell together as a family; and cold and hard indeed must be that heart which does not sympathize and rejoice in family ties.  In nothing short of the developments made in the cross of Jesus do the wisdom and love of God towards our race shine more conspicuously than they do in this grouping us in families.  The result has been, that society has been preserved, even though the authority of God has been condemned; and even the annals of heathenism afford us very many displays of those kindly feelings, which adorn and beautify human nature.  These would not have existed, had not the heart been cultivated in the family; and where religious principle is added as the guiding influence of the circle, the family becomes the nursery of all that is great and good in our nature, it becomes the very type and antepast of heaven.  Now, the great development of this religious principle would chiefly show itself in obedience to the apostolic injunction in the precept, “Be kindly affectioned, one to another, with brotherly love; in honor preferring one another.”  I do not, however, so much seek just now to urge upon the members of the family the existence of kind feelings, for I take it for granted that in obedience to the call of nature, and