the ties of blood, these feelings are already in existence; but what I desire to present is the duty of always making these feelings apparent in common intercourse, for just in proportion to the neglect of this, is the family influence on the happiness of its members affected.  If you would combine the greatest possible elements of unhappiness you could not imagine any which would surpass that of a family of brothers and sisters, hating each other, yet compelled to live together as a family, where no word of kindness passes from one to the other, where no act of kindness draws out the affections, where the success of one only excites the envy of the others; no smile lights up the countenance; no gladness found in each other’s society, the aim of each to thwart and annoy the other.  In such dwellings there would be no light, no peace, no joy, no pleasant sounds.  Indeed such a picture does not belong to even our fallen world, it is the description of the misery of the lost.  A picture, perhaps, of a family in hell.  The further, therefore, from this, my friends, that you can remove your own family, the greater will be your own happiness and comfort, and you must remember that the responsibility of this rests upon each one of you individually.  Let your brother or sister never receive an unkind, unbrotherly or unsisterly act, never perceive an unaffectionate look, nor experience an uncourteous neglect, and you will do very much towards making your family the abode of as perfect peace as can be enjoyed upon earth, and cause it to present the loveliest and most attractive scene this side of heaven.  Now, I will freely acknowledge that in urging this duty upon brothers and sisters, I am setting you upon no easy work; I know that it will require often much self-denial, much restraint in word and deed, but the gain will far more than repay the struggle.

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Original.

THE FAMILY PROMISE.

BY JOSEPH McCARRELL, D.D.

The promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.  From the beginning of the creation God has dealt with man as a social being.  He made them a male and a female, and the first institution in innocence and in Eden, was marriage.  In his dealings with Adam, God deals with the race.  He made with them his covenant when he made it with Him.  Hence, by the disobedience of one, many were made sinners; in Adam all die.  With Noah he made a covenant never to drown the world again by the waters of a flood.  This promise belongs to the children of Noah, the human race.