the authority of Church or of society, but look for its basis in the Nature of Things. We must refuse to secularize it. We must make it even more solemn than it has been made by the Church. We must see in it the ideal surrender of self. We are to make it religious by connecting it with what is universal in religion. That is to say, we should associate it with the idea of Law and of reverence for the principles of Duty. When this is done, and done completely, we shall at last realize all the possible ideals in the Institution of Marriage.

XII

THE FAMILY-CAN ETHICS IMPROVE ON IT OR OFFER A SUBSTITUTE FOR IT?

THE Home is the original sanctuary. The Family is a traditional type consecrated by the Past. But men think less now of "traditions" and "sanctuaries." Is the Home or the Family as an institution destined to decline under the influence of the New Thought? Can the idealism of to-day develop anything superior as a substitute?

That depends. You may propose a substitute and think it is superior. Yet it may be only a mere dream of yours, because it does not accord with the ultimate laws or purposes in the Nature of Things.

We can only answer the query by comprehending what purpose the Family serves in the economy of spiritual nature. Whence came the respect for another form of superiority over against physical strength? What softens the "brute" in us and first makes us men? What civilizes the human race? Is it not this relationship between the weak and strong in the Family? Can the new ethical thought suggest a substitute?

You say from your general knowledge of a certain individual, "That man is a brute." But watch him

standing over his invalid child.

"No," you say,

"there is a man there after all." And so it is of the whole human race. You think of mankind as one great mass of selfish strugglers. Then again you look at the separate family-units, and you see the members of each unit sacrificing their interests for one another.

The Family is the original centre where the ethical spirit is nurtured, and that is why I believe in it.

We speak of the "self," the "home," and the "world." How many of us are clearly conscious of the distinctions between them? Yet we know that the chasm between the three institutions is enormous. We mean one thing by the home, and another when we speak of our city or our country. Within the domain of the family all conditions take on a peculiar significance. Responsibilities do not mean quite the same thing there; obligations have another significance; freedom itself assumes a peculiar qualification; affection or love has a different sense when applied to relationships between members of the home, and to relationships between people in the outside world.

You assert that an obligation is an obligation, a right is a right, and a privilege a privilege. How then can there be two unlike meanings for the same word? But think for a moment! You are a member of a home. You own something; it belongs to you; you may have earned it, and worked hard to secure it. You assert, "This is mine," and you are right in your assertion. But now stand before your father and mother, look into their faces, remember their lives, recall what you owe to them; then I ask you: Can you deliberately or defiantly at such a moment say, "This is mine"? Could you do it

with the same spirit in which you would face other men with that piece of property in your hands? Does ownership imply the same thing in the Family as in the outer world?

No; there is a subtle distinction in the relationships between members of the family and all other relationships. There can be no absolute "mine" and "thine" in the home. That would destroy the very possibility of the family. We do not imply that in the home there are no rights or privileges or distinctions of this kind at all. All we assert is that they are qualified in a peculiar manner.

The Family is the realm where the struggle for existence appears in a new form. It is there that we first become conscious of a higher law which separates us from all lower orders of existence, by establishing another and a superior principle over against the right of the strongest. This is one of the supremely beautiful features of the home life. Even in its cruder forms where civilization is less advanced, we see that the method for adjusting claims between different members of a family is on the principle "every one according to his needs." In our earliest years we are initiated into this higher principle, before we pass into the outer world and enter upon that struggle where the dominant law has usually been, "To every man according to what he can get." How willing men oftentimes are to sacrifice their own interests and relinquish what they would especially care for, in order to give a larger share to an invalid brother in the home! It strikes us as normal and natural, because we are educated in that principle from the outset.

I do not see how mankind would ever have come to recognize a higher law, if it had not been for the nurture of the home. When one member of the family shows peculiar gifts or capacities, we are even willing to stand aside and be partially ignored, so that the resources of the home may be concentrated on developing the one gifted member. Out in the world we are not ready to take that standpoint. But within the home we are initiated into it at the outset. If there were no original centre or sphere where we might gradually become accustomed to this other principle in our early life, it is doubtful whether we should ever acknowledge it or act upon it at all. But by this means it becomes the startingpoint for higher distinctions and serves to develop the original ethical spirit.

Within this sphere we are led more and more to appreciate the significance of "the man within the man," and so to comprehend that all ideal relationships ultimately are between the higher selves, the inner subjective men, and not the mere physical beings struggling for existence as members of the animal kingdom. In the very hesitation we shall have, to say definitely to a member of the home, "This is mine," when realizing what we owe to one another, the new and higher spirit awakens, which we believe, in the far-distant future, is to triumph in some form everywhere. The home, therefore, is the one spot where ideals first dawn in our minds, and where we are led to think of a coming ideal Humanity. The distant social ideal can never be realized in the remote centuries hence, unless an esteem for its principles is first aroused and cultivated in these