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IV

Inversion of Truth....

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Jesus Christ.

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John Anderson, My Joe..

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Present Aspect of Society, The..108 Proverbs of Nations Compared..163 Prairie Fire and the Rum Fire

Kind Words....

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The.....

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Kingdom of Darkness, The....

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Poems of the Fifteenth Century..212

Katydid, The....

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Pilgrims in a Circle....

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Law and Eminent Rogues, The..

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Rain, The...

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Lord's Prayer, The..

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Ruth....

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Little Girls Grave, The.

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Read an Hour a Day.

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Letter of a Dying Wife..

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Rain Drops, The...

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Lord's Prayer, The..

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Should I Study Law or Divinity?. 27

Lottery Frauds...

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Sweet Sounds....

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Love's Law of Sacrifice.

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Let Me In.......

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St. Paul's Person and Thorn in the Flesh....

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Laura Amanda's Grave

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My Spelling Book

33, 88, 97, 129, 177, 203

My Mother's Gold Ring..

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Spright, Earnest Young Man.The.100 Spirit of the Lord's Prayer, The..181 Spring Song of the Lovely, The..161 Sociability..

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Memory of the Dead, The.

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Soul's Aspirations, The.

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Mother's Grave...

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Summer Visit, The....

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Mary Magdalene.

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Stanzas.

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Magic Mirrors.

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Sudden Death in Full Dress...

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Mother Moulds the Man. The....162

The Late Thomas Hart Benton...145

Manger and the Cross, The.

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Tears and Blushes....

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Memory of the Dead...

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The Two Voyagers..

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Mother of Pearl..

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The Twin Fishers.

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Model Mother, The..

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That Lonely Light..

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My Mother's Voice... Mischief Makers...

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The Nails are Gone but the Marks

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are There.

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Mechanics' Evening Hours.

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Two Years in Heaven

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Ministry of Angels, The...

.355 The Two Prophets..

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Man and Woman...

.377 The Tulipomania.

314

New Year's Eve

5

Thoughts for The Guardian

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Not Understood

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The Marriage Relation...

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Nick-Names

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Unhappy Marriages...

223

Not Lost, but Gone Before.

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Vespers...

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Only One Life...

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Working for a Good Name.

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Old Hundredth.

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Where are the Boys and Girls?.. 50

Our Earthly Friends in Heaven..106

Washington's Church,.

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Old Customs in Prayer...

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Washington....

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Our Daily Bread..

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Old Garden, The.

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What it is to Lie, and How Easy.206 Water Lily, The..

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Poor Boys and Great Men.

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Year One, The..

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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

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