I can give you a general rule, which your own minds
will approve, and which will meet all cases. Let the sister treat no man
with more courtesy and politeness than she treats her father and her
brothers--treat no woman more kindly and politely than she does her
mother and her sisters. Let her not confine all her graces and
fascinations to strangers, and make her family to endure all her
petulance and unamiability. So let the brother treat his mother and
sisters. So let the father and mother treat each other and their
children, and you will, my readers, obtain a noble reward in the
increasing happiness and comfort of your family circles--in the
manliness which will belong to the sons--in the mental and moral graces
which will adorn the daughters. The family will thus become the school
of virtue and the bulwark of society--the reciprocal influence of
brothers and sisters thus trained will be of untold power on each
other's character.
One word further, and I close. I have been describing the legitimate
influence of religion in a family. True religion will make just such
fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. It is in this way that religion
develops itself; that religion which is beautiful abroad and has no
beauty at home, is of little worth. If, then, you would make your
families what I have described, you must yourself come under the power
of religion, must give your heart to God, and then you will find the
duties of the family becoming comparatively easy.
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