It is impossible for religious to love their brethren with a true, sincere, pure, and constant love if they do not look at them in this light. IV THE FAMILY SPIRIT BASED on the foregoing principles, fraternal charity begets the family spirit--that spirit which forgets itself in thinking only of the common good; which makes particular give way to general interests; which forces oneself to live with all without exception, to live as all without singularity, and to live for all without self-seeking; that spirit which, binding like a Divine cement all parts of the mysterious edifice of religion, uniting all hearts in one and all wills in one, permits the community to proceed firmly and securely, and its members to work out efficaciously and peacefully their personal sanctification and perfection; in fine, that spirit which gives to all religious not only an inexpressible family happiness, but a delicious foretaste of heaven, which renders them invincible to their enemies, and causes to be said of them with admiration: "See how they love one another!" Writing on these words of the Psalmist, "Behold how good and pleasant it is for brethren to live together in union," St. Augustine cries out: "Behold the words which make monasteries spring up! Sweet, delightful, and delicious words which fill the soul and ear with jubilation." Yes, certainly the happiness of community life is great and its advantages inappreciable; but without the family spirit there is no community, as there would be no beauty in the human body without harmony in its members. Oh, never forget this comparison, you who wish to live happy in religion, and who wish to make others happy. A community is a body. Now, as the members of a body, each in its proper place and functions, live in perfect harmony, mutually comfort, defend, and love each other, without being jealous or vengeful, and have only in view the well-being of that body of which they are parts, so in the community of which you are members and in the employment assigned to you. Remember you are parts of a whole, and that it is necessary to refer to this whole your time, labour, and strength; to have the same thoughts, sentiments, designs, and language, without which there would no longer exist either body, members, parts, or whole. If you wish, then, to obtain and practise the family spirit, study what passes within you. Your actions bespeak your sentiments. V EGOTISM, OR SELF-SEEKING EGOTISM, taking for its motto "Every one for himself," is very much opposed to fraternal charity and the family spirit. It never hesitates, when occasion offers, to sacrifice the common good to its own. It isolates the individuals, makes them concentrated in self, places them in the community, but not of it, makes them strangers amongst their brethren, and tends to justify the words of an impious writer, who calls monasteries "reunions of persons who know not each other, who live without love, and die without being regretted."