The words Family--Home--Household--all express one idea. They imply a relationship existing between certain individuals, a circle or sphere separate from the mass of human beings, within which there are special duties to be performed and a special life has to be lived. It is not necessary to define particularly what is meant by the word Family, for it is well understood by all of us. Family life is peculiar to man.--The lower animals have nothing in all respects resembling it. In some particulars their mode of life occasionally approaches it, but not in all. The birds of the air, for instance, care tenderly for their offspring, but when these come to maturity the relation between them and their parents comes to an end. The family relation on the other hand lasts through life, and is only broken by the hand of death, if even then. The family has been instituted by God for the welfare of man. The condition in which we come into the world requires it--our training for the work of life demands it--it is specially adapted to promote the great ends of human existence. Family life is that which most truly leaves its mark upon us.--In the family habits are formed which make us what we are for the rest of our life. Home influences accompany us to the very end of our journey. Let any one ask himself what are the chief sources of his virtues, and he will feel that a large proportion of them are derived directly or indirectly from association with his fellow-creatures in the family. The training of parents, the affection and influence of mothers and sisters, powerfully and lastingly affect our intellectual and moral nature. From a wise father we learn more than from all our teachers. When a celebrated artist, Benjamin West, was asked "What made him a painter?" his reply was, "It was my mother's kiss." "I should have been an atheist," said a great American statesman, "if it had not been for one recollection, and that was the memory of the time when my departed mother used to take my little hand in hers, and caused me on my knees to say, 'Our Father, who art in heaven.'" On the other hand, those who have been so unfortunate as to have had an unhappy home rarely emancipate themselves from the evil effects of their upbringing. If they do, it is after the severest struggle. "The child," it has been said, "is the father of the man," and it is in the family the child receives his first impressions for good or for evil. The world he first lives in is his home.