Thus far we have considered our fellow-men as units, with whom it is our privilege and duty to come into external relations. These external relations after all do not reach the deepest center of our lives. They indeed bind man to man in bonds of helpfulness and service. But the two who are thus united remain two separate selves after all. Even friendship leaves unsatisfied yearnings, undeveloped possibilities in human hearts. However subtle and tender the bond may be, it remains to the last physical rather than chemical; mechanical rather than vital; the outward attachment of mutually exclusive wholes, rather than the inner blending of complemental elements which lose their separate selfhood in the unity of a new and higher life. The beginning of this true spiritual life, in which the individual loses his separate self to find a larger and nobler self in a common good in which each individual shares, and which none may monopolize;--the birthplace of the soul as of the body is in the family. The nursery of virtue, the inspirer of devotion, the teacher of self-sacrifice, the institutor of love, the family is the foundation of all those higher and nobler qualities of mind and heart which lift man above the level of sagacious brutes. THE DUTY. +The family a common good.+--Membership in the family involves the recognition that the true life of the individual is to be found only in union with other members; in regard for their rights; in deference to their wishes; and in devotion to that common interest in which each member shares. Each member must live for the sake of the whole family. Children owe to their parents obedience, and such service as they are able to render. Parents, on the other hand, owe to children support, training, and an education sufficient to give them a fair start in life. Brothers and sisters owe to each other mutual helpfulness and protection. All joys and sorrows, all hopes and fears, all plans and purposes should be talked over, and carried out in common. No parent should have a plan or ambition or enthusiasm into which he does not invite the confidence and sympathy of his child. No child should cherish a thought or purpose or imagination which he cannot share with father or mother. It is the duty of the parent to enter sympathetically into the sports and recreations and studies and curiosities of the child. It is the duty of the child to interest himself in whatever the father and mother are doing to support the family and promote its welfare. Between parent and child, brother and sister, there should be no secrets; no ground on which one member lives in selfish isolation from the rest.