Lastly, we will now consider that other instinct of our nature, which, even as the strongest, most requires moral regulation and treatment. By all noble natures among civilized nations, in their best and purest times, this instinct has, by means of various moral relations, been spontaneously associated with a higher element. And, indeed, taken simply as inclination, it possesses some degree of affinity therewith. Such a strong inclination and hearty love, elevated to the bond of fidelity, receives thereby a solemn consecration, and is even, according to the divine dispensation, regarded as a sanctuary. And it is in truth the moral sanctuary of earthly existence, on which God’s first and earliest blessing still rests. It is, moreover, the foundation on which is built the happiness and the moral welfare of races and nations. This soul-connecting link of love, which constitutes the family union, is the source from which emanate the strong and beautiful ties of a mother’s love, of filial duty, and of fraternal affection between brethren and kindred, which together make up the invisible soul, and, as it were, the inner vital fluid of the nerves of human society. And here, too, the great family problem of education must be taken into account--and by education I mean the whole moral training of the rising generation. For, however numerous and excellent may be the institutions founded by the state, or conducted by private individuals, for special branches and objects, or for particular classes and ages, still, on the whole, education must be regarded as pre-eminently the business and duty of the family. For it is in the family that education commences, and there, also, it terminates and concludes at the moment when the young man, mature of mind and years, and the grown-up maiden, leave the paternal roof to found a new family of their own. In seasons of danger, and of wide-spread and stalking corruption, men are wont to feel--but often, alas! too late--how entirely the whole frame, both of human and political society, rests on this foundation of the family union. Not merely by the phenomena of our own times, but by the examples of the most civilized nations of antiquity, may this truth be historically proved; and numerous passages can be adduced from their great historians in confirmation of it. In all times and in all places a moral revolution within the domestic circle has preceded the public outbreaks of general anarchy, which have thrown whole nations into confusion, and undermined the best-ordered and wisely-constituted states. When all the principal joists of a building have started, and all its stays and fastenings, from the roof to the foundation, have become loose, then will the first storm of accident easily demolish the whole structure, or the first spark set the dry and rotten edifice in flames.