the
child, will extend to it all the aids within a parent's ability.

Its nature is to yield more of itself to weeping than to rejoicing, to
misery than to joy. The parent will exert more power and do more for the
wretched child than for those of his children who are not in the same
condition. He will leave the latter in their security, and seek the one
lost sheep of his little flock. Thus it exerts a sheltering influence
against the dangers and miseries of human life. It is the law of
home-preservation, written upon the heart, obeyed by the affections, and
impelling each member to yield a voluntary devotion to the welfare of all
the others. It is this which makes it one of the most lovely attributes of
home. It is one of the golden chains that link its members together in
close unity, making one heart of the many that are thus fused together, and
blending into beautiful unison their specific feelings, and hopes and
interests.

It is, therefore, the law of oneness in the family, weaving together, like
warp and woof, the existence of the members, and locking each heart into
one great home-heart, "like the keys of an organ vast," so that if one
heart be out of tune, the home-heart feels the painful jar, and gives forth
discordant sounds. By it we are not only bound to our kindred, but to our
friends, our nation, our race. It impels us to all our acts of benevolence
even to an enemy. Earth would be a dreary scene, and society would be a
curse, if it did not reign in human nature.

Sympathy was a rich and interesting theme with the ancients. It entered
into all their philosophy and religion, and gave rise to numerous fables.
They believed that sympathy was a miraculous principle, and that it reigned
in irrational and inanimate things. Thus they thought that "two harps being
tuned alike, and one being played, the chords of the other would follow the
tune with a faint, sympathetic music." It was also believed that precious
stones sympathized with certain persons, that the stars sympathized with
men, that the efficacy of ointment depended upon sympathy, that "wounds
could be healed at a distance by an ointment whose force depended upon
sympathy, the ointment being smeared upon the weapon, not upon the wound."

Upon this belief many erroneous, superstitious and dangerous systems of
philosophy and religion were established. The natural philosophy of
Baptista Porta, or Albertus Magnus, was founded upon the principle of
sympat