of home."

We shall now consider briefly the religious elements of home-sympathy.
These involve harmony of the spiritual affections, and a transfer to all
the members, of the religious experience and enjoyment of each. As natural
sympathy arises out of and is measured by natural affection, so spiritual
sympathy is the product of faith and love. Hence the latter is purer, more
refined and efficient than the former. If the members of the family are the
children of God, they will live together in the unity of the Spirit as well
as of natural affection. The sympathy of the pious portion will be
interposed in behalf of the salvation of the impenitent members. There will
be an identity of soul-interest. The pious mother will make the everlasting
interests of her husband and child, her own; and will labor with the same
assiduity to promote them as she does to promote her own salvation. She
will thus enter into the spiritual emotions of her kindred, and bear them
vicariously, making thus her religious sympathies the law of preservation
to all the members of her household.

The living stream of this sympathy is given by Christ in His address to the
weeping daughters of Jerusalem: "Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me,
but weep for yourselves and for your children!" The following is also its
living utterance: "My son, if thy heart be wise, my heart shall rejoice,
even mine." We have also a beautiful exhibition of it in the touching
history of Ruth, in the life of Joseph, and in the mother of Samuel. Peter
describes it when he says, "Be all of one mind, having compassion one of
another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous." Esther expresses it
in the exclamation, "How can I endure to see the destruction of my
kindred!" Paul gives utterance to it when he says, "I would be accursed for
my brethren and kindred's sake." Jesus exemplifies it in His intercourse
with the family of Lazarus; He shows its emotion and its active charities
when He stands on the grave of that friend, and weeps, and calls him from
the dead. His sympathy for a lost world is the true pattern of
home-sympathy. It was disinterested, superior to all selfishness,
self-denying, active, and prompting Him to do and suffer all that He did.
It was not measured by the merits of the object after which it yearned. He
sympathized with all,

"For each He had a brother's interest in His heart."

And its softening influence fell, like morning dew, upon the heart of