claim. This spirit is
generally the stronger in the brother than in the sister, and he
therefore sins most frequently against the law of love, and he will
treat his sister as he will allow no other young man to do, and will
treat every other young lady with more politeness and courtesy than he
does his own noble-hearted and loving sister. Oh, there is many a
brother, who, if any young man were to say and do what he says and does
to his sister, he would consider him to be no gentleman and a scoundrel.
Now, I would ask, does the fact of your being a brother alter the nature
of your conduct? You are her brother, and therefore may act
ungentlemanly and like a scoundrel! Why, oh, shame, cowardly shame!
because there is no one to resent your ill-treatment--there is no one to
defend a sister from the unkindness of a brother, or to defend the
brother, I may add, from the sister's unkindness; for though I speak to
the brother, let each sister who reads this, ask her conscience whether
her own sister's heart condemn her not.

Time will not allow me to enter into any great detail, in illustrating
the frequency of these violations of the law of family affection, nor
indeed is it needed. I can give you a general rule, which your own minds
will approve, and which will meet all cases. Let the sister treat no man
with more courtesy and politeness than she treats her father and her
brothers--treat no woman more kindly and politely than she does her
mother and her sisters. Let her not confine all her graces and
fascinations to strangers, and make her family to endure all her
petulance and unamiability. So let the brother treat his mother and
sisters. So let the father and mother treat each other and their
children, and you will, my readers, obtain a noble reward in the
increasing happiness and comfort of your family circles--in the
manliness which will belong to the sons--in the mental and moral graces
which will adorn the daughters. The family will thus become the school
of virtue and the bulwark of society--the reciprocal influence of
brothers and sisters thus trained will be of untold power on each
other's character.

One word further, and I close. I have been describing the legitimate
influence of religion in a family. True religion will make just such
fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. It is in this way that religion
develops itself; that religion which is beautiful abroad and has no
beauty at home, is of little worth. If, th