s the one that takes life in terms of service, sees the
days as doors to ways of usefulness, girds itself with the towel, and
finds honor in bending to do the little things for the least of men.
Vain is all family worship, all prayer and praise and catechism, unless
we train the feet to walk this way so that they may visit the
imprisoned, clothe the naked, comfort the sad, and cheer the broken in
heart. The family may make this the normal way to live.

If the family would train boys and girls who shall be true followers of
the great Servant, it must stand among men as a servant, it must see
itself as set in the community to serve, and by habits of service and
helpfulness, by its whole social tone, it must quicken in its own people
the sense of social obligation and a realization of the delight in
self-giving. A home that is selfish in relation to other homes, in
relation to its community, can have no other than selfish, antisocial,
and therefore irreligious children. The first step in the welfare of a
child is to see that the home which constitutes his personal atmosphere
is steeped in the spirit of good-will toward men.

The whole attitude of life is determined by the thought-atmosphere of
the family. The greedy family makes the grafting citizen. The grasping
home makes the pugnacious disturber of the public peace. Greater than
the question whether you are a good citizen in your relation to the
ballot box is the one whether you are a cultivator of good citizenship
in your home. No amount of Sunday-school teaching on the Beatitudes or
week-day teaching on civics is going to overcome the down-drag of
envious, antisocial thought and feeling and conversation in the home.
Home action and attitude count for more than all besides.

It is equally true that no other influence can offset the salutary power
of a truly social home, that the easiest, most natural, and effective
method of teaching social duty and unselfishness is to do our whole
social duty unselfishly.

Sec. 5. FAMILY TRAINING FOR SOCIAL LIVING

The supreme test of the religious life here is ability to live among men
as brothers and to cause the conditions of the divine family to be
realized on earth. If we can realize that the purpose of Jesus was to
bring men into the family of God, that the aim of all religious endeavor
is the family character in men and women and the conditions of that
family in all society, we must surely appreciate the possibility of th