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been sustained, in many cases, by a life of benevolence and self-sacrifice. Willing as we are to do justice to the ability, and the good motives of those who agitate these great problems, it is obviously the duty of the friends of humanity to give a careful attention to their movements, and to prevent if possible the introduction of error. We are ready to give credit for many good suggestions, which will, in due time, produce their appropriate fruits. But it has attracted the painful notice of many true friends of human progress, that propositions have been started, from time to time, which affect the existence of the family.

To build up society by the abolition of the family seems to the Christian a strange idea. This is not to reörganize and to improve society, but to destroy it. As Christians, we are bound to do everything, and, what is more, we shall love to do everything, which will tend to improve the condition, and to increase the happiness, of our fellow-men. But we cannot throw away the Bible; - we cannot violate the first principles of Christianity, especially when they are confirmed by sound reasoning, have their signatures and proofs in the affections, and are strengthened by the lessons of all history. To injure the family by bringing its claims into doubt, by diminishing its purity, or weakening its authority, is to do an injury to society in general. Law, order, the state, intellectual improvement, morals, everything, would fall with the family. And it would so, because the family is of God; and nothing which is of God can be shaken out of its position, or be lost, without causing the most disastrous results.

22. What has now been said leads to another remark, in some degree connected with it. Some persons have supposed, (we hardly know upon what grounds,) that

in the approaching and perfected period of the church, which is conveniently denominated the millennial period, the family institution, admitted by these persons to be necessary until that time, will then be dispensed with. If this view were correct, it would be of but little importance to contend against those erroneous efforts for the immediate reorganization of society, to which we have just now referred.

Perhaps the idea of the millennial extinction of the family has arisen from the imperfections, the sorrows, and the sins, which now attend it. But, it is hardly necessary to say, it is unsound reasoning, which condemns a good thing, especially if it be a great good, on account of the perversions to which it is sometimes liable. Undoubtedly the imperfections and perversions, with which the family is now surrounded, are all destined to cease in that better period; — but it seems to us, that nature, reason, and the Scriptures, all point to the conclusion, that the thing itself, the substance of the institution, will remain. Any other view would, of course, deprive the mind of a centre of love and of spiritual rest in its appropriate sphere of life; and leave it under the necessity of wandering from object to object, of gratifying momentary impulses, of seeking rest and finding none. Such a view presents to us a state of things made worse, instead of being improved; reduction from a higher and holier state to one less perfect; in other words, a millennium retrograde.

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We admit that sin has obscured the ideal of the family, as it existed and as it still exists in the mind of God. We know, very well, that the family does not now present its true aspect. But if it is true that the divine beauty of the original conception is greatly marred, it

is also true that its brightness will be restored with the extinction of the sin which has obscured it.

23. We conclude these views of this important subject with a single remark further. It seems to follow from what has been said, (and the view, we think, might be supported from other sources,) that the social principle will be sustained in full exercise in heaven. It seems to us that the law of sociality, out of which spring families and societies, is universal and eternal. It would, perhaps, not be too much to say, that the perfect development of the social principle constitutes heaven; — and that, on the other hand, perfect isolation, which is the complete or perfected result of selfishness, constitutes hell. It is a great mistake, as the matter presents itself to our apprehension, to suppose that heaven is a solitary place; and much more that it is so spiritualized as to be a mere abstraction, a place without locality, an existence without form, a form without beauty. Heaven has far more substance in it, than such shadowy conceptions would seem to imply. Heaven is not the extinction of existence, nor the mere shadow of existence, but a higher and purer state of existence; the growth and perfection of that, of which we have the obscure idea in the present life.

And, accordingly, reasoning from the identity of truth, which is the same above as it is below, we cannot hesitate in saying, that love is the life of heaven, as it is of earth. And such is the nature of love, that it must have objects there, as it has here. It must have its laws there, as it has here. It must have its great centre and also its subordinate centres there, as it has here. It must fulfil its own ends and grow up into society there, as it does here. To be in heaven, and not to be in the exercise of love, is a contradiction. Angels have their loves;

-and heaven, if they were not allowed to exercise their benevolent affections there, and to group themselves together in bright clusters, in accordance with the constitutive and eternal laws of moral beings, would cease to be heaven to them, and would become a place of sorrow. And it is one of the consolations which God allows us in the present state, in being permitted to believe that the wants of the heart here will be met and solaced hereafter; that those suffering, but holy, ones, who have been smitten and robbed in the rights of the affections here, will find kindred spirits, (celestial stars, as it were, reflecting their own brightness,) who will meet and embrace them, and will wipe away their tears at the threshold of the New Jerusalem.

CHAPTER VII.

OF UNION WITH GOD IN THE WORK OF CIVIL AND NATIONAL REDEMPTION.

The consideration of the family naturally followed by that of society in general. Of the two forms of society, namely, Internal and External. — Internal society the same with civil society. - External the same with international society. — Civil or internal society can be perfected only in proportion as God becomes the lawgiver of it. — Of the law of nations. Defects in this law. -Its ultimate improvement and perfection. Reference to the philanthropist, William Ladd. Extract from a speech of Emile de Girardin.

Ir may, perhaps, be thought, that too much time has been occupied in the consideration of the family. Such a suggestion would not be likely to be made on a full examination of all the facts in the case. The truth is, that the family, considered in the various aspects in which it presents itself, its origin, its history, its perversions, its ennobling joys, its mighty influences, the necessity of protecting it, its gradual perfection,-might well occupy a volume, instead of a few pages. It is a subject, whether we consider its intrinsic nature or the peculiar exigencies of the times, which is worthy of the most extended and able examination which can be given it. The true principles of the family, as well as the practice appropriate to them, its perpetuity as well as its high nature in other respects, ought to be well understood. In all these particulars, undoubtedly, an important work

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