Chap. I.]

THE DOMESTIC RELATIONS.

141

of man, their author, and are not to be compared with theoriginal domestic societies into which we are united by the or-dinance of God himself. In the smallest and most familiarthings, the thoughts of the Almighty are above our thoughts andhis ways above our ways.* We have asylums in which manychildren are fed, clothed, and instructed ; hospitals in which manysick, friendless, and destitute persons are received and cared for,and associations whose object is, to spread the knowledge andblessings of Christianity. All these institutions are useful andvaluable, and do distinguished honor to the age and country inwhich we live. But how many children are fed, clothed, andinstructed in all our asylums, compared with the multitudes whoare thus much more effectually cared for in all the families whichfill the land ? How many sick, friendless, and destitute personsare relieved in all our hospitals, compared with the numberamong us, who, at their own houses are watched over by thenursing care of mothers and sisters, and surrounded and soothedby the tenderness which grows up only in the family circle ?To how many do our religious associations impart the knowledgeand blessings of Christianity, compared with the numbers towhom domestic instruction and example impart their first piousimpressions, and their earliest and most effectual religious training ?

These comparisons are not made in order to depreciate our asy-lums, hospitals, and missionary associations, — far, very far fromit; but that our attention may be distinctly drawn, at the outset,to the importance of our domestic relations and the duties whichoriginate in them, and because we are always in danger of disre-garding and neglecting whatever is familiar and of daily re-currence. That simple and unostentatious society which God hasinstituted, a family , — that refuge from the storms of life, ourhome, raised and consecrated by the holiest instinct of our na-ture, is an establishment worth infinitely more than all the insti-tutions great and small, which man has ever devised. In truth,just as far as this is improved, as its duties are suitably performed,and its blessings prized, all artificial institutions are superseded.Here, then, is the appropriate sphere for the agency of the wise

Isaiah Iv. 8, 9.