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THE RELATIVE DUTIES OF MANKIND. [Part III.

kind, no objects can be more amiable or more delightful thandutiful and virtuous children, who, in after life, fulfil the promiseof their early years. This, and this alone, is honoring theirparents in the full meaning of that term, — and this alone isrendering to parents the true “pretia nascendi” of the classicalwriters. “ He who,” says Dr. Brown, “ in the fulfilment ofevery filial duty, has obeyed as a son should obey, and loved asa son should love, may not, indeed, with all his obedience andaffection, have been able to return an amount of benefit equal tothat which he has received ; but, in being thus virtuous, he hasat least made the return that is most grateful to a virtuous parent’sheart. He has not been unsuccessful in that contest of mutuallove, in which, as Seneca truly says, “it is happy to conquer,and happy to be overcome.” *

SECTION III.

OF BROTHERS, SISTERS, AND MORE REMOTE RELATIONS.

The more remote domestic relations, whether of consanguinity,(blood,) or affinity, (marriage,) are also worthy of being re-spected and carefully cherished. In regard to the brothers andsisters of the same household especially, two particulars oughtto attract and receive notice and illustration.

1. This relation furnishes the natural occasions of permanentfriendships and intimacies, which, in after life, soften the cares,relieve the anxieties, enlarge the sphere of enjoyment, and oftencontribute to the success and usefulness of life itself. Therecollections of the brothers and sisters of the same family, if thecircumstances of their birth and nurture have been but ordinarilyfavorable, must be a bond, in all after life, of the strongest mutualsympathy, interest, and attachment. Their remembrances of oneanother go back even to the caresses and endearments of thenursery, in which their infant pains, vexations, and peevishnesswere soothed by the same gentle voice of maternal tendernessand love, — in which they were taught to lisp their earliest

* Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. III. pp. 372, 373.