Nor does its importance end here. The method of God is, that the affections shall grow outward from within, and that being trained in kindness at home, men should be prepared to show good will to each other in all the concerns of life. As the patriarchal dispensation, in the grand course of ages, widened into the universality of the gospel, so in every true life, a just family culture is to expand into a generous humanity, that learns at home how to speak of a broader brotherhood, and a higher fatherhood. Whether God’s method is not wiser than man’s let experience show by contracting the windy declamation, that mistakes rhetorical generalities for comprehensive benevolence, and the judicious, unostentatious beneficence that carries out in all its relations the sober good will cherished in a wholesome household discipline, and so on a true pattern strives to build up the larger household of faith. The one begins at the root, and so branches out in blessing—the other would begin with the branches, which wither away when parted from the root.
So then in the will of God, revealed in the constitution of the family, the welfare of its members, the spirit of humanity, we find the foundation of the duties of brothers and sisters. The fraternal sentiment must be in accordance. In all our affections, there must needs be some lights and shades that depend upon the individual’s gifts and experience, for no man is a rule for all, and we must differ in our likings as in our looks. Yet all primal obligations have essential features in common; and the fraternal sentiment, although less instructive than the parental, and more complex than the filial, has quite as decidedly a character of its own. The phrenologist may not locate it in a special organ of the brain, and the metaphysician may not make of it an instinct by itself, but it has its root none the less in nature, and loses no interest from expanding so generously under true associations and culture. When true, the fraternal sentiment unites congeniality with consanguinity, and developes friendship from kindred blood, as the parted branches open into leaves, and blossoms, and fruits, kindred in their aims as their source. Its nature is better shown by tracing out its just influence than by attempting to arrest its flitting shades of hue, or to analyze its constituent elements. Here, too, is the practical bearing of the subject, a bearing which many slight far more from thoughtlessness than from indifference. In what light are brothers or sisters called to regard each other?
Their first obvious duty is that of due consideration for each other. They are to consider each other’s circumstances, needs, trials, dispositions, opportunities, and never allow selfishness or indifference to blind them to what belongs to them in common. Does this need to be said of persons who are so near, as of necessity to be always in each other’s thoughts? Ah, what is more frequent and obvious, than that familiarity tempts indifference, and that our very primal duties, like the stars which are their emblems, are easily forgotten because they may at any time be seen? The things most significant are likely to be near at hand, and religion, like philosophy, finds its chief triumphs in opening the meaning of what God has brought to our very door. A part of the power of absence from home lies in breaking the spell of familiarity, and leading the absent one to look impartially upon the familiar circle, and upon his own place and conduct there. Many a youth or maiden has returned from a journey or voyage wiser far in sense of home duties than proud of the accomplishments of travel. True consideration will not need absence to teach this lesson, but from its calm point of view the absent one will survey the common spheres of life, and try to live for others as under the eye of God.
In each family there will be decided need for mutual consideration, and there must be strife, unless there is mutual deference. All cannot have all the favors, and the division of them may embroil a household as bitterly as the division of an empire has embroiled rival heirs of thrones. Where means are limited, mutual sacrifices not always easy must be made, and few families pass many years without feeling the power of consideration, or of selfishness in meeting the privations that must go round their circle. When means are abundant, and every wish has ready wealth at its command, the form of forbearance may change, but its essential spirit is none the less needed. There will still be differences of talent, looks, manners, opportunities, health, experience, that require in the most prosperous household the same virtues, that give the humblest cottage its dignity and peace. In every family, there will be some call for peculiar consideration or regard to some member of it, according as sickness, infirmity, youth, age, deficient or extraordinary ability, may call upon the stronger to serve the weaker. What wretchedness when the call is slighted, even by one! Who can calculate the mischief wrought by a sensual or reckless brother, who makes every thing secondary to his own passions and pleasures, or by a frivolous and heartless sister, who makes a god of fashion and enslaves the whole house to her monstrous vanity! Who, too, can calculate the influence of a high-minded brother in guiding and cheering the younger members of the family, or of a devoted and judicious sister in soothing every impatient humor with a face in which shines, perhaps, the light of the sainted mother’s countenance? When all unite in some common solicitude, God gives their daily bread and cup a sacramental grace, and from some sufferer whom they watch over together, a mighty blessing, uniting, exalting them all, comes forth, and seems to say in the sacred name, “Ye have done it unto me.”
Consideration will lead to confidence, and will banish deceit, that viper of society, from the hearth-stone, which too often warms it into life. Let confidence begin early, move the lips first lisping for utterance, and continue in maturity, when the world’s folly that sometimes names itself experience shall try to teach disguise as prudence, and artifice as wisdom. Whatever we may think of the confessor, as an official person, confession is founded in the nature of things, and God bids us confess our faults one to another. Who ought to be confidential, if not those whose experience and destiny so unite their lives? I cannot even glance at the chief forms of this confidential relation. One aspect may be specified which is too often forgotten—that between brother and sister. If these were more candid advisers, each would be better for it—each imparting to each the counsel that each can give. With feminine insight and purity, what a kind and gentle, yet strict and earnest censor of youthful excess, the one may be. With manly judgment and honor, what a firm and scrupulous, yet tender and considerate adviser in reference to many follies and dangers may the other be. Giddy as young people often are in their pleasures and caprices, it has sometimes seemed to me, that if a plan of life were to be drawn up by the youth of a family for each other, few treatises of morals would surpass it in purity of spirit or rectitude of principle. Some follies would be sure to fall. Where would intemperance and its kindred vices be, if sisters were taken as counsellors? Where would indecent costumes, immodest dances, equivocal friendships be, if brothers were more frequent advisers? This negative influence is not a tithe of the worth of the relation, which God in his infinite tenderness and wisdom has decreed—a relation so able to enrich ties of nature by every grace of mind and heart, and from likeness and unlikeness of constitution to develope one of the finest harmonies of our being. Its beauty cheers many a dark age of ancient rudeness, and adorns many of the brightest chapters of our modern culture. Would we know what brother and sister have been to each other, listen to the triumphal song of Miriam, as she braced anew the great heart of the law-giver with timbrel and psalm; or look to the grave of Lazarus, where Mary and Martha stood with Him who was the Resurrection and the Life. Do we ask more modern instances, stand under the open heavens and remember how Caroline Herschel shared the vigils of their illustrious explorer—open the pages of Neander, and think of her whose devotedness made a pleasant home of his otherwise solitary study, and encouraged him in his noble work of tracing out the progress of the divine life throughout all the mazes of theological controversy, and making church history a book of the heart, instead of the disputatious understanding. Do we need more—only conjecture the number of cases nearer at hand in which youth have been counselled and helped on through years of preparation to their calling or profession by a sacrifice that looked not to the world for motive, and asked not of the world reward for its success.
I need only name the crowning duty of brothers and sisters—the duty of being mutual helpers, for this is implied in what we have said of consideration and confidence. They whom God has so united should stand by each other in every worthy way—not selfishly exacting favors, but earnest to do good. Too often the contrary has indeed been the case, and history in most conspicuous passages, from the death of Abel and the exposure of Joseph to the wars of the Plantagenets and the feuds of the Bourbons, shows that strifes are bitterest when nearest home, and “a brother offended is indeed harder to be won than a strong city, and their contentions are like the bars of a castle.” Less conspicuous, because less monstrous, are the opposite cases, and Christianity itself leads the noble list of fraternal worthies, by presenting in its first disciples so many who carried ties of blood into bonds of faith, and strove together to the last for the kingdom that would make all brothers in God. The various forms of fraternal aid need not be specified, nor the cases described in which the death of parents or peculiar circumstances enhance the obligation, and the responsibility of parents devolves upon the elder children. Whatever the age, the welfare of children is closely connected with their mutual conduct, and its power reaches not merely to the division of time and cares, but to the highest interests of mind and heart. Firm principle, spiritual faith, devoted purposes, act and react collaterally with great power, and in the social as in the natural world, it is the side light and warmth that most applies the cheering rays from above. Happy the home where true peace dwells between kindred, and all various gifts are held in unity of spirit! While the circle remains unbroken, it is strong against the world. When broken it is still not desolate, and the orphan is not without a helper. There is love enough on earth to join with the love that has gone heavenward to make life cheerful, and keep hope firm.
Let all apply these thoughts. Children, apply them, and be kind in all you do and say. Youth, apply them, and be thoughtful where you are often tempted to be reckless. Elders, apply them, and never allow care or worldliness to chill the better affections of early days. Deep in the heart let the old home live, and its pleasant memories, brightened by kindly offices, open ever into immortal hopes. Old things must pass away, but from the Christian they can only pass away by being all made new—new in a spirit, that remembers best when progressing most, and crowns all friendships with charity divine.