The father undergoes
toil and self-denial to provide a home, and then the mother becomes
a self-sacrificing laborer to train its inmates. The useless,
troublesome infant is served in the humblest offices; while both parents
unite in training it to an equality with themselves in every advantage.
Soon the older children become helpers to raise the younger to a level
with their own. When any are sick, those who are well become
self-sacrificing ministers. When the parents are old and useless, the
children become their self-sacrificing servants.
Thus the discipline of the family state is one of daily self-devotion
of the stronger and wiser to elevate and support the weaker members.
Nothing could be more contrary to its first principles than for the
older and more capable children to combine to secure to themselves the
highest advantages, enforcing the drudgeries on the younger, at the
sacrifice of their equal culture.
Jesus Christ came to teach the fatherhood of God and consequent
brotherhood of man. He came as the "first-born Son" of God and the
Elder Brother of man, to teach by example the self-sacrifice by which
the great family of man is to be raised to equality of advantages as
children of God.
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