have it; and that makes between the lowest man and the highest brute
a difference which I hold is as wide as the space between heaven and
earth.

It is man alone, I say, who has the idea of family; and who has,
too, the strange, but most true belief that these family ties are
appointed by God--that they are a part of his religion--that in
breaking them, by being an unfaithful husband, a dishonest servant,
an unnatural son, a selfish brother, he sins, not only against man,
and man's order and laws, but against God.

Parent and child, brother and sister--those ties are not of the
earth earthy, but of the heaven of God, eternal. They may begin in
time; of what happened before we came into this world we know
nought. But having begun, they cannot end. Of what will happen
after we leave this world, that at least we know in part.

Parent and child; brother and sister; husband and wife likewise;
these are no ties of man's invention. They are ties of God's
binding; they are patterns and likenesses of his substance, and of
his being. Of the eternal Father, who says for ever to the eternal
Son, 'This day have I begotten THEE.' Of the Son who says for ever
to the Father, 'I come to do thy will, O God.' Of the Son of God,
Jesus Christ, who is not ashamed to call us his brethren; but like a
greater Joseph, was sent before by God to save our lives with a
great deliverance when our forefathers were but savages and
heathens. Husband and wife likewise--are not they two divine words-
-not human words at all? Has not God consecrated the state of
matrimony to such an excellent mystery, that in it is signified and
represented the mystical union between Christ and his Church? Are