children, who live in brotherhood, who take life as their opportunity
for those family joys of service and sacrifice. It hopes to solve the
world's ills, not by external regulations, but by bringing all men into
a new family life, a birth into this new family life with God, so
securing a new personal environment, a new personality as the center and
root of all social betterment. He who would come into this new social
order must come into the divine family, must humble himself and become
as a little child, must know his Father and love his brothers.

Christianity, then, not only seeks an ideal family; it makes the family
the ideal social institution and order. It makes family life holy,
sacramental, religious in its very nature. This fact gives added
importance to the preservation and development of the ideals of family
life for the sake of their religious significance and influence. It not
only makes religion a part of the life of the home but makes a religious
purpose the very reason for the existence of the Christian type of home.
It makes our homes essentially religious institutions, to be judged by
religious products.


I. References for Study

G.A. Coe, _Education in Religion and Morals_, chap. xvi. Revell,
$1.35.

Article on "The Family," in Hastings, _Encyclopaedia of Religion
and Ethics_.


II. Further Reading