154 A Walk from 



family circle, or the first independent community ? 

 How can you give it cohesion and harmony ? Extend 

 the radii of family relationship and influence to its cir- 

 cumference in every direction. Throne the sovereign 

 in a parent's chair, to execute a father's laws. He 

 shall treat them as children, and they each other as 

 brethren. Here is a grand programme for human 

 society. Here is a vigorous discipline for the way- 

 ward will and temper of the human heart. How is a 

 man to feel and act in these new conditions ? How is 

 he to regulate his hates and loves, his passions and 

 appetites, to comply properly with these extended and 

 complicated relationships ? 



About half way from Adam's day to ours$ there came 

 an utterance from Mount Sinai that anticipated and 

 answered these questions once for all, and for one and 

 all. In that august revelation of the Divine Mind, 

 every command of the Decalogue swung open upon the 

 pivot of a not, except one ; and that one referred to 

 man's duty to man, and the promise attached to its 

 fulfilment was only an earthly enjoyment. All the 

 rest were restrictive ; to curb this appetite, to bar that 

 passion, to hedge this impulse, to check that disposi- 

 tion ; in a word, to hold back the hand from open and 

 positive transgression. Even the first, relating to His 

 own Godhead and requirements, was but the first of 



