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This is the lesson which Christ taught in a parable when He said,

'Their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in

heaven.' Such lessons are only partially realized in any age;

they were foreign to the age of Plato, as they have very

different degrees of strength in different countries or ages of

the Christian world. To the Greek the family was a religious and

customary institution binding the members together by a tie

inferior in strength to that of friendship, and having a less

solemn and sacred sound than that of country. The relationship

which existed on the lower level of custom, Plato imagined that

he was raising to the higher level of nature and reason; while

from the modern and Christian point of view we regard him as

sanctioning murder and destroying the first principles of

morality.