The Christian family includes also what heathen Eome called the famil}' in a subordinate sense — the scrran's. Their position, wherever the principles of Christian humanity prevail, is not one of slavery, but is a free moral relation, entered into bj' the consent of both parties, and giving each peculiar rights and duties. The Christian, penetrated with the spirit of his Master, will not lose sight of the fact that this spirit inclined Him much more to serve others than to have them serve Him, and he will not be satisfied by rewarding his servants with wages only, but with all the spiritual blessings of which the family is the prop- er sphere. They should take part in the family wor- ship, and even an active part, as in reading, singing, praying. The more they come to take part in the life of the family, in its interests, its joys, its griefs, and receive from it the sympathy and help they require, either for the l)ody or the mind, the more does the general family lead a realh- Christian life.
The entire life of the Christian family is a continu- ous act of worship in the more extended sense of the word, and must gradually become more and more so, since all its actions are done in the name of Christ and for tlie glory of God. This thoroughly Christian conduct is, however, sustained and strengthened l)j^ the fiimily irorship in the pro])er sense, in which the family, as such, seeks for strength in the Word and in the Spirit of God. The more perfectly this family worship is organized, the more will it resemlile public worship, consisting, like it, in the reading and ex- pounding of Scripture, singing, and prayer. The leader in the religious exercises of the family should be the father, as priestly head of the house. This, however, is not to exclude the co-operation of the
mother, children, and other members of the family; their participation, on the contrary, adds much to the interest of the service, and makes it an admirable sup- plement to public worship, as in the famih' the feeling of trust in each other and of self-dependence add much to liberty in praj'er. This constitutes the true hearth of the family, the centre around which all meet again, from whence they derive light and warmth, and whose genial influences will be felt through life. From the bosom of such a family the spirit of Christianity goes out with its healthful influence into the Church, the school, the state, and even the whole world.
See generally the writers on moral philosophy and Christian ethics, and especially Herzog, Recd-Ericy- Hopddie iv, 318; Rothe, Theolog. Ethik, iii, GOo; Schatf, Apostolical Age, § 111 ; Harris, Patriarchy, or the Fam- i'y (Lond. l<So5, 8vo) ; Anderson, Genius and Design of the Domestic Constitution (Edinb. 182G, 8vo) ; Thiersch, Ueber chnstliches Familienleben (-1th ed. Frankf. 1859 ; translated into several languages).
Family, Holy. One of the most favorite themes of Christian art, from its earliest period in the Cata- combs, has been the presentation of scenes from the infancj' and childhood of the Saviour. The name "holy fiimily" is given especially to those paintings and sculptures in which the parents, Joseph and Mar}-, are worsliipping the infant Saviour, or are hold- ing him up for the adoration of spectators. In a wider sense, it is also applied to the birth of the Saviour, the adoration of the magi, of the shepherds, and of the mj'thical three kings, to the flight into Egypt, the finding of Christ in the Temple disputing witli the doctors, and all other scenes from the childhood of Christ that are drawn from the gospels. Accessory figures of angels, saints, and of persons contemporar}' with Christ or with the artist, and sometimes of the artist or the donor of the painting to the church, are often added. (G. F. C.)
Family of Love. See Familists.
Family prayer. See Family ; Peatee ; Wor- ship.
Famine (properly ^"1, raab', Xij-ior, hunger, whether of individuals or of nations). " In the whole of Syria and Arabia, the fruits of the earth must ever be dependent on rain ; the watersheds having few large springs, and the small rivers not being sufficient for the irrigation of even the level lands. If, therefore, the heavy rains of November and December fiiil, the sustenance of the people is cut off in the parching drought of harvest-time, when the country is almost devoid of moisture. Further, the pastoral trilres rely on the scanty herbage of the desert-plains and valleys for their flocks and herds ; for the desert is interspersed in spring-time with spontaneous vegetation, which is the product of the preceding rain-fall, and fiiils almost totally without it. It is therefore not difficult to con- ceive the frequent occurrence and severity of famines in ancient times, when the scattered population, rather of a pastoral than an agricultural country, was depend- ent on natural phenomena which, however regular in their season, occasionalh- failed, and with them the sustenance of man and beast.
" Egypt, again, owes all its fertility — a fertility that gained for it the striking comparison with the ' garden of the Lord' — to its mighty river, whose annual rise inundates nearly the whole land, and renders its culti- vation an easy certainty. But this vcrj^ bount}' of na- ture has not unfrequently exposed the country to the opposite extreme of drought. With scarcely an}' rain, and that only on the Mediterranean coast, and with wells only supplied liy filtration from the river through a nitrous soil, a failure in the rise of the Nile almost certainly entails a degree of scarcity, although if fol- lowed by cool weather, and if only the occurrence of a single year, the labor of the people may in a great