Life

Golden Gems

Life

Wecan conceive of no spectacle better calculated to lead the mind to serious reflections than that of an aged person, who has misspent a long life, and who, when standing near the end of life's journey, looks down the long vista of his years, only to recall opportunities unimproved. Now that it is all too late, he can plainly see where he passed by in heedless haste the real "gems of life" in pursuit of the glittering gewgaws of pleasure, but which, when gained, like the apples of Sodom, turned to ashes in his very grasp. What a different course would he pursue would time but turn backwards in his flight and he be allowed to commence anew to weave the "tangled web of life." But this is not vouchsafed him. Regrets are useless, save when they awaken in the minds of youth a wish to avoid errors and a desire to gather only the true "jewels of life."

Life, with its thousand voices wailing and exulting, reproving and exalting, is calling upon you. Arouse, and gird yourself for the race. Up and onward, and

"Waking,Be awake to sleep no more."

"Waking,

Be awake to sleep no more."

Not alone by its ultimate destiny, but by its immediate obligations, uses, enjoyment, and advantages, must be estimated the infinite and untold value of life. It is a great mission on which you are sent. It is the choicest gift in the bounty of heaven committed to your wise and diligent keeping, and is associated with countless benefits and priceless boons which heaven alone has power to bestow. But, alas! its possibilities for woe are equal to those of weal.

It is a crowning triumph or a disastrous defeat, garlands or chains, a prison or a prize. We need the eloquence of Ulysses to plead in our behalf, the arrows of Hercules to do battle on our side. It is of the utmost importance to you to make the journey of life a successful one. To do so you must begin with right ideas. If you are mistaken in your present estimates it is best to be undeceived at the first, even though it cast a shadow on your brow. It is true, that life is not mean, but it is grand. It is also a real and earnest thing. It has homely details, painful passages, and a crown of care for every brow.

We seek to inspire you with a wish and a will to meet it with a brave spirit. We seek to point you to its nobler meanings and its higher results. The tinsel with which your imagination has invested itwill all fall off of itself so soon as you have fairly entered on its experience. So we say to you, take up life's duties now, learn something of what life is before you take upon yourself its great responsibilities.

Great destinies lie shrouded in your swiftly passing hours; great responsibilities stand in the passages of every-day life; great dangers lie hidden in the by-paths of life's great highway; great uncertainty hangs over your future history. God has given you existence, with full power and opportunity to improve it and be happy; he has given you equal power to despise the gift and be wretched; which you will do is the great problem to be solved by your choice and conduct. Your bliss or misery in two worlds hangs pivoted in the balance.

With God and a wish to do right in human life it becomes essentially a noble and beautiful thing. Every youth should form at the outset of his career the solemn purpose to make the most and the best of the powers which God has given him, and to turn to the best possible account every outward advantage within his reach. This purpose must carry with it the assent of the reason, the approval of the conscience, the sober judgment of the intellect. It should thus embody within itself whatever is vehement in desire, inspiring in hope, thrilling in enthusiasm, and intense in desperate resolve. To live a life with such a purpose is a peerless privilege, no matter at what cost of transient pain or unremitting toil.

It is a thing above professions, callings, and creeds. It is a thing which brings to its nourishment all good, and appropriates to its development of power all evil. It is the greatest and best thing under the whole heavens. Place can not enhance its honor; wealth can not add to its value. Its course lies through true manhood and womanhood; through true fatherhood and motherhood; through true friendship and relationship of all legitimate kinds—of all natural sorts whatever. It lies through sorrow and pain and poverty and all earthly discipline. It lies through unswerving trust in God and man. It lies through patient and self-denying heroism. It lies through all heaven prescribed and conscientious duty; and it leads as straight to heaven's brightest gate as the path of a sunbeam leads to the bosom of a flower.

Many of you to-day are just starting on the duties of active life. The volume of the future lies unopened before you. Its covers are illuminated by the pictures of fancy, and its edges are gleaming with the golden tints of hope. Vainly you strive to loosen its wondrous clasp; 'tis a task which none but the hand of Time can accomplish. Life is before you—not earthly life alone, but life; a thread running interminably through the warp of eternity. It is a sweet as well as a great and wondrous thing. Man may make life what he pleases and give it as much worth, both for himself and others, as he has energy for.

The journey is a laborious one, and you must not expect to find the road all smooth. And whetherrich or poor, high or low, you will be disappointed if you build on any other foundation. Take life like a man; take it just as though it was as it is—an earnest, vital, essential affair. Take it just as though you personally were born to the task of performing a merry part in it—as though the world had waited for your coming. Live for something, and for something worthy of life and its capabilities and opportunities, for noble deeds and achievements. Every man and every woman has his or her assignments in the duties and responsibilities of daily life. We are in the world to make the world better, to lift it up to higher levels of enjoyment and progress, to make the hearts and homes brighter and happier by devoting to our fellows our best thoughts, activities, and influences.

It is the motto of every true heart and the genius of every noble life that no man liveth to himself—lives chiefly for his own selfish good. It is a law of our intellectual and moral being that we promote our own real happiness in the exact proportions we contribute to the comfort and happiness of others. Nothing worthy the name of happiness is the experience of those who live only for themselves, all oblivious to the welfare of their fellows. That only is the true philosophy which recognizes and works out the principle in daily life that—

"Life was lent for noble deeds."

Life embraces in its comprehensiveness a just return of failure and success as the result of individualperseverance and labor. Live for something definite and practical; take hold of things with a will, and they will yield to you and become the ministers of your own happiness and that of others. Nothing within the realm of the possible can withstand the man or woman who is intelligently bent on success. Every person carries within the key that unlocks either door of success or failure. Which shall it be? All desire success; the problem of life is its winning.

Strength, bravery, dexterity, and unfaltering nerve and resolution must be the portion and attribute of those who resolve to pursue fortune along the rugged road of life. Their path will often lie amid rocks and crags, and not on lawns and among lilies. A great action is always preceded by a great purpose. History and daily life are full of examples to show us that the measure of human achievements has always been proportional to the amount of human daring and doing. Deal with questions and facts of life as they really are. What can be done, and is worth doing, do with dispatch; what can not be done, or would be worthless when done, leave for the idlers and dreamers along life's highway.

Life often presents us with a choice of evils instead of good; and if any one would get through life honorably and peacefully he must learn to bear as well as forbear, to hold the temper in subjection to the judgment, and to practice self-denial in small as well as great things. Human life is a watch-tower. It is the clear purpose of God that every one—theyoung especially—should take their stand on this tower, to look, listen, learn, wherever they go and wherever they tarry. Life is short, and yet for you it may be long enough to lose your character, your constitution, or your estate; or, on the other hand, by diligence you can accomplish much within its limits.

If the sculptor's chisel can make impressions on marble in a few hours which distant eyes shall read and admire, if the man of genius can create work in life that shall speak the triumph of mind a thousand years hence, then may true men and women, alive to the duty and obligations of existence, do infinitely more. Working on human hearts and destinies, it is their prerogative to do imperishable work, to build within life's fleeting hours monuments that shall last forever. If such grand possibilities lie within the reach of our personal actions in the world how important that we live for something every hour of our existence, and for something that is harmonious with the dignity of our present being and the grandeur of our future destiny!

A steady aim, with a strong arm, willing hands, and a resolute will, are the necessary requisites to the conflict which begins anew each day and writes upon the scroll of yesterday the actions that form one mighty column wherefrom true worth is estimated. One day's work left undone causes a break in the great chain that years of toil may not be able to repair. Yesterday was ours, but it is gone; today is all we possess, for to-morrow we may neversee; therefore, in the golden hour of the present the seeds are planted whereby the harvest for good or evil is to be reaped.

To endure with cheerfulness, hoping for little, asking for much, is, perhaps, the true plan. Decide at once upon a noble purpose, then take it up bravely, bear it off joyfully, lay it down triumphantly. Be industrious, be frugal, be honest, deal with kindness with all who come in your way, and if you do not prosper as rapidly as you would wish depend upon it you will be happy.

The web of life is drawn into the loom for us, but we weave it ourselves. We throw our own shuttle and work our own treadle. The warp is given us, but the woof we furnish—find our own materials, and color and figure it to suit ourselves. Every man is the architect of his own house, his own temple of fame. If he builds one great, glorious, and honorable, the merit and the bliss are his; if he rears a polluted, unsightly, vice-haunted den, to himself the shame and misery belongs.

Life is often but a bitter struggle from first to last with many who wear smiling faces and are ever ready with a cheerful word, when there is scarcely a shred left of the hopes and opportunities which for years promised happiness and content. But it is human still to strive and yearn and grope for some unknown good that shall send all unrest and troubles to the winds and settle down over one's life with a halo of peace and satisfaction. The rainbow of hope is always visible in the future. Life is like a windinglane—on either side bright flowers and tempting fruits, which we scarcely pause to admire or taste, so eager are we to pass to an opening in the distance, which we imagine will be more beautiful; but, alas! we find we have only hastened by these tempting scenes to arrive at a desert waste.

We creep into childhood, bound into youth, sober into manhood, and totter into old age. But through all let us so live that when in the evening of life the golden clouds rest sweetly and invitingly upon the golden mountains, and the light of heaven streams down through the gathering mists of death, we may have a peaceful and joyous entrance into that world of blessedness, where the great riddle of life, whose meaning we can only guess at here below, will be unfolded to us in the quick consciousness of a soul redeemed and purified.

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Home

"Home is the resortOf love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,Supporting and supported, polished friendsAnd dear relations mingle into bliss."

"Home is the resort

Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where,

Supporting and supported, polished friends

And dear relations mingle into bliss."

Home!That word touches every fiber of the soul, and strikes every chord of the human heart with its angelic fingers. Nothing but death can break its spell. What tender associations are linked with home! What pleasingimages and deep emotions it awakens! It calls up the fondest memories of life, and opens in our nature the purest, deepest, richest gush of consecrated thought and feeling.

To the little child, home is his world—he knows no other. The father's love, the mother's smile, the sister's embrace, the brother's welcome, throw about his home a heavenly halo, and make it as attractive to him as the home of angels. Home is the spot where the child pours out all his complaint, and it is the grave of all his sorrows. Childhood has its sorrows and its grievances; but home is the place where these are soothed and banished by the sweet lullaby of a fond mother's voice.

Ask the man of mature years, whose brow is furrowed by care, whose mind is engrossed in business,—ask him what is home. He will tell you: "It is a place of rest, a haven of content, where loved ones relieve him of the burden of every-day life, too heavy to be continuously borne, from whence, refreshed and invigorated, he goes forth to do battle again."

Ask the lone wanderer as he plods his weary way, bent with the weight of years and white with the frosts of age,—ask him what is home. He will tell you: "It is a green spot in memory, an oasis in the desert, a center about which the fondest recollection of his grief-oppressed heart clings with all the tenacity of youth's first love. It was once a glorious, a happy reality; but now it rests only as an image of the mind."

Wherever the heart wanders it carries the thoughtof home with it. Wherever by the rivers of Babylon the heart feels its loss and loneliness, it hangs its harp upon the willows, and weeps. It prefers home to its chief joy. It will never forget it; for there swelled its first throb, there were developed its first affections. There a mother's eye looked into it, there a father's prayer blessed it, there the love of parents and brothers and sisters gave it precious entertainment. There bubbled up, from unseen fountains, life's first effervescing hopes. There life took form and consistence. From that center went out all its young ambition. Towards that focus return its concentrating memories. There it took form and fitted itself to loving natures; and it will carry that impress wherever it may go, unless it becomes polluted by sin or makes to itself another home sanctified by a new and more precious affection.

There is one vision that never fades from the soul, and that is the vision of mother and of home. No man in all his weary wanderings ever goes out beyond the overshadowing arch of home. Let him stand on the surf-beaten coast of the Atlantic, or roam over western wilds, and every dash of the wave or murmur of the breeze will whisper home, sweet home! Let him down amid the glaciers of the north, and even there thoughts of home, too warm to be chilled by the eternal frosts, will float in upon him. Let him rove through the green, waving groves and over the sunny slopes of the south, and in the smile of the soft skies, and in the kiss of the balmy breeze, home will live again. Let prosperity reward his everyexertion, and wealth and affluence bring round him all the luxury of the earth, yet in his marble palace will rise unforbidden the vision of his childhood's home. Let misfortune overtake him; let poverty be his portion, and hunger press him; still in troubled dreams will his thoughts revert to his olden home.

If you wanted to gather up all tender memories, all lights and shadows of the heart, all banquetings and reunions, all filial, fraternal, paternal, conjugal affections, and had only just four letters to spell out all height and depth, and length and breadth, and magnitude and eternity of meaning, you would write it all out with the four letters that spell Home.

What beautiful and tender associations cluster thick around that word! Compared with it, wealth, mansion, palace, are cold, heartless terms. But home,—that word quickens every pulse, warms the heart, stirs the soul to its depths, makes age feel young again, rouses apathy into energy, sustains the sailor in his midnight watch, inspires the soldier with courage on the field of battle, and imparts patient endurance to the worn-out sons of toil.

The thought of it has proved a sevenfold shield to virtue; the very name of it has a spell to call back the wanderer from the path of vice; and, far away where myrtles bloom and palm-trees wave, and the ocean sleeps upon coral strands, to the exile's fond fancy it clothes the naked rock, or stormy shore, or barren moor, or wild height and mountain, with charms he weeps to think of, and longs once more to see.

Every home should be as a city set on a hill, that can not be hid. Into it should flock friends and friendship, bringing the light of the world, the stimulus and the modifying power of contact with various natures, the fresh flowers of feeling gathered from wide fields. Out of it should flow benign charities, pleasant amenities, and all those influences which are the natural offspring of a high and harmonious home-life.

The home is the fountain of civilization. Our laws are made in the home. The things said there give bias to character far more than do sermons and lectures, newspapers and books. No other audience are so susceptible and receptive as those gathered about the table and fireside; no other teachers have the acknowledged and divine right to instruct that is granted without challenge to parents. The foundation of our national life is under their hand. They can make it send forth waters bitter or sweet, for the death or the healing of the people.

The influences of home perpetuate themselves. The gentle graces of the mother live in the daughter long after her head is pillowed in the dust of death; and the fatherly kindness finds its echoes in the nobility and character of sons who come to wear his mantle and fill his place. While, on the other hand, from an unhappy, misgoverned, and ill-ordered home, go forth persons who shall make other homes miserable, and perpetuate the sorrows and sadness, the contentions and strifes, which have made their own early lives miserable. In every proper sense in whichhome can be considered, it is a powerful stimulant to noble actions and a high and pure morality. So valuable is this love of home that every man should cherish it as the apple of his eye. As he values his own moral worth, as he prizes his country, the peace and happiness of the world; yea, more, as he values the immortal interests of man, he should cherish and cultivate a strong and abiding love of home.

Home has voices of experience and hearts of genuine holy love, to instruct you in the way of life, and to save you from a sense of loneliness as you gradually discover the selfishness of mankind. Home has its trials, in which are imaged forth the stern struggles of your after years, that your character may gain strength and manifestation, for which purpose they are necessary; they open the portals of his heart, that the jewels otherwise concealed in its hidden depths may shine forth and shed their luster on the world. Home has its duties, to teach you how to act on your own responsibilities. Home gradually and greatly increases its burdens, so that you may acquire strength to endure without being overtasked. Home is a little world, in which the duties of the great world are daily rehearsed.

He who has no home has not the sweetest pleasures of life. He feels not the thousand endearments that cluster around that hallowed spot, to fill the void of his aching heart, and while away his leisure moments in the sweetest of life's enjoyments. Is misfortune your lot, you will find a friendly welcome from hearts beating true to your own. The chosenpartner of your toil has a smile of approbation when others have deserted you, a hand of hope when all others refuse, and a heart to feel your sorrows as her own. No matter how humble that home may be, how destitute its stores, or how poorly its inmates may be clad, if true hearts dwell there, it is still a home.

Of all places on earth, home is the most delicate and sensitive. Its springs of action are subtle and secret. Its chords move with a breath. Its fires are kindled with a spark. Its flowers are bruised with the least rudeness. The influences of our homes strike so directly on our hearts that they make sharp impressions. In our intercourse with the world we are barricaded, and the arrows let fly at our hearts are warded off; but not so with us at home. Here our hearts wear no covering, no armor. Every arrow strikes them; every cold wind blows full upon them; every storm beats against them. What, in the world, we would pass by in sport, in our homes would wound us to the quick. Very little can we bear at home, for it is a sensitive place.

If we would have a true home, we must guard well our thoughts and actions. A single bitter word may disquiet the home for a whole day; but, like unexpected flowers which spring up along our path full of freshness, fragrance, and beauty, so do kind words and gentle acts and sweet disposition make glad the home where peace and blessing dwell. No matter how humble the abode, if it be thus garnished with grace and sweetened by kindness and smiles,the heart will turn lovingly towards it from all the tumults of the world, and home, "be it ever so humble," will be the dearest spot under the sun.

There is no happiness in life, there is no misery, like that growing out of the disposition which consecrates or desecrates a home. "He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace at home." Home should be made so truly home that the weary, tempted heart could turn towards it anywhere on the dusty highways of life, and receive light and strength. It should be the sacred refuge of our lives, whether rich or poor.

The affections and loves of home are graceful things, especially among the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and proud to home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to his humble hearth are of the true metal, and bear the stamp of heaven. These affections and loves constitute the poetry of human life, and so far as our present existence is concerned, with all the domestic relations, are worth more than all other social ties. They give the first throb to the heart, and unseal the deep fountains of its love. Homes are not made up of material things. It is not a fine house, rich furniture, a luxurious table, a flowery garden, and a superb carriage, that make a home. Vastly superior to this is a true home. Our ideal homes should be heart-homes, in which virtue lives and love-flowers bloom and peace-offerings are daily brought to its altars. It is made radiant within with every social virtue, and beautiful without by those simple adornmentswith which nature is every-where so prolific. The children born in such homes will leave them with regret, and come back to them in after life as pilgrims to a holy shrine. The towns on whose hills and in whose vales such homes are found will live forever in the hearts of its grateful children.

How easy it is to invest homes with true elegance, which resides not with the upholsterer or draper! It exists in the spirit presiding over the apartments of the dwelling. Contentment must be always most graceful; it sheds serenity over the scenes of its abode; it transforms a waste into a garden. The house lighted by those imitations of a nobler and brighter life may be wanting much which the discontented may desire, but to its inhabitants it will be a palace far outvying the Oriental in beauty.

There is music in the word Home. To the old it brings a bewitching strain from the harp of memory, to the middle-aged it brings up happy thoughts, while to the young it is a reminder of all that is near and dear to them. Our hearts turn with unchangeable love and longing to the dear old home which sheltered us in childhood. Kind friends may beckon us to newer scenes, and loving hearts may bind us fast to other pleasant homes; but we love to return to the home of our childhood. It may be old and rickety to the eyes of strangers; the windows may have been broken and patched long ago, and the floor worn through; but it is still the old home from out of which we looked at life with hearts full of hope, building castles which faded long ago. Herewe watched life come and go; here we folded still, cold hands over hearts as still, that once beat full of love for us.

Even as the sunbeam is composed of millions of minute rays, the home-life must be constituted of little tendernesses, kind looks, sweet laughter, gentle words, loving counsels. It must not be like the torch blaze of natural excitement, which is easily quenched, but like the serene, chastened light, which burns as safely in the dry east wind as in the stillest atmosphere. Let each bear the other's burden the while; let each cultivate the mutual confidence which is a gift capable of increase and improvement, and soon it will be found that kindness will spring up on every side, displacing unsuitability, want of mutual knowledge, even as we have seen sweet violets and primroses dispelling the gloom of the gray sea-rocks.

The sweetest type of heaven is home. Nay, heaven itself is the home for whose acquisition we are to strive most strongly. Home in one form or another is the great object of life. It stands at the end of every day's labor, and beckons us to its bosom; and life would be cheerless and meaningless did we not discern across the river that divides it from the life beyond glimpses of the pleasant mansions prepared for us. Yes, heaven is the home towards which those who have lived aright direct their steps when wearied by the toils of life. There the members of the homes on earth, separated here, will meet again, to part no more.

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Home Circle

Thehome circle may be, ought to be, the most delightful place on earth, the center of the purest affections and most desirable associations, as well as of the most attractive and exalted beauties to be found this side of paradise. Nothing can excel in beauty and sublimity the quietude, peace, harmony, affection, and happiness of a well-ordered family, where virtue is nurtured and every good principle fostered and sustained.

The home circle is the nursery of affection. It is the Eden of young attachments, and here should be planted and tended all the germs of love, every seed that shall ever sprout in the heart; and how carefully should they be tended! how guarded against the frosts of jealousy, anger, envy, pride, vanity, and ambition! how rooted in the best soil of the heart, and nourished and cultivated by the soul's best husbandry!

Here is the heart's garden. Its sunshine and flowers are here. All its beautiful, all its lovely things are here. And here should be expended care, toil, effort, patience, and whatever may be necessary to make them still more lovely. It is around the memories of the home circle that cluster the happiest and sometimes the saddest of the recollections of youth. There is the thought of brother and sister, perhaps now gone forever; of childish sorrow and grief; of the mother's prayer and the father's blessing.Do you wonder that these memories, both bitter and sweet, linger in the chambers of the mind long after those of the busy years of maturity have faded away before the approach of age? With what assiduity ought all who have arrived at the years of maturity strive to make their homes pleasant—and especially is this true of parents—so that its members when they go from thence will carry with them thoughts that through all the weary years that are before them will afford a pleasant retreat for them when well-nigh wearied with the care which comes with increasing years.

We can not honor with too deep a reverence the home affections; we can not cultivate them with too great a care; we can not cherish them with too much solicitude. There is the center of our present happiness, the springs of our deepest and strongest tides of joy. When the home affections are duly cultivated all others follow or grow out of them as a natural consequence. If any would have fervent and noble affections, such as give power and glory to the human heart, such as sanctify the soul and make it supremely beautiful, such as an angel might covet without shame, let him cultivate all the feelings that originate, as from a radiant point, in the home circle.

The true flower of home love requires for its development the aid of every member of the home circle. The tears of sympathy as well as the sunshine of domestic affection bring it to its glorious maturity. Ofttimes there are families the members of which are, without doubt, dear to each other. Ifsickness or sudden trouble fall on one all are afflicted, and make haste to help and sympathize and comfort. But in their daily life and ordinary intercourse there is not only no expression of affection, none of the pleasant and fond behavior that has, perhaps, little dignity, but which more than makes up for that in its sweetness, but there is an absolute hardness of language and actions which is shocking to every sensitive and tender feeling. Between father and mother, brother and sister, ofttimes pass rough and hasty words, and sometimes angry words, even more frequently than words of endearment. To judge from their actions they do not appear to love each other, nor does it seem to have occurred to them that it is their duty, as it should be their best pleasure, to do and say all that they possibly can for each other's good and happiness.

It is in the home circle where we form many, if not the most, of our habits, both of action and speech. These habits we carry into the world. They cling to us. The vulgarities which we use at home we shall use abroad—the coarse sayings, the low jest, the vulgar speeches, the grammatical blunders. All the lingual imperfections which go to form a part of our home conversation will enter into our conversation at all times and in all places. The home circle should be held too sacred to be polluted with the vulgarities of languages, which could have originated nowhere but in low and groveling minds. It should be dedicated to love and truth, to all that is tender in feeling and noble and pure in thought,to holiest communion of soul with soul. In order that such a communion may be enjoyed it is requisite that language should there perform its most sacred office, even the office of transmitting unimpared the most tender and sacred affections that glow in the human heart.

If the dialects of angels could be used on earth its fittest place would be the home circle. The language of home should be such as would not stain the purest lips nor fall harshly on the most refined ear. It should abound in words of wisdom which are at once the glory of youth and the honor of age.

The home circle, what tender associations does it recall! How deeply interwoven are its golden filaments with all the fiber of our affectionate natures, forming the glittering of the heart's golden life! Here are father, mother, child, brother, sister, companions, all the heart loves, all that makes earth lovely, all that enriches the mind with faith and the soul with hope. What language is most fitting for home use, to bear the messages of home feeling, to be freighted with the diamond treasure of home hearts? Should it be any other than the most refined and pure? any other than that breathing the sacred charity of affection?

Home is the great seeding-place of every affection that ever grows in the heart. Hence all should tend well to it, watch, prune, and cultivate with all prudence and wisdom, with all fervency of spirit. Let the music of the heart swell its notes here in one perpetual anthem of good will. Let praise andprayer and fervent good wishes and words and works hallow its sacred shrine. Let offices of love go round like smiles at a feast of joy. Let the whole soul devote its energies to making happy its home, and its rewards will be great.

If there be any tie formed in life which ought to be securely guarded from any thing which can put it in peril it is that which unites the members of a family. If there be a spot upon earth from which discord and strife should be banished it is the fireside. There center the fondest hopes and the most tender affections.

The great lever by which the heart is moved is love; it is the basis of all true excellence, of all excellent thought. How pleasing the spectacle of that home circle which is governed by the spirit of love! Each one strives to avoid giving offense, and is studiously considerate of the others' happiness. Sweet, loving dispositions are cultivated by all, and each tries to surpass the other in his efforts for the common harmony. Each heart glows with love, and the benediction of heavenly peace seems to abide upon that dwelling with such power that no storm of passion is able to rise.

There is no pleasanter sight than that of a family of young folks who are quick to perform little acts of attention towards their elders. The placing of the big arm-chair for the mother, or kindly errands done for father, and scores of little deeds, show the tender sympathy of gentle, loving hearts. Parents should show their appreciation of these kindly acts. If theydo not indicate that they are appreciated the habit is soon dropped.

Little children are imitative creatures, and quickly catch the spirit surrounding them. So, if the father shows kindly attention to the mother, bright eyes will see the act, and quick minds will make a note of it. By example much more than by precept can children be taught to speak kindly to each other, to acknowledge favors, to be gentle and unselfish, to be thoughtful and considerate of the comfort of the family.

The boys, with inward pride of the father's courteous demeanor, will be chivalrous and helpful to their sisters; and the girls, imitating the mother, will be patient and gentle, even when brothers are noisy and heedless.

In the homes where true courtesy prevails it seems to meet you on the threshold. You feel the kindly welcome on entering. No angry voices are heard up stairs, no sullen children are sent from the room, no peremptory orders are given to cover the delinquencies of housekeeping or servants. A delightful atmosphere pervades the house, unmistakable, yet indescribable. Such a house, filled by the spirit of love, is a home indeed, to all who enter within its consecrated walls.

Members of the home circle lose nothing by mutual politeness; on the contrary, by maintaining not only its forms, but by inward cultivation of its spirit, they become contributors to that domestic feeling which is in itself a foretaste of heaven. The good-nightand the good-morning salutation, though they may seem but trifles, have a sweet and softening influence on all its members. The little kiss and artless good-night of the smaller ones, as they retire to rest, have in them a heavenly melody.

Children are the pride and ornament of the family circle. They create sport and amusement and dissipate all sense of loneliness from the household. When intelligent and well trained they afford a spectacle which even indifferent persons contemplate with satisfaction and delight. Still these pleasurable emotions are not unalloyed with solicitude. It is an agreeable but changeable picture of human happiness. Time in advancing carries them forward, and erelong they will feel like exclaiming, with the older and more sad and serious ones around them, that their youth exists only in remembrance.

There is probably not an unpolluted man or woman living who does not feel that the sweetest consolations and best rewards of life are found in the loves and delights of home. There are very few who do not feel themselves indebted to the influence that clustered around their cradles for whatever good there may be in their character and condition. The influence preceding from the home circle is either a blessing or a curse, either for good or for evil. It can not be neutral. In either case it is mighty, commencing with our birth, going with us through life, clinging to us in death, and reaching into the eternal world. It is that unitive power whicharises out of the manifold relations and associations of domestic life. The specific influence of husband and wife, of parent and child, of brother and sister, of teacher and pupil, united and harmoniously blended, constitute the home influence. From this we may infer the character of home influence. It is great, silent, irresistible, and permanent. Like the calm, deep stream, it moves on in silent but overwhelming power. It strikes root deep into the human heart, and spreads its branches wide over our whole being. Like the lily that braves the tempest, and the "Alpine flower that leans its cheek on the bosom of eternal snow," it is exerted amid the wildest scenes of life, and breathes a softening spell in our bosom, even when a heartless world is freezing up the fountains of our sympathy and love. It is governing, restraining, attracting, and traditional. It holds the empire of the heart and rules the life. It restrains the wayward passions of the child and checks the man in his mad career of ruin.

But all pictures of earthly happiness are transient in duration. Where can you find an unbroken home circle? The time must soon come, if it has not already, when you must part from those who have surrounded the same parental board, who mingled with you in the gay-hearted joys of childhood and the opening promise of youth. New cares will attend you in new situations, and the relations you form and the business you pursue may call you far from the "play-place" of your youth. In the unseen future your brothers and sisters may be sunderedfrom you, your lives may be spent apart, and in death you may be divided; and of you it may be said:

"They grew in beauty side by side,They filled one home with glee;Their graves are severed far and wide,By mount and stream and sea."

"They grew in beauty side by side,

They filled one home with glee;

Their graves are severed far and wide,

By mount and stream and sea."

Line

Father and Mother

Howcan children repay parents for their watchings, anxieties, labors, toils, trials, patience, and love? Think of the utter helplessness of the long years of infancy, of the entire dependence of succeeding childhood, of the necessities and wants of youth, of the burning solicitude of parents, and their deep and inexhaustible love; think of the long years of unwearied toil, of their deep and soul-felt devotion to the interests of their offspring, of the majesty and matchless power of their unselfish affections—and then say whether it is possible for youth to repay too much love and gratitude for all this bestowal of parental anxiety.

Oh, what thankfulness should fill every child's heart! What a glorious return of love! Every day should they give them some token of love. Every hour should their own hearts glow with gratitude and holy respect for those who have given them being, and loved them so fervently and long. Nothing will so warm and quicken all the affections of the parent'sheart as such respect. Who feels like trusting an ungrateful child? Who can believe that his affection for any object can be firm and pure? The child who has loved long and well his parents has thoroughly electrified his affections, has surcharged them with the sweet spirit of an affectionate tenderness, which will pervade his entire heart, and will make him better and purer forever. The affections of such a child are to be trusted. As well may one doubt an angel as such a one.

There is always a liability, where sons and daughters have gone from the home of their childhood, and have formed homes of their own, gradually to lose the old attachments and cease to pay those attentions to parents which were so easy and natural in the olden time. New associations, new thoughts, new cares, all come in, filling the mind and heart, and, if special pains be not taken, they thrust out the old love.This ought never to be.Children should remember that the change is in them, and not with those they left behind. They have every thing that is new, much that is attractive in the present and bright in the future; but the parents' hearts cling to the past, and have most in memory. When children go away, they know not, and never will know until they experience it themselves, what it cost to give them up, nor what a vacancy they left behind.

The parents have not, if the children have, any new loves to take the place of the old. Do not, then, heartlessly deprive them of what you still can give of attention and love. If you live in the sameplace, let your step be—if possible, daily—a familiar one in the old home. Even when many miles away, make it your business to go to your parents. In this matter do not regard time or expense. They are well spent; and some day when the word reaches you, flashed over the wires, that your father or mother is gone, you will not regret then the many hours of travel spent in going to them while they were yet alive.

Keep up your intercourse with your parents. Do not deem it sufficient to write only when something important is to be told. Do not believe that to them "no news is good news." If it be but a few lines, write them. Write, if it be only to say, "I am well;" if it be only to send the salutation which says they are "dear," or the farewell which tells them that you are "affectionate" still. These little messages will be like caskets of jewels, and the tear that falls fondly over them will be treasures for you. Let every child, having any pretense to heart, or manliness, or piety, and who is so fortunate as to have a father or mother living, consider it a sacred duty to consult, at any reasonable personal sacrifice, the known wishes of such a parent until that parent is no more; and, our word for it, the recollections of the same through the after pilgrimage of life will sweeten every sorrow, will brighten every gladness, will sparkle every tear-drop with a joy ineffable.

There is no period of life when our parents do not claim our attention, love, and warmest affections. From youth to manhood, from middle age to riperyears, if our honored parents survive, it should be our constant study how we can best promote their welfare and happiness, and smooth the pillow of their declining years.

Nothing better recommends an individual than his attentions to his parents. There are some children whose highest ambition seems to be the promotion of their parents' interest. They watch over them with unwearied care, supply all their wants, and by their devotion and kindness remove all care and sorrow from their hearts. On the contrary, there are others who seem never to bestow a thought upon their parents, and to care but little whether they are comfortably situated or not. By their conduct they increase their cares, embitter their lives, and bring their gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. Selfishness has steeled their hearts to the whispers of affection, and avarice denies to their parents those favors which would materially assist them in the down-hill of life.

Others, too, by a course of profligacy and vice, have drained to the very dregs their parents' cup of happiness, and made them anxious for death to release them from their sufferings. How bitter must be the doom of those children who have thus embittered the lives of their best earthly friends!

There can be no happier reflection than that derived from the thought of having contributed to the comfort and happiness of our parents. When called away from our presence, which sooner or later must happen, the thought will be sweet that our effortsand our care smoothed their declining years, so that they departed in comfort and peace. If we were otherwise, and we denied them what their circumstances and necessities required, and our hearts did not become like the nether millstone, our remorse must prove a thorn in our flesh, piercing us sharply, and filling our days with regret.

There is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother to her son that transcends all other affections of the heart. It is neither to be chilled by selfishness, weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame, and exult in his prosperity. If misfortune overtake him, he will be the dearer to her from misfortune; and if disgrace settles upon his name, she will still love and cherish him in spite of his disgrace. If all the world besides cast him off, she will be all the world to him.

A father may turn his back on his child, brothers and sisters may become inveterate enemies, husbands may desert their wives, wives their husbands; but a mother's love endures through all. In good repute, in bad repute, in the face of the world's condemnation, a mother still lives on and still hopes that her child may turn from his evil ways and repent; still she remembers his infant smile that ever filled her bosom with rapture, the merry laugh, the joyful shout of his childhood, the opening promise of his youth; and thinking of these, she never can be brought to think him all unworthy.

Young man, speak kindly to your mother, and ever courteously and tenderly of her. But a little while and you shall see her no more forever. Her eye is dim, her form bent, and her shadow falls grave-ward. Others may love you when she has passed away—a kind-hearted sister, perhaps, or she whom of all the world you chose for a partner—she may love you warmly, passionately; children may love you fondly; but never again, never, while time is yours, shall the love of woman be to you as that of your old, trembling mother has been. Alas! how little do we appreciate a mother's tenderness while living! How heedless are we in youth of all her anxious tenderness! But when she is dead and gone, when the cares and coldness of the world come withering to our hearts, when we experience how hard it is to find true sympathy, how few love us for ourselves, how few will befriend us in misfortune, then it is that we think of the mother we have lost.

The loss of a parent is always felt. Even though age and infirmities may have incapacitated them from taking an active part in the cares of the family, still they are rallying points around which affection and obedience, and a thousand tender endeavors to please, concentrate. They are like the lonely star before us: neither its heat nor light are any thing to us in themselves, yet the shepherd would feel his heart sad if he missed it when he lifts his eye to the brow of the mountains over which it rises when the sun descends.

Over the grave of a friend, of a brother or a sister we would plant the primrose, emblematical ofyouth; but over that of a mother we would let the green grass shoot up unmolested; for there is something in the simple covering which nature spreads upon the grave which well becomes the abiding place of decaying age. Oh, a mother's grave! It is indeed a sacred spot. It may be retired from the noise of business, and unnoticed by the stranger; but to our heart how dear!

The love we should bear to a parent is not to be measured by years, nor annihilated by distance, nor forgotten when they sleep in dust. Marks of age may appear in our homes and on our persons, but the memory of a beloved parent is more enduring than that of time itself. Who has stood by the grave of a mother and not remembered her pleasant smiles, kind words, earnest prayer, and assurance expressed in a dying hour? Many years may have passed, memory may be treacherous in other things, but will reproduce with freshness the impressions once made by a mother's influence. Why may we not linger where rests all that was earthly of a beloved parent? It may have a restraining influence upon the wayward, prove a valuable incentive to increased faithfulness, encourage hope in the hour of depression, and give fresh inspiration to Christian life.

The mother's love is indeed the golden cord which binds youth to age; and he is still but a child, however time may have furrowed his cheek or silvered his brow, who can yet recall with a softened heart the fond devotion or the gentle chidings of the best friend that God ever gave us. Round the ideaof mother the mind of a man clings with fond affection. It is the first deep thought stamped upon our infant heart, when yet soft and capable of receiving the most profound impressions; and the after feelings of the world are more or less light in comparison. Even in old age we look back to that feeling as the sweetest we have known through life.

Our passions and our willfulness may lead us far from the object of our filial love; we may come even to pain their heart, to oppose their wishes, to violate their commands. We may become wild, headstrong, or angry at their counsels or oppositions; but when death has stilled their monitory voices, and nothing but silent memory remains to recapitulate their virtues and deeds, affection, like a flower broken to the ground by a past storm, lifts up her head and smiles away our tears. When the early period of our loss forces memory to be silent, fancy takes her place, and twines the image of our dead parents with a garland of graces, beauties, and virtues, which we doubt not they possessed.

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