LHGfWED am STEEL FOR OUR HOME. 
 
 THE VESHON OF LHFE,
 
 Otir Home 
 
 OR 
 
 Emanating Influences of the Hearthstone, 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES E. J3ARGENT, M.A., 
 
 WITH THE CO-OPERATION OF 
 
 REV. WILLIAM H. WITHROW, D.D., 
 
 HENRY W. RUOFF, M.A., PH.D., 
 
 REV. WILLARD E. WATERBURY, B.D., 
 
 AND FRANK N. SEERLEY, M.D. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, M.A., F.R.S.C., F.R.S.L. 
 
 Author "History of Canada" " Orion," " Beausejour," " EartVs Enigmas" etc., etc. 
 
 I ILLUSTRATED. 
 
 PUBLISHED IN ENGLISH AND GERMAN. 
 
 KIing=Richiarcison Co. 
 
 vE> F*I^ I ^IGrt^I fry IvE) , 3VI -^-^. 53 s3 
 
 RICHMOND. DES MOINES. INDIANAPOLIS. SAN JOSE. 
 
 DALLAS. TOLEDO. 
 
 1898. 
 
 Pv
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-nine, 
 
 BY THE KING-RICHARDSON COMPANY, 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year 1899, 
 
 BY THE KING-RICHARDSON COMPANY, 
 
 At the Department of Agriculture. 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 
 
 May peace be in thy home 
 
 And joy ^?vithin thy heart. 
 
 Issued by subscription only and not for sale at the bookstores.
 
 Biographical Notes of Au.th.ors. 
 
 CHARLES E. SARGENT, M.A., 
 Author of " Education and Evolution," etc. 
 
 Graduate of Bates College; received the degree of M.A. from same institution; 
 pursued post-graduate studies in Yale University ; before graduation and subsequently 
 was a teacher and public lecturer. He is an educator of note, an independent thinker, 
 and a graphic, forceful ^vriter. 
 
 
 
 REV. WILLIAM H. WITHROW, D.D., F.R.S.C., 
 
 Editor " Methodist Magazine and Review," etc, etc, Canada. 
 
 Educated at Victoria University and the University of Toronto, Canada; degree 
 of M.A. in 1864, and later the degree of D.D. from Victoria University ; Fellow of the 
 Royal School of Canada. Editor Sunday School Lesson Literature, Methodist denomi- 
 nation, Canada. As a minister and editor he wields widespread influence. 
 
 HENRY WOLDMAR RUOFF, M.A., PH.D., 
 
 Literary Editor with The King-Richardson Company, Publishers. 
 Graduate of the University of Indiana ; pursued graduate studies in Harvard 
 University; was assistant Ethnologist to Columbian Exposition; onetime lecturer in 
 ethics, psychology, and the philosophy of history in Pennsylvania State College. He is 
 a versatile scholar and possesses fine literary instincts. 
 
 REV. WILLARD E. WATERBURY, B.A., B.D., 
 
 Of the Baptist Missionary Union, Springfield, Massachusetts. 
 Graduate of Syracuse University ; entered Y. M. C. A. work at Concord, N. H. ; 
 studied theology and entered the Baptist ministry ; has written for religious journals 
 and contributed to books and periodicals. He is a preacher of much directness and 
 force, and a successful leader of young people. 
 
 FRANK N. SEERLEY, B.A., Pn.B., M.D., 
 International Y. M. C. A. Training School, Springfield, Mass. 
 
 Graduate of the University of Iowa, ivith degrees B.A. and Ph.B. ; studied medi- 
 cine in, and received the degree M.D. from, the University of Vermont. He is identi- 
 fied in a very broad sense with Y. M. C. A. work, and is an authoritative specialist in 
 
 physical culture. 
 
 -< 
 
 CHARLES G. D. ROBERTS, M.A., F.R. S. C., F.R.S.L., 
 
 Literary Editor with Harper Brothers, Publishers. 
 
 Graduate of the University of New Brunswick; M.A., 1881 ; Fellow of the Royal 
 Society of Canada; onetime Professor of English Literature and Economics, King's 
 College University, N. S.; author of " History of Canada," " Orion, and other Poems," 
 " Raid of Beausejour," " Earth's Enigmas" etc. He is a celebrated critic and author.
 
 PRBKACB. 
 
 (^ I HE reader will notice that the treatment of this work 
 4 I has been confined almost exclusively to what may 
 -* be termed the didactic method. That is, the rigidly 
 scientific as well as the grossly sentimental methods have 
 been, in the main, avoided in the interest of a treatise that is 
 designed to be instructive and helpful. Home has not only 
 been regarded as an institution of nature, but in the treat- 
 ment of almost every subject has been involved the exposi- 
 tion of some related natural law, because every relation of 
 the home life is the outgrowth of some law of our nature or 
 of our surroundings. It has been the constant aim to make 
 this book a popular scientific treatise on the various phases 
 of the home, and in this respect, so far as we know, it 
 stands alone. 
 
 We have chosen to consider the various relations of the 
 home life from this standpoint, from a conviction that 
 society has come to need something more substantial than 
 those mere expressions of sentiment, which, for the most 
 part, constitute the books of this kind that heretofore have 
 been given to the public. Many very entertaining books, 
 however, have been produced thus, but the undisputed fact
 
 Preface. 
 
 that all the while the old-time home love has been slowly 
 but surely fading away, is sufficient proof that they have 
 not accomplished the object for which they were written. 
 It is true that the word " home " is one of the most poetic 
 in human language, that the institution of home itself owes 
 its origin to an innate sentiment, and that this emotion 
 like all others grows and develops by its own action. 
 Such expressions of sentiment, therefore, have their use. 
 The great number of those beautiful prose poems, that dur- 
 ing the past few years have been offered to the public, 
 show how deep and insatiable is this home sentiment. Yet 
 in spite of all this, the street and the public hall are usurp- 
 ing the kingdom of the fireside, and the feebleness of its 
 higher ministrations fills us with deep solicitude if not posi- 
 tive alarm. The restoration and preservation of the old 
 home love and reverence by a more rational and philosoph- 
 ical conception of the home relations, we believe, is neces- 
 sary to the maintenance of our social integrity. 
 
 The home life is to the social life what the unvarying 
 movement of the water wheel is to the complex and dis- 
 cordant motion of the great factory. When the machinery 
 stops or moves fitfully and unreliably the experienced 
 machinist does not think, by merely lubricating the bear- 
 ings, to remove the difficulty, but with lantern and wrench 
 and hammer descends into the pit to see what is wrong 
 with the " great wheel." 
 
 There are certain diseases whose symptoms are chiefly 
 
 xiii
 
 Preface. 
 
 or wholly local, but which, nevertheless, must be cured by 
 constitutional remedies. Such is the character of most of 
 those moral diseases that affect human society, and the 
 remedies we have tried to point out are constitutional rem- 
 edies. The one organ we have aimed to reach is that 
 which is the most central and vital of any of the living 
 body of society the home. 
 
 Society is agitated to-day over the startling problem of 
 divorce, and yet, with all its attendant evils, divorce must 
 be regarded only as a symptom of a fatal disease that is 
 preying on the vitals of society. Intemperance and licen- 
 tiousness are symptoms of diseases that can be reached 
 only through the organ of home. 
 
 What the home is, society will be. The moral corrup- 
 tion and the dark vices of the city would perish in a single 
 night did not their destroying rootlets reach down into the 
 foulness of perverted homes. 
 
 Still, what a world would this be were it not for the 
 institution of home ! How would the streets of the great 
 city be turbulent with lawless outcries at midnight did not 
 the Great Father, through the kindly shepherd of a natural 
 law, send his children at night to the fold of home ! How 
 its gracious protection enmantles the slow-breathing 
 multitude like the folding of a great wing ! 
 
 This treatise is, in the main, the product of Mr. 
 Charles E. Sargent, who, by virtue of his keen observation, 
 rare mental equipment, and the earnestness of his convic- 
 
 xiv
 
 Preface. 
 
 tions, has given it unusual force and a picturesque style. 
 The chapter on Books for the Home was prepared by 
 W. H. Withrow, D.D. ; the chapters, Origin of the Family, 
 The Home and the State, and The Home in Literature, 
 by Mr. Henry Woldmar Ruoff ; the chapter on Personal 
 Responsibility, by Mr. Charles G. D. Roberts ; the chapters 
 on Home Religion, Bereavement in the Home, and Music in 
 the Home, by Rev. Willard E. Waterbury, B.D. ; the chap- 
 ter on Home Hygiene and Sanitation, by Frank N. Seerley, 
 M.D. ; while the chapters, Ethical Duties of the Home and 
 Home Correspondence and Forms, were collaborated by 
 Mr. Henry Woldmar Ruoff and Mr. Charles E. Sargent. 
 The wide range of topics discussed, as well as the 
 unity of purpose exhibited, is not the least desirable fea- 
 ture of the work ; while the evident moral intent must 
 surely result in lasting benediction to the home and society 
 at large.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Preface, ..... . xi 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 Origin of the Family, ..... 23 
 
 CHAPTER 2. 
 
 Tine Nature of Home, . . . . . 32 
 
 CHAPTER 3. 
 
 Influences of Home, . . 45 
 
 CHAPTER 4. 
 
 Buds of Promise, . . 53 
 
 CHAPTER 5. 
 
 Childhood, . . . ; . .61 
 
 CHAPTER 6. 
 
 Home Training, . . 71 
 
 CHAPTER 7. 
 
 Rewards and Punishments, . . 96 
 
 CHAPTER 8. 
 
 Amusements for the Home, . . 104 
 
 CHAPTER 9. 
 
 Home Smiles, . .114 
 
 xvi
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAPTER 10. 
 
 Joys of Home, 120 
 
 CHAPTER 11. 
 
 Education of Our Girls, . . . .129 
 
 CHAPTER 12. 
 Ed.tJ.ca.tion of Our Boys, .... 144 
 
 CHAPTER 13. 
 
 Books for the Home, 152 
 
 CHAPTER 14. 
 
 Music in the Home, 167 
 
 CHAPTER 15. 
 
 Evenings at Home, 172 
 
 CHAPTER 16. 
 
 Self Culture, 185 
 
 CHAPTER 17. 
 
 Sundays at Home, ... . . . . 200 
 
 CHAPTER 18. 
 
 Individual Rules of Conduct, . . 210 
 
 CHAPTER 19. 
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms, . 216 
 
 CHAPTER 20. 
 
 Manners at Home, 246 
 
 CHAPTER 21. 
 
 Family Secrets, 264 
 
 xvii
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER 22. 
 
 Kthical Duties of the Home, . . .273 
 
 CHAPTER 23. 
 
 Contentment at Home, .... 287 
 
 CHAPTER 24. 
 
 Visiting, 294 
 
 CHAPTER 25. 
 
 Unselfishness at Home, .... 303 
 
 CHAPTER 26. 
 
 Patience, 309 
 
 CHAPTER 27. 
 Religion in the Home, .... 319 
 
 CHAPTER 28. 
 
 Temperance, i . . . . . . . 328 
 
 CHAPTER 29. 
 Economy of the Home, .... 340 
 
 CHAPTER 30. 
 
 Home Hygiene and Sanitation, . . 353 
 
 CHAPTER 31. 
 
 Home Adornments, . . . . 362 
 
 CHAPTER 32. 
 Dignity at Home, . . . . . .368 
 
 CHAPTER 33. 
 
 Success or Kailmre Koreshadov^ed 
 
 at Home, 374 
 
 xviii
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER 34. 
 
 Fallacies about Genius, . . ' . . 384 
 
 CHAPTER 35. 
 
 Courage to Meet Life's Duties, .. . 395 
 
 CHAPTER 36. 
 
 Personal Responsibility, . . ' . . 403 
 
 CHAPTER 37. 
 
 Trie Important Step, . . . . .411 
 
 CHAPTER 38. 
 
 Leaving Home, 427 
 
 CHAPTER 39. 
 
 Memories of Home, . . . . , 436 
 
 CHAPTER 40. 
 
 Trials of Home, . . . ... 442 
 
 CHAPTER 41. 
 
 Sorro-w and. Its Meaning, .... 450 
 
 CHAPTER 42. 
 
 Bereavement in the Home, . . . 465 
 
 . CHAPTER 43. 
 
 The Wido\v's Home, . . . . . 475 
 
 CHAPTER 44. 
 
 Homeless Orphans, 480 
 
 CHAPTER 45. 
 
 Homes of the F*oor, 488 
 
 xix
 
 Contents. 
 
 PAGE 
 CHAPTER 46. 
 
 Homes of the Rich, ... . 495 
 
 CHAPTER 47. 
 
 The Home and the State, . . . .505 
 
 CHAPTER 48. 
 The Home in Literature, . . . .516 
 
 CHAPTER 49. 
 
 The Old=Rashioned Home, . . .580 
 
 CHAPTER 60. 
 
 Ou.r Last Farewell of Home, . . . 594 
 
 CHAPTER 51. 
 
 Heaven Ou.r Home, 605
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PRINTED FROM STEEL PLATES. 
 
 The Vision of Life, ..... . Frontispiece. 
 
 This picture, symbolical of the successive stages of life, was 
 specially prepared for Our Home by the well-known artist, 
 C. Etherington, formerly of Paris, where he was a frequent 
 and appreciated exhibitor. 
 
 The Old Hearthstone. . ..'... 44 
 
 The work of the sterling artist and engraver, the late John 
 Sartain of Philadelphia. It is a faithful picture from the 
 home of John Howard Payne. 
 
 These are My Je\vels, .' . 70 
 
 Reproduced from a painting by the celebrated European 
 artist, Schopin, originally engraved by F. T. Stuart. 
 
 Improving Spare Nloments 184 
 
 A highly artistic study prepared specially for this work by 
 C. Etherington 
 
 Breaking Home Ties, ..'..... 426 
 
 Reproduction of the widely celebrated painting, of that name, 
 by the late lamented Thomas Hovenden, who sacrificed his 
 life in an attempt to rescue a child from a passing train. 
 
 The Hour of Anxiety, 451 
 
 Reproduction of Luke Tildes' masterpiece. This painting 
 has been the subject of admiring comment in two hemi- 
 spheres, depicting, as it does, a scene of the deepest pathos. 
 
 The Old- Fashioned Home, .' . . . .581 
 
 A faithful portraiture of " Auld Lang Syne " by C. Ether- 
 ington, a strong picture of ancestral days. 
 
 Borne from the Earthly Home, .... 604 
 
 The original painted by Carl Gotherz of Paris. A piece of 
 beautiful symbolism representing the pilgrimage from earth 
 to heaven, with the attendant sorrow of dissolution.
 
 AN'S life's a book of history; 
 
 The leaves thereof are days; 
 The letters, mercies closely joined; 
 
 The title is God's praise. 
 
 MASON.
 
 CHAPTER ONE. 
 
 Tlie Origin of ttie Kamily. 
 
 fF history and tradition are to be trusted, the family, 
 in some form of association, existed from the dawn 
 of the human race. It was established with the 
 sanction if not by a special creative act of the Divine 
 power and finds the highest fulfillment of its ends in obe- 
 dience to the natural laws of order and grace instituted by 
 its Founder. 
 
 We cannot go behind the Divine creative act and in- 
 quire what the ultimate motive or what the prototype of 
 the family may be. It is sufficient to know that it is the 
 highest form of functional life, and that through it is being 
 wrought out the divine purpose of creation and the Creator. 
 
 There are great gaps in history, or, more properly 
 speaking, in traditional history, that we may well wish were 
 bridged. A great many conclusions would then possibly 
 be changed or even discarded. But assuredly more cer- 
 tainty, more validity, would be introduced into our specu- 
 lations regarding both the origin and the early condition of 
 mankind. It has been sagely observed that "Barbarism 
 writes no history " ; and this may account, in a measure, 
 
 23
 
 The Origin of the Family. 
 
 for the great stretches of waste at the beginning, and 
 along the varied courses of racial development. 
 
 This lack of consecutiveness in the record of the 
 human race has left an open door for a series of momentous 
 guesses touching the early stages of religion, morals, social 
 conditions, government, family relations, mode of warfare, 
 intellectual development, and what not ? Some problems 
 are raised of vital concern ; others appear as the result of 
 the "mind's own throwing." 
 
 I WO theories are widely held respecting the origin of 
 
 ^ the family, neither of which conflicts with the fun- 
 damental assumption of its Divine paternity. The one is 
 known as the biblical theory of a special, creative act. 
 
 " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
 ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life ; 
 and man became a living soul. 
 
 ****** And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to 
 fall upon Adam, and he slept : and he took one of his ribs, 
 and closed up the flesh instead thereof ; and the rib, which 
 the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and 
 brought her unto the man. 
 
 ****** And Adam called his wife's name Eve ; 
 because she was the mother of all living." 
 
 The other, which is generally known as the scientific 
 or evolutional theory, sets forth that man, and consequently 
 
 the family, was the result of long periods of development 
 
 24
 
 The Origin of the Family. 
 
 and differentiation from some lower order of being. While 
 this is evidently in conflict with the special creation theory, 
 it does not remove man from an intelligent and Divine 
 order of creation. Whether God operates in his world 
 through avast and complex system of laws or by special 
 acts of creation, or by both, as may meet his inscrutable 
 purpose, is, after all, only a question of mode and of small 
 significance in comparison with the greater fact that he 
 was the ultimate Creator, whether of man or molecule. 
 
 H'ARLY family life differs as widely, outside of its 
 *^* natural constitution, as races themselves. It is 
 marked by the peculiarities of custom, temperament, en- 
 vironment, climatic conditions, degree of development, 
 religion, and morality incident to different races. We are 
 wont, as a rule, to confine our observations upon the early 
 institution of the family to the Jewish race, forgetting 
 that there are other races which also had an infancy 
 within the records of authentic history. So a complete 
 study of it embraces the survey of a vast array of social 
 facts, both historical and anthropological. The generaliz- 
 ations and main conclusions, only, can be produced here. 
 
 Travelers and anthopologists are alike in stating that 
 the prevailing form of social life in the early stages of 
 races is that of promiscuity, although no less an authority 
 than Mr. Herbert Spencer asserts it as his belief that monog- 
 yny, or the marriage of one man to one woman, existed 
 
 25
 
 The Origin of the Family. 
 
 side by side with it, from the earliest periods of racial his- 
 tory. The early histories of Greece, Rome, and the Indo- 
 European peoples throw the weight of their evidence to the 
 theory of promiscuity. No intimation of separate and dis- 
 tinct places or modes of cohabitation appears in their early 
 legends or traditions. In fact, so marked was this promis- 
 cuity that at a little later stage the mother became the nat- 
 ural head of the family or gens, its protector and its pro- 
 vider, and performed functions very similar to that of a 
 patriarch or chief of a tribe. There was little or no affec- 
 tional life such as characterizes the modern family, and 
 consequently no distinctiveness of selection other than 
 caprice. 
 
 Arising out of the fact that the mother was the only 
 one who could identify her offspring, and thereby entitle 
 herself to become the center of a social unit, a new rela- 
 tion was formed which has been termed polyandry, or the 
 marriage of one woman and many men. Under this rela- 
 tion woman rose to a position of greater influence than 
 man, and it is recorded in the legendary history of Greece 
 that beside the right of franchise, she possessed many 
 other functions in rudimentary government. 
 
 Under the reign of Cecrops, the serpent king, it is 
 averred that a dispute arose between Pallas and Poseidon, 
 which was settled by a vote of the Athenians (including 
 the votes of the women) in favor of Pallas. In order to 
 placate Poseidon, therefore, the men of Athens resolved to 
 
 26
 
 The Origin of the Family. 
 
 disfranchise the women and that children should hence- 
 forth cease to take their names from the family of their 
 mothers. 
 
 This is probably a somewhat unscientific explanation of 
 the transition from polyandry to patriarchy, or the gens, 
 but it at least indicates that there was a change in the au- 
 thority of the sexes and a transfer of their social functions. 
 
 LJ ATRIARCHY as an early form of family life was a 
 ^_^ polygamous association of which the oldest repre- 
 sentative of the blood relation was the head. Under it, 
 however, especially with the Hebrews, female chastity was 
 preserved and it attained to a very creditable degree of 
 development. 
 
 Corresponding to the patriarchy of the Jews, the simi- 
 lar associations of other races and nations are known by va- 
 rious names. Among the lower order of races and includ- 
 ing the Celts, they are designated clans ; among the Romans 
 gens ; among the Greeks, ytvvg, genus ; among the North 
 American Indians, a totem ; and so on. The remarkable 
 coincidence is that home is an Anglo-Saxon word, and 
 throughout its whole history has been synonymous, as far 
 as it refers to the natural constitution of the family, with 
 monogyny, the marriage of but one man to one woman. 
 Mr. Spencer, after affirming his belief in the theory that 
 monogyny is one of the oldest forms of the family, a little 
 inconsistently, as we think, endeavors to account for its 
 
 27
 
 The Origin of the Family. 
 
 general prevalence later, through the operation of exog- 
 amy, or wife stealing. It is well established that in the clan 
 or patriarchal forms of the family strict rules obtained 
 against alliances outside of that particular clan or patri- 
 archy. It therefore follows that marriages within the clan 
 or patriarchy were often between those of the closest blood 
 relation. The only way to effect a marriage, then, between 
 members of different gentes was through the stealing of a 
 female member of one family by the male member of an- 
 other. In a case of this kind the motive for the act lay not 
 in an infraction of the customs of each particular gens, but 
 in some charm of person that made the alliance stronger 
 and more enduring. Indeed, in the earlier history of 
 Greece, wife stealing became a commonplace practice, and 
 it is not improbable that this particularizing of persons, 
 whether through a crude form of love, or for some ulterior 
 reason we know not of, was a powerful factor in the gen- 
 eral institution of monogyny. 
 
 l-^ECURRING for a moment to the hypotheses with 
 V_ which we started, one thing is very evident : that 
 if monogyny were the earliest form of the human family, 
 there have been lapses and variations from it during the 
 many centuries of its career for which we can scarcely ac- 
 count. It may be that such is the law of progression ; that 
 humanity must often descend into the trough of the sea to 
 ascend and re-ascend to the crest of the wave. 
 
 28
 
 The Origin of the Family. 
 
 However that may be, after a long process of years, 
 and struggle with the barbarities of races, we are brought 
 into the possession of that chiefest blessing of modern civ- 
 ilization the home which has been made possible only 
 through the firm intrenchment of the monogamous mar- 
 riage. 
 
 It must not be understood, however, that the produc- 
 tion of the modern home was due to one set of influences 
 or circumstances only. The naturalist and the anthropolo- 
 gist tell us the story from the standpoint of physical and 
 racial life ; while the social and religious philosopher pre- 
 sents the case of potential or inherent development. In 
 this respect it is proper to observe the validity and force of 
 both. From the low brutality of promiscuous relationship, 
 with its ignorance, its stolidity, its lack of organization, its 
 absence of affectional life, to the modern Christian home, 
 with its ideals of sacredness, law and order, comfort, in- 
 telligence, morals, and religious vitalism, is indeed a long 
 stretch, and nothing short of the guiding influences of an 
 Almighty hand could have brought it about. 
 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer observes, in substance, that the 
 home is the most important factor in civilization, and that 
 civilization is to be measured at different stages largely by 
 the development of the home. This seems to be amply 
 borne out by the results of study in every branch of so- 
 ciety, whether government, morals, religious or social 
 institutions. The natural family gave rise to the household 
 
 29
 
 The Origin of the Family. 
 
 or familia. The village became an offshoot from these, 
 and related villages recognized a common ruler, or king. 
 Questions of property rights, slaves, laws of inheritance, 
 modes of worship, distribution of labor, and so on, arose. 
 So that the history of the family in its relation to society 
 in general is practically a history of civilization itself. 
 
 I HE emancipation of the family from the bonds of 
 V savagery is marked in many ways. The mortality 
 of offspring has been lessened, woman has ceased to be held 
 in serfdom, physical comforts have been increased, mother- 
 hood has been raised to the dignity of a sacrament almost, 
 different spheres of activities have been developed for the 
 sexes, individuality has forced itself into recognition, and 
 possibly above all else is to be noted the development of 
 the affectional nature. This latter became a new force in 
 society, and the inspirational theme of nearly all early 
 literature, as well as the guiding motive of art, music, 
 and legend. 
 
 There was scarcely a common interest that did not 
 extend to the family sooner or later. Religion became its 
 foster mother, devised forms of worship, sacrament, and 
 grace in its special behoof, and prescribed its relation to 
 society as well. It became the subject of special laws 
 under the state, and formed an organic part in the classifi- 
 cations of early citizenship. And so we might go on 
 recounting the multiplicity of newborn functions, which 
 
 30
 
 The Origin of the Family. 
 
 came to the family organization as the result of its mani- 
 fold struggles toward the rightful position it holds in mod- 
 ern civilization to-day as the home. Born out of the throes 
 of human development and racial turmoil, it stands forth 
 as the highest form of associated life, and as .the natural 
 unit of all future civic development. 
 
 31
 
 CHAPTER TWO. 
 
 Ttie Nature of Home. 
 
 UR home is the one spot on earth where is con- 
 centrated the largest percentage of our earthly 
 interest. There are few human beings without 
 a home or the memory of one. 
 
 The vast multitude that surges through the streets of 
 the great city is made up of individual souls, each of 
 which to-night will seek some place it calls home. 
 
 There are those who roll through the streets with 
 golden livery to palaces where brilliant lights, gorgeous 
 tapestry, and soft-piled carpets await their coming. There 
 are those who walk the frosty pavement with cold and 
 bleeding feet, whose homes are in damp and dreary cel- 
 lars, or in the rickety garrets of worn and wretched hovels. 
 No lights, no music, no feasts, await them, nothing but a 
 crust and a bed of straw. And yet these places in all 
 their wretchedness are the homes of human beings. 
 
 There is still another class of homes, where has been 
 answered the human heart's best prayer, "give us neither 
 poverty nor riches " ; where peace and joy and love and 
 contentment dwell ; where industry and frugality, with 
 
 32
 
 The Nature of Home. 
 
 sunbrowned hands and healthful appetite, sit at the board 
 of plenty. But whether the home be a palace, a cottage, 
 or a garret, it is home. 
 
 ^U OME is in the soul itself ; and, to a certain extent, is 
 V,^ independent of outward circumstances. Of this 
 inward home the outward is but the expression ; and yet 
 it is doubtful if the outward is ever a true expression of 
 the inward, inasmuch as men's ideals always transcend 
 their experience. Neither the wretched hovel where vice 
 and hunger dwell, nor the palace where lies the gilded 
 corpse of love, can be a true home. 
 
 ' ' Home is the resort 
 
 Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where, 
 Supporting and supported, polished friends 
 And dear relations mingle into bliss. " 
 
 Next to religion, the home sentiment is the strongest in 
 the human heart. At the name of home the better impulse 
 of every heart awakens. As the chord of the instrument 
 is dead to every sound until its own harmonic chord is 
 struck, when it vibrates and taking up the sound prolongs 
 it as if it could not let it die, so many a darkened mind is 
 dead to every appeal save that magic sound, " home ! " The 
 lives of thousands who have been snatched as brands from 
 temptation's fire will testify to the magic power of a sister's 
 early love, while the sudden remembrance of a mother's 
 
 33
 
 The Nature of Home. 
 
 " good night kiss " has stayed the assassin's dagger. In 
 the dark and loathsome dens of iniquity there are those 
 whose lips have, for years, acknowledged their Creator only 
 in oaths ; whose eyes have shed no tears, and whose ears 
 have heard only the blasphemies of drunken revelry. 
 And yet could an unseen hand write upon those walls the 
 words "Home" and "Mother's Love," lips would quiver, 
 eyes would swim, and from the depths of many a soul in 
 which the germs of truth and love had long since seemed 
 dead, would burst the heart-rending confession, 
 
 " Once I was pure as the snow, but I fell, 
 Fell like a snow-flake from heaven to hell, 
 Fell to be trampled as filth of the street, 
 Fell to be scoffed at, be spit on and beat ; 
 Pleading, cursing, begging to die, 
 Selling my soul to whoever would buy ; 
 Dealing in shame for a morsel of bread, 
 Hating the living and fearing the dead." 
 
 I HE powerful influence which the home sentiment ex- 
 ^ erts over the minds of men was shown in a striking 
 and unique manner at Castle Garden, New York. Some 
 ten thousand people had gathered there to listen to that 
 sweet- voiced singer, Jenny Lind. She began with the sub- 
 lime compositions of the great masters of song. Her 
 audience applauded her with a respectful degree of appre- 
 ciation. But at length, with sweetness ineffable, born of 
 
 34
 
 TJie Nature of Home. 
 
 the holy parentage of genius and passion, she poured forth 
 that immortal song, "Home, Sweet Home." At once the 
 irrepressible contagion of sympathy spread through that 
 vast audience. Peal on peal of thunderous applause 
 resounded, until the song was stopped by the very ecstasy 
 of those who listened ; and when the soft refrain was 
 heard again, that mass of humanity was melted into tears ; 
 the great masters were all forgotten, while ten thousand 
 human hearts knelt at the shrine of a poor and obscure out- 
 cast. Why was this ? Was Howard Payne a greater 
 genius than they ? Must these mighty names yield their 
 places to one whom the world has forgotten ? No ; it was 
 simply because when sorrow laid his iron hand on the heart 
 of Howard Payne, in his cruel grasp he chanced to strike 
 that chord which vibrates to a lighter touch than any in the 
 human heart save that alone swept by the master's hand. 
 
 4 ' Home of our childhood ! how affection clings 
 And hovers 'round thee with her seraph wings ! 
 Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn brown, 
 Than fairest summits which the cedars crown." 
 
 i 
 
 The rough experiences of the roaring, toiling, stormy 
 world may blot out all other images from the mind, but the 
 picture of our early home must hang forever on the walls of 
 memory, until "the silver cord be loosed or the golden 
 bowl be broken." 
 
 35
 
 The Nature of Home. 
 
 I HE old man may not recall all the experiences, all the 
 ^ struggles and triumphs of his early manhood ; bat 
 every feature of his childhood home, every little playhouse 
 that he helped his sister build, is photographed upon his 
 heart's tablet and can never fade away. Perchance the 
 golden light of eternity will not dim the brightness of that 
 picture. Whatever else the heart may forget, it cannot 
 forget the place of its birth ; it cannot forget the little 
 broken cart, the sled and the kite, the sister's fond caress, 
 the brother's generous aid, the father's loving counsel, and 
 the mother's anxious prayer. 
 
 It cannot forget the day when a chastening hand drew 
 still closer the cords of love and bound the little circle in 
 a common sorrow ; the day when hushed footsteps were 
 in the house, and the silent rooms were filled with the odor 
 of flowers, and the garden gate swung outward to let a 
 little casket through. 
 
 " That hallowed word is ne'er forgot, 
 
 No matter where we roam ; 
 The purest feelings of the heart 
 Still cluster 'round our home. 
 
 " Dear resting place where weary thought 
 
 May dream away its care, 
 Love's gentle star unveils its light 
 And shines in beauty there." 
 
 36
 
 The Nature of Home. 
 
 the ministry of home consists not alone in its 
 fond memories and hallowed associations. It is the 
 great conservator of good, the "seeding place of virtue." 
 It is the origin of all civilization. The laws of a nation are 
 but rescripts of its domestic codes. The words uttered and 
 the doctrines taught around the fireside are the influences 
 that shape the destinies of empires. 
 
 It is the influences of home that live in the life of king- 
 doms, while parental counsel repeats itself in the voices of 
 republics. We would impress upon the minds of our 
 readers this grand truth, and would that we might thunder 
 it into the ears of all mankind, that a nation is but a mag- 
 nified home. Parliament and Congress are but hearth- 
 stones on a grander scale. Those great and noble charac- 
 ters who have left a deathless impress upon the history of 
 nations were not fashioned on battle fields, but in the 
 cradle and at the fireside. They are those, moreover, who 
 at every period of life, at every turn of fortune or adver- 
 sity, have never forgotten the old home. 
 
 NO argument is necessary to convince us of the potency 
 of home influence in shaping character. There are 
 certain truths to which it is only necessary to call atten- 
 tion, and minds instinctively assent to them, and to this 
 class, we believe, belong those general truths concerning 
 home which we have mentioned. Indeed, they are recog- 
 
 37
 
 The Nature of Home. 
 
 nized and taught in the trite maxims of everyday life. 
 Napoleon understood well the nature of home and its mis- 
 sion when he said, " The great need of France is mothers." 
 Mohammed said, " Paradise is at the feet of mothers." 
 
 " O wondrous power ! how little understood 1 
 Entrusted to a mother's mind alone, 
 To fashion genius from the soul for good." 
 
 In democratic countries like the United States and 
 Canada, where the fate of the nation is in the hands of the 
 people, the future of the nation is in the hands of the chil- 
 dren. They must be fitted for their high responsibilities by 
 the influences of home. These countries should. fear the 
 disloyalty and contention of the fireside more than the 
 nefarious plots of scheming politicians. 
 
 If boys wrangle and contend at home, if they cannot 
 discuss with dignity the little questions that arise in their 
 daily intercourse with one another, be sure they will not 
 honor the nation when they take their places in Senate, 
 Parliament, or Congress to discuss the great problems that 
 confront the civilization of the nineteenth century. 
 
 NOW, if home may be so powerful an influence for 
 good, how important becomes the cultivation of the 
 home sentiment. To be destitute of this sentiment is 
 almost as great a misfortune as to be destitute of the relig- 
 ious sentiment. Indeed, we believe that one cannot pos- 
 
 38
 
 The Nature of Home. 
 
 sess a true and exalted love of home while there is wanting 
 in his character that which when awakened may yield the 
 fruit of a godly life. What a mighty responsibility rests 
 upon him who essays to make a home, for the founding of 
 a home is as sacred a work as the founding of a church. 
 Indeed, every home should be a temple dedicated to divine 
 worship, where human beings through life should worship 
 God through the service of mutual love the highest 
 tribute man can pay to the divine. 
 
 If the home sentiment be one of the strongest passions 
 of the human soul, it was made such for a wise purpose. 
 The affections of the heart all have their corresponding 
 outward objects. We possess no power impelling us to 
 love or desire that which does not exist as a genuine insti- 
 tution and necessity of nature. So this strong home senti- 
 ment only proves to us that the institution of home was 
 divinely born. It is based in the very constitution of 
 human nature, and so vital is the relation which it sustains 
 to our needs, that every heart must have a home. It may 
 not be of brick or wood or stone. It may not have a " local 
 habitation and a name." But if not, out of the airy tim- 
 bers of its own fancy the heart will rear the structure 
 which it demands as a necessity of its being. We are 
 aware that there are thousands who are called homeless ; 
 but their hearts' demand is at least partially met by the 
 possession of an ideal home. The body may exist without 
 a home, but the heart, never. The world called Howard 
 
 39
 
 The Nature of Home. 
 
 Payne a homeless wanderer, yet kings and peasants have 
 implored entrance at the vine-wreathed threshold of that 
 home which he reared in the airy dreamland of poesy. 
 
 Another evidence of the divine origin of the institution 
 of home is found in its obvious adaptation to the end it 
 serves, and in the striking analogies which we detect be- 
 tween its functions and the general methods of nature. 
 
 ["VERY growth in nature is nurtured and sustained 
 *^,* through its early existence by a pre-existing guard- 
 ian. The germ of the oak is nourished and protected by 
 the substance of the acorn until it is strong enough to 
 draw its food directly from the earth, and to withstand 
 the tempest and the scorching sun. So it must be with 
 the germ of that oak which is to wave in the forest of 
 human society. And if we wish it to become a grand 
 and noble oak, and not a hollow hearted deformity, we 
 should look well to the protection and nourishment of its 
 early years. We should see that there is the proper spirit- 
 ual soil from which the little human germ may gather 
 wholesome and strengthening food when it puts forth its 
 tender rootlets into the great world without. 
 
 The relation which the acorn sustains to the germ is 
 precisely that which the home sustains to the child. If we 
 were to suppose the germ endowed with intelligence, we 
 should still suppose it ignorant of everything but the en- 
 vironments of the acorn. It would, of course, be all uncon- 
 
 40
 
 The Nature of Home. 
 
 scious that there is a world without full not only of germs 
 like itself, but of giant oaks. So the child is ignorant of 
 the great outward world. The home is its little world and 
 it knows no other. 
 
 Precious thought, that it never quite outgrows the bliss- 
 ful ignorance ! We take on higher and broader views of 
 life, but we are compelled by a law of our being to look 
 forever upon our home as in some way the grand center 
 from which radiate all other interests. 
 
 When the mother shades the windows of the nursery, 
 she but unconsciously imitates the Creator of her child, 
 who through the institution of home has shut from his 
 feeble and nascent mind the flashing colors of the too bril- 
 liant world. 
 
 But not alone for childhood is the sacred ministry of 
 home. It is the guardian of youth, a consolation amid 
 the weary toils of manhood and a resting place for old age, 
 where he who is soon to lay off the armor may find loving 
 hearts and tender hands to guide his tottering steps to the 
 water's edge. 
 
 Again, the mature mind is only that of a developed in- 
 fant. It is still infantile with reference to the universe in 
 its entirety. Nor can it ever fully comprehend the signifi- 
 cance of life in the aggregate. Were we to attempt to 
 dwell in the great temple of the world, we should become 
 lost in its vast halls and mighty labyrinths. Hence it be- 
 comes necessary to reduce the scale of the world ; to iso- 
 
 41
 
 The Nature of Home. 
 
 late the human mind, as it were, from the vastness of ag- 
 gregate life. And this God has done in the institution of 
 home. 
 
 " Home's not merely four square walls, 
 
 Though with pictures hung and gilded : 
 Home is where affection calls, 
 
 Filled with shrines the heart hath builded ! 
 Home ! go watch the faithful dove, 
 
 Sailing 'neath the heaven above us ; 
 Home is where there's one to love ! 
 
 Home is where there's one to love us ! 
 
 " Home's not merely roof and room, 
 
 It needs something to endear it ; 
 Home is where the heart can bloom, 
 
 Where there's some kind lip to cheer it ! 
 What is home with none to meet, 
 
 None to welcome, none to greet us? 
 Home is sweet, and only sweet, 
 
 Where there's one we love to meet us I "
 
 h
 
 I 
 
 oil 
 
 CHAPTER THREE. 
 
 Influences of Home. 
 
 T is a law of all initiate life that it is susceptible to 
 outward and formative influences in an inverse ratio 
 to its age. 
 
 An ear of corn while it is yet green may have an 
 entire row of its kernels removed, and when it becomes 
 ripe it will show no marks of this piece of vegetable sur- 
 gery. So the young child may have many a vice removed 
 while he remains as plastic clay in the hands of those 
 whose privilege it is to mold the character for eternity, and 
 when he is old he will show no marks of the cruel knife of 
 discipline and denial through which the change was 
 wrought. But if he becomes old before the work is begun 
 the scar will always remain, even if the experiment suc- 
 ceeds. A bad temper in a young child may be sweetened, 
 but the acid temper of an old man reluctantly unites with 
 any sweetening influences. 
 
 We find here a striking analogy to a physical law of 
 our being. It is a well known fact that in early childhood 
 the osseous tissues of the body are soft and flexible. The 
 bones may be almost doubled upon themselves without 
 
 45
 
 Influences of Home. 
 
 breaking, but in the old the bones are so hard and brittle 
 that they cannot be bent at all without breaking. We can 
 make little or no impression upon them. They stubbornly 
 refuse to respond to any influences. Surely it is true of the 
 bod^y, " As the twig is bent the tree's inclined." But it is no 
 less true of the mind and soul. The disposition of an animal 
 may be made almost what we choose to make it by our 
 treatment of it when young. 
 
 Who does not know that the disposition of the dog is 
 almost wholly dependent on the manner in which the 
 puppy is treated ? This principle is recognized in the 
 adage, "It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks." 
 
 Whatever may be our views concerning the moral and 
 spiritual relations of the human to the brute creation, it 
 cannot be denied that the laws which govern the mental 
 life of each are essentially the same. The difference is in 
 quantity rather than quality. 
 
 What a grand virtue is patience ! How charming in 
 childhood ! How sublime in manhood ! Then let us learn 
 a lesson from the ease with which patience is created or 
 destroyed at will in the young animal. 
 
 The susceptibility of children to outward influences is 
 largely due to their power of imitation, and this power 
 was doubtless given them for a wise purpose. 
 
 Originality is not a virtue of infancy and childhood. 
 Hence, if we would influence the acts of a child we 
 should set him an example, we should act as we wish 
 
 46
 
 Influences of Home. 
 
 him to act. Patient children are never reared by impatient 
 parents. 
 
 Most of the crime and misery of the world are due to 
 the early influences of home. We may not be aware how 
 small an influence may work the ruin of a child when he 
 has inherited slightly vicious tendencies. By nature the 
 disposition of a child is the sweetest thing in the world, 
 and how beautiful, tender, and sweet might become the 
 lives of all if parents were conscious of these truths, and 
 would act according to their knowledge. But they so 
 often contaminate the sweet springs of childhood with the 
 bitterness of their own lives, that we do not wonder that 
 the old theologians so strongly believed in total depravity 
 and innate sinfulness. 
 
 Infancy is neither vicious nor virtuous ; it is simply 
 innocent, and is susceptible alike to good and bad im- 
 pressions. 
 
 Its safety consists alone in the watchfulness of its 
 guardians. The soldier has his hours of duty, but the par- 
 ent to whose hands is intrusted the guardianship of an 
 immortal soul is never off duty. When the baby is asleep 
 all the household move softly lest they awake him ; but 
 when he is awake they should move and think and speak 
 more softly lest they awaken in him that which no nursery 
 song can lull to sleep again. 
 
 The young child is an apt student of human nature. 
 You do not deceive him as you perhaps think. The 
 
 47
 
 Influences of Home. 
 
 knowledge of human nature, of the motives that impel us 
 to actions, comes not from reason nor from observation. 
 It is an intuitive knowledge and is always keen in the 
 child. It acts, too, with far greater vigor between the 
 child and parent, especially the mother, than between 
 the child and others. Every look of the mother's eye is 
 interpreted by her child with far greater accuracy than the 
 most profound student of the anatomy of expression could 
 interpret it. 
 
 The sharpest merchant may not detect the sign of dis- 
 honesty in the father's face so quickly as the child. 
 
 LxARENTS, your child is a bound volume of blank 
 ^_^. paper on whose pages are to be written the record 
 of your own lives. Be careful then what you allow to be 
 written there, for the world will read it. Do you not see 
 that through this principle by which you are instinctively 
 en rapport with your child, an awful responsibility is 
 thrown upon you ? The secrets of your inmost soul are the 
 copy which the trembling hand of your child is trying to 
 write. 
 
 The word influence is the most incomprehensible, the 
 most vast and far reaching in its significance, of all words. 
 We seldom use it in any- but a literal sense, but in every 
 degree of its true meaning there is the shadow of infinity. 
 Philosophers tell us, not in jest, but in the profoundest 
 earnest, that every footfall on the pavement jars the sun, 
 
 48
 
 Influences of Home, 
 
 and every pebble dropped into the ocean moves the conti- 
 nents with vibrations that never cease. Your hand gives 
 motion to a pendulum, and in that act you have produced 
 an effect which shall endure through eternity. The vibra- 
 tion of the pendulum as a mass ceases, but only because 
 its motion has been transformed from mass motion to 
 molecular motion. Had it been suspended in a vacuum 
 and been made to swing without friction at the point of 
 suspension, it would have vibrated on forever, but the fric- 
 tion, which is inevitable, and the resistance of the air, grad- 
 ually bring it to rest, and we say the motion has ceased. 
 But this is not true. The motion has not ceased, it has 
 simply become invisible. At every vibration a part of the 
 motion was changed at the point of suspension and in the 
 air into the invisible undulations of heat and electricity. 
 A moment ago the pendulum was swinging, but now 
 infinitely small atoms are swinging in its stead, and the 
 aggregate motion of all those atoms is just equal to the 
 motion of the pendulum at first. These waves of atomic 
 motion expand and radiate from the points of origin, ex- 
 tending on and on and on, past planets and stars, beating 
 and dashing against their brazen bosoms as the waves of 
 the ocean beat the rocky shore. 
 
 This is not the language of fancy ; it is the veritable 
 philosophy, the demonstrated facts of science. Your will 
 gave birth to motion communicated along the nerve of your 
 
 arm to the pendulum, and that motion has gone past your 
 
 49
 
 Influences of Home, 
 
 recall, on its eternal errand among the stars. What a sol- 
 emn thought ! You are the parent of the infinite ! 
 
 And yet this illustration but faintly shadows the awful- 
 ness of human influence. If a simple motion of your hand 
 is fraught with eternal consequences, what shall we say of 
 the influences of your mind ? They shall live as long as 
 the throne of the Infinite. Oh, that we might impress 
 upon the minds of mother and father the awful truth that 
 an influence in its very nature is eternal. Not a word or 
 thought or deed of all the myriad dead but lives to-day in 
 the character of our words and deeds and thoughts. We 
 are the outgrowth of all the past, the grand resultant of all 
 the world's past forces. Only God can measure the in- 
 fluence of a human thought. 
 
 " No stream from its source 
 Flows seaward, how lonely soever its course, 
 But what some land is gladdened. Xo star ever rose 
 And set without influence somewhere. Who knows 
 What earth needs from earth's lowest creature? No life 
 Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife, 
 And all life not be purer and stronger thereby." 
 
 /V MOTHER speaks a fretful word to a child at a crit- 
 
 V^, ical moment, when just upon his trembling lips 
 
 hangs the ready word of penitence, and in his eye a tear, 
 
 held back by the thinnest veil through which a single 
 
 tender glance might pierce. But the tender glance is with- 
 
 50
 
 Influences of Home. 
 
 held. The penitence grows cold upon his lip, the tear 
 creeps back to its fountain, the heart grows harder day by 
 day, until that mother mourns over a wayward child, the 
 neighborhood over a rude boy, the city over a reckless 
 youth, the state over a dangerous man, and the nation over 
 the sad havoc of a dark assassin. Who can trace to its 
 ultimate effect that fretful word through all its ramifica- 
 tions to infinite consequences ? That word shall reverber- 
 ate through the halls of eternity when planets are dust 
 and stars are ashes. 
 
 I IF all human influences those of home are the most far 
 reaching in their results. The mutual influence of 
 brothers and sisters may be almost incalculable. There 
 are many men who owe their honor, their integrity, and 
 their manhood to the influence of pure minded sisters. 
 Sisters usually have it in their power to shape the charac- 
 ter of their brothers as they choose. There is naturally a 
 pure and holy affection existing between brothers and 
 sisters. It is natural for all brothers to feel and believe 
 that, in some way, their sisters are purer and better than 
 others, and sisters also believe that their brothers are 
 nobler than the brothers of their associates. This senti- 
 ment is so universal that we cannot help believing it was 
 ordained for a wise purpose. Of course there is the ele- 
 ment of deception in it, but it is one of nature's wise de- 
 ceptions. She deceives us, or tries to deceive us, when she 
 
 51
 
 Influences of Home. 
 
 paints what seems a solid bow upon the canvas of the sky. 
 She deceives the superstitious and ignorant when she flings 
 her chain of molten gold around the dusky shoulders of 
 the night. But these deceptions are not such as to cast any 
 reflections upon her integrity. So we may believe that this 
 sweet deception which makes angels of sisters and heroes 
 of brothers was divinely ordered to unite brothers and sis- 
 ters in closest communion and to bring them both within 
 the enchanted circle of home influence. 
 
 " I shot an arrow in the air, 
 
 It fell to earth, I knew not where. 
 
 #********** 
 " I breathed a song into the air, 
 
 It fell on earth, I knew not where. 
 *********** 
 " Long, long afterwards in an oak 
 I found the arrow still unbroke ; 
 And the song from beginning to end, 
 I found again in the heart of a friend." 
 
 Morals, manners, methods, the principal concomitants 
 of character, have their inception and largely their devel- 
 opment within the home. It is at once one of the most 
 civilizing and demoralizing of human agencies. It may be 
 a lazar-house of vice, strife, improvidence, unfaith, prosti- 
 tuting every budding power, or it may be the sanctuary of 
 domestic felicity, kindness, truthfulness, philanthropy, 
 bestowing continued benedictions upon each member and 
 radiating the light of human joy. 
 
 52
 
 CHAPTER FOUR. 
 
 Buds of Promise. 
 
 ^ (5} OME as a natural institution has for its primary 
 object the nurturing of those tender buds of 
 promise which can mature in no other soil. 
 The human bud, unlike that of the flower, 
 does not contain its future wholly wrapped up within itself, 
 but depends much upon the hand that nurtures it. The 
 rosebud, no matter in what soil it grows, no matter what 
 care it receives, must blossom into a rose. No care or neg- 
 lect, at least in any definite period of time, can transform 
 it into a noxious weed. But on every mother's bosom there 
 rests a bud of promise, and whether or not that promise 
 shall be fulfilled depends upon her. Whether that bud 
 shall blossom into a pure and fragrant rose or into the 
 flower of the deadly nightshade, is at the option of the 
 guardian. 
 
 We would not, however, be understood as teaching the 
 doctrine long since abandoned by the investigators of 
 human science, that all are born equal as regards future 
 possibilities. If men had known the subtle laws that gov- 
 ern the development of the human intellect, they perhaps 
 
 53
 
 Buds of Promise. 
 
 might have traced the lightning's course through the infant 
 brain of Franklin, and have discerned in the nascent mind 
 of Newton the unlighted lamp whose far-searching beams 
 have since guided the human intellect through the track- 
 less void of the night. And yet, had the guardianship of 
 these minds been different, they might to-day be baleful 
 blood-red stars in the firmament of guilt and sin. Homer, 
 Shakespeare, Milton, Washington, Dante, and Longfellow, 
 each lay as a little bud of promise on a mother's bosom, and 
 yet that mother knew not that the world was to thunder 
 with applause at the mention of her dear one's name. 
 
 Knew not ? We will not, however, speak thus posi- 
 tively, for history furnishes much evidence that with the 
 birth of such a bud there comes a hint of its promise ; as it 
 were, a letter to its guardian from the Creator. 
 
 3O close is the relation between mother and child that 
 to the spiritually minded mother there seems to come 
 a premonition of her child's destiny. And yet this fact 
 does not in the least lighten the burden of responsibility 
 that falls on every mother at the birth of her child. Such 
 a premonition, indeed, would always be a safe guide were 
 it always given ; but a mother, through lack of suscep- 
 tibility dependent on temperamental conditions, may hold 
 in her arms unawares that which the world has a right to 
 claim. Out from among the thrice ten thousand little chil- 
 dren that swell the murmur in the schoolrooms of the great 
 
 54
 
 Buds of Promise. 
 
 cities, or with bare . and sunburnt feet patter up the 
 aisles of those dear old schoolhouses that nestle among the 
 hills and valleys, sacred urns that hold the childish secrets 
 and hallowed memories of a thousand hearts, out from 
 among these shall the angel of destiny select one and place 
 upon his little head the crown of Longfellow and dedicate 
 him to the service of his kind, and make him the sweet 
 interpreter of star and flower. 
 
 Mother ! shall it be your boy ? Do you hear in your 
 soul the gentle whisper ? If you do, wherever you may be, 
 may the benediction of humanity rest upon you. May 
 your precious life be spared to watch the opening of that 
 bud of promise. As friends and neighbors assemble to see 
 the unfolding of the night-blooming cereus, so the world 
 shall watch the unfolding of that precious bud. 
 
 t every mother act as if she held a bud of prom- 
 ise. Let those who have riot felt the premoni- 
 tion attribute it to their insensibility. Better a thousand 
 times bestow your tenderest care upon an idiot, better 
 believe that you hold the bud of genius and awake to bitter 
 disappointment, than to learn in the end that you have 
 failed to do your duty, and that a genius grand and awful 
 like a fallen temple lies at your feet in the pitiful impo- 
 tence of manifest but unused power. 
 
 But the buds of promise are not confined to the great 
 geniuses. As we said at the beginning of this chapter, 
 
 55
 
 Buds of Promise. 
 
 every infant is a bud of promise. It is not the Washing- 
 tons, the Pitts, the Lincolns, that shape a nation. They 
 are the directing forces, like the man who holds the levers 
 and valves of the engine. But, as after all it is the toiling, 
 puffing steam that drags the train, so it is the great delv- 
 ing, toiling, sweating multitude that shapes the character 
 of nations. 
 
 It was not her statesmen that made Greece grand. It 
 was the character of her citizenship. The mightiest states- 
 men that the world has ever yet produced could not make 
 a grand republic in the South Sea islands. What a nation 
 needs is honest toilers ; intelligent and scholarly farmers, 
 cautious, scientific and temperate railroad engineers, 
 learned blacksmiths, and healthy, intelligent, and pious 
 wood choppers. 
 
 Thus every mother is the guardian of a bud of promise, 
 and whether she will or not must hold herself responsible 
 for the blossom. Let her not hasten to rid herself of that 
 responsibility. That bud will open soon enough. No bud 
 develops so rapidly as a human bud. Let it remain a bud 
 just as long as possible. The rose acquires its perfume 
 while its petals are folded, and the longer it remains a bud, 
 the sweeter will be the blossom. 
 
 Again, it is the most rapidly developing bud that 
 soonest fades. Then do not pull apart the tender petals of 
 that bud of promise in order to hasten its unfolding, lest in 
 an hour of sadness you should say : 
 
 56
 
 Buds of Promise. 
 
 " And this is the end of it all : 
 
 Of my waiting and my pain 
 Only a little funeral pall 
 And empty arms again." 
 
 There can be nothing more destructive to the promises 
 it contains than to attempt to open a rosebud with any 
 other instrument than a sunbeam. 
 
 The world is full of the withered buds of human prom- 
 ise that have been too early torn open by the thoughtless 
 hand of parental pride. 
 
 The crying sin of modern parents is their unwilling- 
 ness to let their children grow. They wish to transform 
 them all at once from prattling infants into immortal 
 geniuses. They have more faith in art than in Nature, in 
 books and schoolrooms than in brooks and groves. 
 
 \rOUNG children should not only be kept from school, 
 ^ but they should be taught at home very sparingly 
 and with the greatest caution in those things which are 
 generally considered as constituting an education. Many 
 suppose that the injury of too early mental training re- 
 sults solely from the confinement within the schoolroom, 
 but this is a great mistake. The injury results chiefly 
 from determining the expenditure of nervous energy 
 through the brain instead of through the muscular system. 
 Your young child must have no thoughts except those 
 
 57
 
 Buds of Promise. 
 
 which originate in the incoherent activity of his childish 
 freedom. 
 
 All others he has at the expense of bone and muscle, 
 lung and stomach, and ultimately at the expense of his 
 whole being. The solution of a mathematical problem is 
 as much a physical task as the lifting of a weight. The 
 passion of the orator and the devotion of the saint are 
 both measured by the potentialities of bread and meat. 
 
 So that those who try to fill their little children's minds 
 with " great thoughts " and who teach them to meditate 
 upon the great realities of life, thinking thereby to make 
 them grand and great, are not only defeating their own 
 ends, but are destroying the foundations of future possi- 
 bility. They are turning to loathsome foulness the sweet- 
 est perfume of those buds whose undeveloped petals they 
 are so rudely tearing apart. 
 
 I HE social forces of the present age are such as to 
 V render young children peculiarly liable to precocity. 
 Mentality has acquired such an impetus through hereditary 
 influences that the minds of infants early commence that 
 fatal race of thought, which results in the wreck of so 
 many thousands of human bodies. Thoughtfulness in 
 youth, and even in childhood, when the physical system 
 has become strong enough to be aggressive in its relations 
 to the natural forces, cannot be too strongly urged. But 
 
 58
 
 Buds of Promise. 
 
 infantile thought is not only useless, but is a great evil, 
 and usually involves an irreparable waste of life force. 
 
 There are two great evils whose indirect influence upon 
 the world cannot be estimated. 
 
 The one is the overfeeding of infants, and the other is 
 the unnatural and abnormal activity of the infant mind ; 
 and the one evil enhances the other, for there is nothing 
 that so interferes with digestion in the young child as 
 thought. 
 
 Wendell Phillips in speaking of the evils of American 
 precocity, with his characteristic and humorous hyperbole, 
 tells us that the American infant impatiently raising him- 
 self in the cradle begins at once to study the structure and 
 uses of the various objects about him, and before he is nine 
 months old has procured a patent for an improvement on 
 some article of the household furniture. 
 
 " Who can tell what a baby thinks? 
 Who can follow the gossamer links 
 By which the manikin, feels his way 
 Out from the shores of the great unknown, 
 Blind, and wailing, and alone, 
 Into the light of day? 
 Out from the shore of the unknown sea, 
 Tossing in pitiful agony, 
 Of the unknown sea that reels and rolls, 
 Specked with the barks of little souls 
 Barks that were launched on the other side, 
 And slipped from heaven on aii ebbing tide? 
 59
 
 Buds of Promise. 
 
 What does he think of his mother's eyes? 
 What does he think of his mother's hair? 
 What of the cradle-roof that flies 
 Forward and backward through the air ? 
 What does he think of his mother's breast, 
 Bare and beautiful, smooth and white, 
 Seeking it ever with fresh delight 
 Cup of his life and couch of his rest? " 
 
 60
 
 CHAPTER FIVE. 
 
 Ctiildtiood. 
 
 LL animals are born in a somewhat helpless condi- 
 tion, but none so helpless as the human being, 
 
 hence its necessity for the tenderest care. 
 
 Throughout all nature it is the function of the 
 mother to exercise a special care over the young. The 
 mere intellectual desire for the child's welfare is not suffi- 
 cient to insure that degree of. attention which it requires ; 
 for the most intelligent and even Christian mothers are 
 sometimes utterly neglectful of their children, while the 
 selfish and narrow minded are frequently very tender in 
 their attentions. Why is this ? It is simply because the 
 mother love, or, more properly, the parental love, is not the 
 outgrowth of a sense of duty. It is an instinct which we 
 possess in common with the brute. It is a significant fact 
 that throughout the whole animal kingdom the parents 
 possess this instinct just in proportion to the helplessness 
 of the offspring. 
 
 The home is a universal institution, and exists among 
 the lower 'animals in a measure, even. It was, doubtless, 
 
 61
 
 Childhood. 
 
 designed to meet the necessities arising from the helpless- 
 ness of offspring. The young lion could not accompany its 
 parents in their search for food, nor could the eaglet soar 
 with its mother into the heavens. Hence the necessity of an 
 instinct that should prompt the lion and the eagle to select 
 and prepare a proper place in which to leave their young 
 while they were attending to the duties imposed by their 
 mode of life. So reason may tell us that it would be far 
 better for us to take good care of our children, and to pro- 
 vide for them a suitable home, but our observation of those 
 in whom the instinct is weak convinces us that mere 
 reason seldom produces this result. While the intellect 
 tells us what we ought to do, it gives no impulse to do it ; 
 but instinct gives the impulse, the desire to do, and when 
 the instinct is in a healthy condition we may rely on the 
 intellect of Him who implanted the instinct, for the fitness 
 of the acts to which it prompts us. Indeed, it is a law of our 
 being that reason cannot perform the office of an instinct. 
 It may tell us that we ought to breathe incessantly, but 
 there are few of us who would not forget the duty were it 
 not for the instinctive impulse. 
 
 Without the home instinct, the legitimate desire for 
 novelty which all possess would be left unbalanced, and 
 the whole human race would wander from place to place, 
 and the world would become one mighty caravan. With- 
 out the instinct of parental love, the child would be held in 
 the same esteem as any other person who should give us 
 
 62
 
 Childhood. 
 
 the same amount of trouble. And since it is a law of our 
 selfish nature that unless provision is made by special in- 
 stinct, we cannot love that which gives us only pain, the 
 child's lot on earth would indeed be an unenviable one. 
 But the instinct transforms all the pain and trouble into 
 joy, so that the parents are not only made willing thereby 
 to incur all the troubles and anxieties which their children 
 bring, but are even made to take positive delight in incur- 
 ring them. 
 
 The home instinct and that of parental love are closely 
 allied, and so intimate is their relation that we cannot 
 doubt that they were bestowed with reference to each other. 
 It is true that many other blessings, even the sweetest joys 
 of life, are rooted in the home instinct ; but these are all 
 secondary and subsidiary to the one grand end, the home of 
 childhood. 
 
 Home is the only place where childhood can develop. 
 It is there only that are to be found those influences which 
 are necessary to fertilize the character of the child and 
 cause it to blossom and bear the fruit of a noble life. Why 
 have nearly all great men had homes illustrious for their 
 beauty, and the purity of their influences ? The answer 
 is to be found in the fact that the soil of home contains just 
 those elements required for the growth and development of 
 the child's body, mind, and soul. 
 
 Notice closely the figure, the face, the features, the 
 
 voice of that little street waif. Why is his frame so small 
 
 63
 
 Childhood. 
 
 and shrunken ? Why are his features all crowded and 
 pinched ? Why do his eye, his walk, his voice, and his man- 
 ner suggest dwarfed precocity ? For the same reason that 
 an apple which has been early detached from its stem will 
 become early ripe, but never developed. Subject it to 
 whatever treatment we may, it will shrivel up and become 
 insipid, fit symbol of the boy who was early dropped from 
 the home into the street. 
 
 The home is the garden where buds become fruit. How 
 important then that the garden be kept free from weeds, 
 while it is enriched with affection and exposed to the sun- 
 light of joy. How slight an influence may serve to blight 
 that opening bud. 
 
 The child is as impressible as he is helpless. He is sim- 
 ply the raw material out of which character is to be fash- 
 ioned by the silent and almost imperceptible influence of 
 his surroundings. And it is this which 
 
 " Plants the great hereafter in the now." 
 
 Silently as the falling of snow-flakes the character of 
 the child is formed. We cannot see the bud unfold, and yet 
 we know that to-morrow it will be a rose. So our percep- 
 tion cannot follow the growth of the child's character, and 
 yet we know that day by day its forces are gathering, and 
 that soon he will become to his anxious parents a joy or a 
 sorrow. 
 
 Children are much more easily influenced by example 
 
 64
 
 Childhood. 
 
 than by precept. A child may be told repeatedly that dis- 
 honesty is sinful, yet if he detect dishonesty in father, 
 mother, sister, or brother, he will imitate the example. You 
 may as well tell him that sinfulness is dishonesty, for he 
 knows no difference. Both terms are meaningless to him. 
 Most of the thieves, robbers, and murderers of the next 
 generation are now little innocent children in the arms of 
 mothers. How should mothers shudder at this thought ! 
 The first evidence of passion or of evil intent, the first 
 manifestation of dishonesty, should alarm the mother like 
 the cry of fire in the night. 
 
 " The summer breeze that fans the rose, 
 Or eddies down some flowery path, 
 Is but the infant gale that blows 
 
 To-morrow with the whirlwind's wrath." 
 
 Jyi OTHERS ! you cann'ot watch the formation of child 
 V_ character too critically. By watching, however, 
 we do not mean the exercise of that suspicion and doubt 
 which are so fatal to the free, open confidence of the child, 
 but that cautious surveillance without which all your 
 efforts in his behalf will be fruitless. Better a thousand 
 times that the child, even in his tender years, should gaze 
 full upon the hideous face of sin, than that the silken cord 
 of confidence be broken that binds him to a mother's heart. 
 Liberty is the only atmosphere in which a human soul can 
 grow. Strict literal watching is both unnecessary and inju- 
 
 65
 
 Childhood. 
 
 rious. Confidence between mother and child may become 
 so perfect that the child cannot commit a wrong without 
 confessing it. Your watching then should be directed to 
 the maintenance of this confidence, which can be insured 
 only by putting the child upon his honor, for honor grows 
 only by being exercised. With this confidence between 
 yourself and your child you will at all times be conscious 
 of his moral condition. You will feel in your very heart 
 the first dawnings of evil thought in him. And remember 
 that it is necessary you should know the evil thoughts as 
 soon as they dawn, for the conflagration that scourges 
 with its fury great cities is less dangerous at its onset than 
 the first evil thought in the heart of youth. 
 
 " Crush the first germ ; too late your cares begin 
 When long delays have fortified the sin." 
 
 But by nature the young child is innocent, and positive 
 influences for evil must be brought to bear upon him be- 
 fore he can become otherwise. With his half divine na- 
 ture he recoils from the very sight or sound of that which 
 is wrong. Yet he is so imitative and so susceptible that 
 his danger is nevertheless imminent, and the fact that he 
 may more readily imitate the good than the evil should 
 not relax parental vigilance. 
 
 66
 
 Childhood. 
 
 yOUNG children and even infants comprehend far 
 ^ more than people generally believe. They cannot 
 express their mental operations by the use of language. 
 Their thoughts are expressed only by their actions, and how 
 vague an idea of the thoughts of the profoundest thinkers 
 would we have if our only clue to them were the mere 
 outward acts of their authors. Were actions the only inter- 
 preters of human thought, the world would appear to us 
 like a vast insane asylum. 
 
 Happiness is the only food on which the child can be 
 fed with profit. Sorrow is sometimes an excellent thing 
 for those whose spiritual digestion is sufficiently strong, 
 but children never should be fed on this diet. Sorrow 
 ripens, but joy develops a soul. But let us not entertain 
 that foolish and cruel notion so prevalent, that hard 
 knocks, disappointment," constant work, and little recrea- 
 tion are necessary to develop the character of a child. 
 Some one has given the following beautiful piece of advice 
 to mothers : 
 
 "Always send your little child to bed happy. What- 
 ever cares may trouble your mind, give the dear child a 
 warm good-night kiss as it goes to its pillow. The memory 
 of this in the stormy years which may be in store for the 
 little one will be like Bethlehem's star to the bewildered 
 shepherds, and welling up in the heart will rise the thought, 
 ' My father, my mother loved me ! ' Lips parched with 
 
 67
 
 Childhood. 
 
 fever will become dewy again at this thrill of youthful 
 memories. Kiss your little child before it goes to sleep." 
 
 "Ah ! what would the world be to us 
 
 If the children were no more? 
 We should dread the desert behind us 
 Worse than the dark before. 
 
 " What the leaves are to the forest, 
 
 With light and air for food, 
 Ere their sweet and tender juices 
 Have been hardened into wood, 
 
 ' ' That to the world are children ; 
 
 Through them it feels the glow 
 Of a brighter and sunnier climate 
 Than reaches the trunks below." 
 
 68
 
 l$g! 1 
 
 ^55 
 
 rs s> i 
 
 9y - -^ 
 
 fe> c " 
 
 , 
 
 *" M 
 QJ m
 
 CHAPTER SIX. 
 
 Home Training. 
 
 i I bo 
 
 -* 
 
 HE training of the child necessarily begins with the 
 body, for the young child must be regarded chiefly 
 
 -* as a young animal. The animal nature is the first 
 to be developed, and in every well-born and healthy 
 child the manifestations of animality will precede those of 
 intellectuality. One has said, " If you would make your 
 child a good man, first make him a great animal." The 
 child's prospects of future greatness are measured in part 
 by his stomach and lungs. 
 
 The most important period of a child's training, then, is 
 that period during which he is an animal. Nature's method 
 seems to be to form first a powerful physical system, and 
 then, on this as a foundation, to rear the intellectual and 
 the moral. If the physical is diseased, the mental, gen- 
 erally speaking, cannot be healthy. One of the most 
 important elements in a great man is a great body, great in 
 health, in vital stamina, and in its capacity to become the 
 counterpart of the mind. 
 
 In view of these facts it becomes of paramount impor- 
 tance that the mother have a knowledge of physiology. 
 
 71
 
 Home Training. 
 
 No woman has any moral right to bear the honored name 
 of mother till she possesses such knowledge. We would 
 not place a delicate machine in the hands of one who was 
 ignorant of its structure. Not that the mother should be a 
 physician; for she generally practices medicine too much. 
 It is as important that she should know how to let her 
 child alone, as to know how to take care of him. It is not 
 necessary that she should know just what to do for him 
 when he is sick. It is much better for her to know what 
 not to do for him. It is the doctor's duty to cure him when 
 he is sick, but it is the mother's duty to give the doctor as 
 little opportunity as possible to display his skill in this 
 direction. 
 
 Let every mother remember this fact, that the cry of a 
 sick child may be the telltale that convicts her of sin. A 
 child never cries unless it has been wronged by inattention, 
 or as a signal of distress. A healthy child is always 
 angelic. No parent has any business with any but a healthy 
 child, for wholesome food in proper quantities never 
 deranged a stomach. Pure air never diseased a lung. A 
 human eye was never blinded by the diffused sunlight. 
 Teeth never decayed through grinding pure and wholesome 
 food. 
 
 NO child, unless his appetite has been pampered by a 
 foolish mother, will ever crave that which it is nec- 
 essary to withhold from him. Nor will his appetite ever 
 
 72
 
 Home Training. 
 
 require to be urged. No rational person will contend that 
 reason should usurp the place of instinct in the matter of 
 eating and drinking. Those delicate conditions of the sys- 
 tem in which it accepts or rejects nourishment are entirely 
 beyond the ken of reason. Through the whole animal 
 kingdom, including man, there is an instinct which tells its 
 possessor just what kind of food and how much its sys- 
 tem requires. No tests of science could determine this. 
 Tyndall may exhaust all his resources in trying to deter- 
 mine whether or not a given robin has eaten enough to 
 meet the requirements of its physical nature. At his best 
 he can only estimate it, but the robin knows exactly. 
 
 We have known a mother to urge her little baby to sip 
 from her own cup of tea, and have seen her appear quite 
 grieved because the little creature with pure mind and 
 pure body instinctively rejected the proffered beverage. 
 And, after being defeated in her attempt to vitiate his 
 taste, she would exclaim, "I fear my child is going to be 
 eccentric." 
 
 Some mothers are almost terrified at seeing a child eat 
 a piece of bread without butter, although writers on hygi- 
 ene, whose books are within the reach of all mothers, are 
 agreed that butter is one of the abominations of civili- 
 zation. It is not our intention to write on the subject of 
 health or diet, but so long as butter, spices, and other un- 
 necessaries are admitted to be evils, it seems unpardonably 
 foolish, not to say wicked, to urge the young child to use 
 
 73
 
 Home Training. 
 
 them, especially since he does not desire them, and shows 
 by his actions that he would much prefer not to have his 
 food polluted with such stuff. Let the mother refrain from 
 pampering her child's appetite, or else be willing to take 
 the consequences when that same appetite, diseased and 
 perverted by her own hand, shall bring him home reeling 
 and staggering to her frantic arms. That mighty army 
 of one hundred thousand who are annually marching 
 down to drunkards' graves were, in some part, we believe, 
 trained for that awful march by careless and ignorant 
 mothers. 
 
 It is admitted by all that alcohol is repugnant to the 
 unvitiated taste of man or beast. No child with instincts 
 pure from the hand of God will taste alcohol ; it is not 
 until his appetite has been depraved by Mrs. Winslow's 
 Soothing Syrups and other abominations. All these must 
 first be forced down his throat by the stern exercise of 
 parental authority before he learns to tolerate alcohol in 
 any form. The child's instinct is God's argument, and it is 
 unanswerable. If it be true, then, that a healthy instinct 
 rejects alcohol, how shall we account for the almost uni- 
 versal appetite for it ? There can be but one explanation, 
 some almost universal depraving agency ; and what can 
 this be but the wrong physical training to which parents 
 subject their offspring.
 
 Home Training. 
 
 I HE problem of home training to-day covers the prob- 
 
 V. lem of intemperance. So long as children are grow- 
 ing up with a taste for the nostrums with which babies are 
 universally poisoned, the world will be full of drunkards. 
 
 But it is not alone the poisonous nostrums which de- 
 prave the appetite. The cookies, candies, sweetmeats and 
 the thousand products of human ingenuity and a luxurious 
 civilization conspire to destroy that pure instinct which 
 God designed to be a perfect guide as regards the quantity 
 and quality of our food. We do not understand how 
 Christian mothers can consistently express their faith in 
 God while their acts show that they distrust the wisdom 
 which gave the child this instinct. 
 
 The little child is fed on flesh, pickles, and highly sea- 
 soned food till he becomes sick ; then of course he cries. 
 That breaks the mother's heart and she gives him a cooky 
 to stop his crying before he goes to bed. She cannot bear 
 the idea of her child going to bed hungry. The cooky 
 may give him the colic, but what of it so long as he is not 
 hungry ! She cannot tell whether he has the colic or the 
 headache, but if he cries he must have some medicine. It 
 is of but little consequence what it is so long as it is 
 medicine. We have actually heard mothers, when ques- 
 tioned as to why they gave their babies a certain kind of 
 medicine, answer that they " wished to give them some- 
 thing and didn't know what else to give them." We pre- 
 75
 
 Home Training. 
 
 sume it never occurred to them to give the baby the benefit 
 of the doubt. 
 
 The disposition depends upon the condition of the 
 stomach. If that be sour, the disposition will be sour also. 
 Many a good child has had his disposition spoiled with 
 cake and candy. A tendency to all forms of depravity 
 may result from a diseased condition of the digestion. 
 Every form of sin may originate with the stomach. Al- 
 most all of the suicides result from the mental disease of 
 melancholy. This disease is known by all physicians to be 
 the direct result of an affection of the liver, and the liver 
 and stomach are so related that the one cannot be affected 
 without the other. Hence a wrong physical training of a 
 child may lead to suicide. 
 
 The habit of dwelling perpetually on the dark side of 
 life, as the melancholy person does, results in the perver- 
 sion and depravity of the whole mind. Thus every sin 
 may originate in the stomach. 
 
 I HERE are mothers who would regard the withhold- 
 V ing of sweetmeats from their children as cruelty. 
 It is hard to believe that such persons exist, but observa- 
 tion forces the fact upon us. Such mothers, of course, can 
 appreciate no higher enjoyment than that of eating and 
 drinking, and they feel perfectly contented so long as their 
 children are eating something 'that tastes good. They 
 never stop to question whether the physical pleasure 
 
 76
 
 Home Training. 
 
 which a piece of highly spiced mince pie yields their child 
 can compensate for the physical, intellectual, and moral 
 depravity that may result from it. The mother who gives 
 her child candy, cakes, etc., simply for the pleasure of the 
 child, without regard to their effect on his health, what- 
 ever may be the character of her outward life, is in spirit a 
 sensualist. 
 
 It is customary for mothers when their children get 
 angry and scream, to give them something that tastes 
 good to eat. Now this is a twofold evil. It is both a phys- 
 ical and a moral evil. It is a physical evil because it tends 
 directly to produce dyspepsia. The human stomach can- 
 not perform its functions properly while the mind is angry. 
 The adage, " Laugh and grow fat," is founded in true 
 philosophy. In order for digestion to be performed in the 
 most perfect manner there must be at the time of eating a 
 sense of peace and joy pervading the mind, making the 
 very consciousness of existence delightful. All have 
 observed that the dyspeptic men are those who are fretful 
 and cross at the table. The tea is too cold ; the coffee is 
 too weak ; the steak is cooked too much or not enough ; 
 the potatoes should have been baked instead of boiled ; 
 there is too much saleratus in the biscuit ; or there is some 
 trouble with something enough to cast a shadow over 
 the whole meal and cause the whole family to sit in 
 gloomy silence. 
 
 This is not so much because dyspepsia tends to make 
 
 77
 
 Home Training. 
 
 people cross at their meals, but because being cross at 
 meals makes them dyspeptics. Many men have become 
 incurably diseased by eating when they were angry, and 
 the mother who gives her child a cooky to stop his crying 
 may be laying for him the foundation of a life of suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 Again, such a practice is morally wrong because it 
 rewards a child for being angry. In this way he learns, 
 whenever he wishes anything, to scream and cry until his 
 wish is gratified. He soon acquires such a habit that he 
 does this even though no one be near to grant the wish. 
 This is his first lesson in rebellion against an unseen power. 
 As he grows older, the screaming is changed into cursing, 
 and thus originates the habit of profanity. Men swear 
 chiefly because their mothers gave them cookies to stop 
 their crying. When mothers learn the secret of home train- 
 ing, the majority of the vices that now curse the world will 
 die out for want of soil in which to grow. 
 
 rVLL children are overfed. There is no danger that 
 V., any child will starve so long as its mother loves 
 it, but there is great danger that it will be fed to death. 
 
 But, says the mother, how shall I avoid these evils ? 
 How shall I keep my child's appetite healthy ? And when 
 he screams and will not be satisfied with anything but a 
 peppermint, what shall I do ? These are honest questions. 
 
 78
 
 Home Training. 
 
 No mother willfully injures her child by knowingly 
 depraving his appetite, and thereby all his passions. It is, 
 of course, through ignorance and not malice. 
 
 The remedy is the most easy and natural thing in the 
 world. Simply let the child alone, that is all. Children 
 have a divinely given right to be let alone, but this right 
 has never been granted by man. Your child will keep his 
 own appetite healthy if you will let him. When he 
 screams for that which it is not lawful for him to have, the 
 treatment is very simple, let him scream. The human 
 mind acts from motives and never without them. The 
 child screams either to make you yield to him, or from 
 a feeling of revenge because you do not yield. 
 
 Now the only way to prevent a mental act is to take 
 away the motives which prompt to the act. Hence the way 
 to break a child of the vice of screaming is to remove these 
 two motives. The first you can remove by showing him 
 that your word is law. When you have commanded 
 him to do or refrain from doing a certain thing, make 
 him understand that you will not revoke your order, and 
 that further pleading will be in vain. 
 
 The second motive, that of revenge, may be removed by 
 proving to him that it "doesn't work." Show by your 
 indifference that his loud crying does not give you the least 
 inconvenience. You can accompany the music with the 
 humming of a careless tune. He will see by this that his 
 scheme of vengeance is defeated, and there will be nothing 
 
 79
 
 Home Training. 
 
 left for him to do but to stop crying and amuse himself as 
 best he can. 
 
 If it is time to put your little child to bed, do not coax 
 him to go and then be conquered by coaxing in return. Do 
 not be conquered at all. In the first place, you should not 
 tell him to go to bed till you know that it is time for him to 
 go, and not till you are determined he shall go. It is not 
 necessary that you be arbitrary. There is no objection to 
 arguing with him, if your command at the time is not fully 
 understood by him. Try to convince him that he ought to 
 do as you tell him. In every instance the import of the 
 word ought should be kept before his mind. But if he still 
 resists, use the argument of force, paying no attention to 
 his cries and screams. 
 
 We do not write thus coldly and unfeelingly from any 
 lack of love for little children. There is nothing in the 
 wide realm of being so lovely and pathetic as a young 
 child. There is no eloquence that can equal its prattle. 
 No mother can love her child too much. It is not the in- 
 tensity of the mother's love that we would condemn, but 
 the unwise and injudicious direction of that love. And 
 when we say the child should be let alone, we do not 
 mean that he should be coldly neglected, but simply that 
 he should be allowed to grow and develop in the soil of his 
 own childish freedom ; that his body should be left chiefly 
 to the care of its own instinct, while the mother watches 
 the process with delight. 
 
 80
 
 Home Training. 
 
 Mothers usually make much harder the work of taking 
 care of their children than the necessities of the case re- 
 quire. Most mothers may learn a valuable lesson from the 
 cat. See how she takes care of her kittens. She does not 
 doctor them ; she manifests no anxiety for their physical 
 welfare. She simply watches the kitten's growth, and 
 doesn't assume any higher prerogative. She brings a 
 mouse and lays it before the little savage, but she does not 
 urge the case in the least. If the kitten does not want it, 
 she does not say, "I'm afraid my little darling is going to 
 be sick. Can't he eat it anyway ? Please eat it for 
 mamma." O no, she just eats it herself, and does not seem 
 to have the least fear that nature will forget to bring back 
 her child's appetite. Nor does she seem to resent the kit- 
 ten's refusal to accept her offer, but the next mouse is usu- 
 ally eaten with a relish. Thus the cat is wiser than the 
 human mother, for she is wise enough to intrust to nature 
 those things which she herself is not wise enough to do. 
 
 The world has yet to learn that the little children are 
 its physical and spiritual teachers. When Christ would 
 name the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven he said, 
 "Whoso humbleth himself as this little child, the same is 
 greatest in the kingdom of Heaven," thus making it a 
 kingdom of little children. There was philosophy in that 
 beautiful reply of Christ's. All sin consists simply in the 
 acts that are prompted by instincts which have been 
 depraved. Children's instincts are least depraved, for they 
 
 81
 
 Home Training. 
 
 are nearest to the source of all purity. Hence the child's 
 heart must always be the truest symbol of Heaven. 
 
 1 * |E do not belong to that school whose motto is "spare 
 ^ the rod and spoil the child." We believe that 
 untold evil has resulted to the world from that false philos- 
 ophy, and we are glad to know that the world is rapidly 
 discarding it. To say nothing of the morality, or rather 
 immorality, of the doctrine, it is entirely unnecessary. 
 How foolish to break the sweet spell of confidence by beat- 
 ing and striking, when the little heart can be melted in 
 penitential grief by a word ! Why use sticks and clubs 
 when the child does not fear them half so much as he does 
 his mother's grief ! Hyenas snarl and growl and strike, 
 and some mothers snarl and scold and strike. Isn't the 
 analogy almost humiliating ? 
 
 But this method of treatment does not accomplish the 
 desired result. Whipping a child does not and cannot 
 produce any desirable internal change of character. It 
 may modify the outward acts. It may also produce an in- 
 ternal change, but only for the worse ; only that change 
 which comes from perpetually harboring a feeling of 
 hatred and revenge. A blow struck upon unregenerate 
 humanity can awaken but one feeling, and that is the feel- 
 ing of resentment. The child always resents a blow, 
 whether it comes from his parent or from a playmate. He 
 
 82
 
 Home Training. 
 
 cannot easily be made to acknowledge in his heart that the 
 punishment is just ; and while he believes that it is unjust 
 he will feel rebellious, and no one will contend that a 
 rebellious feeling can do much toward elevating the char- 
 acter. 
 
 The feelings of anger, hatred, and physical fear are 
 among those which we have in common with the brutes, 
 and while we are under the dominion of these feelings we 
 cannot rise much above the brute. All know how utterly 
 depraving anger is to the whole mind, and the effect of 
 physical fear is nearly as bad. Some who have been 
 thought noble have been known when brought face to face 
 with death upon the ocean, to rudely snatch a life-pre- 
 server from a helpless woman ; thus showing how physical 
 fear may paralyze the sense of honor and every other 
 noble sentiment of the soul. 
 
 Now what is true of the man under the influence of an 
 intense fear is also true of the* child under the influence of 
 a less intense fear. It is the nature of fear, whether great 
 or small, to repress all that is God-like and arouse all that 
 is demoniacal. You cannot inflict corporal punishment on 
 a child without filling his little heart with fear. It is a 
 well known fact that under a cruel and tyrannical teacher 
 the pupils rapidly become vicious and untrustworthy. 
 This is simply because of the moral repression resulting 
 from constant fear. Then do not frighten the children. 
 Every argument that can be deduced from the wide range 
 
 83
 
 Home Training. 
 
 of human nature forbids us to inflict corporal punishment 
 on children. 
 
 " But,'' says the disciple of the rod, ''the child can be 
 made to acknowledge the justice of the punishment, and 
 ought not to be punished until he does acknowledge it. 
 By the proper argument he may be made to feel that he 
 deserves to be punished." Very well ; then he doesn't 
 need to be punished. The object of punishment of course 
 is to induce penitence, and if the child becomes penitent 
 before the punishment, he certainly doesn't need to be 
 punished. Who would punish a child after he had 
 acknowledged that he ought to be ? Think of the mother 
 who could whip her child after he had laid his head sob- 
 bing on her bosom and said, " Mamma, I ought to be 
 whipped ! " And yet, according to the admission of even 
 the Solomon school, he should be willing to say this before 
 he ought to be whipped. He must be made penitent before 
 the punishment can have any but an evil effect. 
 
 The whole truth is expressed in these two facts. First, 
 we ought not to punish a child till he sees and acknowl- 
 edges the justice of the punishment ; and second, when he 
 sees and acknowledges the justice of the punishment, he 
 doesn't need it. Thus the doctrine of the rod is crowded 
 out entirely. There are no circumstances under which it 
 is proper to use it. 
 
 84
 
 Home Training. 
 
 I HE object of all training is to develop character, 
 
 ^ and not merely to secure outward obedience. A 
 child may be a model of obedience, and yet with every 
 duty which he outwardly performs he may mingle an 
 unuttered curse. 
 
 With a horse or dog the prime object is to secure out- 
 ward obedience. We care but little about the moral char- 
 acter or the spiritual destiny of our horse, so long as he 
 obeys the whip and stops when we say "whoa !" But 
 what parent could say this of a child ! The true mother 
 cares less for the outward act than for the inward. It is 
 not so much her object to make the child obey her com- 
 mands as it is to make him obey the commands of his own 
 conscience and the spur of duty. If the child is inter- 
 nally obedient to his own conscience, he will develop a 
 noble character even though he disobey every parental 
 command. 
 
 Let every parent remember that there may be a vast 
 difference between outward and inward obedience, and 
 that either may exist without the other. The child may 
 not cherish any feelings of hatred toward his parents, nor 
 have any definite sense of rebellion, yet if he obeys simply 
 because he fears to disobey, while he cannot feel that the 
 command is just, he experiences, only in a less degree, all 
 those evil results that come from harboring the sentiments 
 of hatred and revenge. This obedience is outward and not 
 inward. 
 
 85
 
 Home Training. 
 
 UT how shall the stubborn boy be trained who seems 
 incapable of responding to any other appeal than 
 that of the rod ? Let us suppose a case, the most difficult 
 that we can conceive, and see if there are any points where 
 our doctrine would fail in practice. Suppose a mother 
 requests her boy to go to a neighbor's house on an errand. 
 The boy wishes to play ball and stubbornly refuses to go. 
 What shall that mother do ? " Give him a good sound 
 thrashing," the Puritan mother would say. But even if 
 she can do it now, she will certainly lack the physical 
 power in a short time, and then what shall she do? " Turn 
 him over to his father," some one may say. A year or two 
 more will place him beyond the authority of his father, 
 then what is to be done ? Here the resources of the " rod " 
 school become exhausted. He has defied the authority of 
 force, and has triumphed. 
 
 The rod system, like some systems of medicine, works 
 well in those cases which need no doctoring. As a rule the 
 rod arouses the very passion which led to the commission 
 of the offense, the very one we wish to allay. The secret 
 of governing a child is to soothe those faculties whose 
 unrestrained action gave rise to the offense, and at the 
 same time to call into action the restraining faculties, those 
 which would have prevented the commission of the offense 
 had they acted at the time. One of the principal restrain- 
 ing faculties is conscience, or the sense of obligation. Now 
 all are supposed to possess this faculty in some degree. 
 
 86
 
 Home Training. 
 
 Those who do not, are morally deformed ; they are mon- 
 strosities, and their treatment involves something more 
 than the subject of " home training." 
 
 We are not giving directions for the management of the 
 insane, nor the morally idiotic, but for the management, 
 training, and development of those who are fit to be 
 intrusted with their own freedom, those who are free 
 agents and who are capable of becoming men and women. 
 
 NOW let us see how this doctrine will work with the 
 stubborn boy we have just supposed. He, of course, 
 is under the influence of anger, the very passion which the 
 mother would excite still more if she were to attempt to 
 punish him. Hence she must cool this passion by arousing 
 the sense of obligation. Let her appeal to his honor. He has 
 honor, but it is suppressed for the time by anger. He loves 
 his mother unless he is a fit subject for the penitentiary, and 
 in that case he does not come within the jurisdiction of 
 any system of home training. A system must be devised 
 expressly for him. Perhaps it may be advisable for her tp 
 do the thing herself which she has commanded the boy to 
 do, or perhaps it may be well to call his sister and send her 
 on the errand, with the understanding that it is not just for 
 her to be compelled to do it. When he remembers that his 
 little sister has performed a duty that was not hers but 
 his, he will feel a little uncomfortable in the region of con- 
 science. He should be reminded, perhaps, during the 
 
 87
 
 Home Training. 
 
 evening, that he is under moral obligation to another who 
 has performed a duty that he refused to perform. It 
 should be talked of for a long time, and his conscience 
 should not be allowed to rest till he has paid the moral 
 debt. No precise rule can be given as to the way in which 
 his conscience should be appealed to in every instance. 
 Circumstances may vary so that any attempt at this would 
 be impracticable. The mother should be so well acquainted 
 with the nature of the child as to be able to appeal to 
 any sentiment at will, under any and every varying 
 circumstance. 
 
 Some may object to this because it defers obedience too 
 long. But a disobedient, ungrateful, and stubborn boy 
 should be regarded by parents as a misfortune, and they 
 should be happy if they succeed in securing obedience at 
 all, even if it requires days to secure obedience to a single 
 command. But if this method is practiced with the child 
 from his infancy, he will not become a disobedient and 
 stubborn boy. We have supposed an extreme case in order 
 to anticipate and fortify ourselves against the argument 
 arising from such cases. 
 
 But we are well aware that many a good old mother 
 who has wielded the rod for thirty years will, in her just 
 egotism, point to her noble sons and daughters as a trium- 
 phant refutation of these views which she will be pleased 
 to call trash. Nor would we disregard the well-earned 
 practical knowledge of these grand women. Their egotism 
 
 88
 
 Home Training. 
 
 is pardonable. Yet we shall modestly claim that they are 
 liable to be mistaken in some of their views of life, and 
 when they oppose our doctrine and style in theory, we 
 shall reply that the doctrine of moral accountability is a 
 theory, but it is one that appeals so strongly to the common 
 sense and intuition of mankind as to be independent of 
 the argument of actual experience. 
 
 1 4 |E would not contend that injudicious training is sure 
 "to spoil a child, neither will the wisest training 
 always serve to develop a noble character. The chil- 
 dren of noble mothers will sometimes be noble in spite of 
 wrong training. Men have developed powerful lungs who 
 through their whole lives have breathed hardly a breath 
 of pure air. Men have had strong digestion who have 
 abused their stomachs, and intemperate men have died of 
 old age. But these are the exceptions and not the rule. 
 For one who desires to live a long life it would not be safe 
 to be intemperate simply because a few have lived to be 
 old in spite of intemperance. 
 
 Neither is it safe to follow a wrong system of train- 
 ing because some mothers of the rod persuasion have 
 reared a family of noble children. Such mothers trans- 
 mit to their children healthy bodies and sound minds and 
 good morals, and they would have developed into noble 
 men and women under almost any system of training. 
 
 89
 
 Home Training. 
 
 Besides, the occasions for punishing such children occur at 
 intervals so rare that little injury can result. 
 
 IN the training of the child, physical culture should 
 precede all other kinds ; next should follow the train- 
 ing of the affections. He should be taught to love only 
 the good and to hate all that is bad. After this the intel- 
 lect should be trained. Not however by sending him to 
 school to sit all day on a hard seat where his feet can- 
 not touch the floor, and where he learns to say "A." 
 Little children are usually sent to school when they should 
 be romping through the woods and pastures. 
 
 Of course we do not condemn the common school 
 system, yet there are many features of it which tend 
 greatly to neutralize the good. It were infinitely better 
 for the race to live in barbaric ignorance with sound and 
 healthy bodies, than in the grandest civilization with bod- 
 ily weakness and physical impotency ; for a barbaric race 
 may become civilized, but a race of physical weaklings is 
 doomed to extinction. And it cannot be denied that the com- 
 mon schools, especially in the city, are rapidly sapping the 
 physical stamina of the civilized world, and this is 
 especially true in hot-headed America. 
 
 Children should be educated at home by the parents ; 
 at least till they are well developed physically. It is safe 
 to send a boy to school when he has become so strong 
 
 90
 
 Home Training. 
 
 physically that no teacher can suppress his buoyancy and 
 too early make a man of him. 
 
 Studiousness on the part of young boys and girls 
 should be regarded by parents as a more dangerous symp- 
 tom than hemorrhage of the lungs. Indeed, these are 
 often symptoms of the same disease. 
 
 I HERE are many and strong arguments for educating 
 
 V children at home. In the first place, the mother is 
 the natural teacher of the child. The eagle does not send 
 her little ones to school to learn to fly, nor does she employ 
 a governess, but chooses to perform the duty herself. 
 The spiritual sympathy between mother and child enables 
 the mother to minister to the individual wants of the child 
 as no other teacher can. There are locked chambers in 
 every human soul, but in the child's there are none to 
 which the mother does not hold the key. 
 
 The public school tends to destroy the individuality of 
 the pupil, to crush out all his originality and force his 
 mind, whatever may be its natural tendency, into the com- 
 mon channel. Civilization tends directly toward physical 
 and mental diversity, and individual peculiarities, but the 
 public school does not recognize this fact. 
 
 Low down in the scale of life we notice but little diver- 
 sity. A flock of birds seem all alike. We cannot detect 
 any difference between two foxes of the same age and sex, 
 but dogs and horses differ, because for ages they have 
 
 91
 
 Home Training. 
 
 been under the modifying influences of man until their 
 condition corresponds to that of the civilization of man. 
 In the early ages men differed from one another far less 
 than they do at present. Civilization and a tendency to 
 diversity are so closely dependent on common causes that 
 whatever hinders the one hinders also the other. Of 
 course we would not contend that the common schools 
 retard civilization, although in this respect they certainly 
 have a tendency to retard it. 
 
 In the public schools all are compelled to take the 
 same course, regardless of their individual peculiarities 
 of talent. If a pupil is by nature poorly endowed with 
 the mathematical talent, he must go through just as fast 
 but no slower than the others. The explanations that 
 suffice for those who are mathematically inclined must 
 suffice for him also. No provision is made for taste or 
 talent. 
 
 But this is not the case when the children are edu- 
 cated at home. Every peculiarity of talent may be pro- 
 vided for. Then there is a great source of pleasure in 
 the education of one's own children. It tends to perpetu- 
 ate the authority which parents ought to have over their 
 children. If the child has been educated by his parent he 
 will never cease to have the highest respect for that parent. 
 This is a strong reason why parents should educate them- 
 selves and keep pace with their children in all their 
 studies; for although dutiful children will always respect 
 
 93
 
 Home Training. 
 
 their parents however ignorant they may be, yet intelli- 
 gent parents, those capable of instructing their children, 
 will be respected still more. Then, if for no other reason, 
 the children should be educated at home, to maintain the 
 authority of the parent and the respect of the child. 
 
 tthe mothers of our country, as far as possible, pat- 
 tern after that mother who not only trained the 
 bodies of her boys and made them physical heroes, but 
 trained their affections and made them moral heroes. Nor, 
 indeed, did her care cease here ! She trained them intel- 
 lectually, fitted them for college, and sent them forth to 
 meet on life's arena those intellectual heroes who have 
 been trained at the hands of honored masters. 
 
 Men shall feel in this a beauty and a pathos to the 
 end of time, whenever the historian shall turn for a 
 moment from the crimson pictures of national strife to 
 narrate the simple story. Can those boys ever cease to 
 respect that mother ? Can they ever cease to reverence 
 her very name ? 
 
 Perhaps it is not generally known that we worship God 
 with the same faculty with which we honor our parents. 
 Now the children of such mothers as we have considered 
 must feel perpetually a sense of honor and parental rever- 
 ence. This strengthens and develops the faculty with 
 which God is worshiped. Hence we see why the children 
 
 of such parents are usually religious. The unwritten life 
 
 93
 
 Home Training. 
 
 of one such woman is a stronger argument than all the 
 silver irony of prostituted genius. 
 
 There are, of course, but few mothers or fathers who 
 can fit their boys or girls for college, and this is not neces- 
 sary in order to apply the doctrine we have advocated. 
 There are but few boys and girls who go to college. Nor 
 is it necessary to keep the children home from school. The 
 mother can superintend the education of a child even 
 while he is in school. The teacher's function should be 
 something more than merely listening to the recitation of 
 the pupil. But this is nearly all that the average teacher 
 does. Hence the mother has a wide field even while her 
 child is in the public school. 
 
 I HERE seems to be a growing tendency on the part 
 ^ of mothers to intrust the training of their children 
 to the hands of nurses. This is a great error. In the first 
 place, it breaks the current of divine magnetism between 
 mother and child, which ought to make the mental pulses 
 of both beat in unison. Again, it has a tendency to dimin- 
 ish filial reverence in the child. By separating him from 
 his mother at that tender age in which the links of the 
 eternal chain should be forged, we render it almost impos- 
 sible for him to love her as he ought. This is not to be 
 wondered at, for the modern fashionable mother sees her 
 child only as a visitor would see it. The child must be 
 dressed up as if to entertain strangers, and when he begins 
 
 94
 
 Home Training. 
 
 to cry he is carried away at once by the nurse, while the 
 mother makes another appointment. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most striking manifestations of 
 God's mercy to the race is seen in the fact that compara- 
 tively few offspring are born of such women if the 
 license of literature will permit us to use the word woman 
 in this connection. Better a thousand times that the world 
 should be populated from the slums than from such 
 sources. 
 
 ' < The mother in her office holds the key 
 
 Of the soul ; and she it is who stamps the coin 
 
 Of character, and makes the being who would be a savage 
 
 But for her gentle care, a Christian man." 
 
 95
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN. 
 
 Rewards and Punishments. 
 
 HE rewards and punishments of home should be 
 analogous to, if not identical with, those which 
 
 * God has already instituted as natural rewards 
 and punishments. There should be little or nothing artifi- 
 cial in the rewards or punishments of home. 
 
 If a child is bribed to do his duty by some promise of 
 reward, he is likely to acquire the fatal habit of performing 
 virtuous acts from low motives. The approval of con- 
 science is the natural reward for the performance of one's 
 duty. If an artificial reward is substituted for this, the 
 motive is transferred from conscience to some selfish 
 faculty, and the whole moral character becomes lowered. 
 Hence no reward should ever be given for the mere per- 
 formance of duty when it is clear to the child that it is his 
 duty. 
 
 In some cases where the desired act seems to be an act 
 of self-sacrifice on the part of the child, and one which he 
 does not understand to be particularly his duty, it is per- 
 fectly right and often wise to offer rewards. But if he is 
 hired to do those things which his own conscience plainly 
 
 96
 
 Rewards and Punishments. 
 
 tells him he ought to do, he will learn to act in such cases 
 from the motive of the reward, and not from that of con- 
 science. But during this time conscience must lie idle for 
 want of something to do, and God never lets a talent lie in 
 a napkin without depreciating. Although conscience 
 might have prompted him to the same act, yet if it be not 
 the determining motive he cannot experience the approval 
 of conscience. Conscience deals with motives, not with 
 acts, and, like every other function of our being, grows by 
 exercise. The food of conscience is its own approval, and 
 in order to secure its approval it must afford the ruling 
 motive. 
 
 Whenever a reward is offered, an appeal should not 
 be made at the same time to the sense of duty. It should 
 pass simply as a trade, and the child should not be 
 reminded that there is any right or wrong about it. These 
 are the only circumstances under which it is proper to 
 offer a reward to a child. 
 
 We would not have it understood, however, that 
 rewards should be given only for those acts which con- 
 science cannot approve. Such acts, of course, should 
 never be required nor performed at all. Rewards should 
 be offered only for good deeds, those which the conscience 
 of the child, if it were to act at all, would approve. What 
 we mean is simply that a base reward should never be 
 made to supplement conscience in such a way as to 
 become the ruling motive. If it be found that conscience is 
 
 97
 
 Rewards and Punishments. 
 
 acting at all, do not offer a reward to complete the motive 
 and make it strong enough to rule his act, but try to stim- 
 ulate conscience to a still higher degree of action, until its 
 motive becomes sufficient of itself to produce the desired 
 result. 
 
 As a rule the reward when given should appeal to the 
 mental rather than the physical. It should be something 
 which has a tendency to stimulate the thinking or invent- 
 ive powers rather than something which merely satisfies 
 a physical want. It is generally better to give a book than 
 a drum, although there are far meaner rewards than a 
 drum. Candy and sweetmeats should never under any 
 circumstances be offered. That which is unfit for an 
 adult is surely unfit to constitute a reward for a child. It 
 is a fact that the world makes its greatest efforts in 
 response to the demands of sensual gratification. Is it 
 unreasonable to suppose that the foundation of this evil is 
 laid in childhood through the pernicious practice of reward- 
 ing children with sweetmeats ? 
 
 A toy steam engine or some machine which will stimu- 
 late the constructive or inventive faculty is, perhaps, the 
 most appropriate present which can be given to a boy. 
 
 There are circumstances, however, under which it 
 would be improper to award such gifts. In case the child 
 is already too much inclined to mental activity, no present 
 should be given which will farther stimulate the intellect. 
 At the present time there are many cases of this kind, 
 
 98
 
 Rewards and Punishments. 
 
 especially in the cities. For such precocious children a 
 cart or sled or a pair of skates would be a far more appro- 
 priate gift than a book or even a steam engine. 
 
 the worst and most injurious practice connected 
 with the subject of rewards and punishments is 
 that of bribing children with promises that are never meant 
 to be fulfilled. It happens in many cases that this is the 
 child's first lesson in falsehood. All promises made to 
 children should be conscientiously fulfilled, for the whole 
 life and character of the child may be changed by a single 
 repudiated promise. Let no parent assume the fearful 
 responsibility of giving his child the first lesson in 
 dishonesty. 
 
 The punishments of home should be, as far as possible, 
 natural. They should consist chiefly, if not wholly, in 
 pointing out and making a direct application of the same 
 kind of punishment which Nature herself inflicts for the 
 same offense. 
 
 For instance, the natural punishment which Nature has 
 appended to the sin of falsehood is the suspicion and dis- 
 trust of our fellow men. Hence when a child tells a false- 
 hood, he should be made to feel that he has done that for 
 which he deserves the suspicion of the whole family. All 
 eyes should be turned upon him with a pitying distrust. 
 
 Nature's punishment for selfishness is a withdrawal of 
 the sympathy and love of society, and in addition thereto 
 
 99
 
 Rewards and Punishments. 
 
 the defeat of its own ends. Selfishness is always defeated in 
 the end. Hence when a child has encroached upon the 
 rights of his brothers or sisters through selfishness, the 
 sympathy of the family should be withdrawn, while at 
 the same time he should be prevented from reaping the 
 benefit which he anticipated from his selfish act. The 
 other children should be made to feel that he is actually 
 unworthy of their society. In certain cases, perhaps, he 
 should be banished from the society of the family and even 
 shut up in his room, as a severer punishment and as a more 
 direct and literal application of that principle which is 
 involved in the banishment to which society always dooms 
 the selfish man. God has made society on such a plan that 
 it cannot tolerate selfishness. He has also arranged our 
 nature so that the very best thing for the selfish man is to 
 have society shun him. It is the only medicine that will 
 cure him if he is curable. 
 
 Now, is it not safe to follow God's method in punishing 
 the child for selfishness at home ? Who will come so near 
 to challenging the wisdom of God as to style this "idle 
 theory " ? If the child be defeated in his selfish purpose by 
 the parent, and he is banished for an hour or a day, as the 
 case may be, from the sympathy of the family, he will come 
 to feel by no process of logic, perhaps, but by the force 
 of habit and association, that such conduct on the part of 
 others is the necessary and inevitable accompaniment of 
 his selfishness ; that it is founded in the justness and true 
 
 100
 
 Rewards and Punishments. 
 
 order of social relations. When he becomes a man he will 
 receive the same kind of punishment from society if he still 
 persists in his selfishness. He will then perceive that the 
 punishment is rational and inevitable, and that the relation 
 between it and the offense is constant and necessary. 
 
 If any other method is pursued the child will in the 
 course of his life be subjected to two kinds of punishment 
 for the same offense, one an arbitrary and the other a 
 natural one. The human mind is unable to perceive any 
 necessary relation between the crime of selfishness and the 
 pain inflicted by an angry parent with a birch stick. 
 There is no logical relation between them, and as a natural 
 consequence the child rebels, at least spiritually, and hence 
 is made more selfish than before. He will be more and 
 more selfish as he grows older, and when he comes to 
 receive the natural punishment from society for his sin, he 
 will rebel against that from the mere force of habit. He 
 will come to hate society. He will be cold and cynical. 
 He will come to entertain a morbid sentiment of ill-will 
 toward society, and, spurred on by the feeling that the 
 world owes him a debt, he may be led to commit some dark 
 and dreadful crime against his fellow men. It is not impos- 
 sible that a large percentage of the pirates, robbers, and 
 murderers are such because of the unwise and illogical 
 relation between the offenses and punishments of their 
 childhood. 
 
 101
 
 Rewards and Punishments. 
 
 || NE has truthfully said, "Caprice or violence in cor- 
 recting will go far to justify the transgressor in his 
 own eyes at least ; he will consider every appearance of 
 injustice as a vindication of his own aggression." Who 
 has not seen a confirmation of this among schoolboys ? 
 Often a boy is whipped by a teacher when if properly man- 
 aged he would willingly express his sorrow for the offense. 
 But after the whipping he goes sullenly to his seat mutter- 
 ing to himself, " I'm glad I did it." He is glad that he did 
 it because he feels that his teacher has wronged him, and 
 that in a certain sense the offense which he himself has 
 committed makes them even. Human beings, and espe- 
 cially children, when under the influence of anger, are not 
 very reasonable, and are usually not inclined to take an 
 impartial view of things when the matter of their punish- 
 ment is involved. 
 
 But it may be said that he ought to look at it differ- 
 ently ; that he has no right to look at it so partially ; that 
 the case is plain if he will look at it rightly. Very well, 
 but if he doesn't look at it rightly, the facts of the case 
 are of no benefit to him, and he receives all the injurious 
 results to his moral nature that he would receive if the 
 facts were on the other side of the case. 
 
 The vast majority of human acts are either right or 
 wrong ; if right they are self-rewarding, and if wrong 
 they are self-punishing. It is the function of human 
 
 102
 
 Rewards and Punishments. 
 
 authority to teach the transgressor wherein his transgres- 
 sions punish themselves. 
 
 " A picture memory brings to me : 
 I look across the years and see 
 Myself beside my mother's knee. 
 
 " I feel her gentle hand restrain 
 My selfish moods, and know again 
 A child's blind sense of wrong and pain. 
 
 " But wiser now, a man gray grown, 
 My childhood's needs are better known, 
 My mother's chastening love I own. 
 
 " Gray grown, but in our Father's sight 
 A child still groping for the light 
 To read his works and ways aright. 
 
 " I bow myself beneath his hand ; 
 
 That pain itself for good was planned, 
 I trust, but cannot understand. 
 
 " I fondly dream it needs must be, 
 That as my mother dealt with me, 
 So with his children dealeth he. 
 
 " I wait, and trust the end will prove 
 That here and there, below, above, 
 The chastening heals, the pain is love 1 " 
 
 103
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT. 
 
 Amusements for th.e Home. 
 
 (5 I HE 1 
 
 HE human mind demands amusement. One of its 
 constituent elements is a love of fun. No innate 
 
 -1 demand of the mind can be denied without injury. 
 Amusement and fun are as essential to the growth and 
 development of the young mind as sleep, or any form of 
 exercise. Hence we have no sympathy with that system 
 of home government which suppresses this element in the 
 children. Such systems are suicidal, and one can hardly 
 help doubting the genuineness of that religion that imposes 
 perpetual melancholy as one of its tenets. 
 
 It has been said that Christ never was known to laugh 
 but often to weep, and if he foresaw the existence of that 
 creed that suppresses laughter as one of the cardinal vices, 
 it is no wonder that he never laughed. But there is no 
 evidence that he did not laugh. The character of his mis- 
 sion was such as to render any record of his lighter 
 moments entirely out of place. It is, however, a well 
 known fact that Christ was of a thoughtful, serious cast of 
 mind, and even if it could be proved that he never laughed, 
 the fact would have no weight as an argument against 
 
 104
 
 Amusements for the Home. 
 
 laughter among us. We are not expected nor required to 
 follow his example in all things, for this would be impos- 
 sible. Marriage is a divine institution and imposes obliga- 
 tions upon us from which Christ, by virtue of his nature 
 and work, was exempted. 
 
 Were it not for the superstitious folly of so many peo- 
 ple, what we have said on this phase of the subject would 
 be entirely superfluous. Probably but few Christian peo- 
 ple at the present day would openly acknbwledge that 
 they have conscientious scruples against laughter, yet 
 there are thousands of stern fathers who virtually sup- 
 press all laughter in their homes as a religious duty. 
 They would not acknowledge to themselves even that they 
 believe laughter to be wrong in the abstract, and yet some- 
 how or other they manage to resolve every occasion for 
 laughter into something that ought to be suppressed. 
 
 IT is the duty of the parents to make home pleasant and 
 ^ agreeable, and even to furnish occasions for merri- 
 ment and fun, as much as it is to furnish food and shelter. 
 Children should not be required to remain quiet and sedate 
 during the long evenings simply because the stern father 
 wishes to read the newspaper. If he wishes to read aloud 
 something that would be interesting to the children, it is 
 proper to do so. All parents should consider themselves 
 under obligations to furnish at least one paper or magazine 
 expressly for the children. Not one of the ponderous and 
 
 105
 
 Amusements for the Home. 
 
 somber journals of Zion, but one full of light jokes, inter- 
 esting stories, and such information as children desire and 
 can appreciate. Of course the father and mother are to be 
 allowed time to read their religious and political papers, 
 and their scientific books ; but the children's right in this 
 respect must not be encroached upon. It will not hurt the 
 father or mother to read aloud from the Youth's Companion, 
 Harper's Round Table, The Ladies' Home Journal, or some 
 other paper of similar character, or, perhaps, what is bet- 
 ter still, they can lay aside their own paper and listen and 
 be interested while one of the older children is reading. 
 Reading aloud by parents and children is one of the 
 most useful sources of amusement in every home. In addi- 
 tion to the amusement, valuable information would be 
 obtained, as well as healthful vocal exercise and elocu- 
 tionary drill. 
 
 /VNOTHER source of amusement, peculiarly appro- 
 V^, priate for the home, and one of which we never 
 tire, is music. The money spent for a musical instrument 
 is not thrown away. Every home should contain some 
 such instrument, and there are but few families that cannot 
 afford a piano or an organ. There is something in the 
 nature of music that tends to evolve harmony in the hearts 
 of those who jointly produce it or listen to it. There is 
 something of philosophy in the oft quoted words of 
 Shakespeare : 
 
 10G
 
 Amusements for the Home. 
 
 " The man that hath no music in himself, 
 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." 
 
 It is probable, however, that the author used this word 
 music in the broadest sense of poesy, yet even in its 
 restricted sense there is the semblance of truth. The 
 world presents us with many examples of grand and noble 
 souls that are deaf to the pleadings of the harp, and yet 
 the fact remains untouched that music is the language of 
 the highest souls. Eloquence holds a wand for the soul's 
 lofty moods, and yet there is an altitude in whose rarefied 
 atmosphere the soul is dumb, and in the frenzy of despair 
 seizes the harp and the viol. From these spiritual beati- 
 tudes on whose hushed summits the veil is rolled back, 
 there comes no message save in wordless strains. 
 
 We cannot stand beside a friend in the presence of 
 music without feeling the ties grow stronger. The spirit's 
 invisible arms clasp each other. Neither can we stand 
 beside an enemy without feeling the timbers of hatred that 
 have braced our souls apart, give way, and before we are 
 aware our spirit proclaims him friend. 
 
 How peculiarly appropriate, then, as a home amuse- 
 ment, is music ! As well might you drive love from home 
 as to exclude music. Let the boys learn to play the violin ; 
 and let the girls play the organ or piano. Let the home' 
 be a perpetual temple of song. 
 
 107
 
 Amusements for the Home. 
 
 fy SILENT home, where there is no music nor reading, 
 V- and but little conversation, is a dull and sad place 
 for the young. Children do not like to stay long in those 
 places where their only entertainment is their own 
 thoughts. There is nothing worse for a child than continu- 
 ous subjective thinking, that sort of a day after day intro- 
 spection. It leads to habitual melancholy, and this state is 
 so thoroughly unnatural for a child that it cannot exist 
 without enfeebling both mind and body. Those who com- 
 mit suicide will be found in almost every instance to be 
 those who were led to subjective thinking during the long 
 winter evenings of their childhood. 
 
 A boy cannot maintain health of body without laugh- 
 ter, merriment, and fun. We have every reason to believe 
 that a lamb would not maintain its bodily health and grow 
 to be a mature animal if it were prevented from frisking 
 and frolicking. 
 
 iyl OST especially does the feeling of merriment assist 
 V^ the digestive function. This idea is already prev- 
 alent among the people, and yet there is too little abiding 
 faith in the medicinal virtue of fun. Our meals should be 
 scenes of uninterrupted merriment. It is a fact univer- 
 sally acknowledged that the American people eat too rap- 
 idly for the good of their health. Now, there is nothing 
 that checks rapid eating like repartee and merry conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 108
 
 Amusements for the Home. 
 
 One of the evils of Puritanism, which we have not yet 
 outgrown, was the idea that cheerful conversation is unbe- 
 coming at meals. The children were taught to eat in 
 silence at the second table, under the awful superintend- 
 ence of their parents, who had eaten up all the good 
 things. The eating up of the good things, however, was 
 not half so cruel as it was to compel them to put on long 
 faces, and be men and women, and eat in silence. The 
 free ventilation, the hard work, and the simple fare which 
 they enjoyed prevented them from having dyspepsia. But 
 we cannot tell how thoroughly their stomachs and livers 
 were prepared by such treatment at meal time, to transmit 
 that dread complaint to the next generation. It is not at 
 all an extravagant belief, that much of the dyspepsia of 
 to-day had its remote origin among the Puritans in their 
 cruel suppression of childish mirth at the family board. 
 
 There are families in which the Puritanic idea is still 
 prevalent, that "children should be seen but not heard." 
 We have no sympathy with that doctrine. Such an idea 
 could have originated only in parental selfishness. In the 
 days of our grandfathers the children were, indeed, pitiable 
 creatures. But we are gradually becoming more civilized 
 on this point. The same principle in human nature that 
 has given rise to societies for the " prevention of cruelty to 
 animals " has so modified our sentiments toward children 
 that we no longer regard them as so many wild beasts put 
 into our hands to be tamed. Children are now allowed to 
 
 109
 
 Amusements for the Home. 
 
 spend most of their time in the pursuit of fun and to laugh 
 at meals. 
 
 LJ ARENTS should mingle with their children in their 
 ^_^ sports and games. It is not unbecoming to a 
 mother or a father to play with a child, but, on the con- 
 trary, it is quite becoming ; and in so doing a parent is 
 discharging one of the highest duties that have been im- 
 posed upon him. This is not the task it may seem to be. 
 There is something in the relation of parent and child that 
 makes the parent take positive delight in that which de- 
 lights the child. Every mother knows this to be true. 
 There is that in the experience of every one which testifies 
 to this. We all feel an interest in those things which 
 interest the ones we love. This principle has an influence 
 even over the senses. Articles of food which we do not 
 ordinarily like, when eaten in the presence of a loved one 
 who does like them, actually become savory to us. "We 
 are made by this principle to fall into the same line of 
 thought and feeling with those we love. And hence the 
 mother experiences almost as much delight from playing 
 with a cart as does her child. 
 
 This same principle doubtless accounts for the fact that 
 all animals play with their young. This is nature's argu- 
 ment. The cat and dog, however old and dignified, almost 
 continually play with their young ; so does the lion, and 
 probably all wild animals. Animals that cannot by any 
 
 110
 
 Amusements for the Home. 
 
 other possible means be induced to manifest the slightest 
 degree of playfulness, are full, or appear to be full, of fun 
 and frolic while rearing their young. Do not these facts 
 proclaim a natural law ? Playing with children is a sub- 
 ject of much more importance than most people are led to 
 suspect. 
 
 The oldest of a family of children often has a bad dis- 
 position, and it is doubtless due to the absence of older 
 playmates. It seems to be a law of the child's nature that 
 in order to properly develop he requires an older playmate. 
 
 The younger members of the family are provided for in 
 this respect by the older ones, and accordingly their dispo- 
 sitions are better, and their minds are usually more sym- 
 metrically developed. Now, if parents would heed this 
 law and become the intimate associates and playmates of 
 their children while they are young, no such disparity of 
 disposition and character would be found. 
 
 The chief reason why so many children become dissat- 
 isfied with their home and desire to leave it at the earliest 
 possible opportunity, is because they have not had happy 
 homes ; and unhappy homes are seldom looked back to 
 with tender thoughts in after years. But let them keep 
 the old time feeling in their hearts that " there's no place 
 like home," and when the hour of reunion draws nigh with 
 its glad tidings and joyful welcome they will not send the 
 cruel telegram of two words, " business pressing," but will 
 come with open hearts and smiling faces, bringing back 
 
 111
 
 Amusements for the Home. 
 
 again the same feeling that they carried away, that 
 "there's no place like home." 
 
 children are not the only beings that require 
 amusements. All require it, even the aged. Abso- 
 lute rest is not the thing required by the father when he 
 comes home from the shop, the office, or the store. Human 
 beings need but very little of that kind of rest beyond what 
 they get during the hours of sleep. If there could be found 
 a vocation in which all the faculties should be exercised 
 alike, those engaged in such a vocation would require no 
 amusement beyond what would necessarily result from 
 exercising the faculty of mirth equally with the other fac- 
 ulties. But the relations of human life afford no such 
 vocation, hence the wisdom of making special provision 
 for amusements. 
 
 Suppose we have a complicated machine, only a part of 
 which is in action, half of the wheels remaining motionless. 
 Now suppose we discover that the machine is wearing out 
 in that part which is constantly exercised. What shall we 
 do to maintain the symmetry of the machine and prevent 
 it from becoming in a short time useless ? Will it be suffi- 
 cient to simply stop the machine a few hours or days and 
 then start il again ? Surely not, for half of it is now 
 actually rusting out from the lack of being used. One half 
 needs rest and the other part needs action in order to check 
 the process of destruction. Hence the only way to accom- 
 
 112
 
 Amusements for the Home. 
 
 plish the desired result is to stop the part that has been 
 continually running and start the other part. 
 
 This illustration explains the whole philosophy of 
 amusements and recreations. Man does not need to rest, 
 but simply to start up the other half of his vital and mental 
 machinery, and home furnishes the only adequate motive 
 power. 
 
 ' ' Frown not, when roistering boys or toss or strike 
 The bounding ball, or leap or run or ride 
 The mastered steed that, as the rider, loves 
 The rushing course, or when with ringing steel 
 The polished ice they sweep in winter's reign ; 
 All pleasing pastimes, innocent delights, 
 That gladden hearts yet simple and sincere, 
 Let love parental gather 'round the home, 
 And consecrate by sharing ; let it watch 
 With kind, approving smiles each merry game 
 That quickens youthful blood, and in the joy 
 That beams from crimson cheeks and sparkling eyes 
 Its own renew, and live its childhood o'er." 
 
 113
 
 CHAPTER NINE. 
 
 Home Smiles, 
 
 SMILE is the most useful thing in the world 
 in proportion to its cost. It costs absolutely 
 nothing, but its potency is often beyond esti- 
 mation. It conies as the involuntary and 
 irrepressible expression of a sentiment that lies at the basis 
 of human society. Smiles constitute a part of our lan- 
 guage. There seem to be certain combinations of words 
 that require to be supplemented with a smile before they 
 can have any meaning to us. 
 
 The human soul, shrouded in the mysteries of person- 
 ality, yearns to know the essence of other souls, as it were, 
 to touch a hand in the dark, and smiles are the electric 
 flashes that illumine the wide gulf that separates indi- 
 vidualities. 
 
 There is a mystery in what we call acquaintance. 
 Acquaintance, however, is not the proper word, but since 
 human language affords no one more apt we shall be 
 obliged to use it. Why should we say that we are 
 acquainted with this one and not with that one ? Acquaint- 
 anceship does not consist in a knowledge of some one's 
 
 114
 
 Home Smiles. 
 
 peculiarities of character or disposition, for we sometimes 
 feel acquainted with persons whose minds are sealed books 
 to us. We cannot understand them. Their thoughts are 
 mysterious and unfathomable, and they always seem to 
 take a turn which was wholly unexpected to us and which 
 we cannot account for, and yet we feel a large measure of 
 acquaintanceship with them. 
 
 There are others whose minds are as transparent as 
 glass. Their mental operations are performed, as it were, 
 in the sight of all. We can almost anticipate their very 
 thoughts, and yet we would not think of speaking to them, 
 because as we say we are not acquainted with them. 
 
 Acquaintance is not a conventionality of society, for it 
 may be observed in those rude and primitive communities 
 where the mere conventionalities of society have little 
 weight. It is more strongly manifested in little children 
 even before they can talk than in older people. This 
 shows that whatever acquaintance may be, it is natural 
 and not artificial. In what then does it consist ? What 
 passes between two souls when a third party says, "This is 
 Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith " ? There is usually some form of 
 salutation, as the bow or the shaking of hands ; although 
 there is nothing of a permanent or essential nature in 
 these, for the mode of salutation differs in different nations 
 and communities. The Turks fold their arms across the 
 breast while bowing ; the Laplanders touch their noses ; 
 and in Southern Africa they rub their toes together. 
 
 115
 
 Home Smiles. 
 
 there is one act that accompanies all these differ- 
 ent modes, one rite that never varies. It is the 
 smile. The philosophy of acquaintance is wrapt up in the 
 philosophy of the smile. When two smiles have met, two 
 souls are acquainted. A smile is the sign that a soul gives 
 when it would examine another soul. 
 
 Every soul in the universe lives alone. There is a 
 dark curtain dropped before the window of its house which 
 hides it from the view of all. Every one has felt his loneli- 
 ness even in the midst of crowds. Souls cannot come into 
 contact, but they can draw aside the curtain from the win- 
 dow. To smile is to draw aside the curtain. The fondest 
 souls can do no more. Even lovers must caress through a 
 window. 
 
 At home, these curtains should often be drawn aside, 
 for there is nothing so fatal to a home as to have its mem- 
 bers become unacquainted with each other. And there is 
 nothing so difficult as to renew the acquaintance of broth- 
 ers and sisters, when once it has been lost. When they 
 begin to be restrained and self-conscious in each other's 
 society ; when they begin to review with indifference those 
 phases of life over which they once smiled and wept 
 together, they are unconsciously, perhaps unwillingly, 
 cutting each other's acquaintance. There is no sadder 
 sight on earth than that of a brother and sister who are 
 unacquainted. The coldness and reserve that spring up 
 
 116
 
 Home Smiles. 
 
 between the members of so many families originate in a 
 lack of smiles at home. 
 
 By smiles we do not mean that which takes the place 
 of loud laughter when the occasion is insufficient to pro- 
 voke us to more noisy demonstrations. Nor do we mean 
 either the transient smile with which one regards the ludi- 
 crous, or the habitual smile that often accompanies a low 
 degree of thought-power. There is a smile that originates 
 neither in the sense of the ludicrous, nor in thoughtlessness. 
 Like certain articles of dress such smiles are becoming on 
 all occasions. They sit with equal grace upon the visage 
 of joy and of sorrow. They seem as appropriate when they 
 wreathe the mother's thoughtful face as when they live in 
 the dimpled cheek of laughing girlhood, or with their 
 magic play transform tear-stained eyes to twinkling 
 stars. 
 
 These are the smiles with which we would adorn every 
 home. We would set them as vases of flowers in every 
 human abode. 
 
 3 MILES should be the legal tender in every family 
 for the payment of all debts of kindness, and each 
 member should be willing to take this currency at its face 
 value ; for its value is beyond the reach of those disturbing 
 influences that shake the world of commerce. And, what 
 is better than all, it can never be demonetized, for it bears 
 the immutable stamp of the divine government. 
 
 117
 
 Home Smiles. 
 
 Let the members of the family, almost as often as they 
 meet, greet each other with a smile, for eyes that meet in 
 full gaze without a smile soon grow cold. The mother, if 
 she would keep the confidence of her son, must be lavish of 
 her smiles. Mothers often weep in the presence of their 
 sons on account of the anxiety that they feel for them. 
 This is a great error, for in the first place it leads a young 
 man to conceal that which he believes would displease his 
 mother. This is often the beginning of a fatal reserve. 
 Besides, it causes him to feel that his mother has not con- 
 fidence in him, and that however much she may love him 
 she fears to trust his honor. 
 
 I HE smile is nature's cure for the disease of bashful- 
 V ness. This disease is simply the fear which one soul 
 experiences in approaching another. But the smile is an 
 instinctive effort to suppress the fear and to know the soul. 
 A knowledge of this principle would be of great service 
 to those having the charge of bashful children. Strangers 
 should always encourage a smile in a bashful child. Such 
 children should be met with smiles rather than with words. 
 The smile is the only form of salutation that a bashful 
 child can use. He cannot speak to a stranger in audible 
 language, but if the stranger will consent to use the lan- 
 guage of smiles he may almost always gain quick admis- 
 sion to his confidence. When the bashful child smiles and 
 blushes, and hangs his head in the presence of strangers, 
 
 118
 
 Home Smiles. 
 
 there is great hope that he will outgrow the infirmity, for 
 the smile is an instinctive effort to overcome it. But 
 where the child is not inclined to smile there is little hope, 
 and the malady usually degenerates into moroseness and 
 oddity. 
 
 The habitual smiler is never a dyspeptic. Smiles pro- 
 mote the general health and are especially fatal to any 
 disease of the stomach or liver. 
 
 Smiles also promote the growth of the religious senti- 
 ment, because they cannot thrive without a constant sense 
 of obligation to others. Especially do they tend to culti- 
 vate benevolence, for every smile is a gift, and benevolence 
 grows by giving. There are few souls that can " smile, 
 and murder while they smile." None indeed can murder 
 while they smile from the heart. There may be the same 
 movement of the facial muscles, but smiles are not merely 
 contractions of certain muscles. They are mental acts. 
 
 The actor may give the outward expression of a smile, 
 and murder while he smiles, but the words of the great 
 dramatist are not true of a single human soul except the 
 smile be spurious. 
 
 < ' Sweet is the smile of home ; the mutual look 
 
 Where hearts are of each other sure ; 
 Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook, 
 The haunt of all affections pure." 
 
 119
 
 CHAPTER TEN. 
 
 Joys of Home. 
 
 'OY is the natural and normal condition of every 
 human soul. To be genuine and permanent it 
 must depend chiefly on internal instead of external 
 conditions. 
 
 Every natural function both of the body and of the 
 mind is attended with pleasure and never with pain, unless 
 it be the penalty for a broken law. If walking is not pleas- 
 urable, it is because there is some trouble with the physical 
 system. If daylight does not bring to the eye positive 
 pleasure, it is because the eye is diseased and there is a 
 maladjustment between it and the light. The difficulty is 
 always on the part of the eye and never on the part of the 
 light. When the song of birds, the sighing of the breeze, 
 the rippling of the brook, the chirping of the insect, and 
 the thousand voices of nature do not bring to the ear and 
 soul an exquisite sense of divine harmony, it is because 
 sin with rude hand has broken the interpretative chords of 
 the spirit's harp. 
 
 We always hear music at second hand, just as we 
 
 120
 
 Joys of Home. 
 
 see beauty. Hence it has been said that " beauty is in the 
 eye of the gazer, and music is in the ear of the listener." 
 
 There is philosophy in this saying, for all the music 
 that we hear is that which the soul itself produces when it 
 responds to the myriad voices from without. These sounds 
 and voices from nature, God's great orchestra, must be 
 reproduced by the soul's response before they can become 
 music to us. It is not the music without that we hear, but 
 the spirit's imitation of it. 
 
 If, then, the soul be tuned to the same key so as to give 
 a true response, rest assured that our lives will be filled 
 with harmony and joy, for God's hand never strikes a dis- 
 cord. 
 
 The secret of human joy, then, is to keep the spirit's 
 harp in tune. To the spirit whose harp is out of tune, the 
 clouds are but unsightly rags with which the mantle of 
 the sky is patched ; the mountain in its grandeur is but an 
 eminence that is hard to climb ; the sublime thunder of 
 Niagara is but a loud noise that makes it difficult to sleep ; 
 while the songs of birds, the patter of the rain, the laugh- 
 ter and the voices of the woods are but the troublesome 
 prattle of Nature's children. 
 
 I OY cannot be bought with gold. There is but one 
 
 +J thing that Nature will take in exchange for it, and 
 
 that is obedience to the divine laws of our being. Joy is 
 
 the only legitimate arid necessary product of every normal 
 
 121
 
 Joys of Home. 
 
 and healthy function. It is absolutely impossible for any 
 function of our being, if healthy and normal in its action, 
 to produce anything but joy, no matter what may be the 
 outward conditions. The truest and highest joy is a prod- 
 uct of health, and is but partially dependent on external 
 conditions. 
 
 Nature aims at no other grand result than that of joy. 
 She has created the myriad varieties of fruit for the pleas- 
 ure of the palate. For the joy of the eye she has. painted 
 on the earth's green canvas the gentle hints of heaven, 
 and bathed the picture in the liquid silver of the sunlight. 
 For the ear she has filled the earth with harmony divine. 
 For the joy of our social and domestic natures she has 
 instituted the home, the fireside, and society. For our 
 intellectual nature she has filled the universe with prob- 
 lems, the solution of which gives us exquisite pleasure. 
 For our spiritual nature she has given the heavenly 
 reward of an approving conscience. Thus is joy the eter- 
 nal aim of Nature. 
 
 I IN whom then rests the blame when life's joys are 
 tarnished and its sweetness turned to bitterness ? 
 Whom shall we blame for the strained and weakened 
 eye that makes the sunlight painful ? Whom shall we 
 blame for the overwrought brain that makes causation 
 and all problems irksome ? Whom shall we blame for the 
 seared and deadened conscience that makes duty a task 
 
 122
 
 Joys of Home. 
 
 and honor a burden ? We fancy that the conscience of 
 none of our readers is yet so far deadened that he will 
 not quickly answer, " I myself am to blame." 
 
 The clamor for joy and pleasure, then, when rightly 
 interpreted, is a universal call to duty, for the reward of 
 duty is unalloyed joy. It is a call to study and mental 
 discipline ; for the fruit of culture, like that of duty, is joy 
 and only joy. It is a call to physical obedience and to the 
 cultivation of health ; for joy is the necessary and insepa- 
 rable accompaniment of these, and without them it cannot 
 exist. 
 
 Let the reader remember this one fact, that obedience 
 to the physical, intellectual, and moral laws of our being is 
 the only condition that Nature imposes upon us, and when 
 this one condition is complied with she will shower upon us 
 joys untold. She will make the breath of morning a source 
 of exquisite delight. The very consciousness of existence 
 will thrill us with that joy which all have felt at rare 
 intervals, undefinable, and too subtle for any analysis. 
 
 External objects and conditions seem to play no part 
 in the program. At most they are only the occasions and 
 not the causes of the joy. We look into the face of a 
 friend or out over the sheen of a lake, and we feel an un- 
 utterable joy coursing through all the channels of our 
 being, and welling up in gurgling laughter ; and we can- 
 not possibly tell why we laugh. The joy that comes to 
 perfect health with the sweet intoxication of the morning 
 
 123
 
 Joys of Home. 
 
 dew, is "the purest and sweetest that Nature can yield.'' 
 Such is the bountiful reward of Nature for obedience to 
 her laws. 
 
 We have dwelt thus at length on the laws that govern 
 the emotion of joy because they have an important bearing 
 on the subject of which we are treating. 
 
 [HE fireside is the only spot where it is possible to 
 ^ obey all the laws of our being ; hence it is the only 
 
 spot where supreme joy can exist. Domestic joy is the 
 
 only joy that is complete. 
 
 Truly has the poet said : 
 
 " Domestic joy, thou only bliss 
 Of paradise that hath survived the fall." 
 
 Man may cultivate his intellect and derive pleasure 
 from obedience to its laws, even though he may not have a 
 home. He may derive a joy from obedience to the laws of 
 his moral nature while he is a hermit or a wanderer. He 
 may even derive some enjoyment from partial obedience to 
 the laws of his social nature. But all enjoyment from this 
 source must be partial, because all obedience to the social 
 law must be incomplete outside the domestic circle. The 
 family is the truest type of society. 
 
 But without a fireside, man's domestic nature, from 
 which he derives by far the largest amount of his earthly 
 enjoyment, cannot but remain cold and almost entirely 
 
 124
 
 Joys of Home. 
 
 inactive. This department of his nature can be kept alive 
 only by the heat of the hearthstone. The home is the 
 place where all the joys of life may exist in their ripest 
 fruition. 
 
 Even the intellectual nature, which is the farthest 
 removed from the sphere of domestic influence, cannot be 
 developed to its fullest possibility outside of the home ; for 
 the boy requires in the first stage of his intellectual devel- 
 opment the wholesome spirit of rivalry and emulation that 
 exists among children of the same household. In every 
 stage he needs the stimulus of honest commendation, and 
 this comes in its purest and most useful form from the 
 members of the same family. 
 
 The joys peculiar to the moral and spiritual nature 
 must be only partial, and far below what this part of our 
 being is capable of yielding, unless it be cultivated in the 
 sanctuary of home. Conscience must be kept sharp by the 
 pathetic appeals of little children, by the tender looks and 
 anxious words of mothers and sisters, and by the nice 
 adjustments of domestic obligations. 
 
 1 if HAT a plea do we find in these facts for the institu- 
 ^ tion of home, and how much is signified by " the 
 joys of home" ! No words of ours are necessary to impress 
 that significance upon the minds of those who are the 
 members of happy families. With what feelings of delight 
 do such look forward to the evening hour when the family, 
 
 125
 
 Joys of Home. 
 
 overflowing with joy, shall gather around the board with 
 mirth and laughter. How the father's heart thrills at the 
 sudden thought that the hour is near when he shall meet 
 his loved ones ; when he shall leave his care and troubles 
 all behind, and sit in his easy chair, or recline upon the 
 sofa, and watch the fire light dancing on the wall and hear 
 the merry voices of the children, or listen to the sweet 
 music of domestic contentment. Can heaven yield a 
 sweeter joy than this ? 
 
 But the joys of home are not to be measured by actual 
 domestic felicity, for home has joys independent of this. 
 There is joy in the very thought that one has a home. 
 There is joy in the poetry with which the divine artists of 
 time and memory conspire to paint the old homestead. 
 
 Joy is heightened and pain is lightened by being 
 shared, but home is the only place on earth where they can 
 be fully shared. Everywhere else there is a reserve that 
 makes our joys and pains peculiarly our own. At home 
 the heart may be opened, and all that it knows and feels 
 may be known and felt by others. 
 
 The joys of home are the only ones of which we never 
 weary. We grow tired of those joys that come from min- 
 gling promiscuously in society. We tire of the exciting 
 pleasures of trade and commerce. We tire of gazing at 
 the marble fronts and gilded palaces of the great city. 
 We shut our eyes and close our ears in weariness and dis- 
 gust even at the sights and sounds of the public park. 
 
 126
 
 Joys of Home. 
 
 But we never grow tired of a mother's cheer, although the 
 birds in the park may weary us. We may leave the art 
 gallery satiated, but the old pictures on the walls of home 
 are ever new. 
 
 Let us then cherish the joys of home, for their peren- 
 nial freshness hints at their eternity. The child, who with 
 his playmates, wanders from his home over the hill and 
 meadow, when he wearies of his sports and games, turns 
 at nightfall to his home to lay his little weary head upon 
 his mother's breast. So when we shall weary of the little 
 sports and games of earth, may we find our homeward 
 way back across life's meadow and up the hill to the 
 threshold of the home eternal, and lay our weary heads 
 upon the bosom of the Divine, forever and ever. 
 
 " Sweet are the joys of home, 
 
 And pure as sweet ; for they 
 Like dews of morn and evening come, 
 To make and close the day. 
 
 " The world hath its delights, 
 
 And its delusions, too ; 
 But home to calmer bliss invites, 
 More tranquil and more true. 
 
 " The mountain flood is strong, 
 
 But fearful in its pride ; 
 While gently rolls the stream along 
 The peaceful valley's side. 
 127
 
 Joys of Home. 
 
 Life's charities, like light, 
 
 Spread smilingly afar ; 
 But stars approached become more bright, 
 
 And home is life's own star. 
 
 The pilgrim's step in vain 
 
 Seeks Eden's sacred ground ! 
 But in home's holy joys again 
 
 An Eden may be found. 
 
 A glance of heaven to see, 
 
 To none on earth is given ; 
 And yet a happy family 
 
 Is but an earlier heaven." 
 
 128
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN. 
 
 Education of oi_ir Girls. 
 
 HE education of woman is among the foremost 
 problems of the nineteenth century. It is something 
 more than a social problem. It is a civil and politi- 
 cal, a moral and religious problem as well. Inasmuch as the 
 presence of woman constitutes one of the chief charms and 
 benefits of society, and inasmuch as it is she who far 
 mpre than man gives character to society, her education 
 and culture are a social problem. 
 
 But into her care have been intrusted the nation's 
 future statesmen, those who are soon to be clothed with 
 authority and to make laws for the government of man- 
 kind. Hence her education becomes a civil and political 
 problem. Not only is she intrusted with the guardian- 
 ship of the intellect and character of the world's statesmen 
 and philosophers, but her gentle presence, as she bends 
 over the cradle, and the silent influence of her daily life 
 are shaping the entire moral character of the coming gen- 
 eration ; and thus does the education of woman become a 
 great and moral problem. 
 
 129
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 Again, since she shapes the moral character of the 
 world, and since the eternal destiny of man depends upon 
 the character in this life, it follows that her education 
 becomes the profoundest spiritual and religious problem. 
 
 IN view of these momentous facts what should consti- 
 tute the education of our girls ? Human life is short 
 and its powers of endurance are limited. None of us can 
 reasonably hope to accomplish all that our imagination 
 may picture to our minds as desirable. We cannot appro- 
 priate the great sea of knowledge. We surely cannot do 
 better than Sir Isaac Newton, who picked up only a few 
 pebbles on the shore. But whether we are able to pick up 
 one or many of these pebbles we should select only those 
 whose size and shape best adapt them to our purpose. 
 
 We have no argument to offer against the study of 
 those branches which utilitarians are wont to condemn as 
 involving a waste of time and energy. We have no sym- 
 pathy with this utilitarian idea. We pity the man who is 
 able even to distinguish between beauty and utility. 
 That mind which does not see the highest use in Niagara 
 is but poorly developed and poorly educated. Nature has 
 drawn no line between the beautiful and the useful. On 
 the contrary, she has purposely blended them in an indis- 
 tinguishable union. Every apple tree is first a vase of 
 flowers and then a golden fruit basket. A blossom is the 
 preface to every useful product. Before Nature can allow 
 
 130
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 even a potato to grow and ripen she places the divine seal 
 of beauty on it in the form of a little flower. That little 
 flower, which is made the necessary condition of the pota- 
 to's development, was placed there to teach us that there 
 is a use in beauty and a beauty in use. Hence we would 
 not condemn the study of music and the fine arts. The 
 history of music is the history of human development. It 
 has been the sensitive gauge that has marked the civiliza- 
 tion of every age and nation. The music that charmed 
 the undeveloped and savage ear of the past would be to us 
 but rude noise, and perchance the divinest harmony that 
 wafts our spirit starward may be but discord compared 
 with the symphonies that echo down the aisles of coming 
 ages. Music is not altogether an art ; it is a science as 
 well, and viewed in its highest aspect it becomes the 
 grand exponent of that universal and divine harmony 
 which every properly developed soul has felt, and which 
 gives credence to that sweetest of all mythologies, "the 
 music of the spheres." 
 
 Thus while we cannot speak too highly of the science 
 of music as a means of soul development and heart culture, 
 yet as a mere outward accomplishment it cannot be denied 
 that it usurps a disproportionate amount of time and 
 energy, and we would unhesitatingly condemn that method 
 of study which would reduce the science and art of music 
 to a mere system of finger and vocal gymnastics. It is a 
 fact which the observation of almost every one will con- 
 
 131
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 firm, that the present method of musical instruction has a 
 direct tendency to take the soul out of music, and leave it, 
 like the poetry of Pope, a mere shell from which the living 
 creature has departed. The modern masters of song seem 
 to have forgotten the prime object of music, viz., to move 
 the heart and lift the soul. They exhibit their powers to 
 us as the circus rider exhibits his, and they expect us to 
 applaud them for their skill in execution ; if we do not they 
 attribute our indifference to the "lack of culture." 
 
 Life is too short and its duties too momentous for a girl 
 to spend years in acquiring proficiency in the production 
 of a mere sound, and one in which, in spite of her culture, 
 she is discounted by the ordinary canary bird. Music 
 should be made an instrument and not a toy. 
 
 /VLL this may be true, says the mother, but how shall I 
 
 V^ educate my daughter ? It is easy to generalize 
 
 and to criticise existing systems ; but what is the particular 
 
 method which I must follow in order to avoid this 
 
 criticism ? 
 
 In the first place, it is necessary to have a just view 
 concerning woman's place in the economy of society. It is 
 useless to give advice in regard to the higher education of 
 woman to those who covertly or otherwise regard woman 
 as an inferior being, whose highest and most legitimate 
 function is to swing a cradle through the air twelve hours a 
 day. We would not express other than the tenderest sen- 
 
 132
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 timents concerning the divine mission of motherhood. But 
 has the reader ever asked himself what it is that makes 
 motherhood so divine ? Is it not, after all, that which lifts 
 woman above motherhood, that can make motherhood 
 divine ? We are pained when an eminent writer gives 
 weight to expressions like the following : " The great 
 vocation of woman is wifehood and motherhood." Would 
 the author object to a slight change in the latter part of 
 the phraseology so as to make the expression applicable to 
 man ? 'Would those who think that the quoted words 
 express a fine thought be offended with the following ? 
 The great vocation of man is husbandhood and father- 
 hood. The moment we exalt motherhood to the rank of a 
 prime object, that moment does it descend to the level of 
 the function involved, and the divine mother becomes 
 simply a mammal of the genus " homo." 
 
 All there is of divinity in motherhood is derived from 
 the divinity of womanhood. Why does the artist always 
 paint, that kind of motherhood which suggests to our minds 
 the condescension of the divine to the human ? It is not 
 the motherhood, but the condescension to motherhood, that 
 makes it divine and beautiful. Whatever heightens and 
 glorifies woman's nature, then, renders more beautiful and 
 more divine the mission of motherhood. It is the seminary 
 that sanctifies the nursery. 
 
 We hope the world has heard the last of that sickly 
 sentiment concerning "woman's sphere," "the hand that 
 
 133
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 rocks the cradle rules the world," etc. If that hand were 
 permitted to take hold of the world a little more directly, it 
 would not at all interfere with its ability to rock the 
 cradle. The female robin must feed and care for its 
 young, but it finds time each morning to sing its little 
 hymn of praise upon the tree-top to its Maker. So woman 
 may rock the cradle sufficiently each day and yet find time 
 to glorify her God with her intellect. 
 
 We would see the little sister and brother hand in hand 
 enter the primary school ; we would see them together 
 promoted to the grammar school ; we would see them 
 struggling on through the course all unconscious that there 
 is any radical difference in their mental constitutions ; we 
 would see them graduate from the high school together, 
 and together enter the university, and here through four 
 years of intellectual conflict we would see them stand side 
 by side in that fiercely contested arena, and with tongue 
 and pen and brain compete for those prizes whose winning 
 foreshadows life's success. We would see them both at the 
 graduating exercises, fearlessly giving to the world a spec- 
 imen of their thought and eloquence, 
 
 " Mid the sweet inspiration of music and flowers." 
 
 NOR would we see them part here; but with brave 
 hearts enter the same profession. We see no 
 good reason why women should not serve their kind 
 
 134
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 as lawyers, doctors, and ministers. It is true there 
 are objections and hindrances incidental to their sex, but 
 these we believe are fully counterbalanced by those quali- 
 fications in which they must be acknowledged even supe- 
 rior. 
 
 In medicine, it is fast coming to be the opinion of the 
 world that woman, whatever may be. her incidental dis- 
 abilities, is by nature even better endowed than man 
 with some of the peculiarities of talent that prophesy suc- 
 cess. One of these peculiarities is that intuitive insight 
 which, when supplemented by scientific knowledge, leaps 
 to right conclusions with the certainty of an instinct. It 
 is in moments of emergency that woman's mind betrays its 
 peculiar fitness for the medical profession. All must 
 admit that she is the natural nurse, and it is almost an 
 adage among physicians that " as much depends upon 
 the nursing as upon medical skill." We would not, of 
 course, make this claim for woman with reference to all 
 professions. It is not the general superiority of woman 
 that we seek to prove, but simply that for the profession 
 of medicine, at least, she has some special qualifications. 
 
 But we would not deny that she may with equal pro- 
 priety enter almost any of the other professions, and in 
 this we are confident that we only anticipate the tide of 
 public sentiment. How eminently do her sincerity, moral- 
 ity, and spiritual mindedness fit her to point the world to 
 nobler endeavors and higher ideals ! 
 
 135
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 Many of the arguments which prove her fitness to 
 minister as a physician to the diseased bodies of mankind 
 also go to prove her special fitness to minister as a moral 
 physician to their diseased souls. 
 
 Why, then, should our talented and ambitious girls 
 lament that there is no field open for them ? There are very 
 few professions open to their brothers which they may 
 not also enter if they will but have the courage, not the 
 immodesty, to step aside from the conventional path which 
 the hand of society has marked out for them. But while 
 woman possesses so many of the qualities requisite in the 
 professions, there are still few women who are adapted to 
 a professional life, and the same may be said of men. 
 Hence a professional education cannot meet the require- 
 ments of the great mass either of girls or of boys. "The 
 greatest good to the greatest number" should be our 
 motto. We must go, then, to the little farmhouse and 
 the little cottage beneath the hill. Not that the farmhouse 
 and the cottage are the abodes of intellectual weakness. 
 On the contrary, history shows that the world's great 
 minds, like wheat, potatoes, and apples, are usually pro- 
 duced on farms, yet it cannot be denied that the mass of 
 the people, those to whom we wish to speak, are symbol- 
 ized by the farmhouse and the cottage. 
 
 136
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 lijHAT, then, shall constitute the education of the 
 ^ common girl who is destitute of the ambition and, 
 perhaps, the talent to become great and useful in any 
 professional capacity? We answer, in the first place, that 
 her education should be as varied and perfect as possible, 
 if for no other reason, to enable her properly to educate 
 and rear her own children. Whatever grand truths are 
 planted in the mother's mind take root in the next genera- 
 tion, and there grow, blossom, and shed their perfume on 
 the world. The child receives the mother's very thought 
 by intuition. If the mother's mind is weak and narrow in 
 its range, the child is affected by this fact long before it 
 finds any meaning in the mother's words. But if the 
 mother's mind is cultured and refined by study until her 
 thoughts are grand and far-reaching, the child's soul will 
 grow and expand under the mesmeric influence of these 
 thoughts, as the plant grows under the influence of the 
 sun. 
 
 Again, education, or the refinement and organic im- 
 provement resulting from education, is transmitted from 
 mother to child. Who cannot tell by the looks of a little 
 boy whether his mother was educated or not ? The child 
 of the educated mother will have a finer grained organism ; 
 he will be handsomer, will have more regular features than 
 the child of the ignorant parent. As a rule he will acquire 
 the use of language at an earlier period. He will also 
 
 137
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 generally be found more open and frank in his manner, 
 and more susceptible to moral and spiritual influences. 
 
 OW grand and comprehensive, then, becomes the 
 theme of woman's education. To the parent no 
 question can be more important than how shall I educate 
 my daughter ? If it is impossible to educate both let the 
 son go uneducated, and educate the daughter. The im- 
 portance of the son's education may be, indeed, beyond 
 estimation ; yet that of the daughter is even more im- 
 portant. 
 
 Many parents believe that the virtue of their daughters 
 will be more secure if they remain in general ignorance ; 
 but the frightful statistics of our great cities show this to 
 be a terrible mistake. It is a fact that cannot be denied, 
 that the ranks of that army which parade the streets of 
 the great cities at midnight, in painted shame, are filled 
 from the country. Few are natives of the city, notwith- 
 standing the dangers and temptations of city life are far 
 greater than those of the country. 
 
 There can be but one explanation of this fact. The 
 superior educational facilities of the city afford a salutary 
 and restraining influence in the form of mental culture. 
 The city girl is better educated than the country girl, hence 
 she has a stronger character. 
 
 Both may be innocent, for innocence may live comfort- 
 ably with ignorance, but virtue and ignorance cannot long 
 
 138
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 endure each other's society. A young kitten is innocent, 
 but it has but little character ; and we could not call it par- 
 ticularly virtuous. There are thousands of human kittens 
 whose virtue consists only in the innocence of ignorance. 
 
 " Pulpy souls 
 That show a dimple for each touch of sin." 
 
 Let every mother and father remember that there is no 
 virtue in ignorance, even in ignorance of sin. If you do 
 not give your boy an opportunity to use his muscles he will 
 soon cease to have any muscles. So there can be no virtue 
 without temptation ; if you do not give your daughter an 
 opportunity to use her virtue in the resistance of tempta- 
 tion, it is to be feared that she will soon cease to have 
 any virtue. 
 
 A certain woman had a choice plum tree, the fruit of 
 which she was anxious should ripen. The birds had car- 
 ried away all but one, and over this she bound a cloth. It 
 was safe from the birds, but, while she shut it from them, 
 she shut it also from the sunshine and the storms, which 
 alone could ripen it, and it withered away and fell. 
 
 The mother should teach her daughter above all things 
 to know herself. 
 
 The man was unwise, who, fearing that his bird dog 
 would acquire the habit of killing barn-fowl, shut him up 
 during his puppyhood and secluded from his sight every 
 kind of bird. When he released him to test the merits of 
 
 139
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 his system of education, the dog rushed at the fowls and 
 killed them all before his master could call him off. 
 
 Would he not have acted more wisely had he taught 
 the young dog to discriminate between barn-fowl and wild- 
 fowl ? As it was he did not educate him, but attempted to 
 suppress an inborn instinct. 
 
 Equally unwise is the mother who keeps, or tries to 
 keep, her daughter in ignorance concerning those things 
 which she has a divinely given right to know. Let her 
 direct her daughter's intuitions as nature unfolds them, but 
 never attempt to suppress them, for sooner or later there 
 must come a revelation. 
 
 \ * f HATEVER may be true concerning the question of 
 ^ woman's rights, whether or not she has a moral 
 right to participate in the civil government of society, we 
 will not here attempt to discuss. 
 
 A concession of her rights, however, as interpreted by 
 the strongest advocate of woman's suffrage, is not at all 
 inconsistent with the undisputed fact that woman finds her 
 highest mission at the altar of home. Nor does this fact 
 interfere with what we have already said concerning the 
 inconsistency of making wifehood and motherhood the 
 prime object of life. 
 
 The doctrine of woman's rights can never be proved by 
 contending that she is not by constitution and nature calcu- 
 lated to pursue a somewhat different object in life from 
 
 140
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 that which man pursues, or at least to pursue the same by 
 somewhat different methods. 
 
 If it could be shown that men and women should both 
 engage in the cultivation of the soil, it would be still 
 undeniable that woman is best adapted to the more aesthetic 
 portion of the labor, and man to the rougher and heavier 
 portion. If a flower garden or nursery were placed in the 
 midst of rough stubble, none would deny that it would be 
 natural for the man to mow the stubble, while the woman 
 should tend the garden in its midst. This would be true 
 even if it should be shown that woman should help to 
 till the soil. 
 
 So if it should be shown that woman has a moral right 
 to participate in the solution of social problems, which we 
 are not by any means prepared to deny, it would still be 
 true that it is her most natural function to have particular 
 charge of the little nursery, home, in the midst of the 
 rough stubble of human society. 
 
 \ A [OMAN'S education, then, is necessarily very imper- 
 ^ feet, unless it be largely in the line of that which 
 best becomes her nature. 
 
 She should have, emphatically, a home education, and 
 this means something more than a knowledge of the 
 dustpan and broom. 
 
 It means something more than a mere knowledge of 
 the daily routine of housekeeping, in the popular sense of 
 
 141
 
 Education of Our Girls. 
 
 that word. Woman holds in her hands the physical health 
 of the world. Three times each day our lives and health 
 are at the mercy and practical judgment of woman. Nay, 
 more, for the world's character is largely what its food 
 makes it. Indirectly, then, she exerts a modifying influ- 
 ence over our loves and hates, hopes and fears, joys and 
 sorrows. 
 
 Whoever controls a being's stomach controls that 
 being's destiny. What, then, can be more important than 
 that girls should be educated in cookery and the related 
 sciences, chemistry and hygiene ? This, then, is what we 
 mean by a home education for girls, that they should be 
 taught both through the wisdom and experience of mothers, 
 and also through the medium of books, how to engage 
 in the noble occupation of housewife with the best 
 advantage to mankind. 
 
 Such an education cannot be obtained solely from prac- 
 tice in the kitchen. The whole mind must be expanded 
 and disciplined by a study of Nature and her laws. No 
 woman can possibly fulfill, in the best manner, her duties 
 as housewife without a good general education. 
 
 " Three years she grew in sun and shower ; 
 Then nature said, 'A lovelier flower 
 On earth was never sown ; 
 This child I to myself will take ; 
 She shall be mine, and I will make 
 A lady of my own. 
 
 142
 
 Education of Our Oirls. 
 
 ' Myself will to my darling be 
 Both law and impulse ; and with me 
 The girl, in rock and plain, 
 In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, 
 Shall feel an overseeing power 
 To kindle or restrain. 
 
 She shall be sportive as the fawn 
 That wild with glee across the lawn 
 Or up the mountain springs ; 
 And hers shall be the breathing balm, 
 And hers the silence and the calm, 
 Of mute insensate things. 
 
 ' The floating clouds their state shall lend 
 To her ; for her the willow bend ; 
 Nor shall she fail to see 
 E'en in the motions of the storm 
 Grace that shall mold the maiden's form 
 By silent sympathy. 
 
 ' The stars of midnight shall be dear 
 To her ; and she shall lean her ear 
 In many a secret place, 
 Where rivulets dance their wayward round, 
 And beauty born of murmuring sound 
 Shall pass into her face.' ' 
 
 143
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE. 
 
 Education of Our Boys. 
 
 N education does not necessarily mean the dis- 
 cipline of a college course. In the present condi- 
 tion of society, that advantage is, as a 
 matter of necessity, reserved for comparatively few. In 
 its true significance education means something more 
 than the ability to unravel the involved constructions of 
 a dead language ; something more than a proficiency in 
 mathematics and the physical sciences ; something more, 
 even, than can be reaped from the most laborious toil of 
 the human intellect. It is a drawing out, a developing 
 and strengthening of every element, every faculty, every 
 power of body, mind, and spirit. It is such a condition of 
 the whole being, resulting from a constant refinement, that 
 the several powers shall observe the highest economy in 
 their separate spheres, while the power of co-ordinated 
 action shall be rendered more perfect. 
 
 One may so cultivate and strengthen the muscles of his 
 little finger that he may be able to support with it twice 
 his weight ; while the main muscles of his body are so 
 weak that he may not be able to lift half his weight. You 
 
 144
 
 Education of Our Boys. 
 
 could not call such a man a strong man. So one may cul- 
 tivate his mere intellectuality till he becomes the brilliant 
 center of the world's admiration, if such were possible ; 
 but you cannot call him educated if he is vicious, if his 
 anger is uncontrollable, if he is a drunkard or a glutton, if 
 he is stubborn, if he is unconscientious, if he is irreverent, 
 if he is spiritually blind, if he is selfish, if he is dead to 
 the appeals of human want and suffering. 
 
 /UN education on this broad basis should be the life 
 * V work of every human being. 
 
 We would not by any means be understood as under- 
 valuing the education of the intellect. The importance of 
 the education of a power is commensurate with the impor- 
 tance of the power itself, and certainly no power of our 
 being can be of more importance than the intellect. 
 
 A college education is within the reach of every young 
 man who possesses the ambition for it, even though he 
 may possess neither friends nor money. There are hun- 
 dreds of students in this country who are paying their own 
 way through college by their own energy and labor. In 
 most of our colleges, a young man of activity and determi- 
 nation may earn during the vacation enough to pay his 
 expenses during the term. So that he who thirsts for 
 knowledge has no legitimate excuse if he does not avail 
 himself of a college education. None should ask us to 
 bring other evidence than that of every intelligent observer. 
 
 145
 
 Education of Our Boys. 
 
 There never yet was occupation so low, nor obstacle so 
 broad and high, as to defeat the resolve of a human soul. 
 No fierce monster of opposition ever reared its hydra head 
 in the path of a human endeavor, 
 
 That would not shrink and cower 
 Before the dauntless power 
 Of a fearless human will. 
 
 There are those who are conscious that they were 
 richly endowed by nature with noble gifts, but who have 
 failed in life through their own indolence. It is customary 
 for these to comfort themselves in their sad retrospection 
 by repeating these melancholy lines: 
 
 " Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
 
 The dai-k unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 
 Full many a flower is born to' blush unseen 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 
 
 Do those lines prove that truth is not an essential ele- 
 ment of poetry ? No, for they are believed and felt to be 
 true by mistaken souls, and in that way they perform the 
 function of truth. They convey, or rather seem to convey, 
 a solemn truth to those who, by the unwise concession of 
 their own weakness, have unwittingly surrendered life's 
 argument to circumstance, their merciless opponent. 
 
 But let us put this doctrine to the practical test. We 
 have said that an education does not necessarily mean the 
 discipline of a college course. Indeed, all are not so con- 
 
 146
 
 Education of Our Soys. 
 
 stituted that a college education would bring them the 
 greatest good even intellectually. Nor would we be so 
 radical as to deny that circumstances may defeat the pur- 
 pose of merely going to college. The circumstance of 
 poverty, however, is not a valid excuse. At any rate, all 
 may become well educated. Those men are almost num- 
 berless who have become great and useful by the light of a 
 pine torch, who have learned the science of mathematics 
 with a stick for a pencil and the ocean beach for a slate. 
 
 But suppose we meet the barefoot boy in the street 
 picking rags, what word of advice have we for him ? He 
 will listen to all our fine talk about the grand possibilities 
 which are offered to the poorest and the worthiest in our 
 great communities ; he will listen to the story of those 
 great souls who have climbed to glory over fence rails and 
 canal boats ; and when we have finished he will meet us 
 with the question, "What shall I do and how shall I 
 begin ? " 
 
 Let us see if we can answer these questions. As the 
 first step toward the desired result, he can pick up a rag, 
 just as he has been wont to do, and examine it, not as here- 
 tofore with the simple purpose of determining whether he 
 shall put it into one or the other of two baskets ; but he can 
 make it the text-book with which to begin an education. 
 He can ask those older and wiser than himself what it is 
 made of and how it is made. They will point him to the 
 great mill yonder, where, if he tells his purpose, he can 
 
 147
 
 Education of Our Boys. 
 
 gain admission and learn something of the mechanical 
 principles involved in the manufacture of the rag. If he 
 continues to make inquiries until he can trace a piece of 
 cotton through all its transformations, till it comes out a 
 piece of fine bleached cotton, he has surely begun an edu- 
 cation in earnest. He can save a penny a day for a few 
 days and buy a primer, and with that primer under his arm 
 he may politely accost any lady or gentleman with these 
 words, " I am determined to make the most of myself. I 
 want to learn to read. I have bought a little book. Can 
 you give me any advice or help ? " 
 
 There is not a man or woman in all that great city with 
 a heart so hard as not to be melted to sympathy by that 
 appeal. He would be astonished at the amount of love and 
 sympathy and philanthropy in the world which he before 
 had considered so cold and heartless. 
 
 Young man, bootblack, rag-picker, obscure farmer 
 boy, or dweller in the dingy haunts of the city, remember 
 that Freedom's goddess holds over your head a crown. But 
 she never puts that crown on any but a sweaty brow, the 
 royal symbol of effort and worth. 
 
 From every lowly cottage roof, 
 
 However poor and brown, 
 From every dusty hovel, points 
 
 A hand at glory's crown. 
 
 148
 
 Education of Our Boys, 
 
 /V LTHOUGH it is true that men can be good farmers or 
 V_ mechanics without being able to read or write, 
 yet we believe that the greatest possible number of these 
 classes should be liberally educated. We often hear it 
 remarked that one is very foolish to spend so much time 
 and money in procuring an education if he intends to make 
 no use of it, the remark implying that if he intends to enter 
 no profession the time and money thus spent are wasted. 
 
 We have no sympathy or patience with that view of 
 life. Man is above the brutes chiefly because he knows 
 more. It is a greater sin to take his life than that of 
 a brute, because he has more life to take, because his facul- 
 ties are more God-like and more powerful. 
 
 Now education means simply making these faculties 
 powerful and God-like, and nothing more. Hence an 
 educated man is more a man than an uneducated one. It 
 increases the humanity of man and adds to our very being. 
 Even if one is to spend his life in idleness gazing at the 
 clouds, it is a duty he owes to himself, to the universe, 
 and to God, to make the most of himself by acquiring a 
 liberal education. 
 
 I/ NOWLEDGE, like virtue, should be an end in itself. 
 V-. Think of a mother teaching her children to be vir- 
 tuous because their prospects of financial success would be 
 greater ! We should pity the moral weakness of that 
 mother. We all instinctively recognize virtue as a sublime 
 
 149
 
 Education of Our Boys. 
 
 object and end in itself. It is a part of that God-like 
 nature of which we boast, it is a part of our very immor- 
 tality. So is knowledge. Why, then, should we talk about 
 knowledge and education simply as means to facilitate 
 the accumulation of dollars and cents ? Let no mother 
 teach her boy such sophistry. 
 
 The capacity of the soul for enjoyment is just propor- 
 tionate to its interior development. Knowledge is to the 
 mind what health is to the body, it makes more of us. 
 
 pDUCATION is the handmaid of religion. The sta- 
 ^N^ tistics of every community will show that criminals 
 are taken from the ranks of the ignorant. If the best and 
 highest minds do not in some way associate knowledge 
 and religion, why are colleges and seminaries under the 
 direct supervision of the Christian church ? Education has 
 transformed the savage into the Christian. The wide gulf 
 that stretches between the beastly cannibal and the con- 
 scientious Christian has been bridged by the invisible cables 
 of education, and away into the infinitely potential future 
 shall stretch this golden bridge, till the farther end shall 
 rest upon the massive masonry of the eternal. 
 
 Education was divinely instituted. Nature is the 
 schoolmistress whom God employs to educate his children. 
 This sweet and patient teacher knows how to win our 
 hearts so that study becomes a pleasure. Everywhere she 
 has placed before our eyes an open text-book with such 
 
 150
 
 Education of Our Boys. 
 
 fascinating pictures that we cannot help reading the 
 description of them. She found us with the beasts. 
 Patiently she has conducted us through the primary school 
 of the savage and barbarian, through the grammar school 
 of war and bloodshed, till we have entered with her the 
 high school of modern civilization. She will lead us tri- 
 umphantly through and admit us into her vast university. 
 There she will show us mysteries that would blind' us now. 
 In her laboratory we shall learn the awful secret of being. 
 When we have graduated here she will lead us proudly up 
 and present us to the Great Master, at whose side we shall 
 sit and under whose tuition we shall turn our eyes star- 
 ward and forever and forever shall study the infinite of 
 infinites. 
 
 " The heights by great men reached and kept 
 
 Were not attained by sudden flight ; 
 
 But they, while their companions slept, 
 
 Were toiling upward in the night. " 
 
 151
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN. 
 
 Boolcs for the Home. 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 OD be thanked for books," says Channing ; 
 " they are the voices of the distant and the 
 dead, and make us heirs of all the ages." Car- 
 lyle has said that the true university of these days is a col- 
 lection of books. They contain the garnered wisdom of all 
 time. By their means the poorest man can sit at the feet 
 of the world's greatest teachers and learn the lessons of 
 their noblest lore. 
 
 "Books," says Henry Ward Beecher, "are the win- 
 dows through which the soul looks out. A home without 
 books is like a house without windows. Let us pity those 
 poor rich men who live barrenly in great bookless houses ! 
 Let us congratulate the poor that, in our day, books are so 
 cheap. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessa- 
 ries of life." Yet how many homes are splendidly 
 furnished with everything but books. There are costly car- 
 pets, sumptuous furniture, a table laden with all the 
 luxuries of life, everything that will pamper the body, 
 while the soul is starved for lack of knowledge. Small 
 wonder that persons bred in such surroundings are 
 
 152
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 dwarfed in mind, narrow in their range of thought, occu- 
 pied with petty amusements or small scandal or silly tittle 
 tattle. 
 
 Books give wings to the soul. They enable it to soar 
 above the sordid cares of life, to rise into the eternal sun- 
 light of the hills of God. As one reads a great masterpiece 
 of literature, though even in a prison cell, the narrow walls 
 expand, his freed spirit ranges through space, he becomes 
 the contemporary of all times, the inhabitant of all lands. 
 He can say exultingly with Lovelace : 
 
 " Stone walls do not a prison make, 
 Nor iron bars a cage." 
 
 " Reading," says Lowell, "is the key that admits us 
 to the whole world of thought and fancy and imagina- 
 tion, to the company of saint and sage, of the wisest and 
 the wittiest at their wisest and wittiest moments. It ena- 
 bles us to see with the keenest eyes, hear with the finest 
 ears, and listen to the sweetest voices of all time." 
 
 I HAT we may secure the greatest advantage from the 
 
 ^ use of books we should be most careful in our choice. 
 
 An English officer in India took down a book from his 
 
 library and felt a slight sting in his finger as he opened 
 
 it. In a few hours his arm began to swell, and in two 
 
 days he was dead. He had been stung by a venomous 
 
 153
 
 Books for the Home, 
 
 asp. There are other snakes, more deadly still, that hide 
 in books ; that poison the soul with a more mortal virus ; 
 that kindle flames of unhallowed passion in the chambers 
 of the mind and set the whole being on fire with the fire 
 of hell. 
 
 Other books, by their wishy-washy flood of trivial com- 
 monplace, drown out the opportunity of studying the great 
 books that are the mental landmarks of the race. "A 
 good book," says Milton, "is the precious lifeblood of a 
 master spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a 
 life beyond life." Why waste our time upon a trashy and 
 frivolous book when we may hold high converse with the 
 wisest sages, the greatest souls, the noblest heroes the 
 world has ever known ? 
 
 may be broadly described as of two sorts : 
 Books of information, and books of inspiration, or 
 as De Quincey calls them, "books of knowledge, and 
 books of power," The former are the bread and butter of 
 life. The latter are its richest wine, fragrant with the 
 aroma of the finest vintage of the soul. The former, to 
 change the figure, are the tools for life's' daily use. The 
 latter are the instruments of music for its loftiest and most 
 sacred moments. Of the former are the text-books of our 
 trades and occupations. But even these so far reaching 
 are the relations of life may touch the infinite. The 
 rules of mechanics, the study of science, the laws of 
 
 154
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 hygiene, the investigation of nature, all these reveal a 
 wonder world everywhere around us. They make us 
 exclaim with the psalmist, " O Lord, how manifold are thy 
 works ! In wisdom hast thou made them all : the earth 
 is full of thy riches," 
 
 The study of the past is necessary to enable us to dis- 
 charge the duties of the present. And how noble, how 
 inspiring, such a study often is ! What examples of hero- 
 ism thrill the soul, what tales of suffering for conscience's 
 sake, of fidelity even unto death, of sublime endeavor, of 
 lofty achievement, of brave battle with wrong, of saintliest 
 suffering, of Christ-like self-sacrifice, the records of the 
 race reveal ! All these ennoble and embrave our souls to 
 play our part in life, to discharge its often difficult duties, 
 to quit us like men, to be strong. 
 
 Such books become, indeed, books of inspiration as 
 well as information. But by the former phrase we mean 
 especially the writings of the great poets and sages and 
 seers of our race : of Dante and Milton, who reveal the 
 woes of the nether world and the joys of Paradise ; of the 
 myriad-minded Shakespeare, who portrays the human soul 
 in the great crises of fate, who depicts its love and longing, 
 its agony and despair, its rapture and its triumph ; of 
 Wordsworth and Bryant, those high priests of nature, who 
 interpret its inner meaning to the soul ; of Tennyson and 
 Lowell, who voice life's loftiest aspirations and clothe in 
 "thoughts that breathe and words that burn" its highest 
 
 155
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 a 'd its holiest truths ; of Emerson and Browning, with 
 their high and calm philosophy ; of Longfellow and Whit- 
 tier, with their love of the beautiful, the true, the good ; 
 their hate and scorn of selfishness and wrong. 
 
 Tf 
 
 iVBOVE all, for both instruction and inspiration, for 
 
 V^ guidance in life's lowliest walks, and uplifting in 
 its highest flights, is the Word of God. In those divine 
 oracles the Most High reveals his will to man in words so 
 simple that the little child can understand ; yet are there in 
 them depths of wisdom which the wisest philosophers can- 
 not fathom ; heights which the holiest saint, unaided, may 
 not climb. " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
 and knowledge of God ! How unsearchable are his judg- 
 ments, and his ways past finding out ! " 
 
 A good test of our reading is, does it bring us more in 
 sympathy with the word and mind and will of God ? 
 When the great Sir Walter Scott lay dying in his library 
 at Abbotsford, he said to Lockhart, his son-in-law, "Reach 
 me the Book." "What book?" asked Lockhart, glancing 
 around upon the twenty thousand volumes on the walls. 
 " There is but one Book," said the dying man. And out- 
 shining all others, as the noonday sun outshines the stars 
 of night, is the Word of God. All books that bring us into 
 sympathy and harmony with this book, whether they be 
 books of science, of history, of the biography of the world's 
 great men, the makers of epochs, the poets and phi- 
 
 15G
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 losophers, the saints and sages and seers of the race, are 
 good books. 
 
 IN order to gain time for the best reading we must 
 * rigidly abridge that spent on the second or third best. 
 "Read not the Times," says Thoreau, "read the Eterni- 
 ties." We must, however, read the Times that we may 
 know the daily history of the world in which we live. The 
 modern daily papers are the most wonderful creation of 
 the century. They are thrilling and throbbing with the 
 life of every land. But their very number and volume 
 demand a severe selection. They are like the Franken- 
 stein of the German story, the goblin summoned to bring 
 water to the magician, which brought it in such quantities 
 as to weli-nigh drown him. 
 
 Many persons read nothing but the daily papers. Such 
 j 
 
 persons may have a certain shallow smartness, but they 
 cannot have much accurate information, much broad cul- 
 ture, much deep or general knowledge. Their time and 
 attention is so frittered away on the ephemeral and in- 
 significant that they have little time and less taste for 
 things of profoundest interest, of most momentous impor- 
 tance. 
 
 We must learn even in reading the daily papers to skip 
 the trivial and the trashy, to grasp the chief facts, to avoid 
 the gossip, the scandal, the idle speculations, most of which 
 are disproved before the rising of to-morrow's sun. Above 
 
 157
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 all should we avoid that great curse of American civiliza- 
 tion, the Sunday newspaper, with its deluge of common- 
 place, its ocean of frivolous and pernicious reading, and its 
 very small modicum of instructive matter, like FalstafT 's 
 monstrous quantity of sack to a beggarly pennyworth of 
 bread. 
 
 In the high class weeklies, the news of the world, of 
 the great events by which history is being made around 
 us, is better digested and conclusions are more wisely 
 drawn than is possible in the dailies. The religious week- 
 lies give much attention to the great moral movements of 
 the age, to the achievements of missions at home and 
 abroad, to the life and work of the various churches in 
 whose interests they are published. The international sys- 
 tem of Sunday-school lessons has called forth a copious 
 literature in which whole commentaries are condensed into 
 pamphlets for the elucidation of the sacred text. It is, in 
 its way, a liberal education to pursue the course of study 
 thus laid down. In the great monthlies many of the best 
 books in science, in philosophy, in fiction, first appear. 
 
 But there are a multitude of story papers and maga- 
 zines which are filled with the most frivolous and sensa- 
 tional trash, light, frothy, and turgid in character, 
 which cannot by any stretch of charity be called literature 
 at all. These only waste the time, corrupt the taste, and, 
 in the case of the " Satanic press," debauch the soul. A 
 recent reviewer, having examined a great number of speci- 
 
 158
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 mens of this degraded press, writes, " Nothing good can be 
 said of them ; they must be characterized as bad, worse, 
 worst." They abound in blood-curdling fiction, coarse 
 description, prurient suggestion, and vulgar slang. Many 
 of these " penny dreadfuls " are specially written for boys 
 and girls of crude and uncultivated tastes. The statistics 
 of our prisons show that many youthful criminals have 
 been led into lawless lives by the evil suggestions of these 
 pernicious papers. 
 
 I HANK God, there is an antidote to these agents of 
 ^ evil. There are papers of pure, ennobling, and uplift- 
 ing tendency, most carefully edited and handsomely illus- 
 trated. These are not merely the issues of the great 
 religious houses, but such splendid papers as " The Youth's 
 Companion," "Harper's Round Table," "St. Nicholas, 
 the boys' and girls' own magazines, and many others. 
 
 The way to keep bad reading out of the home is to fur- 
 nish that which is good. Young people will prefer bread 
 to carrion, and wise parents will ungrudgingly supply good 
 reading for their households just as they supply good food 
 for their table. Some persons have, unfortunately, little 
 taste for reading of any sort. We have even heard of col- 
 lege graduates who have seldom read a volume except their 
 text-books. A taste for good reading can readily be culti- 
 vated. Give a boy either of those great classics of the 
 English tongue, "Robinson Crusoe," or "Pilgrim's Prog- 
 
 159
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 ress," and he will soon, like Oliver Twist, ask for more. A 
 whole literature for young people has been created, attrac- 
 tive in form, wholesome in spirit, and instructive and 
 ennobling in general scope and tendency. Under wise 
 counsels and training the young mind will grow up with a 
 taste for wholesome, pure, and bracing books. 
 
 Wherever possible there should be in every house a 
 good dictionary, an atlas, and a cyclopedia. No unknown 
 word should be passed without learning its meaning. Thus 
 habits of definiteness of thought and exactness of expres- 
 sion will be unconsciously cultivated. A man or woman 
 who is thus trained to a love of good books, has placed in 
 his hand the key of all knowledge. The best books will to 
 him prove solace in solitude, joy amid sorrow, wealth in 
 poverty, and gladness even in life's darkest gloom. Such a 
 pure, refined, and cultivated taste will be a possession 
 which the world cannot give nor take away. It will the 
 better fit its possessor for the duties of time and for the 
 beatitudes of eternity. 
 
 -**-- 
 
 Horne Reading Courses. 
 
 I HE lists of books in the following courses have 
 ^ been prepared with the view of affording to the 
 reader a bird's-eye view of the literature and thought- 
 activity of the world from the most authoritative sources. 
 
 They have been prepared from the bibliographies of two of 
 
 160
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 the most experienced authorities living, George Haven 
 Putnam, the eminent publisher, and John Millar, B. A., 
 Deputy Minister of Education of Ontario, with additional 
 suggestions. These books represent a liberal education in 
 themselves and at the same time are vast in scope, compre- 
 hensive in treatment, authoritative, and, in many instances, 
 masterpieces of literature in their respective spheres. 
 
 Bootes of Reference. 
 
 Webster, Worcester, or Standard Chambers's, Appleton's, Johnson's, 
 
 Dictionary. or other Cyclopedia. 
 
 W. and A. K. Johnston's or other Smith's Bible Dictionary. 
 
 Atlas. Anthem's Classical Dictionary. 
 
 History. 
 
 Cox's Greece. Guizot's History of France. 
 Arnold's Rome. Students Motley's History of Hoi- 
 Students Gibbon. land. 
 
 Milman's History of the Jews. D'Aubigne's History of the Refor- 
 
 Green's Shorter History of Eng- mation. 
 
 land. Ridpath's or Bancroft's History of 
 
 Hallain's Middle Ages. the United States. 
 
 McCarthy's History of our own Parkman's Canada. 
 
 Times. 
 
 Biography. 
 
 Hughes' Alfred the Great. Book of Golden Deeds. 
 
 Washington Irving's Columbus. Biographies of Luther, Melanch- 
 
 Carlyle's Cromwell. thon, Zwiugle, Calvin, Knox, 
 
 English Men of Letters, Edited by Wesley, Carey, Morrison, Coke, 
 
 John Morley. Patton, Duff, Mackay of Uganda, 
 
 Smiles' Self Help, Duty, Thrift, Mackay of Formosa. 
 
 and Character. British Statesmen Series. 
 
 101
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 Travel and Description. 
 
 Kiuglake's Eothen. Hawthorne's Our Old Home, Eng- 
 Layard's Nineveh, abridged. land. 
 
 Stanley's Sinai and Palestine. Wallace's Russia. 
 
 Bayard Taylor's Views Afoot. Howells' Italian Journeys. 
 
 General Literature. 
 
 Lord Bacon's Essays. 
 Carlyle's Essays. 
 Macaulay's Essays. 
 Emerson's Essays. 
 Fronde's Short Studies on 
 
 Subjects. 
 Lowell's Among My Books. 
 
 Great 
 
 Dana's Household Book of Poetry. 
 
 Palgrave's Golden Treasury. 
 
 ^Esop's Fables. 
 
 The Poetical Works of Longfellow, 
 Lowell, Whittier, Tennyson, Mil- 
 ton, and Bell's Shakespeare 
 (Funk & Wagnall's Edition). 
 
 \Vork:s of Imagination. 
 
 Pilgrim's Progress. 
 
 Robinson Crusoe. 
 
 Don Quixote. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott's Tales. 
 
 Mrs. Stowe's Stories. 
 
 The Schonberg-Cotta Series. 
 
 Miss Muloch's John Halifax, and 
 A Noble Life. 
 
 Dickens's Oliver Twist, Nicholas 
 Nickleby, Christinas Carol, Da- 
 vid Copperfield, Old Curiosity 
 Shop, Tale of Two Cities. 
 
 Rev. Charles Sheldon's Religious 
 Stories. 
 
 Charles Kingsley's Hypatia, and 
 Westward Ho. 
 
 Miss Alcott's Little Men, and Lit- 
 tle Women. 
 
 Hughes' Tom Brown at Rugby. 
 
 Henty's Historical Stories. 
 
 Conan Doyle's White Company, 
 and Micah Clark. 
 
 Hawthorne's The House of Seven 
 Gables. 
 
 Science. 
 
 Proctor's Popular Science, Other 
 Worlds than Ours, and Light 
 Science for Leisure Hours, Half 
 Hours with the Stars. 
 
 Miss Buckley's Fairyland of Science. 
 Dana's Geology. 
 
 162
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 Course for Ambitious Young People. 
 
 History and Biography. 
 
 Outlines of Universal History, The American Commonwealth, 
 
 Fisher. Bryce. 
 
 Shorter History of the English Peo- Our Country, Strong. 
 
 pie, Green. Life of Washington, Irving. 
 
 Fifteen Decisive Battles of the Life of Lincoln, Nicolay and Hay. 
 
 World, Creasy. Life of Gladstone, Herbert Glad- 
 Leading Events of American His- stone. 
 
 tory, Montgomery. 
 
 Travel and. Science. 
 
 Bird's-Eye View of the World, Political Economy, Ely. 
 
 Reclus. Walks and Talks in the Geological 
 
 Due West, Ballou. Field, Winchell. 
 
 Over the Ocean, Curtis Guild. Recreation in Astronomy, Warren. 
 
 Physical Geography, Russell Hin- Chemistry, Appleton. 
 
 man. Introduction to Botany, Steele. 
 
 Physics, J. D. Steele. Hygienic Physiology, Steele. 
 
 Religious Literature. 
 
 The Bible, especially John, Mark, History of the Christian Church, 
 Proverbs, Acts, Psalms, I. and II. Fisher. 
 
 Timothy, James. Manual of Christian Evidence, 
 
 Row. 
 
 Essays. 
 
 Sketch-book, Irving. Ethics of the Dust, Ruskin. 
 
 Outline Study of Man, Hopkins. Handbook of Universal Literature, 
 
 Self Reliance, Manners, Friend- Botta. 
 
 ship, Love, Emerson. Makers of Modern English, Daw- 
 Self Help, Smiles. son. 
 
 163
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 Poetry and Drama. 
 
 Paradise Lost, Milton. Lady of the Lake, Scott. 
 
 Hamlet, Shakespeare. Marmion, Scott. 
 
 Julius Cresar, Shakespeare. Tennyson, Whittier, Longfellow. 
 
 Kietion. 
 
 David Copperfield, Dickens. 
 Vanity Fair, Thackeray. 
 Hypatia, Kingsley. 
 Kenilworth, Scott. 
 John Halifax, Miss Muloch. 
 The Pilot, Cooper. 
 
 Adam Bede, George Eliot. 
 Ben Hur, Wallace. 
 Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan. 
 Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne. 
 Tom Brown at Rugby, Hughes. 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mrs. Stowe. 
 
 Advanced Course for Yoting Women. 
 
 The Dawn of History, Keary. 
 
 Outlines of Universal History, 
 Fisher. 
 
 Outlines of European History, Free- 
 man. 
 
 History of the United States, Hig- 
 ginson. 
 
 History and Biography. 
 
 Shorter History of the English Peo- 
 ple, Green. 
 
 French Revolution, Carlyle. 
 Boswell's Life of Johnson. 
 Irving's Life of Washington. 
 Life of Gladstone, Morley. 
 
 Friction and Travel. 
 
 On the Heights, Auerbach. 
 Les Miserables, Hugo. 
 David Copperfield, D'ickens. 
 Ivan hoe, Scott. 
 Romola, George Eliot. 
 Hypatia, Kingsley. 
 Uarda, George Ebers. 
 A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens. 
 Vanity Fair, Thackeray. 
 
 Lorna Doone, Blackmore. 
 
 The Scarlet Letter, Hawthorne. 
 
 Alhambra, Irving. 
 
 Uncle Tom's Cabin, Mrs. Stowe. 
 
 My Novel, Bulwer. 
 
 Bird's-Eye View of the World, 
 
 Reclus. 
 Humboldt's Travels. 
 
 164
 
 Books for the Home. 
 
 Religious Literature. 
 
 The Bible. Natural Theology, Paley. 
 
 History of the Christian Church, Analogy of Religion, Butler. 
 
 Fisher. Christian Ethics, Newman Smyth. 
 
 History of the Protestant Reforma- The Perfect Life, Charming. 
 
 tion, D'Aubigne. 
 
 Essays and Criticism. 
 
 History of Literature, Taine. Poetry, Comedy, and Duty, Everett. 
 
 Self Help, Smiles. Macaulay's Essays. 
 
 Emerson's Essays. Principles of Literary Criticism, 
 
 Ethics of the Dust, Ruskin. Stedrnan. 
 
 Sketch Book, Irving. Handbook of Poetics, Gummere. 
 
 Walden, Thoreau. 
 
 Poetry and. Drama. 
 
 Paradise Lost, Milton. The Divine Comedy, Dante. 
 
 Hamlet, Twelfth Night, Comedy of Goethe's Faust. 
 
 Errors, Merchant of Venice, Mac- Iliad and Odyssey, Homer, 
 
 beth, Julius Cfesar, Midsummer Browning, Tennyson, Whittier, 
 Night's Dream, Shakespeare. Longfellow, Lowell, Poe. 
 
 Lady of the Lake, Scott. 
 
 Conduct and Fine Arts. 
 
 Ethics for Young People, Everett. History of Art, Von Reber. 
 
 Conduct as a Fine Art, Gilman. Esthetics, Bascom. 
 
 Manners and Social Customs, Slier- The Beautiful and the Sublime, 
 
 wood. Burke. 
 History of Music, Hunt. 
 
 Science and Politics. 
 
 The Human Body, Martin. Chemistry, Remsen. 
 
 Descriptive Botany, Bessey or Gray. Recreation in Astronomy, Warren. 
 
 Birds of North America, Audubon. Political Economy, Walker. 
 
 Voyages of a Naturalist, Darwin. Sociology, Giddings. 
 
 AValks and Talks in the Geological History of Civilization, Guizot. 
 Field, Wmchell. 
 
 165
 
 Books for the Home, 
 
 Periodical Literature. 
 
 Youth's Companion, St. Nicholas, 
 Harper's Round Table, Ladies' 
 Home Journal, Public Opinion, 
 Review of Reviews, Outing, Cen- 
 tury Magazine, Harper's Maga- 
 zine, Scribner's Magazine, English 
 
 Illustrated Magazine, Nineteenth 
 Century, North American Re- 
 view, Forum, Popular Science 
 Monthly, The Art Amateur, The 
 Magazine of Art, The Decorator 
 and Furnisher. 
 
 166
 
 CHAPTER FOURTEEN. 
 
 Music in the Home. 
 
 UStC is not a luxury for the few, but a form of 
 art that gives pleasure to the many. Accord- 
 ing to Shakespeare 
 
 " The man that hath no music in himself, 
 
 Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, 
 Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." 
 
 It is not to be measured by money values any more 
 than love and smiles and kind words are to be gotten and 
 given for dollars. It is not merely a matter of aesthetics 
 but of ethics, and both as a moral force and as an aesthetic 
 art it should be cultivated in the home. 
 
 " Music is the universal language of mankind." An 
 American or an Englishman may attend a church service 
 in Germany, France, or Italy, and understand no word of 
 the sermon, but the music reaches his heart, for it is in 
 the language of the soul, and that is independent of words. 
 
 Music is more than the universal language of man- 
 kind, it appeals to the lower animals as well. Ruskin long 
 ago observed : " Brutes can enjoy music. Mice are thrown 
 
 167
 
 Music in the Home, 
 
 into raptures by it. Horses are powerfully excited by the 
 trumpet and may be taught to dance in excellent time." 
 Elephants and even serpents are susceptible to the power 
 of music, and all have observed how a tune whistled or 
 sung will awaken the sweetest carols of the canary. 
 
 This universal language should, then, be cultivated in 
 the home. Animals are not moved by architecture or 
 painting or sculpture. A horse is indifferent to the noblest 
 building, it means less to him than a barn. Most children 
 must learn to appreciate the more superficial arts, but some 
 appreciation of music is inborn, and the possibilities of 
 its cultivation are boundless. 
 
 lyl USIC is not a mere ornament, it is an educative 
 V-. power. Plato taught that as gymnastic exercise 
 is necessary to keep the body healthy, so musical exercise 
 is necessary to keep the soul healthy ; and that the proper 
 nourishment of the intellect and emotions can no more take 
 place without music than the proper functions of the 
 stomach and the blood without exercise. Dr. Dogiel, a Rus- 
 sian professor, has experimented with an instrument called 
 the pletismograph, for examining the circulation of blood in 
 man. His discoveries of the effects of music on the blood, 
 the muscles, and nerves of man and the lower animals 
 open up a wonderful field of possible uses for music. He 
 says : " Music is one of the most powerful means of 
 educating children. * * * If sciences are necessary for 
 
 168
 
 Music in the Home. 
 
 the development of the intellect, the arts, painting and 
 music, particularly, are necessary for the education of 
 our feelings." Music develops in youths, imperceptibly to 
 themselves, a certain harmony of feelings, a softening of 
 the strong animal passions, and thus ennobles them and 
 creates a love for everything beautiful. Ruskin declared 
 music to be "the most effective of all instruments of 
 moral education." 
 
 /V FATHER, whose children were remarkable for 
 V-, cheerfulness and amiability, was asked the secret 
 of his success in training them. He replied : " When 
 anything disturbs their temper I say to them, 'sing,' and 
 if I hear them speak against any person I call them to 
 sing to me ; and so they have sung away all cause of 
 discontent and disposition to scandal." 
 
 Think over the families you have known ; single out 
 those who cultivated music in the home ; and you will find 
 that in those homes there was a refinement, a gentleness of 
 tone and manner, which gave them a superiority to many 
 others of even higher social position. They were not 
 musical because they were gentle and refined, but they 
 were gentle and refined because they were musical. Those 
 people, by the cultivation of music, came to have an 
 habitual shrinking from discord of any kind. 
 
 Music is a medicine for the temper. Many a mother 
 almost distracted with the care of a fretful child can make 
 
 169
 
 Music in the Home. 
 
 no better investment of a little time than to go to the piano 
 and play a few simple airs ; at first something soft and 
 plaintive, then gradually brightening and quickening the 
 music. It will not only help the child but the mother will 
 be surprised to find how her own nerves have been soothed 
 and rested. The shadows are gone, the sunshine is come. 
 Not only babes but adults can sometimes be conquered by 
 music. When Napoleon exploded into one of his ungov- 
 ernable furies, Josephine was wont to play to him one sim- 
 ple but beautiful air which always soothed and pacified 
 him. 
 
 When the father has returned home weary from the 
 manual or mental toil of the day, why should not the chil- 
 dren, if they can play or sing, brighten the evening hours 
 with music ? Memories of these evenings will lighten the 
 toil of the following day. Music is not merely for show 
 and company. The father whose evenings and Sundays 
 are cheered by music either vocal or instrumental will feel 
 that he has made a good investment of his money in pro- 
 viding musical instruction for his children. 
 
 Those who can play or sing should be forever done 
 with silly excuses and simpering hesitation. When friends 
 want music give it as graciously as you would grant 
 any other favor. Forget self and simply do your best. 
 Excuses spoil the music before it is rendered. 
 
 170
 
 Music in the Home. 
 
 I HOSE who have some musical ability are under a 
 
 V sacred obligation to cultivate the gift by persever- 
 ing, painstaking practice. The world is full of discords, and 
 he who can introduce one more element of harmony is a 
 benefactor of the race. So also is he who can put in a 
 song where there was but a sad silence. 
 
 One of the sweetest memories I know is that of the 
 work of a band of little girls who each week visited the 
 sick and aged, bringing flowers and song. Long after the 
 flowers faded and their fragrance was gone the melody 
 of the sweet voices lingered in the hearts and homes 
 visited. 
 
 It is observable that not only are musical families har- 
 monious in their relations but there is a strength of attach- 
 ment among their members which is not usually found 
 elsewhere. Musical notes as threads of silk and chains of 
 gold have been silently binding those hearts together. 
 
 Partings may come but attachments continue. Mu- 
 sical memories are independent of time and space. Dis- 
 tance or duration does not weaken the power of music in 
 the home. 
 
 171
 
 CHAPTER FIFTEEN. 
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 x IT ' 
 
 (^ I HE evening hours are the holy hours of home life. 
 
 i I They are the hours in which there is the freest play 
 
 -* of all the hallowed influences that come from the 
 
 domestic relation ; the hours in which the radiant forces of 
 
 the home are focalized and brought to their highest 
 
 efficiency. 
 
 There is really just as much sunshine on a cloudy day 
 as when the sky is clear, but the sickly growth of vegeta- 
 tion during cloudy weather proclaims its ineffectiveness. 
 So the home may exert just as much actual influence when 
 its sunshine is intercepted by the clouds of care and busy 
 toil; when the merciless dispatch with which "father's" 
 dinner must be prepared, or with which some of those 
 many labors inseparably connected with the home life must 
 be performed, has so absorbed the time and energy of the 
 family that each member seems to be an illustration of the 
 "survival of the fittest." 
 
 Under these circumstances the home may send forth as 
 large an amount of influence, and yet such influence can- 
 
 172
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 not reach the lives and characters of those who have a 
 claim upon it. Such may be called latent influence. 
 
 It is only when the "day is done " that home exhibits 
 its sweetest and serenest life. It is when the sun has gone 
 down that the home influences become actual and potent. 
 
 In opening the tender buds of young characters, the 
 light from the hearthstone is far more efficient than the 
 sunlight. 
 
 I HE distinctive characteristics of the home life are 
 
 ^ manifested most strongly when the labors of the 
 day are ended and the family gather round the fireside for 
 the evening. One hour of evening home life is worth a 
 month of the ordinary daily experience. It matters little 
 where our days are spent if we spend our evenings at 
 home. 
 
 Man's soul is not receptive during the day, for its atti- 
 tude is not favorable. The labor of the day puts the mind 
 into that attitude in which it resists the shaping influences 
 of life. Labor itself is in part a process of spiritual resist- 
 ance, so that the soul that toils is comparatively safe from 
 the snares of temptation. 
 
 During the hours of labor we are less susceptible to 
 good influences as well as to evil ones. The whole being 
 puts itself upon the defensive while it toils. Satisfied 
 with its own condition, it refuses to be changed by outward 
 
 173
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 influences. In this principle we find the explanation of 
 the adage, "Idleness is the parent of vice." The evening 
 is the hour when crafty Satan preaches most eloquently. 
 It is also the hour at which he can gather the largest and 
 most attentive audience. In our great cities Satan's 
 churches are crowded every evening. 
 
 , fortunately, the evening hour is also the hour in 
 which the good angel can gather his largest audi- 
 ence, and he who would baffle Satan's influence must 
 preach in the evening. The evening is the hour when the 
 protecting power of home is greatest ; it is the hour when 
 its protection is most needed. We see a divine wisdom in 
 this. The only hour in the day when the laboring young 
 man is vulnerable to temptation is when his labor is ended 
 and his mind relaxed ; and just at this needed hour the 
 home exerts a doubled influence. Parents need not be at 
 all anxious concerning the character of their boys who from 
 choice stay at home of an evening, but they should never 
 feel at ease concerning those who desire to spend their 
 evenings away from home. 
 
 We do not mean that children should never go away 
 from home in the evening. The evening is a very proper 
 and agreeable time to visit our neighbors, and children 
 should be allowed frequently to spend the evening with 
 their neighbors' children. This is only a transfer of home 
 
 174
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 influence. They are at home in one sense when at their 
 neighbors' home, or at least they are surrounded by home 
 influences. 
 
 It is an excellent practice to allow children, even when 
 very young, to visit their neighbors' children alone in the 
 evening. The reason of this may not at first be obvious, 
 but we think that upon reflection every parent will per- 
 ceive the wisdom of it. 
 
 In the first place, it is a mild lesson in self-reliance and 
 independent action, which every parent should try to 
 develop in the minds of his children. 
 
 Again, all children who are to develop into noble men 
 and women must sooner or later be brought into contact 
 with temptations to every form of improper action, and 
 the earlier this process commences, and the more gradually 
 they encounter the temptations of life, the better for their 
 welfare. And, certainly, sending children to their neigh- 
 bors' alone in the evening, thus putting them upon their 
 own sense of propriety, and subjecting them to the little 
 temptations to trifling breaches of etiquette, which always 
 present themselves when young children gather in groups, 
 is one of the most judicious methods of applying this prin- 
 ciple. It is not well for parents in such cases to be over- 
 strict in regard to the hour of the children's return. It is 
 far better to teach them to exercise their own sense of pro- 
 priety in this matter. 
 
 Let them be taught that it is a gross breach of good 
 
 175
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 manners to stay much beyond a certain hour, perhaps nine 
 o'clock. 
 
 But this is far different in its effect from commanding 
 them to start when the clock strikes nine. In the one case 
 they are compelled to go home by an inward sense of pro- 
 priety, and in the other by an outward sense of authority. 
 It is always a cross for children to leave their playmates, 
 and if they can just as well be taught to make this sacrifice 
 through their own sense of propriety, their parents should 
 certainly rejoice in this early opportunity to give them a 
 practical lesson in self-denial. If the child is compelled by 
 an outward authority located at home, to withdraw from a 
 pleasant associate, he is quite likely to conceive a dislike 
 for that authority and for the place toward which it con- 
 strains him. 
 
 Then let the children visit. Let the parents visit in 
 the evenings. Let all the members of the family feel that 
 the home is not a prison. This is the only way in which 
 children can be taught to love home and to feel that home 
 is the best place to spend their evenings. You cannot 
 make them feel this by compelling them to stay at home 
 evenings. If a child has acquired a distaste for home, the 
 evil must be corrected by the use of mild stratagem. 
 
 I 1NE of the strongest arguments for the habit of spend- 
 ing the evenings at home is found in the opportunity 
 which they offer to the young for self-improvement. 
 
 170
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 Horace Mann once wrote a beautiful truth in the form 
 of an advertisement, "Lost, yesterday, somewhere between 
 sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty 
 diamond minutes. No reward is offered, for- they are gone 
 forever." 
 
 We would like to have the ordinary young man of 
 twenty-five look over our shoulder while we do a little fig- 
 uring. We mean that young man, however, who is always 
 complaining because he hasn't time. 
 
 We mean that young man who is mourning because he 
 hasn't an education, who would have gone to college could 
 he have spared the time. 
 
 We want to show him how many of those golden hours 
 set with diamond minutes he has thrown away since he 
 was sixteen years old. It is nine years since then, and in 
 each of those years there were three hundred and sixty-five 
 evenings. Setting aside the fifty-two Sunday evenings, 
 which, however, might be employed to advantage without 
 violating the fourth commandment, then taking out fifty- 
 two evenings more, one for every week, for visiting and 
 entertaining visitors, there will remain two hundred and 
 sixty-one. Now each one of these two hundred and sixty- 
 one evenings contains four of those golden hours. Hence 
 in one year he throws away one thousand and forty-four 
 hours. During the nine years from sixteen to twenty-five, 
 he throws away nine times this number, or nine thousand 
 three hundred and ninety-six hours. 
 
 177
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 Just think of it. The average college student spends 
 about four hours a day in study. There are five days in a 
 week in which he studies, making twenty hours a week. 
 Thirty-eight weeks constitute the college year, making 
 seven hundred and sixty hours which he studies in a year. 
 
 There are four years in the college course. Hence in 
 his whole course he studies four times seven hundred and 
 sixty, or three thousand and forty hours. This is less than 
 a third as many as the young man may throw away 
 between the ages of sixteen and twenty -five. Should not 
 every such young man feel indignant with himself ? Time 
 enough spent on the street corners, in the stores, in the 
 hotel, or in the bar room, to go through college three times. 
 Nine thousand golden hours gemmed with five hundred 
 and forty thousand diamond minutes, gone forever. 
 
 Perhaps it may seem even cruel in us to remind the 
 young man of his terrible loss, but it is never too late to do 
 better. A noble endeavor can never be too early or too 
 late. We would not cause any young man a useless pain- 
 ful regret. He cannot profit by mourning over spilt milk, 
 but if he will keep his pan right side up for five years to 
 come he can go through college yet, and graduate when he 
 is thirty years old, and have the honor of presenting to 
 himself his own diploma.
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 not alone for the opportunities for culture which 
 they afford are evenings to be prized. The evening 
 in the happy home is a fragment of heaven. We cannot 
 afford to lose it. The ineffable joy that human nature is 
 constituted to experience at the evening hour around the 
 golden altar of home, is a symbol and a prophecy of that 
 which every harmoniously developed soul has reason to 
 believe is in store for him. It is the only place where each 
 and every faculty and power of mind and body may legiti- 
 mately act, and with that divine spontaneity that feels no 
 pressure nor restraint. When reason acts through the day 
 it is spurred to action by the necessities of daily duty, and 
 the pleasure which all organic activity, both mental and 
 physical, is intended to produce is lost in the mad whirl of 
 life's tumultuous conflict. The same is true of that innate, 
 tendency to mathematical computation which is capable of 
 conferring so much pleasure by the revelations it gives of 
 the universality of divine law and order. But when these 
 powers act amid the cheerfulness of the evening entertain- 
 ment at home, in the playful solution of problems and 
 puzzles, they act with a spontaneity and accompanying 
 pleasure on their own account which hint at their origin 
 and their destiny. 
 
 This same principle applies to every power of being. 
 Who does not still carry in his mind the sweet pictures of 
 happy evenings at home, when all the family sat by the 
 fire, mother with her knitting, and father with his stories of 
 
 179
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 prouder days, while the kitten gamboled upon the floor or 
 played with the ball of yarn that fell from mother's lap, 
 and while the fire light moved upon the wall like the wav- 
 ing of a white wing in the darkness, as if heaven could 
 not permit so much joy upon the earth without having its 
 representative there ? Now mother tardily rises to light 
 the lamp, and the children gather round the table with 
 slate and pencil to grapple with those little tasks and 
 problems that only sweeten life's remembrances. 
 
 How indelibly through all the change-freighted years 
 this picture remains upon the canvas of the soul. Unlike 
 the perishing works of genius, time never bleaches the 
 canvas nor turns the picture pale. Gaze on that picture, 
 O youth. Nor turn your eyes aside when Temptation 
 with perfumed robes sweeps past thee in the tumultuous 
 rush of beauty's carnival. When we turn our eyes from 
 the soft colors of a beautiful picture, to gaze upon the 
 brilliancy of the electric light, and then turn again to view 
 the picture, how dim the colors, how blurred is the whole 
 picture till we have steadily and persistently gazed for a 
 
 long time. 
 
 y 
 
 t.RN a lesson from the analogy that exists between 
 the spirit's eye and that of the body. That sweet 
 picture of your home, O youth, gleams not brilliantly but 
 softly and forever in the evening fire light. Reflect long 
 before you turn your eyes from its images and your heart 
 
 180
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 from its solaces to gaze upon the seemingly more resplen- 
 dent pictures to which the truant spirit leads. 
 
 " Gladly now we gather round it, 
 
 For the toiling day is done, 
 And the gray and solemn twilight 
 
 Follows down the golden sun. 
 Shadows lengthen on the pavement, 
 
 Stalk like giants through the gloom, 
 Wander past the dusky casement, 
 
 Creep around the fire-lit room. 
 Draw the curtain, close the shutters, 
 
 Place the slippers by the fire ; 
 Though the rude wind loudly mutters, 
 
 What care we for wind sprite's ire? 
 
 " What care we for outward seeming, 
 
 Fickle fortune's frown or smile ? 
 If around us love is beaming, 
 
 Love can human ills beguile. 
 'Neath the cottage roof and palace, 
 
 From the peasant to the king, 
 All are quaffing from life's chalice 
 
 Bubbles that enchantment bring. 
 Grates are glowing, music flowing 
 
 From the lips we love the best ; 
 O, the joy, the bliss of knowing 
 
 There are hearts whereon to rest ! 
 
 " Hearts that throb with eager gladness 
 
 Hearts that echo to our own 
 While grim care and haunting sadness 
 Mingle ne'er in look or tone. 
 181
 
 Evenings at Home. 
 
 Care may tread the halls of daylight, 
 
 Sadness haunt the midnight hour, 
 But the weird and witching twilight 
 
 Brings the glowing hearthstone's dower. 
 Altar of our holiest feelings ! 
 
 Childhood's well-remembered shrine ! 
 Spirit yearnings soul revealings 
 
 Wreaths immortal round thee twine ! " 
 
 182
 
 MOMENTS .
 
 CHAPTER SIXTEEN. 
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 is the constant elimination of useless 
 movements, physical or mental, and the attain- 
 ment of increasing economy in the expendi- 
 ture of our forces. 
 
 The Indian has plenty of strength, but the white man 
 of half his weight and strength, who has acquired the art 
 of boxing, is more than a match for him ; and this for the 
 simple reason that the Indian has not yet learned to elim- 
 inate the movements that do not count. He is a spend- 
 thrift as regards forces. But the white man, by means of 
 patient culture, has learned to omit all useless movements, 
 and to expend his forces in that manner and at that time 
 and place in which they will tell the most. He does not 
 bend a joint or contract a muscle that does not produce 
 some desirable outward result. 
 
 It is easy to detect an uncultured person in society ; for 
 example, when he attempts to walk across a hall or draw- 
 ing-room in the presence of spectators. It is not because 
 he does not perform all the movements necessary to take 
 him to the other side, but because he performs certain 
 
 185
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 other movements that interfere with or obstruct the essen- 
 tial movements ; such as the turning of the head from side 
 to side, accompanied by a wasteful expenditure of thought 
 in the form of a painful consciousness that people are gaz- 
 ing at him. There is in his blush a wasteful expenditure 
 of vital forces in compelling the blood to the surface. All 
 such movements are uneconomical because they produce 
 no desirable or useful result. Nature has agreed to give us 
 a positive dislike for all such movements, and we call them 
 awkward. She has also made us susceptible of a positive 
 delight from witnessing economical movements, and at 
 her suggestion we call them graceful. Graceful move- 
 ments, then, are simply economical movements. If the 
 person referred to should walk across the hall with 
 the least possible expenditure of vital and mental force, 
 the movement would necessarily be graceful. 
 
 Civilization is but aggregate culture, and since culture 
 is the spirit and essence of economy, we see why it is that 
 the science of political economy has always developed 
 itself simultaneously with civilization. Indeed, civiliza- 
 tion and political economy are necessarily reciprocal. 
 
 3 UGH, then, is the nature of culture in the abstract. 
 Let us follow out the principle in its application to 
 our physical, mental, and moral natures, and see whether 
 we can find in it anything that shall be of use to us in the 
 development of our lives and characters. 
 
 186
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 Our muscles are cultured when we can use them 
 with no waste of force. Our intellects are cultured when 
 we can solve a problem or arrive at a conclusion by 
 the shortest and most direct route of logical deduction. 
 Our moral nature is cultured when duty becomes a grace- 
 ful and economical movement in the soul ; when the use- 
 less movements of sin are eliminated ; when all our spirit- 
 ual forces are concentrated ; when the good that we do, 
 the graces we exhibit, our acts of abnegation, condolence, 
 sympathy, charity, and love rise without debate spon- 
 taneous from the soul ; when we can say, " Thy will be 
 done," without a diverting and wasting struggle with 
 ourselves. 
 
 The reason why certain men have been able to accom- 
 plish such wonderful results in the field of thought and 
 investigation is because, through long toil and patient cul- 
 ture, they have learned to concentrate the mental forces by 
 eliminating all useless thoughts. Like the bee, which 
 always takes a straight line, they have acquired an intel- 
 lectual instinct by which they are enabled to take the 
 shortest, directest, and consequently most economical line 
 of logic links between their intellectual standpoint and the 
 solution that they crave. And he who can do this, he who 
 can take the shortest road, can surely go farther and 
 accomplish more in the same time than he who is com- 
 pelled to hunt out his path, to travel through all the by- 
 ways, the briers, the brambles, and the underbrush, and at 
 
 187
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 last, perhaps, lose his way altogether in the vast swamp of 
 intellectual uncertainty. 
 
 rV LL culture in its ultimate analysis is necessarily self 
 V- culture. Culture when used as a verb predicates 
 the affording of conditions for self -direction or self -develop- 
 ment. If we attempt to culture a horse or a dog we accom- 
 plish the result only by inducing him to make certain vol- 
 untary movements in the direction of our will. But if he 
 does not choose to act according to our will, all culture 
 ceases until he becomes willing to obey. We cannot cul- 
 ture anything that has the power of volition. Hence, when 
 we break a colt, or train a dog, he cultures himself at our 
 suggestion. And thus it is that all the culture we receive 
 in this life must be self culture. Teachers may suggest, 
 but we must execute ; they may advise, but we must do the 
 work. 
 
 I HE sense in which we have used the word "culture " 
 ^ is not very different from that in which we have 
 used the word " education" in the chapter on the "Educa- 
 tion of Our Boys." Indeed, all that we have said by way 
 of definition in either chapter might have been said with 
 equal propriety in the other. We will allow the one to 
 supplement the other. 
 
 The words educate, train, and culture are, for all prac- 
 
 188
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 tical purposes, synonymous, and may be used interchange- 
 ably. 
 
 In our chapter on " Home Training " we have pre- 
 sented some similar thoughts concerning the importance of 
 training or cultivating the physical, intellectual, and moral 
 nature in the proper order, and in the right way. That, 
 however, was intended chiefly for advice to parents con- 
 cerning the management of children too young to attempt 
 self culture. But the primary constitution does not 
 change. What the child requires, the youth and young 
 man require, only, perhaps, in larger quantities and in dif- 
 ferent proportion. Hence in this chapter we shall aim to 
 give such helpful advice as will enable young men and 
 women to continue the process that their parents helped 
 them to begin. They may now call it self culture, to 
 denote a higher stage of the same process. 
 
 The first and chief aim of self culture, as of all educa- 
 tion, should be symmetry. The undue strengthening of 
 one part or faculty, to the neglect of another, is not cul- 
 ture, but according to our definition it is the reverse, for it 
 destroys that power of co-ordinate action and economical 
 expenditure of effort in which culture consists. No power 
 of mind or body exists independent of other powers, and 
 so cannot be unduly strengthened without peril to the 
 other and weaker ones. 
 
 If the stomach be enlarged by over-eating, while the 
 lungs be kept weak and small, the whole body will become 
 
 189
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 diseased and the mind also ; for a sound mind cannot exist 
 in an unhealthy body. The stomach, being large, will 
 crave a large amount of food, but the lungs, being small, 
 cannot furnish oxygen enough to oxidize the carbon that is 
 furnished to the blood by the stomach ; so the system 
 becomes clogged ; corrupt and troublesome ulcers appear, 
 and perhaps consumption, and all because the stomach was 
 enlarged. Not because the lungs were not cultivated, 
 but because the stomach was cultivated alone, as if it were 
 an independent organ. 
 
 Similar disasters follow the independent and separate 
 training of any of the other physical powers. If the 
 stomach, the appetite, the lungs, the liver, the kidneys, the 
 circulation, the skin, and the muscles be all cultivated to- 
 gether, the more they are cultivated the better. It is abso- 
 lutely impossible to carry that kind of culture to excess. 
 But if we cannot cultivate all, it is far better not to specially 
 cultivate any of the physical functions. 
 
 I T is a well-known fact that circus performers are very 
 short lived ; and yet we would naturally expect them 
 to live to a very old age. How full and powerful their 
 lungs are ! How agile they are ! How almost marvelous 
 the strength of their muscles ! How erect they are ! What 
 free play all the internal organs must have ! They are 
 compelled by their employment to live temperately ; their 
 food is that which is recommended by the highest medical 
 
 190
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 authority ; they sleep in well ventilated rooms. It would 
 seem that if earthly immortality were possible, the profes- 
 sional gymnasts should possess the boon. 
 
 But, instead, the average duration of their lives is very 
 short. How shall we account for this paradox ? Simply 
 by that principle just named, which demands the symmet- 
 rical and proportionate development of all the functions. 
 They carry training of the muscles to such an extent, that, 
 like wasting fire, they consume their vitality. In spite of 
 all hygienic regimen and temperance, their training is not 
 symmetrical, although it may appear to be such. 
 
 The human body is a delicate machine, and no wheel 
 can be made to turn faster or slower than it was intended 
 to turn without tearing off the cogs. But it is often found 
 that in the same individual certain vital organs even with- 
 out special culture are larger and more powerful than 
 others, and this is doubtless the reason why many appar- 
 ently healthy people die young. It is because they are 
 born with some of the vital organs powerfully developed, 
 while others are weak, and the strong ones consume the 
 vitality that the weak ones have not the energy to 
 appropriate. 
 
 It should be the first object of culture to balance the 
 powers by cultivating the weak and restraining the over- 
 action of the strong. After this most desirable result has 
 been secured, all the functions should be trained alike, and 
 the whole carried to the highest possible state of culture. It 
 
 191
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 is usually an easy matter to ascertain what organs of the 
 body are weak and what strong, but, in case the facts are 
 not obvious, a physician should be consulted, who should 
 be requested to test all the vital organs ; not to doctor 
 them, but to measure their strength. 
 
 If the brain and nervous system are predominant, 
 much muscular exercise should be taken, while the mental 
 powers, and especially the imagination, should be restrained. 
 If the reverse is true, the brain should be forced to act, and 
 the tendency to muscular action should be held in check. 
 If the muscles are stronger than the framework of the 
 body, then great care should be used not to exercise the 
 muscles to their full extent, for such a practice would be 
 sure to strain the body and injure the vital organs. This 
 condition is oftener seen in women than in men ; hence 
 women frequently injure themselves by lifting. If the 
 muscles are weaker than the framework, then little injury 
 can result from the full and unrestrained use of the 
 muscles. 
 
 But Nature is very kind to those who are too ignorant 
 to ascertain their own weaknesses. She has so constituted 
 us that the best and most useful form of exercise is that of 
 walking or running. And that is just the kind of exercise 
 that the necessities of life compel us to take the most of. 
 This form of exercise actually has a tendency to balance 
 the organic developments, for it brings into action every 
 organ of the body, and in such a way as to benefit the 
 
 193
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 weak ones relatively more than the strong ones. For 
 instance, if the lungs are weak and the muscles strong, 
 then the lungs will be the first to say stop ; and they will 
 say so just at that moment when they have received the 
 greatest possible amount of good from the running. 
 
 The lungs will have received just enough exercise to 
 do them good long before the muscles have had enough to 
 test their endurance, or to strengthen them much. If the 
 muscles are weak and the lungs strong, then the muscles 
 will control the amount of running, and adapt it to their 
 own particular needs. Long before the lungs have 
 received exercise enough to do them much good, the mus- 
 cles will have received just enough to do them the greatest 
 possible amount of good. Thus we see how it is that run- 
 ning is the best exercise in the world, and, to a certain 
 extent, relieves us of the responsibility of ascertaining 
 which are our weak organs, for it will pick them out for 
 us and make them strong. People both walk and run far 
 too little. It is, perhaps, impossible for human beings or 
 animals to be born with all their organs in a state of perfect 
 balance, and running seems to be Nature's means of bal- 
 ancing them, for she gives the young of all animals, the 
 human species included, an irrepressible impulse to run 
 almost continually, and during that age, too, in which 
 their organs are most easily modified. 
 
 As a rule, children need no other physical culture than 
 their own freedom. A child in the woods for one day will 
 
 193
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 do more in the direction of curing an organic weakness 
 than all the doctors of Christendom. 
 
 1 1 TE have spoken thus minutely on the subject of phys- 
 
 ^ ical culture not only because physical culture is the 
 
 basis of all culture, but because the general directions 
 
 which we have given are as applicable to intellectual and 
 
 moral culture as to physical. 
 
 Symmetry is the one idea that should be kept promi- 
 nently in view in all forms of culture. But the laws of 
 the mind are such as to allow considerable margin for va- 
 riety's sake. One need not be equally gifted in all his men- 
 tal powers in order to be symmetrical. It is not necessary 
 that he be able with equal facility to play the violin 
 and calculate an eclipse. He may be born with such a 
 latent talent for music as to render this not only the most 
 pleasant but also the most profitable occupation of his life, 
 and still violate no essential law of symmetry. But if he 
 possess the talent to such a degree as to become its slave, 
 while his whole mental energy is absorbed by the one pas- 
 sion, and he is left to feel that there is nothing else beside 
 music to render life worth living, he has passed the limits 
 which the law of variety allows him and has become unsym- 
 metrical. His musical faculty should be restrained, while 
 other faculties should be called to the front and compelled 
 to act. 
 
 This is a hard task anrl one which is not very fre-
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 quently accomplished, for the very reason that the diffi- 
 culty itself is of such a character as to prevent the person 
 from seeing things in their true light. When one talks to 
 him about the grandeur of science and the beauties 
 of philosophy, he listens with impatience to such foolish- 
 ness. 
 
 The same is true of all forms of disproportionate 
 mental development. Nothing but a knowledge of the 
 mental economy will enable one, under these circum- 
 stances, to see himself as he is. When one looks upon 
 himself from the standpoint of mental science, he elimi- 
 nates the bias of his own feelings resulting from his strong- 
 est tendencies, and sees himself as others see him. It is 
 very often the case that one can be made to see his own 
 mental defects in no other way than by a study of mental 
 science. 
 
 I HERE is one law of great importance that should not 
 ^ be lost sight of either in physical or mental culture. 
 It is the law of periodicity. It is in recognition of this law 
 that the professional gymnast is required to practice at 
 just such an hour each day. In some way which we can- 
 not fully understand, the muscles instinctively adapt them- 
 selves to the conditions of periodical activity, so that when 
 the appointed hour arrives it finds them in that particular 
 condition which enables them to derive the greatest possi- 
 ble amount of good from a given amount of practice. The 
 
 195
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 law operates in precisely the same way in the mental 
 economy. A music teacher who has had much experience 
 will insist that the pupil practice at the same hour each 
 day. 
 
 It is not essential that we should advise more minutely 
 with reference to the education of the mental powers, 
 since the needed advice may be found in the chapter 
 devoted expressly to that subject. 
 
 /y I ORAL culture involves no different principle from 
 V_ that of intellectual culture, and the cardinal idea 
 of symmetry is as applicable to this form as to the two 
 forms we have already considered. The same is true of 
 the law of periodicity ; the saint who prays at regular 
 periods will grow in the instinct of prayer and faith, while 
 he who prays only when he finds it convenient will find 
 that the intervals grow constantly wider. It is necessary, 
 however, to keep constantly in mind the fact that the only 
 legitimate condition of him who lays claim to moral cul- 
 ture is that of the complete supremacy of the moral senti- 
 ments over the passions. All sin originates in passional 
 supremacy, while out of the ceaseless and often equal con- 
 flict between the moral impulses and those of the passions, 
 grow all the enigmas of human conduct. A person in 
 whom the latter condition exists will remain alike to his 
 friends and foes an unsolved problem. He will be both 
 
 196
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 very good and very bad. When under the dominion of the 
 excited passions he may be a fiend ; but an hour later he 
 may be a saint. The saddest condition for a human being 
 is that in which the passions and moral sentiments are so 
 equally balanced that neither can gain a permanent vic- 
 tory over the other. 
 
 When the moral sentiments and the passions are both 
 predominant at intervals, the moral sense becomes capri- 
 cious and cannot be depended upon. The person becomes 
 distrustful of his own good resolves, and his character 
 loses all stability and permanence. Either condition is 
 bad enough, but on the whole we regard the relation of 
 equality between the passions and the morals as the most 
 dangerous and destructive. 
 
 So deplorable is this condition that we would even 
 regard the permanent ascendency of the passions as a 
 lesser evil. 
 
 Such a condition offers little hope of recovery, for the 
 passions and moral sentiments both grow by their occa- 
 sional victories, the one as fast as the other, and both are 
 weakened by their occasional defeats, the one as much as 
 the other. 
 
 The remedy for this condition is to make the intellect 
 an ally for the conscience. It should be required to devise 
 means to keep the passions out of temptation. When the 
 passions are not aroused by the presence of temptation, 
 they are not difficult to manage. Ordinarily, however, 
 
 197
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 temptation is a source of strength, uniformly, indeed, if it 
 be resisted. But this condition is not always fulfilled, and 
 in the case we are considering it is almost sure not to be 
 fulfilled. The intellect, therefore, should see that tempta- 
 tion is never allowed to be present, and should seek those 
 places, occasions, and influences that appeal to the morals. 
 By persisting in this course a long time the moral 
 nature will gain a permanent victory, and then the vigi- 
 lant restraint may be removed, the fetters may be taken 
 off from the passions, and they will recognize their 
 master. 
 
 " When gentle twilight sits 
 On day's forsaken throne, 
 'Mid the sweet hush of eventide, 
 Muse by thyself alone. 
 And at the time of rest 
 Ere sleep asserts its power, 
 Hold pleasant converse with thyself 
 In meditation's bower. 
 
 " Motives and deeds review 
 By memory's truthful glass, 
 Thy silent self the only judge 
 And critic as they pass ; 
 And if thy wayward face 
 Should give thy conscience pain, 
 Resolve with energy divine 
 The victory to gain. 
 
 198
 
 Self Culture. 
 
 " Drink waters from the fount 
 That in thy bosom springs, 
 And envy not the mingled draught 
 Of satraps or of kings ; 
 So shalt thou find at last, 
 Far from the giddy brain 
 Self-knowledge and self-culture lead 
 To uncomputed gain." 
 
 199
 
 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. 
 
 Sundays at Home. 
 
 HETHER we regard the Sabbath as divinely 
 appointed or as growing out of the instincts 
 and necessities of man's moral and spiritual 
 nature, the experience of man has demonstrated that it 
 sustains a vital relation to our highest welfare. 
 
 With the exception of the few hours supposed by all 
 civilized people to be spent in public worship, the day is 
 not in any sense a public day, but, on the contrary, it is the 
 most private of all days. It is a day when the loud tumult 
 of public affairs is hushed, and each individual becomes a 
 world in himself. It is a day of personal meditation. 
 
 A purely public day, like the Fourth of July in the 
 United States, bears little relation to the home life. It is 
 from the fact that Sunday is the most private of all days, 
 that we here make it a subject of special consideration ; 
 in order, if possible, to determine what purpose in the 
 economy of home shall be subserved by this important 
 period called the Sabbath. It constitutes one seventh of 
 our entire existence, and of no other seventh do we spend 
 so large a part at home. For the small part that is devoted 
 
 200
 
 Sundays at Home. 
 
 to public worship by no means equals that consumed on 
 other days by labor and those duties which partially or 
 wholly isolate us from the influences of home. 
 
 H>jOW, then, shall we employ the Sunday at home? 
 
 V_ How shall we secure for it a place among the 
 
 higher ministries of home life ? This, of course, will 
 
 depend somewhat upon the views we hold concerning the 
 
 nature and object of the Sabbath. 
 
 It is not our purpose to discuss the subject in its theo- 
 logical aspect, but simply to compel it, if possible, to yield 
 a contribution to the lessons of home life. And yet it is 
 impossible to do even this without taking some definite 
 ground as to the religious significance of the day. It is 
 useless to contend that the Sabbath has no religious sig- 
 nificance, for, to divest it of such significance would be, in 
 the nature of things, to abolish it altogether. If it be 
 claimed that the Sabbath was born of human instincts, 
 still it was of the religious instincts, and to prove that it 
 was thus born would be to claim for it a Divine sanction. 
 We believe that the religious nature of man and the insti- 
 tution of the Sabbath are complementary, the one to the 
 other. But whatever origin may be claimed for the Sab- 
 bath, and whatever purpose it was primarily intended to 
 serve in the economy of civilization, we have no reason to 
 believe that it was intended for a period of " suspended 
 animation" or of physical and mental stagnation. Jesus 
 
 201
 
 Sundays at Home. 
 
 rebuked the too close and Pharisaical observance of the 
 Sabbath, and taught, both by precept and by example, that 
 man was not made in order that he might observe the Sab- 
 bath, but, on the contrary, that the Sabbath was made in 
 order that man might have the privilege of observing it. 
 Man was made first and the Sabbath was adapted to him, 
 although we believe that the natural law on which the 
 Sabbath is based is coeval with the history of creation. 
 
 If, then, the Sabbath originated in the religious 
 instincts of man, it is inconsistent and foolish to contend 
 that it should not be observed as a day of special religious 
 exercise. But the question still arises, what constitutes 
 special religious exercise ? and by what method is the 
 desired result best attained ? 
 
 The now generally recognized law that disagreeable or 
 painful action always weakens the faculty involved instead 
 of strengthening it, is directly opposed to the Puritanic 
 observance of the Sabbath ; for how can a child be sub- 
 mitted to more intense mental torture, than to be compelled 
 to spend a whole day where he is not allowed to smile, 
 where all conversation is suppressed, except that which is 
 absolutely necessary, and where even that is conducted 
 with semi-whispers in the unmistakable tone of reverence 
 and awe ? The Sabbath in too many homes is a day to be 
 dreaded by the children. The observance of it required is 
 so strict as to be painful, and hence weakens their moral 
 and religious nature instead of strengthening it. The effect 
 
 202
 
 Sundays at Home. 
 
 of such forced action is almost always far worse than no 
 action at all. This law obtains with reference to every 
 power of our being, but its action is most obvious with 
 reference to the moral and spiritual faculties. These must 
 act from choice or they cannot be strengthened. Hence 
 the question becomes a most delicate one, "How shall 
 the Sunday be spent at home ? " 
 
 l/ERHAPS no further advice to the intelligent parent 
 
 V,^ is required than that he should be guided in all 
 
 cases by this great law, that every action, in order that it 
 
 may strengthen the part acting, must be accompanied 
 
 with pleasure, instead of pain. 
 
 In the first place, let the Sunday at home be divested of 
 all needless solemnity ; let it be a day of cheerfulness and 
 social enjoyment, a day of music both instrumental and 
 vocal, a day of conversation and reading. Let the chil- 
 dren be taught to think and to meditate on the great prob- 
 lems of life and the vast concerns of eternity, not in a 
 solemn, awe-inspiring way, but in a manner consonant 
 with good judgment and common sense. Let them be 
 encouraged to engage in respectful discussions among 
 themselves on these questions. Thus will they early 
 develop a tendency to think and hold opinions of their 
 own, while yet the parents' superior wisdom may detect 
 and point out fallacies in their reasoning. There is little 
 danger of sophistry and false conclusions in these argu- 
 
 203
 
 Sundays at Home. 
 
 ments if the parent is watchful, and seeks constantly to 
 set the young thinkers right, not by an ipse dixit, nor even 
 by "thus saith the Scripture," but by convincing their 
 reason with superior logic. 
 
 When one begins to doubt any doctrine, whether intel- 
 lectual or religious, he naturally conceives a dislike for any 
 authority which disputes his ground, unless the authority 
 is enforced by reasons which his own intellect is compelled 
 to acknowledge as conclusive. Superior logic is the only 
 authority which a questioning mind naturally receives 
 with good grace. Hence, if you do not wish your child to 
 hate the Bible, do not attempt to silence all his questions 
 by the mere quotation of Scriptural texts, but first, calmly 
 and kindly, lay bare the fallacy in his argument, and 
 then show him, if you choose, how your own argument 
 accords with Scripture. 
 
 But it may be asked, why not teach the child to trust ? 
 why cultivate a tendency to question, by harboring the 
 argumentative disposition ? There is, it is true, a period in 
 early childhood when unquestioning trust is natural and 
 proper. But let us remember that when the child reaches 
 the age of fourteen or fifteen, he comes suddenly into pos- 
 session of the weapon of logic, and no matter what may 
 have been the teachings and influences of his early years, 
 he will, between the ages of fourteen and twenty, think, 
 doubt, and question for himself. Every human mind, 
 however trustful it may be through childhood, must pass 
 
 204
 
 Sundays at Home. 
 
 through its period of doubt and mental conflict, and the 
 earlier this period is passed, the better and the safer. 
 Unbelievers are made out of those minds which receive 
 only the ipse dixit of bigoted fathers, after the awakening 
 intellect demands a reason. 
 
 When questions begin to present themselves to such 
 minds, questions that insist upon an answer, dissatisfied 
 with the merely dogmatic answer of the father, they nat- 
 urally appropriate the most logical explanation at hand, 
 which, of course, partakes of the narrowness of their own 
 thought-power, and thus they are often led astray. 
 
 There are probably in the world few unbelievers who 
 would be such had their young logic been answered with 
 logic and not with authority. We believe that a very 
 large percentage of the world's unbelief is due to a wrong 
 system of Sunday discipline. 
 
 we would not have the children disregard the 
 solemnity and sanctity of the Sabbath. It is nat- 
 ural for children as well as for older people to have their 
 periods of serious thought. But parents should bear in 
 mind that with the child these periods are not naturally 
 quite so serious nor so protracted as their own. We believe 
 the day should be a day of rest, not, however, for the 
 reason usually assigned, viz., that man's physical nature 
 requires it. For to suppose that the natural duties of life 
 constitute a burden so heavy that it cannot be borne with- 
 
 205
 
 Sundays at Home. 
 
 out constantly putting it down, is to suppose that God 
 made a mistake in the adaptation of life's powers to its 
 duties. 
 
 Man is surely as well adapted to his natural surround- 
 ings as the ant or the beaver, and to these, the burden of 
 life's labor is not so great as to require a periodic rest. 
 
 \ ijE believe that the philosophy of the Sabbath as a 
 ^ day of rest is to be found in Nature's law of undi- 
 vided intensity, the law by which it is impossible for an 
 organized being to act intensely at two or more points at 
 the same time. This law holds with equal force in the 
 physical, intellectual, and moral worlds. The physician 
 makes a practical application of its physical phase when he 
 irritates the feet with drafts to cure the headache. The 
 student applies its mental phase when he requires his 
 room to be silent in order that he may put his "whole 
 mind " to his task. And the saint applies its moral phase 
 when he avoids temptation and prays in his closet. 
 
 Now, the Sabbath is the complement of man's religious 
 nature, and in accordance with the law of " periodicity," 
 of which we have already spoken in our chapter on " Self 
 Culture," this department of his nature must act with 
 special force at certain regular periods. In the light of 
 these facts the whole philosophy of the Sabbath as a day of 
 rest may be seen at a glance by watching a laborer at 
 work. Suddenly a thought seizes him ; one which deeply 
 
 206
 
 Sundays at Home. 
 
 interests, and vitally concerns him. How instinctively he 
 drops his tools and stands motionless ! 
 
 Now, we have only to regard the world as one man 
 laboring for his daily bread, but who, by a law of his 
 spiritual nature, is called upon once in seven days to think 
 with special intensity upon the great concerns of the 
 eternal and the unseen. The same instinct that caused the 
 mechanic to drop his tool and stand motionless causes 
 the world to do the same. It is but the instinctive applica- 
 tion of this universal law of undivided intensity that 
 closes the furnace door, hushes the roar of the engine, and 
 spreads the mantle of silent thought over the great city. 
 
 I S it then a sin to labor on the Sabbath ? Yes, a two- 
 fold sin, a sin against both our physical and our 
 moral nature. Just as when one eats heartily when 
 engaged in intense mental labor, he sins against both his 
 mind and his stomach. Physicians tell us we can do 
 nothing more injurious, for the brain leaving concentrated 
 nearly all the vital energy of the system, the stomach is in 
 consequence left feeble and unable to dispose of its burden 
 without a great strain. Exactly the same principle holds 
 with reference to laboring on the Sabbath. 
 
 The absorbing occupation of the Sabbath should be the 
 study of ourselves with the one view to symmetrical self 
 culture. Sunday is the day of all others for self culture. 
 It is a day in which we should study our relation to our 
 
 207
 
 Sundays at Home. 
 
 Maker, and in accordance with the impulses of the moral 
 nature, all our mental energies should be expended in 
 rounding out our characters, and perfecting our whole 
 nature. 
 
 He who attempts this great work on the Sabbath, and 
 at the same time attempts to carry on the ordinary labors 
 of life, is not only thwarting his own efforts at self-improve- 
 ment, but is doing that which will shorten his life perhaps 
 a score of years. 
 
 But he who carries his ordinary labors into the Sab- 
 bath does not, of course, observe the day. Then he com- 
 mits a still worse sin. He not only sins against society, 
 which, however, is a comparatively minor sin, but he 
 refuses to obey a great spiritual law, which is woven into 
 the very constitution of his moral nature. 
 
 So that, view the subject as we may, we cannot ignore 
 the Sabbath without sinning against ourselves, and we 
 cannot sin against ourselves without sinning against our 
 God. * 
 
 " O day to sweet religious thought 
 
 So wisely set apart, 
 Back to the silent strength of life 
 Help thou my wavering heart. 
 
 1 ' Nor let the obtrusive lies of sense 
 
 My meditations draw 
 From the composed, majestic realm 
 Of everlasting law. 
 208
 
 Sundays at Home. 
 
 " Break down whatever hindering shapes 
 
 I see or seem to see, 
 And make my soul acquainted with 
 Celestial company. 
 
 " Beyond the wintry waste of death 
 Shine fields of heavenly light ; 
 Let not this incident of time 
 Absorb me from their sight. 
 
 " I know these outward forms wherein 
 
 So much my hopes I stay, 
 Are but the shadowy hints of that 
 Which cannot pass away. 
 
 " That just outside the work-day path 
 
 By man 's volition trod, 
 Lie the resistless issues of 
 
 The things ordained of God." 
 
 209
 
 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. 
 
 Individual Rules of Conduct. 
 
 ^CCESSFUL culture is rarely the result of 
 unmethodical effort. The best results are 
 obtained only when due regard is had to a 
 judicious and systematic use of time, when the mind sub- 
 jects itself to self-government through a code of laws 
 adopted and approved by itself. Mind in all its operations 
 and volitions is under the dominion of law. There is no 
 product of creation's law that in its operations can tran- 
 scend law. A being, then, develops best and most rapidly 
 when each department of his nature is subjected to the 
 rigid discipline of its own laws. 
 
 In our chapter on self culture we have dwelt upon the 
 general laws that govern our physical, intellectual, and 
 moral natures ; but there are laws of a less general charac- 
 ter, which it is equally important that we should observe, 
 laws pertaining to individuals and growing out of organic 
 or temperamental conditions. 
 
 These laws each individual must discover and obey for 
 
 210
 
 Individual Rules of Conduct. 
 
 himself ; for since they originate in individual peculiarities 
 they cannot be of general significance, and hence cannot 
 be formulated into a code by any but the individual him- 
 self. Such are the laws pertaining to the particular time 
 and the amount of sleep required by each person, to the 
 kind and quantity of food desirable for each, and to the 
 processes of thought and mental activity that vary with 
 traits and temperaments. 
 
 All these laws should be ascertained by self-examina- 
 tion and by remembering our own experiences. In this 
 connection it is proper to consider the importance of divid- 
 ing each day into periods for the performance of special 
 duties. Learn from self-observation what part of the day 
 may be with greatest advantage spent in reading and 
 study. Not alone, however, with reference to reading and 
 study, but with reference to each and every function of 
 life. But it is not enough merely to learn these facts. It 
 is far more important, as it is far more difficult, to form 
 and keep the resolutions to which this knowledge should 
 prompt us and make them a part of our daily routine. 
 
 I HIS subject naturally suggests the practice of keep- 
 ^ ing a journal. There is perhaps no other practice 
 which, in proportion to the exertion it requires, is capable of 
 yielding such desirable results in the direction of personal 
 culture. Setting aside the advantages of being able, at a 
 moment's notice, to present the written volume of our lives 
 
 211
 
 Individual Rules of Conduct. 
 
 (not the generalities and glowing eulogiums in which biog- 
 raphers and literary executors indulge), such a minute 
 delineation of our daily thoughts and deeds through all our 
 past years, as will enable us at any moment to tell what 
 function in our life's programme a given day has per- 
 formed, setting aside all this, there is probably no one 
 practice more disciplinary in its permanent effects than 
 that of recording each night the thoughts and deeds of the 
 vanished day. The duty, however, should be conscien- 
 tiously performed. This disciplinary tendency is in the 
 process itself independent of the record's value. 
 
 It often happens that the demands of daily life present 
 themselves with such tumultuous rapidity, and in such 
 perplexing confusion, that the great reviewer, Conscience, 
 does not always have time to subject each act to a suffi- 
 ciently scrutinizing examination. And many of them get 
 a favorable verdict by demanding a haste that conceals 
 their deformities. But when, at the close of day, that 
 hour which seems to offer most leisure for the solution of 
 life's problems, we sit, calmly reviewing our deeds in the 
 order of their occurrence, and in all their inter-relations, 
 then it often happens that Conscience finds occasion to 
 revoke its decision, and to pass a severer verdict. 
 
 Again, the aid in the cultivation of memory which the 
 practice offers is by no means insignificant, since it espe- 
 cially cultivates that power of memory in which a large 
 number of persons are deficient, viz., the power to repro- 
 
 212
 
 Individual Rules of Conduct. 
 
 duce impressions in the order in which they occurred. It 
 is needless to say that this form of memory is the most 
 useful of all. That form of memory which enables one to 
 reproduce a few disjointed links in a chain of thought, 
 although it may reproduce a great many of them, can sel- 
 dom be of great service to its possessor. The recollection 
 of past events is valuable to us only as it enables us to 
 recognize the relation of the recollected events. Hence the 
 value of that form of memory that can recollect them in 
 their sequential order. 
 
 Now, the reader will demand no proof of the assertion 
 that there are no means by which this form of memory can 
 be so quickly and thoroughly acquired as by the practice 
 of recalling each night the experiences of the day in their 
 chronological order. The talent for public speaking, so 
 highly prized by all young men, but possessed by few, is 
 almost wholly conferred by this power of consecutive 
 memory. Those who possess it are enabled not only to 
 reproduce the thoughts gathered in the process of prepara- 
 tion, but to reproduce them in their order, one thought 
 suggesting the next and thus enabling the speaker to dis- 
 pense with notes. 
 
 We cannot too strongly urge the practice of keeping a 
 journal. We have dwelt thus at length upon the subject 
 on account of the importance which we believe it pos- 
 sesses, and because it affords the best possible assistance 
 in carrying out the chief injunction of this chapter, viz., 
 
 213
 
 Individual Rules of Conduct. 
 
 that each individual should govern himself by laws, max- 
 ims, and resolutions of his own authorship. 
 
 I fE would recommend, not only the practice of record- 
 ^ ing, in the evening, the thoughts, deeds, and events 
 of the day, but also of recording, in the morning, that 
 which we intend to accomplish during the day. This prac- 
 tice offers a threefold advantage. First, it enables us to 
 govern ourselves through the day by the laws which we 
 enact in our better moods ; second, it leads us to set a high 
 price upon time, and to cultivate a habit of punctuality and 
 method ; third, when we have written the record at even- 
 ing just under the promise of the morning, and the divine 
 conscience within us utters in our spirit's ear the comments 
 that seem fittest, we may be gazing upon one of the most 
 significant lessons of life. For it is a lesson symbolic of 
 the close of many a life ; a dark and colorless evening in 
 sad contrast with the brilliant hues and joyous beauty of 
 youth's morning. The practice can have but one tendency, 
 and that is to make these two records more closely 
 agree. 
 
 I HE journal or diary is the best and most convenient 
 ^ place in which to record those maxims and resolu- 
 tions, the wisdom and necessity of which we have so 
 strongly urged. As fast as you discover under what par- 
 ticular regulations and circumstances a given function of 
 
 214
 
 Individual Rules of Conduct. 
 
 your life is most advantageously performed, make these 
 regulations and circumstances the theme of a resolution or 
 a maxim, and record it in your diary, to become a law of 
 your life. 
 
 In this way you will eliminate the evil and conserve 
 the good in your experience. You will grow wiser and 
 better, and in the end, it is possible that your list of resolu- 
 tions may become a contribution to the world's store of 
 wisdom and virtue. This, however, should not be the 
 object of the resolutions. Your one purpose should be the 
 development in your soul of life's virtues, for it is by these 
 that life is measured. 
 
 " Count life by virtues ; these will last 
 
 When life's lame, foiled race is o'er ; 
 And these, when earthly joys are past, 
 Shall cheer us on a brighter shore." 
 
 215
 
 CHAPTER NINETEEN. 
 
 Correspondence and Social Korms. 
 
 HERE is probably no one accomplishment that 
 reveals so much of human character as that of 
 correspondence. All are familiar with the fact 
 that experts are able from the handwriting alone to give 
 the prominent features of the writer's character, and in 
 cases of suspected forgery the uniformity of handwriting 
 is allowed as evidence in the courts. 
 
 But much as is revealed by the manner in which we 
 write, still more is revealed by the nature of that which is 
 written, not only the general merit of the composition, 
 but the thoughts and sentiments expressed, the delicacy 
 and propriety with which they are expressed, the neatness 
 of the written page, the orthography, and the grammar. 
 Then there is a certain individuality that impresses us that 
 comes under none of these heads, too subtile to be reduced 
 to a definition ; more ethereal than the perfume of a tropic 
 morning, but which stamps the product unmistakably as 
 the work of a noble soul. This indefinable something 
 transforms all the sharp angles and irregular lines into 
 
 216
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 shapes that please, and covers the ugliness of imperfect 
 chirography with a secondary beauty on which we delight 
 to gaze. 
 
 SCCHOLARSHIP, culture, refinement, and inborn no- 
 '**^ bility nowhere betray themselves so conspicuously 
 as in the act of correspondence. While general culture 
 of the whole mind is necessary to the acquirement of 
 this accomplishment, yet the only specific means to be 
 employed is the study of the best models. Advantage 
 should be taken of the imitative tendency of little chil- 
 dren, and accordingly all the best correspondence of 
 the parents should be read repeatedly to the children. 
 They will always be interested in a letter from Aunt 
 Josephine or Cousin Robert, and if the letter is a good 
 model it should be read and re-read in the presence of 
 the child till he begins to catch the phraseology. The best 
 models of the father's business correspondence may be 
 committed to memory by the children. These forms once 
 fixed in their minds will leave their influence long years 
 after the words of the model are forgotten. 
 
 The particular examples and problems we solved in our 
 school days are all forgotten, but they have left something 
 in our minds of which we make use every day. So in 
 regard to these models in correspondence. It is not so 
 much the mechanical form of the written page to which 
 we would call the attention of the young reader, as to that
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 intellectual ideal to which the study of the models gives 
 rise, and which embraces not only .the mechanical form, 
 but all the qualities that go to make it a finished product 
 of the individual mind. 
 
 We have tried to select such models as in themselves 
 convey valuable suggestions and information on the gen- 
 eral theme of correspondence. 
 
 The one great error into which most young people 
 fall in the matter of correspondence is the idea that to 
 write a letter is to perform a literary feat. 
 
 When a child writes his first letter to his cousin or 
 absent friend, he usually makes a day's work of it even 
 with his mother's suggestions, while if that cousin or 
 friend were to visit him, he would not only find no diffi- 
 culty in prattling all day, but would probably much prefer 
 to dispense with his mother's suggestions. 
 
 In the following letter from the Hon. William Wirt to 
 his daughter, mark how charmingly natural and simple 
 his language. It seems almost impossible that such should 
 have been written. It seems more like a verbatim report 
 of a fireside conversation. 
 
 BALTIMORE, April 18, 1882. 
 MY DKAK CHILD : 
 
 You wrote me a dutiful letter, equally honorable to your head 
 and heart, for which I thank you, and when I grow to be a light- 
 hearted, light-headed, happy, thoughtless young girl, I will give you 
 a quid pro quo. As it is, you must take such a letter as a man 
 of sense can write, although it has been remarked, that the' more 
 
 218
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 sensible the man, the more dull his letter. Don't ask me by whom 
 remarked, or L shall refer you, .with Jenkinson, in the Vicar of 
 Wakefield, to Sanconiathon, Manetho, and Berosus. 
 
 This puts me in mind of the card of impressions from the pencil 
 seals, which I intended to enclose last mail, for you to your mother, 
 but forgot. Lo ! here they are. These are the best I can find in 
 Baltimore. I have marked them according to my taste ; but exer- 
 cise your own exclusively, and choose for yourself, if either of them 
 please you. 
 
 Shall I bring you a Spanish guitar of Giles' choosing? Can you 
 be certain that you will stick to it? And some music for the Spanish 
 guitar? What say you? 
 
 There are three necklaces that tempt me, a beautiful mock 
 emerald, a still more beautiful mock ruby with pearls, and a still 
 most beautiful of real topaz, what say you? 
 
 Will you have either of the scarfs described to your mother, 
 and which the blue or the black ? They are very fashionable and 
 beautiful. Any of those wreaths arid flowers? Consult your dear 
 mother ; always consult her, always respect her. This is the only 
 way to make yourself respectable and lovely. God bless you, and 
 
 make you happy. 
 
 Your affectionate father, 
 
 WILLIAM WIRT. 
 
 This quality of simplicity is the chief virtue of the 
 family letter and the letter of friendship. In these it is 
 necessary to observe but one principal rule, viz., write 
 just as you would talk if the person to whom you write 
 were by your side. A letter to mother or father is no 
 place to display your literary skill by the free use of tech- 
 nical words and high-sounding phrases. When the letters 
 of brothers and sisters become essays, be assured that their 
 heart relations are not what they should be. The vocabu- 
 
 210
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 laries of affection are not compiled from the glossaries of 
 science and philosophy. 
 
 When you write to a friend put yourself into the letter. 
 He does not wish you to instruct him. It isn't what you 
 say, but yourself that he desires. Except that of business, 
 the one object of all correspondence is to serve as a substi- 
 tute for that interblending of personalities which is the 
 excuse and philosophy of society. It is a miserable substi- 
 tute at best, and fulfills its office badly enough even when 
 we put all of ourselves into it that we can. It is not ego- 
 tism to talk about yourself in a letter of friendship, for, if 
 your friend is not interested in you, he is not your friend. 
 
 The following is from a young man in college to his 
 mother. It does not contain a single allusion to Calculus, 
 nor are there any Latin quotations in it. 
 
 AMHERST COLLEGE, Tuesday evening. 
 MY DEAR MOTHER : 
 
 Though I am now sitting with my back toward you, yet I love 
 you none the less ; and what is quite as strange, I can see you just 
 as plainly as if I stood peeping in upon you. I can see you all just 
 as you sit around the table. Tell me if I do not see you? 
 
 There is mother on the right of the table with her knitting, and 
 a book open before her ; and anon she glances her eye from the work 
 on the paper to that on her needles ; now counts the stitches, and 
 then puts her eye on the book, and then starts off on another round. 
 There is Mary, looking wise and sewing with all her might ; now and 
 then stopping to give Sarah and Louise a lift in their lessons trying 
 to initiate them in the mysteries of geography. She is on the left 
 side of the table. There, in the background, <is silent Joseph, with 
 
 220
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 his slate, now making a mark, and then biting his lip, or scratching 
 his head to see if the algebraic expression may not have hidden in 
 either of those places.- George is in the kitchen tinkering his skates, 
 or contriving a trap for that old offender, the rat, whose cunning has 
 so long brought mortification upon all his boastings. I can now hear 
 his hammer and his whistle that peculiar sucking sort of whistle 
 which indicates a puzzled state of brain. Little William and Henry 
 are in bed, and if you will step to the bedroom door you will barely 
 hear them breathe. And now mother has stopped and is absent and 
 thoughtful, and my heart tells me she is thinking of her only absent 
 child. 
 
 You have been even kinder than I expected or you promised. 
 I did not expect to hear from you till to-morrow, at earliest, but as I 
 was walking to-day, one of my classmates cried, "A bundle for you 
 at the office ! " I was soon in my room with it. Out came my knife, 
 and, forgetting all your good advice about " strings and fragments," 
 the bundle soon opened its very heart to me ; and it proved a warm 
 heart, too, for there were the stockings, they are on my feet now, 
 that is, one pair of them, and there were the flannels, and the 
 bosoms, and the gloves, and the pincushion from Louise, and the 
 needlebook from Sarah, and the paper from Mary, and the letters 
 and love from all of you. Thanks to you all for the bundle, letters, 
 and love. One corner of my eye is now moistened while I say, 
 " Thanks to ye all, gude folks." I must not forget to mention the 
 apples, "the six apples, one from each," and the beautiful little 
 loaf of cake. The apples I have smelled, and the cake nibbled a 
 little, and pronounced it to be in the finest taste. 
 
 Now, a word about your letters. I cannot say much, for I have 
 only read mother's three times and Mary's twice. I am glad the 
 spectacles fitted mother's eyes so well. You wonder how I hit it. 
 Why, have I not been told from babyhood that I have my mother's 
 eyes? Now, if I have mother's eyes, what is plainer than that I can 
 pick out glasses that will suit them? I am glad, too, that the new 
 book is a favorite. 
 
 I suppose the pond is all frozen over, and the skating good. I 
 know it is foolish ; but if mother and Mary had skated as many
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 " moouy " nights as I have, they would sigh, not at the thought, but 
 at the fact that my skating days are over. 
 
 I am warm, well, and comfortable. We all study, and dull 
 fellows, like myself, have to confess that they study hard. We have 
 no genius to help us. My chum is a good fellow. He now sits in 
 yonder corner, his feet poised upon the stove in such a way that the 
 dullness seems to have all run out of his heels into his head, for he 
 is fast asleep. 
 
 I have got it framed, and there it hangs the picture of my 
 father ! I never look up without seeing it, and I never see it without 
 thinking that my mother is a widow and that I am her eldest son. 
 What more I think I will not be fool enough to say you will 
 imagine better than I can say it. 
 
 I need not say write, for 1 know that you will. Love to you all, 
 
 and much too. 
 
 Your affectionate son, 
 
 HERBERT. 
 
 LOUD CHESTERFIELD TO HIS SON. 
 DEAR BOY : 
 
 Your letters, except when upon a given subject, are exceedingly 
 laconic, and neither answer my desires nor the purpose of letters ; 
 which should be familiar conversations between absent friends. As 
 I desire to live with you upon the footing of an intimate friend, and 
 not of a parent, I could wish that your letters gave me more par- 
 ticular account of yourself, and of your lesser transactions. When 
 you write to me, suppose yourself conversing freely with me, by the 
 fireside. In that case you would naturally mention the incidents of 
 the day, as where you had been, whom you had seen, what you 
 thought of them, etc. Do this in your letters : acquaint me some- 
 times with your studies, sometimes with your diversions ; tell me of 
 any new persons and characters that you meet with in company, and 
 add your own observations upon them ; in short, let me see more of 
 you in your letters. 
 
 How do you go on with Lord Multeney ; and how does he go on 
 at Leipzig? Has he learning, has he parts, has lie application? Is 
 
 222
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 he good or ill natured? In short, what is he? At least, what do 
 you think of him? You may tell me without reserve, for I promise 
 secrecy. 
 
 You are now of an age that I am desirous of beginning a confi- 
 dential correspondence with you, and as I shall, on my part, write 
 you very freely my opinion upon men and things, which I should 
 often be very unwilling that anybody but you or Mr. Harts should 
 see, so, on your part, if you write me without reserve, you may 
 depend upon my inviolable secrecy. If you have ever looked into 
 the letters of Madame de Sevigne to her daughter, Madame de 
 Grignan, you must have observed the ease, freedom, and friendship 
 of that correspondence ; and yet I hope, and believe, that they did 
 not love one another better than we do. Tell me what books you 
 are now reading, either by way of study or amusement ; how you 
 pass your evenings when at home, and where you pass them when 
 abroad. 
 
 The foregoing letters in themselves contain a whole 
 volume on the subject of correspondence. They leave 
 very little to be said as to what a family letter should be. 
 We will, however, add one more, a genuine love letter in 
 disguise written by Doctor Franklin. There is nothing in 
 the nature of a love letter, however, that renders neces- 
 sary any different suggestions from those we have already 
 given under letters of friendship. We have said there 
 that it is yourself, more than what you say, that your 
 friend desires, and in the case of love letters the same is 
 especially true, and perhaps in a more literal sense. Some 
 of our sentimental readers may perhaps be a little disap- 
 pointed after reading the following letter, and may pos- 
 
 223
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 sibly blame us, and accuse us of malicious intent to dash 
 their expectations. But if the letter does not fall under 
 their definition of a love letter, the fault is doubtless one of 
 age, and not of natural judgment. 
 
 DR. FRANKLIN TO HIS WIFE. 
 MY DEAR CHILD : 
 
 I wrote you, a few days since, by a special messenger, and 
 inclosed letters for all our wives and sweethearts, expecting to hear 
 from you by his return, and to have the northern newspapers and 
 English letters per the packet ; but he is just now returned without a 
 scrap for poor us ; so I had a good mind not to write to you by this 
 opportunity ; but I can never be ill-natured enough, even when there 
 is the most occasion. The messenger says he left the letters at your 
 house, and saw you afterwards at Mr. Duche's, and told you when 
 he would go, and that he lodged at Honey's, next door to you, and 
 yet you did not write ; so let Goody Smith give one more just judg- 
 ment, and say what should be done to you. I think I won't tell you 
 that we are all well, nor that we expect to return about the middle 
 of the week, nor will I send you a word of news that is poz. 
 
 My duty to mother, love to children, and to Miss Betsey, and 
 Gracey, etc., etc. 
 
 I am your loving husband, 
 
 B. FRANKLIN. 
 
 P. S. I have scratched out the loving words, being writ in 
 haste by mistake, when I forgot I was angry. 
 
 There is another class of correspondence which re- 
 quires the observance of a very different class of rules 
 from those already given. We refer to business corre- 
 spondence. In writing a business letter we should bear in 
 mind that the person addressed cares only for what we 
 have to say, and not for ourselves ; being in this respect 
 
 224
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 exactly the reverse of a family letter or a letter of friend- 
 ship. This is why the chief virtue of a business letter is 
 brevity. The person who is to read it desires to learn what 
 you have to say about your business as quickly as possible, 
 in order that if it be related in any way with his own, he 
 may discharge the obligation arising from that relation, 
 and lose no time. The Anglo Saxon bisig is the word from 
 which are derived both business and busy, so that the 
 business man is supposed to be a busy man ; hence he has 
 no time to weigh political arguments, nor to consider your 
 peculiar views on the "Trinity." 
 
 It is true that business relations may exist between 
 friends, and they may feel like expressing this in their 
 business letters, but if they do so, the letter, to that extent 
 departs from the nature of a business letter and becomes 
 one of friendship. In this case, it is proper, of course, that 
 the letter should be a mixed one, for wherever friendship 
 exists it is the prerogative of the parties concerned alone, 
 to say when and under what circumstances that friendship 
 shall be expressed. 
 
 In letters of this kind, it is, as a rule, preferable to 
 devote the first part of the letter to the business, and the 
 latter part to the interests of friendship ; but of course, 
 circumstances and the relative weight of the two interests 
 must determine this matter in the mind of the writer. 
 
 The requirements of a business letter are well met in 
 
 the following model : 
 
 225
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, 
 
 Washington, D. C., Jan. 1, 1899. 
 Mr. William C. King, 
 
 Springfield, Mass. 
 
 Sir: In compliance, so far as practicable, with your request 
 of the 6th inst., I sent you by mail yesterday, free of charge, 26 
 charts of canceled editions, unsuitable for navigation. 
 
 Should you find that you need other charts, on inspection of 
 the catalogue, also mailed to you yesterday, I shall be pleased to 
 furnish you with twenty more, free of charge, which please select 
 and mention by catalogue numbers only. If you need still more, 
 they can be purchased through our agents in Philadelphia, Messrs. 
 Riggs & Bros., No. 221 Walnut Street. 
 
 For any interior maps not noted in our catalogue, I would refer 
 you to the U. S. Geological Survey, and for those of the Mississippi 
 River and Great Lakes to the Chief of Engineers, U. S. A., both in 
 this city. 
 
 Respectfully yours, 
 
 ANDREW J. BRANDEN, 
 
 Acting Superintendent. 
 
 It very frequently happens that the members of the 
 family are called upon to write, or to reply to what are 
 called letters of courtesy. Such letters include invitations, 
 acceptances, acknowledgments, letters of congratulation, 
 condolence, of introduction, and of recommendation. 
 
 Letters of invitation vary in form, according to the 
 various occasions which call them forth, such as parties, 
 balls, dinners, cards, and so on. Their formality, too, 
 depends largely upon the dignity and character of the 
 social function. 
 
 226
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 An invitation to a large party or ball should read as 
 follows : 
 
 Mrs. Davidson requests the pleasure of Miss Mellen's company 
 at a ball on Friday, January 10, at 9 o'clock. 
 
 Invitations to a ball are always issued in the name of 
 the hostess. 
 
 Letters of acceptance or declination may be written as 
 follows : 
 
 Miss Mellen accepts with pleasure Mrs. Davidson's kind invi- 
 tation for January 10. 
 
 Or, 
 
 Miss Mellen regrets that the illness of her mother [or what- 
 ever the cause may be] prevents her acceptance of Mrs. Davidson's 
 kind invitation for January 1 0. 
 
 The invitation to a large party is similar to that for a 
 ball with the exception that the words "at a ball " are 
 omitted and the hour may be earlier. The forms of accep- 
 tance or declination are the same as for a ball. 
 
 If there is any special feature which is to give char- 
 acter to the evening, it is best to mention this fact in the 
 note of invitation. For example, the words "musicale," 
 "to take part in dramatic readings," "to witness amateur 
 theatricals/' etc., should be inserted in the note. If there 
 are programmes for the entertainment, be sure to inclose 
 one. 
 
 227
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 Invitations to a dinner party should be issued in the 
 names of both host and hostess : 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Cogswell request the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs. 
 die's company at dinner on Thursday, January 21, at six o'clock. 
 
 An invitation to a tea need not be necessarily so for- 
 mal. It should partake more of the nature of a friendly 
 note, thus : 
 
 Dear Miss Perry : 
 
 We have some friends coming to drink tea with us to-morrow ; 
 will you give us the pleasure of your company also ? We hope you 
 will not disappoint us. 
 
 Cordially, 
 
 MRS. HERBERT CLARK. 
 
 The invitation accepted : 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gile, with much pleasure, accept Mr. and Mrs. 
 Cogswell's kind invitation for the 21st of January." 
 
 The invitation declined : 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Gile regret that the condition of Mrs. Gile's 
 health will not permit them to accept Mr. and Mrs. Cogswell's kind 
 invitation to dinner for January 21st. 
 
 Acceptance of invitation to tea : 
 
 Dear Mrs. Clark : 
 
 It affords me much pleasure to accept your kind invitation to 
 
 tea to-morrow. 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 ADELAIDE PERRY. 
 228
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 Declination of invitation to tea : 
 
 Dear Mrs. Clark : 
 
 I regret extremely that a prior engagement prevents my ac- 
 ceptance of your kind invitation to tea to-morrow. 
 
 Cordially yours, 
 
 ADELAIDE PERRY. 
 
 Of course the phraseology need not conform exactly to 
 that of the above models. The only uniform character- 
 istics are a business-like brevity, admitting nothing foreign 
 to the subject, and that they be written, generally, in the 
 third person. 
 
 Invitations should be written on small note paper, 
 which may have initial or monogram stamped upon it, or 
 they may be engraved. 
 
 The body of the invitation should be in the middle of 
 the sheet, the date above, to the right, the address below, 
 to the left. 
 
 The invitation must be sent to the private residence of 
 the person invited, never to the place of business. 
 
 Should an invitation be declined, some reason must be 
 given, the true cause a prior engagement, a contemplated 
 journey, sickness, domestic or business detention, or what- 
 ever it may be being stated clearly and concisely, so that 
 the hostess shall have no possible occasion for offense. 
 This refusal should be dispatched as early as possible, so 
 that the hostess may have time to supply the vacant place. 
 
 An invitation once accepted, and especially an engage- 
 
 229
 
 Correspondence and Social forms. 
 
 ment made to dinner, should be sacredly observed. Only 
 the most imperative necessity will justify its being broken. 
 And in that case the fact must be communicated directly 
 with a full explanation to the hostess. If it is too late to 
 supply your place, it may at least be in time to prevent din- 
 ner waiting on your account. 
 
 A letter of acknowledgment is written as a response for 
 some favor or gift bestowed. Its essence is gratitude ; 
 and, as the expression of this virtue, it is always obligatory 
 upon the recipient of a favor or special thoughtfulness 
 from another, to send a fitting letter expressing his or her 
 sense of gratefulness. 
 
 My dear Mrs. Brown : 
 
 You can scarcely imagine how grateful I am for "Self Help." 
 You could not have selected another book that I would prize more 
 highly. Every chapter is a genuine help to the young man starting 
 out in life, and I feel certain cannot fail to stimulate me in many 
 ways and in many directions. If I can but partially meet your 
 expectations in personally appropriating the excellent advice and 
 suggestions of the book, I shall feel that I have not altogether 
 failed. 
 
 Believe me, with pleasant remembrances and renewed gratitude, 
 
 Very cordially yours, 
 
 CHARLES R. WAITS. 
 
 A letter of condolence is a letter sympathizing with a 
 friend who has suffered loss or bereavement. Unusual 
 
 230
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 care should be exercised in the writing of such letters. The 
 appended example is selected as especially felicitous : 
 
 Executive Mansion, Jan. 13, 1899. 
 Dear Mrs. Dingley : 
 
 I have at this moment learned of the death of your distin- 
 guished husband, and write to express the profound sorrow which 
 both Mrs. McKinley and myself feel for you in your great affliction. 
 We mourn with you in this overwhelming loss, which will be deeply 
 felt by the whole country. From my long and intimate association 
 with him, it comes to me as a personal bereavement. A great con- 
 solation in this sad hour is a recollection of Mr. Dingley's exalted 
 character, his domestic virtues, his quiet, useful, distinguished life, 
 and his long-continued and faithful service in behalf of his fellow- 
 citizens, who will always cherish his memory as that of a great 
 statesman and true patriot. 
 
 With sympathy, believe me always, 
 
 Sincerely, 
 
 WILLIAM MCKINLEY. 
 
 Letters of Introduction are used to introduce one 
 friend to another who lives at some distance. They should 
 be short and carefully worded so that the recipient may not 
 be embarrassed by having to go over a large amount of 
 written matter before obtaining the necessary information 
 regarding the person introduced. 
 
 Letters of introduction are to be regarded as certificates 
 of respectability and are therefore never to be given where 
 you do not feel sure on this point. To send a person of 
 whom you know nothing into the confidence and family of 
 a friend is unpardonable recklessness. In England, letters 
 
 231
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 of introduction are called "tickets to soup," because it is 
 generally customary to invite a gentleman to dine who 
 comes with a letter of introduction to you. Such is 
 also the practice, to some extent, in this country, but 
 etiquette here does not make the dinner so essential as 
 there. 
 
 When a gentleman, bearing a letter of introduction to 
 you, leaves his card, you should call on him or send a note 
 as early as possible. It is a very gross insult to treat a 
 letter of introduction with indifference it is a slight to the 
 stranger as well as to the introducer which no subsequent 
 attentions will cancel. After you have made this call it is, 
 to some extent, optional with you as to what further atten- 
 tions you shall engross yourself. 
 
 Such letters are generally left unsealed, and should 
 bear upon the envelope, in the lower left-hand corner, the 
 name and address of the person introduced, in order that 
 the persons, on meeting, may greet each other without 
 embarrassment. The following will give an idea of an 
 appropriate form for a letter of introduction : 
 
 Boston, Mass., Jan. 12, 1899. 
 My dear Mrs. Green : 
 
 I take pleasure in introducing to you my esteemed friend, Miss 
 Helen M. Redmond, who contemplates spending some time in your 
 city. Miss Redmond is the daughter of my old schoolmate, Hattie 
 Fairfield, has just recently been graduated from Wellesley, and is 
 altogether a very charming girl. Any attentions you may find it 
 
 232
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 possible to show her during her stay will be considered as a personal 
 favor to myself. 
 
 Yours very sincerely, 
 
 MRS. JOHN L GARNER. 
 The envelope should bear the following superscription : 
 
 Mrs. Robert L Green, 
 
 426 Euclid Avenue, 
 
 Cleveland, 0. 
 
 Introducing 
 
 Miss Helen Redmond, Boston, Mass. 
 
 Letters of Recommendation are estimates of character, 
 attainments, and special worth. " It ought to be the pride 
 of every man who writes a letter of recommendation to feel 
 that his letter will have weight, because it is known that 
 he recommends only the deserving and the competent, and 
 recommends truthfully." A letter of recommendation is 
 closely related to a letter of introduction, with the special 
 features of elaboration and a specific intent in favor of the 
 letter of recommendation. The following is an example of 
 
 233
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 a letter recommending a young man for a fellowship in a 
 university : 
 
 Norwich, Conn., Jan. 10, 1899. 
 Faculty of Arts and Sciences, 
 
 Harvard University. 
 Gentlemen .- 
 
 I have understood that Mr. Henry E. Sumner, of this city, is a 
 candidate for appointment to a fellowship in Harvard University. 
 
 It is a great pleasure to say a word to advance his purpose 
 and aid his appointment. I have known Mr. Sumner all his life. 
 He is a young man of intelligence, energy, and proper ambition for 
 scholastic advancement. I remember him while he was a student at 
 our Academy here. He was then devoted to the pursuit of scientific 
 studies and was, I believe, for a time assistant to the Professor of 
 Natural Sciences, in his lectures and experiments. I know also 
 that he was graduated from Trinity College and received the degree 
 of B.A. 
 
 It seems that his special line of study has been philosophy in 
 its various fields of thought and development. He has a most 
 laudable ambition in this direction which should be encouraged and 
 assisted. 
 
 He has the good will and support of the leading citizens of this 
 community in his educational efforts and desires ; and from my 
 observation of his enterprise and unflagging efforts for a more 
 complete education, I consider him entitled to the encouragement 
 and practical aid of the leading University of the country. 
 
 I bespeak kind consideration of Mr. Sumner's application. 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 ALEXANDER M. GROVER. 
 
 Letters of congratulation arise out of our good will 
 toward others. Their occasion is varied. We may re- 
 joice in the marriage of a friend, his political, social, or 
 
 234
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 professional preferment, his financial or literary success, 
 and what not ? These are all fitting themes for the con- 
 gratulatory letter- and may be utilized as opportunity 
 affords or fancy suggests. A girl's congratulatory letter 
 follows : 
 
 Laurel Hill Grove, June 25, '9S. 
 My own dear Clara : 
 
 Well, you are married ! Oh, how this sounds ! Another 
 
 claims you; another has all your first thoughts, all your warmest 
 
 love and sympathies ; and life is no longer to you what it has been 
 
 a sweet dream, only. It is now something real, thoughtful, 
 
 earnest. 
 
 Dear Clara, I weep for you because you are gone from among 
 us are a girl no longer; but I know you are happy in your love, 
 that you have chosen wisely, and I have only to say, God bless you 
 forever and forever ! 
 
 May there be few of life's storms and tempests for you, 
 but much of its summer of repose and sweet content, and may he 
 who has won your pure heart ever be worthy of it. I congratulate 
 you, I bless you, I pray for you. 
 
 Your loving friend, 
 
 LILLIAN. 
 
 The Technique of Letter \Vriting. 
 
 Choice of Paper. For all formal notes, of whatever 
 nature, use heavy, plain, white unruled paper, folded once, 
 with square envelopes to match. A neat initial letter at 
 the head of the sheet is allowable, but nothing more than 
 this, unless it be a monogram tastefully executed. Avoid 
 floral decorations and landscapes. Unless of an elaborate 
 
 235
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 and costly design, they have an appearance of cheapness, 
 and are decidedly in bad taste. 
 
 Arrangement of a Letter. The parts. of a letter are the 
 heading, the address, the salutation, the body, the compli- 
 mentary close, and the signature. 
 
 Begin at the upper right-hand corner, about one-half 
 the distance between the top and the middle of the page. 
 
 Write your street and number, and the name of the 
 city and state in which you reside ; on the next line, 
 directly underneath, write the date ; if you reside in the 
 country, write P. O. address and date on the same line. 
 Begin back far enough to avoid all appearance of crowd- 
 ing. Skip one line, and at the left (leaving a comfortable 
 margin) write the name of your correspondent ; on the line 
 beneath, his address ; and on the third line begin the salu- 
 tation, " My dear Sir," or " Dear Sir," flush with the " Mr." 
 The letter proper then begins on the next line below. 
 
 The letter so far may be illustrated thus : 
 
 324 Beacon St., Boston, Mass., 
 
 Jan. 25, 1899. 
 Mr. William A. Key worth, 
 
 Baltimore, Md. 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 The matter to which you were kind enough to draw my 
 attention in your favor of recent date will receive the action of the 
 Board at its first meeting. 
 
 Now proceed with the body of the letter ; write con- 
 cisely and to the point, in simple, well chosen language. 
 
 23G
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 Keep the margins of your letter even. Learn to write 
 straight on unruled paper. Do not make many paragraphs. 
 Make a new paragraph only when there is an entire change 
 of subject. If you have been writing about the death of 
 your grandmother and have finished and wish to say some- 
 thing about the weather, begin with a new paragraph. 
 When a new paragraph is necessary, it should begin 
 directly on a line with the first word of the body of 
 the letter. 
 
 When the body of the letter is completed, the compli- 
 mentary close follows, and immediately precedes the signa- 
 ture. The closing words should not be more familiar than 
 the salutation, and, like the words of the salutation, they 
 depend upon the relation of the two persons. " Respect- 
 fully yours" " Very truly yours" " Very cordially yours" 
 etc., are the usual closing words of formal correspondence. 
 Letters of friendship, of course, admit of less formal 
 terms. The first word only of the complimentary close 
 should begin with a capital. Following the complimentary 
 close comes the signature. Write your signature plainly, 
 and do not attempt oddities of penmanship. Your friends 
 may be very familiar with your dashing ink lines, but the 
 stranger who sees your name for the first time may have 
 considerable difficulty in transforming it correctly into 
 readable script. 
 
 The form of closing is indicated in the following illus- 
 tration : 
 
 237
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 I trust you find your professional and public life both agreeable 
 and profitable. 
 
 Very cordially yours, 
 
 CHARLES C. FRICK. 
 
 The Envelope Address or Superscription. In address- 
 ing an envelope, write first the name, then the post office, 
 then the state. If additional matter, such as street, or 
 box, or county, is necessary, put it at the lower left-hand 
 corner. Even in the case of large cities, it is necessary 
 to write the name of the state. 
 
 The following is a proper form : 
 
 Mr. Frank T. Barr, 
 
 Philadelphia, 
 
 3412 PoweltonAve. 
 
 Penn. 
 
 If special directions are required they should be put in 
 brackets to distinguish them from the address proper. 
 
 238
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 The square envelope is generally used by women : 
 
 Miss Grace B. King, 
 
 Springfield, 
 
 Mass. 
 
 107 Thompson Street. 
 
 When a letter is sent by an acquaintance or friend, 
 the courtesy should be acknowledged on the envelope : 
 
 Kindness of 
 L. H. Furnier. 
 
 Mr. Ralph D. Blake, 
 
 Hotel Vendome, 
 
 Boston. 
 
 239
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 Invitations are usually addressed as in the following 
 form, unless they are mailed out of town, in which instance 
 the previous forms may be used : 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. John P. Blair, 
 
 62 Ashland Place. 
 
 Hints on Letter Writing. 
 
 General Appearance. The excellencies of a nicely writ- 
 ten letter are largely embraced in the word, neatness. All 
 blots, erasures, interlinings, will never be seen in a neat 
 letter. If you are so unfortunate as to write the wrong 
 word, do not draw your pen through it, but take a clean 
 sheet and begin over again. 
 
 Spelling and Punctuation. Never allow a letter to 
 leave you until you have carefully read it over, punctuated 
 
 240
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 it properly, and corrected any misspelled words. Form the 
 habit of being critical. If there is any doubt about a word, 
 consult the dictionary. If your correspondent is a person 
 of culture, he will certainly notice your errors. You can- 
 not afford to be thought either ignorant or careless. 
 
 Date. The date consists of the month, the day of the 
 month, and the year. It is not necessary to write the 
 forms, 1st, 7th. 23d, etc. ; the figures are sufficient. Note 
 that the proper contractions of the ordinals ending in 2 and 
 3 are 2d, 3d, 23d, 23d. 
 
 Degrees. Scholastic and professional degrees M.A., 
 PH.D., Litt.D., Sc.D., LL.D., D.C.L., M.D,, D.D., etc,, are 
 always abbreviated in addresses. Titular addresses of high 
 rank, however, such as President, Governor, Archbishop, 
 etc., should never be abbreviated in such use. It is 
 not in good taste to address a man as Mr. Charles King, 
 M.A., or Charles King, Esq., M.D. Titles are multiplied 
 on title-pages and catalogues, but not more than one should 
 appear on letters. "Esq.," as an honorary title, is going 
 into general disuse. Doctors of Divinity may be addressed, 
 "Rev. Dr. George T. Purves " or "Rev. George T. Purves, 
 D.D." Doctors of Medicine may be addressed, " Dr. Austin 
 Flint" or "Austin Flint, M.D." 
 
 Figures. Except in writing dates and sums of money, 
 do not use figures in the body of a letter. For example, it 
 is an error to write, "Our school closes in 4 weeks." 
 
 Initials. Many persons, in subscribing their name, 
 
 241
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 have a fancy for giving only the initials of their first or 
 given name ; thus, H. Brown, J. T. Smith. No one can 
 determine from these signatures whether the writer is 
 Hannah or Horace, James or Juliet, and the person 
 addressed, who is often a stranger, is at a loss whether to 
 send his reply to Mr. Brown or Miss Brown, Mr. Smith or 
 Miss Smith. 
 
 Junior. The abbreviation of this word is "Jr." or 
 " Jun." Its place is immediately after the name, as "Wil- 
 liam Johnson, Jr., Esq.'' It never takes the place of any 
 title. The same rule applies to Senior. Both words should 
 begin with capitals. 
 
 Mesdames. The contraction of this word is Mines. 
 It is the plural of the French Madame, and is used in 
 English as the plural of Mistress (Mrs.). Any number of 
 spinsters associated in a business firm, in a committee, or 
 in any other co-operative body, should be addressed with 
 the pro-title " Misses " ; but if any one of them rejoices in 
 the title " Mrs.," then the pro-title of the body must be 
 "Mines." The salutation in any case should be " Ladies." 
 
 Miss. In youth the masculine of the word is Master, 
 and in adult age Mister (Mr.). This word, in any form, 
 should never be used as the salutation of a letter. Unlike 
 Sir, Madam, and General, it cannot be used alone. In 
 addressing a young lady, one must know either her given 
 name or her surname ; and with them one may say " Miss 
 Mary " or " Miss Brown." In writing to strangers a 
 
 242
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 woman should, in her signature, indicate not only her sex, 
 but also whether she is a " Miss " or a " Mrs." 
 
 Mister, Messrs. The plural of " Mr." and of " Es- 
 quire "is " Messrs." This is a contraction of the French 
 Messieurs (Gentlemen). 
 
 Mistress. This, the pro-title of a married woman, is 
 almost always used in the abbreviated form. "Mrs.," and is 
 pronounced Misses. It is sometimes coupled with the 
 husband's title, as " Mrs. Dr. Stone." This use is conven- 
 ient, but questionable. 
 
 Nota Bene. The abbreviation is N. B., and the mean- 
 ing, "note specially." This, like the postscript, follows the 
 completed letter. 
 
 Official Letter. In official correspondence, it is better 
 to address the office than the officer, as " To the Secretary 
 of the Interior," instead of "To the Hon. Cornelius N. Bliss, 
 Secretary of the Interior." 
 
 Postage Stamps. The proper place for the stamp is at 
 the top of the envelope at the right margin, in the right- 
 hand upper corner, and above the address. Put on as 
 many stamps as the weight of the letter or parcel demands. 
 
 Postscript. The abbreviation P. S. is the one in or- 
 dinary use. The purpose of the postscript is to add some 
 afterthought to the" letter. 
 
 R. S. V. P. These initials stand for Respondez, s'il 
 vous plait (Answer, if you please). They are sometimes 
 written at the lower left-hand corner of invitations. 
 
 243
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 Sir. This title may be used apart from the name, 
 while " Mr." must go with the name. The plural is " Gen- 
 tlemen," not the vulgar contraction "Gents." "Dear 
 Sirs" bears the same relation to " Gentlemen" that "Dear 
 Sir" does to "Sir." 
 
 Titles. The preferred form of addressing the Presi- 
 dent of the United States is Hon. William McKinley, 
 Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C. ; the salutation is 
 simply, "Dear Sir." A member of Congress is addressed 
 with the title "Honorable," abbreviated to "Hon."; thus, 
 " Hon. Henry Cabot Lodge, U. S. Senate, Washington, 
 D. C." or "Hon. Sereno E. Payne, House of Representa- 
 tives, Washington, D. C." 
 
 Superscriptions. The following miscellaneous titles for 
 use in addressing letters or notes of invitation cover the 
 ordinary field of superscriptions : His Excellency and Mrs. 
 William McKinley; Governor and Mrs. Roger Wolcott ; 
 Hon. and Mrs. Melville W. Fuller ; Sir and Lady John 
 A. MacDonald ; Rev. Dr. and Mrs. T. De Witt Talmage ; 
 Prof, and Mrs. George T. Ladd, Dr. and Mrs. J. William 
 White ; Mr. and Mrs. W. H: Howland. 
 
 Worth Remembering. Letters are indices of the taste 
 as well as of the mind of the writer. They express his 
 thoughts and his feelings, their manner almost invariably 
 marks the spirit and temper of their author. How impor- 
 tant, then, that they should be conceived in kindness, tem- 
 pered with truthfulness, and spoken in earnestness ! It is 
 
 244
 
 Correspondence and Social Forms. 
 
 too frequently the case that persons sit down to write 
 " upon the spur of the moment," when some incident, or 
 piece of news, or some moment of impatience, fires the pen 
 with a feeling which is apt to find expression in too hasty 
 words which affect the distant reader very unpleasantly, 
 or which needlessly wound the feelings and stir up acri- 
 mony. It is best, in almost every case, to write when 
 thought and feeling have been sobered by reflection ; and 
 then it is for the best to eschew personalities, harsh expres- 
 sions, unpleasant allusions, for, once written, they cannot 
 be recalled they become matters of record. Therefore 
 beware, and be even overcautious rather than not cautious 
 enough, for a letter may serve as a sure witness in cases 
 where you might never suppose it could be used. It may 
 live and bear testimony for years it does not change with 
 time or circumstances it is a warranty deed of whose 
 responsibility you can never be free. 
 
 245
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY. 
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 ""^JVT^ANI 
 
 Jtir 
 
 ANNERS constitute the natural language in 
 which the biography of every man is written 
 in so far as it touches his relations with 
 his fellows. They are the necessary and unconscious ex- 
 pression of our lives and characters. 
 
 Politeness in its essence is always the same. The mere 
 rules of etiquette may vary with time and place, but these 
 are only different modes of expressing the principle of 
 politeness within us. 
 
 Politeness does not consist in any system of rules, nor 
 in arbitrary forms, but it has a real existence in the in- 
 stincts of men and women. The ever changing conditions 
 and circumstances of social life may necessitate modifica- 
 tions in the manners and customs of the people, and these 
 modifications may and do extend to the domestic circle. 
 Yet the principle of our nature in which the manners, cus- 
 toms, and rules of etiquette all had their origin, is perma- 
 nent and unchangeable. All the various rules of etiquette 
 for the government of society are but notes and commen- 
 
 246
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 taries on the one great rule, " Love thy neighbor as thy- 
 self." 
 
 IT has truthfully been said : "In politeness, as in every- 
 thing else connected with the formation of character, 
 we are too apt to begin on the outside, instead of the inside. 
 Instead of beginning with the heart and trusting to that to 
 form the manners, many begin with the manners and leave 
 the heart to chance and influences. The golden rule con- 
 tains the very life and soul of politeness : ' Do unto others 
 as ye would that they should do unto you.' Unless chil- 
 dren and youth are taught, by precept and example, to 
 abhor what is selfish, and prefer another's pleasure and 
 comfort to their own, their politeness will be entirely arti- 
 ficial, and used only when interest and policy dictate. 
 True politeness is perfect freedom and ease treating 
 others just as you love to be treated. Nature is always 
 graceful ; fashion, with all her art, can never produce any- 
 thing half so pleasing. The very perfection of elegance is 
 to imitate nature ; how much better to have the reality 
 than the imitation. Anxiety about the opinions of others 
 fetters the freedom of nature and tends to awkwardness ; 
 all would appear well if they never tried to assume what 
 they do not possess." 
 
 Says the author of " The Illustrated Manners Book," 
 " Every denial of or interference with the personal free- 
 
 247
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 dom or absolute rights of another is a violation of good 
 manners. The basis of all true politeness and social en- 
 joyment is the mutual tolerance of personal rights." 
 
 La Bruyere says, "Politeness seems to be a certain 
 care, by the manner of our words and actions to make 
 others pleased with us and themselves." 
 
 Madame Celnart says, " The grand secret of never fail- 
 ing propriety of deportment is to have an intention of 
 always doing right." 
 
 I HERE are some persons who possess the instinct 
 ^ of courtesy in so high a degree that they seem 
 to require no instruction or practice in order to be per- 
 fectly polite, easy, and graceful. But most people require 
 instruction and rules as to the best and most appropriate 
 manner of expressing that which they may feel. We 
 sometimes find young children with such an aptitude 
 for speech and such a command of language that their 
 grammar is absolutely faultless. They seem to have an 
 instinctive knowledge of the rules of grammar ; yet most 
 children without grammatical instruction are prone to 
 errors. 
 
 Rules of etiquette are essential, then, but far less so 
 than that cultivation of heart and character, to which all 
 just rules of etiquette must trace their origin. 
 
 248
 
 Manners at Home. 
 IxERSONAL habits claim the first place in our consid- 
 
 <T 
 
 V eration of home manners ; and foremost among 
 these we would place cleanliness. This virtue has been 
 said to be akin to godliness, and surely there is no quality 
 in a human being that more forcibly suggests ungodliness 
 than uncleanliness. An unclean person is an object of dis- 
 gust to all whom he meets. Foulness of character and 
 moral pollution will not isolate one from the sympathy of 
 his fellow men more effectually than physical uncleanli- 
 ness. We cannot long retain a love for our best and 
 dearest friend if he is unclean and has a foul breath. We 
 may not despise him, but our love will necessarily lose a 
 little of its ardor, or at best will change to pity. But the 
 disgust of our friends is not by any means the worst result 
 of uncleanliness. It is most destructive to health. It is 
 like sand and mud thrown into the wheels and gearing of a 
 delicate machine. Few persons of unclean habits have 
 died of old age. People may sometimes in their old age 
 come to be uncleanly in consequence of their infirmity, 
 but during their younger days they must have been moder- 
 ately clean. 
 
 We would not advise one to adopt radical views on 
 this subject and take a daily bath through life, although 
 we doubt if such a course would injure most people, yet it 
 would probably be unnecessary, and would be a needless 
 waste of time. A full bath once or twice a week is, per- 
 
 249
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 haps, all that is necessary to escape the charge of being 
 ungodly in consequence of filth. 
 
 Most people do not seem to consider the laws of clean- 
 liness as applicable to the head and hair. Even those who 
 are clean in other respects are very apt to neglect the hair. 
 Women and girls who have long and thick hair are, per- 
 haps, unaware how quickly it becomes filthy and emits a 
 disagreeable odor, especially if it be dressed while it is wet. 
 However cleanly the person may be in other respects, the 
 hair will necessarily collect much dust and so become 
 unclean. No father, mother, or child of good breeding will 
 allow the teeth or nails to become unclean. A clean mind 
 cannot dwell in an unclean body. 
 
 LxERHAPS in proportion to the population there are at 
 V^_^ the present time fewer in the world who are 
 addicted to the disgusting and health destroying habit of 
 smoking and chewing tobacco than in the days of our 
 grandfathers, yet the number even now is appalling. 
 Although it is a vice too large to be confined within any 
 circle or sphere of life, yet it may, perhaps, appropriately 
 be considered under the head of home manners. 
 
 There are few, if any, who will not frankly acknowl- 
 edge that tobacco in all of its forms is an unalloyed evil, 
 and that they would not desire their children to become 
 addicted to its use. And yet the most effectual way to 
 cause their children to use it certainly is to use it in their 
 
 250
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 presence. After all that has been said and done by moral- 
 ists and philanthropists, we do not presume to be able to 
 say anything that shall influence the acts of confirmed 
 tobacco users, but if we may be able to give them a few 
 hints by which they shall the better prevent their children 
 from falling into the same habit we shall be satisfied. If 
 fathers will persist in smoking and chewing they should 
 surely try to neutralize, as far as possible, the influence of 
 their example. This is a dangerous influence at best, but it 
 may be rendered more or less so according to the desires 
 and acts of the father. No father should smoke frequently 
 in the presence of his boys, especially if the fumes of 
 tobacco are agreeable to them. But whenever he does so, 
 he should do it with some casual remark as to the folly of 
 the habit. He should aim to convey the impression that 
 he is its slave, and that he would give worlds to be free. 
 It is possible that in this way the very evil may be made a 
 means of good to the child, for thus he may early come to 
 realize the truth that man cannot always trust himself 
 and that it is dangerous to trifle with any vice lest it bind 
 him with a chain of iron. 
 
 HJ E who feels that because he is at home he may act as 
 V_ he chooses and throw off all restraints of polite- 
 ness and good manners generally finds that when he comes 
 to put on these restraints for special occasions they don't 
 fit, and it becomes evident that the harness wasn't made 
 
 251
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 for him. Even the children can see that his manner is 
 entirely artificial and is not his own. Such men when they 
 are occasionally compelled to go into society experience 
 pain and embarrassment enough to outweigh the cost of 
 being decorous and mannerly at home. 
 
 If parents expect their children to be favorites in 
 society, they must teach them good manners. The world's 
 fortress that has stood the bombardment of many a genius 
 has fallen under the more subtle force of good manners. 
 There is no way to teach children good manners except by 
 example. It is an art that cannot be taught to advantage 
 theoretically. The tactics of courtesy can never be 
 mastered without field practice. If husbands are not 
 courteous to their wives, the brothers will not be courteous 
 to their 'sisters, nor when they in turn become husbands 
 will they be courteous to their wives. Every man owes to 
 his wife and to his daughter at least the same considera- 
 tions of civility and politeness that he owes to any other 
 woman. 
 
 phase of home manners is presented in the 
 V_ attitude of children toward their parents. Amer- 
 ican children have not, as a rule, that deference and rever- 
 ence for their parents which they should have. From the 
 author of " How to Behave," we quote the following 
 forcible description of the characteristics of the American 
 
 child:- 
 
 252
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 " Young America cannot brook restraint, has no con- 
 ception of superiority, and reverences nothing. His ideas 
 of equality admit neither limitation nor qualification. He 
 is born with a full comprehension of his own individual 
 rights, but is slow in learning his social duties. Through 
 whose fault comes this state of things ? American boys 
 and girls have naturally as much good sense and good 
 nature as those of any other nation, and when well trained 
 no children are more courteous and agreeable. The fault 
 lies in their education. In the days of our grandfathers, 
 children were taught manners at school, a rather rude, 
 backward sort of manners, it is true, but better than the 
 no manners at all of the present day. We must blame 
 parents in this matter rather than their children. If you 
 would have your children grow up beloved and respected 
 by their elders as well as their contemporaries, teach them 
 good manners in their childhood. The young sovereign 
 should first learn to obey, that he may be the better fitted 
 to command in his turn." 
 
 He who does not love, respect, and reverence his 
 mother is a boor, whatever his pretensions may be. He 
 who can allow any other woman to crowd from his heart 
 the love for his mother does not deserve the affection of 
 anv woman. 
 
 253
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 I INE of the evil habits exhibited for the most part at 
 home is that known as "sulking." This not only 
 spoils the comfort of the whole family for the time, but 
 the habit grows stronger with age, until it often ruins the 
 person's disposition and prospect of happiness in life. We 
 have seen cases where this disposition to sulk had pro- 
 duced such effects upon the character that the victims 
 were actually objects of pity. When the sulky child goes 
 out into the world with his vice he will not find a mother 
 who will patiently wait until his sulks have passed away ; 
 but society will desert him and leave him alone in his 
 bitterness. 
 
 But the opposite condition of perpetual levity is to be 
 avoided as fatal to real earnestness and depth of character. 
 As a rule, the ludicrous is seen on the surface of things, 
 and he who is always finding something to excite laughter 
 is generally of a superficial mind. The deep mind is more 
 apt to overlook this surface coat. It is true there is noth- 
 ing so good for the health of body or mind as hearty laugh- 
 ter, and he who cannot appreciate a good joke should be 
 pitied. And yet the excess of this good thing does surely 
 indicate, if not positive weakness, a want of habitual 
 action in the more serious faculties of the mind. 
 
 We supplement this chapter with the following rules 
 for the government of conduct in society. They should be 
 read and re-read by the members of the family till they are 
 thoroughly mastered, as the student would master the 
 
 254
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 rules of grammar. It is not enough to read them as we 
 would read a novel, from mere curiosity, but they should 
 be studied with a view to being applied. 
 
 So much has been written on the subject of etiquette 
 and conduct that it is of course impossible for us to say 
 anything new. The most we have attempted is to recast 
 and adapt to the special needs of the times that which has 
 already been written. 
 
 We have consulted the best and most unquestionable 
 authorities, and for each and every phase of life have tried 
 to give a few rules of special importance. So that the list 
 itself is virtually a condensed volume on the subject of 
 etiquette, no vital rule of conduct being omitted. 
 
 I HE golden rule is the embodiment of all true polite- 
 
 ^ ness. 
 
 Always allow an invalid, an elderly person, or a lady 
 to occupy the most comfortable chair in the room, and also 
 to accommodate themselves with reference to light and 
 temperature. 
 
 Never make the weakness or misfortunes of another 
 the occasion of mirth or ridicule. 
 
 Always respect a social inferior, not in a condescend- 
 ing way, but with the feeling that he is as good as you. 
 
 Never answer a serious question in jest, nor a civil 
 
 question rudely. 
 
 255
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 The religious opinions of all, even those of infidels, 
 should be respected, for religious tolerance is not only nec- 
 essary to good manners, but is a cardinal idea in the doc- 
 trine of human liberty. 
 
 A true gentleman or lady is always quiet and unassum- 
 ing. The person of real worth can afford to be unassum- 
 ing, for others will assume for him. 
 
 To laugh at one's own jokes will take the temper out of 
 the keenest wit. It is not necessary, however, that he 
 should maintain a serious and pharisaical countenance ; he 
 may laugh mildly in sympathy with those who appreciate 
 his wit, provided he is not the first to laugh. 
 
 Too great familiarity toward a new acquaintance is not 
 only in bad taste, but is fatal to the continuance of friend- 
 ship. 
 
 The most refined and cultivated always seek to avoid, 
 both in their dress and in their behavior, the appearance 
 of any desire to attract attention. Extremes in fashion 
 and flashy colors are marks of a low degree of cultiva- 
 tion. Savages are never pleased by the finer blendings 
 either in color or sound. 
 
 When in company talk as little as possible of yourself 
 or of the business or profession in which you are engaged, 
 at least, do not be the first to introduce these topics. 
 
 Every species of affectation is absolutely disgusting. 
 It is also so easily detected that no one but an actor can 
 conceal it. 
 
 256
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 When it is necessary to call upon a business man in the 
 hours of business, if possible select that hour in which you 
 have reason to believe he is least engaged. And even then 
 talk only of business unless he should introduce other top- 
 ics. Unless the person sustains some other relation to you 
 than that of business, do not stop a moment after you 
 have completed your business. 
 
 If you have wronged anyone, not only the rules of 
 etiquette, but the most obvious interpretation of moral 
 obligation, requires you to be willing and quick to apolo- 
 gize. And never, under any circumstances, refuse to ac- 
 cept an honest apology for an offense. 
 
 Pay whatever attention you choose to your dress and 
 personal appearance before you enter society, but after- 
 wards expel the subject from your mind and do not allow 
 your thoughts to dwell upon it. 
 
 Never enter a house, even your own, without removing 
 your hat. 
 
 Do not try to be mysterious in company, by alluding, 
 in an equivocal manner, to those things which only one or 
 two of the company understand. 
 
 Never boast of your own knowledge, and do not, either 
 directly or indirectly, accuse another of a lack of knowl- 
 edge. Do not even manifest your knowledge of any par- 
 ticular subject in such a way and under such circum- 
 stances as will cause another to appear to poor advantage. 
 
 Never leave a friend suddenly while engaged in an 
 
 257
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 interesting conversation. Wait till there is a pause or a 
 turn in the conversation. 
 
 Do not hesitate to offer any assistance that the occa- 
 sion may seem to demand, to a woman, even though she 
 may be a stranger. 
 
 In company mention your husband or wife with the 
 same degree of respect with which you would speak of a 
 stranger, and reserve all pet names for times and places in 
 which they will be better appreciated. 
 
 Never violate the confidence of another. Do not seek 
 to avenge a wrong by revealing the secrets of an enemy, 
 which were told to you while he was a friend. 
 
 Always dispose of your time as if your watch were too 
 fast ; you will then have a few moments' margin in the ful- 
 fillment of all engagements. To break an engagement 
 almost always injures you more than the other party. 
 
 Treat a woman, whatever may be her social or moral 
 rank, as though she were a princess. 
 
 Always show a willingness to converse with women on 
 any topic that they may select. 
 
 Do not ask questions concerning the private affairs of 
 your friends, nor be curious in regard to the business rela- 
 tions of anyone. 
 
 Wrangling and contradictions are not only violations 
 of etiquette, but they also violate the requirements of tact, 
 since they defeat the very purpose of respectful discussion, 
 
 viz., to convince. 
 
 258
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 Return a borrowed book, when you have finished read- 
 ing it, without delay. A library made up of borrowed 
 books is a disgraceful possession. 
 
 When entering a room bow slightly to the whole com- 
 pany, but to no one in particular. 
 
 Make the comfort and welfare of others a prime object 
 of your life, and you will thereby fulfill all the require- 
 ments of etiquette. 
 
 In addition to the foregoing, we present another list of 
 rules which ought to be of special interest to every one not 
 only on account of their intrinsic worth, but also on 
 account of their origin, for their author was George 
 Washington. He called them his "Rules of Civility and 
 Decent Behavior in Company/' They were written at the 
 age of thirteen, and have been termed " Washington's 
 Maxims." 
 
 1. Every action in company ought to be with some sign of re- 
 spect to those present. 
 
 2. In the presence of others sing not to yourself with a hum- 
 ming voice, nor drum with your lingers or feet. 
 
 3. Speak not when others speak, sit not when others stand, and 
 walk not when others stop. 
 
 4. Turn not your back to others, especially in speaking ; jog 
 not the table or desk on which another reads or writes ; lean not on 
 anyone. 
 
 5. Be no flatterer, neither play with anyone that delights not 
 to be played with. 
 
 6. Read no letters, books, or papers in company ; but when
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 there is a necessity for doing it, you must not leave. Come not 
 near the books or writings of anyone so as to read them unasked ; 
 also look not nigh when another is writing a letter. 
 
 7. Let your countenance be pleasant, but in serious matters 
 somewhat grave. 
 
 8. Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another, though 
 he were your enemy. 
 
 1). They that are in dignity or office have in all places prece- 
 dency, but whilst they are young, they ought to respect those that 
 are their equals in birth or other qualities, though they have no 
 public charge. 
 
 10. It is good manners to prefer them to whom we speak before 
 ourselves, especially if they be above us. 
 
 1 1 . Let your discourse with men of business be short and com- 
 prehensive. 
 
 12. In visiting the sick do not presently play the physician if 
 you be not knowing therein. 
 
 13. In writing or speaking, give to every person his due -title 
 according to his degree and the custom of the place. 
 
 14. Strive not with your superiors in argument, but always 
 submit your judgment to others with modesty. 
 
 15. Undertake not to teach your equal in the art he himself 
 professes ; it savors arrogancy. 
 
 16. When a man does all he can, though it succeeds not well, 
 blame not him that did it. 
 
 17. Being to advise or reprehend anyone, consider whether it 
 ought to be in public or in private, presently or at some other time, 
 also in what terms to do it ; and in reproving show no signs of 
 choler, but do it with sweetness and mildness. 
 
 18. Mock not nor jest at anything of importance ; break no 
 jests that are sharp or biting, and, if you deliver anything witty or 
 pleasant, abstain from laughing thereat yourself.
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 19. Wherein you reprove another be unblamable yourself, for 
 example is more prevalent than precept. 
 
 20. Use no reproachful language against anyone, neither curses 
 nor revilings. 
 
 21. Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement 
 of anyone. 
 
 22. In your apparel be modest, and endeavor to accommodate 
 nature rather than procure admiration. Keep to the fashion of 
 your equals, such as are civil and orderly with respect to time and 
 place. 
 
 23. Play not the peacock, looking everywhere about you to see 
 if you be well decked, if your shoes fit well, if your stockings set 
 neatly and clothes handsomely. 
 
 24. Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem 
 your reputation, for it is better to be alone than in bad company. 
 
 25. Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a 
 sign of a tractable and commendable nature ; and in all cases of 
 passion admit reason to govern. 
 
 26. Be not immodest in urging your friend to discover a secret. 
 
 27. Utter not base and frivolous things amongst grown and 
 learned men, nor very difficult questions or subjects amongst the 
 ignorant, nor things hard to be believed. 
 
 28. Speak not of doleful things in time of mirth nor at the 
 table ; speak not of melancholy things, as death and wounds ; and 
 if others mention them, change, if you can, the discourse. Tell 
 not your dreams but to your intimate friends. 
 
 29. Break not a jest when none take pleasure in mirth. Laugh 
 not aloud, nor at all without occasion. Deride no man's misfor- 
 tunes, though there seem to be some cause. 
 
 30. Speak not injurious words, neither in jest nor earnest. 
 Scoff at none although they give occasion. 
 
 31. Be not forward, but friendly and courteous, the first to 
 
 261
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 salute, hear, and answer, and be not pensive when it is time to con- 
 verse. 
 
 32. Detract not from others, but neither be excessive in com- 
 mending. 
 
 33. Go not thither where you know not whether you shall be 
 welcome or not. Give not advice without being asked ; and when 
 desired, do it briefly. 
 
 34. If two contend together, take not the part of either uncon- 
 strained, and be not obstinate in your opinions ; in things indifferent 
 be of the major side. 
 
 35. Reprehend not the imperfection of others, for that belongs 
 to parents, masters, and superiors. 
 
 36. Gaze not on the marks or blemishes of others, and ask not 
 how they came. What you may speak in secret to your friend 
 deliver not before others. 
 
 37. Speak not in an unknown tongue in company, but in your 
 own language ; and that as those of quality do, and not as the vul- 
 gar. Sublime matters treat seriously 
 
 38. Think before you speak ; pronounce not imperfectly, nor 
 bring out your words too heartily, but orderly and distinctly. 
 
 39. When another speaks, be attentive yourself, and disturb 
 not the audience. If any hesitate in his words, help him not, nor 
 prompt him without being desired ; interrupt him not, nor answer 
 him till his speech be ended. 
 
 40. Treat with men at fit times about business, and whisper not 
 in the company of others. 
 
 41. Make no comparisons ; and if any of the company be 
 commended for any brave act of virtue, commend not another for 
 the same. 
 
 42. Be not apt to relate news if you know not the truth thereof. 
 In discoursing of things that you have heard, name not your author 
 always. A secret discover not. 
 
 262
 
 Manners at Home. 
 
 43. Be not curious to know the affairs of others, neither ap- 
 proach to those who speak in private. 
 
 44. Undertake not what you cannot perform ; but be careful to 
 keep your promise. 
 
 45. When you deliver a matter, do it without passion and indis- 
 cretion, however mean the person may be you do it to. 
 
 46. When your superiors talk to anybody, hear them ; neither 
 speak nor laugh. 
 
 47. In disputes be not so desirous to overcome as not to give 
 liberty to each one to deliver his opinion, and submit to the judg- 
 ment of the major part, especially if they are judges of the dispute. 
 
 48. Be not tedious in discourse, make not many digressions, 
 nor repeat often the same matter of discourse. 
 
 49. Speak no evil of the absent, for it is unjust. 
 
 50. Be not angry at table, whatever happens ; and if you have 
 reason to be so show it not ; put on a cheerful countenance, espe- 
 cially if there be strangers, for good humor makes one dish a feast. 
 
 51. Set not yourself at the upper end of the table; but if it 
 be your due, or the master of the house will have it so, contend not, 
 lest you should trouble the company. 
 
 52. When you speak of God or his attributes, let it be seri- 
 ously, in reverence and honor, and obey your natural parents. 
 
 53. Let your recreations be manful, not sinful. 
 
 54. Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celes- 
 tial fire called conscience. 
 
 " Few to good breeding make a just pretense ; 
 Good breeding is the blossom of good sense ; 
 The last result of an accomplish 'd mind, 
 With outward grace, the body's virtue, join'd." 
 
 263
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. 
 
 Kamily Secrets. 
 
 (ATTIRE'S most beneficent operations are hidden 
 from our sight beneath the surface of things. 
 The germination of all life is under a veil. 
 She will not let a seed sprout until she has buried it. All 
 Nature is one great hall of free-masonry, where every 
 movement is at the gesture of a spectral hand. In secrecy 
 and illusion she is an adept. 
 
 Not only does she hide her operations from our sight, 
 but she actually gives false signals. She is an accom- 
 plished ventriloquist, and we cannot tell whence come her 
 most characteristic sounds. The cry of the new-born in- 
 fant comes to us from the thicket, and at the birthday 
 party of a child the irresponsible parrot becomes the orator 
 of the day. The mocking-bird, in droll mimicry, utters the 
 wail of sorrow and the laugh of joy. The spider touched, 
 feigns death. The earthquake is prone to imitate the thun- 
 der. The voices of the night are interchangeable. The 
 stupid owl steals the voice of sorrow, and the breeze whis- 
 pers every sentiment. The sky presents the delusion of a 
 
 264
 
 Family Secrets. 
 
 blue tent cover, while every tree that looks into the mirror 
 of the stream sees itself a broken staff. We look upon the 
 flat stretched canvas, and through the cunning jugglery of 
 light and shade it becomes a living, breathing reality. 
 
 Yet who shall dare prove Nature a deception and face 
 the corollary ? A work is never better than its author, 
 and if we regard Nature as the work of God, the awfulness 
 of that corollary should surely cause us to review our 
 thoughts. 
 
 Nature is not a liar. No act of hers falls under any 
 possible definition of a lie. She simply possesses the in- 
 stinct of secrecy. 
 
 Mo ONESTY compels no man to stop on the highway to 
 V_ explain his errand, and if curious idlers inquire of 
 him, there is no phrase in honesty's law that bids him di- 
 vulge a rightful secret. And if the man perceives that he 
 is watched by these idlers, he may, with truth's approval, 
 take the first cross road that leads him in the opposite 
 direction from the object of his errand. Perhaps the idler's 
 highest good demands that the secret be withheld from 
 him. 
 
 Now let us see if these limitations do not cover every 
 license of Nature. 
 
 For some wise purpose most of Nature's secrets are 
 withheld from us. We may believe that to know them 
 would harm us. Perhaps our pride demands that they be 
 
 265
 
 Family Secrets. 
 
 withheld, or perhaps again the scheme of development and 
 spirit growth demands it. However this may be, we know 
 that most of the secrets are veiled. We are idle ques- 
 tioners, and often compel her to take cross roads, or to 
 walk in brooks to destroy the scent of her trail. In every 
 case she but withholds a rightful secret. The purpose of 
 the mocking-bird is simply to defeat our pride when we 
 claim to know what Nature is about by the intonations of 
 her voice. She hides the knowledge of disease from us 
 while she attempts to cure it without frightening us. To 
 gaze forever on a ghastly skeleton would sicken us of life. 
 Hence Nature, with cunning and illusory fingers, has bur- 
 ied deep beneath her cortex of flesh the awful suggestion 
 of death. 
 
 I HUS, while we have freed Nature from our own 
 
 ^ implied charge of falsehood, we have yet learned 
 from her a grand lesson. We have learned that she is the 
 great advocate of family secrets. 
 
 Secrecy is one of the first duties that the domestic rela- 
 tion imposes. It is one of the cardinal necessities to the 
 existence of the family. Every family has its secrets and 
 must have them while it is a family. To publish the 
 secrets of any family would be to dissipate that family. 
 
 The sacred right to secrecy transcends all etiquette. 
 No rule of manners can compel one to divulge one secret 
 of his domestic relations. Without confidence the marriage 
 
 2G6
 
 \ 
 
 Family Secrets. 
 
 bond would be a rope of sand. But secrecy is the only 
 condition that can maintain confidence. 
 
 It is the custom of many married people to make no 
 secret of their love, and on all public occasions they seek, 
 in a most sickening manner, to display their affection. 
 This is not only a violation of good taste, but it is a viola- 
 tion of the instincts of human nature as well. The senti- 
 ment of love in all its phases seeks instinctively the haunts 
 of privacy. Whether in its first pure awakening in the 
 breast of youth and maiden, or, in its maturer and grander 
 form, when crowned with fruits immortal, it alike retreats 
 from the gaze of those who cannot sympathize. 
 
 Love is poetical until we see it manifested in others. 
 It then becomes disgusting, and those who indulge in 
 public demonstrations are always the objects of ridicule. 
 
 Not that a man should feign coldness or indifference 
 toward his wife in public. This is not at all the import of 
 what we have said. Husbands and wives should appear 
 tender and considerate of each other in public places. It 
 is perfectly proper that their manner should proclaim their 
 relation. But true love between husband and wife de- 
 mands a more engrossing attention, the tenderer endear- 
 ments and caresses which society in the aggregate cannot 
 understand. They constitute a language that only love 
 can understand. Hence Nature has kindly given to us a 
 disposition to conceal them. 
 
 The fact that the heart shrinks from the public mani- 
 
 267
 
 Family Secrets. 
 
 festation of affection is the highest compliment to its 
 innocence and purity, a proof that it is above the compre- 
 hension of the world's common moods. And on this fact is 
 based the philosophy of family secrets. 
 
 The family is the outgrowth of love, and love's eternal 
 condition is secrecy. Hence the family relation in all its 
 phases is more or less intimately connected with the 
 instinct of secrecy. It is a native impulse of every high- 
 minded person to keep those facts a secret which pertain to 
 the history of his family even those facts which in their 
 nature do not demand secrecy. 
 
 NATURE hides the embryo of every seed, and carries 
 on in the dark the process by which she rears and 
 trains the little plant, and the mother should follow 
 Nature's example in rearing and training her child. Chil- 
 dren punished, or in any way disciplined in the presence of 
 others, are almost always made worse thereby, instead of 
 better. That intuitive confidence and mutual knowledge 
 that exist between mother and child are so delicate in their 
 nature that the presence of a third party, even if it be a 
 brother or a sister, is sometimes fatal to their proper 
 action. 
 
 Parents should never censure their children, nor even 
 speak disparagingly of them, in the presence of strangers 
 or visitors. 
 
 268
 
 Family Secrets. 
 
 I HERE are certain private rights which belong to each 
 V. member of a family, and should not be violated, 
 and yet their rights are too often disregarded. 
 
 Every one naturally holds back the expression of the 
 greater parts of his thoughts. For every thought that we 
 express we have a thousand that never pass the limits 
 of our own consciousness. This, of course, we feel to be a 
 natural right, and when it is encroached upon, we instinc- 
 tively act upon the defensive. When one's sphere of pri- 
 vacy is trespassed upon by another, there is a spontaneous 
 and joint action of the inventive and secretive functions, 
 
 which results in an attempt to deceive. Hence the habit 
 
 
 of falsehood may be produced in a child by not conceding 
 
 to him the natural right of privacy. We quote the fol- 
 lowing from the author of " The Illustrated Manners 
 Book":- 
 
 " One of the rights commonly trespassed upon, consti- 
 tuting a violent breach of good manners, is the right of 
 privacy, or of the control of one's own person and affairs. 
 There are places in this country where there exists scarcely 
 the slightest recognition of this right. A man or woman 
 bolts into your house without knocking. No room is sacred 
 unless you lock the door, and an exclusion would be an 
 insult. Parents intrude upon children and children upon 
 parents ! The husband thinks he has a right to enter his 
 wife's room, and the wife would feel injured if excluded 
 by night or day from her husband's. It is said that they 
 
 269
 
 Family Secrets. 
 
 even open each other's letters, and claim as a right that 
 neither should have any secrets from the other. 
 
 " It is difficult to conceive of such a state of intense 
 barbarism in a civilized country, such a denial of the sim- 
 plest and most primitive rights, such an utter absence of 
 delicacy and good manners ; and had we not been assured 
 on good authority that such things exist, we should con- 
 sider any suggestion respecting them needless and imper- 
 tinent. 
 
 " Every person in a dwelling should, if possible, have 
 a room as sacred from intrusion as the house is to the 
 family. No child grown to the years of discretion should 
 be outraged by intrusion. No relation, however intimate, 
 can justify it. So the trunks, boxes, papers, and letters of 
 every individual, locked or unlocked, sealed or unsealed, 
 are sacred." 
 
 T* 
 
 I HIS matter of privacy can, no doubt, be carried to 
 
 ^ excess, and whether we indorse all of the foregoing 
 or not, it certainly contains much truth. The tendency of 
 civilization has always been toward the development of 
 individuality and private interest. In the rude civilization 
 of frontier life, one room serves as parlor, kitchen, and 
 sleeping room for the whole family, and all private inter- 
 ests within the family are ignored. This principle is still 
 more forcibly illustrated by comparing savage with civil- 
 ized life. Although civilization tends to the multiplication 
 
 270
 
 Family Secrets. 
 
 and development of social institutions, yet it tends still 
 more to the development of the individual. It brings the 
 aggregate interest into harmony with that of the indi- 
 vidual. This it does not so much by curtailing and modi- 
 fying the rights of the mass, as by recognizing and 
 'increasing the rights of the individual. 
 
 We do not mean by individual rights, individual isola- 
 tion in the sense in which we find it on the first pages of 
 human history. The individual and the family were then 
 sufficiently isolated. Every family was a nation in itself, 
 but it had no rights which it could not sustain with rock 
 and club. The family and society could not then exist 
 together, but civilization finds its one great problem in the 
 proposition of their union. While society is still develop- 
 ing, the isolation of the family and of the individual is 
 retained, and family secrets are rendered more necessary 
 by every advance of civilization. 
 
 family secrets do not mean family reserve or 
 estrangement. Better a thousand times that every 
 individual right should be ignored than that husbands and 
 wives and brothers and sisters should become cold and dis- 
 tant and indifferent. This is the most fatal catastrophe 
 that can befall a family. Indeed, it is the death blow to 
 home, and what remains is but the ghastly skeleton from 
 which the spirit has forever flown. The family whose 
 members do not mutually consult and advise and work 
 
 271
 
 Family Secrets. 
 
 together for each other's good have virtually surrendered 
 the charter of home, and are living as strangers whom 
 circumstances have compelled to live in close proximity. 
 History affords hardly an example of a man who has 
 proved a pronounced success, who did not make his wife 
 partner to his work and ambition. Behind every brilliant 
 career there will be found a Martha or a Josephine. 
 
 The very fact of legitimate family secrets renders more 
 beautiful the intercourse of home, and sweetens the very 
 associations and heart-bleedings that are legitimate no- 
 where else but in the heart of home. 
 
 " From the outward world about us, 
 
 From the hurry and the din, 
 Oh, how little do we gather 
 
 Of the other world within ! 
 ****** 
 But when the hearth is kindled, 
 
 And the house is hushed at night 
 Ah, then the secret writing 
 
 Of the spirit comes to light ! 
 Through the mother's light caressing 
 
 Of the baby on her knee, 
 We see the mystic writing 
 
 That she does not know we see 
 By the love-light as it flashes 
 
 In her tender-lidded eyes, 
 We know if that her vision rest 
 
 On earth, or in the skies ; 
 And by the song she chooses, 
 
 By the very tune she sings, 
 We know if that her heart be set 
 
 On seen or unseen things." 
 
 273
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. 
 
 Hthiical Duties of the Home. 
 
 !< 
 
 (<) |O step in life is accompanied with as grave respon- 
 sibilities and carries with it such possibilities of 
 weal or woe, as marriage. In numberless 
 instances, alas ! it is taken with little thought of its full 
 significance, and the result is that it becomes the rock 
 around which, later, lies the wrecked happiness and use- 
 fulness of many human lives. On the other hand when 
 marriage is entered into with a full understanding of its 
 meaning, under normal physical and affectional conditions, 
 it becomes the divinest of human institutions, radiating 
 joy and happiness, contributing to the growth of well- 
 rounded character and becoming the center of the highest 
 form of social life and beneficence. 
 
 Precocious marriages, marriages for wealth or position, 
 or where any well defined mental or physical disability 
 exists in either party to the union, should be looked upon 
 with disfavor. A marked discrepancy in age or in intel- 
 lectual attainments or in social position, as well as marked- 
 eccentricities, are also matters of extreme importance to be 
 considered in matrimonial alliances. 
 
 273
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 Given, however, the marital union of an eligible 
 young man and woman, based upon a pure and honorable 
 affection, with average gifts of character and graces of 
 mind and person, what are the difficulties and duties that 
 confront them? In English speaking countries the first 
 desire of the newly married couple is in the direction of an 
 independent home. The burden of duty is, therefore, at 
 first material. A proper domicile must be procured, fur- 
 nished, and adorned. The necessities, comforts, and even 
 luxuries of life must be provided for, the domestic routine 
 prescribed, and the new home is begun. 
 
 Under the warming influences of love, and the imagi- 
 native colorings of ante-nuptial dreams, life seems for the 
 moment ideal. But the young wife is still unconsciously 
 under the spell of parental guidance and under the sway of 
 the ideals, customs, routine, and prevalent ideas, religious 
 and political, of her own home. Oftentimes in her reflect- 
 ive moments, will the memories of bygone days rise in 
 entrancing succession before her, a splendid troupe to 
 taunt her in her new relations. This is the signal for cour- 
 age. If she is a worthy wife, she will dismiss them all 
 the playmates of her girlhood, a sister's or a brother's 
 caress, the love and tenderness of parents, the evenings of 
 song and gayety, the dear old home with the firm con- 
 viction and willing assent that duty invites her to other 
 activities and binds her with other lives. 
 
 274
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 NOR must the husband forget that his primal duty is a 
 recognition of his indebtedness to his wife from the 
 very nature of their union. She has given him what for- 
 tune cannot purchase, a human heart. She has paid him 
 the highest compliment that one human being can pay to 
 another. She has told him by actions that cannot lie, that 
 he is more to her than all the associations of her life. She 
 leaves all these for him, although her heartstrings cannot 
 be unwound from any of them, but must be broken and 
 torn away. Does human life present a more touching spec- 
 tacle than that of a young bride suppressing her tears and 
 forcing a smile while she kisses her mother and father and 
 sister and brother farewell ? How hard-hearted, how un- 
 worthy of her, how inhuman must be the man, if he may 
 be dignified by that title, who does not under those circum- 
 stances feel his knees bend a little with the instinctive im- 
 pulse of adoration ! 
 
 The husband can discharge the duties which he owes 
 to his wife only by keeping perpetually in his mind that he 
 owes her a debt, to pay which it will be necessary to take 
 advantage of every passing opportunity. 
 
 the obligations and duties are not all on the part 
 of the husband. There must be a common recogni- 
 tion that the true marriage means the idealization of the 
 physical and social relations of husband and wife to the 
 end that the family may reach its highest form of develop- 
 
 275
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 ment as the unit of society. The relation of marriage car- 
 ries with it the corollary of real mutuality and unswerving 
 fidelity. If the wife is the woman that she ought to be, 
 and esteems herself accordingly, and at the same time con- 
 siders the man whom she has accepted as worthy of her, 
 she ought certainly to feel under the deepest obligations to 
 him for whatever endowments of character, energy, integ- 
 rity, intellectuality, kindness, or other qualities he may 
 possess. 
 
 A very important duty that a wife owes to her husband 
 is to appear attractive to him. She should dress with 
 almost exclusive reference to his tastes, provided they are 
 in any way superior or can lay any particular claim to 
 being artistic. This subject, idle as it may seem, is 
 fraught with deep consequences to the race. We cannot 
 treat it exhaustively here, however, without discussing at 
 length the broad question of "natural selection," which 
 would be out of place in a work like this. It is sufficient to 
 observe that this great law demands that the wife should 
 continually appeal as strongly as possible to the sense of 
 beauty in her husband. No man ever yet loved a woman 
 who was not to him beautiful. It is beauty that man loves 
 in woman, and when other things are equal his love for his 
 wife is just proportionate to her beauty. 
 
 There have been, doubtless, many women so ill-formed 
 and so unsymmetrical in their features that they could 
 not possibly present to any man a single trace of physical 
 
 276
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home, 
 
 beauty, and yet they have been the objects of the tenderest 
 love. 
 
 But in every such case there will be found either an 
 intellectual or a moral beauty that has charmed the lover. 
 
 George Eliot and the wife of Carlyle could not lay 
 claim to very much of " dimpled beauty," yet was there 
 not a higher beauty in their souls, that even found expres- 
 sion in their faces when closely observed, and for which 
 the frivolous girl might well desire to exchange her 
 dimples ? 
 
 /VND yet physical beauty has its high office. Every 
 
 V^ face of beauty is from the chisel of the Eternal 
 
 Sculptor. Every dimple is the finger print of the Divine. 
 
 Woman's highest and grandest endowment is her beauty, 
 
 physical, intellectual, and spiritual. 
 
 Thrice happy is that woman who possesses all these. 
 She is a star of the first magnitude in the firmament of 
 human society. God never endowed a woman with this 
 threefold beauty without reserving a claim upon her 
 power. Such a woman belongs to humanity. She is min- 
 istrant to human need and exemplifies the ideals of human 
 perfection. 
 
 Of these three forms of beauty, the spiritual is of the 
 first importance, intellectual of the second, and physical of 
 the third. Although no amount of physical beauty can 
 fully compensate for the slightest deficiency of the spirit- 
 
 277
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 ual, yet it must be acknowledged that the lack of physical 
 beauty is never so painfully obvious as when accompanied 
 by a like spiritual deficiency. 
 
 It is a law established by observations made on the 
 entire animal kingdom, that the worth of offspring, other 
 things being equal, is in the ratio of the mother's beauty. 
 It may not be a beauty that would stand before the criti- 
 cism of the world, but it must be a beauty that charms 
 the husband. 
 
 IN view of these facts is it not the highest duty of 
 woman, a duty which she owes to God and to 
 humanity, to make herself at all times as beautiful in her 
 husband's eyes as possible ? It is a diviner art to maintain 
 affection than to awaken it. It cannot long be maintained, 
 if the advantages under which it was awakened are with- 
 drawn. Your husband wooed and won you in your best 
 attire, in an atmosphere surcharged with the bewilderment 
 of roses, perfume, and of song, amid the sweet intoxica- 
 tion of woodland rambles and moonlight poetry. You 
 come to his house, take off the myrtle from your hair and 
 cast the rosebud from your throat, and exchange the 
 rustling perfumed robes of love for the soiled garments of 
 careless indifference. Can you expect anything but a 
 chilling shock to the affections of him who before had 
 stood gazing upon you in the moveless trance of love ? 
 
 278
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 Women need but little advice of this kind concern- 
 ing their personal appearance when they go into society. 
 Indeed, it would be far better for them and for the world if 
 they would appear a little less attractive in the presence of 
 other husbands, and a little more so in the presence of 
 their own. Is it any wonder that the husband grows cold 
 and indifferent toward his wife when he sees her exhaust- 
 ing every resource of invention to enhance her attractive- 
 ness in the presence of other men, while she appears con- 
 tinually in his presence with soiled dress and disheveled 
 hair ? How often we hear women making an almost ludi- 
 crous attempt to revive the forgotten lore of their early 
 seminary culture, in the hope of winning the admiration of 
 some brilliant society man, when their conversation with 
 their husbands never rises to higher themes than the last 
 month's rent and a new dress to wear to church. 
 
 This is an almost universal vice. No creed or social 
 position is free from it. It is daily committed alike by the 
 rich and the poor, in ignorance of one of the great laws 
 that govern human love. 
 
 We have told the secret of many a conjugal tragedy. 
 It costs but little to dress becomingly, to put a rosebud 
 in the hair, and she who cannot find time to do this may, 
 perhaps, by and by find time to mourn over blighted hopes 
 and buried love. 
 
 279
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 P7ROM Home and Health we copy the following valu- 
 able rules which seem to be so perfectly to the point 
 that we cannot resist the temptation to appropriate them 
 to our purpose : 
 
 to be a Good Husband. 
 
 Honor your wife. 
 
 Love your wife. 
 
 Show your love. 
 
 Suffer for your wife if need be. 
 
 Study to keep her young. 
 
 Consult with her. 
 
 Help to bear her burdens. 
 
 Be thoughtful of her always. 
 
 Don't command, but suggest. 
 
 Seek to refine your own nature. 
 
 Be a gentleman as well as husband. 
 
 Remember the past experience of your wife. 
 
 Level up to her character. 
 
 Stay at home as much as possible. 
 
 Take your wife with you often. 
 
 Ho\v to be a Good Wife. 
 
 Reverence your husband. 
 
 Love him. 
 
 Do not conceal your love for him. 
 
 Forsake all for him. 
 
 280
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 Confide in him. 
 Keep his love at any cost. 
 Cultivate the modesty and delicacy of youth. 
 Cultivate personal attractiveness. 
 
 If you read nothing and make no effort to be intel- 
 ligent you will soon sink into a dull block of stupidity. 
 Cultivate physical attractiveness. 
 Do not forget the power of incidental attentions. 
 Make your home attractive. 
 Keep your house clean and in good order. 
 Preserve sunshine. 
 Study your husband's character. 
 Cultivate his better nature. 
 Study to meet all your duties as a wife. 
 Seek to secure your husband's happiness. 
 Study his interest. 
 Practice frugality. 
 
 Curtail all unnecessary expenditures. 
 Don't subject your husband to a complaining pride. 
 
 I IMPORTANT as are the duties that husband and wife 
 owe to each other, no less important are those which 
 they owe to their children. It is the duty of parents to 
 make the home of childhood pleasant and attractive, for 
 children develop more perfectly in pleasant than in 
 unpleasant homes. We do not mean, however, mere out- 
 ward attractiveness. It is not essential that the home 
 
 281
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 should overlook some rich and beautiful landscape ; but 
 that the associations of home should be pleasant and agree- 
 able to the children ; so that they may not become restless 
 and desirous of leaving it. 
 
 It is the duty of parents to make their children love 
 them. Not that they should compel love with the authority 
 of the rod, for that would be impossible ; but by the wise 
 application of the law that "love begets love/' No person 
 has any right to be the parent of a child that doesn't love 
 him. Thoughtlessness and narrow views of life's relations 
 are often fatal to filial love. Parents too often forget that 
 they themselves were once children, with children's tastes, 
 desires, and whims. 
 
 It is natural for children to love their parents, not only 
 during the years of childhood, but through life. And yet 
 we often see very little filial love among grown up children. 
 This is chiefly because the parents failed to make a proper 
 concession to the demands of childhood. A child cannot 
 love one, be he parent or teacher, who suppresses his child 
 nature. When once the tender bond of sympathy between 
 parent and child has thus been broken it can never be 
 fully reunited ; and when the child becomes a man he is 
 very apt to dislike his parents for the needless pain they 
 have caused him, in not governing him in accordance 
 with the laws of his nature. 
 
 By sympathy we do not mean love. It is possible for 
 love to exist without sympathy, or at least without that 
 
 282
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 intimate, almost mesmeric sympathy that ought to exist 
 between parent and child. Such parents usually love their 
 children with much tenderness, but they somehow manage 
 to place a great gulf between themselves and the objects 
 of their affection. They do not understand that the art of 
 rearing children is the art of becoming " a child again," 
 of going back where the children are, and so growing up 
 again with them. Yes, the way to bring up a child is to 
 go back and get him and take him along with you up 
 to manhood. You should not stand on the height and call 
 him up, for he would be very apt to lose his way. He is 
 not acquainted with the path. You know it is a narrow 
 path, only wide enough for one, and that all who would 
 climb that height must go " single file." 
 
 But the obligations of parents and children are recipro- 
 cal, and corresponding to the duties that parents owe to 
 their children are those that children owe to their parents. 
 That children owe to their parents a debt of gratitude, 
 that they owe them the duty of obedience, love, and respect, 
 is a proposition that requires no demonstration, for it meets 
 the approval of every true child. 
 
 ts recognized than the above are the duties that chil- 
 dren owe to each other. The older children owe 
 to the younger ones the duty of tenderness and considera- 
 tion for their age, and should not in their dealings with 
 them apply the ethics of society, " Do to others as others do 
 
 283
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 to you." They should rather apply the golden rule as it 
 reads, and patiently trust to a more mature age to develop 
 in their thoughtless little brothers and sisters a deeper 
 sense of obligation and moral responsibility. The older 
 children are very apt to take advantage of the younger 
 ones, and often use their superior tact in pleading their own 
 case to the parents. Now everything of this sort is a viola- 
 tion of the duties that older children owe to the younger. 
 
 But the younger children owe certain duties to the 
 older ones. Children should always be taught to respect 
 superior knowledge and experience, whether found in 
 parent, teacher, or older brothers and sisters. Hence the 
 younger children owe to the older ones the duty of respect 
 and, to a certain extent, obedience. 
 
 Brothers owe to their sisters precisely the same respect 
 and gallantry that they owe to women everywhere. They 
 will be rewarded for this in the ease with which when they 
 become older they can enter the society of ladies, and sis- 
 ters will receive the same reward for properly discharging 
 at home the duties that they owe to every man. 
 
 I HE ethics of the home correspond in large measure 
 V. with the ethics of society. All those virtues which 
 are the crown jewels of the highest civilization have their 
 inception in the home. The glory and charm of woman- 
 hood and manhood, the niceties of character which give 
 distinctiveness and beauty to childhood and youth, the ad-
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 justments of personal and domestic relations within the 
 home, the education of the impulses, budding susceptibili- 
 ties and growing powers of children, all fall within the 
 province of home ethics. Nowhere else can the abstract 
 virtues or practical duties be more forcibly disclosed. 
 Honesty, fidelity to trusts, truthfulness, courage, obe- 
 dience, true dignity, kindness, the lesser virtues as well 
 as the finer and nobler issues of life, must revert to home 
 training for their proper and lasting inculcation. 
 
 The duties of home then are simply the aggregate of 
 all the obligations that grow out of the family relation, 
 and on the discharge of these depends the success or failure 
 of the home life. Home may be made happy or wretched, 
 according to the discharge of these obligations. It is not, 
 however, the great questions of these obligation that most 
 vitally affect the happiness of the home, but the aggregate 
 of all those little, obligations that love always imposes. 
 The crowning glory of the home life is that it draws its 
 supremest joy from the little events. 
 
 " Our daily paths, with thorns or flowers 
 
 We can at will bestrew them ; 
 What bliss would gild the passing hours, 
 
 If we but rightly knew them ! 
 The way of life is rough at best, 
 
 But briers yield the roses ; 
 So that which leads to joy and rest 
 
 The hardest path discloses. 
 
 285
 
 Ethical Duties of the Home. 
 
 The weeds that oft we cast away, 
 
 Their simple beauty scorning, 
 Would form a wreath of purest ray, 
 
 And prove the best adorning. 
 So in our daily paths, 'twere well 
 
 To call each gift a treasure, 
 However slight, where love can dwell 
 
 With life-renewing pleasure." 
 
 286
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE. 
 
 Contentment at Home. 
 
 (51 HE'] 
 
 HE men who are discontented at home, are, as a 
 rule, discontented everywhere. There are, indeed, 
 
 exceptions to this rule, for there are those who are 
 better than their homes, great souls that have sprung up 
 out of vicious homes where intemperance and still darker 
 vices have shrouded their early years in painful memories. 
 In such homes those noble souls who, from some favorable 
 combination of circumstances, have risen above their sur- 
 roundings, may well feel discontented. But even in these 
 cases we may believe that there is still that which justifies 
 something of the spirit of content. They are discontented 
 not necessarily with the identity of the home itself, but 
 with its condition, and if they were to surround themselves 
 with the influences of an ideal home they would in most 
 cases retain the identity of the old. The new house would 
 rise on the foundation of the old. Like the boy's jackknife 
 that required a new blade and a new handle, and that 
 when these were supplied was to him the old knife still ; so 
 many objects seem to have a subtle spirit independent of 
 
 287
 
 Contentment at Home. 
 
 their material structure, but depending solely on associa- 
 tions that constitute to us their identity. 
 
 With this spiritual identity of our home we may be, 
 and ought to be, content. If the influence of our home 
 be evil, if its atmosphere be injurious, then we should 
 spend our lives in making it better, and in purifying its 
 atmosphere. In this noblest of all forms of human labor 
 we should find contentment. Contentment is simply a 
 willingness to be happy. Almost any sphere or condition 
 of life furnishes the necessary material for happiness if we 
 will only appropriate it in the spirit of contentment. It is 
 questionable if there is any outward condition of human 
 life in which it does not lie within one's power to be con- 
 tent. Our desires feed upon their own gratification. One 
 is always and necessarily contented at the moment of the 
 first gratification. It is only when a desire has been unlaw- 
 fully gratified that the gratification fails to bring satisfac- 
 tion and content. Hence discontent is subjective rather 
 than objective. 
 
 Now there are no pain and sorrow like subjective pains 
 and sorrows, those which the mind experiences within its 
 own dominion, and to which it can assign no adequate 
 cause. In such cases the mind itself cannot see why it 
 should feel discontent. Such suffering of the mind is anal- 
 ogous to nervousness in the body. How often we hear it 
 said of sensitive and complaining women, "Nothing ails 
 her, she's only nervous." We do not stop to consider that 
 
 288
 
 Contentment at Home. 
 
 nervousness is the most absolutely real of all diseases ; it 
 is the reality of the unreal, and the unreality of the real. 
 With healthy nerves and an unvitiated imagination we 
 may render real, or divest of reality, whatever we choose. 
 But can the victim of delirium tremens, can the nervous 
 patient, render unreal the disease which he fancies is prey- 
 ing at his vitals ? Or can he render real the fact that his 
 imagination is disordered? "Nothing ails him!" 
 
 There is nothing so absolutely real as a delusion. 
 Nervousness is the only real disease. In like manner the 
 only real sorrow is subjective sorrow, that sorrow which 
 the suffering mind itself cannot account for. The great 
 sorrows of human experience arise from this inner source. 
 They consist in a brooding discontent, a stubborn refusal 
 of the mind to respond in a satisfactory manner to any 
 external stimulant. 
 
 The world holds up to our vision many illustrious 
 examples of human sorrow and suffering, suffering from 
 outward conditions and circumstances, and perhaps the 
 most noted of these is that almost typical character, Job. 
 But the illustrious examples of that other sorrow the 
 world can never see, for it is the sorrow of midnight and 
 silence. It is a sorrow which cannot be shared, and one 
 which the world will not recognize. We can, however, 
 see its fruits, for it sometimes bears the divinest fruit, but, 
 as with the tree of evil everywhere, the tree which bore it 
 must first be cut and burned. It is from the ashes of the 
 
 289
 
 Contentment at Home. 
 
 tree of evil that fruit divine grows. He who conquers this 
 subjective sorrow, and conies triumphantly out of the dark 
 forest of inward discontent into the sweet light of peace 
 and contentment, is a conqueror in the grandest and sub- 
 limest sense of the word, and on his brow there rests for- 
 evermore a crown of victory. 
 
 lISCONTENT, then, is in almost every case the re- 
 ^X suit of this subjective mental action, a continual 
 yearning for something more than the present experience. 
 That is the most awful form of human disease in which the 
 cognizable objects and the cognizing faculties are out of 
 gear. What then is the remedy for discontent ? We have 
 said that desires feed upon their own gratification, and the 
 kind of food determines the kind of desires. An unlawful 
 gratification produces in its turn another unlawful desire. 
 Now, since there is no natural object or circumstance that 
 can respond to an unlawful desire, it follows that in the 
 home where objects and circumstances are natural, the 
 unlawful desire must remain ungratified, and hence 
 the source of yearning and discontent must also remain, 
 till unlawful gratification has been obtained elsewhere. 
 A pertinent illustration of this view of the subject may 
 be seen in the behavior of a slightly depraved appetite, 
 and among a civilized people this is the condition of almost 
 every one's appetite. Every one knows that when he is 
 
 290
 
 Contentment at Home. 
 
 hungry a simple piece of dry bread tastes good and satisfies 
 the hunger ; but let him cover it with highly seasoned 
 sauce, and after partaking of it attempt to go back to the 
 dry bread ; he will find that it tastes insipid and does not 
 satisfy him. If, however, he had taken a juicy pear in- 
 stead of the spicy sauce, he could have returned to the dry 
 bread with satisfaction. 
 
 Here then lies a principle. The dry bread and the pear 
 both sustain a normal relation to our appetites, and gratify 
 a lawful desire, but not so with the sauce ; for spices and 
 artificial flavors were never meant to satisfy a healthy 
 appetite. There is nothing in a healthy appetite that cor- 
 responds to them. The dry bread and the pear, feeding 
 nothing but a healthy and lawful desire, in their turn give 
 rise to a healthy and lawful desire ; and this dry bread can 
 satisfy. But the sauce satisfying an unnatural, and hence 
 unlawful, appetite, gives rise to nothing but unhealthy 
 and unlawful desires, and these the dry bread cannot 
 satisfy. 
 
 Apply the principle involved in this illustration, and 
 the solution which it suggests, to the higher faculties of the 
 mind, and you have the whole philosophy of discontent. 
 
 But, says one, shall we follow out this doctrine to its 
 full extent, and seek to awaken no desire which our sur- 
 rounding circumstances cannot gratify ? If discontent 
 consists simply in ungratified desires, then it would be rea- 
 sonable to suppress all desires that we cannot gratify. But 
 
 291
 
 Contentment at Home. 
 
 would not this be fatal to all progress ? Would it not tend 
 to keep us forever on the dead level of the present ? There 
 is an infinite difference between the absolute inability to 
 gratify a desire, and the mere inability to gratify it imme- 
 diately. The lion cannot gratify at once his desire for 
 food, but the suspension of the gratification does not result 
 in discontent. He, perhaps, knows that his diligent search 
 will make the gratification still keener when it comes. So 
 the young man who desires to be great and useful need not 
 crush that desire simply because he is unable to gratify it 
 at once. His highest delight may spring from his contem- 
 plation of its final gratification. There is a continual grat- 
 ification simply in the prospect of ultimate gratification. 
 
 But if one has a desire that it is absolutely impossible 
 for him to gratify, then the quicker it is crushed the better. 
 If a cripple should become ambitious to be an acrobat, 
 then the harboring of that ambition could lead to nothing 
 but discontent. Then crush all desires that cannot, in the 
 nature of things, be satisfied. Crush all unlawful desires, 
 and seek to gratify all lawful ones, and contentment will 
 be the necessary result. 
 
 " Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content 
 
 The quiet mind is richer than a crown. 
 Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent, 
 
 The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown ; 
 Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, 
 Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss. 
 292
 
 Contentment at Home. 
 
 " The homely house that harbors quiet rest, 
 The cottage that affords no pride or care, 
 
 The mien that 'grees with country music best, 
 The sweet consort of mirth and music's fare, 
 
 Obscured life sets down a type of bliss : 
 
 A mind content both crown and kingdom is." 
 
 293
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. 
 
 Visiting. 
 
 S O long as man remains a social being, visiting 
 will constitute a part of his functions. Man is 
 a fragment of being, as each star is a fragment 
 of the firmament. And as the stars are never at rest ; as 
 they revolve around each other ; as the smaller ones seem 
 to select the larger ones as centers, whose superior attrac- 
 tion guides and maps out their paths, so men arrange 
 themselves in society in accordance with a similar law. 
 
 There are suns and planets and asteroids in human 
 society, and these take their proper places by an eternal 
 law of human affinity. 
 
 Man is, in his individuality, an imperfectly adapted 
 being. The divine declaration, "It is not good for man to 
 be alone," long before it was written by human pen was 
 written in the nature of man by virtue of this law, that 
 man is but fragmentary. 
 
 Hence the necessity in our social economy of the cus- 
 tom of visiting. A home without visitors is not a perfect 
 home, inasmuch as the members of that home cannot 
 become perfected social beings, but must forever remain 
 
 294
 
 Visiting. 
 
 undeveloped unless they come in contact with the great 
 world. We have all seen such homes, where the frozen 
 pride of wealth or exclusiveness congeals the fountains of 
 worth and usefulness. There are certain families that 
 never visit ; but the vital instincts of society soon eliminate 
 them, as a sliver or any foreign substance is eliminated 
 from the flesh. 
 
 In such cases nature repudiates the foreign substance 
 by cutting it off from all the vital processes, and builds 
 around it a hard case, which effectually shuts it off from 
 all relation with the vital organism as if it were in a prison. 
 Society has the same instincts, and when it discovers in 
 itself a foreign substance in the form of a family destitute 
 of fellow sympathy, a family which does not visit nor 
 receive visitors, it rapidly cuts off all vital connection with 
 it and incloses it within the prison walls of its own reserve. 
 With what pitying contempt society looks upon such a 
 family ! How even the children point to the home as the 
 dwelling of some monstrosity, and learn to taunt the 
 inmates as the parrot learns to taunt the barn fowl. We 
 pity the members of such a family. We have often won- 
 dered what the source of their enjoyment can be. That 
 same coldness and lack of sympathy which makes them 
 shun the world, most certainly will make them cold and 
 distant in one another's society. 
 
 Such homes are usually the abodes of gilded misery. 
 It is a curious fact that these families soon become extinct. 
 
 295
 
 Visiting. 
 
 They live but a few generations at best, become sickly 
 and vicious, and finally die out, and leave the world no 
 better and, perhaps, no worse. 
 
 I HERE is a lesson in this fact, not only a moral les- 
 ^ son, but a lesson in science as well. There is no 
 subject that men have studied so little as the science of 
 human nature, although it is the grandest subject that can 
 engross the human intellect. They have, however, devel- 
 oped a few grand results and one of them is the law that 
 governs the phenomenon we have just referred to. The 
 discovery was made, however, not by a direct study of 
 human nature, but chiefly by observation on the lower 
 octaves in life's scale. This law is known as the law of 
 the " survival of the fittest." It teaches that when a being 
 or a faculty ceases to act in a manner consistent with the 
 general good it is destroyed by a power of natural selec- 
 tion. 
 
 Nature does this in self-defense. When a being vio- 
 lates the laws of his nature he is destroyed if he persists 
 in the violation. When he persists in the violation of 
 his moral nature he dies as a moral beihg, although he 
 may still survive as a physical and intellectual being. If 
 he violates his intellectual nature he dies as an intellectual 
 being ; if his social nature, then he dies as a social being. 
 But these calamities are not confined to the individual 
 alone. The organic weakness resulting from his violation 
 
 296
 
 Visiting. 
 
 is transmitted to his children, who transmit to their off- 
 spring in still greater degree the iniquity of the fathers, till 
 finally the family becomes too weak to perpetuate itself. 
 
 Now the ability to perpetuate the species is more 
 vitally related to the social nature than to the intellectual 
 or the moral ; and families that violate their social nature, 
 as do those we are considering, are striking at the germi- 
 nating root of their family life. 
 
 Such families seldom do the world much injury, be- 
 cause society, with the aid of nature," rids itself of the pest 
 with the greatest economy of effort and the least expendi- 
 ture of its forces. Since man is but a fragment he requires 
 the presence of his supplementary fragments to develop 
 his possibilities. 
 
 rVS woman is essential to man and man to woman in 
 V_ order to call out and develop the latent possibili- 
 ties in each, so every human being, in order to call forth 
 his highest possibilities, must first be wedded to his ge- 
 neric supplement. He must lose his identity in fulfilling 
 the purposes of a higher social order before he can find it 
 again in a larger and grander sense as self. 
 
 The muscle grows strong most rapidly when it wastes 
 most rapidly. The magnet grows powerful by imparting 
 its magnetic properties to iron and steel. The teacher 
 grows wise by imparting wisdom. The rose fills all the 
 air with its sweet gift of incense, and through the little 
 
 297
 
 Visiting. 
 
 railway tunnels fly the trains that bear from nature's 
 laboratory the precious freight that continually replen- 
 ishes its fragrant crucibles. 
 
 Now social intercourse is simply a process of impart- 
 ing to others a portion of ourselves. When the rose begins 
 to hoard its fragrance, it dies. So when man would hoard 
 his influence and wrap around him the mantle of solitude, 
 he is fading away in the noblest attributes of his being. 
 
 I HERE is a possible interpretation of the above that 
 ^ we would not wish to submit to the test of history. 
 It is that the love of solitude is an illegitimate love. This 
 interpretation meets its rebuke in the lives of poets and 
 philosophers. The world's grandest characters have been 
 lovers of solitude. There is something pathetically beauti- 
 ful in the yearning which poets have always felt for the 
 sweet breath of nature untainted by the smoke and noxious 
 vapors of the city. There is both a legitimate and an 
 illegitimate love of solitude. 
 
 Jesus loved solitude as probably no other being ever 
 did. The honeybee loves solitude, and loves it for the 
 same reason that Jesus and the poets love it, because, 
 guided by a heavenly instinct, they know that solitude 
 alone can minister to the throng, and they are its ministers 
 divinely elect. The bee must leave the merry swarm and 
 seek the silent solitude where blush in unconscious beauty 
 
 the wild rose and the lily. So Jesus, although his heart 
 
 298
 
 Visiting. 
 
 was with the dying throng, still sought the lonely heights, 
 because it was there alone from the divine flower of soli- 
 tude that he could extract the honey for the "healing of 
 the nations." Poets love solitude, not from selfishness. 
 They desire it as a sick man desires medicine. It ministers 
 to the highest necessities of their being. They love to go 
 into solitude, not because their hearts do not beat with the 
 great multitude, but because they can get nearer to Nature's 
 heart when removed from the roaring factory and the rush- 
 ing train, and with purer soul receive her gracious benedic- 
 tion. All then should love solitude, but as the bee loves it, 
 because they can find something there fresh from God to 
 bring to the hive of humanity. 
 
 The poet and the philosopher can minister to the world 
 while they remain in solitude ; but not so with the " com- 
 mon people " ; the toiling men and women without genius 
 must find their field of labor in the social world. Then let 
 the gates of cottage and palace be flung open to the tides 
 of humanity. Let us entertain and be entertained. Let 
 us make it a part of our life work to give ourselves to 
 others, and in our turn derive from society what must 
 come from that source, if it ever comes to us at all. 
 
 SC OCIETY does not consist in physical proximity. It 
 ^-^ does not consist in vying with one another in the 
 display of fine dwellings and costly tables. Social inter- 
 course, to be right and profitable, must contain its own 
 
 299
 
 Visiting. 
 
 excuse. It must be the outgrowth of an instinctive im- 
 pulse to mingle within the sphere of mutual interest, in 
 spiritual as well as physical proximity. 
 
 We do not wish to recommend that practice so preva- 
 lent among certain classes, of gadding from house to house 
 for the purpose of retailing the morning news. This is not 
 what we mean by social intercourse. Nor would we recom- 
 mend the "formal call," where each family keeps a record 
 and returns a call as it would pay for a barrel of flour. 
 We have no faith in the bookkeeping of calls. Perhaps 
 there is no other relation of life that fosters so much of de- 
 ception and falsehood as the system of fashionable calling. 
 
 Mrs. A calls upon Mrs. B, who has just settled in the 
 neighborhood, because, if she were not to do so, Mrs. B 
 would think that Mrs. A was not acquainted with the 
 ways of society. Mrs. B is, of course, delighted to see 
 Mrs. A, notwithstanding she threw up her hands in horror 
 when the door bell rang. When Mrs. A departs amid 
 
 the mournful protests of Mrs. B, Mrs. B has too much 
 
 i 
 confidence in Mrs. A's " society education " to have any 
 
 fears that she will heed the earnest and heartfelt (?) 
 entreaty to "call again" and not to be "so formal." 
 
 Such calls involve the commercial instincts of our 
 nature, for they are regarded as merchandise and subject 
 to the laws of debit and credit. They do not appeal to the 
 social faculty at all, and hence have no tendency in the 
 direction of its cultivation, but, on the other hand, they 
 
 300
 
 Visiting. 
 
 weaken it, for they are in almost every case regarded as 
 painful duties, and it is a law of our being that the painful 
 or disagreeable action of any function, whether physical or 
 mental, has a direct tendency to weaken the function 
 involved. 
 
 I HEN, as the first and essential condition to the culti- 
 V vation of the social faculty, let the call be divested 
 of all its formality. Neighboring parents should learn a 
 lesson from their own children, who play in adjoining 
 yards and seek each other's presence often for the sake of 
 that presence alone. Not in their "beauty's best attire," 
 nor at the feast where pride sits queen, but in the mood 
 and dress of every day. Let them meet and spend the 
 evening around each other's hearthstone, nor recognize 
 any hour as fashionable or unfashionable, but "drop in" 
 with that simplicity and informality that calls forth the 
 exclamation of surprise which no actor's skill can feign. 
 
 \i/ E cannot better close this chapter than by quoting 
 ^ the words of that almost marvelous student of 
 human nature, Harriet Beecher Stowe. 
 
 "There would be a great deal more obedience to the 
 apostolic injunction, ' Be not forgetful to entertain stran- 
 gers,' if it once could be clearly got into the heads of well 
 intending people what it is that strangers want. What do 
 you want when away from home in a strange city ? Is it 
 not the warmth of the home fireside and the sight of people 
 
 301
 
 Visiting. 
 
 that you know care for you ? Is it not the blessed priv- 
 ilege of speaking and acting yourself out unconstrainedly 
 among those who you know understand you ? And had 
 you not rather dine with an old friend on simple cold 
 mutton offered with a warm heart than go to a splendid 
 ceremonious dinner party among people who don't care a 
 rush for you ? Well, then, set it down in your book that 
 other people are like you, and that the art of entertaining 
 is the art of really caring for people. If you have a warm 
 heart, congenial tastes, and a real interest in your stran- 
 ger, don't fear to invite him though you have no best 
 dinner set and your existing plates are sadly chipped at the 
 edges, and even though there be a handle broken off from 
 the side of your vegetable dish. Set it down in your belief 
 that you can give something better than a dinner, however 
 good, you can give a part of yourself. You can give 
 love, good will, and sympathy, of which there has perhaps 
 been quite as much over cracked plates and restricted table 
 furniture as over Sevres china and silver." 
 
 " Blest be that spot where cheerful guests retire 
 To pause from toil, and trim their evening fire ; 
 Blest that abode, where want and pain repair, 
 And every stranger finds a ready chair : 
 Blest be those feasts with simple plenty crown 'd, 
 Where all the ruddy family around 
 Laugh at the jest or pranks, that never fail, 
 Or sigh with pity at some mournful tale, 
 Or press the bashful stranger to his food, 
 And learn the luxury of doing good. " 
 
 302
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. 
 
 Unselfishness at Home. 
 
 IN accordance with an eternal law, selfishness defeats 
 its own ends. The selfish man, from the very nature 
 of selfishness, declares war against the universe, and 
 in that unequal fight is sure to fall. The only way we can 
 get God on our side is to enlist in his army. 
 
 The conditions of our own happiness are so blended and 
 interwoven with the conditions of others' happiness, that 
 we cannot successfully seek our own highest interest while 
 we are unmindful of the welfare of others. There is but 
 one rational and successful way in which a man may work 
 for himself, and that is by forgetting self in his desire for 
 the well-being of others. Human society is a vast machine 
 in which every man is a wheel, but the wheels of a 
 machine never move independently. No matter how small 
 and apparently insignificant they may be, they each per- 
 form an essential office, and their value is represented in 
 the product of the great machine. 
 
 Man is a compound of function or faculties, and is so 
 constituted that the action of each produces pleasure and 
 
 303
 
 Unselfishness at Home. 
 
 only pleasure. The sum total of man's happiness, then, 
 depends on the number of faculties that he brings into 
 healthy and normal exercise. 
 
 I INE of these faculties is conscience, that voice in the 
 soul which bids us do right, and do unto others as 
 we would have them do unto us, a duty that cannot be per- 
 formed from selfish motives. But unless this duty be per- 
 formed, we are deprived of that exquisite pleasure which 
 comes from the approval of conscience. 
 
 Another of our faculties is benevolence, whose legiti- 
 mate function is to prompt us to love our neighbor as our- 
 selves, the very essence of unselfishness. But if we through 
 selfishness refuse to fulfill this function, we must forego 
 that pure and exalted pleasure of which it has been de- 
 clared "it is more blessed to give than to receive." Man 
 is a social being, and from his several social faculties 
 derives by far the greatest portion of his happiness ; but 
 only as he observes the golden rule. For society will not 
 be cheated. Its system of bookkeeping is perfect, and he 
 who expects to receive from society more than he is willing 
 to give in return will be sadly disappointed. 
 
 And so it is that all those faculties which relate men to 
 their fellow men can yield us no pleasure so long as we 
 are selfish. By selfishness we are cut off from the pleas- 
 ures arising from the action of a large number of the most 
 important faculties of the mind. To use a paradox, the 
 
 304
 
 Unselfishness at Home. 
 
 only rational and consistent selfishness is that of unsel- 
 fishness. 
 
 If we desire our own highest pleasure we cannot obtain 
 it till we forget our object. 
 
 If this be true with reference to the great world, how 
 much truer is it with reference to the little world, the 
 home. Perhaps the truest picture of total depravity 
 which the mind can paint is that of a home where 
 selfishness reigns. 
 
 Selfishness is fatal to the very existence of home. 
 Home may be defined as a unitary portion of society, 
 bound together by a stronger degree of love than exists 
 between the different members of the human family in 
 general. Home and selfishness are nearly opposite in their 
 meaning, and cannot exist together any more than love 
 and hate. 
 
 Selfishness, then, is fatal to love ; and since love is the 
 basis of home, it follows that selfishness is the great de- 
 stroyer of home. 
 
 As in the outward world, he who falls in love with 
 himself always has the field clear, no rivals ever molesting 
 him ; so in the home, he who makes his own happiness 
 paramount, to that same extent severs his connection with 
 the family, and becomes, in a certain sense, an outcast. 
 The sister, perceiving the brother's selfishness, will seek 
 other companions, and thus a coldness and indifference 
 springs up between brother and sister. 
 
 305
 
 Unselfishness at Home. 
 
 I HERE are many arguments in favor of unselfishness, 
 
 ^ but we have made prominent the least and lowest. 
 We have, however, had a purpose in this. It is to the 
 selfish we would speak. The unselfish require no advice or 
 exhortation, and from the very nature of selfishness it 
 cannot be moved by any but a selfish argument. 
 
 Why is that little street boy so dwarfed in his mental 
 and moral nature ? Why is it usually so difficult to develop 
 one of that class and make him a noble and powerful man ? 
 Simply because the selfishness in that wretched home 
 whence he came has arrested his development, so that he 
 can never be anything but a child. He can seldom be 
 trusted, because the early selfishness at home, engendered 
 by misery and want, it may be, has left its demon cunning 
 in his mind. 
 
 It is a fact with which all are familiar, that the charac- 
 ter is written in the face. If we cannot read it, it is not 
 because it is not written there, but because of our lack of 
 skill to interpret it. Yet there are few so obtuse that 
 they cannot distinguish between selfishness and generosity. 
 Who has not noticed the narrow, pinched, and indescrib- 
 ably repulsive countenance of the miser ? Who has not 
 contrasted it with the open, frank, and attractive counte- 
 nance of the philanthropist? 
 
 It seems as if the very selfishness of the world should 
 make us unselfish at home. Think of the pain and suffer- 
 ing that is born of selfishness ! As you gather round the 
 
 306
 
 Unselfishness at Home. 
 
 board of plenty for the evening repast, or round the roar- 
 ing fire while the storm sends its fitful but harmless gusts 
 against the windows, think of the pale, sad faces that are 
 pressing against the panes of dingy hovels, gazing into the 
 starless night in the imploring anguish of hunger and cold 
 and want. How, with this sad thought in mind, can little 
 brothers and sisters be selfish at home ? How can they 
 quarrel, as they sometimes do, over an apple or a pear, 
 when they remember that there are thousands who would 
 gladly gather up the leavings that they trample under 
 their feet, and devour them with the eagerness of a starv- 
 ing dog? 
 
 The young man who is selfish at home, who is eager to 
 get the largest and fairest apple, and does not seek to 
 share it with sister or brother, surely will not share it with 
 wife and children, when he becomes the possessor of a 
 home. Let young women beware of those young men 
 who are selfish at home ; for if they do not manifest their 
 selfishness in the open of society, it is only from policy, 
 or lack of opportunity. 
 
 IT is a fact which mathematics alone cannot explain, 
 that the more affection we leave at home the more 
 we carry with us. 
 
 There is something in the nature of selfishness, 
 whether at home or in society, that makes it peculiarly 
 repugnant to us, and leads us instinctively to brand it as 
 
 307
 
 Unselfishness at Home. 
 
 among the most ignoble of vices. There is hardly another 
 vice that has not some shadow of a redeeming feature. 
 We pity the drunkard, perhaps because his almost pro- 
 verbial generosity appeals to our sympathies. He cannot, 
 from the very nature of his sin, be a narrow, miserly soul. 
 Even robbers and murderers may have some attractive 
 qualities. It costs us an effort not to admire such charac- 
 ters as Lightfoot and Thunderbolt, who spent their lives in 
 robbing the rich that they might give to the poor. Of 
 course all such crimes are heinous in the sight of God, and 
 should be in the sight of man, but they almost always are 
 accompanied by some virtues, and as we do not always 
 stop to separate the crimes from the attending virtues, we 
 sometimes do not hate them as we ought. 
 
 But this difficulty does not exist in the case of selfish- 
 ness, for it has no redeeming features. It stands alone in 
 its ignominy, a black picture on a background of infinite 
 hatefulness. 
 
 " Oh, if the selfish knew how much they lost, 
 What would they not endeavor and endure 
 To imitate, as far as in them lay, 
 Him who his wisdom and his power employs 
 In making others happy." 
 
 
 308
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX. 
 
 Patience. 
 
 has been defined as "the courage of 
 virtue," and the definition seems to us peculiarly 
 appropriate, for it is that quality of the soul that 
 bids it stand firm at the post of duty where God has placed 
 it, undaunted by the assaults of vice. It is that which 
 closes the lips against all complaining, and folds its wings 
 over a wounded heart and waits. 
 
 It is a noble thing to act, but it is a nobler thing to 
 wait, for to act is the soul's most natural tendency. It is 
 its first and simplest desire. The child takes no account of 
 time or indirect motion in the gratification of its wish. 
 
 Place a brute within a few feet of food, but make the 
 only possible means of reaching it indirect ; make it neces- 
 sary that he should first go back from the food, perhaps 
 out of sight of it, for a moment, and then by a -circuitous 
 route come around to it. Under these conditions the brute 
 will starve in sight of the food. This would not be merely 
 an experiment upon the brute's intellect ; it would involve 
 this principle of patience. The impatience of the brute in 
 
 309
 
 Patience. 
 
 this case would be due to the fact that he had not passed 
 that stage in which all gratification is sought by direct and 
 uninterrupted action. This brute impatience cannot go 
 from the object of its desire, even when intellect declares 
 such an act necessary. It is quite essential in this experi- 
 ment, however, that we select the right kind of brute, for 
 there are brutes which are endowed with a wonderful 
 degree of patience. 
 
 We may forcibly illustrate from the brute kingdom 
 both patience and impatience. Those which are endowed 
 with patience are not usually those which are most intelli- 
 gent. This shows that the phenomenon in the foregoing 
 experiment is not an intellectual one. An ox, which 
 possesses considerable intelligence, would stand and fret 
 for hours before it would go back from the food, while the 
 rat, which possesses far less intelligence, would set itself to 
 work at once, and dig, if need be, for a whole night 
 through solid earth. He would go back, or round, or over, 
 or under ; in short, he would labor patiently till his efforts 
 were crowned with success. 
 
 This quality of patience in brutes does not seem to bear 
 any relation to their rank in the scale of intelligence, and 
 yet it must be regarded as one of the noblest attributes, 
 either of man or brute ; for the fact that a quality is pos- 
 sessed by a brute does not prevent it from being among the 
 noblest human attributes. 
 
 310
 
 Patience. 
 
 r* VEN the great mass of mankind have not yet passed 
 *^^A that stage in which they cannot bide the lapse of 
 time between a desire and its gratification. It is a charac- 
 teristic of the highest souls to feel that they may be 
 approaching the object of their desire while they see it 
 receding. 
 
 It is true that it requires but little intellectual power to 
 see that in many cases this may be so ; and yet there is a 
 wide difference between a mere intellectual conception and 
 that attribute of the soul which converts the conception 
 into a living truth. The wide gulf that stretches between 
 the mere intellectual assent to the highest spiritual fact, 
 and that element in the soul which takes hold of it as a 
 part of its own living self, is just that which stretches 
 between faith and reason, patience and impatience. 
 
 In this view of the subject patience is allied to faith. 
 Patience is that which makes us willing to wait, and faith 
 is that which makes us feel that the waiting will bear us a 
 sweet fruition. 
 
 Patience is a higher and grander virtue than the world 
 has yet acknowledged. It is that noble element which 
 appreciates time and indirect motion in the gratification of 
 desires. It is allied to the divine instinct of the tree, that 
 waits for the flower and the fruit. 
 
 Trials, sorrow, and death await us all. It is useless 
 to attempt to escape them, for they are inevitable. They 
 are the frosts that open the hard burrs of human hearts. 
 
 311
 
 Patience. 
 
 But it is only as instruments in the hands of patience that 
 they become ministrant to our development. 
 
 God imposes upon man the obligation to no virtue 
 which he has not first woven into the constitution of 
 Nature. Every cardinal virtue is first a cosmical law. 
 Thus the grand virtue of patience is eternally mated with 
 Nature's law of constancy. It is the patience of Nature 
 that rears and completes the proud temple of the oak. It 
 is her patience through which the never-wearying rootlet 
 embraces the rocky ribs of the moveless bowlder. Through 
 what long and weary ages has Nature pounded on the 
 granite doors of giant mountains, pleading for the crumbs 
 that fall from the rocky tables, that she may bear them 
 down to the vales, to feed the hungry guests that wait in 
 her halls below. Through uncounted eras she has stood 
 with patient hand and sifted into river beds and ocean 
 depths the fine alluvial morsels that she begged from miser 
 mountains. Thus does patience bear the credentials of its 
 own divinity. 
 
 It is the same patience, divinely born, that we trace 
 through all the instinctive movements- and laborious life of 
 bee, and spider, and architectonic beaver. The great law 
 of patience bears the same divine approval, whether we 
 find it in the silent consecutiveness of natural law, in the 
 tireless movements of the laboring ant, in the sweet inno- 
 cence of childhood building its playhouse, in the stern 
 bread-battle of human life, in the pale, wasting vigilance 
 
 312
 
 Patience. 
 
 of the brain-toiling, star-reading scientist, or in divine sim- 
 plicity, thorn-crowned and bleeding, on the quaking brow 
 of Calvary. Thus patience is divine, and to be patient is 
 to be God-like. 
 
 1>J ATIENCE is the grandest representative of God. It 
 V A has been the captain of the divine forces; out 
 from the fiery halls of chaos it has led, in shining battal- 
 ions, the helmeted stars. On earth it has produced the 
 highest results that mark the career of man. There is no 
 shining goal of human glory too bright or too remote for 
 patience. No height can tire its wing. Strike from the 
 firmament of human greatness every star that has been 
 placed there by the hand of patience, and you cover 
 that firmament with the veil of midnight darkness. It is 
 patience, that has crushed mighty evils and wrought sub- 
 lime reforms in human history ; patience, that dared to 
 stand up and meet the taunts of ignorance and bigotry ; 
 patience, that has calmly walked back into the shadow of 
 defeat, with " Thy will be done " upon its lips ; patience, 
 that 'has breathed the fiery smoke of torment with upturned 
 brow. 
 
 Truly has it been said, " Patience comforts the poor 
 and moderates the rich ; she makes us humble in prosper- 
 ity, cheerful in adversity, unmoved by calumny, and above 
 reproach ; she teaches us to forgive those who have injured 
 us, and to be the first in asking the forgiveness of those 
 
 313
 
 Patience. 
 
 whom we have injured ; she delights the faithful, and 
 invites the unbelieving ; she adorns the woman and 
 approves the man ; she is beautiful in either sex and every 
 age." 
 
 IT is the sin of this high-pressure age, that it cannot 
 wait. We have yet to learn from orchard and gar- 
 den that the best in nature ripens slowest. The American 
 child has much to learn, in this respect, from English and 
 German children, especially the latter ; the Germans are 
 the world's models of patience. 
 
 The American boy reads the life of some eminent man, 
 and immediately he is fired with a desire to be like him. 
 He ignores the elements of time and indirect action. He 
 sets aside the factor of life's developing hardships, and 
 entertains the insane idea that he can be like his ideal in a 
 short time. He buys advanced works on his special 
 theme. He cannot stop to master the elementary works. 
 His theory is that the greater includes the less. He sits up 
 late at night, vainly trying to comprehend his ponderous 
 books, until he becomes discouraged and abandons all 
 further attempts to be a great man. 
 
 Now the fact of his wild enthusiasm proves that he 
 had in him the elements of greatness, a greatness that 
 would have justified his aspirations, had not the American 
 vice of impatience crushed it in the bud. The world is full 
 of such defeated greatness. Genius with patience is 
 
 314
 
 Patience. 
 
 invincible and divine, but without patience it is a blind 
 Ulysses groping in the darkness. 
 
 " Full many a flower is born to blush unseen." 
 
 only because it insists on being seen before it has blos- 
 somed, and the world will not look at it. 
 
 VOUNG men are apt to be in too much of a hurry to 
 
 ^ reach the goal of their aspiration. Now and then 
 
 we find one, who, in his youth, is willing to study with 
 
 patience, and 
 
 " Learn to labor and to wait." 
 
 But the great majority of young men seem to feel that 
 the highest triumph of life is to complete their education in 
 their teens. And such ones are apt to accomplish that 
 exceedingly lofty object, from the very fact that those 
 who commence an education with such foolish views of 
 life are pretty sure to halt in their pursuit of knowledge at 
 about that time. They are not likely to add much to the 
 stock of forced knowledge which they bring away from 
 college. And, in such cases, even this is not usually a 
 great amount, from the fact of their having gone to college 
 too early to make it of much use to them. 
 
 It is true that many great and useful men have com- 
 pleted their college education while very young, but it was 
 because they were by nature able to do this without impa- 
 
 315
 
 
 Patience. 
 
 tient haste. Their genius had, perhaps, a slight tinge of 
 precocity, an element, however, which constitutes no part 
 of genius. It is entirely foreign to it, and may exist, and 
 far oftener does, in connection with talents that are below 
 mediocrity. Genius consists in a special aptitude for labor, 
 patient labor. 
 
 The common schools are a living monument of the 
 impatience of America, and it is not impossible that the 
 monument may yet crumble with its own weight. They 
 may yet thwart the very object of that intense and head- 
 long desire of which the impatience both of parents and 
 educators is the expression. Neither Greece nor Rome 
 attained her glory through such impatient culture. 
 
 there is another reason why we should cultivate 
 patience. It is conducive to health and longevity. 
 No impatient man ever died of old age. Impatience is a 
 friction in the wheels of life. Intemperance will not wear 
 out the machinery of life sooner than impatience. And 
 not only does the patient man live longer than the impa- 
 tient man, when length of life is computed in years and 
 months, but he also lives longer in another and important 
 sense. In computing the duration of a human life in the 
 actual sense of life, if we wish to obtain the result in min- 
 utes and seconds, we must strike out from the calculation 
 all those minutes and seconds in which he does not live in 
 
 316
 
 Patience. 
 
 the proper sense of the word. This would include all 
 periods of unconsciousness, of intoxication, and of mental 
 alienation, in short, all moments which, when past, leave 
 in our nature no rational record of their passage. 
 
 Now the patient man has a calm and rational apprecia- 
 tion of each moment of his conscious life, and his moments 
 of unconsciousness are fewer than those of the impatient 
 man. The patient man, as a general rule, requires less 
 sleep than one who is impatient, for the brain and all the 
 physical powers require time for recuperation in sleep just 
 in proportion to the amount of waste during wakefulness. 
 But nothing so wastes the vital and mental power as the 
 spasmodic, fitful, ineffectual, and half unconscious move- 
 ments, thoughts, and feelings of the impatient man. " Well, 
 I'm tired, but I haven't done anything," is the habitual 
 expression of the impatient, while the patient accomplish a 
 great deal but are seldom tired. The reason is plain. The 
 impatient man cannot stop to see where to take hold, and 
 so takes hold several times, and makes as many useless 
 movements, all of which weary and exhaust. But the 
 patient man takes hold in the right place the first time, and 
 thus not only saves time, but physical and mental energy. 
 And so while the patient man calmly and without friction 
 accomplishes life's mission, the impatient man wears out 
 his powers and dies of exhaustion before he gets ready 
 to begin the work. 
 
 317
 
 Patience. 
 
 ' 'Tis mine to work, and not to win ; 
 
 The soul must wait to have her wings ; 
 Even time is but a landmark in 
 The great eternity of things. 
 
 " Is it so much that thou below, 
 
 O heart, shouldst fail of thy desire, 
 When death, as we believe and know, 
 Is but a call to come up higher ? " 
 
 318
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY- SEVEN. 
 
 Religion in tne Home. 
 
 (^ I HE time was when home was everything, church, 
 
 ^ I state, school, factory, and social club. Larger de- 
 
 velopments necessitated new methods. One man 
 
 became a shoemaker for the community, another a weaver, 
 
 another a carpenter, another a teacher. Thus we have our 
 
 highly complex civilization with division of labor as one 
 
 of its marked characteristics. 
 
 We smile at the manner of doing things in primitive 
 times, but it is well to remember that in some respects the 
 primitive is the ideal and departure from it a deterioration. 
 
 The home is in danger .of becoming a mere place in 
 which to eat and sleep. This is especially true in the city. 
 
 It is not possible or desirable to grind our own grain, 
 weave our own cloth, or make our own shoes, nor can we 
 expect to give the children their education in the home. 
 But it is very desirable that we should not depend solely 
 upon outside agencies for all that is needed in the religious 
 life. In the estimation of many parents the church and 
 Sunday school are institutions to which may be delegated 
 
 319
 
 Religion in the Home. 
 
 the entire work of religiously instructing and, they hope, 
 of saving, the children. They put out to others the family 
 washing, the family sewing, and family religion. 
 
 The world needs more home-made characters. There 
 may not be quite the finisli and polish but there is a rug- 
 gedness and strength which no outside training can give. 
 
 The parent stands in the stead of God to the young 
 child. ''According to the first table of the ten command- 
 ments, which announces our duties to God, religion is mor- 
 ality looking Godward ; according to the second table, 
 which announces our duties to man, morality is re- 
 ligion looking manward. And the fifth commandment, 
 ' Honor thy father and thy mother,' is the link joining the 
 tables, looking both Godward and manward. As such it 
 is the centerpiece of the Decalogue, the keystone of the 
 Sinaitic arch," so writes Dr. George Dana Boardman. 
 
 Looking at it in another way, we may say that the 
 parent is classed with Deity in the first table of the law, 
 and, in the second table, we have our negative duties to the 
 remainder of mankind. We honor parents with the same 
 faculty that we worship God. This does not belittle Deity 
 but it does exalt parenthood. In our thinking we pass by 
 natural steps from the seen to the unseen and learn that 
 the latter is as real as the former. We see the ball thrown 
 into the air but do not see the power of gravitation which 
 draws it down again. The unseen force is as real as would 
 be a visible cord. We do not see electricity, but we can 
 
 320
 
 Religion in the Home. 
 
 feel its power or see the light in which it blazes forth. We 
 do not see the wind but only the trees swayed by its power 
 or the ships which it sends flying over the trackless waters. 
 The child knows the love and strength and wisdom of the 
 parent whom it can see and thus comes to know the Heav- 
 enly Father whom it cannot see. 
 
 Parents who have low ideals of parental responsibility 
 and authority will scarcely be able to lead their children to 
 love and obey God. Again I say the parents not one but 
 both must stand to the child in the stead of God, until the 
 child is old enough to come into conscious, personal rela- 
 tion with God. This office should not be delegated to 
 others, nor should anyone be allowed to usurp the place 
 of parent. 
 
 The parent must be a teacher. There is the uncon- 
 scious teaching by look, act, and word all spontaneous. 
 There should be deliberate, premeditated teaching as well, 
 and preparation for it. Clothing and food are provided and 
 prepared for the children they are not left to chance or 
 convenience. The physical life receives due attention, but 
 too often the development of the higher nature is entirely 
 neglected. The true perspective of existence is lost, the 
 present is allowed to eclipse the future ; bodies are devel- 
 oped and souls are dwarfed. Life here means more when 
 it is linked to the life beyond. True religion makes one 
 more of a man, it deprives him of no true good and adds to 
 him the best. Religion sweetens, strengthens, elevates 
 
 321
 
 Religion in the Home. 
 
 home life. It pushes back the horizon of existence and 
 makes one to live in a larger world. 
 
 In our cities the public school system is so shaped 
 that a general plan runs through all the work from 
 kindergarten to high school. Every grade is founded 
 on that below it and, at the same time, looks to the one 
 above it. The school or grade that ignores what is 
 above it is scarcely worthy of the name. So the home 
 is not an end in itself, though it is important enough for 
 that. It is a means. It is a lower grade in the great 
 school of life and is a part in the great plan which in- 
 cludes both time and eternity. In it there should be 
 training for citizenship in the state and in the kingdom 
 of heaven. 
 
 In the preparatory school parents are teachers and 
 children are pupils, and matters of the kingdom of God 
 should be as frankly and fully considered as the affairs 
 of commonwealth or country. 
 
 In this school God is the Great Head Master and his 
 authority should be recognized in all the work. And not 
 his authority alone, but his help. The responsibility of 
 training a child is too great for one to attempt without the 
 aid of divine wisdom and power. The maker of delicate 
 mechanism knows more about the machine than any man 
 who merely superintends its operations. Parent, God and 
 you must work together. You cannot do the work alone, 
 and, I say it reverently, God needs you. His plan is to 
 
 322
 
 Religion in the Home. 
 
 work with you and through you for the development of 
 noble Christian character in your children. 
 
 The Bible is our great but much neglected text-book. 
 Our children grow away from it in the public schools. 
 New text-books are continually taking the place of the old, 
 only to become old themselves in a short time, and be 
 replaced by others. But here is the same old text-book 
 which our parents and grandparents studied, and until it 
 has been demonstrated that nobler character than theirs 
 can be developed through the use of some other text-book, 
 we decline to make a change. The permanency of the 
 text-book leaves us no excuse for not keeping abreast of 
 the development of our children and guiding that develop- 
 ment as related to their highest nature. 
 
 The best trained teacher can never relieve the parent 
 of the grave responsibility and God-given privilege of 
 being the spiritual guide of the child. But, alas ! so many 
 give their children no religious instruction at home, and 
 give no heed to what they are taught elsewhere. In many 
 cases it is due to a feeling of incompetency, but the chief 
 cause is indifference. Incompetency can be remedied by 
 resolute action. Incompetent housekeepers have, by deter- 
 mined thought and work, become charmingly efficient. 
 They have set themselves to learn the art of home-making 
 and housekeeping and have mastered it. 
 
 Every teacher is a learner, and profits more by the 
 vocation than the pupil even. Therefore the parent is 
 
 323
 
 Religion in the Home. 
 
 conferring a benefit upon self as well as child in studying 
 and teaching. 
 
 In this text-book, the Bible, it is to be noted that not 
 all parts are of equal interest or value to the child. Mothers 
 discriminate in preparing food for the children, and they 
 should "rightly divide the word of truth." Variety and 
 adaptability are fundamentals in the culinary art. So with 
 Bible teaching. The Bible contains both food and medi- 
 cine, and it has something for every case and condition. 
 She would be counted a poor cook who would indiscrim- 
 inately mix together and serve, vegetables, flour, meats, 
 tonics, sedatives, and flavoring extracts. A little common 
 sense in religious matters is valuable and all too rare. 
 
 The Bible is a marvelous book in its variety and 
 adaptability. Biography, history, oratory, philosophy, 
 practical wisdom, and poetry are all here. 
 
 Among the world's classics it is easily queen, and he 
 who is ignorant of this great library is not an educated 
 man, even though he hold a college degree. 
 
 The man who admires Socrates will do well to 
 become acquainted with Solomon. The lover of Homer's 
 Iliad or Odyssey should not remain ignorant of the Psalms 
 of David and the book of Job. The student of Roman law 
 will do well to look to the Mosaic system, and he who 
 loves to study the lives of conquerors and founders of 
 empires will be poorly informed if he fail to consider the 
 victories of Jesus Christ and his kingdom. 
 
 324
 
 Religion in the Home. 
 
 In his exile at St. Helena, Napoleon was one day con- 
 versing, as was his wont, about the great men of antiquity, 
 and comparing himself with them. He suddenly turned 
 round to one of his suite and asked : " Can you tell me 
 who Jesus Christ was ? " The officer owned that he 
 had not given much thought to such things. "Well, 
 then," said Napoleon, " I will tell you." He then com- 
 pared Christ with himself and the heroes of antiquity 
 and showed how far Jesus surpassed them. " I think I 
 understand somewhat of human nature," said he, "and 
 I tell you all these were men, and I am a man, but not one 
 is like Him. Jesus Christ was more than man. Alex- 
 ander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and myself, founded great 
 empires ; but upon what did the creation of our genius 
 depend ? Upon force. Jesus alone founded His empire 
 upon love and to this very day millions would die for Him. 
 * * * Men wonder at the conquests of Alexander, but 
 here is a conqueror who draws men to Himself for their 
 highest good ; who unites to Himself, incorporates into 
 Himself, not a nation, but the whole human race." 
 
 This ancient text-book will never become obsolete any 
 more than the sunshine will be supplanted by artificial 
 lights. 
 
 So long as men travel there will be sale for guide 
 books. The Bible not only tells us of the unseen country 
 and how to reach it but no book ever written was so 
 
 intensely practical and adapted to the needs of every- 
 
 325
 
 Religion in the Home. 
 
 day life as the Bible. There would be more business 
 integrity and truer success if every young man would 
 carry in his pocket and study a copy of the book of Prov- 
 erbs. 
 
 " He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand ; 
 but the hand of the diligent maketh rich." The slack hand 
 has no grip on affairs and they slip through. 
 
 " A false balance is abomination to the Lord, but a just 
 weight is his delight." That is religion in business. 
 
 "As vinegar to the teeth, and as smoke to the eyes, so 
 is the sluggard to them that send him." A good warning 
 to boys who go on errands. 
 
 We mention these because so many think that the 
 Bible is chiefly for Sundays and the deathbed. 
 
 Here the perplexed find wisdom for the affairs of life, 
 the thankful find a song. The student of human nature 
 will here find portrayed character of every description. 
 There are many family groups. There are happy instances 
 of careful home training, as Timothy, and dark pictures of 
 luxurious neglect, as Absalom. Sowing and reaping run 
 through the book. And it is seen how some sow the wind, 
 and reap the whirlwind. 
 
 It is a book of comfort to those in trouble. Many a 
 cloud-enveloped heart has seen a new light break in by 
 reading, " God is our refuge and strength, a very present 
 help in trouble." The toiler exhausted in body and brain 
 has found himself girded with new power by heeding the 
 
 326
 
 Religion in the Home. 
 
 words, "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 From the home school the children go out to establish 
 other homes. May we give them such a model that they 
 can do no better than to follow it. And may all our learn- 
 ing and living prepare for higher and still higher promo- 
 tions. 
 
 327
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT. 
 
 Temperance. 
 
 HE word temperance, from the Latin temperantia, 
 meant simply moderation, and when it came to be 
 first applied with special emphasis to the use of 
 alcoholic beverages it meant only a moderate use of them, 
 and did not convey the remotest idea of total abstinence. 
 
 If the fate of the temperance reform rested upon the 
 primitive significance of dead words, then, indeed, were its 
 advocates hopeless. 
 
 But no, the temperance reform and the words that 
 designate its glorious sentiment were born together, born 
 amid the thunderstorm of oppression, born of the heartless 
 parentage of hisses and of scorn, parents who tried to 
 strangle their own offspring, but could not do it, for it bore 
 upon its forehead the birthmark of immortality. Its birth 
 was an event that lay along the inevitable path of human 
 development. 
 
 We will not contend with those who would prostitute 
 their scholarship to rear a feeble argument upon the dusty 
 lexicons of Greece and Rome, claiming that the world has 
 
 328
 
 Temperance. 
 
 never before found occasion for a word to designate the 
 total abstinence from intoxicating beverages. We have no 
 wish to dispute the significance of those old roots that lie 
 dead and brittle in the soil of the ages. 
 
 These definitions were assigned by an infant world, 
 but it has outgrown them now. We well remember when 
 the word "star" signified to us only a shining speck, only 
 a " gimlet hole to let the light of heaven through." But to 
 our ampler vision stars are the chariots of God that glide 
 across the longitudes of night. Words are the products 
 of human thought. They are born amid the agonizing 
 throes that accompany the aggressions of intellect. Every 
 conquest, every victory, is marked by the birth of a new 
 word and the death of an old one. Like the corpuscles of 
 the blood, they are springing into being and dying with 
 every pulsation of the world's brain. New ideas, new 
 exigencies, new conditions in the evolution of society, 
 necessitate a continual expansion of symbols. 
 
 We do not mean, of course, that there literally comes 
 into use a new word with every new idea. Much less do 
 we mean that a word actually becomes obsolete. We 
 mean that language is a thing of growth, that it is modi- 
 fied to meet the ever changing conditions of human unfold- 
 ing, and that words pass out of use or change their mean- 
 ings with every outgrown idea. 
 
 329
 
 Temperance. 
 
 E who does not dare advocate the temperance cause 
 to-day in its boldest and most radical form is a 
 coward, and in a certain sense a dead weight upon society. 
 But those who steal the livery of science and clothe them- 
 selves in the cunning drapery of sophistry and become the 
 hired pleaders for passion and for vice, deserve the ever- 
 lasting execration of humanity. If we summon the sad- 
 dest meaning that "doom " possesses it is but mild beside 
 their crime. To misinterpret the divine message of sci- 
 ence, and thus place in the hands of vice the devil's magic 
 wand, is the crowning sin of man. 
 
 And yet there are hundreds that incur this guilt. 
 Men whose names insure their recognition seek to defend 
 their own vices with the awe-inspiring weapons of high 
 sounding technicalities and scientific phrases. Such are 
 those who tell us that alcohol is transformed into nervous 
 tissue, that it is a respiratory food, etc. They tell us that 
 it is nerve food, because its use occasions a greater mani- 
 festation of strength and nervous energy. A conflagration 
 in a city is usually attended with considerable activity on 
 the part of its citizens, but fires are not generally regarded 
 as desirable stimulants to industry. War is always the 
 occasion of a nation's highest energy, but shall we, there- 
 fore, say that war is a source of strength, and that it feeds 
 a nation with the elements of energy ? Is it not rather a 
 wasting process, and is not the strength manifested in its 
 expenditure rather than in its accumulation ? We see the 
 
 330
 
 Temperance, 
 
 energy as it goes out from the nation in a wasting stream, 
 and not as it goes in. 
 
 Just so with the nervous energy, it manifests itself in 
 its outward passage. The alcohol simply worries and frets 
 the nervous system, and causes it to act in self-defense to 
 cast out the intruder, just as war worries and frets a 
 nation. When a sliver is lodged in the flesh the vital 
 instincts are at once summoned to the spot, and, with 
 might and main, strive to cast out the foreign substance, 
 the intruder which has no right to be there. Every one 
 knows how this is accomplished. There is first a redness, 
 an increased vital action in the part, and a swelling. This 
 is because the vital forces are aroused and rush to the 
 spot to see what is the matter. Just as the forces of the 
 city, at the cry of fire, rush to the spot. There is a swell- 
 ing of the city, in the part affected, an increase of its vital 
 , action, attended with symptoms of morbid inflammation, 
 almost exactly what happens in the vital system. The 
 analogy is striking, and indicates beyond a doubt that a 
 common principle is involved in both cases. When these 
 vital instincts have ascertained what is the matter, they set 
 themselves to work to cast the sliver out. They throw up 
 around it a secretion which cuts it off from all connection 
 with the system, and isolates it, and after a short time it 
 falls out of its own accord. 
 
 Exactly in the same way these vital instincts drive the 
 
 alcohol to the surface, through the skin, and lungs, and 
 
 331
 
 Temperance. 
 
 kidneys, and brain. This is why, long after alcohol has 
 been drunk, its odor may be detected in the breath. With 
 every breath it is thrown out from the lungs. The odor 
 may also be detected in the perspiration. As it is borne 
 along the circulation to the brain, it excites that organ to 
 an unnatural degree of activity, or, if the dose is too great, 
 the vital instincts give up the attempt for a time, the brain 
 sinks into a torpid state, and the person is said to be dead- 
 drunk. 
 
 UT alcohol is said to be a respiratory food, meaning 
 that it is burned in the body like the carbon of our 
 food, that it unites with the oxygen in the lungs, and 
 thus in many cases prevents the tissues from consuming 
 themselves. 
 
 There is but one solitary fact that by any method of 
 manipulation can be made to take the semblance of an 
 argument in support of this theory, and that one fact is 
 that alcohol warms the system. But cayenne pepper 
 warms the system, so does quinine, so does sulphuric acid, 
 so does pain, so does intense joy, so does laughter, so does 
 love, so does hate, so do spasms and convulsions, so does 
 rheumatism, so does a fever, so does the cramp colic. 
 
 All these, of course, are respiratory food, since they 
 "warm the system." It is true that our scientists (?) have 
 not yet succeeded in demonstrating that the cramp colic 
 
 332
 
 Temperance. 
 
 is oxidized in the lungs, but we can't tell what the future 
 may develop. 
 
 When one is suddenly awakened from sleep to find 
 that he must engage in a hand to hand fight with a mid- 
 night assassin, we have a striking illustration of what 
 takes place when the assassin alcohol enters the dwelling 
 of the human soul. That vital instinct which allows no 
 foreign substance within its domain at once grapples the 
 intruder, a sharp contest ensues, in which the^ alcohol is 
 beaten and driven out through the open door of the skin, 
 the kidneys, the lungs, or the brain. And just here is the 
 origin of the heat which alcohol occasions. It is due to 
 the overaction of the vital forces in their attempt to rid 
 themselves of a deadly foe. The midnight fight, just 
 referred to, would naturally be a warming process, but 
 we have never known physicians to prescribe midnight 
 assassins as respiratory food. We presume, however, that 
 they might take the place of most of the nostrums of the 
 materia medica with little disadvantage to the suffering 
 part of the community. 
 
 \ * FE must look beyond the Sons of Temperance or the 
 ^ Good Templars for the secret of success in the tem- 
 perance reform. 
 
 Organization is essential to the success of any great 
 reform, but it is simply the machinery that is driven by an 
 unseen principle. It never yet of itself wrought a revolu- 
 
 333
 
 Temperance. 
 
 tion. The solution of the great problem lies deeper than 
 the mystery of the "password." It lies in the knowledge 
 of natural law, in the thorough education of the people. 
 When the people realize that alcohol is in the truest sense 
 a poison, then we may look for gratifying results in the 
 temperance reform. Whether it shall be through legis- 
 lation or personal conviction, the future must be left to 
 decide. 
 
 Expert testimony regarding the medicinal properties of 
 alcohol and the pathology of alcoholism is doing much to 
 leaven popular opinion. It is to such testimony, vouched 
 for alike by the scientist and the moralist, initiating itself 
 into the fundamental principles of modern medicine and 
 moral therapeutics, that we must look as largely as to any 
 other agency for guidance in the solution of a problem of 
 such gigantic proportions. Indeed it is entirely within the 
 range of possibility that modern chemistry shall yet be 
 able to eliminate those properties of alcohol known as 
 nervous excitants, and still conserve its sinapismic proper- 
 ties. If this can be successfully accomplished, it would 
 then be easy to relegate the sinister alcohol to its rightful 
 place among poisons. 
 
 I HERE is one fact with which the temperance reform 
 ^ has to contend, more formidable than all others com- 
 bined. It is the fact that people so readily yield to the 
 
 334
 
 Temperance. 
 
 argument of their feelings. It requires much intellectual 
 courage not to believe what our feelings tell us. 
 
 It is a fact that alcohol often makes people feel better. 
 It elevates their spirits and makes them feel strong, buoy- 
 ant, and hopeful. Under such circumstances it requires 
 almost a divine argument to convince them that they are 
 not being benefited. 
 
 Temperance will triumph when the argument of reason 
 becomes stronger than that of feeling with the masses. 
 We are so constituted that our feelings are generally final 
 in their authority. Hence the necessity of distinguishing 
 between the significance of the natural and the artificial. 
 People must be taught to do this before we can expect 
 them to abandon the use of alcohol. 
 
 How then shall this be brought about ? Surely not by 
 legislation, not by seizures and fines, but by the slow and 
 laborious process of education. This education must be 
 specific, and must be directed for the most part to the 
 rising generation. The pathetic stories of reformed drunk- 
 ards may have their influence in shaping public sentiment, 
 but at best they can be only subsidiary to a more substan- 
 tial and abiding force. Legal measures may serve their 
 purpose, but the reformatory efforts should be directed 
 mainly to the securing of that condition which shall render 
 legal measures unnecessary. This condition must be 
 sought in the education of the children, who not only must 
 be taught to correctly distinguish the natural and normal 
 
 335
 
 Temperance. 
 
 appetites from the unnatural and abnormal, but must be so 
 trained, in this respect, that they shall have no unnatural 
 and abnormal appetites. Unnatural appetites are in part 
 the product of wrong physical training, and intemperance 
 is the product of unnatural appetites. Hence wrong 
 training is one of the chief causes of intemperance and its 
 consequent ills. 
 
 I N our chapter on home training we have spoken of the 
 process by which wrong physical training produces 
 drunkards. We repeat its substance, however, for the 
 sake of special emphasis. With a good healthy boy as 
 material, and plenty of candy, pastry, pickles, and medi- 
 cine as tools, any mother has a fair chance to manu- 
 facture a drunkard. The process is extremely simple. 
 Drunkenness, as we have said, is the product of a diseased 
 or unnatural appetite, and the appetite may be diseased or 
 rendered unnatural by taking advantage of the slight 
 caprice which all appetites possess, especially in the civil- 
 ized world, thus causing it to accept at times that which it 
 otherwise would not, and which it does not naturally crave. 
 Unnatural appetites crave unnatural food, and accord- 
 ingly unnatural food will in its turn induce an unnatural 
 appetite ; so that all a mother who desires to experiment 
 in this direction has to do is to give her boy unnatural 
 food. Every mother knows what we mean by unnatural 
 food. It is not necessary for us to enumerate the many 
 
 330
 
 Temperance. 
 
 articles to which this adjective is applicable. The phrase 
 at once suggests to the ordinary mind the abominations of 
 spice, pickle, pork, and pastry, which fill the dining-halls of 
 civilization with their sickly odors, that would nauseate 
 the healthier appetites of the South Sea Island cannibals. 
 
 The mother who desires to make a drunkard must tam- 
 per with her boy's appetite by offering him that which he 
 does not crave ; by compelling him to go without a meal as 
 a punishment for some offense, and thus become very 
 hungry, so that he will be sure to overeat at the next meal ; 
 by compelling him always to eat all that he happens to 
 have in his plate whether he desires it or not, instead of 
 teaching him to drop his knife and fork at the first sugges- 
 tion of sated appetite. Of course we take it for granted 
 that she believes root beer, etc., etc., to be "very whole- 
 some." She should use a great deal of spice in her cooking. 
 She should aim to take away, as completely as possible, 
 the natural flavor of fruits and vegetables, and substitute 
 an artificial one. She should always manifest great 
 anxiety lest her boy should not eat enough to "keep up 
 his strength." She should, of course, give him plenty of 
 candy it is good for the teeth, that is, for false teeth. 
 But what is of more importance than everything else, she 
 should dose him freely with medicine whenever he is 
 slightly indisposed. By the way, we came near forgetting 
 to advise a free use of tea and coffee. 
 
 337
 
 Temperance. 
 
 \ i|E have said but little about intemperance in the 
 
 ^ ordinary way. We have told no stories of neglected 
 wives and broken-hearted mothers. We leave that phase 
 of the subject to the sentimental lecturer. But we have 
 given, in language somewhat ironical, that which we 
 believe the people need, and that which every mother 
 ought to reflect upon. 
 
 The one fact which we have tried to make prominent is 
 that the appetite for alcoholic beverages is not necessarily 
 induced by the use of these beverages themselves, but may 
 be created by the use of whatever inflames the system, or 
 vitiates the taste. 
 
 It is sufficient simply to state that the predisposition to 
 alcoholic intemperance may be, and often is, transmitted 
 from parent to child. This is a fact which is very gener- 
 ally known ; but it is not, perhaps, so generally known, 
 that it is often transmitted from grandparent to grand- 
 child, thus passing over one and sometimes two genera- 
 tions of temperate parents. The fact that intemperance, or 
 a tendency to intemperance, is thus hereditary, should 
 render all parents doubly vigilant in the training of their 
 children. 
 
 We have aimed in this chapter at a deeper considera- 
 tion of the subject of temperance in its relation to the 
 home life than a mere enumeration of those superficial 
 evils of which society is chiefly cognizant. The follow- 
 
 338
 
 Temperance. 
 
 ing poem with sufficient accuracy portrays this class of 
 evils : 
 
 " Now horrid frays 
 
 Commence, the brimming glasses now are hurled 
 With dire intent ; bottles with bottles clash 
 In rude encounter, round their temples fly 
 The sharp-edged fragments, down their battered cheeks 
 Mixed gore and cider flow ; what shall we say 
 Of rash Elpenor, who in evil hour 
 Dried an immeasurable bowl and thought 
 To exhale his surfeit by irriguous sleep, 
 Imprudent ? him death's iron sleep oppressed, 
 Descending from his couch ; the fall 
 Luxed his neck-joint and spinal marrow bruised. 
 Nor need we tell what anxious cares attend 
 The turbulent mirth of wine ; nor all the kinds 
 Of maladies that lead to death's grim care, 
 Wrought by intemperance, joint racking gout, 
 Intestine stone, and pining atrophy, 
 Chill, even when the sun with July heats 
 Fires the scorched soil, and dropsy all afloat, 
 Yet craving liquids ; nor the Centaurs' tale 
 Be here repeated : how, with lust and wine 
 Inflamed, they fought, and spilt their drunken souls 
 At feasting hour." 
 
 339
 
 CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. 
 
 Economy of the Home 
 
 (5 I HE : 
 
 4 I tion 
 
 HE institution of home is in itself a divine applica- 
 tion of the law of economy. It contains the first 
 
 1 suggestion of the "division of labor." 
 It is a fact within the observation of society in general, 
 and has almost become an adage, that man and woman 
 can live at less expense together than separately. This is 
 certainly a benevolent provision, offering as it does another 
 inducement to the only legitimate life, the home life. 
 
 Nature is the model economist. She never wastes a 
 leaf, and yet she is the most benevolent of all givers. Sho 
 will give you without stint of her golden cheeked and lus- 
 ciously flavored fruits, and yet she never throws away even 
 her decayed products, but turns them into her laboratory 
 and makes them over into good fruit, a subtle reproof to 
 the unfrugal housewife who throws away the remains of 
 the supper, that might be warmed over for breakfast. 
 Nature knows the secret of being both economical and 
 generous, she knows how to be frugal without being penu- 
 rious. She is not lazy, and yet she always takes the short- 
 est path. Of two equally good conductors the electric 
 charge always takes the shorter. It will even choose the 
 
 340
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 poorer conductor rather than take the longer one. The 
 principle of " least action " in mechanics is of the same 
 nature. These facts show that economy is a law of nature 
 and pervades the very soul of the universe. 
 
 not only is it a law of the outward universe, it is 
 an innate sentiment or instinct of human nature, 
 and not only of human nature, but of all conscious exist- 
 ence. We see it manifested in the squirrel, when he 
 gathers during the autumn his store of nuts and corn for 
 his sustenance during the coming winter. 
 
 The same instinct that prompts the squirrel to do this 
 is the moving impulse of the great commercial world. In 
 both instances it is simply an instinct, a faculty that 
 brings its possessor into sympathy with the economic law 
 that governs the movements of nature. It is the instinct 
 of economy that tells the worm, the bee, the cat, the dog, 
 and, in short, all animals, that a straight line is the short- 
 est distance between two points, and that, as well as math- 
 ematics, makes it to the human intellect an axiom. 
 
 The law of economy, then, is simply that by which all 
 necessary results in nature are brought about with the 
 least possible expenditure of force, and what we call 
 economy in man is an instinctive appreciation and applica- 
 tion of this law. 
 
 To the low and mean the word economy signifies dis- 
 honest acquisition and theft. To the honest but hard 
 
 341
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 working man it means industry and frugality. To the 
 moralist and philosopher it means social science, civilizing 
 tendencies, and universal culture. So it is that one's defi- 
 nition of economy to a certain extent defines his character 
 also. But he who takes his definition from the operations 
 of nature cannot err. 
 
 Nature will not allow an idle atom in her realm. She 
 compels every raindrop to become her minister, to bear 
 her proffered treaty between the warring clouds and earth, 
 and thus disarm them of their wrath, and with its subtle 
 diplomacy to reconcile them to the pledge of peace. And 
 with an eye to the economy of travel she bids her messen- 
 gers pause upon the mountain summit, as they pass from 
 cloud to earth, and take down with them from decaying 
 rocks and mountain gorges a load of timber from which to 
 form her fertile soil. 
 
 She makes the birds and zephyrs her husbandmen to 
 garner and sow the seeds of myriad plants. She bends the 
 neck of the proud lightning, and makes it her scavenger 
 to purify the atmosphere. She lays her shaggy mountains 
 on the toiling backs of earthquakes, and bids them lift the 
 burden to the sky. She makes the omnipresent oxygen 
 her domestic servant, and tasks his eyesight and skillful 
 fingers to unravel her snarled and complicated skeins of 
 chemical elements ; or, if she will, exalts him to the higher 
 office of attorney, and pleads through him for the divorce 
 of unhappily wedded constituents. 
 
 342
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 The home is the reproduction of nature on a small 
 scale, and not the least so in this matter of economy. 
 
 NATURE is the pattern for the home, and every man 
 and woman who in any capacity represent a home 
 should take advantage of her example, and learn a lesson 
 from the way in which she scrapes up her "odds and ends," 
 and utilizes them. To all of us she says, "Accumulate all 
 you can ; employ every moment ; let no opportunity pass 
 without grasping its hand to see if there is not hidden in its 
 palm a golden coin." 
 
 But Nature is no miser. Her economy does not consist 
 in meanness. She accumulates that she may give. She is 
 honest and will do as she agrees. We need not take her 
 note, her word is good. It is a law founded in the eternal 
 beneficence of things. It is written on every tree whose 
 friendly foliage shields us from the scorching sun ; on every 
 sparkling rivulet that weeps soft tears of rain upon the 
 thirsty land, which in its turn gives back the gracious trib- 
 ute of its shrubs and flowers, and with an answering com- 
 pliment flings its rich gift of roses to deck the river banks ; 
 on every circling satellite, upon the moon's sweet face, who 
 in her modesty sends down to us the flood of kisses which 
 the sun, her gallant lover, showers upon her blushing 
 brow, on all of these is written the great law, that to give 
 is to receive, and whoever would receive must give. 
 
 The prudent farmer, while he is generous and free, will 
 
 343
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 still allow no stream of fertility to run to waste. While 
 he is industrious and ever active, he will still compel the 
 wind and water to saw his wood and thresh his grain and 
 grind his corn. He will make the forest mold fertilize his 
 field of corn. There is no dishonesty in turning our labor 
 over to Nature. She expects to do all of our work before 
 long, but not, however, till she is requested to do so. She 
 never forces her services on us. We must first tell her 
 just what we wish her to do, and how we wish her to do it. 
 We must furnish the tools for her to work with. And even 
 then, if they do not suit her, she will not work. She will 
 not draw a train of cars, unless she can have a delicately 
 constructed engine expressly for her. 
 
 I HE reason why men employed Nature so little in the 
 
 V past ages is because she was so particular about 
 her tools that they could not suit her. 
 
 Now the highest economy is the highest invention. 
 That is, he is the most economical man, other things being 
 equal, who is the most skillful in devising tools for Nature 
 to work with. 
 
 Home is a broad field for the exercise of invention. It 
 is chiefly in the home, or in some way connected with 
 domestic life, that we find that large class of inventions 
 which minister directly to human comfort. 
 
 It is not necessary, however, that every great and use- 
 ful invention should be the product of an inventive genius. 
 
 344
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 On every farm and in every home there are thousands of 
 opportunities for the exercise of this faculty. The invent- 
 ive farmer will make his horses load his logs, while the 
 uninventive one must load them himself. The inventive 
 man can repair his broken implements, while the uninvent- 
 ive must take them to the blacksmith's or the carpenter's, 
 and there pay, so much out of the profits of his daily labor. 
 There is no good reason why every farmer should not be a 
 blacksmith, a carpenter, and a wheelwright. He could 
 then repair his own buildings, shoe his own horses and 
 oxen, and make his own carriages. Few, perhaps, have 
 ever stopped to estimate how much might be saved in this 
 way. Nearly all that sort of work may be done during 
 days in which nothing profitable could be accomplished on 
 the farm. Since the farmer's work is so varied he requires 
 but little absolute rest. Hence, if he were familiar with 
 these trades, the rainy days might be made the most prof- 
 itable ones of the year. While Nature is irrigating his 
 farm, he might be devising tools for her with which to 
 perform some other service. 
 
 Again, the recreation, the discipline, and the exercise 
 of mechanical ingenuity thus afforded would have a devel- 
 oping influence on mind and body. It is a fact worth 
 remembering that the men who have made farming pay in 
 rocky New England have nearly all been of this sort. 
 
 345
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 r~* VERY wife and mother should be a tailoress, a mil- 
 V^ liner, and a dressmaker. She should know some- 
 thing about every article needed in the household. There 
 is no reason why she should be obliged to take the sewing 
 machine to the shop, or call her husband to repair it ; she 
 should have inventive talent enough, and might have it if 
 she would cultivate it, to take the machine to pieces and 
 put it together again. She should be able to repair the 
 churn and solder the milk pans' Even if she cannot find 
 time to make use of these accomplishments, they will 
 enable her more readily to tell others what she wishes 
 them to do for her. She can make better selections of 
 clothing for herself and family. She can make wiser bar- 
 gains in whatever she purchases. Numberless are the 
 ways in which knowledge and inventive skill will enable 
 one to save money. 
 
 I HE highest economy, however, does not consist 
 ^ merely in saving. Much has been said, and very 
 prettily and poetically too, about the saving of pennies. 
 But the pennies must first be earned. That economy 
 which exercises itself wholly in saving and does not stimu- 
 late the inventive and intellectual powers in the direction 
 of acquisition is almost sure to degenerate into meanness 
 and penuriousness. It is very frequently the case that the 
 saving propensity is carried so far as to be a positive 
 obstruction to the earning. As when the farmer refuses to 
 
 346
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 hire help because it must be paid for, and thus allows his 
 crops to deteriorate on account of a too late harvesting, or 
 when the wife refuses to employ a domestic servant and 
 becomes sick on account of overwork. It is not economy 
 to mow all summer with a scythe, when a few days' use of 
 a machine would accomplish the same result. True econ- 
 omy consists in that broad and comprehensive knowledge 
 of affairs, that clear foresight and calculation, that will- 
 ingness to spend money lavishly in the procuring of the 
 proper means, which, in the moving of circumstances, 
 gives us the long arm of the lever. 
 
 There is no more disgusting spectacle than that of a 
 penurious farmer whose prosperity is crippled by his own 
 avarice. Such a man is likely to be found using a wooden 
 plow which his father left him. He goes barefooted week 
 days in order to make his boots last two years of Sundays. 
 If he buys a new coat he must pay for it with beans or 
 some product of the farm. He must exchange directly, too. 
 He could not think of selling the beans for money and then 
 buying the coat, for that would be paying money for the 
 coat. Indeed, he has well-nigh dispensed with that instru- 
 ment of civilization money. He has gone back so far 
 toward barbarism that he desires to barter instead of buy 
 and sell with money. Not because he has no love of 
 money, but because he does have that irrational love which 
 becomes the "root of all evil." 
 
 But some may ask how that can be the root of all evil 
 
 347
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 which owes its existence to a God-given instinct, and finds 
 its guarantee in an eternal law of nature. 
 
 The irrational love of money finds its guarantee in no 
 law or instinct. It is not the moderate and normal love of 
 money which is the root of all evil, nor is such love an evil 
 at all, but a great blessing. 
 
 I HE sentiment of economy is one of those which man- 
 ^ ifest themselves within very narrow limits. It 
 seems to be always leaning to the one side or the other, 
 and getting out of its path. It is apt to become prodigality 
 or penuriousness. It requires much skill in navigation on 
 life's sea to sail safely between these two rocks. When we 
 first embark we are very apt to run against the rock of 
 prodigality, but after we have had more experience, unless 
 we profit well by that experience, and learn the golden 
 mean, we are prone to the opposite extreme and run against 
 the rock of penuriousness. It is the inordinate love of 
 money for its own sake that is the root of all evil ; while 
 true economy is the trusty helm that guides us safely 
 between two dark and threatening rocks. 
 
 This disposition to hoard money for its own sake, inde- 
 pendent of its proper function, is not, however, to be 
 wholly condemned. There is a ministry of good in the 
 very consciousness of possession. It is usually easy to dis- 
 tinguish the men of wealth in a crowd of people, by their 
 bearing of conscious power. It is the natural and legiti- 
 
 348
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 mate condition of man to feel that he is in a certain sense 
 the conqueror and possessor of nature. 
 
 The lion is called the king of beasts, not because he is 
 the largest or the strongest, but because he calls himself 
 the king of beasts. He does this by his noble bearing, and 
 the consciousness of power. Now man, like the lion, 
 should feel and manifest a sense of power, only in a far 
 higher degree. It is this conscious power manifesting it- 
 self in the human eye which accounts for the fact that 
 no wild beast can withstand the human gaze. 
 
 All that is necessary to cause the lion to skulk away 
 to the den like a whipped cur, is to gaze full in his eye 
 while you calmly maintain a consciousness of victory and 
 superiority over all that moves upon the earth. 
 
 This feeling in man is the strongest safeguard against 
 low and mean acts. It places one above meanness. The 
 lion is the most magnanimous of beasts. He never does a 
 mean act. This is because of his consciousness of power, 
 which makes him feel too noble to be mean. 
 
 I HIS, then, is our plea for wealth, that its moderate 
 ^ possession makes men noble and magnanimous. 
 One noble, generous, wealthy man in a community is some- 
 times a source of inspiration for hundreds of young men. 
 
 Let it be remarked, however, that the kind of wealth 
 which produces this desirable result is that which is born 
 
 349
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 of toil and economy. No man can become suddenly 
 wealthy without being injured thereby, for the mode of 
 thought and the whole character must change to meet the 
 conditions of wealth. Whole new lines of thought, new 
 schemes, new plans of life, must be originated, and this 
 change cannot take place suddenly without too great a 
 shock to the character. 
 
 We claim that no man has any moral right to extreme 
 wealth. No man can possibly have any moral right to 
 anything in this life which he does not earn, for otherwise 
 he must trespass on the rights of his fellows. 
 
 Men are born destitute of all possessions. No one 
 brings anything into the world. What right, then, has one 
 to gather riches through another's toil and misfortune ? 
 The man who has the ability to begin with nothing and 
 accumulate ten thousand dollars by his own industry and 
 economy, has just ability enough to take care of ten thou- 
 sand dollars and be made better and nobler thereby. 
 
 But the accumulation of wealth, grand as is its possible 
 ministry, is not, by any means, the only object that con- 
 cerns the instinct and spirit of economy. 
 
 It is not the chief object of the economy of home. 
 The object of home is to mold character, and the object of 
 home economy is, or should be, the accumulation of all 
 those means and instrumentalities that minister to that 
 end. 
 
 Those things which minister to the intellectual and 
 
 350
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 aesthetic nature are as properly the objects of the econom- 
 ical faculty as dollars and cents. 
 
 t children be taught to believe that good books are 
 among the most desirable of earthly possessions. 
 Let them begin to accumulate books even before they can 
 read. It would be infinitely better than to give them a 
 little bank and teach them that the accumulation of cop- 
 pers is all that is desirable. They may be allowed to vie 
 with each other in the accumulation of good books and 
 works of art, and, when they become old enough to appre- 
 ciate them, they will, perhaps, have a respectable library. 
 They will also have what is far better, a true idea of life 
 and its significance. 
 
 If all parents would follow this course with their chil- 
 dren, the world's mad scramble for money would be trans- 
 ferred to books, facts, principles, thoughts, beauty, art, 
 education, culture, righteousness, and all that can lift the 
 soul, and bring the spirit and genius of humanity nearer to 
 its God. 
 
 In all cases the children should be made to earn 
 these books with their own hands, that they may early 
 learn that labor is the price of thought as well as of bread. 
 They cannot too early be taught that labor is necessarily 
 the price of all honest possessions. 
 
 " Thus is it over all the earth, 
 
 That which we call the fairest, 
 And prize for its surpassing worth, 
 Is always rarest. 
 351
 
 Economy of Home. 
 
 " Iron is heaped in mountain piles 
 And gluts the laggard forges, 
 But gold-Hakes gleam in dim denies 
 And lonely gorges. 
 
 " The snowy marble flecks the land 
 
 With heaped and rounded ledges, 
 But diamonds hide within the sand 
 Their starry edges. 
 
 " The finny armies clog the twine 
 
 That sweeps the lazy river, 
 But pearls come singly from the brine 
 With the pale diver. 
 
 " God gives no value unto men 
 
 Unmatched by meed of labor ; 
 And cost of worth has ever been 
 The closest neighbor. 
 
 " Were every hill a precious mine, 
 And golden all the mountains ; 
 Were all the rivers fed with wine 
 By tireless fountains ; 
 
 " Life would be ravished of its zest, 
 
 And shorn of its ambition, 
 And sink into the dreamless rest 
 Of inanition. 
 
 " Up the broad stairs that value rears, 
 
 Stand motives beck 'ning earth ward, 
 To summon men to nobler spheres, 
 And lead them worthward." 
 
 352
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY. 
 
 Home Hygiene and Sanitation. 
 
 rFLNESS should be the aim of every life. God 
 made us dependent upon one another that 
 this great quality might be developed. We 
 are born into the world in an absolutely helpless state and 
 remain so for years. This condition brings about two 
 results. The -love of the parent is developed, and the 
 plastic life of the child is put into these experienced hands 
 that its character may be formed. The life of the man 
 will be largely determined by the results of this early 
 training. 
 
 The organization of the nervous system, including the 
 brain, might be compared to the laying of the great tele- 
 graph lines. No message can be sent where there is no 
 line. This training is the laying of the lines. 
 
 It may be called habit formation. The parents are the 
 responsible parties. The home is the workshop. The child 
 is the subject. 
 
 The three conditions of health, strength, and endur- 
 ance are to the successful life what sunshine and rain are 
 
 353
 
 Home Hygiene and Sanitation. 
 
 to the plant life. The absence of any one of these throws 
 a shadow over every hope. The presence of all gives vigor 
 to every purpose. 
 
 No one factor enters so largely into the health of the 
 individual as proper home conditions. The introduction 
 of poison into the system stops growth, greatly interferes 
 with all the nutritive processes, reduces vitality, induces 
 disease, and produces premature death. Large quantities 
 of waste products are thrown off from the body constantly. 
 The reason for this is that they are of no further use. If 
 they should be retained, they would prove to be extremely 
 poisonous. Every one knows this fact, but we fail to real- 
 ize that many of these products can be re-admitted to the 
 body. 
 
 We hear so much latterly about disinfectants. One of 
 the best in the world, for many purposes, is God's fresh air. 
 We have great quantities of it, and this alone might be 
 considered as a suggestion that we use it freely. But 
 many people are afraid of it, and will use every means at 
 hand to keep it out of the house. In so doing they breathe 
 over and over again the same air. This air contains waste 
 products already mentioned, odors and organic matter 
 from cooking, gases from stoves and furnaces, and dust, 
 including all germ life living in such media. 
 
 The introduction of good fresh air would destroy the 
 waste matter, drive out the odors and gases, and largely 
 render harmless even the germs present. 
 
 354
 
 Home Hygiene and Sanitation. 
 
 As to methods of introducing fresh air, anyone who 
 will give it a little thought and is willing to experiment, 
 too, can soon arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. Draughts 
 can be easily avoided, and yet the air caused to circulate. 
 
 Sleeping Rooms. 
 
 Many think that if the rooms are cold, the air is pure. 
 Not so. Temperature has no affect whatever. Cold air is 
 no purer than warm air. 
 
 We occupy our sleeping rooms more than any other 
 part of the house. There is the least opportunity for a 
 circulation of air, because the occupants are not moving 
 about and opening and closing doors. Usually these 
 rooms are the smallest in the house. Contamination is, 
 therefore, very likely to occur. The body is relaxed, 
 hence more sensitive to the results of these poisons. That 
 " tired feeling" in the morning is the result. We conclude 
 at once that the blood needs toning up, when the fact is the 
 blood needs the oxygen of good fresh air. But now let us 
 enter the 
 
 Spare Room 
 
 and note its condition. Possibly a friend is to be enter- 
 tained over night. This is not a usual occurrence, but the 
 bed is always in readiness. Even the linen is spread, and 
 has been since house cleaning time. The room has been 
 carefully kept closed, so no unnecessary dust could accu- 
 mulate. We open the door to enter, and are first met by 
 
 355
 
 Home Hygiene and Sanitation. 
 
 a stale odor. It suggests mold, dampness, and a badly 
 vitiated air. But you ask why ? No one has slept here 
 for months. It has been kept closed so that it might be 
 ready and fit for our visitor. 
 
 Air becomes stale as readily as bread. It must be kept 
 moving. When inclosed in a tight space, all of the con- 
 tents of the space are liable to changes. Moisture collects, 
 mold appears, iron rusts, and the air becomes ladened with 
 unhealthful products. 
 
 We open the bed, and the odor is much more evident. 
 The linen seems almost damp, is very cold in winter, and 
 is not in any condition for use. Why ? Because fresh air 
 has not been permitted to come into contact with every 
 part. That room should either be kept open, or thoroughly 
 ventilated at least, even before a fire is made, for fresh air 
 is much more easily warmed than stale air. The bed 
 should never be made till it is to be used. We thus avoid 
 the conditions which will make the night very uncomfort- 
 able, and endanger the health of our guest as well. 
 
 But while we are thinking of these rooms where we 
 spend our time, and which are so closely related to health 
 and vitality, let us consider the question of dust. 
 
 This is a source of great annoyance to every house- 
 keeper, but whoever thought that it was related to health ? 
 Everybody has been anxious to keep free from it, but not 
 because it was deleterious. But it is remarkable how it 
 collects. Our method of carpeting the floors so they can 
 
 356
 
 Home Hygiene and Sanitation. 
 
 be cleaned but once a year is one cause. A good sweeping 
 once a week removes a small amount of the heaviest dust, 
 but most of it is forced into the meshes of the carpet to 
 remain for a time, or pass through to the floor beneath, or 
 is brushed into the air. Allow a sunbeam to pass into the 
 room, and notice the millions of small particles floating in 
 the air. That sunbeam would not be visible were it not 
 for the dust. Walk across the floor and notice how the 
 amount increases. Rugs are much preferable to carpets, 
 for the minimum amount of dust is allowed to collect. But 
 what is dust ? Go out into the street, pick up a handful, 
 look at it, and think. Where did it come from ? 
 
 Of course from the soil, sand, etc. But it is the etc. 
 that is of special interest. To this pulverized earth is 
 added much vegetable matter, mostly decomposed ; much 
 animal matter of various kinds, waste products from the 
 various and many animals passing by ; and disease germs 
 of different forms, thrown off by man and beast. Added 
 to these are the millions of germs of different kinds usually 
 inhabiting the air, and which have been washed down by 
 rain, or have died from natural causes. All these things 
 have accumulated, and have been ground into a fine 
 powder, and when the wind blows they are hurled in 
 every direction. Besides they are carried into the house 
 on clothing and shoes. This cannot be avoided, but we 
 can resist its collection in large quantities. 
 
 This explains why moths can live in carpets. It is also 
 
 357
 
 Home Hygiene and Sanitation. 
 
 to be noted that they inhabit soiled clothing, and never 
 that which is clean. Carpets free from dust will not sup- 
 port such undesirable creatures. 
 
 The Kitchen. 
 
 It is not unusual to read advertisements offering to 
 sell some "cockroach exterminator" or "water bug 
 destroyer." But know thou, that for the sustenance of 
 all these creatures dirt is necessary. Keep every nook 
 and corner clean and dry, and these pesky creatures will 
 never appear. If you are bothered with them now, clean 
 up your kitchen and keep it clean, and they must die. 
 Their presence is not necessary to health, in fact they may 
 transmit disease germs to food, with which they come in 
 contact. 
 
 The Cellar. 
 
 Foul odors mainly originate in the cellar. Soil air is 
 produced very largely by decomposing matter in the 
 ground. Sometimes it becomes dangerous when the 
 ground is being stirred up, especially in cities. 
 
 When this passes into the cellar it soon finds its way 
 into every part of the house. Every cellar should be 
 cemented to avoid this result, and afterwards kept scrupu- 
 lously clean, and well ventilated. 
 
 But while these things considered hygienically are of 
 great importance, their effect upon the character of the 
 
 358
 
 Home Hygiene and Sanitation. 
 
 members of the household is of fully as much importance. 
 As the home, so the child. 
 
 Personal and Home Cleanliness. 
 
 A child who is in the habit of seeing dust and dirt in 
 the home, accompanied very probably with house vermin, 
 will not care about his personal cleanliness or appearance. 
 
 The skin is one of the great sewerage systems of the 
 body. If it is allowed to become blocked by an accumula- 
 tion of excretory debris, lowered vitality must result, and 
 disease is much more liable. The problem is not simply 
 one of comfort, but of health. 
 
 But there is also an ethical reason ; we must associate 
 with each other, and for this reason are under obligations 
 to keep clean. We usually wash our faces and hands sev- 
 eral times a day. Other parts are much more liable to 
 defilement, and should receive proper care. 
 
 Dietetics. 
 
 We cannot discuss the question of foods here. There 
 is no end to variety. No two health or food authorities 
 agree. What one prominent man declares the best, 
 another pronounces unfit to eat. 
 
 Good advice recommends you to eat what agrees 
 with you, and absolutely refrain from eating that which 
 disagrees with you in any manner. But some things stim- 
 ulate you, and others nourish you. You must have the 
 latter, the former may cause trouble. Stimulants will ena- 
 
 359
 
 Home Hygiene and Sanitation. 
 
 ble you to work when you are tired, but rest is the much 
 wiser remedy. 
 
 A prominent dentist lately said that the cause of such 
 poor teeth to-day is lack of use. Many of our foods are 
 soft and do not need chewing, and those needing mastica- 
 tion are swallowed whole. Teeth are not to look at, or the 
 salivary glands to play with. Eat your food, take time to 
 prepare it for 'the digestive organs, and many of the so- 
 called difficult-of-digestion foods can be readily assimilated, 
 and a much smaller quantity of water, milk, tea, coffee, 
 and cocoa will be necessary at the meal. But food cannot 
 make the body strong ; God has implanted in every being 
 the love of activity. The babe kicks, strikes, cries, and 
 laughs. The boy or girl runs, plays, screams, fights, and 
 engages in many other activities. To limit this sponta- 
 neous activity changes the child into old age 
 
 For the adult, the promised harvest is held out as an 
 inducement for, and the ever present demand impresses us 
 with the necessity of, activity. We are daily reminded of 
 the fact that bread and sweat bear a close relation to each 
 other. It is fortunate that it has been so arranged, for we 
 gain physical life while we are striving to gain food, and 
 it cannot be obtained in any other way. A strong man is 
 one who works, but who does not overwork. 
 
 I have been asked what I would advise in the way of 
 cosmetics and lotions. 
 
 The individual who lives a hygienic life as described in 
 
 360
 
 Home Hygiene and Sanitation. 
 
 these pages, will not need cosmetics. If, however, for any 
 reason they seem to be indicated, he had better advise with 
 his family physician and endeavor to remove the cause of 
 the difficulty, instead of trying to apply a patch. But why 
 should so much time be spent, so much effort be given, so 
 much be written, concerning the physical self ? Threescore 
 years and ten soon pass, and then we fly away. That is 
 the very reason. This higher self is the real self the 
 abiding self. This real character is the result of the life 
 lived in the body. It receives all its impressions through 
 the senses. That which I see, hear, taste, smell, and feel 
 bears a most intimate relation to my character. These 
 senses provide me with all of the material for thought. 
 "As he thinketh in his heart so is he." My thoughts again 
 find expression through the different members of my body. 
 If these members and these organs of sense are abnormal 
 because of environment, character, as well as expression, 
 must suffer. 
 
 I am not my best self. 
 
 361
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE. 
 
 Home Adornments. 
 
 
 A.N is an aesthetic being. The love of beautj r 
 constitutes a vital part of his existence. Not a 
 mere appendage ; not one of the finishing 
 touches of his creation that might have been omitted with- 
 out seriously deranging the symmetry of the whole, but 
 it constitutes a great motive power in man's constitution. 
 It is the uplifting element ; it is that in us which makes us 
 hunger and thirst after perfection of character. 
 
 The law of beauty is the law of completeness, and that 
 law in the soul gives the desire for spiritual completeness 
 and perfection. 
 
 The law of material beauty is, doubtless, that by which 
 matter tends to assume the form of completeness, which is 
 that of the circle. The circle everywhere prevails. Nature 
 always makes a perfect circle when she can ; and when she 
 cannot she usually makes a compromise with the opposing 
 forces and together they make an ellipse, or some form of 
 the curve. The stars are spheres ; atoms are by common 
 consent regarded as spheres. The paths of all the heavenly 
 
 bodies are ellipses. The transverse sections of trees and 
 
 363
 
 Home Adornments. 
 
 almost all forms of vegetables are circular. Most of the 
 animal tissues are circular, or are made up of circular 
 parts. 
 
 But it is not alone in the geometrical figure that we see 
 the spirit of the circle. We see it in the repetitions of his- 
 tory, in the ceaseless round of the seasons, in the death 
 and resurrection of the roses, in the successive pulses of 
 music, in colors that suggest their complements, in the bud 
 that suggests the completion of the flower, in the unutter- 
 able emotions that come to us while gazing upon the 
 " breathing canvas and speaking marble," in the soul-lift- 
 ing suggestion of the poet's metaphor, which is always the 
 segment that completes a circle of consistent thought. 
 
 It is our imagination that supplies these missing seg- 
 ments, and accordingly imagination and fancy are found to 
 be essential faculties in the production or appreciation of 
 beauty. Imagination is that faculty which gives us a 
 desire to complete all our mental operations, and thus give 
 to them something of the spirit of the circle. The law of 
 beauty is Nature's imagination, which tends to complete all 
 her operations and give to everything a circular tendency. 
 
 3INCE, then, the principle of beauty is so far-reach- 
 ing in nature, and since it forms so large and vital 
 a part of man's nature, is not its cultivation of the utmost 
 importance ? We cannot do violence to this part of our 
 nature without violating the whole. To withhold the
 
 Home Adornments. 
 
 influences that tend to develop a love of beauty is as sure 
 to cause a one-sided and unsymmetrical growth, as to with- 
 hold a needed element of food. Beauty is one of the ele- 
 ments of the soul's food. The cultivation of beauty in the 
 soul requires no costly tutorage. Beauty's lessons may be 
 learned without a teacher. The universe is one vast cab- 
 inet open to our inspection. Every gate of nature turns 
 upon golden hinges. The sky each morning is broidered 
 by the rosy fingers of the dawn, and every evening the sun, 
 amid beauty that awes the soul to silence, like a gallant 
 knight rides down the perilous cataract of molten gold. 
 The beauty of the clouds, the sweet simplicity of nature's 
 drab dress, is past all description of novelist or poet. A 
 spirit may grow divine by gazing on the clouds, and it 
 costs us nothing* to appropriate this beauty except the 
 trouble of taking our nooning in the open air. There is a 
 flower in every nook and corner of nature's domain, which 
 it costs us nothing to look at. 
 
 UT it is not alone in nature that beauty may minister 
 to our souls. It is the chief object of this chapter to 
 show, in a general way, how art may serve this purpose. 
 Nature hangs no landscapes on our parlor walls, nor 
 does she set bouquets in our windows. She will cause the 
 bouquets to grow and blossom, however, if we will but take 
 the trouble to plant them. 
 
 Flowers are the soul's best friends. There is the breath 
 
 364
 
 Home Adornments. 
 
 of the angels on their petals. It is needless to contend that 
 there is no deep meaning in the tribute which the universal 
 heart of man in all ages has paid to flowers. 
 
 A flower garden is within the reach of every family 
 that has the control of a house ; for the beds may be made 
 close about the house, and there are few tenements even in 
 the denser parts of cities where there is not a sufficient 
 quantity of land for a flowerbed. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that there has been much dis- 
 cussion concerning the wholesomeness of house plants, it is 
 nevertheless the opinion of the most eminent scientists 
 that they are positively beneficial to health. Indeed, to 
 suppose otherwise would be a violation of the logic of 
 analogy, for the whole vegetable kingdom constantly con- 
 sumes carbonic acid, an invisible gas which is poisonous to 
 us, but which constitutes the food of plants. They also 
 exhale oxygen, which is the all-sustaining element of ani- 
 mal life, and which in civilized homes is usually deficient, 
 owing to the lack of proper ventilation. Thus house plants 
 in part neutralize the bad effects of imperfect ventilation. 
 One of the most striking provisions of nature is seen in 
 the mutual adaptation of plants and animals. Plants give 
 to us just what we require, while we give to them just 
 what they require. How admirably then are men and 
 plants adapted to live together ! 
 
 365
 
 Home Adornments. 
 
 I HE beauty of art is not alone for the mansion of 
 ^ wealth. Artistic and tasteful adornments are the 
 products of ingenuity and not of wealth. Trees may be 
 planted about the house, also vines and roses. Arbors and 
 shady nooks may be made to render home attractive, and 
 to give an added charm in after years to its memories. It 
 is true that "be it ever so humble there's no place like 
 home," but that home would be sweeter and would touch a 
 tenderer chord in the spirit's harp if we could look back to 
 a cottage vine-wreathed and rose-decked. There is some- 
 thing in the nature of beauty when it surrounds our early 
 home that never loses its power and never ceases to exert 
 a molding influence over us. 
 
 There is no end to the tasteful and pleasing devices by 
 which an intelligent wife or daughter may adorn a home, 
 and that with little expense beyond the time it requires, 
 and this is usually mere pastime. The plot about the 
 house may be either a sand desert covered with barrel 
 hoops, broken cart wheels, and decaying rubbish, or it may 
 be clean, wholesome, and beautiful. One cannot live in a 
 wretched hovel where there is no beauty, where the lawn 
 suggests a lumber yard, a cattle yard, and a slaughter 
 yard combined, without sharing in the degradation of the 
 surroundings. 
 
 366
 
 Home Adornments. 
 
 |T is as much the duty of parents, then, to adorn and 
 beautify their home as it is to keep the moral atmos- 
 phere of that home pure. 
 
 Indeed, the latter cannot exist without the former. 
 The best characters and the noblest men come from the 
 modest homes which taste, refinement, and labor have 
 adorned and beautified. 
 
 Beauty is a positive force, a developing potency in the 
 universe. The language of beauty everywhere is the lan- 
 guage of aspiration. If our dull ears could be quickened 
 till we could hear and understand the divine dialect of the 
 opening flowers, we should hear them say: 
 
 "All things have their mission, and God gives us ours, 
 And this is a part of the mission of flowers : 
 To give life to the weary and hope to the sad, 
 Fresh faith to the faithless, new joys to the glad ; 
 To cheer the desponding, give strength to the weak ; 
 To bring health's bright bloom to the invalid's cheek ; 
 To blush on the brow of the beautiful bride ; 
 To cheer homes of mourning where sorrows betide ; 
 To rob dreaded death of a part of his gloom, 
 By decking the dear one arrayed for the tomb ; 
 To furnish the home with a lasting delight, 
 With our perfumes so lovely, our blossoms so bright ; 
 To hallow the homestead, embellish the lawn, 
 Reflecting the tints of the roseate dawn." 
 
 367
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO. 
 
 Dignity at Home. 
 
 IGNITY is self-respect, or rather the manifesta- 
 tion of self-respect. It is the involuntary and 
 
 unconscious expression of one's appraisal of him- 
 self. Hence dignity may be called a secondary or depend- 
 ent virtue. It is not in itself a cardinal virtue, but the 
 language of one. Politeness is not absolutely necessary 
 to a noble character, but that virtue of which politeness 
 is the expression is one of the grandest in the world. It 
 is that of benevolence. 
 
 In exhorting one to be polite, it is more philosophical 
 to exhort him to cultivate the Christian grace of benevo- 
 lence than merely to study etiquette. So with dignity. 
 There is no use in studying the postures, gestures, and 
 bearing of dignity, if there be not behind it the true source 
 of dignity, self-respect. It is dishonest to appear to be 
 what we are not ; and if we have not the true spirit 
 of dignity, it is better for us to appear undignified. Then 
 the world will know better how to measure our worth. 
 Artificial dignity and artificial politeness are to be con- 
 demned as dishonest and hypocritical. Let young men 
 
 308
 
 Dignity at Home. 
 
 and women be dignified, but let it be a true expression of 
 their self-respect. Self-confidence is a trait of character 
 whose worth is usually underestimated, especially in the 
 young. At some stage of their mental growth, young men 
 are almost always considered conceited ; but in the major- 
 ity of cases the conduct that gives rise to this belief 
 originates in other sentiments than that of self-esteem. 
 Most people have this element of their characters too fee- 
 bly developed. The more self-esteem one possesses, if he 
 be not haughty and overbearing, the better. This func- 
 tion of the mind gives us noble thoughts, and makes us 
 hate anything that is low or mean. It makes the possessor 
 feel that he is better than any mean act ; hence it is one 
 of the strongest fortifications of virtue. 
 
 I HE dignified man always receives more respect than 
 V the undignified. Society is inclined to take a man 
 at his own appraisal. The world, while it may question a 
 man's claims to its homage, always believes all the accu- 
 sations which he brings against himself, and if a man by 
 his downcast head, his low and mean associates, his vulgar 
 thoughts and profane words, in short, by his lack of 
 dignity, proclaims to the world that he is unworthy of its 
 esteem, it will surely take him at his word. 
 
 To the dignified man everything that ho does becomes 
 dignified. If he is a wood-chopper, then wood-chopping 
 
 becomes as dignified and honorable as statesmanship. 
 
 369
 
 Dignity at Home. 
 
 Wherever the dignified man or woman goes, there goes 
 before a sense of honor and respect. He seems to be a 
 kind of balance wheel to the society in which he moves. 
 The laugh is never too long or loud ; mirth and hilarity 
 never go too far when he is present. At the same time he 
 is not a burden or a painful restraint upon the natural flow 
 of sentiment and the play of social forces. 
 
 NATIONS and individuals usually attain a height cor- 
 responding to their own ideals. The beautiful, 
 ideal life of the Greek was the necessary prelude to the 
 glorious reality, and those individuals who have climbed 
 the rugged heights and poised themselves on glory's sum- 
 mit, have been those who, with bleeding feet, calloused 
 hands, and toiling brains, have worked out a cherished 
 ideal. The dignity of a being measures the worth of his 
 life's ideal. So that, other things being equal, he who is 
 most dignified is most rapidly advancing along the path of 
 his own possibilities. 
 
 These facts are as applicable to the little world of 
 home as to the great world of human society. The boy 
 who is dignified at home receives the confidence of his 
 sisters, brothers, and parents. Just as the world takes the 
 man at his own price, and grants its confidence only as his 
 dignity shows him worthy of it, so the parent takes the 
 child at his own price. In proportion as children are dig- 
 nified will parents grant them liberties, and place them in 
 
 370
 
 l)i(jnitij at Home. 
 
 positions of honor and trust in the family economy. The 
 dignified girl need not be a premature woman. She may 
 romp and play with her brothers, as she should do, and 
 still be dignified. Dignity, as we have intimated, does not 
 consist of outward acts ; it has no necessary ritual ; it is 
 not "studied gestures or well-practiced smiles." 
 
 The father who gets down on the floor to please his 
 little child is not undignified. The mother who joins in 
 the happy sports of her children, even with all the mirth 
 and merriment of her early girlhood, is not undignified so 
 long as she has a noble purpose in life, and sees a grand 
 object in being. 
 
 Indeed, we believe that those who walk with measured 
 step, and whose faces suggest a lengthened cloud, are not 
 the finest embodiments of true dignity. Everything which 
 is counterfeit betrays its spuriousness, whatever may be 
 the skill of the counterfeiter. The sly, giggling, and sim- 
 pering false modesty need never be mistaken for the open 
 frankness and fearlessness of true modesty. So there is 
 always something about the bearing of a false dignity that 
 betrays it. It is false dignity that cannot afford to smile, 
 but true dignity can afford to be light hearted. We find 
 it enthroned upon the mother's brow as she shakes the 
 rattle, and smiles and creeps upon the floor to please her 
 baby. But how grandly, when suddenly called upon to 
 perform a higher duty, does she step out of the enchanted 
 atmosphere of her baby's life, unwreathe the nursery smiles 
 
 371
 
 Dignity at Home. 
 
 from her face, and stand forth in the glory of her woman- 
 hood. It is then that she displays a dignity that awes us, 
 a dignity before which the vile insulter slinks back like 
 the hyena at the gaze of day. 
 
 This is what we mean by dignity. It is something 
 which the little girl may cultivate as much as she chooses. 
 It will not hurt her. It will not make her prematurely 
 old. It will not cause her to ripen too quickly, like a 
 shriveled apple, but it will help to develop her and make 
 her a true and noble woman. 
 
 There is always a certain degree of reserve that accom- 
 panies true dignity, so that its possessor is never quite 
 transparent. He may be, and in fact must be, free, open, 
 and social, but there is always a reserved force of individ- 
 uality. He may be translucent, but not transparent. And 
 there is always a charm in that which we have almost but 
 not quite seen. Hence the mind of the dignified man is 
 an inexhaustible fountain of pleasure to his friends. He 
 is always courted and never shunned. The boy who is 
 dignified will be a central figure among his brothers and 
 sisters and schoolmates. 
 
 I HERE are certain virtues that have corresponding 
 V vices, resulting not from the absence but from the 
 excess or wrong direction of the virtue. Dignity is one 
 of those peculiar virtues, separated from the vice of con- 
 ceit only by a thin veil. Economy is a virtue that all 
 
 373
 
 Dignity at Home. 
 
 boys and girls are exhorted to cultivate, but how thin is 
 the partition that separates this virtue from the hateful 
 vice of penuriousness, that vice which has shriveled the 
 soul of many a miser like the foliage of a girdled tree. 
 Even the worship of God may be but a hair's breadth 
 from idolatry. The flower of every virtue grows close 
 to the precipice of a vice. 
 
 It is a law without exception that the lower the plane 
 the more stable the virtue, while the higher the plane, 
 the more unstable. 
 
 The heavenly gift of love trembles over the abyss of 
 sensuality, while the crowning sentiment of divine wor- 
 ship is easily tumbled from its lofty pedestal into the 
 mire of idolatry. 
 
 Hence dignity finds its highest complement in the 
 fact that it is separated by a thin partition from the vice 
 of pride and haughtiness. Let us then cultivate dignity, 
 but weed the flower with a careful hand. 
 
 " A man of haughty spirit is daily adding to his enemies ; 
 
 He standeth as an Arab in the desert, and the hands of all men are 
 
 against him. 
 
 A man of a base mind daily subtracteth from his friends, 
 For he holdeth himself so cheaply, that others learn to despise him. 
 But where the meekness of self-knowledge veileth the front of self- 
 respect, 
 
 There look thou for the man whom none can know but they will honor. 
 Humility is the softening shadow before the statue of Excellence, 
 And lieth lowly on the ground, beloved and lovely as the violet." 
 
 373
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE. 
 
 Success or Failure 
 F^orestiadov^ed at Home. 
 
 UCCESS and failure are relative terms. What 
 would be success to one might be failure to 
 another. Success is simply the best possible 
 results under existing circumstances. 
 
 He who was born without the use of his~ arms and 
 hands, and also without artistic ability, and yet who, by 
 patient effort, has learned to write with his toes, even 
 though his writing be but a miserable scrawl, if it be legi- 
 ble, has surely achieved a wonderful success in the art of 
 penmanship. But for him who possesses the free use of his 
 hands, and has in addition the taste of an artist, such a 
 result would certainly be but moderate success. 
 
 The pious rural maiden, who spends her life in minis- 
 tering to the sick, the poor, and the ignorant in her little 
 neighborhood, even though her name is never heard 
 beyond a radius of ten miles, has achieved a success of 
 which the record is in heaven, but had she been endowed 
 
 with the ten talents that God gave to Florence Nightin- 
 
 374
 
 Success or Failure. 
 
 gale, she surely would have shuddered to offer so meager a 
 return to her master. 
 
 one asks himself the question, "Can I suc- 
 ceed?" he must have before his mind a definite 
 standard of success, or his words become meaningless. 
 Circumstances and native ability must determine the scope 
 of the question. The first stage in all success is a prepara- 
 tion for success, and the number of stages is limited only 
 by natural capacity and length of life. He who has pre- 
 pared for success, even though it has required his lifetime, 
 has succeeded better than he who has passed over a thou- 
 sand stages, but has missed one stage that he might have 
 passed. 
 
 According to this definition of success, which is the 
 only proper one, all may succeed, and failure is never 
 necessary. All can certainly do their best, and the result 
 will be success. Failure, as the word implies, is simply the 
 failure to act according to our highest possibilities. The 
 world is full of the brilliant failures of fortune's sons 
 those who seemingly possessed every advantage that fate 
 could bestow. On the other hand, the poorhouse has been 
 the theater of many a sublime success. 
 
 He has succeeded well who has met and conquered the 
 dark hosts of evil passions that assail so many unfortunate 
 souls. If he has subdued self, that mightiest enemy of 
 humanity, he may count his life a grand success, even 
 
 375
 
 Success or Failure. 
 
 though the victory came but with the death angel's rein- 
 forcement. Success is his if he can greet his stern ally 
 thus : 
 
 ' ' Were the whole world to come before me now, 
 Wealth with its treasures ; pleasure with its cup ; 
 Power robed in purple ; beauty in its pride ; 
 And with love's sweetest blossoms garlanded; 
 Fame with its bays, and glory with its crown, 
 To tempt me lifeward, T would turn away, 
 And stretch my hands with utter eagerness 
 Toward the pale angel waiting for me now, 
 And give myself to him, to be led out 
 Serenely singing to the land of shade." 
 
 We are glad, however, that the world contains but few 
 who must buy success at such an awful price. 
 
 Success or failure is the natural fruit of character. 
 The apple tree cannot bear anything but apples, neither 
 can a good character bear anything but success. Failure 
 is the only fruit we can reasonably expect to reap from a 
 bad character. 
 
 But some may object to this, and point us to the fre- 
 quent and brilliant success of bad men ; but what they 
 would call success would probably not fall within our defi- 
 nition. If dishonest acquisition is success, then is the 
 highway robber the most successful of men ; and on that 
 roll of honor the brute-hearted pirate must be. allowed to 
 write his name. Hence the word success loses all signifi- 
 cance unless we restrict it at least to honest acquisition. 
 
 376
 
 Success or Failure. 
 
 This must be done even by those who claim that dollars 
 and cents are its only standard. Yes, it is character that 
 determines our success or failure. Our deeds, both the 
 good and the bad, are the visible herd which the unseen 
 shepherd, character, drives across the field of our lives. 
 If he be a good shepherd, the herd also will be good, and, 
 fearless of the prowling wolf, will move in orderly proces- 
 sion straight to the fold of success ; but if he is a bad shep- 
 herd, the flock will not obey him, but will scatter in wild 
 confusion, and hide themselves in the dark and cheerless 
 caves of failure. 
 
 3 INGE, then, it is our character that brings us suc- 
 cess or failure, we must go where characters are 
 formed, to the home, in order to speak our words of warn- 
 ing and advice. 
 
 The chief cause of all failures is a lack of persistency. 
 He who begins life as a fruit vender, with nothing but a 
 persistent mind, has a better chance of success in life, than 
 he who begins with a million dollars and a vacillating 
 mind. 
 
 In the New World, financial success is possible to 
 every young man of ordinary ability. It is certainly 
 important that he should choose the vocation for which 
 nature has best fitted him, but it is far more important 
 that he persist in the one which he does choose. 
 
 There are certain excesses and deficiencies which 
 
 377
 
 Success or Failure. 
 
 amount to national peculiarities. Lack of persistency is 
 surely a deficiency in Americans, while with the Germans 
 the reverse is true ; thoroughness with them is almost an 
 excess. Failures are very rare in Germany, because every 
 man is so thoroughly taught in his one special subject that 
 he has the advantage both of a perfect knowledge of his 
 business, and a natural tendency to be contented for life 
 with one occupation. 
 
 By failures we do not mean what is generally called a 
 " financial failure." But rather the failure to do justice to 
 one's native powers, failure to attain to what most men 
 regard as success. Perhaps there are more failures of this 
 kind among Americans, in proportion to the population, 
 than among any other people in the world, and the fact 
 accords well with their known fickleness. In a somewhat 
 lesser degree the same is true of Canadians. 
 
 I HE young American or Canadian has much difficulty 
 V in deciding what occupation he shall follow. He is 
 undecided whether he shall be a shoemaker or statesman. 
 He generally thinks quite favorably of all the intermediate 
 trades and professions. As a rule, he tries as many of 
 these as time and circumstances will permit. He enters a 
 store as a clerk, and while the novelty lasts his mind is 
 fully made up that he will be a merchant, and have a large 
 city store ; but after a time his work becomes prose instead 
 of poetry. His hasty decision was based on no abiding 
 
 378
 
 Success or Failure. 
 
 relation between himself and trade. He leaves the store 
 and obtains a position in a bank, and immediately he 
 decides that he will be a great banker. He reads and 
 studies about the mysteries of Wall Street. But in a few 
 weeks or months it occurs to him that he didn't stop to 
 measure the distance between a chore boy in a country 
 bank and a great stock operator on Wall Street, so he 
 thinks he won't be a banker or a broker, but perhaps 
 decides to be a printer, and goes into a printing office fully 
 determined that he has at last found out what nature 
 intended to do with him. He is well satisfied for a time. 
 He reads the life of Benjamin Franklin. His ambition is 
 awakened. He begins to see, too, that the printer is only 
 the servant of the writer. This touches his pride, and he 
 conceives the idea of going to college, and becoming a 
 great writer and speaker. So his father's little farm is 
 mortgaged and he starts for college, carrying with him 
 that same indecision ; and after four years of aimless 
 study he comes home to choose his life work, having for- 
 gotten all about his last resolution to be a great writer. So 
 habituated has he become to frequent change of occupa- 
 tion, that it is now absolutely impossible for him to be satis- 
 fied in any sphere of life. 
 
 There is no objection to a mere change of occupation if 
 circumstances render it desirable. The evil is in the men- 
 tal condition that prompts a change. A young man may 
 be a clerk, a banker, and a printer if he chooses, and be the 
 
 379
 
 Success or Failure. 
 
 better for it, provided these occupations are used simply as 
 means for the accomplishment of some definite and specific 
 purpose. If a boy chooses to be a printer, let him be a 
 printer, and, if circumstances render it necessary or desira- 
 ble that he should for a time engage in some other occupa- 
 tion, let him do it feeling that he is simply for a time work- 
 ing out of his element. It is the mental change, the change 
 of motive and desire, and not the mere physical change, 
 which produces the best result. 
 
 NOW, since success and failure are products of the 
 character, and since character is formed by the 
 influences of home, it is easy to determine with approxi- 
 mate certainty from an inspection of the home, what are 
 the prospects of success or failure in life. 
 
 Moreover, one derives a feeling of fortunate relief from 
 the thought that all evils which can be foreseen, and 
 which owe their origin to human volition, can be pre- 
 vented. 
 
 Children should be taught the importance of persist- 
 ency. It is not necessary that they should early choose 
 their vocation ; yet it is necessary that, when they do 
 choose it, they should choose it for life. An occupation 
 once chosen should be entered upon with a feeling that 
 there is no other occupation. The ships should be burned 
 behind. So long as there is in the mind a lingering 
 
 thought that after all some other occupation will constitute 
 
 380
 
 Success or Failure. 
 
 the life work, failure is almost certain, for the mind is not 
 concentrated, and its acts are like the acts of those who are 
 half in jest. 
 
 Young men who contemplate a profession are some- 
 times advised to learn some trade first, then, they are told, 
 if they fail in the profession they will have something to 
 "fall back on." This is a first-rate way to make certain 
 their failure in the profession. If you wish to insure the 
 defeat of an army make elaborate preparations for an easy 
 retreat, but if you wish to make them invincible, tear up 
 the roads and burn the bridges behind them. So if you 
 would insure success in your boy's career don't foster nor 
 tolerate the feeling that it isn't absolutely necessary that 
 he should succeed in that particular trade or profession. 
 
 But what if the man has made a mistake ? Suppose 
 he has entered the medical profession, and then discovers 
 that he was doubtless intended for the law ? In that case 
 it is a matter to be settled by his own judgment and the 
 advice of his friends whether he shall continue in the 
 medical profession or change to the law. If he is young 
 and circumstances are favorable, perhaps it would be 
 advisable to make the change. It would not as a rule be 
 advisable. 
 
 We have said that it is less important that a young 
 man should choose just the occupation for which he is best 
 adapted, than that he persist in the one which he does 
 
 choose. There may be exceptions to this, but it is true, as 
 
 381
 
 Success or Failure. 
 
 a rule, from the very fact that without persistency failure 
 is certain, even in the occupation for which he is best 
 adapted. With persistency he is sure of a moderate suc- 
 cess at least, even in the vocation to which he is poorly 
 adapted ; but without this quality he is sure of failure in 
 any vocation. 
 
 We would not convey the impression that we attach 
 but little importance to the right choice of pursuits. There 
 are few things in human life more important than a right 
 matrimonial selection, and yet it is far less important than 
 a firm determination to live through life peacefully and 
 lovingly with the one who has been chosen ; so it is very 
 questionable whether one should attempt to correct any 
 mistake that may have been made in choosing his calling. 
 
 It is not to be presumed that the young man has made 
 any mistake in the choice of his occupation. If he has 
 been advised and counseled by wise and cautious parents, 
 there is but little probability that he has made a wrong 
 choice. Nature has so kindly and wisely blended our 
 tastes and talents that what we desire to do most, that, as 
 a rule, we can do best. 
 
 But unmingled success is not always the best thing for 
 a young man. There are few who would not be spoiled by 
 it. There is hardly a great orator whose biography does 
 not contain some story of an early failure. He who has 
 never failed is necessarily a weak man. Temporary fail- 
 ure is the best cure for egotism. It reduces our standard 
 
 383
 
 Success or Failure. 
 
 of self-measurement to the denominations of the world's 
 system. 
 
 Temporary failure sustains the same relation to the 
 character that sorrow does ; if not administered in over- 
 doses, it strengthens and develops. 
 
 " What most men covet, wealth, distinction, power, 
 Are baubles nothing worth ; they only serve 
 To rouse us up, as children at the school 
 Are roused up to exertion ; our reward 
 Is in the race we run, not in the prize. 
 Those few, to whom is given what they ne'er earned, 
 Having by favor or inheritance 
 The dangerous gifts placed in their hands, 
 Know not, nor ever can, the generous pride 
 That glows in him who on himself relies. 
 Entering the lists of life, he speeds beyond 
 Them all, and foremost in the race succeeds. 
 His joy is not that he has got his crown, 
 But that the power to win the crown is his." 
 
 383
 
 CHAPTER TI [1RTY-FOUR. 
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 ENIUS has been brilliantly but imperfectly defined 
 as an infinite capacity for taking pains. He who 
 lacks this capacity as a natural endowment, lacks 
 the chief attribute of genius. It is a divine birthright of 
 the few. 
 
 There is, perhaps, nothing that more forcibly betrays 
 the weakness and folly of human nature than the tendency 
 in almost every young man to fancy himself a genius, and 
 hence beyond the necessity of labor. The object of this 
 chapter is to expose that folly, and to show the widespread 
 misconception concerning the nature of genius. 
 
 If work costs you an effort, you may be talented, but 
 you are not a genius. From a psychological point of view, 
 the essential elements of genius are spontaneity and 
 uniqueness. The acts, the thoughts, the creations of the 
 genius, arise out of special mental environment, and the 
 special application of intuitive principles that are potential 
 in the mind itself. The direction or bent of genius is like- 
 wise potential, and only awaits particular circumstances, 
 which are sometimes incidental, to bring it into actuality. 
 
 384
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 Simple acquirement without reference to the quality of 
 the acquirement or its place in the category of mental 
 achievement is not genius. Great achievements, although 
 they always accompany genius, do not constitute it, they 
 only indicate it, they are the natural language, the gest- 
 ures, of genius. 
 
 We are told that intense application and concentration 
 of effort and purpose will accomplish the results of genius. 
 And why should they not, for they are genius itself. It is 
 wonderful that men who are so remarkable for common 
 sense in the everyday affairs of life should show to such 
 poor advantage when they attempt to elucidate the princi- 
 ples of mental science and human nature. 
 
 There are no subjects on which the popular writers 
 become so hopelessly confused as on those pertaining to 
 psychology. Let it be understood once and forever by the 
 world, that there can be no act of being that is not the out- 
 growth of an organic function, and this pernicious indefi- 
 niteness which makes ludicrous and insignificant distinc- 
 tions between synonymous words will vanish from our 
 literature. Concentration of purpose and intense applica- 
 tion are as truly elements of genius as the imagination of 
 the poet. From many writers we should gather that there 
 may be one or two faculties essential to greatness, which 
 may be native and individual, but that all the other ele- 
 ments, such as will, concentration, perseverance, self- 
 reliance, etc., etc., are possessed in equal quantities by all, 
 
 385
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 and that those who do not use them as extensively as the 
 greatest men are to be censured. 
 
 Now it is as reasonable to censure a boy because he 
 cannot compose music like Beethoven as to censure him 
 because he "does not want to." The elements that give 
 the desire are the same that give the ability. You may as 
 well exhort him to write poetry like Shakespeare as to 
 exhort him to have the concentration, the perseverance, or 
 the self-reliance of Shakespeare, for all these qualities are 
 as much parts of genius, and are just as dependent on 
 hereditary and organic influences, as those which are rec- 
 ognized as the prime factors of genius. 
 
 I ENIUS has many and unmistakable characteristics, 
 and among them the earliest, if not the most marked, 
 is intellectual boldness. The first symptom of genius is 
 a scorn for the opinions of men. Genius sees through 
 the clouds that intercept the world's vision, and hence 
 the world never sympathizes with genius. Hisses are the 
 highest compliment the world can pay to genius. He who 
 does not sometimes enrage his fellow men may well ques- 
 tion his claim to genius. 
 
 This rule, however, applies with less force in certain 
 spheres of genius, as music, painting, sculpture, etc. Yet 
 even here the grandest efforts have been scorned by the 
 critics, the interpreters of genius. But in that highest 
 sphere, in which it roughhews the timbers of the world's 
 
 386
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 new thought, it cannot receive the sympathy of men. 
 " Loose unto us Barabbas " is the world's cry. It is genius 
 they would crucify, for it is genius that moves them to 
 wrath. For it reveals itself not in soft words and "pretty 
 thoughts," but in words often discordant and thoughts, 
 tumultuous thoughts, that burn into the tablet of the cen- 
 turies with a hiss. It is the honeyed words of talent that 
 best please the ears of mankind. 
 
 Another distinguishing characteristic of genius is that 
 it always tells the world something that it did not know 
 before. Genius stands nearest to the source of all wisdom, 
 and catches whispers that never reach the common ear. 
 It is God's interpreter. It reveals and interprets the 
 unwritten language of nature's pantomime ; hence the 
 world, in spite of its antipathy for genius, instinctively 
 recognizes its power. For in all ages men have made the 
 words of genius canonical. Homer was the world's first 
 Bible. 
 
 Genius works without regard to the value of the prod- 
 uct. It works, as we have said, because it cannot help it. 
 And herein seems to consist the divinity of genius, for it 
 appears to be guided by a divine influence. It forgets that 
 it is hungry and works all night. Tested by the received 
 canons, it is radical and fanatical. It recognizes no beaten 
 path, however lovely. It both walks upon the earth and 
 flies in the air. It knows that which talent doubts, and 
 believes that which talent laughs at. 
 
 387
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 I T is not our purpose to discourage young men, yet we 
 do not hesitate to do so, if thereby we may dispel from 
 their minds the foolish fancy that they are geniuses. Nor 
 need this discourage them. Every mind is satisfied with 
 its own sphere. Talent does not suffer from disappoint- 
 ment because it cannot be genius, any more than the child 
 suffers because it cannot be a man. The child is ambitious 
 only to be noted among his playmates as possessing, in 
 a remarkable degree, the qualities of a child. So talent, 
 unless there be a want of harmony in the mental constitu- 
 tion, is satisfied with its own sphere, and does not seek to 
 rise in its aspirations into the cloud heights of genius. We 
 do not mean that a person without genius does not fre- 
 quently wish that he might occupy the highest place in 
 the estimation of his fellows. There are few to whom this 
 wish is a stranger, yet it causes no suffering and does not 
 touch the question of disappointed aspirations. In its rela- 
 tion to genius we have used the word aspiration with its 
 strongest meaning, that in which it signifies not merely a 
 wish to be great, but a burning, sleepless impulse, which 
 suffers all things, forgets the weak pleadings of sense, 
 and labors unceasingly for the accomplishment of its 
 purpose. 
 
 So we are not actuated by a malicious desire to dash 
 the cherished hopes of college boys who mistake that 
 indefinite desire for greatness which every one has felt, 
 
 for that divine uplifting which not only seeks the goal of 
 
 888
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 greatness, but actually rejoices that the path to glory is 
 so rough and steep. It is a characteristic of genius that 
 it loves to tread stony paths, for the sake of crushing 
 the stones. 
 
 No ! no ! young man, don't wait any longer for genius 
 to blossom, for the fact that you are waiting proves that 
 there is no bud to blossom. 
 
 \ A fs have paid this exalted and possibly extravagant 
 " ^ tribute to genius solely for the purpose of placing 
 in the hands of that class of young men who fancy them- 
 selves geniuses, a means of detecting their own folly. 
 These young men are proverbially the lazy young men ; 
 they are those who from some strange cause have con- 
 ceived the idea that to work would be to surrender their 
 claim to genius. Hence they abandon themselves to idle- 
 ness. They have been told that Poe and Byron were idlers. 
 But if the truth were known it would, doubtless, be found 
 that these unhappy geniuses through sleepless nights of 
 wasting toil worked themselves into untimely graves. 
 
 Since genius consists essentially in spontaneous labor, 
 in contradistinction to the irksome effort of mediocrity, 
 it follows that these young men are barred, at the outset, 
 from all claim to genius. 
 
 Probably more talented young men have been ren- 
 dered useless by the delusion that genius is a compound of 
 wine and laziness than by any other one cause. Let no 
 
 389
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 young man entertain the idea that by getting drunk and 
 being lazy he can be a Poe. 
 
 In the first place, Poe was not lazy. Genius, it is 
 true, often works somewhat irregularly, because the mov- 
 ing power in genius is impulse, whereas in talent it is usu- 
 ally motives of economy or duty. And, in the second place, 
 Poe would probably have been a much greater poet had 
 he been temperate. But there seems to be in perverted 
 human nature a propensity to copy after the incidental 
 weakness of greatness. Let a man of genius display one 
 trait of the idiot and hundreds of young men will appro- 
 priate it and complacently consider themselves possessed 
 of at least one characteristic of genius. 
 
 So long as the young man of talent can readily find a 
 field for the full exercise of his powers, and one in which 
 the rewards of toil are worthy of his highest effort, he need 
 not feel discouraged because he cannot be a genius. As 
 well might he lament because he was not born into a more 
 refined and beautiful world than this. So long as he ful- 
 fills the duties which his talent imposes, he should be con- 
 tent and happy in his sphQre, and never stop to consider 
 whether he be a genius or a mediocre. The semi-idiot, if 
 he employs to the best possible advantage the weak talents 
 that he possesses, may be morally as deserving of praise as 
 Plato, Paul, or Newton. 
 
 390
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 IT is the function of genius to go in advance of the 
 world's march, and "set the stakes" to guide the 
 advancing column. But one genius can do this for an 
 army of ten thousand, while the lieutenants and corporals 
 of talent must be scattered all along the line. Genius in 
 every relation of life is more or less independent of experi- 
 ence. It knows things without learning them. It exempli- 
 fies the doctrine of "innate ideas." Talent knows only 
 what it sees, but genius does not see what it knows. In its 
 loftiest moods the beams of truth flash into its inmost 
 chambers, and it cannot tell you whence comes the light. 
 It is awed at its own achievements, and looks with wonder 
 upon its own offspring. It sees, as mere talent can never 
 learn to see, the infinite significance of wholeness. 
 
 But talent and genius may and often do exist together. 
 There is nothing in the nature of the one that necessarily 
 precludes the other. Those in whom they exist together 
 will exhibit that same irrepressible impulse to labor, but 
 there will be, in their labor, the method and regularity and 
 moderation which characterize that of talent. The genius 
 of Caesar, Napoleon, or Shakespeare would not have pro- 
 duced the grand results that it did, had it not been mixed 
 with talent, whereby it was tempered and made self-regu- 
 lating. Goethe, perhaps, furnishes the best illustration of 
 the combination of genius and talent. 
 
 We have indicated a very sharp contrast between 
 genius and talent, or rather between the results of genius 
 
 391
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 and talent. But the question, what is genius, remains un- 
 answered. 
 
 I HERE are all degrees of genius, as there are all 
 
 ^. degrees of talent, and the line where the highest 
 degree of talent meets the lowest degree of genius is a 
 question that can be determined only by the arbitration of 
 mankind. There is no natural law by which we can say 
 with certainty that one mind is on this side and another on 
 the other side of that line. There are doubtless thousands 
 far below the line who have passed for geniuses, while 
 thousands more, as far above the line, have hardly received 
 the rank to which mediocrity should entitle them. Yet 
 notwithstanding such injustice, resulting from weakness 
 and prejudice, the fact of genius still remains. The dis- 
 tinctions of kitten and cat, of cub and lion, of child and 
 adult, are genuine and natural distinctions, yet who shall 
 designate the moment when a boy becomes a man ? This 
 moment cannot be ascertained with certainty within sev- 
 eral years. A margin of at least five years must be 
 allowed for variation of opinion concerning definitions. 
 
 Genius, then, is but developed talent, and the lowest 
 degree of talent holds in potentiality the highest degree of 
 genius. 
 
 Talent in man corresponds to strength of material in 
 the engine, which is approximately indicated by the figures 
 
 on the steam gauge. It is the steady power of resistance. 
 
 392
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 I 
 
 But there is another quality of the engine of a subtiler 
 nature. It may be called sensitiveness. This quality 
 depends not upon the size and strength of material, but 
 upon the "finish" and the nice adjustment of parts, 
 whereby friction is diminished. It enables us to deter- 
 mine the per cent, of discount that must be made, on the 
 indications of the steam gauge, in estimating the efficiency 
 or working power of the engine. 
 
 Now genius is that in the organization which corre- 
 sponds to this quality in the engine. It may be termed 
 organic quality. It is the finish of the brain, and by it 
 the mental powers are made responsive. It is great just 
 in proportion to the per cent, of organic power utilized. 
 Hence spontaneity is the one word that approaches nearest 
 to a synonym of genius. 
 
 Since genius results from a quality of the organism, we 
 see why it often seems to defy the organic law that size 
 measures power. Emerson is a puzzle to the phrenologists, 
 even with all the qualifications implied in their " cseteris 
 paribus." This fact, however, is no disparagement to the 
 science. Even astronomy, the oldest of sciences, must 
 recognize its insolvable problems. It cannot trace the 
 comet through its hyperbolic and parabolic orbits. So 
 mental science cannot solve the " mystery of genius." For 
 genius lies beyond the reach of science. It is a comet 
 whose orbit is the infinite parabola. 
 
 There are degrees of organic quality far above that 
 
 393
 
 Fallacies About Genius. 
 
 which the phrenologist marks "seven," and in these rare- 
 fied realms dwells genius. Nay, genius is the reigning 
 spirit of the realm itself. 
 
 It should be a pleasing thought to the great mass of 
 mankind, that the most glorious achievements of the race, 
 the aggregate of which constitutes most that we prize in 
 history, have not been the products of what men term 
 genius. But talent, with toiling brain and sweating brow, 
 has wrought the revolutions whose issues are the land- 
 marks of history. But this does not debase the glorious 
 mission of genius. Had it not been for genius, the great 
 problems that talent has solved would never have been 
 formulated. 
 
 Let the young man, whether he has talent or genius, 
 be content to labor in his own sphere, and let his 
 motto be : 
 
 " Seize this very minute, 
 
 What you can do, or dream you can, begin it. 
 
 Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. 
 
 Only engage, and then the mind grows heated, 
 
 Begin, and then the work will be completed." 
 
 394
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE. 
 
 Courage to Meet Life's Duties. 
 
 UMAN life is fraught with duties. The fact of 
 existence imposes them upon every one. There 
 ^, is no hour of our lives that does not hold a 
 note against us. Every moment is a creditor. Our lives 
 and what they signify are so woven into the web of univer- 
 sal being that there is never a moment of release. 
 
 But by far the larger portion of life's duties lie along 
 the soul's path of aggressive movement, and require some- 
 thing of courage to meet them. 
 
 Courage is that quality of the soul which makes it fear- 
 less of consequences in the presence of opposition. With 
 this definition, courage becomes an element in the perform- 
 ance of every duty of life, for the human soul is confronted 
 by no duty which is not armed. Every duty demands an 
 aggressive act, and hence courage and he who shrinks 
 from a duty is a coward. The duties of life consist in the 
 aggregate of all the acts toward which the sense of right, 
 of honor, and of self-respect impels us. 
 
 Life is the arena of many forms of courage, as many as 
 
 395
 
 Courage to Meet Life's Duties. 
 
 there are possible lines of human action. There is physical 
 courage, which dares to meet and overcome physical oppo- 
 sition. It is that which makes us willing to take the pos- 
 sible consequences of the physical danger, in the accpm- 
 plishment of an effort. This form of courage is by no 
 means low. It is true that it is the form of courage which 
 defends the cub of the wild beast, and which belongs to 
 that department of man's nature which he possesses in 
 common with the brute creation, yet without it all the 
 higher powers of man would be helpless prisoners hi the 
 hands of circumstances. 
 
 We would not exalt physical courage to that position 
 which we would assign to reason, and yet we must regard 
 it as one of the noble attributes of man. Washington's 
 integrity and honor and patriotism might have existed in 
 vain, for without physical courage they could never have 
 made a nation grand. The early Christians might have 
 died from the very excess of their joy, but without the 
 physical courage that scorns the flame there would never 
 have been a martyr. 
 
 But there are higher forms of courage. To be a martyr 
 one must have something more than the courage to meet 
 physical torture and death. He must have the courage to 
 think the unthought and speak the unspoken ; and not only 
 to think and speak thus, but to do it amid the jeers of 
 hatred and the hisses of calumny. But for this form of 
 
 courage no triumphant vessel would to-day move upon 
 
 396
 
 Courage to Meet Life's Duties. 
 
 the waters, no engine would jar the earth with its iron 
 tread, no magic wires would belt the globe with zones of 
 love. 
 
 History would be unstained with blood, and the sim- 
 ple record would read as sweetly as the story of a maiden's 
 life ; and yet out of the rayless midnight of that history 
 would rise no star. The darkness of the past has been 
 illumed by the fagot fires kindled at the feet of courage. 
 No. grand libraries would adorn our cities, had not moral 
 courage dared to pen its own pains. 
 
 Every heroic page of history may be said to have been 
 born amid the death throes of its author. 
 
 The steps of the world's progress have been over the 
 red altars of human sacrifice. 
 
 Physical, intellectual, and moral courage have been 
 the grand leaders in the ceaseless conquest of thought. 
 God bless the martyrs to science and religion ! bless those 
 whose pale brows have pressed through weary days and 
 lingering nights against the bars of prison windows, 
 unsolaced, save in the triumphs of truth ! 
 
 I T is often said that the age of heroism is past, since, 
 as it is claimed, there is no longer any demand for 
 great displays of courage. The inventor is no longer 
 pointed at with scorn, nor accused of too intimate associa- 
 tion with the devil. 
 
 The authors of new thought are not now doomed to 
 
 397
 
 Courage to Meet Life's Duties. 
 
 starvation. But notwithstanding all this there never was 
 a period in the history of the world when life demanded 
 so much of courage as to-day. The most dastardly form 
 of cowardice is that which makes us afraid to be our- 
 selves. 
 
 The highest need of human society to-day is a bold and 
 fearless spirit of individuality. A thousand years ago one 
 could be conservative and not fall behind the race. But 
 now, while humanity rides on steam and lightning, one 
 cannot afford to imitate the clumsy gait of those who went 
 through life on foot. 
 
 With the momentum of all the formative ages behind 
 him, man is rushing with terrific speed toward the goal of 
 his destiny. He started as a long train starts from its sta- 
 tion, with snail pace and amid the tolling bells of dying 
 martyrs. One did not need then to have a high degree 
 of individuality. He could keep with the race while he 
 remained almost at rest. There was little demand then 
 for this form of courage, for one was much like another, 
 and individuality was an attribute of the nation rather 
 than of the man. Then the individual man was a part of 
 the mass with no visible line of demarcation between, but 
 now he is a detached fragment, and must maintain his 
 own identity and assert his own individuality by a cease- 
 less act of courage, or be hurled as refuse into the world's 
 intellectual and moral sewer. 
 
 No age of human history has offered such a grand 
 
 398
 
 Courage to Meet Life's Duties. 
 
 reward to courage as the present. In politics and religion 
 we see the disgusting cowardice that makes men slaves to 
 base schemes and cunning tyranny. 
 
 I HERE are few men who dare to think for them- 
 
 ^ selves ; they must see what the political paper or the 
 minister says before they have the courage to say what 
 they believe. Few ever consider what a powerful factor 
 in life's programme is moral courage. Let the young man 
 learn to think for himself. It will give him added power 
 and a rightful independence. From a perfunctory assimi- 
 lator of other people's thoughts, he will soon acquire more 
 or less right to be adjudged on his own authority. Not 
 only good citizenship but the duty of self-development 
 demands this exercise of a special prerogative. Each 
 courageous thought gives needed zest to independent 
 character. 
 
 Originality is not a peculiarity of great minds. The 
 smallest minds may become wonderfully original simply 
 through courage, by daring to question that which they 
 read and hear. Of course the disagreeable habit of ego- 
 tism is not to be encouraged. One should presume him- 
 self ignorant of all things and then dare to question all 
 things. 
 
 Authority should not be disregarded, and yet it should 
 be taken as affording merely a presumption, and not a 
 demonstration. The truths that fall within the ken of 
 
 399
 
 Courage to Meet Life's Duties. 
 
 human vision are few. All truths cannot be seen even by 
 the most gifted. The spider sees many things that the 
 eagle overlooks. As much depends upon the attitude of the 
 eye as upon its power, and there are little truths and cer- 
 tain aspects of great truths which must, from their nature, 
 be discerned by little minds alone. It is cowardice to 
 believe or disbelieve because Plato says so. The first 
 symptom of genius is the bold daring with which it dis- 
 putes the fables of the nursery. We would not, however, 
 have it understood by young men that the disagreeable 
 and unmannerly habit of disputing for the sake of dis- 
 puting is in any way a symptom of greatness. 
 
 We have used the word dispute in a broader sense, 
 that in which it means to question why, to weigh the prob- 
 abilities, to demand consistency, and to doubt, if need be. 
 The civilization of the nineteenth century was born of 
 doubts and questions, whose answers have been hisses. 
 Emerson says: "Have courage not to adopt another's 
 courage." 
 
 That certainly means much. It means that we should 
 stand upon our own individuality, and dare to respond to 
 our own name in the roll call of life. 
 
 ejRAGE gives a man a kind of magic control over 
 everything in nature. It actually strengthens the 
 muscles of the body. 
 
 The courageous man can lift a heavier weight, other 
 
 400
 
 Courage to Meet Life's Duties. 
 
 things being equal, than the timid man ; he can do more 
 work in the same time and with less exhaustion. 
 
 Courage adds to one's peace of mind. The timid man 
 is never at peace. To him life's duties assume the form 
 of living, malicious intelligence, whose only desire seems 
 to be to defeat his efforts and cause him pain. 
 
 Fear weakens every fiber of our being, physical, in- 
 tellectual, and moral ; which, in effect, is the same as 
 strengthening the obstacles and resistances of life. What- 
 ever strengthens the muscles virtually lightens the weight. 
 Thus does courage give to man a control over inanimate 
 nature. 
 
 But not alone over inanimate nature, for he who pos- 
 sesses courage holds the wand that rules the world. He 
 sets the world a thought-copy which it gladly follows. 
 There is something in the glance of courage, born of con- 
 scious power, before which man and beast alike quail. 
 Under the gaze of the wild beast, man is safe till he loses 
 his courage. 
 
 " Ah ! from your bosom banish, if you can, 
 Those fatal guests : and first the demon fear, 
 That trembles at impossible events ; 
 Lest aged Atlas should resign his load, 
 And heaven's eternal battlements rush down. 
 Is there an evil worse than fear itself? 
 And what avails it that indulgent heaven 
 From mortal eyes has wrapt the woes to come, 
 If we, ingenious to torment ourselves. 
 401
 
 Courage to Meet Life's Duties. 
 
 Grow pale at hideous fictions of our own ! 
 
 Enjoy the present ; nor, with needless cares 
 
 Of what may spring from blind misfortune's womb, 
 
 Appall the surest hour that life bestows. 
 
 Serene, and master of yourself, prepare 
 
 For what may come ; and leave the rest to heaven . ' ' 
 
 402
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX. 
 
 Personal Responsibility. 
 
 "lt~J\ESPONSIBILITY is the nurse of power. 
 
 iy Nature is parsimonious, however prodigal she 
 I ^ \^ ^ may appear in such matters as the spawning 
 of fish roe or the fertilization of the queen bee. Her habit 
 is to withhold power till power is very urgently demanded, 
 and even then to dole it out with all too niggard hand. If 
 the measure given is not used, but timidly laid away 
 in a napkin, she soon and silently withdraws it. The 
 unused treasure dwindles day by day. It cannot be 
 spared to lie idle. It is wanted elsewhere ; and it goes. 
 
 But when power is in use, thither it tends to flow, in 
 a volume more or less grudgingly apportioned to the 
 urgency of the need. The tree continually assailed by 
 winds puts forth the stronger anchorage of roots to grip 
 the soil. The faculties of man, physical, mental, or spir- 
 itual, grow keener and more competent in proportion to 
 the demands made upon them by circumstance. This, of 
 course, is to speak sweepingly ; for on the one hand the 
 stern economy of nature often leads her to court failure 
 by the insufficiency of the gift ; and on the other hand the 
 
 403
 
 Personal Responsibility. 
 
 demand may be made too soon, and ruin may come 
 through unreadiness. Trial, demand, discipline, these are 
 a blessing. But the excess of a blessing is apt to be the 
 worst of banes. Responsibility too great may crush, not 
 strengthen. A sudden hurricane may uproot the tree, 
 unless its roots have been long settled in their grip of 
 earth and rock. 
 
 I HE sense of responsibility is not instinctive, but 
 ^ acquired. It is apt to be acquired late and with 
 reluctance, for instinct seeks to repel it. Long before Cain 
 the race of man was wont to ask angrily of its dawning 
 conscience, "Am I my brother's keeper ?" and to shut its 
 eyes resentfully to the growing idea of responsibility for 
 others. Among the higher animals, especially those which, 
 like the elephant and the dog, lead a more or less complex 
 existence and apply to the conduct of their affairs the 
 methods of reason, we find unmistakable evidences of the 
 sense of responsibility. The trained collie holds himself 
 responsible to his master for the flock ; and he is treated 
 with a measure of that consideration which is due to 
 responsible beings. Speaking broadly, the respect with 
 which a person is treated is a kind of index to the degree 
 of his responsibility. The irresponsible are treated with 
 indulgence, not with respect. If they are immune from 
 penalties, they are also exempt from powers and privi- 
 leges. They are regarded as irrelevant. 
 
 404
 
 Personal Responsibility. 
 
 The responsibility most widely recognized and most 
 immediately effective is that which makes us answer- 
 able to others, to an authority, human or divine, outside of 
 ourselves. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wis- 
 dom," is the ancient teacher's way of expressing the force 
 of this responsibility. It is the step toward a realization of 
 that higher kind of responsibility which bids one hold him- 
 self answerable to the tribunal of his own conscience. 
 When this second kind of responsibility comes to be uni- 
 versally and effectively accepted, the first kind will be 
 superseded ; and the millennium will have come. In that 
 day the emperor and the anarchist will lie down together. 
 
 IT is obvious that men have to do with two different 
 kinds of responsibility : First, that which entails 
 upon every individual as a member of the human brother- 
 hood ; and, second, that which is made up of the innumer- 
 able duties and obligations which each individual assumes 
 for himself or finds thrust upon him by his special circum- 
 stance. The first kind is universal, and practically con- 
 stant. It varies only with the expansion or contraction of 
 one's sphere of influence. It may be, and too often is, 
 ignored ; but it cannot be escaped, it cannot be shirked. 
 Fully realized it is a rich source of power, an effective 
 means of self -discipline and development. Ignored, it is 
 bound to exact bitter penalty in the end. The second kind 
 is never in any two cases quite the same. It varies as 
 
 405
 
 Personal Responsibility. 
 
 infinitely as the relations of life vary. It varies with each 
 man's outward circumstance and inward conditions, with 
 health, temperament, and even mood. It is made up of 
 duties and obligations, some of which may honestly be 
 avoided, others modified, while most are in a greater or 
 less degree subject to the determination of the personal 
 will. Allowing, however, for the exceptions which may 
 be brought in under the head of this second class, it is safe 
 to say, as a generalization, that the responsibility accepted 
 saves, while the responsibility ignored damns. One may 
 hide his eyes in the sand, like the ostrich, and fancy him- 
 self safe ; but the responsibility to which he has blinded 
 himself will hunt him down and pierce him. 
 
 3 INGE the sense of responsibility is a late flowering 
 of one's higher faculties, and since in many persons 
 this flowering is never otherwise than scant, it follows that 
 much shirking of responsibility arises from sheer igno- 
 rance, or from the thoughtlessness of the unawakened. 
 When the consumptive mother in kissing her child gives it 
 the seeds of her disease, she does it in ignorance. She does 
 not know her responsibility in the matter. She thinks the 
 instinct of a mother's love must be a safe guide. She 
 ignores one of her gravest responsibilities. Her ignorance 
 and her love together, one would think, might win her 
 mercy. But the natural law is not to be set aside for pity. 
 She is punished just as if she had known and willfully 
 
 406
 
 * Personal Responsibility. 
 
 ignored her responsibility. Moreover, she can never know 
 how vast was the sphere of that responsibility to which she 
 was so piteously false. She can never know how much 
 further afield her child may carry the germs which have 
 been committed to it from her lips. She can never know 
 what lives she may have wrecked by that one kiss. 
 
 This instance is purely physical. But far wider 
 their boundaries, indeed, all but infinite are the spheres 
 of intellectual and moral responsibility. Any simile which 
 should attempt to illustrate the vast reach of an individ- 
 ual's influence which is, in varying degree, the reach of 
 his responsibility would sound like gross exaggeration. 
 When Tesla, the wizard of electricity, tells us that the 
 electric waves from his great generator send sympathetic 
 vibrations throughout the whole electric system of our 
 globe, he tells us what sounds like a fairy tale, but what 
 we nevertheless believe to be hard fact, definite and de- 
 monstrable. The imagination refuses to grasp a sphere of 
 influence so vast and moved by a force so insignificant. 
 Yet something that seems but an idle passing of man's 
 breath over the vocal chords, a few light words forgotten 
 in a moment by the brain that conceived them, may be felt 
 beyond the reach of Tesla's magic wave. This has only 
 space to work in ; but the vibration of personal influence 
 goes through time as well, and may be active a thousand 
 years from its start on a careless tongue. 
 
 This is an extreme instance, but within the limits of 
 
 407
 
 Personal Responsibility. 
 
 truth. Extreme instances are needed to catch the imagina- 
 tion. One is apt to grow sluggish of perception toward the 
 remoter but graver responsibilities of life. The temporal 
 responsibilities, lying very close at hand, are apt to obscure 
 the eternal ones. On the other hand there are many 
 morbid souls who should never permit themselves to re- 
 gard such extreme instances at all, lest in their extrava- 
 gant care for unborn generations they be heedless of the 
 duty at their door. Such persons groan under the bur- 
 dens of the whole earth. They cannot distinguish between 
 their own responsibility and that of others, except that the 
 latter chiefly, rather than their own, fills their eyes and 
 stirs their hearts. For such persons it is wholesome to 
 dwell rather on responsibility of the second and temporal 
 class than on the eternal and inescapable species. 
 
 RESPONSIBILITY, as I have said, is the nurse of 
 V-, power. The truth of this is obvious when the 
 responsibility referred to belongs to the second, or tem- 
 poral, class. The power which such responsibility nour- 
 ishes is apt to be material, or at least, if intellectual or 
 spiritual, of such a nature as to be in some part weighed 
 and considered of men. The dictum is in this case more 
 readily brought home by illustration ; and its truth upon 
 the higher plane, where the eternal responsibilities are in- 
 tended, and that spiritual power which is not manifest to 
 the careless eye, may be argued by analogy. 
 
 408
 
 Personal Responsibility. 
 
 When a young man becomes answerable to society for 
 his own livelihood, his own standing, he at once calls into 
 use those faculties which he has, and for the most part 
 finds them, at the time, insufficient. He feels the need 
 of more power. He strives for it ; and in the striving it 
 comes. It comes, however, not so abundantly but that he 
 is kept on striving for it. Nature is pretty sure to give a 
 little less than is asked of her. Nevertheless, it comes, 
 and presently, if he stops and takes stock of himself, the 
 young man finds his power astonishingly increased. He is 
 richer in self-control, in self-knowledge, in the knowledge 
 and control of others, in a perception of the true relations 
 of things. If you look into his eyes you see something 
 that was not there before, a steadiness and a readiness. 
 
 All this added power, however, is barely sufficient to 
 meet the needs of his responsibility for himself. Let him 
 become answerable for others, for wife or kin, for great 
 public interests, for a cause that fires his zeal, and he 
 soon finds that much more is to be done, that much more 
 power is needed. Instead of timorously slinking out of the 
 responsibility, he staggers along beneath it and grasps 
 eagerly for more power. In the stress the new power 
 comes. His back grows broad for the burden. He stag- 
 gers no longer. And now his eyes have changed yet more. 
 They are quiet with a certain experienced equanimity ; 
 and he faces his fellows securely, as a master workman in 
 
 the guild of life. 
 
 409
 
 Personal Responsibility. 
 
 ##*##### 
 
 A deeper lesson to mortals taught, 
 
 And nearer cut the branches of their pride : 
 
 That not in mental, but in moral worth, 
 
 God excellence placed ; and only to the good, 
 
 To virtue, granted happiness alone. 
 
 Admire the goodness of Almighty God ! 
 
 He riches gave, he intellectual strength 
 
 To few, and therefore now commands to be, 
 
 Or rich, or learned ; nor promises reward 
 
 Of peace to these. On all he moral worth 
 
 Bestowed ; and moral tribute asked from all. 
 
 And who that could not pay? Who born so poor, 
 
 Of intellect so mean, as not to know 
 
 What seemed the best ; and, knowing, might not do? 
 
 As not to know what God and conscience bade? 
 
 And what they bade, not able to obey ? 
 
 And he who acted thus fulfilled the law 
 
 Eternal, and its promise reaped of peace : 
 
 Found peace this way alone : who sought else, 
 
 Sought mellow grapes beneath the icy pole ; 
 
 Sought blooming roses on the cheek of death ; 
 
 Sought substance in a world of fleeting shades. 
 
 Robert Pollock. 
 
 410
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN. 
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 IN the history of every one there comes a time when an 
 important step must be taken and a momentous 
 question decided. The period in which this step is 
 taken is a most critical one, one fraught with the mightiest 
 consequences for weal or woe. It holds the destiny of 
 human life. An error here cannot be corrected. 
 
 A happy decision is a fortune to which nothing on 
 earth can be compared. 
 
 It is the custom to speak lightly on this subject, and to 
 consider the most awful issue of life as a fit occasion for 
 mirth and idle jest. There can be no doubt that this cus- 
 tom lies at the root of a large percentage of the miseries 
 that mar the happiness of the race. 
 
 So long as young boys and girls are allowed to trifle 
 with each other's affections, as if that were their highest 
 use, the world will be the theater of untold sorrow. It is 
 true that the love element will not bear to be reduced to 
 the standard of a commercial transaction. It must have 
 the liberty to spread its wings in the atmosphere of its own 
 
 411
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 divine romance. We must not take away the poetry which 
 is its vital breath. 
 
 And yet there are certain phases of it that may and 
 should be submitted to the tribunal of reason. We do not 
 believe that reason can in any sense furnish the motive 
 power of love. We even doubt if nature intended it to 
 play any part whatever in the programme. 
 
 We belong to that school which teaches that each and 
 every part of man's nature contains a principle of wisdom 
 in itself, and holds the elements of its own regulation. It 
 is not the natural office of reason to dictate the amount or 
 quality of food that we should take, and yet in the case of 
 dyspepsia it often becomes necessary that reason should 
 perform this function, for the natural instinct is then 
 dethroned and there is no longer any trustworthy guide. 
 Reason may in this case serve as a poor substitute. 
 
 The foregoing illustration contains the whole truth 
 concerning the relation of reason to the love principle. If 
 the delicate sentiments have not been outraged, and the 
 tastes are unvitiated, they will invariably lead to desirable 
 results, when the proper conditions are supplied. But in 
 most cases this subtile instinct is but an imperfect guide, 
 because it has been perverted by improper action. 
 
 Under these circumstances it becomes necessary to 
 submit the dyspeptic caprice of the unregulated love to the 
 sound judgment of reason. 
 
 It is said that "love is blind," but this fancy originated
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 in the observed phenomena of its perversion, and not of 
 its normal action. There is nothing that can see so well 
 as pure love. It is all eyes. No nicely adjusted lenses of 
 science can detect the motes which its naked eye discerns. 
 The young man or woman whose love intuitions are 
 unclouded will seldom make a mistake in the disposal of 
 the affections. 
 
 I HERE is, however, a danger from one other source, 
 ^ which we will presently mention. It is the theory of 
 most parents that girls and young women should never be 
 permitted to associate freely with men until they contem- 
 plate matrimony. There seems to be a sickly sentiment 
 prevalent on this subject. The young woman must feel 
 that there was a kind of special providence in her love 
 affair, and that it would have been absolutely impossible 
 for her to love anyone else. This distorted sentiment is 
 common to both sexes, but it exists for the most part in 
 those who have been excluded from the society of the other 
 sex. The fact that girls who have brothers and boys who 
 have sisters usually make the wisest matrimonial selec- 
 tions, is one that bears significantly on this subject. The 
 girl who has never been permitted to associate with men, 
 and who has no brothers, is very likely to make a mistake 
 in the bestowal of her affections. The conjugal choice is 
 made through an instinct that is attracted by the con- 
 genial, and repelled by the uncongenial. There is, how- 
 
 413
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 ever, an attraction between the sexes even when the 
 parties are not conjugally adapted, and if the young 
 woman has never had an opportunity to compare this 
 attraction, which she may have felt, with stronger and 
 deeper ones, she will be very apt to misinterpret its signif- 
 icance, and regard it as a positive impulse of her nature. 
 This, then, is the source of danger. It is the fact that 
 nature seldom permits an absolute repulsion between 
 women and men, even between those who are ill adapted 
 as conjugal partners. 
 
 Hence it becomes necessary in order to rightly inter- 
 pret our impulses that we should have the opportunity to 
 compare them. 
 
 If Nature had sharply drawn the lines of attraction 
 and repulsion between the compatible and the incompati- 
 ble, there could be no such thing as a matrimonial mis- 
 take. But since she prefers to suggest, by a weakened 
 attraction, rather than to command" by a positive repul- 
 sion, it requires a little acuteness to understand her sug- 
 gestions. 
 
 It is a fact proved from every realm of natural history 
 that it is the female's rightful office to make the matri- 
 monial selection. The lioness accepts her mate only after 
 ample opportunities for comparison and choice. In this, 
 as in many other respects, the higher intelligence may 
 learn a lesson from the lower. The young woman should 
 have the opportunity of making her selection from a wide 
 
 414
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 circle, otherwise she cannot so easily distinguish the false 
 from the true. 
 
 The highest possible compliment that can be paid to a 
 young man is to be " singled out" by the divine instinct of 
 a pure maiden who has been the idol of her brothers, and 
 who through her early years has enjoyed the healthy com- 
 radeship of boys. 
 
 \i/E are not by any means advocating that fatal vice 
 ^ known as flirting. A flirt is one who purposely 
 wins, or tries to win, the affections of the other sex with no 
 serious intention, or simply for sport, and the wicked 
 pleasure that some experience in being able to pain 
 another's heart. Perhaps more hearts are won by cunning 
 coquettes for the ruthless purpose of seeing them bleed 
 when cast aside than for any other purpose. 
 
 We do not hesitate to express our firm belief that the 
 evils of flirtation are more widespread and disastrous in 
 their consequences than those of intemperance. They 
 blight the tenderest sentiments as the frost blights the 
 buds. They freeze the holiest emotions of the soul, and 
 leave the heart a barren waste. Like the cornfield whose 
 fences have been burned away, they leave the heart open 
 to the devouring herds of vice. 
 
 But young women and men may associate without 
 flirtation. There is nothing better for a young man than 
 
 415
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 to associate as a friend with a pure-minded girl, and the 
 benefit to the latter is equally great. 
 
 I A |HEN love begins in friendship it rarely makes a mis- 
 ^ take. Love should never be contemplated between 
 parties who cannot first be firm friends. But such exclu- 
 sive association is not at all necessary. It is, perhaps, as 
 well that the young man or woman should have a circle of 
 friends and acquaintances made up of both sexes. In this 
 case, if the early training has been what it should have 
 been, and the natural and pure impulses of the child have 
 not been interfered with, there will seldom be a need of 
 any other form of association. 
 
 One of the worst things a parent can do is to shame a 
 little girl because she is inclined to play with little boys. 
 She should be taught to feel that there is nothing wrong or 
 unladylike in such conduct. So the boy should not be 
 teased by his parents or older brothers and sisters because 
 he smiles upon a little girl, or manifests a preference for 
 her society. Such preferences, of course, should not be 
 strong, since they would then be unnatural and would 
 indicate precocity, which should be dreaded as among the 
 worst calamities to which childhood is subject. 
 
 The exclusive association of a young man and a young 
 woman, not affianced, must generally claim our disap- 
 proval. Frequently such contact fails of the highest 
 
 416
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 ends, the graces of personality and the inspiration of a 
 varying companionship. 
 
 The best girls, the best sweethearts, the best wives, 
 and the best mothers are those who have been the intimate 
 but innocent associates of young men. 
 
 But so long as so many young women have been de- 
 barred from association with the other sex, and still more 
 have, by flirtations, so vitiated their intuitive perceptions 
 of congeniality that these are no longer safe guides, it is, 
 perhaps, as well to give some advice in regard to those 
 cases in which it becomes necessary to substitute reason in 
 place of instinct. 
 
 I N the first place, it is necessary to ascertain what direc- 
 tion, under the given circumstances, instinct would 
 take if it were in a healthy state or if it were to act under 
 more favorable conditions. 
 
 Its action is as strictly subject to law as that of gravi- 
 tation and may be studied with the most satisfactory 
 results. Love's preferences are not unreasonable. The 
 tall, spare, dark-eyed young man does not single out the 
 plump, blonde, blue-eyed maiden without a cause. 
 
 The rosy cheeked brunette, with face and shoulders 
 shaped like her father's, does not toss her raven locks 
 invitingly to the blue-eyed, fair-skinned, short, stout, and 
 sanguine young man from any mere whim of lawless ca- 
 price. The hand that guides the stars is not more un- 
 
 417
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 swerving than the law of sexual preferences. Nor is this 
 law hidden and inscrutable. It lies upon the surface and 
 may be easily discovered and formulated. 
 
 Briefly stated, it is simply the law by which individual 
 eccentricities are prevented from coming under the law of 
 entailment, or, more properly, by which the law of entail- 
 ment is made to neutralize them. Without this provision, 
 eccentricities would perpetually accumulate and reinforce 
 themselves until all the affinities of the race would be lost 
 in unapproachable differences. 
 
 Just in so far as one departs from symmetry in his 
 own physical or mental- make-up, this law causes him to 
 prefer, in the other sex, those opposite peculiarities which 
 will counterbalance his own, and which, when blended, 
 and subjected to the law of heredity, will tend to the lost 
 symmetry. Each sex desires in the other the complement 
 of its own eccentricities. There is a neutral point where 
 each desires its own likeness. This point is absolute sym- 
 metry and perfection. It corresponds to the neutral point 
 of .a magnet. On either side of this point like eccentrici- 
 ties repel, and unlike attract. 
 
 If a human being could be found perfect and symmet- 
 rical in all respects, that person would be drawn toward 
 one of the other sex exactly like himself. This law of 
 sexual preference would in his case be entirely suspended, 
 as there would be nothing for it to do. 
 
 He would be left to act in accordance with another 
 
 418
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 law, which is antagonistic to that of sexual preferences. 
 It is that by which we are drawn toward those possessing 
 the same peculiarities as ourselves. 
 
 These two tendencies, though antagonistic, are not 
 inconsistent. The one acts between the sexes, the other 
 between those of the same sex. In the case of perfect 
 symmetry which we have supposed, the latter law would 
 act even between persons of opposite sexes. 
 
 Human eccentricities may be conceived as arcs of 
 circles circumscribed about the point of absolute perfection. 
 The field of this sexual law lies within these circles, and 
 the strongest affinity is that between corresponding arcs 
 which would be joined by a line passing through the 
 center. 
 
 Having discovered the law then, what is necessary in 
 order to make application of it, when our instinctive per- 
 ception of conjugal adaptation becomes untrustworthy, is 
 to ascertain our own peculiarities, excesses, and deficien- 
 cies, and match them with opposite ones in the other 
 sex. 
 
 I HERE is a limit, however, to the degree of differ- 
 
 V ence that is permissible. It should never be so great 
 
 that each cannot sympathize with the other, and take an 
 
 interest in those things which interest the other. The 
 
 woman who is unusually refined will naturally be attracted 
 
 by a man not over refined, but somewhat rough, and she 
 
 419
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 will often be proud of his deep voice and uncombed hair. 
 Yet coarseness and vulgarity she cannot sympathize with, 
 and should never seek that degree of difference. One who 
 is musical need not select one who cannot distinguish one 
 tune from another ; but the one should be sufficiently 
 endowed, at least, to appreciate the superiority of the 
 other. 
 
 It is not so necessary that there should be a diversity 
 in respect to talent, as in respect to character and disposi- 
 tion. The talents, tastes, and proficiencies may with 
 great advantage be in the same general line in both 
 parties ; but physical peculiarities and eccentricities of 
 disposition should be conscientiously submitted to the law 
 of sexual preference. 
 
 a right matrimonial selection is not all that is 
 necessary. The preservation of love is the finest of 
 the fine arts. To win a heart is within the capacity of 
 most, but to keep it lies within the power of few. He who 
 shall discover the magic secret of preserving love, and 
 shall induce the world to adopt it, shall confer the grandest 
 blessing ever yet conferred by mortal. This tribute will 
 not seem overstated to those who understand and real- 
 ize how much of human sin is traceable to the absence 
 of love in parentage. The world can never know how 
 
 large a part of its intellectually and morally deformed, 
 
 420
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 were the unwelcome offspring of unloved and unloving 
 mothers. 
 
 It cannot be that love was intended only for life's rosy 
 dawn, that its first thrill is its death throe. Could God so 
 mock the brightest and sweetest hopes of earth as to ordain 
 that love should grow cold and vanish like a summer 
 dream while yet the fragrance of the orange blossoms lin- 
 gers, and the bridal vow still trembles on the new kissed 
 lips ? Is it true that love is but the brilliant rainbow that 
 trembles for a moment through the mist of human tears, 
 then fades forever while we gaze ? No ! the very law of 
 heredity demands the preservation of love. Nature some- 
 times goes so far as to punish its withdrawal with intel- 
 lectual and moral idiocy. 
 
 The magic secret of which we spoke lies not in the 
 means of preserving love, but in securing the world's con- 
 sent to use the means that lie within its reach. There is 
 no secret in the means. 
 
 They are contained in the formulated expression of a 
 well known law that love cannot live unless its physical 
 phase is in right subjection to its spiritual. 
 
 Spiritual love lives by its own right, but the physical 
 lives only by lease of the spiritual. They can live together 
 only on one changeless and eternal condition, and that 
 condition is the supremacy of the spiritual over the phys- 
 ical. This then is all that is necessary to the preservation 
 
 of wedded love. When this condition is reversed the 
 
 421
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 spiritual phase soon dies altogether, and at last even the 
 physical itself ; and two hearts that once beat together are 
 severed past reuniting. 
 
 It is strange that the world so stubbornly refuses to 
 profit by its own experience. Every untried ship that sails 
 so proudly from the port with its "freight of spirits twain" 
 passes on every side a shivering wreck ; yet they heed not 
 the wailing cries from the perishing, but sail straight 
 onward to the rock of nature's deepest damnation. 
 
 We have pointed out the divine means by which alone 
 love can live. Try it by all the significance of heredity, by 
 all that being signifies, by all the prayers and tender 
 yearnings at the cradle side, by your hopes of heaven, 
 try it. 
 
 Let woman remember that this doctrine appeals to her 
 with doubled force. It is through you, O woman, that the 
 world must heed it. Whatever other wrongs you may sub- 
 mit to, whatever rights may be denied you in the social 
 world, remember that in this matter you should proclaim 
 yourself the sovereign ruler. Your voice may be silenced 
 in the roaring mart, you may be pushed aside by the mad 
 crowd, but behind the silken folds that hide the sanctity of 
 wedded joy you are the sovereign divinely ordained. By 
 the necessities and consistencies of your being, by every 
 argument from the exhaustless realm of natural history, 
 by every law of nature and of God, you bear the badge of 
 rightful sovereignty. 
 
 422
 
 The Important Step. 
 
 " Fair youth, too timid to lift your eyes 
 
 To the maiden with downcast look, 
 As you mingle the gold and brown of your curls 
 
 Together over a book ; 
 A fluttering hope that she dare not name 
 
 Her trembling bosom heaves ; 
 And your heart is thrilled, when your fingers meet, 
 
 As you softly turn the leaves. 
 
 " Perchance you two will walk alone 
 
 Next year at some sweet day's close, 
 And your talk will fall to a tenderer tone, 
 
 As you liken her cheek to a rose ; 
 And then her face will flush and glow, 
 
 With a hopeful, happy red ; 
 Outblushing all the flowers that grow 
 
 Anear in the garden-bed. 
 
 " If you plead for hope, she may bashful drop 
 
 Her head on your shoulder, low ; 
 And you will be lovers and sweethearts then 
 
 As youths and maidens go : 
 Lovers and sweethearts, dreaming dreams, 
 
 And seeing visions that please, 
 With never a thought that life is made 
 
 Of great realities ; 
 
 ' That the cords of love must be strong as death 
 
 Which hold and keep a heart, 
 Not daisy chains, that snap in the breeze, 
 Or break with their weight apart ; 
 423
 
 For the pretty colors of youth's lair morn 
 Fade out from the noonday sky ; 
 
 And blushing loves in the roses born 
 Alas ! with the roses die I 
 
 " But the love, that when youth's morn is past, 
 
 Still sweet and true survives, 
 Is the faith we need to lean upon 
 
 In the crises of our lives : 
 The love that shines in the eyes grown dim, 
 
 In the voice that trembles, speaks ; 
 And sees the roses that years ago 
 
 Withered and died in our cheeks ; 
 
 " That sheds a halo around us still 
 
 Of soft immortal light, 
 When we change youth's golden coronal 
 
 For a crown of silver white ; 
 A love for sickness and for health, 
 
 For rapture and for tears ; 
 That will live for us, and bear with us, 
 
 Through all our mortal years. 
 
 " And such there is ; there are lovers here, 
 
 On the brink of the grave that stand, 
 Who shall cross to the hills beyond, and walk 
 
 Forever hand in hand ! 
 Pray, youth and maid, that your end be theirs 
 
 Who are joined no more to part ; 
 For death comes not to the living soul, 
 
 Nor age to the loving heart ! "
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT. 
 
 Leaving Horrae. 
 
 I VERY one must leave his home. The young eaglet 
 cannot forever nestle beneath the protecting wing of 
 its mother. It is a law of life itself that we 
 cannot always stay at home. If the children were to 
 remain at home through life, if this were the natural order 
 of things, the institution of home would be impossible, for 
 each home would grow with the accumulating generations, 
 till at length it would outgrow the boundaries that must 
 define a home, and the institution would be lost in general 
 society. To avert this disaster nature has arranged that 
 the child shall leave his home when he has become compe- 
 tent to care for him'self and to organize another home. 
 Thus each generation repeats the programme of the 
 preceding. 
 
 The proper function of the home is to serve as the nur- 
 sery of the race, to protect the young scions of manhood 
 and womanhood till they have become sufficiently strong 
 to compel society and the world to yield them the required 
 physical and mental sustenance. And yet this metaphor 
 
 427
 
 Leaving Home. 
 
 hardly serves our purpose, since the child does not leave 
 his home to enter into the great tide of the world and 
 become a floating speck on the turbulent surface of society, 
 but, like the young tree, he is simply transplanted from 
 the nursery to become the fruitful source of another nur- 
 sery. There is no natural requirement of life that is not 
 preceded by a desire and impulse in that direction. 
 Accordingly the young man, as he approaches the age of 
 maturity, begins to feel the gentle stimulus of a curious 
 enterprise urging him to look beyond the walls of the old 
 home out into the great world. He hears the distant hum 
 of the great city, he feels the electric throb of the rushing 
 train, and longs to mingle in the ceaseless tumult of life, 
 
 In the strife of brain and pen, 
 
 'Mid the rumble of the presses 
 Where they measure men with men. 
 
 Under the impulse of this feeling, he leaves the old 
 home, but not forever. No young man or woman ever 
 leaves home with the intention of abandoning it forever. 
 The dutiful child carries away the home with him. He is 
 himself a product of the home. Every feature of his char- 
 acter reflects the character of the home. As the tree 
 records the nature of the soil and climate, so the young 
 man carries ever with him the old home. Every mother 
 is carried into the city on the brow of her son. Her care, 
 her love, her examples, her prayers, are all written there. 
 
 428
 
 Leaving Home. 
 
 The city knows the country in this way. It reads the his- 
 tory of the country on the brows of the farmer boys. How 
 careful, then, should parents be in regard to these reports 
 which they are sending into the cities ! The little home 
 that nestles among the hills shall be published to the world, 
 and the silent influence of its daily life shall blend with 
 the surging passions that drive the tide of human life 
 along the crowded streets. 
 
 Mother ! your life is not insignificant. It is not and 
 cannot be isolated from universal significance, for your 
 boy shall bear it into the great tide that never ebbs. The 
 story of the fireside is written upon the altars of great 
 cathedrals, in senate chambers, and in the busy mart. It 
 is inscribed in invisible characters upon the sides of steam- 
 boats and railway trains, and on the marble fronts of the 
 brilliant temples of trade. The great outward world of 
 commercial storm and sunshine, of laughter and weeping, 
 of honor and dishonor, draws its life from the home. It is 
 linked to the hearthstone by a thousand ties that run far 
 under the surface of society. 
 
 The leaving of home is an experience in one's life 
 freighted with momentous consequences. It is a fact in 
 botany that the critical period in the life of a plant is when 
 it has consumed all the albumen stored up in the seed for 
 its support, and is just beginning to put forth its tender 
 little rootlets into the outer soil, to draw henceforth in 
 independence its life from the earth's great storehouse. 
 
 429
 
 Leaving Home. 
 
 So the critical and dangerous period of a child's life is 
 when he has burst the environments of home, and steps 
 out from the little quiet circle to earn his first morsel of 
 bread with his own hands, and to negotiate independently 
 with the great crafty world. 
 
 This is the period that tries the character and tests its 
 genuineness. If the young man withstands the shock that 
 comes with the first wild consciousness that he is in a city, 
 and that the currents and counter currents of life are dash- 
 ing in bewildering torrents at his feet, if, amid the surges 
 and the inviting spray, he stands firmly anchored to the 
 rock of home-born principle, if he does not grow dizzy and 
 mad with the ceaseless roar and rumble, if he, in safety, 
 passes for the first time the brilliant fronts of illuminated 
 hells, and, with his mother's benediction on his lips, turns 
 coldly from the first alluring invitation of the tempter, he 
 has passed the fearful crisis of his life. 
 
 We would not, of course, contend that the only danger 
 to this young man from city influences comes with his 
 first actual entrance into the city, that he is never in dan- 
 ger after he has once passed the novitiate of his new 
 experience successfully. 
 
 We simply mean that if the young man succeeds in 
 resisting the temptations that beset him during that period 
 in which he feels the elation of his independence, he has 
 passed the most critical period. This is the period in which 
 
 the young man's character is particularly susceptible to 
 
 430
 
 Leaving Home. 
 
 evil influences, and if he succeeds in establishing his social 
 relations in the city on the proper basis, and becomes him- 
 self established as a permanent member of society, he is 
 comparatively safe. There is always a feeling of romance 
 which accompanies the young man on his first entrance 
 into the city. There is a poetry in the rhythmic vibrations 
 of the living mass. He feels himself a part of this mass, 
 and in a certain sense he feels that he is the mechanical 
 equivalent of its never ceasing motion. Under such cir- 
 cumstances one is peculiarly susceptible to social influ- 
 ences. 
 
 Those things which awaken the sense of the poetical 
 and the romantic are the most powerful in their influences 
 over one who is trying to veil the rural and take on the airs 
 of city life. Unfortunately for the race, the most poetical 
 and romantic in life is often that which is in some way 
 associated with profligacy and vice. Thousands of young 
 men of literary aspirations and brilliant talents, through 
 the glittering but deadly romance of Poe's life, and the 
 poetry of Byron's vices, have drowned their promise in 
 profligacy. 
 
 Hence the evil influences which appeal most strongly 
 to the young country lad, suddenly transformed into a poet 
 through the inspiration of the great city, are those which 
 clothe themselves with the livery of beauty. The sense of 
 the beautiful is often the avenue through which the sub- 
 tlest vice enters. 
 
 431
 
 Leaving Home. 
 
 \ i |ERE it not for that perverted principle in human 
 ^ nature that sees poetry in vice, the leaving of home 
 would not be such a catastrophe to the young man. 
 Parents should be careful not to allow their children, 
 except in cases of necessity, to leave home until their char- 
 acters are so far established as to be comparatively safe 
 from the evil influences that must surround them else- 
 where. Young children are never safe away from home. 
 
 There is no age in which a person can enter for the 
 first time into general society away from home with abso- 
 lute safety, yet the danger is particularly great to the 
 young. If a child is of a romantic turn of mind and enjoys 
 the reading of novels, his parents should be particularly 
 solicitous concerning his welfare when he goes for the first 
 time into society. 
 
 Even a fondness for poetry, which would seem to be 
 the purest and most innocent affection of the mind, indi- 
 cates the presence of those characteristics which render 
 one peculiarly susceptible to the temptations of the great 
 city. The wisest precaution that a parent can take when 
 his child is about to leave home is to arrange his social 
 relations in advance for him. Arrangements can almost 
 always be made for his introduction into those circles of 
 society where he may find desirable amusements, and at 
 the same time be surrounded by good and wholesome 
 influences. 
 
 432
 
 Leaving Home. 
 
 L/ROBABLY the most frequent cause for which chil- 
 <\ 
 V * dren leave home earlier than they ought, is for the 
 
 purpose of attending school. The practice of sending 
 young children away to boarding schools is, however, not 
 so common as formerly, from the fact that the common 
 schools are becoming more efficient. Boys can now be 
 fitted for college in many of the free public schools, 
 while they still remain at home and under the supervision 
 of their parents. 
 
 This is certainly better than sending them away. In- 
 deed, except in rare cases, the latter practice should be 
 abandoned altogether. There are several circumstances 
 that combine to render children at boarding school pecul- 
 iarly liable to danger. In the first place, they are usu- 
 ally at that age when they would be most easily led 
 astray ; and, second, the occupation at school being of 
 course wholly mental, the body is left without sufficient 
 exercise, and, in consequence, the whole physical being 
 feels a buoyancy which is very dangerous unless under the 
 guidance and oversight of parents. Again, the stringent 
 rules of conduct at most boarding schools always have a 
 tendency to awaken the mischievous in boys and girls. 
 
 It is a fact that has been proved by the experience of 
 every educational institution in which such rules exist, 
 that the tendency to violation is almost in direct ratio to 
 
 the stringency of the rules. Consider, for example, the 
 
 433
 
 Leaving Home. 
 
 ordinary boarding school rules relative to the association 
 of the sexes. In many cases the young man might call 
 upon a girl schoolmate with profit to both parties, if there 
 were no rules prohibiting such an association ; but when a 
 young man calls clandestinely upon a young lady, the 
 secret sense of having violated rules whose authority they 
 are supposed to recognize often has a disastrous effect upon 
 their whole moral nature. But whatever we may believe 
 concerning the propriety or impropriety of such rules, it 
 cannot alter the fact of their existence in almost every 
 seminary and boarding school. The rules may be the 
 choice of the smaller evil. On this subject, however, we 
 have our doubts ; and yet we do not deny that there might 
 be danger without them. 
 
 Under the circumstances we think the wisest course 
 for parents is to secure the education of their children 
 where they can exercise a personal supervision over them. 
 Whatever may be the occasion for leaving home, whatever 
 may have been the character of the home, there comes to 
 every soul at that moment a pang of regret which scorns 
 the finest ministries of language. Earth has no more 
 pathetic scene than the common tableau of youth's depar- 
 ture from the old home where mother and child, beneath 
 the changing colors of joy and sorrow, stand folded in the 
 final embrace. Silence and tears are the language of the 
 heart. That gush of holy emotion serves a purpose in the 
 economy of our nature ; it is to bind the soul with cords of 
 
 434
 
 Leaving Home. 
 
 everlasting remembrance to that firm anchor in the great 
 deep of life, the home of childhood. 
 
 " T never knew how well I loved 
 
 The little cot where T was born, 
 Until I stood beside the gate 
 
 One pleasant, early summer morn, 
 And listened to my mother's voice. 
 
 She spoke such words as mothers speak 
 Of cheer and hope and all the while 
 
 The tear drops glistened on her cheek. 
 And soon she turned and plucked a rose 
 
 That grew beside the cottage door, 
 And, smiling, pinned it to my coat, 
 
 As she had often done before. 
 I went away : 'twas long ago, 
 
 Still ever, till my life shall close, 
 The dearest treasure I can know 
 
 Will be a faded little rose." 
 
 435
 
 CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE. 
 
 Memories of Home. 
 
 EAR to us still are the friendships we formed 
 during- the period of our school life, and hard 
 was the breaking of those ties, yet we cherish 
 no such memories of our schoolmates as we do of home 
 and mother. 
 
 If we have not already sundered the ties of home, the 
 time will come all too soon when the silken cord must be 
 severed. This thought should make us eager to enjoy all 
 we can of the sweet dream of childhood. If we are mak- 
 ing preparations for a new home which the poetry of youth 
 has painted with brilliant colors, we should not forget that 
 the walls of that new home must be forever decorated 
 with the picture of the old one. You may place the wide 
 expanse of ocean between the two homes, but memory will 
 paint the home of your childhood, and whatever you may 
 say or do, will persist in hanging the picture on the walls 
 of your parlor, your chamber, and your library. We may 
 make our new home all that wealth and taste can produce, 
 we may lavish upon it all the rich accumulations of youth 
 
 436
 
 Memories of Home. 
 
 and manhood, but beside the costly paintings that adorn 
 the walls of its parlor, there must hang that old picture. 
 Do what you will, it must hang there forever. If you take 
 it down, an invisible hand rehangs it. It is a magic pic- 
 ture, and it requires not the light of day to see it. You 
 can see it better in the hushed stillness of the night than 
 in the light of day. If the associations of that old home 
 have been unpleasant, if there is in that picture a mother, 
 who, in the little room you used to occupy, sits weeping 
 over your waywardness, with the dark autographs of sor- 
 row written across her brow, if there is a sister with down- 
 cast look, a father sitting by the fireside with his head 
 resting upon his hands, prematurely old because you broke 
 his heart, how will that picture haunt your guilty soul in 
 the night, how will its sadness embitter every cup of joy, 
 and turn to wormwood every pleasure ! 
 
 You cannot ask that father's forgiveness, it is too late. 
 You cannot go to mother, whose loving hand might, per- 
 haps, put a veil over that hateful picture, or hang in its 
 place a more beautiful one. It is too late for this, for you 
 helped bring a coffin to that old home, long, long ago, and 
 be assured that coffin will be painted in one corner of the 
 picture. You can go to the old home, but the shed where 
 you played with your little sister will be torn down, the 
 house will be changed, everything will look strange 
 except, perhaps, the old orchard. But this will revive no 
 pleasant memories, nothing but the sad day when you 
 
 437
 
 Memories of Home. 
 
 quarreled about picking the apples, and struck your little 
 brother, who is now sleeping just back of the house, in the 
 garden, beside his mother. You can go out there and call 
 his name, but he will not hear you. You may strew with 
 flowers the graves of father, mother, and brother ; you 
 may erect costly stones, but these will not atone. 
 
 No ! Do not wait for that sad day, but while mother 
 and father are still alive, and your little brother is with 
 you, make home cheerful. Keep your mother's forehead 
 smooth, and your father's hair unsilvered, just as long as 
 you can. 
 
 If you cannot love your mother and make her happy, 
 you cannot truly love and make happy the heart of any 
 woman. 
 
 l A FE exercise the greatest care- in selecting the real pic- 
 ^ tures with which we adorn our homes, and, if we 
 do not afterwards like them, we can dispose of them and 
 forget them. Why should we not, then, be infinitely more 
 careful concerning the character of that picture on which 
 we shall be compelled to gaze through life ? 
 
 Through the power of memory the influences of home 
 again become active in our lives. The peculiar circum- 
 stances of any particular portion of our lives after we have 
 left the old home seldom produce lasting impressions upon 
 our minds. We are not likely to remember vividly our 
 
 438
 
 Memories of Home. 
 
 experiences between the ages of thirty-five and forty, at 
 least not in such a way that the remembrance exerts an 
 influence over our lives and thoughts. But by a wise and 
 beneficent plan we are so constituted that the memories 
 of our early home, the memories of that period in which 
 our characters were shaped, shall be influential through 
 life. There seems to be a subtile and peculiar propriety in 
 this fact. 
 
 The ordinary influences of life leave a sufficiently deep 
 impression upon our characters as they pass without being 
 repeated, or, at least, not oftener than their periodical na- 
 ture may insure. But here we find a special provision 
 made to meet a required exception. Just at that period 
 in our lives when the good and kindly influences of home 
 are supposed to mold into consistent form the chaotic ele- 
 ments of our character, a principle is introduced whereby 
 those influences are made to be self-repeating through life. 
 The instrumentality through which this is effected is the 
 spirit of poetry which pervades the memory of these early 
 years. No other period of our lives so lends itself to the 
 play of our own imaginations. 
 
 There is nothing in life's experience that so quickly 
 and effectually awakens in the heart those better elements 
 that ally us "to angels and to God" as the sacred memo- 
 ries of home. This fact constitutes a positive power in our 
 lives, and growing out of this fact is the highest duty of 
 life, the duty to make the character of our home such that 
 
 439
 
 Memories of Home. 
 
 its cherished memories shall be a developing and gladden- 
 ing influence through life. 
 
 " O memory, be sweet to me 
 
 Take, take all else at will, 
 So thou but leave me safe and sound, 
 Without a token my heart to wound, 
 
 The little house 011 the hill ! 
 
 <* Take all of best from east to west, 
 
 So thou but leave me still 
 The chamber, where in the starry light 
 I used to lie awake at night 
 
 And list to the whip-poor-will. 
 
 " Take violet-bed, and rose-tree red, 
 And the purple flags by the mill, 
 The meadow gay, and the garden-ground, 
 But leave, oh, leave me safe and sound 
 The little house on the hill ! 
 
 " The daisy-lane, and the dove's low plain, 
 
 And the cuckoo's tender bill, 
 Take one and all, but leave the dreams 
 That turned the rafters to golden beams, 
 
 In the little house on the hill ! 
 
 " The gables brown, they have tumbled down, 
 
 And dry is the brook by the mill ; 
 The sheets I used with care to keep 
 Have wrapt my dead for the last long sleep, 
 In the valley, low and still. 
 440
 
 Memories of Home. 
 
 " But, memory, be sweet to me, 
 
 And build the walls, at will, 
 Of the chamber where I used to mark, 
 So softly rippling over the dark, 
 The song of the whip-poor-will ! 
 
 " Ah, memory, be sweet to me ! 
 
 All other fountains chill ; 
 But leave that song so weird and wild, 
 Dear as its life to the heart of the child, 
 In the little house on the hill ! ' ' 
 
 441
 
 CHAPTER FORTY. 
 
 Trials of Home. 
 
 V-ae 
 
 E shall consider in another chapter, under the 
 head of " Sorrow and its Meaning," those great 
 sorrows which sometimes visit individuals, but' 
 which are not universal. They constitute the heroic treat- 
 ment of the few who languish in the silent and more terri- 
 ble wards of earth's great hospital. 
 
 But by the trials of home we mean those multitudinous 
 little annoyances of life whose sphere of action is for the 
 most part home. In their individual capacity they are 
 insignificant, and perhaps unworthy of notice, and yet 
 their aggregate significance is written in dark and heavy 
 lines on many a mother's brow. They are the crosses from 
 which none escape, the inevitable experiences of every 
 human being. Those who scorn them as unworthy of 
 notice do not understand their meaning. 
 
 If every human desire were adequate to its own imme- 
 diate gratification, there would be no such thing as trials 
 and disappointments. But every want of humanity is sep- 
 arated from its gratification by the length and breadth of 
 
 442
 
 Trials of Home. 
 
 an effort, and the greater the want, the longer and broader 
 the required effort. And it often happens that the effort 
 is too short to span the chasm. There is no system of 
 measurement by which we can adapt the effort to the 
 intervening chasm. Every effort of man is an experiment. 
 It is like building a light bridge on land, with which to 
 span a stream, the breadth of which we have not meas- 
 ured. When we come to lay it across the stream it may 
 be too short. 
 
 Trials and disappointments for the most part owe their 
 origin to this fact, that human effort is found falling short 
 of its goal. 
 
 The path of life runs so crooked that we cannot see 
 around the curves. Then there are so many junctions that 
 the time-tables are forever getting mixed up. 
 
 Under these circumstances life can never run smoothly. 
 There will be trials as long as humanity exists. 
 
 The mind desires ease, and only so much exercise as is 
 prompted by its own spontaneous impulse. When it is 
 required to step aside from the path of its own preferences 
 there is a spiritual resistance, and a tendency to chafe and 
 fret. These little tendencies and influences are what we 
 mean by the trials of home. 
 
 One has said, " It may not seem a great thing to have 
 a constantly nagging companion, or boots that always hurt 
 your corns, or linen that is never properly starched, or to 
 have to read crossed letters, or go to stupid parties, or 
 
 443
 
 Trials of Home. 
 
 consult books without indexes, but to the sufferer they 
 are very tangible oppressions, and in our short space of 
 working life not to be made light of." 
 
 No truer words were ever uttered. Who has not no- 
 ticed the almost absolute control which an uneasy boot will 
 sometimes assert over the whole mind ? 
 
 A sermon to-day may sound almost divine to us in a 
 pair of slippers, but yesterday, in a pair of new boots, we 
 should have regarded the same sermon as intolerably 
 stupid. 
 
 A star actor, if thrown suddenly into the presence of 
 his lady love, in a pair of overalls, will appear awkward in 
 his movements. 
 
 How fretful we sometimes feel when we are hungry ! 
 A baked potato will produce such a change in us that we 
 hardly know ourselves. The toothache has been known 
 to transform in half an hour a saint into a sinner. How 
 quickly will music calm an angry child ! 
 
 " The trifles of our daily lives, 
 
 The common things scarce worth recall, 
 Whereof no visible trace survives, 
 These are the mainsprings, after all. 
 Destiny is not without thee, but within, 
 Thyself must make thyself. ' 
 
 All these facts only show what a powerful influence 
 little things may have over us. Our lives are made up of 
 moments, and the character of each moment depends upon 
 
 444
 
 Trials of Home. 
 
 the influences of that moment ; and it requires but a very 
 small influence to change the character of a moment. 
 
 /VLL growth is but a perpetual conquest over opposing 
 ^ forces. There can be no growth, physical, intellec- 
 tual, or spiritual, except through the resistance to that ele- 
 ment in which it grows. It is not necessary, however, that 
 these conquests should come as the issue of great efforts or 
 overwhelming sorrows. The triumphs of life are those 
 which we win over self, and these are won on little battle- 
 fields ; in the kitchen, in the nursery, at the breakfast 
 table, on Mondays at the washtub, in the stable with a 
 fractious, exasperating horse, in the field with the cattle, or 
 amid the little vexations and annoyances of every day ; as 
 the breachy sheep, the broken mowing machine, or the dis- 
 appointment of a rainy day. 
 
 It is by trifles like these that human souls are tested. 
 In overlooking these little trials, we overlook a very 
 important principle along with them. It is that principle 
 which distinguishes the effects of little sorrows from those 
 of great ones. Simultaneously with the great sorrows 
 there is developed in the soul a power of heroic endurance. 
 Most of us have experienced at least one great stroke of 
 grief, one which we had contemplated with such a shrink- 
 ing that we believed it would be impossible for us to stand 
 up beneath its weight ; but when the blow came we were 
 
 445
 
 Trials of Home. 
 
 surprised at our own heroic calmness. This experience 
 will always be found to accompany a great sorrow, and 
 serve in part as a compensation. This arises from the 
 sense of the inevitable which always accompanies a great 
 stroke. There comes over every one in the moment of 
 utter despair a feeling that approaches to satisfaction, and 
 so strong is this tendency in some that when the despair 
 has been found to be groundless, there has actually come 
 with the first instant of relief a wish that it might have 
 been otherwise, that one might have seen the worst. 
 
 The testimony of Paul du Chaillu, the traveler, con- 
 cerning his feelings when he had been stricken down by a 
 lion confirms the existence of this principle in human 
 nature. He expresses his feelings as those of perfect satis- 
 faction and resignation to his fate. Edgar Allan Poe, 
 with his almost divine intuition, makes one of the charac- 
 ters in his Descent into the Maelstrom experience some- 
 thing of this same feeling. 
 
 These feelings, of course, are but momentary flashes of 
 insanity, but they show that God has implanted in us an 
 instinctive satisfaction with the inevitable, however deeply 
 it may involve our own souls in pain and sorrow. When 
 one refuses to be reconciled to a great bereavement, there 
 is still in his heart a secret feeling of rebellion. It may be 
 because he possesses this instinct in a less degree than 
 others, since all the instincts of human nature vary in dif- 
 ferent individuals ; but in most cases it will be found that 
 
 446
 
 Trials of Home. 
 
 his sorrow is superficial and does not take hold on the 
 depths of his nature. 
 
 IN the little sorrows of life this principle is seldom 
 manifested. This is why small troubles weigh far 
 more heavily upon the heart in proportion to their magni- 
 tude than the great ones. We are of the opinion, however, 
 that it was the divine plan that this principle should mani- 
 fest itself even in the smallest sorrows and trials of life, 
 but that through constant rebellion the race have come to 
 that condition in which they do not experience it except in 
 the emergency of great sorrow or danger. 
 
 But however this may be, the cultivation of that 
 instinct in us can do no harm, and if we can so cultivate 
 and develop it that we shall feel a sense of acquiescence 
 and resignation in every little trial of our lives, till the 
 gnat and the mosquito shall seem to us to have rights equal 
 to our own, we have surely won a triumph that would 
 become an angel's crown. 
 
 I HIS, then, is our advice to those who are weighed 
 ^ down with the little trials of life : cultivate the 
 instinct of resignation, try to feel satisfied with every fate 
 that befalls you. This is not an impossible task. Your 
 efforts will be rewarded. It will become easier and easier 
 for you to attempt to do it, until at last your trials will 
 become joys. If you cannot feel that God ordained your 
 
 447
 
 Trials of Home. 
 
 trials, if you cannot regard them as a part of the infinite 
 plan, you must certainly consider them as the just penalty 
 for your own transgressions. In either case you can rea- 
 son yourself into a feeling of satisfaction. 
 
 Little sorrows, like the great ones, are disciplinary in 
 their nature, and if the sufferer does not degenerate into a 
 fretful and irritable being, they will develop his spiritual 
 health. If he keeps ever in mind that he suffers chiefly 
 because his soul is divinely receptive, that his very suffer- 
 ing but measures his spirit's capacity for joy, his char- 
 acter will in the end blossom forth and bear fruits all the 
 sweeter for the trials. 
 
 " What's the use of always fretting 
 
 At the trials we shall find 
 Ever strewn along our pathway? 
 Travel on, and never mind. 
 
 " Travel onward, working, hoping, 
 Cast no lingering look behind 
 At the trials once encountered ; 
 Look ahead, and never mind. 
 
 " What is past, is past forever ; 
 
 Let all fretting be resigned ; 
 It will never help the matter 
 Do your best, and never mind. 
 
 " And if those who might befriend you, 
 
 Whom the ties of nature bind, 
 Should refuse to do their duty, 
 Look to heaven, and never mind. 
 448
 
 Trials of Home. 
 
 Friendly words are often spoken 
 When the feelings are unkind ; 
 
 Take them for their real value, 
 Pass them on, and never mind. 
 
 Fate may threaten, clouds may lower, 
 Enemies may be combined ; 
 
 If your trust in God is steadfast, 
 He will help you, never mind." 
 
 449
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-ONE. 
 
 Sorro\v and. Its Meaning. 
 
 HETHER sorrow should be regarded as pos- 
 sessing a rightful place in the economy of 
 being, or simply as an intruder, for whose 
 stealthy entrance into the halls of joy and beauty man 
 is wholly responsible, is a problem which many regard as 
 .too difficult for solution by finite mind, and which it is 
 blasphemy to attempt to solve. 
 
 Yet we cannot help asking, why the mighty wail of 
 anguish and pain that goes up unceasingly from the lips 
 of Nature ? Why does the rose conceal a thorn ? Why 
 blossoms the loveliest flower just where the deadly night- 
 shade distills its poison dew upon its snowy petals ? Why 
 are the heavens deaf to the cry of wounded innocence ? 
 Why are the fairest and the loveliest in the armies of the 
 just and good permitted to fall like withered roses before 
 the iron hail of treason's hosts ? Why has all that is 
 good and lovely in human history been bought with blood, 
 while virtue's victorious shout is preceded by the martyr's 
 
 shriek ? Can an agency so widespread and vast in its 
 
 450
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 relations as that of pain and suffering exist in nature, and 
 implicate no higher instrumentality than human folly ? 
 
 It may be said that, since all suffering comes from the 
 breach of natural law, and since God has given us the fac- 
 ulty of caution, by which we are enabled to guard against 
 danger and accidental suffering, it cannot be true that sor- 
 row and suffering are natural, and hence divinely sanc- 
 tioned, but, on the contrary, they must owe their origin 
 wholly to the voluntary action of man. 
 
 But God has given us no faculty by which we can pre- 
 dict an earthquake. He placed us upon the earth before 
 he had finished it, while yet his engines were roaring, and 
 his furnaces glowing, while the deadly sparks were still 
 flying from his mighty anvil. 
 
 Now, in order that man should be wholly responsible 
 for pain and suffering, he should have faculties sufficiently 
 powerful to grasp and analyze the divine plan, so that 
 he might anticipate and make provision for all possible 
 movements in the universe. The fact that man cannot 
 thus anticipate the changes of direction in the universal 
 movement proves danger and pain and sorrow to be di- 
 vinely appointed. The ant cannot anticipate the move- 
 ment of the foot that steps upon its little mound. 
 
 Is it not possible, after all, that history, with all its 
 crimson blots, with all its agony uttered and unuttered, 
 with all of that which we call evil, but which to God may 
 be but a necessary and momentary discord in the tuning of 
 
 453
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 being's mighty orchestra, is it not possible that all this, 
 just as it is, constitutes a mighty whole, of whose sublime 
 and infinite meaning we catch as yet but a feeble hint ? 
 Does not any other philosophy necessarily assign to the 
 human will the power to intercept at any desired point the 
 divine plan ? Is not the highest and grandest philosophy, 
 after all, that which lays the human will itself in the 
 hands of God, the only " Uncaused Cause," and acknowl- 
 edges the indorsement upon the parchment of human his- 
 tory of him who holds in his volition the potentialities of 
 all that is or has been ? 
 
 Sorrow and pain when projected into the atmosphere 
 of divine and eternal significance may lose the superficial 
 qualities that we assign to them, and find their places in 
 the "eternal fitness of things." 
 
 LxERHAPS, if we could see creation in its entirety, and 
 V^^ know the interrelations of its myriad parts, we 
 should rejoice over that which now causes us sorrow. To 
 us, the grandeur of the ocean is marred by the sight of a 
 wreck, but to him who holds that ocean in the hollow of 
 his hand, the wreck, the pale lips, and the despairing cry 
 may be necessary to the expression of a higher and grander 
 meaning. The toad sees evil and only evil in the crushing 
 wheel of the fire-engine as it flies on its errand of good. So 
 we, in our worm-like ignorance and finitude can see noth- 
 ing but evil in the engines of sorrow that pass over our 
 
 454
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 souls, where they must pass, since our souls lie across their 
 path. 
 
 The universe is all of one purpose, " so compact" that 
 if we could know perfectly any nook or corner we should 
 know all, for the awful secret of the Absolute is concealed 
 in every finite entity. If we could read all the meaning 
 there is in a single strain of music, we could translate 
 the infinite harmonies of the universe. Could we tell why 
 an atom of oxygen prefers an atom of potassium to one of 
 gold we would know not only the secret of love's caprice, 
 but the essence of the Divine Fatherhood. 
 
 " Flower in the crannied wall, 
 I pluck you out of the crannies ; 
 Hold you here, root and all, in my hand, 
 Little flower, but if I could understand 
 What you are, root and all, and all in all, 
 I should know what God and man is." 
 
 knowledge cannot reach the essence of 
 things. We cannot know our dearest friend, only 
 a few manifestations of him. The ulterior essence that 
 makes all things a unit we can never know. We are like 
 insects viewing the motions of a, machine. To them each 
 wheel moves independently and from its own caprice. So 
 we regard each movement in the universe as separate and 
 independent. The belts and bars and gears by which each 
 
 455
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 and every movement is linked with every other lie beyond 
 the horizon of our vision. If we could but discern the 
 interrelations of things, we might learn that the grandest 
 event in human history is linked in sequential relation 
 with the flutter of an insect's wing, and that the annihila- 
 tion of an atom and a star would be equal catastrophes. 
 Perchance we might see, in the ineffable light of that 
 awful vision, how potential joys unspeakable have been 
 bom in darkened chambers ; how every wreathed casket 
 bears a universal ministry, and that 
 
 " The brightest rainbows ever play 
 Above the fountains of our tears." 
 
 sorrow has a more obvious ministry than that 
 which is discerned only by such generalization. If, 
 then, sorrow is a natural agency ; that is, if we have been 
 made capable of sorrow, and then placed in a world of 
 danger and disaster where the causes of sorrow cannot be 
 anticipated, surely this sorrow and affliction must have an 
 individual ministry commensurate with their cost, or the 
 wisdom of Him who ordained it is implicated. We may 
 rest assured that sorrow serves some purpose in the econ- 
 omy of being, as definite as that of magnetism and light. 
 We cannot reach the secret of its deepest meaning, and 
 yet there seems to be within us a spiritual instinct that 
 seeks to justify its existence and to find in it a ministry. 
 
 456
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 11 The gods in bounty work up storms about us, 
 That give mankind occasion to exert 
 Their hidden strength, and throw ovit into practice 
 Virtues that shun the day, and lie concealed 
 In the smooth seasons and calms of life." 
 
 Pain and sorrow are wasting processes of the soul, just 
 as labor is a wasting process of the muscles. But who 
 does not know that this very waste is the only condition 
 under which a muscle can grow strong ? If you wish to 
 strengthen any muscle, the first thing to do is to weary 
 that muscle by labor. A muscle grows strong only in the 
 process of recuperation, the act of recovering a loss. It is 
 a universal law of Nature that every loss is just a little 
 more than repaid. 
 
 Now sorrow is the labor of the spirit. It is the instinc- 
 tive struggle of the spirit against the effects of maladjust- 
 ment, and sustains to it precisely the same relation that 
 physical labor sustains to the muscle. Every adult soul 
 that has never known a pang of sorrow has long since 
 ceased to grow. 
 
 It is true that the soul does not require pain with that 
 degree of regularity with which the muscles require labor, 
 but it is simply because, through memory and reflection, 
 the influence is distributed. A single great stroke of sor- 
 row will often soften, subdue, and ripen a whole life, for, 
 since it is lived over and over again in the silent solitude 
 of thought, it becomes lifelong in its ministry. Who has 
 
 457
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 not read this sacred ministry of sorrow on those brows of 
 saintly triumph, the thrones of peace ? 
 
 We have not yet, it is true, caught the divine secret of 
 how justice is maintained in the unequal distribution of 
 human suffering. 
 
 We must, at once and forever, abandon the idea that it 
 can be found along the narrow line of individual merit. 
 The world has sought it there long and diligently, and 
 found it not. 
 
 One student is compelled by his instructors to practice 
 more hours a day in a gymnasium than another. The 
 practice is irksome, and the other is allowed to sit with 
 folded arms in smiling complacency, while his companion 
 toils at the rope and bar. To this young toiler there 
 could be nothing more unjust, for, like most students, he 
 does not look forward to the effects of the discipline to 
 which he is subjected. And yet in the future years his 
 proud physique and glow of health beside his friend's 
 puny form and pale cheek may prove that the injustice 
 was on the other side. There may not, however, be injus- 
 tice in either case. 
 
 Perhaps the gymnasium is not the treatment best 
 adapted to the weak student. Perhaps his constitution is 
 such that he is incapable of developing a strong physique, 
 and, perhaps, he could more surely reach the height of his 
 physical capacity through the ministry of some gentler 
 exercise. It is wisest to allow the physician under whose 
 
 458
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 superintendence he is placed to decide these questions. 
 Perhaps, again, these physicians may see in the stronger 
 student the germs of a possible ministry, whose fruition 
 will require the fullest development of all his physical 
 powers. It may be that the forces of creation have con- 
 spired to make him by nature a performer of great phys- 
 ical deeds, a builder of bridges, and a leveler of mountains, 
 one, at sight of whose mighty achievements, his fellows 
 will bow in the willing acknowledgment of conscious 
 inferiority. All these conditions and qualifications may 
 have been discovered by those having charge of the two 
 students. 
 
 Now let us suppose the students actually incapable of 
 perceiving the reason for the difference in treatment to 
 which they have been subjected. They cannot understand 
 that the purpose which nature intended them to serve in 
 the economy of being has any relation whatever to this 
 problem of justice which they are trying to solve. 
 
 Does not this illustration cover all phases of the great 
 problem of human sorrow ? Are we not all in a vast gym- 
 nasium, under the superintendence of One who not only is 
 the architect of the gymnasium, but who has adapted its 
 every appliance to the requirements of our spiritual mus- 
 cles ? Every obstacle to our spiritual progress, every 
 temptation, every pang of sorrow, is a weight or a cross- 
 bar in that great gymnasium, and we in our infinitesimal 
 
 knowledge and prescience can weigh only the justice or 
 
 459
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 injustice of apparent discrimination. We murmur as we 
 bend beneath the weight of grief, and bitterly complain as 
 we are made to revolve in agonizing contortions around 
 the crossbar of adversity. Yet could our eyes be tempered 
 to the light of an universal sun, and it be permitted us to 
 pierce the starry vistas of infinite meaning, with one 
 glance through the lens of infinite intelligence, beneath 
 the burning focus of that lens how would the nebulous 
 haze burn from off the shining disk of this great problem, 
 Justice. 
 
 LxERHAPS the divinest ministry of bereavement and 
 <\ 
 ^ * sorrow is seen in the lofty moods that grow out of 
 
 it, and that lift the soul above the reach of its own disci- 
 pline ; till it can stand with face wreathed in the smile of 
 peace, subdued and tender and godlike, while with never 
 a sigh it beholds the waves of desolation sweep over its 
 fondest hopes. Thousands of souls have been educated in 
 sorrow's school till they were able to do this. Almost every 
 one has experienced certain exalted moods in which he has 
 felt himself above and beyond the reach of all outward 
 conditions ; and clinging to the one fact of his existence 
 and its inward relations, he has felt that he could smile at 
 every possible catastrophe. It is sorrow alone that gives 
 us the capacity for this, the divinest of moods. 
 
 How weak and useless are those ''pulpy souls" that 
 
 never have known affliction ! Such are the ones that 
 
 460
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 cover their faces and flee from the scene of suffering. 
 They are the feeble characters that tremble and fall when 
 shaken by great emergencies. But who are they that 
 stand calmly and firmly against the fiercest charge of cal- 
 umny ? It is they who know the meaning of midnight 
 watching and buried hope. It is they who have put the 
 cup of sorrow to their lips and held it there till they have 
 drained the bitter dregs. 
 
 " The grape must be crushed before 
 
 Can be gathered the glorious wine ; 
 So the poet's heart must be wrung to the core 
 Ere his song can be divine." 
 
 We cannot doubt that every pang, every disappoint- 
 ment, every blinding stroke of grief, holds in potentiality 
 a blessing that in some way follows a law analogous to 
 that physical law of recuperation by which wasting, wea- 
 rying toil ministers to muscular strength. The blessing 
 may not always be immediate and visible, it may not, 
 indeed, always be to our own selfish selves, but somewhere 
 in eternity to the sum of all being. It would be impious 
 to attempt to' trace its divinely appointed course. It may 
 require eternity to solve the problem of a blighted hope. 
 We are silent when they ask us to point out the hidden 
 blessing in war's dread scourge ; or when the scorpion lash 
 of pestilence smites the back of dying Memphis ; or when 
 
 the brilliant footlights with fiery fingers have caressed the 
 
 461
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 oily scenery and the public hall becomes a tomb for 
 charred and unknown corpses. We are staggered by the 
 awful mystery when the light-hearted girl steps from out 
 the merry throng, and reappears in sable drapery with a 
 story on her brow. It requires a quick ear to catch the 
 secret from the frozen lips of death, when the fair youth 
 who but yesterday plucked the wild roses to twine in 
 golden hair, comes to-day to those same woodland haunts 
 to gather roses for love's speechless tribute, that he may 
 lay them on the pulseless bosom of the maiden he adores. 
 But notwithstanding all this, we cannot resist the con- 
 viction, which comes to us with the force of an instinct, 
 that sorrow is a natural phenomenon and bears the 
 indorsement of the divine hand. How else can we explain 
 the philosophy of that instinctive acquiescence in the inev- 
 itable, of which we have spoken in the preceding chapter ? 
 Why, when the shadow of the angel's wing falls on the 
 face of one we love, do we almost instinctively turn to the 
 physician to learn if no power could have saved ? And 
 why that sigh of relief when he assures us that the result 
 could not have been otherwise ? The inevitableness of a 
 friend's death will partially reconcile us to our bereave- 
 ment. When one knows that he must die, he is usually 
 calm and resigned, but he is wild while there is hope. Why 
 is this ? Why does utter despair always give birth to 
 calmness and resignation ? Is it not a hint from the infal- 
 lible book of human instinct, that whatever may be true of 
 
 462
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 moral accountability and free agency, it is not inconsistent 
 with a higher and grander truth that, in the infinite alti- 
 tude of divine meaning, "Whatever is, is right" ? 
 
 We cannot see the purpose that is subserved in the uni- 
 versal economy by the poisonous plant, by thorn and sting, 
 and deadly fang, yet the highest philosophy assigns to 
 them a consistent meaning, even while it acknowledges 
 that meaning to be above and beyond the proudest effort 
 of human analysis. I cannot say that I ought not to suf- 
 fer, till I am able to analyze every relation of my being. 
 This I can never do. I cannot find in the great machine 
 a single gearing by which one wheel is connected with 
 another. 
 
 " Yet I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose runs, 
 
 And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns." 
 
 Is it not possible, nay, probable, that the same great 
 principle in the universe which creates the deadly night- 
 shade, and arms the insect with a fatal gland, also arms 
 even ignorance with that which slays the objects of our 
 fondest love ? 
 
 The mother who bends over a little casket to leave her 
 triune gift of roses, tears, and kisses upon lips that never 
 more will lisp her name, may yet perceive, in the light of 
 a higher revelation, that though the rose-wreathed casket 
 bears the ashes of her cherished hopes, it is al ~ ministrant 
 to a need she knows not of. 
 
 463
 
 Sorrow and Its Meaning. 
 
 11 Who knows of this inward life of ours ? 
 
 Of the pangs with which each joy is born ? 
 Who dreams of poison among the flowers, 
 Or sees the wound from the hidden thorn, 
 O'er which we smile when most forlorn ? 
 
 " Who knows that the change from grave to gay 
 
 Was wrought by the deadly pain we bore, 
 As we lay the hopes of years away, 
 
 Like withered roses, to bloorn no more 
 Upon life's desolated shore ? 
 
 " Who knows, as we tread these careless ways, 
 
 That we think of our sainted dead the while 
 That the heart grows sick, in summer days, 
 For a blessed mother's tender smile, 
 That held no taint of worldly guile ? 
 
 1 
 " Who knows of the tremulous chords of love, 
 
 To the lightest touch that vibrate still, 
 As under her wing the stricken doye 
 Unmurmuring folds although it kill 
 The cruel mark of the archer's skill ? " 
 
 464
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-TWO. 
 
 Bereavement in the Home. 
 
 i I Th: 
 
 M. arp 
 
 HIS is a theme from which we all naturally shrink. 
 This chapter may be the least read of all, but if we 
 
 /j I 
 
 are to complete the cycle of home experiences 
 bereavement must not be ignored. 
 
 Bereavement is no respecter of persons : wealth can- 
 not ward it off and poverty is shown no favoritism ; it is 
 the one experience common to all homes. It may come 
 early or it may be late in its coming ; but come it will. 
 The rich and the poor, the educated and the uncultured, 
 are here upon a common level and may clasp hands in 
 mutual sympathy. 
 
 One of the things which common prudence would 
 seem to dictate is the selection of a suitable place of burial 
 before the time of bereavement comes. For those who are 
 unsettled in their place of residence, who are moving from 
 place to place, this may not seem best, and yet for even 
 them there ought to be one spot on earth toward which, in 
 ihe midst of wanderings, the heart may naturally turn as 
 the last earthly resting place of the body. 
 
 465
 
 t 
 
 Bereavement in the Home. 
 
 And for those who are settled in their place of abode 
 there is surely no valid excuse for not giving early atten- 
 tion to this important matter. 
 
 Let us suppose it is the husband who is taken away. 
 The grief-stricken wife is compelled within the space of a 
 few hours to see that arrangements are made for the serv- 
 ice. The funeral director must be selected, the relatives 
 notified, and the officiating clergyman engaged. When to 
 this there is added the necessity of selecting a place of 
 burial it is almost more than the bleeding heart can bear. 
 Quite likely the lot will afterwards be found unsatisfac- 
 tory, either not large enough or not in a desirable location. 
 The benumbed brain cannot think clearly and x is in no con- 
 dition to " transact business " in this time of grief. 
 
 How much better if husband and wife had gone to- 
 gether to the cemetery on some summer day, looked the 
 place over, and calmly made a selection of the spot where 
 they and their children might at last rest side by side. 
 The business could then be transacted with due delibera- 
 tion and would not obtrude itself in the dark hour of 
 parting. 
 
 The talking over and settling of such matters will but 
 bind the hearts the more closely together. Whichever is 
 taken first it will be a comfort to the one remaining to 
 know that the place of burial was the choice of the de- 
 parted. Probably a foolish superstition deters some from 
 doing this Which reason commends. But the day of death 
 
 466
 
 Bereavement in the Home. 
 
 will not be hastened one hour by selecting the place of 
 burial, nor will improvident or superstitious neglect delay 
 the sad event. 
 
 \ A f E might go farther and say that, as the choice of a 
 "^ family physician should not be left until the time of 
 sickness, so the selection of the one who is to have the 
 preparation of the remains for burial and the directing of 
 the service should not be delayed until death has invaded 
 the home. Dr. Theodore L. Cuyler, in speaking upon 
 Christ's words, " Blessed are they that mourn," once said : 
 "We take this sweet little text into sick rooms, or to 
 funerals, or into the lonely groups which gather around a 
 mother's deserted chair or a little empty crib. It was 
 meant for them. It has fallen upon such stricken hearts 
 like the gentle rain upon the new mown grass. Many of 
 us know full well how good the balm felt when it touched 
 our bruised and bleeding hearts. I remember how, when 
 one of rny own ' bairns ' was lying in his fresh made grave, 
 and another one was so low that her crib seemed to touch 
 against a tomb, I used to keep murmuring over to myself 
 Wesley's matchless lines, 
 
 ' Leave, oh leave me not alone, 
 Still support and comfort me.' 
 
 " In those days I was learning just how the arrow feels 
 when it enters, and just how to sympathize with other 
 
 467
 
 Bereavement in the Home. 
 
 people in their bereavements. Somehow one is never fully 
 ready to emit the fragrance of sympathy for others until 
 he has been bruised himself." 
 
 It may sometimes make us a little stronger to bear 
 pain and loss if we remember that in the school of suffer- 
 ing God is training comforters. There is grief which is 
 selfish but in general suffering is an antidote for selfish- 
 ness. When we have learned the lesson let us not fail to 
 put it to use. And even while we are learning we may put 
 it in practice. It is one of the seeming paradoxes of life 
 that we best bear our trials by helping others to bear 
 theirs. Our burdens are lightened by taking on those of 
 others. 
 
 I HERE is an old Scottish story that one day, in a great 
 ^ battle, the chief of one of the powerful clans of the 
 Highlands fell back and lay on his side. The blood ebbed 
 from him, and his clansmen thought he was killed, and 
 began to fall back disheartened. Raising himself, with 
 blood flowing upon the green turf where he had fallen with 
 face to the foe, he cried, "Macdonald, I am not dead but 
 am watching how my clansmen fight." They closed up the 
 ranks and dashed on to victory. 
 
 When our dear ones fall from the ranks our first im- 
 pulse is to give up in despair. How can we again take up 
 the daily routine of life's duties ? How can we meet the 
 
 468
 
 Bereavement in the Home. 
 
 hurrying, heartless world which cares so little for our 
 grief ? We would gladly shut ourselves in and be alone 
 with the memory of the dead. But if this is indulged 
 there is danger of drifting into a state of bitter melan- 
 choly where the soul lives in the shadows and even spreads 
 its gloom over other lives. 
 
 It seems a harsh thing to say but those are fortunate 
 who are so situated that they cannot indulge this im- 
 pulse. It is best that we should take up again the daily 
 tasks. This is a working world and toil is not an enemy 
 but a friend whose hand though rough to the touch is both 
 gentle and strong. And there is n6t only our own work to 
 be resumed but also the unfinished work of the departed to 
 be carried on. Here are business interests of husband or 
 father or brother. He had plans which he was working 
 out ; how better can you honor him than by completing 
 them ? His work must not go for naught. Here are lines 
 of benevolence in which he was a devoted worker. Shall 
 the benefaction stop now that he is gone ? Or it may be 
 that the worker among the suffering and sorrowing, the 
 needy and friendless, was mother or wife or daughter. 
 Shall the work cease now that her hands are folded to rest ? 
 The world needed her. She is gone. We honor her most 
 not by nursing our grief in solitude but by going forth to 
 continue her unfinished work. We can rear no nobler 
 monument than this. The loved one fell in the midst of 
 the battle ; our love will best be shown by pressing on to 
 
 469
 
 Bereavement in the Home. 
 
 victory in the cause which was so near to the heart of the 
 one who has been called away. 
 
 I N bereavement we are comforted by contemplating the 
 past and the future. Memory and hope help to bear 
 the burden of the present. The words and deeds of loved 
 ones are a priceless heritage. They are treasures which we 
 may give to others and still possess them more truly than 
 ever. Let us not be pained, however, if others do not prize 
 them as highly as we. These are our special possession. 
 But even better than telling them to others is the living 
 over again in our personal lives what loved ones said and 
 did. Their example is then perpetuated, not by being 
 recorded in books but by being translated into daily deeds. 
 The other help is hope. It is not the purpose to dis- 
 cuss in this chapter the future life, but bereavement brings 
 the things of the future so near and the heart questions are 
 so spontaneous and persistent that we cannot pass them in 
 silence. We shall not lose our own identity in the future 
 life. The same faculty which enables us to identify our- 
 selves will enable us to identify others. Memory will not 
 have been obliterated else we shall be something less there 
 than here. Memory will insure recognition. Old friends 
 are the greatest joy of a new country. Fellowship was one 
 of the most fundamental characteristics of the early Chris- 
 tian church. If it is only for earth there is a strange 
 incompleteness. We are born as social beings and it is 
 
 470
 
 Bereavement in the Home. 
 
 inconceivable that one of the prime elements of our nature 
 should be destroyed. The social instinct always works 
 along the line of affinity. For whom will we have greater 
 affinity than for those we have loved here ? The words of 
 Christ put this question of recognition forever at rest. "In 
 my Father's house are many mansions : if it were not so, 
 1 would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." 
 Two words, " Father's house," give us the picture of the 
 family, of home with its attendant blessings of recognition, 
 fellowship, affection. After entering upon his public 
 ministry, Christ was homeless. His first miracle was 
 performed at the founding of a home, at the marriage 
 in Cana of Galilee. " Father's house " meant much to him 
 and he prayed, " Father, I will that they also, whom thou 
 hast given me, be with me where I am." He looks for- 
 ward to their fellowship with him and with each other in 
 the "Father's house." This we have said simply to show 
 that hope is a help in the time of bereavement. We care 
 not to intrude into that which has not been revealed, but 
 that we shall know each other there seems to admit of no 
 more doubt than that we shall know each other here a few 
 years hence. 
 
 t is God's gift and we must prize it and improve it 
 as such. Nor should we be unready to relinquish 
 it at his call that we may take something better. Better ? 
 Yes, far better. Observe the butterfly apparently floating 
 
 471
 
 Bereavement in the Home. 
 
 on the sunbeam from flower to flower the sweet picture 
 of freedom. Sometimes the breeze catches it but it simply 
 poises itself so as to be wafted higher. Once it was a poor 
 creeping thing, a creature of untoward circumstances, lia- 
 ble to be spurned or killed by any passer-by. Ask it which 
 is better, to be obliged to slowly creep and crawl or to 
 float and fly ? I have watched the waters as they lay 
 imprisoned in a mountain pool. They could only mirror 
 the towering peaks. It was a narrow, circumscribed life. 
 But the morning sun looked over the mountain tops, 
 chased away the shadows, and stooping kissed the pool. 
 One and another of the drops bade good-by to its compan- 
 ion and rose in response to the kiss and call of the sun. 
 The drops gathered in cloud groups, rose far above the 
 mountain peaks they had helped to mirror, and sailed away 
 on the wings of the wind, to renew their life in transfig- 
 ured beauty. And this was better, far better. 
 
 rVGAIN we need to be reminded that our grief is some- 
 ^ times selfish. In our bereavement we are likely to 
 think only of our loss and forget what the loved one has 
 gained. There has been a life of toil and trouble here, 
 days were filled with the ceaseless round of little tasks, 
 and the nights brought little rest. But at last " He giveth 
 his beloved sleep." 
 
 472
 
 Bereavement in the Home. 
 
 ' ' He sees when their footsteps falter, 
 
 When their hearts grow weak and faint ; 
 He marks when their steps are failing, 
 
 And listens to each complaint ; 
 He bids them rest for a season , 
 
 For the pathway has grown too steep ; 
 And, folded in fair green pastures, 
 
 He giveth his loved ones sleep. 
 
 " Like weary and worn-out children 
 
 That sigh for the daylight's close, 
 He knows that they oft are longing 
 
 For home and its sweet repose ; 
 So he calls them in from their labors 
 
 Ere the shadows round them creep ; 
 And silently watching o'er them 
 
 He giveth his loved ones sleep. 
 
 " He giveth it, oh, so gently, 
 
 As a mother will fold to rest 
 The babe that she softly pillows 
 
 So tenderly on her breast. 
 Forgotten are now the trials 
 
 And sorrows that make them weep ; 
 For with many a soothing promise 
 
 He giveth his loved ones sleep. 
 
 " All dread of the distant future, 
 All fears that oppress to-day, 
 Like mists that clear in the sunlight, 
 
 Have noiselessly passed away. 
 Nor call, nor clamor, can rouse them 
 From slumber so pure and deep, 
 473
 
 Bereavement in the Home. 
 
 For only his voice can reach them, 
 Who giveth his loved ones sleep. 
 
 " Weep not that their toils are over, 
 
 Weep not that their race is run ; 
 God grant we may, rest as calmly, 
 
 When our work, like theirs, is done. 
 Till then we yield with gladness 
 
 These treasures to him to keep ; 
 And rejoice in the blest assurance, 
 
 He giveth his loved ones sleep." 
 
 "To bind up the broken hearted " was one phase of 
 the Saviour's work. Anyone who has been wounded 
 knows what a relief it is to have the flesh drawn together 
 and bound up, thus excluding the air and relieving the 
 strain upon the lacerated muscles and nerves. The hurt is 
 not gone, the wound is not yet healed, but the binding up 
 helps so much. The world can never too highly praise the 
 workers of the Red Cross Society, who have braved battle 
 and pestilence to minister to the suffering. They have 
 been doing the work of their Master. But there is only 
 One who can bind up broken hearts. He comes with the 
 bands of his power and the balm of his love. He was once 
 the " Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," and 
 knows every heart pang. 
 
 " When other helpers fail and comforts flee, 
 Help of the helpless, oh, abide with me ! " 
 474
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-THREE. 
 
 The \Vido\v's Home, 
 
 WORK treating of home and the various phases 
 of the home life could not be considered com- 
 plete, were no chapter devoted to the widow's 
 home. For the widow's home finds its justification in the 
 normal and primitive constitution of things, as proved by 
 the undisputed facts that marriage is an institution of na- 
 ture, and that no organic law demands the simultaneous 
 dissolution of husband and wife. Indeed, such a coinci- 
 dence is of remarkably rare occurrence. 
 
 Widowhood, then, is an ordinance of nature, and per- 
 haps the strongest evidence that sorrow holds a rightful 
 place in the universal economy is to be found in this fact. 
 
 If, then, widowhood is inevitable, it seems right that 
 provision should be made for its possible occurrence, at 
 least, in so far as occasional and wholesome contemplation 
 can so dispose our minds that the dark angel cannot come 
 to us or ours by absolute surprise. We do not mean by 
 this that husbands and wives should perpetually dwell 
 upon the possible catastrophe of each other's death. This 
 
 would be entirely unnatural. Indeed, nothing so surely 
 
 475
 
 The Widow*s Home. 
 
 indicates a morbid condition of the whole being as a con- 
 stant tendency to dwell upon the possible death of our- 
 selves or our friends. It indicates a disordered state of the 
 nerves to be unable to sleep in consequence of a constant 
 dread of fire. And yet it is surely the duty of all to make 
 due provisions for such a catastrophe by way of fire- 
 escapes. So while we should not allow ourselves to be in 
 constant dread of bereavement, we should in our thought 
 and meditation frequently acknowledge to ourselves the 
 possibility of such an event, with an effort to realize that 
 which we acknowledge. In this way we may prepare our- 
 selves for almost any affliction, so that when the alarm 
 comes we may not be suffocated and bewildered in the 
 blinding smoke of our own grief. 
 
 5UT the liabilities to widowhood impose the duty of a 
 more substantial provision. This affliction falls 
 most heavily upon her who has leaned with the most child- 
 like dependence upon the support of her husband. It is, 
 perhaps, natural for woman to look to her husband for sup- 
 port and protection, but that complete surrender of her 
 individuality which makes her a mere household pet is to 
 be condemned, not only as unnatural, but as a sin against 
 herself and society. 
 
 Those who wear the badge of widowhood with the 
 most heroic fortitude are those who, in the stern battle of 
 life, have stood abreast with their husbands, who have 
 
 476
 
 The Widow's Home. 
 
 never shirked the noble responsibility of womanhood, 
 wifehood, arid motherhood. When the fearful summons 
 came that left them to fight alone, it found them with 
 weapon in hand. And it was then that the glory and 
 majesty of their womanhood shone through a veil of tears 
 with a beauty that was divine. 
 
 It is not the bereavement alone that lends sadness to 
 the thoughts of widowhood, but it is the fact of added 
 responsibility. There are often young children dependent 
 upon their sorrowing mother, and no matter how nobly 
 that mother may have performed her part in the conflict of 
 life, in the present conditions of society there are few in 
 whose homes would not be felt the sudden interruption 
 and suspension of the husband's vocation, though it were 
 preceded by years of industry and economy. 
 
 It requires something of a fortune, at least more than 
 most men possess, in order that the annuity alone may be 
 sufficient to maintain the home, and to feed, clothe, and 
 educate a family of children ; so that some form of re- 
 munerative labor often becomes necessary even for the 
 mother. And this adds to the sadness of the scene, for if 
 there is a scene on earth that is sad, it is that of grief 
 struggling in the toils of want. 
 
 But we would not be understood to mean that the 
 widow's home is always and necessarily the scene of want, 
 for it is not always, by any means, that there is a family of 
 young children dependent on the mother's efforts for the 
 
 477
 
 Ttie Widow's Home. 
 
 supply of all their varied needs. It is, perhaps, as often 
 that the children are able to support themselves and their 
 mother. Nor is the widow's home ever the abode of unmit- 
 igated sorrow. We cannot, it is true, from the very nature 
 of the case, eliminate sorrow from the widow's home, yet 
 God has so constituted the human heart that even amid 
 the darkest scenes of sorrow and affliction there come to 
 it hours of mirth and joy. And, perhaps, the widow's 
 home, where the necessary conditions of love and confi- 
 dence exist, is not less potent in its formative influences 
 upon character than those homes where sorrow has never 
 come. 
 
 There is something beautiful as well as pathetic in the 
 family scene where loving children recognize mother as 
 the head. The sons and daughters who come from families 
 of this kind are usually noble and generous. They have 
 learned to be unselfish not only from the heroic discipline 
 of their own lot, but from the tireless example of a mothers 
 denial and self-sacrifice, qualities which belong emphat- 
 ically to the widowed mother. 
 
 The angelic qualities of a mother's love never fully 
 reveal themselves till the wand of sorrow touches her heart 
 and writes a story on her brow. 
 
 "Arise and all thy tasks fulfill, 
 
 And as thy day thy strength shall be ; 
 Were there no power beyond the ill, 
 The ill could not have come to thee. 
 478
 
 The Widow's Home. 
 
 Though cloud and storm encompass thee 
 
 Be not afflicted nor afraid ; 
 Thou knowest the shadow could not be 
 
 Were there no sun beyond the shade. 
 
 For thy beloved, dead and gone, 
 Let sweet, not bitter, tears be shed ; 
 
 Nor ' open thy dark saying on 
 
 The harp,' as though thy faith were dead. 
 
 479
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR. 
 
 Homeless Orphans, 
 
 TEL 
 I i 
 
 ELL me, homeless wanderer, tell me, 
 
 For the storm is growing wild, 
 What sad fortune hath befell thee ; 
 
 Art thou some lone orphan child, 
 Wandering, while the dismal tempest 
 
 Breathes its low and fearful tone, 
 And the cheerful fire is glowing 
 
 Bright in many a cheerful home? 
 " Ah, my friend, no kindly welcome 
 
 Greets me on this desert wild ; 
 Others have their homes and firesides, 
 
 But I am nobody's child. 
 
 " For my fate no heart is beating, 
 
 And my grief no eye can see ; 
 Others meet their cheerful greeting, 
 
 But nobody cares for me. 
 Words of love, and pleasant faces, 
 
 Thoughts of mercy, voices mild, 
 Ne'er my hapless lot embraces, 
 
 For I am nobody's child. 
 * * # * * _ * * 
 480
 
 Homeless Orphans. 
 
 " But I've heard, or dreamed I heard it, 
 
 Of ' Our Father ' in the skies ; 
 Will he mark the lonely dwelling 
 
 Where my worthless body lies? 
 Will he, from his home above me, 
 Write the names of those who love me, 
 O'er my grave, in letters wild, 
 Will he trace Nobody's Child? " 
 
 I HE word orphan is one of the saddest in human lan- 
 ^ guage. It is a word at sound of which the gayest 
 hearts are sad. It brings to our minds a lone wanderer 
 who finds no object on earth to evoke a smile. When the 
 child that has a happy home and loving parents imagines 
 himself deprived of them, he experiences an oppressive 
 feeling that may be likened to that of suffocation. It is 
 probable, however, that the actual suffering of the home- 
 less is far less than one would naturally suppose, for that 
 principle in us which tends to make us satisfied with the 
 inevitable doubtless asserts itself here. 
 
 When we look upon the cripple who is obliged to sub- 
 stitute a wooden crutch for a leg, our hearts are moved to 
 pity, and we feel that in some way we owe him something. 
 We cannot feel at ease when we look upon him, while we 
 ourselves enjoy the free use of our limbs. But the cripple 
 himself has no such feelings. He feels that the wooden 
 crutch is his other leg, and he in turn pities his unfortu- 
 nate neighbor who has lost both limbs. And so it is with 
 
 481
 
 Homeless Orphans. 
 
 life. He who dwells in a palace pities him who dwells in 
 a cottage, and he in turn pities him who dwells in a hovel. 
 In the working of this principle may be discerned that law 
 of compensation which underlies all human affairs. 
 
 But this fact does not justify selfishness nor allow us to 
 neglect the rights of the unfortunate. For in spite of all 
 compensatory tendencies the world is full of suffering. 
 The air is rent at noonday and at midnight with the 
 wails of sorrow and the shrieks of agony. What if every 
 wave of sound around the earth could reach our ears ! 
 Think how the stifled sob of sudden sorrow would blend 
 with the music where beauty moves to the pulses of the 
 viol, and where in the great orchestral movement of human 
 life could be found a place for the weird, discordant note 
 of orphaned anguish ? How the thunderous discords of 
 that mighty orchestra are reduced to harmony by the dull- 
 ness of our ears ! 
 
 IxITY is an element of human nature that, in many 
 ^ * respects, must be considered as distinct from the 
 disposition to help. It is true that they both originate in 
 the primitive faculty of benevolence, but this faculty seems 
 to have these two closely related functions. The feverish 
 and extravagant desire for wealth that the indolent pauper 
 experiences originates in the same faculty as the thrift 
 and honest effort of the industrious man, and yet these two 
 
 products are not equally meritorious. Pity in its ultimate 
 
 482
 
 Homeless Orphans. 
 
 analysis is doubtless selfish. It is the pain that we expe- 
 rience on witnessing pain in others. Of course its chief 
 tendency is in the direction of help, just as any pain leads 
 us to remove the cause. But, in the case of pity, the ten' 
 dency does not always produce this result. Indeed, it 
 often produces an opposite result, as when a woman 
 through excess of pity flies from the scene of suffering. 
 
 After the close of a certain battle, Florence Nightingale 
 was called upon to witness the most terrible suffering in 
 the hospitals, and to yield her tender ministrations to the 
 shrieking and the dying. She had under her charge several 
 young women as assistants. As they approached the 
 couch of one mortally wounded, torn and mangled and 
 writhing in the awful throes of the death agony, these 
 young women covered their faces and fled from the place. 
 The noble woman, with a majesty almost divine, with no 
 agitation, no weakening tears of pity, turned and re- 
 buked them, and commanded them to return. Who of 
 those women, think you, possessed most of that godlike 
 love that dares to do and die for others ? This act on the 
 part of the young women, however, was not a selfish one in 
 the popular sense of the word. They desired to aid the 
 sufferers, they were there for that purpose. They were 
 noble and generous, but they could not match the great 
 soul of Florence Nightingale, and in their comparative 
 weakness they gave way to pity. Neither was Florence 
 Nightingale destitute of the power to pity ; she was capa- 
 
 483
 
 Homeless Orphans. 
 
 ble of deeper pity and more copious tears of sympathy than 
 her assistants, but she crushed down her selfish pity, in 
 order to give free scope to the grander sentiment of help. 
 She knew that pity's tears could not heal those awful, gap- 
 ing wounds, and that the hour demanded a higher min- 
 istration than tender words of sympathy. 
 
 UT not alone in such an hour does the grandeur of 
 human love display itself. The principle of be- 
 nevolence is represented by two classes, the pitiers and the 
 helpers. The pitiers are represented by the sentimental- 
 ists, who speak in touching generalities about the suffer- 
 ings of humanity ; the helpers, by the asylums and homes, 
 the public and private charities of the land. One class is 
 represented by words and tears, the other by the wordless 
 energy that feeds, clothes, and protects. One orphan asy- 
 lum is worth more than all the tears of pity ever shed. 
 The grandest ministration is that which gives with a heart 
 too noble to express its own pain. The divinest love is 
 that which builds its own monument, of brick and mortar, 
 with dry eyes and lion heart. 
 
 But how shall the homeless orphan profit by what we 
 have said on the subject of home and its advantages ? 
 Surely, if he have no home, there can be no relations 
 between himself and that institution except negative rela- 
 tions. 
 
 The first thing to do, then, is to seek some place where 
 
 484
 
 Homeless Orphans. 
 
 he can eat and sleep, and this place he should call home, 
 even though it have no other characteristic of home than 
 that it affords him a secluded place in which to eat his 
 crust, and a protection from the dew and rain at night. 
 He should never change his quarters unless he can change 
 them for the better. This rule should be observed as far as 
 circumstances will permit. 
 
 Perhaps the poor reader into whose hands this book 
 may chance to fall may not understand the force of this 
 advice. But when he subjects it to the light even of that 
 rude philosophy of life which he has developed upon the 
 street, we trust it will appear plain to him. He should call 
 the place where he eats and sleeps home, in order that his 
 heart may not lose that sacred word from its vocabulary. 
 He should persist in eating his meals and spending his 
 nights in this one place, in order that he may not lose that 
 divinely born home instinct in which the institution of 
 home has originated. 
 
 If you are a bootblack upon the street, with no parents 
 and no home that you can call your own, you must surely 
 have some place in which you sleep at night. This you 
 can call home, and it will soon come to be in some sense a 
 home to you. And if, by blacking boots, you can earn a 
 living, you can without doubt earn a little besides, and 
 with the saved nickels and dimes, that nobody supposes 
 you possess, you can buy good clothes, and thus appear to 
 
 better advantage on the street and in that society in which 
 
 485
 
 Homeless Orphans. 
 
 you move. In this world of unjust discriminations, fine 
 vestments are often mistaken for hearts, while real hearts 
 wrapped up in rags are often carelessly thrown away. So 
 if you have a good heart it is well to wrap it in as fine a 
 piece of cloth as you can afford. 
 
 I HERE are few orphan boys or girls who cannot 
 V obtain good situations, either in the city or in the 
 country, where they may be clothed and fed, and be 
 allowed to attend school, and to pay for such guardianship 
 with moderate labor, in the same condition as the children 
 of the household. 
 
 It is no disgrace to be sent to an " orphans' home." 
 Of course such a home cannot be a perfect home, for it 
 lacks the elements of "the fireside" and parental love. 
 But it has enough of the essential elements to entitle it to 
 the name of home. If the semi-public life which is inevit- 
 able is displeasing to the unfortunate one, let him remem- 
 ber that in all institutions of the kind the merits and de- 
 merits of the inmates are considered, and those who have 
 proved themselves most worthy are the first who are per- 
 mitted to avail themselves of the situations in private fami- 
 lies that are constantly presenting themselves. Officers are 
 employed expressly to search out such situations. And an 
 orphans' home may be regarded as a kind of temporary 
 accommodation where orphans are provided for until their 
 
 applications for situations are successful. We believe that 
 
 486
 
 Homeless Orphans. 
 
 the active, benevolent element of society, if properly 
 reminded of its duty, is capable of absorbing the entire 
 element of the world's orphaned ones. 
 
 " Only a newsboy, under the light 
 
 Of the lamp-post, plying his trade in vain : 
 Men are too busy to stop to-night, 
 
 Hurrying home through the sleet and raiii. 
 Never since dark a paper sold ; 
 
 Where shall he sleep, or how be fed? 
 He thinks, as he shivers there in the cold, 
 
 While happy children are abed. 
 
 " Is it strange if he turns about 
 
 With angry words, then comes to blows, 
 When his little neighbor, just sold out, 
 
 Tossing his pennies, past him goes? 
 ' Stop ! ' some one looks at him, sweet and mild, 
 
 And the voice that speaks is a tender one : 
 4 You should not strike such a little child, 
 
 And you should not use such words, my son ! " 
 
 " Is it his anger or his fears 
 
 That have hushed his voice and stopped his arm ? 
 ' Don't tremble,' these are the words he hears ; 
 
 ' Do you think that I would do you harm ? ' 
 ' It isn't that,' and the hand drops down ; 
 
 ' I wouldn't care for kicks and blows ; 
 But nobody ever called me son, 
 
 Because I'm nobody's child, I s'pose.' 
 
 " O men ! as ye careless pass along, 
 
 Remember the love that has cared for you, 
 And blush for the awful shame and wrong 
 
 Of a world where such a thing could be true ! 
 Think what the child at your knee had been 
 
 If thus on life's lonely billows tossed ; 
 And who shall bear the weight of the sin, 
 If one of these ' little ones ' be lost ! ' ' 
 487
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE. 
 
 Homes of tine Poor. 
 
 ISTORY records no great reforms, no rare efforts 
 of philanthropy and love, whose authors have 
 __ , not felt the restraint of at least moderate 
 want. Out from the ten thousand unpainted cottages that 
 dot the land have stalked forth the great thoughts and the 
 mighty deeds. 
 
 Luxury is the concave lens which disperses the rays 
 of human energy, while poverty is the convex lens which 
 causes them to converge, often bringing them to a power- 
 ful focus, and, like the mirrors of Archimedes, burning 
 the fleets of the enemy. 
 
 Let no young man despair because he is poor. As well 
 might the engine despair because the iron bands confine 
 the restless energy of the steam. The engineer computes 
 the resistance to physical force in what he terms foot- 
 pounds. So poverty is a term that simply designates the 
 resistance to the divine energies of a human soul. There 
 are two indispensable conditions to the development of 
 power in the engine ; first the application of heat, and 
 
 488
 
 Homes of the Poor. 
 
 second the outward resistance to confine the force gener- 
 ated. So in the soul these same two conditions must exist ; 
 the heat of a persistent volition, of a dauntless purpose, 
 must be applied, and also the outward resistance of cir- 
 cumstances to confine and concentrate the power thus 
 generated. 
 
 The gigantic power of the engine is obtained by con- 
 fining those restless particles of steam which are strug- 
 gling for release, and which, if they do not soon obtain it, 
 will burst their iron bands asunder. 
 
 How impotent is the most terrific heat if the steam 
 which it generates have no resistance to overcome ! Just 
 so with the most gigantic volition and the grandest pur- 
 pose, if they are not pent in by some sufficing resistance. 
 If they have no fetters, either seen or unseen, in some way 
 proportionate to their own strength, they will be dissipated 
 as harmlessly as the vapor which rises at its leisure from 
 the open boiler. ^ 
 
 poverty we do not mean the condition of those 
 who moan with hunger and shiver with cold, but 
 more particularly the condition of that great class whose 
 desires and needs are separated from their gratification by 
 the breadth of a wearying effort. In this sense we attach 
 to the word the significance of a natural law, obviously 
 designed and ordained by the Creator to meet the neces- 
 sary conditions of human development. 
 
 489
 
 Homes of the Poor. 
 
 If we would trace the proudest achievement of human 
 genius to its origin, we must follow it back through wind- 
 ing pathways, from the brilliant hall, from the thunder 
 of human applause, to the plain, often homely cottage of 
 poverty. If the gratification of every want lay within the 
 leisure grasp of that want, the very atmosphere of human 
 society would become pestilential with stagnation. 
 
 Go to the sunny tropics where nature with curious 
 caprice empties her lap of spoils in the presence of men, 
 and behold the weakness, the languor, and the inanity. 
 Humanity there has just activity enough to be vicious. 
 Where must we go to hear the hum of spindles, to feel 
 beneath our feet the jar of rushing trains, and to see the 
 smoky signals of human industry waving over a thousand 
 hills ? We must go where winter throws up his icy bul- 
 wark between the wants of man and their gratification. 
 Under such conditions human inertia ceases. 
 
 Force and resistance constitute the eternal polarity of 
 existence. The one cannot exist without the other, any 
 more than there can be boreal magnetism without austral ; 
 any more than there can be action without reaction. 
 
 In order for force, either physical or mental, to be 
 cumulative the resistance must exceed the force so as to 
 elicit the increase. Hence the mission of poverty. 
 
 Not only is poverty necessary to develop human nature 
 and make its forces cumulative, but it is necessary to 
 prevent the extravagant and irregular expenditure of those 
 
 490
 
 Homes of the Poor. 
 
 forces. It may be that human nature absolutely perfect 
 would be self-regulating, even when all its desires could be 
 gratified without laborious effort ; yet under present condi- 
 tions it certainly requires resistance in certain directions. 
 The son of affluence soon runs the rounds of all possible 
 pleasures, and then life becomes insipid. We enjoy life's 
 blessings just in proportion to their variety and the effort 
 that they cost. All pleasures are enhanced by prelimi- 
 nary effort. This fact explains the adage that "stolen fruit 
 is always sweetest." It is because of the exciting effort 
 which accompanies the unlawful procuring of it. That 
 fruit, however, which is bought with honest labor should 
 be sweetest, while the most insipid is that which lies 
 within the reach of the appetite without the aid of labor. 
 When will men learn that ease and rest and luxury are 
 misnomers ? It is the subtile and divine alchemy of 
 sweat which transforms sorrow and languor into joy and 
 peace. 
 
 M^J OMES of the poor ! Sacred shrines of earth where 
 
 V. the altar fires of genius have been lighted ! May 
 
 the world forever be blessed with moderate want. The 
 
 
 
 human mind is never whole till it has suffered, and it is 
 better that the angel of poverty should mete out the 
 required suffering in the form of a perpetual restraint, than 
 that it should burst like the thunderstorm from the azure 
 
 sky of luxury, darkening with its clouds the sun of life. 
 
 491
 
 Homes of the Poor. 
 
 The home of the poor man does not necessarily mean a 
 home of suffering, save in that humiliation and restraint to 
 which it is necessary for all souls to be subjected in order 
 to develop. The poor man's home need not be devoid of a 
 certain degree of luxury. Beautiful pictures and works of 
 art can no longer be monopolized by the rich, for the busy 
 brain of invention has brought them within the reach of 
 all. The price of ten cents worth of tobacco smoke saved 
 each day for fifteen or twenty days will purchase a fine 
 book. The very poorest of men find no difficulty in pur- 
 chasing this amount of tobacco smoke each day. Only 
 think how many days there are in a lifetime ! Three hun- 
 dred and thirteen working days in a year at ten cents a 
 day would give $31.30. Twenty years would give $626.00, 
 which would purchase at least five hundred volumes, a 
 library of which most men should be proud. For five hun- 
 dred volumes of the best books comprise nearly all there is 
 of pre-eminent worth in literature. What an inspiring 
 thought for a poor boy ! the gist of all literature purchased 
 with the little self-denial that it costs to refrain from mak- 
 ing bacon of one's self. 
 
 Young man ! promise us that as soon as you have read, 
 this chapter, you will begin to lay up ten cents a day, and, 
 if you will smoke cigars, then be a little more economical 
 in other things, and lay up at least five cents. You have 
 your life before you, and it would soon be so natural for 
 you to lay by the small amount daily, that you would drop 
 
 492
 
 Homes of the Poor. 
 
 it from habit into your private treasury almost uncon- 
 sciously. Try it, and reap the harvest. 
 
 " He sat all alone in his dark little room, 
 His fingers aweary with work at the loom, 
 His eyes seeing not the fine threads, for the tears, 
 As he carefully counted the months and the years 
 He had been a poor weaver. 
 
 " Not a traveler went on the dusty highway, 
 
 But he thought, ' He has nothing to do but be gay ' ; 
 No matter how burdened or bent he might be, 
 The weaver believed him more happy than he, 
 And sighed at his weaving. 
 
 " He saw not the roses so sweet and so red 
 
 That looked through his window ; he thought to be dead 
 And carried away from his dark little room, 
 Wrapped up in the linen he had in his loom, 
 Were better than weaving. 
 
 " Just then a white angel came out of the skies, 
 And shut up his senses, and sealed up his eyes, 
 And bore him away from the work at his loom 
 In a vision, and left him alone by the tomb 
 Of his dear little daughter. 
 
 " ' My darling ! ' he cries, ' what a blessing was mine ! 
 How I sinned, having you, against goodness divine ! 
 Awake ! O my lost one, my sweet one, awake ! 
 And I never, as long as T live, for your sake, 
 Will sigh at my weaving ! ' 
 493
 
 Homes of the Poor. 
 
 " The sunset was gilding his low little room 
 
 When the weaver awoke from his dream at the loom, 
 And close at his knee saw a dear little head 
 Alight with long curls, she was living, not dead, 
 His pride and his treasure. 
 
 " He winds the fine thread on his shuttle anew, 
 At thought of his blessing 'twas easy to do, 
 And sings as he weaves, for the joy at his breast, 
 Peace cometh of striving, and labor is rest : 
 Grown wise was the Aveaver." 
 
 494
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE. 
 
 Homes of ttie Rich. 
 
 T is the duty of the poor man to live within his 
 income, hut it is no less the duty of the rich man to 
 make his expenditures proportionate to his income. 
 People sometimes hold up their hands in holy horror when 
 they read or hear that some millionaire has spent an enor- 
 mous sum on his buildings, his wardrobe, or his garden ; 
 but they do not stop to think that he is thereby discharging 
 a duty which he owes to society. He is redistributing the 
 money that he has gathered. The great mass of the peo- 
 ple must earn their daily bread by performing labor for 
 others, but only the wealthy can hire people to labor for 
 them. Hence those who possess wealth and will not spend 
 it in being served, are the thieves and robbers of society. 
 No wealthy man has any business to live in a cottage. 
 There are poor people enough to live in cottages. It is 
 his business to live in a palace, and to hire those to build 
 it who live in cottages. 
 
 We have, perhaps, used the word served unadvisedly. 
 We do not mean that the wealthy man discharges his obli- 
 
 495
 
 Homes of the Rich. 
 
 gation to society when he expends large sums to increase 
 his personal comforts. He should make his wealth serve 
 himself by first making it serve society in the promotion 
 of legitimate business enterprise. Nor do we mean that 
 he should expend upon his dwelling and for his own 
 personal gratification more than can normally and law- 
 fully minister to his comfort, convenience, and aesthetic 
 faculties. 
 
 /VND yet there is concealed in the very sentiment of 
 V^ extravagance to which wealth prompts, a kind of 
 compensatory principle ; one of Nature's curative efforts, 
 by which the economic interests of society are made self- 
 acting. The world's wealth cannot be hoarded by individ- 
 uals save for a brief period. All attempts to do so are 
 thwarted by Nature herself through instrumentalities so 
 cunning and subtile as to Reserve our applause. She has 
 three processes by which she robs the rich man of his large 
 acquisitions and gives back the spoils to the poor. 
 
 The first process she employs when she deals with the 
 miserly rich man, the man who has sacrificed all other 
 sources of enjoyment to this one instinct of hoarding. She 
 has so constituted him that this sacrifice, this concentra- 
 tion of all the energies of his being upon the one organ 
 of acquisitiveness, necessarily results in the withdrawal 
 of potency from the intellectual. The miser's intellect, 
 accordingly, is never broad and comprehensive. He has, 
 
 49 G
 
 Homes of the Rich. 
 
 it is true, a certain degree or kind of intellectuality, but it 
 is for the most part of the same nature as that of the fox. 
 He makes a use of his intellectual powers that is below 
 their normal function, and hence tends to weaken them. 
 This is the process by which organs and functions become 
 " abortive," as the evolutionists would term it. When the 
 wings of the bird are used chiefly for a purpose below their 
 natural function they are becoming "abortive." We see 
 the result of this process in barn fowl that use their wings 
 only to aid their running. Hence hens and turkeys are 
 unable to fly any considerable distance without great 
 exhaustion. 
 
 Just so the intellectual wings of the miser are becom- 
 ing abortive, for he uses them not to fly with but simply to 
 aid his running. In very many cases we have only to wait 
 one generation to see this abortive process completed. 
 The children of the miser rarely have the executive force 
 to keep the lock upon the father's chest. Thus nature, by 
 a process subtler than the necromancy of the Egyptian 
 wizard, gives back to the masses that which has been 
 taken from them. 
 
 Nature makes use of her second method when dealing 
 with the energetic, active, shrewd, and executive rich 
 man, the accumulator rather than the hoarder. The two 
 are in many respects opposite in their characteristics. The 
 merchant, the manufacturer, and the railroad king show 
 no tendency toward the abortive intellect. Indeed, their 
 
 497
 
 Homes of the Rich. 
 
 function is usually such as to develop great strength and 
 activity of intellect. But the miser proper is one whose 
 motto is, "a penny saved is a penny earned." His sole 
 delight is in the consciousness of his possessions, and in 
 counting and sorting his valuable papers. His money is 
 all in bonds and mortgages, hence he lives in idleness and 
 gloats over the self-accumulation of his wealth. 
 
 Now this second method which nature employs in her 
 ceaseless effort at equalization is simply this : she has 
 made human nature such (and consequently society, which 
 is but an outgrowth of human nature), that the individual 
 want cannot be met except by a contribution to the gen- 
 eral good. Wealth is simply potential gratification. But 
 it cannot minister to the desires of him who holds it save 
 as it yields a secondary ministration to the general inter- 
 est, whose relation with it is the sole source of its 
 potentiality. 
 
 The natural wants and desires of man lie within com- 
 paratively narrow limits. Bacon wisely says, " The per- 
 sonal fruition in any man cannot reach to feel great 
 riches." A very moderate income will meet all the per- 
 sonal wants and desires of man. He cannot want or 
 desire anything outside the bounds of his nature. He 
 desires food, but the quantity has a very obvious limit, and 
 there must also be a comparatively moderate limit to its 
 costliness. He desires raiment, but, even if his caprice 
 demands golden garments, the inevitable limit is easily 
 
 408
 
 " 
 
 Homes of the Rich, 
 
 reached. All the potentiality, then, which his wealth pos- 
 sesses, beyond a small per cent., must redound to the gen- 
 eral good in spite of him. The rich man is the smallest 
 stockholder in his own wealth. 
 
 Two men were once conversing about John Jacob 
 Astor's property. One was asked if he would be willing 
 to take care of all those millions merely for his board and 
 clothing. "No," he indignantly replied, "do you take me 
 for a fool?" "Well," said the other, "that is all Mr. 
 Astor himself gets for taking care of it ; he's found, and 
 that's all. The houses, the warehouses, the ships, the 
 farms, which he counts by the hundred, and is often 
 obliged to take care of, are for the accommodation of 
 others." "But then he has the income, the rents of all 
 this large property, five or six hundred thousand dollars 
 per annum." "Yes, but he can do nothing with his in- 
 come but build more houses and warehouses and ships, or 
 loan money on mortgages for the convenience of others. 
 He's found, and you can make nothing else out of it." 
 
 The world ought not to complain so long as it gets 
 ninety-nine per cent, of the rich man's income. If the rich 
 man uses his wealth in building tenement houses to rent, 
 he not only furnishes remunerative labor to the workmen 
 who build them, but by his competition he lowers rent and 
 thus confers a general blessing. The same is true if he 
 invests it in railroads, for the more railroads the more com- 
 petition, and hence the lower the rate of transportation. 
 
 499
 
 Homes of the Rich. 
 
 There is but one thing he can do with his money that will 
 not yield the general good a much larger contribution than 
 
 himself. He can lock it up in his own vault. But in that 
 > 
 
 case it not only yields himself nothing, but Nature will 
 make use of her first method and will take the money her- 
 self and leave his children or grandchildren penniless. 
 
 Nature's third method is a modification of her first. 
 She uses it in her dealings with the children of the active 
 rich man. It is simply that law of which we have already 
 spoken in our chapter on " Homes of the Poor," by which 
 restraint upon desire develops executive power. In the 
 children of the rich we see, perhaps, little if any tendency 
 to the abortive intellect, but the abortive tendency is 
 chiefly or wholly confined to the executive powers. There 
 is much difference between earning a dollar, and asking 
 papa for it. The boy who toils all day for a dollar and 
 brings it home at night, hungry and tired, not only knows 
 the value of that dollar, but by such a practice he is 
 developing in his soul a power of action that will enable it 
 to laugh at every obstacle that earth can offer. Take the 
 wealth from the children of the rich and they become 
 objects of charity. 
 
 1 A |E would not be quoted by the poor in justification of 
 ^ their poverty. Poverty is unnatural and undesir- 
 able to all, and there is little excuse for most people to 
 remain in its fetters, making due allowance, however, for 
 
 500
 
 Homes of the Rich. 
 
 exceptional cases. Poverty, like temptation and sin, yields 
 its ministry only in the process of being overcome. The 
 tribute we have paid to poverty in the preceding chapter 
 would be almost as applicable had our theme been tempta- 
 tion, yet we would hardly advocate exposing ourselves 
 needlessly to temptation for the sake of its possible minis- 
 try. 
 
 All normal action is disciplinary, for every possible 
 gratification implies an aggressive movement. The eter- 
 nal warfare between want and satisfaction is a natural 
 warfare, and one which cannot cease till the army of crea- 
 tion shall give the signal of surrender, and he who 
 refuses to engage in this warfare is a traitorous deserter, 
 and deserves the deserter's fate. He who is contented 
 with poverty, and seeks not to subdue it, must be reckoned 
 with this class ; he has mutinied against the generalship 
 of his Maker. 
 
 1 A FEALTH, then, if it be the representative and co-rela- 
 ^ tive of service done to mankind, so far from being 
 an evil or a necessary accompaniment of moral demerit, is 
 a badge of honor. It is the war record, which shows how 
 far one has triumphed over the divinely appointed opposi- 
 tion to his progress ; and in this sense may even justly be 
 compared with the moral virtues, which are the spirit's 
 war record, and show how far it has triumphed, in the 
 spiritual warfare, over the forces of temptation and evil. 
 
 501
 
 Homes of the Rich, 
 
 Wealth is an evil only when it is allowed to release its 
 owner from honorable and worthy labor. No possible 
 condition of life can release one who is physically and 
 mentally able, from the moral obligation to toil. 
 
 But suppose one inherits a million. Shall he toil for 
 his daily bread ? No ! not for his daily bread, but in behalf 
 of mankind. We have but a secondary claim upon our 
 own powers. Wealth augments our natural endowments. 
 Two men with equal talents, the one poor and the other 
 rich, possess very unequal power for doing good. So that 
 the man who inherits a million should begin life as though 
 he were penniless. We do not mean, of course, that he 
 should chop wood or learn the blacksmith's trade, but 
 that he should regard the million simply as a reinforce- 
 ment of his faculties. He is, by so much, a more talented 
 man, or rather his natural talents are supplemented by 
 that which virtually makes them more powerful. 
 
 The rich in the majority of cases violate the laws of 
 the home life, from the fact that they allow their wealth 
 to release them from toil, the only thing that can render 
 the " earth-life worth living." Indolence will render every 
 possible joy insipid. 
 
 We have said, in the early part of this chapter, that 
 those who possess wealth and will not spend it in being 
 served are the thieves and robbers of society. But that 
 service should be simply for the purpose of releasing them 
 from a lower duty in order that they may perform a 
 
 502
 
 Homes of the Rich. 
 
 higher duty which their wealth enables them to fulfill. 
 Hence, if the wife and daughter will not engage in some 
 form of service to their kind, they have no moral right to 
 hire a servant to serve their food for them. Indeed, they 
 have no moral right to the food itself. Lahor is a natural 
 ordinance, and riches cannot release one from the obliga- 
 tion to a universal law. It is as binding upon the million- 
 aire as upon the pauper, and he who seeks to evade this 
 law is a criminal according to the statutes of the universe. 
 
 Let every rich man's daughter engage in some regular 
 and useful vocation ; and thus bless herself by the labor, 
 and mankind with the product. Not that we would 
 impose upon her, simply because she is wealthy, the som- 
 ber duties of a nun. But we would have her labor daily in 
 order that she may fulfill the mission of her life, in order 
 that she may develop in herself and entail upon the com- 
 ing generation that which labor alone can develop. The 
 wife who does not, at least, exercise a general supervision 
 over her own household affairs is a drone in society. 
 
 The only absolutely selfish motive that the highest 
 morality permits in the accumulation of wealth is the nor- 
 mal desire for independence in all the relations of life ; and 
 
 x 
 
 if beyond this, nature has endowed one with a special 
 capacity for acquiring wealth, the product of that capac- 
 ity, like the product of every other form of genius, is man- 
 kind's and not his. 
 
 The home of the rich man should represent as much 
 
 503
 
 Homes of the Rich. 
 
 wealth as, thus expended, will have a tendency to increase 
 the comfort and convenience of his family. Beyond this, 
 however, he has no moral right to lavish wealth upon his 
 home for the mere gratification of his vanity. He should 
 invest it in some honorable and useful industry, where it 
 will yield humanity a higher rate of interest than that of 
 mere taxation. 
 
 Burns has given us the licenses of wealth in the fol- 
 lowing lines : 
 
 " But gather gear by every wile 
 That's justified by honor ; 
 Not for to hide it in a hedge, 
 Nor for a train attendant, 
 But for the glorious privilege 
 Of being independent." 
 
 504
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN. 
 
 Tfre tiome and the State. 
 
 1 J HAT constitutes a state ? 
 
 V^ Not high raised battlements, or labor'd mound, 
 
 Thick wall, or moated gate ; 
 Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crown 'd ; 
 
 Not bays and broad arm'd ports, 
 Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride ; 
 
 Nor starr'd and spangled courts, 
 Where low-brow 'd baseness wafts perfumes to pride : 
 
 No 1 men, high-minded men, 
 With powers as far above dull brutes endu'd, 
 
 In forest, brake, or den, 
 As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude ; 
 
 Men who their duties know, 
 But know their rights ; and, knowing, dare maintain, 
 
 Prevent the long-armed blow, 
 And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain 
 
 These constitute a state. 
 
 Sir William Jones. 
 
 (5 I HER 
 
 HERE is a vital relation existing between the homes 
 of a people and that sovereign power called the 
 
 -1 state. The interests and ideals of the one cannot 
 be separated from the interests and ideals of the other. 
 They are both forms of government having an ultimately 
 
 505
 
 The Home and the State. 
 
 common end and historically (at least, if certain forms of 
 tradition may be accepted as history) have had a common 
 origin, and for a long period of 3 r ears were either coinci- 
 dent, or existent side by side. 
 
 Patriarchal government, or government by fathers or 
 patriarchs, was originally and chiefly religious in charac- 
 ter. It did not possess the contrariety of form, charter 
 enactments, or function characteristic of later and more 
 recent governments. This is readily understood when one 
 considers that the peoples possessing and upholding this 
 system were simple and pastoral in their habits and 
 imbued with a unique religious spirit. Their material and 
 religious interests were both communal. Their lands, 
 tents, oxen, vineyards, were in great part either held in 
 common or as tribal possessions. Individual effort, the 
 home, specialized industry, and distinctive characteristics 
 generally, were lost in the greater issue of a common pur- 
 pose and destiny. 
 
 To some; perhaps, this form of government may seem 
 ideal ; some even seek to re-establish it to-day. Its simplic- 
 ity, its conservation of individual energy, its moral tone, 
 its oneness of aim, all have done much to commend it. 
 But certain it is that with the march of a few centuries it 
 disappeared. Society began to differentiate ; patriarchs 
 became kings ; the laws of succession changed ; toil took 
 on new forms and the distribution of its products. gave rise 
 to a multiplicity of new departments for human activity. 
 
 506
 
 The Home and the State. 
 
 In short, these diversified and diversifying conditions 
 brought a new order of things and with them new forms 
 of government. 
 
 lifRITERS on primitive institutions generally agree 
 ^ that the village or community was a simple and 
 natural development from the family. In other words, the 
 village was an enlarged family, embracing those nearest of 
 kin, together with their slaves, domestic animals, house- 
 hold gods, priests, and the usual paraphernalia of commu- 
 nal life. Contiguous villages, or those characterized by 
 common interests, or the physical configuration of their 
 lands, then gradually became united under a single head 
 or monarch, for their common defense and welfare. From 
 such alliances and continually diversifying relations, it can 
 be easily observed, that the borders of villages were 
 extended from time to time, either peacefully or through 
 conquest, and their enlarged opportunities developed new 
 functions in both sovereign and subject. Village united 
 with village, or the weaker were subdued by the stronger ; 
 alien communities became dependencies, and the whole 
 was solidified into what may be termed, by virtue of its 
 extent and importance, a state or realm. 
 
 The process, it will be observed, was at first one of 
 aggregation and in this respect the evolution of society has 
 followed a well recognized natural law, viz., that of aggre- 
 gation and segregation. When the state had reached a 
 
 507
 
 The Home and the State. 
 
 certain stage through centralization and successive addi- 
 tions to its domain, it became necessary to recognize not 
 alone the welfare of the state itself, but the units compos- 
 ing the state. Thus the state became reactionary and a 
 more or less defined policy was demanded covering the 
 relations of state and subject. A segregation or division 
 of interests became imperative to the continued life of the 
 state itself, as well as a matter of policy and utility on 
 behalf of the subject. Many influences, which cannot be 
 recounted here, have been at work to make predominant 
 at one time the interests of the state and at another time 
 the interests of the people ; but the fact remains, neverthe- 
 less, that the principles of aggregation and segregation 
 are those about which have revolved the fortunes of 
 nations and peoples. 
 
 It would be interesting to trace the varying attitudes 
 of the home and the state, as affected by the mutations of 
 government, throughout the entire period of authentic his- 
 tory, but such a treatment here is scarcely germane to this 
 chapter. The forms of government during these centuries 
 have been confined largely to three types (and their vari- 
 ations), the patriarchal, monarchical, and democratic, of 
 which the last two still persist among civilized peoples and 
 in which the interaction of family and state is most nota- 
 ble. Under the constitutional monarchy of England and 
 the democratic government of the United States the home 
 
 is probably accorded a higher function than under any 
 
 508
 
 The Home and the State. 
 
 other dominion. The rule of the state is beneficent 
 because it is the collective expression of the homes ; the 
 homes are exemplary because they are under the fostering 
 influences of wise laws and wise rulers, and are allowed 
 the fullest development of their free activities. 
 
 IF, then, it is true that a state is but an aggregate of 
 homes, whose purpose is the highest possible develop- 
 ment of the individuals composing that state, how signifi- 
 cant is the relation and duty of the family to the public 
 weal ! The home becomes the natural unit of all that is 
 highest and best in the body politic. It is the arbiter of 
 public morals, the leaven of social purity, the center of 
 inspirational life, the dispenser of noble charities, and the 
 censor of national ideals. The stream can rise.no higher 
 than its fount and so the supreme test of national life lies 
 in the homes of the people. ' The safety and perpetuity of 
 government can rest no where else. From a disregard of 
 the common interests of the homes by the state comes 
 national strife and contention, industrial unrest, economic 
 waste, social malcontents, destruction of the unity of inter- 
 ests, and a thousand and one lesser evils that betoken retro- 
 gression if not actual decadence. 
 
 /VT various periods throughout history efforts have 
 V_ been made to formulate theories respecting the 
 
 ideal state. Plato's Republic, the Utopia of Sir John More, 
 
 509
 
 The Home and the State. 
 
 and Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward have been note- 
 worthy attempts in this direction, all of which are char- 
 acterized by lines of thought more fantastic perhaps than 
 philosophical. Many attempts have also been made in 
 the economic literature of the present century to present 
 conceptions of the state, with all its interrelations, more 
 in accord with the prevailing scientific spirit. All of these 
 have brought their contributions to the perplexing prob- 
 lems of government and social economy and in their main 
 themes have given emphasis to the home as a potent factor 
 in civic progression and reform. 
 
 The problem of the relation of labor to capital, the 
 assimilation of races, education, religion, charities, the 
 coalition of wealth, taxation, territorial aggrandizement, 
 the whole range of relations, in short, arising out of the 
 effort to combine into a composite whole the militant inter- 
 ests of the people, must engage the attention and the stu- 
 dious consideration of the home equally with the state. 
 Such consideration should not only be reckoned a duty 
 but a privilege of citizenship. Every fireside has the right 
 to intelligently co-operate in its own defense, and to pro- 
 mote its own interests and well-being as long as it is not 
 in derogation of the rights of others. It owes a large duty 
 to itself but it also owes a large duty to its environment. 
 It must radiate an influence for law and order that will 
 make possible the further development of itself and insure 
 its perpetuation. The highest principle for the govern- 
 
 510
 
 The Home and the State. 
 
 merit of the home, as for the government of the state, is 
 the seemingly paradoxical one of the unselfish development 
 of self. In other words, it is but the application of Imman- 
 uel Kant's supreme rule of morals, " So order your conduct 
 that it may, if possible, be in harmony with the rights of 
 all men." 
 
 M^J OW best to secure this intimate co-operation of the 
 V^, home and the state so as to insure the highest re- 
 sults, is the vast problem of modern society. Perfection of 
 development in either cannot be hoped for because it is 
 not a quality of finite things. But notwithstanding this 
 the rule of our duty is clear. The mutuality of action for 
 home and state must, at least, be in the direction of the 
 highest ideals of individuality and collectivity. The col- 
 lective effort must go hand in hand with the individual 
 effort, else all is disharmony and divided interest. The 
 fortunes of the home are inseparably bound up with the 
 interests of the state and a development in either means a 
 corresponding development in the other. The enlighten- 
 ment or degradation of the home means the enlightenment 
 or degradation of the state. How important then must be 
 the duties of citizenship ! 
 
 I 1RDER is said to have been God's first law. It is the 
 
 unifying and harmonizing principle of being. No 
 
 department of the universe, whether it be animate or inan- 
 
 511
 
 The Home and the State. 
 
 imate, whether it be a mighty cataract, a storm at sea, the 
 grouping of the stars, the structure of the lily, the pulsing 
 of the emotions, the prattle of a child, is unen compassed 
 by it. In this respect nature is the prototype of the home. 
 Order must prevail there as the necessary condition of 
 safety. The harmonious relations of husband and wife, 
 the obedience of child to parent, the exercise of the domes- 
 tic virtues, are lessons of the home that cannot fail to con- 
 duce to better citizenship. The state is the protector of the 
 home much in the same sense that the parent is the pro- 
 tector of the child. It protects life, property, good name ; 
 it punishes the lawbreaker and expunges viciousness. In 
 both cases the duties are reciprocal. Just as the child 
 owes obedience to the parent, so the home owes obedience 
 to the state and both by example and precept should seek 
 to extend the virtues of law and order. If the child comes 
 out of his home training properly imbued with the duty of 
 obedience he is far advanced in his qualifications for ex- 
 emplary citizenship. 
 
 In the state having a representative form of govern- 
 ment the law-making power is vested, very largely, in leg- 
 islative bodies whose representation depends upon issues 
 of public policy. This gives rise to political parties, which 
 in turn oftentimes force special legislation to the detri- 
 ment of certain classes of subjects. Class legislation usu- 
 ally defeats the highest ends of the state and is followed 
 by a train of evils vitally touching the common welfare.
 
 The Home and the State. 
 
 Especially is this true if it is manipulated by selfish and 
 unscrupulous party representatives. Wise legislation is 
 enacted for the benefit of the whole people, not for a fa- 
 vored few, and when it falls short of this, public office 
 ceases to be a public trust. 
 
 The question of legislation and administrative office, 
 therefore, becomes one of the utmost importance to every 
 home within the confines of a state. It touches economic 
 interests connected with everyday life, significant alike to 
 the bread-winner, the capitalist, and the savant, because it 
 demands above all else the exercise of the strictest integ- 
 rity in dealing with the sacred rights of the people. It is 
 necessary, then, to a proper fulfillment of these important 
 functions that those selected for that purpose be men of 
 wisdom, prudence, and a high sense of public duty ; whose 
 eyes are not dimmed by avarice and whose fidelity to the 
 interests of the lowly is not impaired by official exaltation. 
 When this idea permeates the homes and finds permanent 
 lodgment in the convictions of oncoming generations, we 
 may expect a heritage of civic benedictions that is now 
 scarcely conceivable. 
 
 The indirect influence of the home on national life is 
 probably as far-reaching as its direct influence. Without 
 going into a discussion of the sources of the inspirational 
 life and health-imparting touch of the well ordered home, 
 it needs but little power of observation to recognize its 
 beneficent mission in any community. Health, education, 
 
 513
 
 The Home and the State. 
 
 affectional natures, the graces of mind and heart, frugal- 
 ity, a sense of the true, the beautiful, and the good in life 
 and art, patriotism, material necessities, and even luxuries 
 are all proper endowments of the home. Contact with 
 these means elevation, a quickened sense of duty, impulse 
 to renewed endeavor, a striving after higher ideals. And 
 so the unconscious work of the home goes on, leavening 
 the community and transmitting its influence to other and 
 wider spheres ; sending out streams of charity ; fitting its 
 members for careers of usefulness and honor in society. 
 
 The nation that is shortsighted enough to ignore the 
 homes of the people builds on a foundation of sand ; and 
 the homes which divorce themselves from all interests of 
 social and national import are inviting an inevitable thrall- 
 dom for themselves and their posterity. To the ideal 
 state, the home, pure, safeguarded, happy, is its glory and 
 its crown. Without it, national achievement would be 
 empty and worthless. 
 
 Philosopher and poet are alike in the verdict, that the 
 safety and perpetuity of any nation lies in the homes of its 
 people. 
 
 :): :(: :|: 4; H: * * * * * 
 
 Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State ! 
 Sail on, O Union, strong and great ! 
 Humanity with all its fears, 
 With all the hopes of future years, 
 Is hanging breathless on thy fate ! 
 We know what Master laid thy keel, 
 
 514
 
 The Home and the State. * 
 
 What workmen wrought thy ribs of .steel, 
 
 Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, 
 
 What anvils rang, what hammers beat, 
 
 In what a forge and what a heat 
 
 Were shaped the anchors of thy hope ! 
 
 Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 
 
 'Tis of the wave and not the rock ; 
 
 'Tis but the flapping of the sail, 
 
 And not a rent made by the gale ! 
 
 In spite of rock and tempest's roar, 
 
 In spite of false lights on the shore, 
 
 Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea ! 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, 
 
 Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, 
 
 Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, 
 
 Are all with thee, are all with thee ! 
 
 Longfellow. 
 
 515
 
 CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT. 
 
 Trie Home in Literature. 
 
 HE home in some phase or attribute has been a fruit- 
 ful theme for literature through many centuries of 
 civilized life. Wherever literature has existed and 
 whatever the general conditions governing the family life, 
 some one has arisen to extol the domestic virtues or berate 
 their corresponding vices. The home has been so largely 
 the source of public and private virtue, the well-spring of 
 affection, the center of the highest joys and the scene of 
 the most blighting sorrows, the inspirer of ambition, the 
 loom of fancy, or the anchor of hope, that the heart of 
 man could not withstand its promptings nor his hand 
 refuse to write its story. And so it is, that whether we 
 turn to legend or epic or lyric, history or philosophy, the 
 poet or the essayist, we find gradations of description rang- 
 ing from the crudity, or perhaps simplicity, of the primitive 
 home to the highest ideals of civilizing minds. Its every 
 issue, from the simplest virtue or the subtlest inspiration to 
 the grandeur of its moral force, or the potency of its united 
 influences, has found permanent place in our collective 
 
 literature. 
 
 516
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 The most voluminous as well as the most varied . treat- 
 ment of the home and its finer issues has been at the hand 
 of the poet. This is due to the fact that domesticity is 
 closely bound up with our affectional natures and touches 
 themes of utility, fancy, attachment, or association that 
 have become part and parcel of our lives, and cannot be 
 detached from them even through a long stretch of years. 
 Indeed, the poet's office would be a poor one if the inno- 
 cence of childhood, the joys of youth, the blush and bloom 
 of maidenhood, the glory of manhood and womanhood, the 
 wisdom and beauty of old age, or the myriad other inspira- 
 tions of the home were to be denied him. Moral grandeur 
 and simple pathos, from the rugged nobility of a great soul 
 to the tender simplicity of a child's prayer, or the sigh of a 
 maiden's first love, have alike responded to the muse of 
 poesy and have been clothed in rhythmic beauty. 
 
 These songs, these interpretations of the heart, are 
 fruitful treasuries upon which our souls may frequently 
 draw. They are delightful companions for our varying 
 moods and troublous vicissitudes. In the hour of exuber- 
 ance and exaltation, or joyous merriment ; in reflective 
 moments when the soul is swept with memories, pleasing 
 or plaintive ; in the silences of religious meditation ; or in 
 our little recesses from the homely duties and common- 
 place labors of the day, or week, they befriend us with 
 their gentle counsels and cheer us with their delightful 
 solace. 
 
 517
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 The English poet, James Montgomery, a man of rare 
 and subtle poetic instinct, pays the following beautiful 
 tribute to the home in his famous ode : 
 
 There is a land of every land the pride, 
 Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside ; 
 Wh'ere brighter suns dispense serener light, 
 And milder moons emparadise the night ; 
 A land of beauty, virtue, valor, truth, 
 Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth : 
 The wandering mariner, whose eye explores 
 The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, 
 Views not a realm so bountiful and fair, 
 Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air ; 
 In every clime the magnet of his soul, 
 Touched by remembrance, trembles to the pole ; 
 For in this land of Heaven's peculiar grace, 
 The heritage of nature's noblest race, 
 There is a spot of earth supremely blest, 
 A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, 
 Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside 
 His sword and scepter, pageantry and pride, 
 While in his softened looks benignly blend 
 The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend ; 
 Here woman reigns ; the mother, daughter, wife, 
 Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of life ! 
 In the clear heaven of her delightful eye, 
 An angel-guard of loves and graces lie ; 
 Around her knees, domestic duties meet, 
 And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet. 
 Where shall that land, that spot of earth, be found ? 
 Art thou a man? a patriot? look around ; 
 518
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Oh, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam, 
 That land thy country, and that spot thy home. 
 
 >*xAYARD TAYLOR, the poet, traveler, and trans- 
 ts lator of Goethe's Faust, thus dwells on the connu- 
 bial relations in his poem, " Possession " : 
 
 " It was our wedding-day 
 
 A month ago," dear heart, I hear you say. 
 
 If months, or years, or ages since have passed, 
 
 I know not : I have ceased to question, time. 
 
 I only know that once there pealed a chime 
 
 Of joyous bells, and then I held you fast, 
 
 And all stood back, and none my right denied, 
 
 And forth we walked : the world was free and wide 
 
 Before us. Since that day 
 
 I count my life : the past is washed away. 
 
 It was no dream, that vow : 
 
 It was the voice that woke me from a dream, 
 
 A happy dream, I think ; but I am waking now, 
 
 And drink the splendor of a sun supreme 
 
 That turns the mist of former tears to gold. 
 
 With these arms I hold 
 
 The fleeting promise, chased so long in vain : 
 
 Ah, weary bird ! thou wilt not fly again : 
 
 Thy wings are clipped, thou canst no more depart, 
 
 Thy nest is builded in my heart ! 
 
 I was the crescent ; thou 
 The silver phantom of the perfect sphere, 
 Held in its bosom : in one glory now 
 Our lives united shine, and many a year 
 519
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Nor the sweet moon of bridal only we 
 
 One luster, ever at the full, shall be : 
 
 One pure and rounded light, one planet whole, 
 
 One life developed, one completed soul ! 
 
 For I in thee, and thou in me, 
 
 Unite our cloven halves of destiny. 
 
 God knew his chosen time. 
 
 He bade me slowly ripen to my prime, 
 
 And from my boughs withheld the promised fruit, 
 
 Till storm and sun gave vigor to the root. 
 
 Secure, O Love ! secure 
 
 Thy blessing is : I have thee day and night : 
 
 Thou art become my blood, my life, my light : 
 
 God's mercy thou, and therefore shalt endure. 
 
 I N a similar strain sing Bryan Waller Procter, Richard 
 Realf, Gerald Massey, Alfred Tennyson, and James 
 Whitcomb Riley, selections from whom follow in the order 
 given : 
 
 The Poet's Song to His \Vife. 
 
 How many summers, love, 
 
 Have I been thine? 
 How many days, thou dove, 
 
 Hast thou been mine? 
 Time like the winged wind 
 
 When't bends the flower, 
 Hath left no mark behind, 
 
 To count the hours ! 
 520
 
 The Home in Literature: 
 
 Some weight of thought, though loth, 
 
 On thee he leaves ; 
 Some lines of care round both 
 
 Perhaps he weaves ; 
 Some fears, a soft regret 
 
 For joys scarce known ; 
 Sweet looks we half forget ; 
 
 All else is flown ! 
 
 Ah ! with what thankless heart 
 
 I mourn and sing ! 
 Look where our children start, 
 
 Like sudden spring ! 
 With tongues all sweet and low, 
 
 Like a pleasant rhyme, 
 They tell how much I owe 
 
 To thee and time ! 
 
 An Old Man's Idyl. 
 
 By the waters of life we sat together, 
 
 Hand in hand in the golden days 
 Of the beautiful early summer weather, 
 
 When skies were purple and breath was praise ; 
 When the heart kept time to the carol of birds, 
 
 And the birds kept time to the songs which ran 
 Through shimmer of flowers on grassy swards, 
 
 And trees with voices .ZEolian. 
 
 By the rivers of life we walked together, 
 
 I and my darling, unafraid ; 
 And lighter than any linnet's feather 
 
 The burdens of being on us weighed ; 
 521
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 And Love's sweet miracles o'er us threw 
 
 Mantles of joy outlasting time, 
 And up from the rosy morrows grew 
 
 A sound that seemed like a marriage chime. 
 
 In the gardens of life we strayed together, 
 
 And the luscious apples were ripe and red, 
 And the languid lilac and honeyed heather 
 
 Swooned with the fragrance which they shed ; 
 And under the trees the angels walked, 
 
 And up in the air a sense of wings 
 Awed us tenderly while we talked 
 
 Softly in sacred cominunings. 
 
 In the meadows of life we strayed together, 
 
 Watching the waving harvests grow, 
 And under the benison of the Father 
 
 Our hearts, like the lambs, skipped to and fro ; 
 And the cowslips hearing our low replies, 
 
 Broidered fairer the emerald banks, 
 And glad tears shone in the daisies' eyes, 
 
 And the timid violet glistened thanks. 
 
 Who was with us, and what was round us, 
 
 Neither myself nor my darling guessed ; 
 Only we knew that something crowned us 
 
 Out from the heavens with crowns of rest ; 
 Only we knew that something bright 
 
 "Lingered lovingly where we stood, 
 Clothed with the incandescent light 
 
 Of something higher than humanhood. 
 522
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Oh, the riches love doth inherit ! 
 
 Oh, the alchemy that doth change 
 Dross of body and dregs of spirit 
 
 Into sanctities rare and strange ! 
 My flesh is feeble, and dry, and old, 
 
 My darling's beautiful hair is gray ; 
 But our elixir and precious gold 
 
 Laugh at the footsteps of decay. 
 
 Harms of the world have come unto us, 
 
 Cups of sorrow we yet shall drain ; 
 But we have a secret that doth show us 
 
 Wonderful rainbows in the rain. 
 And we hear the tread of the years move by 
 
 And the sun is setting behind the hills ; 
 But my darling does not fear to die, 
 
 And I am happy in what God wills. 
 
 So we sit our household fires together, 
 
 Dreaming the dreams of long ago ; 
 Then it was balmy, sunny weather, 
 
 And now the valleys are laid in snow. 
 Icicles hang from the slippery eaves, 
 
 The wind blows cold, 'tis growing late ; 
 Well, well ! we have garnered all our sheaves, 
 
 I and my darling, and we wait. 
 
 O, I^ay Tny Hand in Mine, Dear! 
 
 O, lay thy hand in mine, dear ! 
 
 We're growing old ; 
 But time hath brought no sign, dear, 
 
 That hearts grow cold. 
 523
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 'Tis long, long since our new love 
 
 Made life divine ; 
 But age enricheth true love, 
 
 Like noble wine. 
 
 And lay thy cheek to mine, dear, 
 
 And take thy rest ; 
 Mine arms around thee twine, dear, 
 
 And make thy nest. 
 A many cares are pressing 
 
 On this dear head ; 
 But sorrow's hands in blessing 
 
 Are surely laid. 
 
 O, lean thy life on mine, dear I 
 
 'Twill shelter thee. 
 Thou wert a winsome vine, dear, 
 
 On my young tree ; 
 And so, till boughs are leafless, 
 
 And song birds flown, 
 We'll twine, then lay us, griefless, 
 
 Together down. 
 
 Light of His Home. 
 
 Look through mine eyes with thine, true wife, 
 
 Round my true heart thine arms entwine ; 
 My other dearer life in life, 
 
 Look through my very soul with thine I 
 Untouched with any shade of years, 
 
 May those kind eyes forever dwell ! 
 They have not shed a many tears, 
 
 Dear eyes, since first 1 knew them well. 
 524
 
 The ffome in Literature. 
 
 Yet tears they shed ; they had their part 
 
 Of sorrow ; for, when time was ripe, 
 The still affection of the heart 
 
 Became an outward breathing type, 
 That into stillness passed again, 
 
 And left an unknown want before ; 
 Although the loss that brought us pain, 
 
 That loss but made us love the more. 
 
 With farther lookings-on, the kiss, 
 
 The woven arms, seem but to be 
 Weak symbols of the settled bliss, 
 
 The comfort, I have found in thee ; 
 But that God bless thee, dear who wrought 
 
 Two spirits to one equal mind 
 With blessings beyond hope or thought, 
 
 With blessings which no words can find. 
 
 Arise, and let us wander forth, 
 
 To yon old mill across the wolds ; 
 For, look ! the sunset, south and north, 
 
 Winds all the vale in rosy folds, 
 And fires your narrow casement glass, 
 
 Touching the sullen pool below ; 
 On the chalk-hill the bearded grass 
 
 Is dry and dewless. Let us go. 
 
 Wtien She Comes Home. 
 
 When she comes home again ! A thousand ways 
 I fashion to myself, the tenderness 
 Of my glad welcome : I shall tremble yes ; 
 525
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 And touch her, as first in the old days 
 
 I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise 
 
 Mine eyes, such was my faint heart's sweet distress. 
 
 Then silence ; and the perfume of her dress : 
 
 The room will sway a little, and a haze 
 
 Cloy eyesight soulsight, even for a space ; 
 
 And tears, yes ; and the ache here in the throat, 
 
 To know that I so ill deserve the place 
 
 Her arms make for me ; and the sobbing note 
 
 I stay with kisses, ere the tearful face 
 
 Again is hidden in the old embrace. 
 
 I HE muse of the poet is often attracted to childhood 
 ^ and youth those most delightful integrals of the 
 home. The home is incomplete, bereft of one of its sources 
 of supreme joy, without children. The sweetness of in- 
 fancy, the innocence of childhood, the laughter, dreams, 
 inspirations, and pathos of youth, as well as its comedy and 
 tragedy, have been prolific themes for the poetic mood. 
 From a truly wide and diverse literature, only a few trib- 
 utes can be here noted. 
 
 The quotations are from the poetical works of George 
 Macdonald, Thomas Westwood. Henry W. Longfellow, 
 William Cowper, Lord Byron, and John Pierpont ; and also 
 include the beautiful anonymous poems, " The Farmer Boy 
 at Home," " She Woke that Morn in Heaven," and "Katie 
 Lee and Willie Grey." 
 
 526
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 The Baby. 
 
 Where did you come from, baby dear ? 
 Out of the everywhere into here. 
 
 Where did you get your eyes so blue ? 
 Out of the sky as I came through. 
 
 Where did you get that little tear ? 
 I found it waiting when I (jot here. 
 
 What makes your forehead so smooth and high ? 
 A soft hand stroked it as I wenl by. 
 
 What makes your cheek like a warm white rose ? 
 / saw something better than anyone knows. 
 
 Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss ? 
 Three angels gave me at once a kiss. 
 
 Where did you get this pearly ear ? 
 God spoke, and it came out to hear. 
 
 Where did you get those arms and hands ? 
 Love made itself into hooks and bands. 
 
 Feet, whence did you come, you darling things ? 
 From the same box as the cherub's wings. 
 
 How did they all come to be you ? 
 God thought about me, and so I grew. 
 
 But how did you come to us, you dear ? 
 God thought about you, and so I am here. 
 
 527
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Under my Wincicrw. 
 
 Under my window, under my window, 
 
 All in the summer weather, 
 Three little girls with fluttering curls 
 
 Flit to and fro together : 
 There's Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen, 
 And Maud with her mantle of silver-green, 
 
 And Kate with her scarlet feather. 
 
 Under my window, under my window, 
 
 Leaning stealthily over, 
 Merry and clear, the voice I hear, 
 
 Of each glad-hearted rover. 
 Ah ! sly little Kate, she steals my roses ; 
 And Maud and Bell twine wreaths and posies, 
 
 As merry as bees in clover. 
 
 Under my window, under my window, 
 In the blue midsummer weather, 
 
 Stealing slow, on a hushed tiptoe, 
 I catch them all together : 
 
 Bell with her bonnet of satin sheen 
 
 And Maud with her mantle of silver-green, 
 And Kate with the scarlet feather. 
 
 Under my window, under my window, 
 And off through the orchard closes ; 
 
 While Maud she flouts, and Bell she pouts, 
 They scamper and drop their posies ; 
 
 But dear little Kate takes naught amiss, 
 
 And leaps in my arms with a loving kiss, 
 And I give her all my roses. 
 528
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Trie Children's Hour. 
 
 Between the dark and the daylight, 
 When night is beginning to lower, 
 
 Comes a pause in the day's occupations, 
 That is known as the Children's Hour. 
 
 I hear in the chamber above me 
 
 The patter of little feet, 
 The sound of a door that is opened, 
 
 And voices soft and sweet. 
 
 From my study I see in the lamplight, 
 Descending the broad hall stair, 
 
 Grave Alice and laughing Allegra, 
 And Edith with golden hair. 
 
 A whisper, and then a silence : 
 Yet I know by their merry eyes 
 
 They are plotting and planning together 
 To take me by surprise. 
 
 A sudden rush from the stairway, 
 A sudden raid from the hall ! 
 
 By three doors left unguarded 
 They enter my castle wall ! 
 
 They climb up into my turret 
 
 O'er the arms and back of my chair ; 
 
 If I try to escape, they surround me ; 
 They seem to be everywhere. 
 
 They almost devour me with kisses, 
 Their arms about me entwine, 
 
 Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen 
 In his Mouse-Tower on the Rhine. 
 529
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Do you think, O blue-eyed banditti, 
 Because you have scaled the wall, 
 
 Such an old mustache as I am 
 Is not a match for you all ? 
 
 I have you fast in" my fortress, 
 
 And will not let you depart, 
 But put you down into the dungeon 
 
 In the round-tower of my heart. 
 
 And there will I keep you forever, 
 
 Yes, forever and a day, 
 Till the walls shall crumble to ruin, 
 
 And moulder in dust away. 
 
 Ttie Karmer Boy at Home. 
 
 See the merry farmer boy 
 
 Tramp the meadows through ; 
 Swing his scythe in careless joy, 
 
 While dashing off the dew ; 
 Bob-o-link in maples high 
 
 Trills his note of glee ; 
 Farmer boy a gay reply 
 
 Now whistles cheerily. 
 
 When the farmer boy at noon, 
 
 Rests beneath the shade, 
 Listening to the ceaseless tune 
 
 That's thrilling through the glade, 
 Long and loud the harvest-fly 
 
 Winds his bugle round ; 
 Long and loud and shrill and high 
 
 He whistles back the sound. 
 530
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 When the busy day's employ 
 
 Ends at dewy eve, 
 Then the happy farmer boy 
 
 Doth haste his work to leave ; 
 Trudging down the quiet vale, 
 
 Climbing o'er the hill, 
 Whistling back the changeless wail 
 
 Of plaintive whip-poor-will. 
 
 Farmer boy is blithe and gay, 
 
 Morning, noon, and night ; 
 Song or glee or roundelay 
 
 He's whistling with delight ; 
 Merry heart so full of glee, 
 
 Over-full of fun ! 
 Hear him whistling merrily, 
 
 Until the day is done. 
 
 She Woke Thiat Morn, in Heaven. 
 
 She knelt alone, that little one, 
 
 An orphan child of three, 
 And whispered forth the prayer she learned 
 
 Beside her mother's knee. 
 No gentle hand upon her head 
 
 In soft caress was laid, 
 No sweet voice murmuring her name 
 
 She knelt alone and prayed. 
 
 / 
 
 The tear drops resting on her cheek 
 
 A tale of sorrow told ; 
 For even she, that angel child, 
 
 Had found the world was cold, 
 531
 
 Tlie Home in Literature. 
 
 And murmured forth with tiny hands 
 
 Up-pointing to the skies, 
 " God, take me to my mamma, when 
 
 Poor little Lily dies." 
 
 The angels, pausing, heard the prayer, 
 
 And in the calm moonlight 
 Bent down and breathed upon the child, 
 
 And kissed her forehead white ; 
 And bearing her with songs of love 
 
 Through the blue depths of even, 
 They laid her in her mother's arms 
 
 She woke that morn in Heaven. 
 
 Maidenhood. 
 
 Maiden, with the meek, brown eyes, 
 In whose orbs a shadow lies 
 Like the dusk in evening skies ! 
 
 Thou whose locks outshine the sun, 
 Golden tresses, wreathed in one, 
 As the braided streamlets run ! 
 
 Standing, with reluctant feet, 
 Where the brook and river meet, 
 Womanhood and childhood fleet ! 
 
 Gazing, with a timid glance, 
 On the brooklet's swift advance, 
 On the river's broad expanse ! 
 
 Deep and still, that gliding stream 
 Beautiful to thee must seem 
 As the river of a dream. 
 532
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Then why pause with indecision, 
 When bright angels in thy vision 
 Beckon thee to. fields Elysian? 
 
 Seest thou shadows sailing by, 
 As the dove, with startled eye, 
 Sees the falcon's shadow fly? 
 
 Hearest thou voices on the shore, 
 That our ears perceive no more, 
 Deafened by the cataract's roar? 
 
 Oh, thou child of many prayer 
 
 Life hath quicksands, Life hath snares ! 
 
 Care and age come unawares ! 
 
 Like the swell of some sweet tune, 
 Morning rises into- noon, 
 May glides onward into June. 
 
 Childhood is the bough where slumbered 
 Birds and blossoms many-numbered ; 
 Age, that bough with snows encumbered. 
 
 Gather, then, each flower that grows, 
 When the young heart overflows, 
 To embalm that tent of snows. 
 
 Bear a lily in thy hand ; 
 
 Gates of brass cannot withstand 
 
 One touch of that magic wand. 
 
 Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth, 
 In thy heart the dew of youth, 
 On thy lips the smile of truth. 
 533
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Oh, that dew, like balm, shall steal 
 Into wounds that cannot heal, 
 Even as sleep our eyes doth seal ; 
 
 And that smile, like sunshine, dart 
 Into many a sunless heart, 
 For a smile of God thou art. 
 
 'S\veet Stream, That Winds. 
 
 Sweet stream, that winds through yonder glade, 
 
 Apt emblem of a virtuous maid ! 
 
 Silent and chaste she steals along, 
 
 Far from the world's gay, busy throng, 
 
 With gentle, yet prevailing force, 
 
 Intent upon her destined course ; 
 
 Graceful and useful all she does, 
 
 Blessing and blest where'er she goes; 
 
 Pure-bosomed as that watery glass, 
 
 And heaven reflected in her face. 
 
 She W'alkis in Beamty. 
 
 She walks in beauty like the night 
 Of cloudless climes and starry skies 
 
 And all that's best of dark and bright 
 Meets in her aspect and her eyes, 
 
 Thus mellowed to that tender light 
 Which heaven to gaudy day denies. 
 
 One shade the more, one ray the less, 
 Had half impaired the nameless grace 
 
 Which waves in every raven tress, 
 Or softly lightens o'er her face, 
 534
 
 Tlie Home in Literature. 
 
 Where thoughts serenely sweet express 
 How pure, how dear their dwelling place. 
 
 And on that cheek and o'er that brow 
 
 So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, 
 The smiles that win, the tints that glow, 
 
 But tell of days in goodness spent, 
 A mind at peace with all below, 
 
 A heart whose love is innocent. 
 
 Katie Lee and \Villie Grey. 
 
 Two brown heads with tossing curls, 
 Red lips shutting over pearls, 
 Bare feet, white and wet with dew, 
 Two eyes black, and two eyes blue ; 
 Little girl and boy were they, 
 Katie Lee and Willie Grey. 
 
 They were standing where a brook, 
 Bending like a shepherd's crook, 
 Flashed its silver, and thick ranks 
 Of willow fringed its mossy banks ; 
 Half in thought, and half in play, 
 Katie Lee and Willie Grey. 
 
 They had cheeks like cherries red ; 
 He was taller, near a head ; 
 She with arms like wreaths of snow, 
 Swung a basket to and fro 
 As she loitered, half in play, 
 Chattering to Willie Grey. 
 535
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 " Pretty Katie," Willie said, 
 And there came a dash of red 
 Through the brownness of his cheek, - 
 " Boys are strong and girls are weak, 
 And I'll carry, so I will, 
 Katie's basket up the hill." 
 
 Katie answered with a laugh, 
 " You shall carry only half ; " 
 And then, tossing back her curls, 
 " Boys are weak as well as girls." 
 Do you think that Katie guessed 
 Half the wisdom she expressed? 
 
 Men are only boys grown tall ; 
 Hearts don't change much after all ; 
 And when long years from that day, 
 Katie Lee and Willie Grey 
 Stood again beside the brook, 
 Bending like a shepherd's crook, 
 
 Is it strange that Willie said, 
 
 While again a dash of red 
 
 Crossed the brownness of his cheek, 
 
 " I am strong and you are weak ; 
 
 Life is but a slippery steep, 
 
 Hung with shadows cold and deep : 
 
 " Will you trust me, Katie dear, 
 Walk beside me without fear? 
 May I carry, if I will, 
 All your burdens up the hill? " 
 And she answered, with a laugh, 
 * No, but you may carry half." 
 536
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Close beside the little brook, 
 Bending like a shepherd's crook, 
 Washing with its silver hands 
 Late and early at the sands, 
 Is a cottage, where to-day 
 Katie lives with Willie Grey. 
 
 In a porch she sits, and lo ! 
 Swings a basket to and fro 
 Vastly different from the one 
 That she swung in years agone : 
 This is long and deep and wide, 
 And has rockers at the side. 
 
 Child. 
 
 I cannot make him dead ! 
 
 His fair sunshiny head 
 Is ever bounding round my study chair ; 
 
 Yet when my eyes grow dim 
 
 With tears 1 turn to him, 
 The vision vanishes he is not there ! 
 
 I walk my parlor floor, 
 
 And through the open door, 
 I hear a footfall on the chamber stair ; 
 
 I'm stepping toward the hall 
 
 To give the boy a call ; 
 And then bethink me that he is not there ! 
 
 I thread the crowded street ; 
 A satcheled lad I meet, 
 
 With the same beaming eyes and colored hair ; 
 537
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 And as he's running by, 
 Follow him with my eye, 
 Scarcely believing that he is not there ! 
 
 I know his face is hid 
 
 Under the coffin lid ; 
 Closed are his eyes ; cold is his forehead fair ; 
 
 My hand that marble felt ; 
 
 O'er it in prayer I knelt ; 
 Yet my heart whispers that he is not there ! 
 
 I cannot make him dead ! 
 
 When passing by the bed 
 So long watched o'er with parental care, 
 
 My spirit and my eye 
 
 Seek him inquiringly, 
 Before the thought comes that he is not there ! 
 
 When at the cool, gray break 
 
 Of day, from sleep I wake, 
 With my first breathing of the morning air 
 
 My soul goes up with joy 
 
 To Him who gave my boy : 
 Then comes the sad thought that he is not there 
 
 When at the day's calm close, 
 
 Before we seek repose, 
 I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer, 
 
 Whate'er I may be saying, 
 
 I am in spirit praying 
 
 For our boy's spirit, though he is not there ! 
 538
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Not there? Where, then, is he? 
 
 The form I used to see 
 Was but the raiment that he used to wear. 
 
 The grave that now doth press 
 
 Upon the cast-off dress 
 Is but his wardrobe locked ; he is not there ! 
 
 He lives ! Tn all the past 
 
 He lives ; nor to the last, 
 Of seeing him again will I despair ; 
 
 In dreams I see him now, 
 
 And on his angel brow 
 I see it written, " Thou shalt see me there ! " 
 
 Yes, we all live to God ! 
 
 Father, thy chastening rod 
 So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear, 
 
 That in the spirit land, 
 
 Meeting at thy right hand, 
 'Twill be our heaven to find that he is there ! 
 
 LxICTURES of home life are of frequent occurrence in 
 ^ both poetic and prose literature. Perhaps no 
 other phase of home life is more kaleidoscopic. The homes 
 of the poor and the homes of the rich are depicted with 
 scrupulous fidelity, and the ever varying scenes bring 
 corresponding changes of feeling into our hearts : we 
 laugh when the scenes are provocative of laughter ; we 
 weep with sympathetic sorrow when we come into the pres- 
 ence of bereavement and death ; we feel the calm, sooth- 
 ing influences of the happy home, or wander in spirit back 
 
 539
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 to the pleasing haunts of childhood when swayed by the 
 descriptive scenes of some poetic wayfarer. 
 
 The subjoined selections embrace the following titles 
 and authors : The Cotter's Saturday Night, Robert Burns ; 
 picture from The Old Home Folks, James Whitcomb Riley ; 
 My Old Home, George D. Prentice; I Remember, I Remem- 
 ber, Thomas Hood ; The Family Meeting, Charles Sprague ; 
 Memories of the Old Kitchen, anonymous; Home Revisited, 
 Alexander Smith ; Love in a Cottage, Nathaniel Parker 
 Willis ; The Old Barn, Thomas Buchanan Read ; Two Pic- 
 tures, Charles G. Rogers ; My Own Fireside, Alaric A. 
 Watts ; My Old Kentucky Home, Stephen Collins Foster ; 
 Home, Sweet Home, John Howard Payne. 
 
 The songs of the home and its related sentiments form 
 almost a literature of their own. There is scarcely a senti- 
 ment of love, affection, or memory associated with home 
 life that has not been embodied in some lyric form. 
 " Home, Sweet Home/' and " My Old Kentucky Home " are 
 world-famed examples of this type of song-literature ; and 
 they have carried their words and melodies wherever there 
 were tongues and hearts to interpret them. 
 
 The Cotter's Saturday Night. 
 
 * * * * # * * 
 At length his lonely cot appears in view, 
 
 Beneath the shelter of an aged tree ; 
 Th' expectant wee things, toddlin', stacher through 
 To meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee, 
 540
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 His wee bit in-gle, blinking bonriily, 
 
 His clean hearthstane, his thriftie wifie's smile, 
 The lisping infant prattling on his knee, 
 
 Does a' weary carking cares beguile, 
 And makes him quite forget his labor and his toil. 
 
 Belyve the elder bairns come drappiug in, 
 
 At service out, amang the farmers roun' ; 
 Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin 
 
 A cannie errand to a neibor town ; 
 Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown, 
 
 In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, 
 Comes hame, perhaps, to shew a bra' new gown, 
 
 Or deposit her sair-won penny- fee, 
 To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. 
 
 Wi' joy unfeigned brothers and sisters meet, 
 
 An' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers : 
 The social hours, swift-winged, unnoticed licet ; 
 
 Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears ; 
 The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; 
 
 Anticipation forward points the view. 
 The mother wi' her needle an' her sheers, 
 
 Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new ; 
 The father mixes a' wi' admonition due. 
 
 Their master's an' their mistress's command, 
 The younkers a' are warned to obey ; 
 
 And mind their labors wi' an eydent hand, 
 
 And ne'er, though out o' sight, to jauk or play ; 
 
 " An' O, be sure to fear the Lord alway ! 
 An' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night ! 
 541
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, 
 Implore his counsel and assisting might ; 
 
 They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright !" 
 
 ******* 
 And now the supper crowns their simple board, 
 
 The halesome parritch, chief o' Scotia's food; 
 The soupe their only hawkie does afford, 
 
 That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood ; 
 The dame brings forth, in complimental mood, 
 
 To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck fell, 
 An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid ; 
 
 The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell, 
 How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell. 
 
 The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face, 
 
 They, round the ingle, form a circle wide ; 
 The sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, 
 
 The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride ; 
 His bonnet reverently is laid aside, 
 
 His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare : 
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide, 
 
 He wales a portion with judicious care ; 
 And " Let us worship God ! " he says, with solemn air. 
 ******* 
 
 Then, kneeling down, to heaven's eternal King, 
 
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays : 
 Hope " springs exulting on triumphant wing," 
 
 That thus they all shall meet in future days ; 
 There ever bask in uncreated rays, 
 
 No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear 
 Together hymning their Creator's praise, 
 
 In such society, yet still more dear ; 
 
 While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere. 
 
 ******* 
 
 542
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 The Old Home Folks. 
 
 The clock chats on confidently ; a rose 
 
 Taps at the window, as the sunlight throws 
 
 A brilliant, jostling checkerwork of shine 
 
 And shadow, like a Persian loom design, 
 
 Across the homemade carpet fades and then 
 
 The dear old colors are themselves again. 
 
 Sounds drop in visiting from everywhere 
 
 The bluebird's and the robin's trill are there, 
 
 Their sweet liquidity diluted some 
 
 By dewy orchard-spaces they have come : 
 
 Sounds of the town, too, and the great highway 
 
 The mover-wagon's rumble, and the neigh 
 
 Of the over-traveled horses, and the bleat 
 
 Of sheep and low of cattle through the street 
 
 A nation's thoroughfare of hopes and fears, 
 
 First blazed by the heroic pioneers 
 
 Who gave up old-home idols and set face 
 
 Toward the unbroken West, to found a race 
 
 And tame a wilderness no mightier than 
 
 All peoples and all tracts American. 
 
 Blent with all outer sounds, the sounds within : 
 In mild remoteness falls the household din 
 Of porch and kitchen ; the dull jar and thump 
 Of churning ; and the " glung-glung'" of the pump, 
 With sudden pad and scurry of bare feet 
 Of little outlaws, in from field or street ; 
 The clang of kettle, the rasp of damper-ring 
 And bang of cook-stove door and everything 
 That jingles in a busy kitchen lifts 
 Its individual \vrangling voice and drifts 
 543
 
 Tlie Home in Literature. 
 
 In sweetest, tinny, coppery, pewtery tone 
 Of music, hungry ear has ever known 
 In wildest famished yearnings and conceit 
 Of youth, to just cut loose and eat and eat ! 
 The zest of hunger still incited on 
 To childish desperation by long-drawn 
 Breaths of hot, steaming, wholesome things that boil 
 And blubber, and uptilt the potlids, too, 
 Filling the sense with zestful rumors of 
 The dear old-fashioned dinners children love ; 
 Redolent savorings of home-cured meats, 
 Potatoes, beans, and cabbage ; turnips, beets, 
 And parsnips rarest composite entire 
 That ever pushed a mortal child's desire 
 To madness by new-grated, fresh, keen, sharp 
 Horse-radish tang that sets the lips awarp 
 And watery, anticipating all 
 The cloyed sweets of the glorious festival, 
 Still add the cinnamony, spicy scents 
 Of clove, nutmeg, and myriad condiments 
 In like alluring whiffs that prophesy 
 Of sweltering pudding, cake, and custard pie 
 The swooning-sweet aroma haunting all 
 The house upstairs and down porch, parlor, hall, 
 And sitting room invading even where 
 The hired man sniffs it in the orchard air, 
 And pauses in his pruning of the trees 
 To note the sun minutely and to sneeze. 
 ******** 
 
 544
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 My Old Home. 
 
 And I have come yet once again to stray 
 
 Where erst I strayed in childhood. Oh, 'tis sweet 
 
 To gaze on the dear old landscape ! Here 
 
 My thoughts first reveled in the wild delight 
 
 Of new existence ! Here my infant eye 
 
 First dwelt on Nature in her loveliness ; 
 
 The golden Hash of waters, the bright flowers 
 
 That seemed to spring in very wantonness 
 
 From every hill and stream ; the earth 's green leaves, 
 
 The moonlit mountains, the bright crimson gush, 
 
 That deepening streamed along the skies of morn, 
 
 And the rich heavens of sunset ! Here I loved 
 
 To gaze upon the holy arch of eve 
 
 In breathless longing, till I almost dreamed 
 
 That I was mingling with its glorious depths, 
 
 A portion of their purity ; to muse 
 
 Upon the stars through many a lonely night 
 
 Till their deep tones of mystic minstrelsy 
 
 Were borne into my heart ; to list at morn 
 
 The gentle voice of song-birds in their joy 
 
 Lifting on high their matins, till my soul 
 
 Like theirs gushed forth in music ; and to look upon 
 
 The clouds in beauty wandering up 
 
 The deep blue zenith, till my heart, like them, 
 
 Went far away through yon high paths to seek 
 
 The home of thought and spirit in the heavens. 
 
 ******** 
 Oh ! how the silent memories of years 
 Are stirring in my spirit. 1 have been 
 A lone and joyless wanderer. I have roamed 
 Abroad through other climes, where tropic flowers 
 545
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Were offering up their incense, and the stars 
 
 Swimming like living creatures ; I have strayed 
 
 Where the soft skies of Italy were hung 
 
 In beautiful transparency above, 
 
 And glory floated like a lovely dream 
 
 O'er the rich landscape ; yet dear Fancy still, 
 
 'Mid all the richer glow of brighter realms, 
 
 Oft turned to picture the remembered home 
 
 That blessed its earliest day-dreams. Must I go 
 
 Forth in the world again? I've proved its joys, 
 
 Till joy was turned to bitterness I've felt 
 
 Its sorrows till I thought my heart would burst 
 
 With the fierce rush of tears ! The sorrowing babe 
 
 Clings to its mother's breast. The bleeding dove 
 
 Flies to her native vale, and nestles there 
 
 To die amid the quiet grove, where first 
 
 She tried her tender pinion. I could love 
 
 Thus to repose amid these peaceful scenes 
 
 To memory dear. Oh, it were passing sweet 
 
 To rest forever on this lovely spot, 
 
 Where passed my days of innocence to dream 
 
 Of the pure stream of infant happiness 
 
 Sunk in life's wild and burning sands to dwell 
 
 On visions faded, till my broken heart 
 
 Should cease to throb to purify my soul 
 
 With high and holy musings- and to lift 
 
 Its aspirations to the central home 
 
 Of love, and peace, and holiness in Heaven. 
 
 546
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 I Remember, I Remember. 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 
 The house where I was born, 
 The little window where the sun 
 
 Came peeping in at morn ; 
 He never came a wink too soon, 
 
 Nor brought too long a day ; 
 But now I often wish the night 
 
 Had borne my breath away ! 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 
 The roses red and white, 
 The violets and the lily-cups, 
 
 Those flowers made of light 1 
 The lilacs where the robin built, 
 
 And where my brother set 
 The laburnum on his birthday, 
 
 The tree is living yet ! 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 
 Where I was used to swing, 
 And thought the air must rush as fresh 
 
 To swallows on the wing ; 
 My spirit flew in feathers then, 
 
 That is so heavy now, 
 The summer pools could hardly cool 
 
 The fever on my brow. 
 
 I remember, I remember 
 The fir trees dark and high ; 
 
 I used to think their slender tops 
 
 Were close against the sky. 
 
 547
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 It was childish ignorance, 
 
 But now 'tis little joy 
 To know I'm farther off from heaven 
 
 Than when I was a boy. 
 
 The Kamily Meeting. 
 
 We are all here ! 
 Father, mother, sister, brother, 
 All who hold each other dear. 
 Each chair is filled we're all at home ; 
 To-night let no cold stranger come ; 
 It is not often thus around 
 Our old familiar hearth we're found. 
 Bless, then, the meeting and the spot ; 
 For once be every care forgot ; 
 Let gentle Peace assert her power, 
 And kind affection rule the hour ; 
 
 We're all all here. 
 
 We're not all here ! 
 Some are away the dead ones dear, 
 Who thronged with us this ancient hearth 
 And gave the hour to guiltless mirth. 
 Fate, with a stern, relentless hand, 
 Look'd in, and thinned our little band; 
 Some like a night flash, passed away, 
 And some sank lingering day by day ; 
 The quiet graveyard some lie there 
 And cruel Ocean has his share 
 
 We're not all here. 
 548
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 We are all here ! 
 
 Even they the dead though dead, so dear; 
 Fond Memory, to her duty true, 
 Brings back their faded forms to view. 
 How lifelike, through the mist of years, 
 Each well-remembered face appears ! 
 We see them as in times long past ; 
 From each to each kind looks they cast ; 
 We hear their words, their smiles behold ; 
 They're rbund us as they were of old 
 
 We are all here. 
 
 We are all here ! 
 Father, mother, sister, brother, 
 You that I love with love so dear, 
 This may not long of us be said ; 
 Soon must we join the gathered dead 
 And by the hearth we now sit round 
 Some other circle will be found. 
 O, then, that wisdom may we know 
 Which yields a life of peace below ! 
 So in the world to follow this, 
 May each repeat in words of bliss, 
 
 We're all all here ! 
 
 Memories of thie Old Kitchen.. 
 
 Far back in my musings, my thoughts have been cast 
 To the cot, where the hours of my childhood were passed. 
 I loved all its rooms, to the pantry and hall, 
 But that blessed old kitchen was dearer than all. 
 Its chairs and its tables, none brighter could be, 
 For all its surroundings were sacred to me, 
 549 .
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 To the nail in the ceiling, the latch on the door ; 
 And I loved every crack of that old kitchen floor. 
 
 I remember the fireplace with mouth high and wide, 
 
 The old-fashioned oven that stood by its side, 
 
 Out of which, each Thanksgiving, came puddings and pies 
 
 That fairly bewildered and dazzled our eyes ; 
 
 And then, too, St. Nicholas, slyly and still, 
 
 Came down every Christmas our stockings to fill ; 
 
 But the dearest of memories I've laid up in store 
 
 Is the mother that trod that old kitchen floor. 
 
 Day in and day out, from morning till night, 
 
 Her footsteps were busy, her heart always light ; 
 
 For it seemed to me then that she knew not a care, 
 
 The smile was so gentle her face used to wear. 
 
 I remember with pleasure what joy filled our eyes 
 
 When she told us the stories that children so prize ; 
 
 They were new every night though we'd heard them before 
 
 From her lips, at the wheel, on the old kitchen floor. 
 
 To-night those old visions come back at their will, 
 But the wheel and its music forever are still ; 
 The band is moth-eaten, the wheel laid away, 
 And the fingers that turned it lie mold'ring in clay ; 
 The hearthstone, so sacred, is just as 'twas then, 
 And the voices of children ring out there again ; 
 The sun through the window looks in as of yore, 
 But it sees stranger feet on the old kitchen floor. 
 
 550
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Home Revisited. 
 
 Thia is my home again ! Once more I hail 
 The dear old gables and the creaking vanes : 
 It stands all flecked with shadows in the moon, 
 Patient, and white, and woeful. 'Tis so still, 
 It seems to brood upon its youthful years, 
 When children sported on its ringing floors, 
 And music trembled through its happy rooms. 
 "Twas here I spent my youth, as far removed 
 From the great heavings, hopes, and fears of man, 
 As unknown isles asleep in unknown seas. 
 Gone my pure heart, and with it happy days ; 
 No manna falls around me from on high ; 
 Barely from off the desert of my life 
 I gather patience and severe content. 
 
 Love in a Cottage. 
 
 They may talk of love in a cottage, 
 
 And bowers of trellised vine 
 Of nature, bewitchingly simple, 
 
 And milkmaids half divine ; 
 They may talk of the pleasure of sleeping 
 
 In the shade of a spreading tree, 
 And a walk in the fields at morning, 
 
 By the side of a footstep free ! 
 
 But give me a sly flirtation 
 By the light of a chandelier 
 
 With music to play in the pauses, 
 And nobody very near ; 
 551
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Or a seat on a silken sofa 
 
 Near a form that is half divine, 
 
 And mamma too blind to discover 
 The small white hand in mine. 
 
 Your love in a cottage is hungry, 
 
 Your vine is a nest for flies 
 Your milkmaid shocks the Graces 
 
 And simplicity talks of pies ! 
 You lie down to your shady slumber 
 
 And wake with a bug in your ear, 
 And your damsel that walks in the morning 
 
 Is shod like a mountaineer. 
 
 True love is at home on a carpet, 
 
 And mightily likes his ease 
 And true love has an eye for dinner, 
 
 And starves beneath shady trees. 
 His wing is the fan of a lady, 
 
 His foot's an invisible thing, 
 And his arrow is tipped with a jewel, 
 
 And shot from a silver string. 
 
 The Old Barn. 
 
 Between broad fields of wheat and corn 
 Is the lowly home where I was born ; 
 The peach tree leans against the wall, 
 And the woodbine wanders over all. 
 There is the barn and as of yore 
 I can smell the hay from the open door, 
 And see the busy swallows throng, 
 And hear the pewee's mournful song. 
 552
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Oh, ye who daily cross the sill, 
 
 Step lightly, for I love it still ; 
 
 And when you crowd the old barn eaves, 
 
 Then think what countless harvest sheaves 
 
 Have passed within that scented door 
 
 To gladden eyes that are no more. 
 
 T\vo Pictures. 
 
 When morning broke and baby came 
 The house did scarcely seem the same 
 As just before. The very air 
 Grew fragrant with the essence rare 
 Of a celestial garden, where 
 The angels, breathless, leaned to hear 
 The youthful mother's fervid prayer 
 To God, to guard her first-born care, 
 Arid with what diligence each ear 
 Did listen, as her lips did frame 
 The helpless little stranger's name 
 
 When baby came ! 
 # * * * # * 
 When darkness came and baby died, 
 The misty grief that fell belied 
 The transient joy that filled the room 
 But just before ; where brooding gloom 
 Now dumbly spoke the baby's doom. 
 We hid away the little things 
 Woven by nature's matchless loom 
 A woman's hands ! The amber bloom 
 Waxed dimmer on the finch's wings ; 
 553
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 The flowers, too, in sorrow vied, 
 As if kind nature drooped and cried 
 When baby died I 
 
 Tvty O\vn Fireside. 
 
 Let others seek for empty joys, 
 
 At ball or concert, rout or play ; 
 Whilst far from fashion's idle noise, 
 
 Her gilded domes and trappings gay, 
 I while the wintry eve away, 
 
 'Twixt book and lute the hours divide ; 
 And marvel how I e'er could stray 
 
 From thee my own fireside ! 
 
 My own fireside ! Those simple words 
 
 Can bid the sweetest dreams arise ; 
 Awaken feeling's tenderest chords, 
 
 And fill with tears of joy mine eyes. 
 What is there my wild heart can prize, 
 
 That doth not in thy sphere abide ; 
 Haunt of my home-bred sympathies, 
 
 My own my own fireside ! 
 
 A gentle form is near me now ; 
 
 A small, white hand is clasped in mine ; 
 I gaze upon her placid brow, 
 
 And ask, what joys can equal thine? 
 A babe, whose beauty's half divine, 
 
 In sleep his mother's eyes doth hide ; 
 Where may love seek a fitter shrine 
 
 Than thou my own fireside ! 
 554
 
 Tlie Home in Literature. 
 
 What care I for the sullen roar 
 
 Of winds without, that ravage earth ; 
 It doth but bid me prize the more 
 
 The shelter of thy hallowed hearth : 
 To thoughts of quiet bliss give birth ; 
 
 Then let the churlish tempest chide, 
 It cannot check the blameless mirth 
 
 That glads my own fireside ! 
 
 My refuge ever from the storm 
 
 Of this world's passion, strife, and care ; 
 Though thunder-clouds the skies deform, 
 
 Their fury cannot reach me there ; 
 There all is cheerful, calm, and fair ; 
 
 Wrath, envy, malice, strife, or pride 
 Hath never made its hated lair 
 
 By thee my own fireside ! 
 
 Thy precincts are a charmed ring, 
 
 Where no harsh feeling dares intrude ; 
 Where life's vexations lose their sting ; 
 
 Where even grief is half subdued, 
 And peace, the halcyon, loves to brood. 
 
 Then let the world's proud fool deride, 
 I'll pay my debt of gratitude 
 
 To thee my own fireside ! 
 
 Shrine of my household deities, 
 
 Bright scene of home's unsullied joys, 
 
 To thee my burdened spirit flies 
 
 When fortune frowns, or care annoys ! 
 555
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Thine is the bliss that never cloys, 
 
 The smile whose truth hath oft been tried ; 
 
 What, then, are this world's tinsel toys 
 To thee my own fireside ! 
 
 Oh, may the yearnings, fond and sweet, 
 
 That bid my thoughts be all of thee, 
 Thus ever guide my wandering feet 
 
 To thy heart-soothing sanctuary ! 
 Whate'er my future years may be, 
 
 Let joy or grief my fate betide, 
 Be still an Eden bright to me, 
 
 My own my own fireside ! 
 
 My Old Kentucky Home. 
 
 The sun shines bright in our old Kentucky home ; 
 
 'Tis summer, the darkies are gay ; 
 The corn-top's ripe and the meadow's in the bloom, 
 
 While the birds make music all the day. 
 The young folks roll on the little cabin floor, 
 
 All merry, all happy, all bright ; 
 By'm-by hard times comes a knockin' at the door 
 
 Then, my old Kentucky home, good night ! 
 ******** 
 
 They hunt no more for the 'possum and the coon, 
 
 On the meadow, the hill, and the shore ; 
 They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon, 
 
 On the bench by the old cabin door ; 
 The day goes by, like a shadow o'er the heart, 
 
 With sorrow where all was delight ; 
 The time has come when the darkies have to part, 
 
 Then, my old Kentucky home, good night! 
 556
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 The head must bow, aud the back will have to bend, 
 
 Wherever the darky may go ; 
 A few more days, aud the troubles all will end 
 
 In the fields where the sugar-cane grow ; 
 A few more days to tote the weary load, 
 
 No matter, it will never be light ; 
 A few more days till we totter on the road, 
 
 Then, my old Kentucky home, good night ! 
 
 Sweet Home. 
 
 Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
 
 Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home ! 
 
 A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, 
 
 Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. 
 
 Home, home, sweet home ! 
 
 There's no place like home. 
 
 I gaze on the moon as I trace the drear wild, 
 
 And feel that my parent now thinks of her child ; 
 
 She looks on the moon from her own cottage door, 
 
 Through the woodbines whose fragrance shall cheer me no more. 
 
 Home, home, sweet home ! 
 
 There's no place like home. 
 
 An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain ; 
 
 O, give me my lowly thatched cottage again ! 
 
 The birds, singing gayly, that came at my call ; 
 
 Give me these, and the peace of mind dearer than all. 
 
 Home, home, sweet home ! 
 
 There's no place like home. 
 557
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 NEXT to the poet, in the literature of the home, come 
 the essayist and novelist ; with heavier tread, per- 
 haps, but with no surer intuitions nor truer fidelity in their 
 estimates of the real and the ideal home. They deal more 
 largely with its matter-of-fact aspects : with precept and 
 example, its obligations and prerogatives, its nature and 
 its office. They are the portrayers, the critics, and the 
 statesmen, so to speak, of the home in its social relations 
 and in its essential structure. Many of the best novels in 
 literature present, indirectly, some of the most notable 
 pictures of home life and give them national, or racial, or 
 local settings to be found nowhere else. They deal witli 
 home in the concrete and invest it with a portraiture that 
 gives it a strong semblance of reality. Manners, morals, 
 and the results of home environment are forcibly presented 
 in this way, because the novel is often dramatic in form as 
 well as in conception. The essayist, on the other hand, 
 is the philosopher of the home. He descants on its attri- 
 butes individually and collectively and draws upon the 
 data of observation, intuition, analogy, and general knowl- 
 edge to support his views. The essay is usually calm, con- 
 servative, and eminently helpful, and is oftentimes digni- 
 fied by rare forms of genius, lofty treatment, and wise 
 conclusions. 
 
 Besides the poet, the novelist, and the essayist, the 
 home has a long list of literary schoolmasters and histori- 
 ographers. The scientist, especially he who is devoted to 
 
 558
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 ethnology and anthropology, presents pictures of the home 
 in many times and climes ; the philosopher considers it in 
 its institutional and universal relations ; the sociologist and 
 economist relate it to the state and society ; the minister 
 and the teacher seek to adjust it to the practical demands 
 of religion and education; the moralist and reformer ask 
 for it regeneration and exaltation. All have a common 
 aim : to separate the dross from the gold ; to aid in the 
 transfiguration cf life and character, individually and 
 socially, to the end that we may sometime realize the 
 actual embodiment of the ideal home. 
 
 pfoMAS NELSON PAGE, a delightful descriptive 
 
 ^ writer of Southern life, in his ''Social Life in Old 
 
 Virginia," gives a picture of the Southern home full of 
 
 charm and detail. It is to be regretted that its prolixity 
 
 precludes its reproduction here in full : 
 
 ****** * ***** 
 The life within was of its own kind. There were the master and the 
 mistress ; the old master and old mistress, the young masters and young 
 mistresses, and the children ; besides some aunts and cousins, and the 
 relations or friends who did not live there but were only always on visits. 
 Properly the mistress should be mentioned first, as she was the most 
 important personage about the home, the presence which pervaded the 
 mansion, the center of all life, the queen of that realm ; the master will- 
 ingly and proudly yielding her entire management of all household mat- 
 ters and simply carrying out her directions, confining his ownership 
 within the curtilage solely to his old " secretary," which on the mistress's 
 
 559
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 part was as sacred from her touch as her bonnet was from his. There 
 were kept mysterious folded papers, and equally mysterious parcels, fre- 
 quently brown with the stain of dust and age. Had the papers been the 
 lost sibylline leaves instead of old receipts and bills, and had the parcels 
 contained diamonds instead of long-dried melon seed or old flints, now 
 out of date but once ready to serve a useful purpose, they could 'not have 
 been more sacredly guarded by the mistress. The master usually had to 
 hunt a long period for any particular paper, whilst the mistress could, in 
 a half hour, have arranged everything in perfect order ; but the chaos was 
 regarded by her with veneration as real as that with which she regarded 
 the mystery of the heavenly bodies. 
 
 On the other hand, outside of this piece of furniture there was noth- 
 ing in the house of which the master even pretended to know. It was all 
 in her keeping. 
 
 ******** **** 
 
 It has been assumed by the outside world that our people lived a life 
 of idleness and ease, a kind of "hammock-swung/' "sherbet-sipping" 
 existence, fanned by slaves, and, in their pride, served on bended knees. 
 No conception could be further from the truth. The ease of the master 
 of a big plantation was about that of the head of any great establish- 
 ment where numbers of operatives are employed, and to the management 
 of which are added the responsibilities of the care and complete master- 
 ship of the liberty of his operatives and their families. His work was 
 generally sufficiently systernized to admit of enough personal independ- 
 ence to enable him to participate in the duties of hospitality ; but any 
 master who had a successfully conducted plantation was sure to have 
 given it his personal supervision with an unremitting attention which 
 would not have failed to secure success in any other calling. 
 
 If this was true of the master, it was much more so of the mistress. 
 The master might, by having a good overseer and reliable head men, 
 shift a portion of the burden from his shoulders ; the mistress had no 
 such means of relief. She was the necessary and invariable functionary ; 
 
 500
 
 Tfie Home in Literature. 
 
 the keystone of the domestic economy which bound all the rest of the 
 structure and gave it its strength and beauty. From early morn till morn 
 again the most important and delicate concerns of the plantation were 
 her charge and care. She gave out and directed all the work of the 
 women. From the superintending the setting of the turkeys to fighting a 
 pestilence, there was nothing which was not her work. She was mistress, 
 manager, doctor, nurse, counselor, seamstress, teacher, housekeeper, 
 slave, all at once. 
 
 ************ 
 
 What she was, only her husband divined, and even he stood before 
 her in dumb, half-amazed admiration, as he might before the inscrutable 
 vision of a superior being. What she^really was, was known only to God. 
 Her life was one long act of devotion, devotion to God, devotion to 
 husband, devotion to her children, devotion to her servants, to her 
 friends, to the poor, to humanity. 
 
 ******* * **** 
 
 The training of her children was her work. She watched over them, 
 inspired them, led them, governed them ; her will impelled them ; her 
 word to them as to her servants was law. She reaped the reward. If she 
 admired them, she was too wise to let them know it ; but her sympathy 
 and tenderness were theirs always, and they worshiped her. 
 
 I N a different strain somewhat are the words of Sir John 
 
 Lubbock, under the title "Pleasures of Home." It is 
 
 110 less real for being the estimate of a scholar and scientist: 
 
 It may well be doubted which is more delightful, to start for a holi- 
 day which has been fully earned, or to return home from one which has 
 been thoroughly enjoyed; to find oneself, with renewed vigor, with a 
 fresh store of memories and ideas, back once more by one's own fireside, 
 with one's family, friends, and books. 
 
 " To sit at home," says Leigh Hunt, " with an old folio (?) book of 
 
 561
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 romantic yet creditable voyages and travels to read, an old bearded trav- 
 eler for its hero, a fireside in an old country house to read by, curtains 
 drawn, and just wind enough stirring out of doors to make an accompani- 
 ment to the billows or forests we are reading of this surely is one of the 
 perfect moments of existence." 
 
 It is no doubt a great privilege to visit foreign countries ; to travel 
 say in Mexico or Peru, or to cruise among the Pacific Islands ; but in 
 some respects the narratives of early travelers, the histories of Prescott, 
 or the voyages of Captain Cook, are even more interesting, describing to 
 us as they do, a state of society which was then so unlike ours, but which 
 has now been changed and Europeanized. 
 
 Thus we make our daily travels interesting, even though, like those of 
 the Vicar of Wakefield, all our adventures are by our fireside, and all our 
 migrations from one room to another. 
 
 Moreover, even if the beauties of home are humble, they are still 
 infinite, and a man " may lie in his bed, like Pompey and his sons, in 
 all quarters of the earth." ******** \Ve may indeed 
 secure for ourselves endless variety without leaving our own firesides. 
 
 In the first place, the succession of the seasons multiplies every home. 
 How different is the view from our windows as we look on the tender 
 green of spring, the rich foliage of summer, the glorious tints of autumn, 
 or the delicate tracery of winter. 
 
 Our climate is so happy that even in the worst months of the year, 
 " calm mornings of sunshine visit us at times, appearing like glimpses of 
 departed spring amid the wilderness of wet and windy days that lead to 
 winter. It is pleasant, when these interludes of silvery light occur, to 
 ride into the woods and see how wonderful are all the colors of decay. 
 Overhead the elms and chestnuts hang their wealth of golden leaves, 
 while beeches darken into russet tones, and the wild cherry glows like 
 blood-red wine. In the hedges crimson haws and scarlet hips are 
 wreathed with hoary clematis or necklaces of coral briony-berries ; the 
 brambles burn with many-colored flames ; the dogwood is bronzed to pur- 
 
 562
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 pie ; and here and there the spindlewood puts forth its fruit, like knots of 
 rosy buds, on delicate frail twigs. Underneath lie fallen leaves, and the 
 brown bracken rises to our knees as we thread the forest paths." * * * 
 ****** J^-QJ. (j oes the beauty end with the day. Is it noth- 
 ing to sleep under the canopy of heaven, where we have the globe of the 
 earth for our place of repose and the glories of the heavens for our 
 spectacle ? 
 
 ************ 
 
 On the other hand, when all outside is dark and cold ; when, perhaps 
 
 " Outside fall the snowflakes lightly ; 
 
 Through the night loud raves the storm ; 
 In my room the fire glows brightly, 
 And 'tis cozy, silent, warm. 
 
 " Musing sit I on the settle, 
 
 By the firelight's cheerful blaze, 
 Listening to the busy kettle 
 
 Humming long-forgotten lays." 
 
 For, after all, the true pleasures of the home are not without, but 
 within ; and ' ' the domestic man who loves no music so well as his own 
 kitchen clock and the airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on the 
 hearth, has solaces which others never dream of." 
 
 *** * ******** 
 
 Moreover, how much we suffer from foolish quarrels about trifles ; 
 from mere misunderstandings, from hasty words thoughtlessly repeated, 
 sometimes without the context or tone which would have deprived them 
 of any sting. Home indeed may be a sure haven of repose from the 
 storms and perils of the world. But to secure this we must not be con- 
 tent to pave it with good intentions, but must make it bright and cheer- 
 ful. 
 
 If our life be one of toil and suffering, if the world outside be cold 
 
 563
 
 TJie Home in Literature. 
 
 and dreary, what a pleasure to return to the sunshine of happy faces and 
 the warmth of hearts we love. 
 
 I HE succeeding picture of English rural home-life is 
 
 ^ taken from a series of descriptive essays by Charles 
 
 Knight, under the title " Once Upon a Time." It is a simple, 
 
 though extremely vivid, portraiture of a delightful type of 
 
 rustic life, and enjoys the colorings of genuine realism : 
 
 On one of the roads from Windsor to Binfield, in the parish of War- 
 field, stands, or stood, a small farmhouse, with gabled roof and latticed 
 windows. A rude woodbine-covered porch led into a broad passage, 
 which would have been dark had not the great oaken door generally stood 
 open. To the right of the passage was a large kitchen, beyond which 
 loomed a sacred room the parlor unopened except on rare occasions 
 of festivity. To this grange I traveled in a jolting cart, on a spring 
 afternoon, seated by the side of the good wife who had carried her butter 
 and eggs and fowls to market, and was now returning home, proud of her 
 gains, from whose accumulations she boasted that she well-nigh paid the 
 rent of the little farm. I was in feeble health ; and a summer's run was 
 decreed for me, out of the way of school and books. 
 
 That small bedroom where I slept, with its worm-eaten floor and 
 undraperied lattices, was, I suspect, not very perfect in its arrangements 
 for ventilation ; but then neither door nor window shut close, and the 
 free air, redolent of heath and furze, found its way in, and did its 
 purifying offices after an imperfect fashion. The first morning began my 
 new country life and a very novel life it was. It was Sunday. The 
 house was quiet ; and when I crept down into the kitchen I found my 
 friend, the farmer's wife, preparing breakfast. On one side of that 
 family room was a large oaken table covered with huge basins, and a 
 mighty loaf ; over a turf fire hung an enormous skillet, full to the brim 
 with swimming milk. One by one, three or four young men dropped in, 
 
 564
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 jauntily dressed in the cleanest smock frocks the son of the house had a 
 smart Sunday coat, with an expansive nosegay of daffodils and wall- 
 flowers. They sat quietly down at the oak table, and their portions of 
 milk were distributed to each. Now entered the farmer of whom I 
 still think with deep respect a yeoman of simple habits but of large 
 intelligence. He had been in the household of the Governor of Pennsyl- 
 vania before the War of Independence ; and could tell me of a wonder- 
 ful man named Franklin, whom he had known ; and of the Torpedo, on 
 which he had seen Governor Walsh make experiments ; and of lightning 
 drawn from the clouds. The farmer, his wife, and the little boy who 
 had come to dwell with them, sat down at a round table nearer the fire. 
 Sunday was a great day in that household. There was the cheerful walk 
 to church ; the anticipations of the coming dinner, not loud but earnest ; 
 the promise of afternoon cricket. 
 
 ************ 
 
 Returned from church, the kitchen had been somewhat changed in 
 appearance since the morning ; the oak table was moved into the center, 
 and covered with a coarse cloth as white as the May blossom ; the turf 
 fire gave out a fierce heat, almost unbearable by the urchin who sat on a 
 low stool, turning, with mechanical aid, the spit which rested upon two 
 andirons, or dogs, and supported in his labor by grateful fragrance 
 of the steaming beef. To that Sunday dinner the one dinner of fresh 
 meat for the week all sat down ; and a happy meal it was, with no 
 lack even of dainties ; for there was a flowing bowl of cream to make 
 palatable the hard suet pudding, and a large vinegar bottle, with notches 
 in the cork, to besprinkle the cabbage, and a Dutch cheese and, if I 
 dream not, a taste from a flask that emerged mysteriously from a corner 
 cupboard. Then came the cricket and trap ball of southern England, 
 yawns in the twilight, a glimmering candle, the chapter in the family 
 Bible, and an early bed. 
 
 . The morning of Monday was a busy scene. I was round at six ; but 
 the common breakfast was over. The skillet had been boiled at five ; 
 
 565
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 the farmer was off to sell a calf ; the plowmen had taken their teams 
 afield. The kitchen was solitary. I should have thought myself alone 
 in that world, but for a noisy companionship of chickens and ducklings, 
 that came freely to pick the crumbs off the floor. I wandered into the 
 farmyard, ankle deep in muck. In a shed T found my hostess, not dis- 
 daining to milk her petted cows. Her hand and her eye were every- 
 where from the cow stall to the dairy, from the hen's nest to the fatting 
 coop. Are there any such wives left amongst us? Bloomfield has de- 
 scribed the milking time pretty much as I saw it in those primitive days. 
 
 " Forth comes the maid, and like the morning smiles ; 
 The mistress, too, and followed close by Giles. 
 A friendly tripod forms their humble seat, 
 With pails bright scour'd and delicately sweet. 
 Where shadowing elms obstruct the morning ray 
 Begins their work, begins the simple lay ; 
 The full-charg'd udder yields its willing streams ; 
 While Mary sings some lover's amorous dreams ; 
 And crouching Giles beneath a neighboring tree 
 Tugs o'er his pail, and chants with equal glee ; 
 Whose hat with tattered brim, of nap so bare, 
 From the cow's side purloins a coat of hair, 
 A mottled ensign of his harmless trade, 
 An unambitious, peaceable cockade. 
 As unambitious, too, that cheerful aid 
 The mistress yields beside her rosy maid ; 
 With joy she views her plenteous reeking store, 
 And bears a brimmer to the dairy door ; 
 Her cows dismiss'd, the luscious mead to roam, 
 Till eve again recall them loaded home." 
 
 After the milking time was the breakfast for the good wife and for 
 "Mary." Twice a week there was churning to be done; and as the 
 
 5GG
 
 Tlie Home in Literature. 
 
 butter came more quickly in the warmth of the kitchen, the churn was 
 removed there in that chilly springtime. 
 
 There was no formal dinner on week days in that house. The loaf 
 stood iipon the table, with a vast piece of bacon, an abundant supply of 
 which rested upon a strong rack below the ceiling. Some of the men had 
 taken their dinner to the distant field; another or so came carelessly in, 
 and cutting a huge slice of the brown bread and the home-cured, pulled 
 out what was called a pocketknife, and despatched the meal with intense 
 enjoyment. At three, the plowmen returned home. That was an hour 
 of delight to me, for I was privileged to ride a horse to water in a neigh- 
 boring pond. The afternoon, as far as I remember, was one of idleness. 
 In the gloaming the young men slid into the kitchen. The farmer sat 
 reading, the wife knitting. There was a corner in the enormous chimney 
 where I dwelt apart, watching the turf smoke as it curled up the vast 
 chasm. There was no assumption of dignity in the master when a song 
 was called for. How well do I remember that song of Dibden : 
 
 11 1 left my poor plow to go plowing the deep." 
 
 That song told of a wartime, and of naval dangers and glories ; and 
 the chorus was roared out as if "the inconstant wind " was a very jolly 
 thing, and " the carpenter," who tempted the plowman " for to go and 
 leave his love behind," not at all a bad fellow. 
 
 ************ 
 
 Were I to see that homestead once more, I have no doubt T should 
 find, like the grandsire of Crabbe's poem, that " all is changed." The 
 scenes which live in my recollection can never come hack ; nor is it fitting 
 that they should. 
 
 lyl ILTON is known to the vast majority of readers as a 
 V poet by common consent the greatest of all 
 poets. He was, also, a writer of prose, a keen controver- 
 sialist and an adept essayist. His very positive arguments 
 
 507
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 on the " Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce," which at that 
 time stirred English society to its very depths, is regarded 
 as a masterpiece of analysis and convincing argument. 
 His style is somewhat ponderous and involved, but this 
 may well be overlooked in the presence of a profound and 
 unique treatment of a question of such magnitude. The 
 extract given relates to the conception of the married 
 state : 
 
 Marriage is a covenant, the very being whereof consists not in a forced 
 cohabitation, and counterfeit performance of duties, but in unfeigned love 
 and peace ; and of matrimonial love, no doubt but that was chiefly meant, 
 which by the ancient sages was thus parabled : that Love, if he be not twin- 
 born, yet hath a brother wondrous like him, called Aateros ; whom, while 
 he seeks all about, his chance is to meet with many false and feigning 
 desires, that wander singly up and down in his own likeness ; by them in 
 their borrowed garb, Love, though not wholly blind, as poets wrong him, 
 yet having but one eye, as being born an archer aiming, and that eye 
 not the quickest in this dark region here below, which is not Love's proper 
 sphere, partly out of the simplicity and credulity which is native to him, 
 often deceived, embraces and consorts him with these obvious and suborned 
 striplings, as if they were his mother's own sons : for so he thinks them, 
 while they subtilely keep themselves most on his blind side. But after a 
 while, as his manner is, when soaring up into the high tower of his 
 Apogasum, above the shadow of the earth, he darts out the direct rays of 
 his then most piercing eyesight upon the impostures and trim disguises 
 that were used with him, and discerns that this is not his genuine brother, 
 as he imagined ; he has no longer the power to hold fellowship with such a 
 personated mate ; for straight his arrows lose their golden heads, and shed 
 their purple feathers, his silken braids untwine and slip their knots, and 
 that original and fiery virtue given him by fate, all on a sudden goes out, 
 
 5G8
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 and leaves him undeified and despoiled of all his force ; till, finding Ante- 
 ros at last, he kindles and repairs the almost faded ammunition of his 
 deity by the reflection of a coequal and homogeneal fire. Thus mine 
 author sung it to me ; and by the leave of those who would be counted the 
 only grave ones, this is no mere amatorious novel ; but this is a deep and 
 serious verity, showing us that love in marriage cannot live nor subsist 
 unless it be mutual ; and where love cannot be, there can be left of wed- 
 lock nothing but the empty husk of an outside matrimony, as undelightful 
 and unpleasing to God as any other kind of hypocrisy. 
 
 JOHN STUART BLACKIE, the stern Scotch moralist, 
 in his essay on the " Philosophy of Education " has 
 this to say anent the place of the family in the scheme 
 of development : 
 
 There is first the Family, then the School, then the University, and 
 alongside of all these there is the Church. Of these four, the first is in 
 many respects the most important ; it is in fact a school instituted by Na- 
 ture herself, an institution which, like all the divine workmanship, can- 
 not be wrong, and which contains within itself, acting in the most kindly 
 harmony, all the influences, physical, moral, and intellectual, that help 
 the young human creature to grow. Wisely does Dean Stanley say some- 
 where, "The family is the patriarchal church, and the father of the 
 family is the patriarchal priest"; and though it is quite true, as Aris- 
 totle remarks, that no man belongs to himself individually or to the 
 family of which he is a part, but to the state, it is equally true that no 
 state institution, however perfect, can be vitalized by such a healthy 
 atmosphere for youthful growth as that which is begotten of the relation 
 of parent and progeny. Whether it, therefore, be Plato that from a 
 philosophical notion, or Sparta that from a military ideal, wished to 
 abolish or subordinate the functions of the family in the rearing of good 
 citizens, they run equally contrary to nature, and must be condemned. 
 
 569
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 Much more are certain English fathers and mothers to be reprobated, 
 who, whether from laziness, or want of natural affection, or merely 
 from traditional bad habit, send their children away as soon as pos- 
 sible to distant schools; by which a double loss is incurred to child 
 from its removal from the kindly atmosphere of the parent, and to the 
 parent from the absence of those stimulating impulses communicated to a 
 sympathetic father or mother from the budding intelligence and the vernal 
 freshness of the child. Let this, therefore, stand as a sound reason why, 
 in every well-ordered country, schools of all grades should be planted in 
 such proximity to the centers of local population that there may be no ex- 
 cuse for young persons being sent outside the family atmosphere, till siich 
 time as they are about to be launched into the large world, and must learn 
 to stand on their own legs, and shape their own careers, in the crowded 
 arena of society ; for, of course, after a certain age pure home breeding 
 may be as bad a preparation for the business of life as premature school- 
 ing is for the healthy growth of the unripe youngling. Exclusive home- 
 culture is apt to breed either conceit or shyness, or, as Shakespeare has it, 
 something homely in the wit 
 
 ' ' For home-bred youths have ever homely wits ; ' ' 
 
 while, on the other hand, there can be no doubt that the self-assertion 
 and self-reliance which are forced upon English boys in the conflicts of 
 the great English schools are the germs of that manly spirit, pluck, and 
 ready efficiency for which Englishmen all over the world are celebrated. 
 
 I PON this same relation that of parents to children, 
 and conversely Francis Bacon discourses from a 
 lay point of view, but with no less wisdom : 
 
 The joys of parents are secret, and so are their griefs and fears. 
 They cannot utter the one and they will not utter the other. Children 
 sweeten labors, but they make misfortunes more bitter. They increase 
 the cares of life, but they mitigate the remembrance of death. The 
 
 570
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 perpetuity by generation is common to beasts ; but memory, merit, and 
 noble works are proper to men. 
 
 * * * * ******** 
 
 The difference in affection of parents towards their several children is 
 many times unequal, and sometimes unworthy, especially in the mother : 
 as Solomon saith, " A wise son rejoiceth the father, but an ungracious son 
 shames the mother." A man shall see where there is a house full of 
 children one or two of the eldest respected, and the youngest made 
 wantons. But in the midst some there are, as it were, forgotten, who 
 many times, nevertheless, prove the best. The illiberality of parents in 
 allowance toward their children is an harmful error, makes them base, 
 acquaints them with shifts, makes them sort with mean company, and 
 makes them surfeit more when they come to plenty. And therefore the 
 proof is best when men keep their authority towards their children, but 
 not their purse. Men have a foolish manner (both parents and school- 
 masters and servants) in creating and breeding an emulation between 
 brothers during childhood, which many times sorteth to discord when 
 they are men, and disturbeth families. 
 
 ******* * **** 
 Let parents choose betimes the vocations and courses they mean their 
 children should take, for then they are most flexible. And let them not 
 too much apply themselves to the disposition of their children, as think- 
 ing they will take best to that which they have most mind to. It is true, 
 that if the affection or aptness of the children be extraordinary, then it is 
 
 good not to cross it. 
 
 ****** * ***** 
 
 He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for 
 they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. 
 It were great reason that those that have children should have greatest 
 care of future times ; unto which they know they must transmit their 
 dearest pledges. Some there are whose thoughts do end with themselves, 
 and account future times impertinences. Nay, there are some other that 
 account wife and children but as bills of charges. Nay, more, there are 
 
 571
 
 Tfie Home in Literature. 
 
 some foolish rich covetous men, that take a pride in having no children, 
 because they may be thought so much the richer. For perhaps they have 
 heard some talk, " Such an one is a great, rich man " ; and another ex- 
 cept to it, " Yea, but he hath a great charge of children " : as if it were 
 an abatement to his riches. 
 
 ******* * #*** 
 
 LxROBABLY no casuist, and for that matter no writer 
 ^.^ of any school, has written with more force and a 
 keener perception of the influences of home culture than 
 Samuel Smiles, the author of "Self-Help." Sir John Lub- 
 bock, who is no mean authority, places this book among 
 his " One Hundred Best Books of the World's Literature " ; 
 and rightly, too. It is a veritable storehouse of helps and 
 hints in character building, a wise system of home phi- 
 losophy, and should be a courted companion, a positive 
 vade mecum, for both the young and the old. The quota- 
 tion selected is from the chapter on " Home Power" : 
 
 Home is the first and most important school of character. It is there 
 that every human being receives his best moral training or his worst ; for 
 it is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which endure 
 through manhood, and cease only with life. 
 
 It is a common saying, that " Manners make the man " ; and 
 there is a second, that "Mind makes the man"; but truer than either 
 is a third, that " Home makes the man." For the .home-training includes 
 not only manners and mind, but character. It is mainly in the home that 
 the heart is opened, the habits are formed, the intellect is awakened, and 
 character molded for good or evil. 
 
 From that source, be it pure or impure, issue the principles and 
 maxims that govern society. Law itself is but the reflex of homes. The 
 
 i>72
 
 Tlie Home in Literature. 
 
 tiniest bit of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life, after- 
 wards issues forth to the world, and becomes its public opinion ; for nations 
 are gathered out of nurseries, and they who hold the leading strings of 
 children may even exercise a greater power than those who wield the reins 
 of government. "Civic virtues," says Jules Simon, "unless they have 
 their origin and consecration in private and domestic virtues, are but the 
 virtues of the theater. lie who has not a loving heart for his child cannot 
 pretend to any true love for humanity." 
 
 It is in the order of nature that domestic life should be preparatory to 
 social, and that the mind and character should first be formed in the home. 
 There the individuals who afterwards form society are dealt with in detail, 
 and fashioned one by one. From the family they enter life, and advance 
 from boyhood to citizenship. Thus the home may be regarded as the 
 most influential school of civilization. For, after all, civilization mainly 
 resolves itself into a question of individual training ; and according as the 
 respective members of society are well or ill trained in youth, so will the 
 community which they constitute be more or less humanized and civilized. 
 The training of any man, even the wisest, cannot fail to be powerfully 
 influenced by the moral surroundings of his early years. lie comes into the 
 world helpless, and absolutely dependent upon those about him for nurture 
 and culture. From the very first breath that he draws, his education 
 begins. When a mother once asked a clergyman when she should begin 
 the education of her child, then four years old, he replied : " Madam, if 
 you have not begun already, you have lost those four years. From the first 
 smile that gleams upon an infant's cheek, your opportunity begins." 
 
 *********** 
 However apparently trivial the influences which contribute to form 
 the character of the child, they endure through life. The child's 
 character is the nucleus of the man's ; all after education is but super- 
 position ; the form of the crystal remains the same. Thus the saying of 
 the poet holds true in a large degree, " The child is father of the man " ; 
 or, as Milton puts it, " The childhood shows the man, as morning shows 
 
 573
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 the day." Those impulses to conduct which last the longest and are 
 rooted the deepest always have their origin near our birth. It is then 
 that the germs of virtues or vices, of feelings or sentiments, are first im- 
 planted which determine the character for life. 
 
 fy GENERAL review of the literature of the home 
 ^would be singularly incomplete without the testi- 
 mony of Harriet Beecher Stowe, that rare woman of gen- 
 ius and insight. Her love for humanity is no more forcibly 
 expressed in Uncle Tom's Cabin than is her solicitude for 
 the domestic life in her essays and home pastorals. In her 
 "Home and Home Papers," we find these glowing para- 
 graphs : 
 
 ***** ******* 
 
 What is it, then, that makes a home? All men and women have the 
 indefinite knowledge of what they want and long for when the word is 
 spoken. "Home! " sighs the disconsolate bachelor, tired of bearding 
 house fare and buttonless shirts. "Home!" says the wanderer in 
 foreign lands, and thinks of mother's love, of wife and sister and child. 
 Nay, the word has in it a higher meaning, hallowed by religion ; and 
 when the Christian would express the highest of his hopes for a better 
 life, he speaks of his home beyond the grave. The word home has in it 
 the elements of love, rest, permanency, and liberty ; but besides these it 
 has in it the idea of an education by which all that is purest within us is 
 developed into nobler forms, fit for a higher life. The little child by the 
 home fireside was taken on the Master's knee when he would explain to 
 his disciples the mysteries of the kingdom. 
 
 Of so great dignity and worth is this holy and sacred thing, that the 
 power to create a HOME ought to be ranked above all creative faculties. 
 
 574
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 The sculptor who brings out the breathing statue from cold marble, the 
 painter who warms the canvas into a deathless glow of beauty, the archi- 
 tect who builds cathedrals and hangs the world-like dome of St. Peter's in 
 mid-air, is not to be compared, in sanctity and worthiness, to the humble 
 artist who, out of the poor materials afforded by the shifting, changing, 
 selfish world, creates the secure Eden of a home. 
 
 A true home should be called the noblest work of art possible to 
 human creatures, inasmuch as it is the image chosen to represent the last 
 and highest rest of the soul, the consummation of man's blessedness. 
 
 Not without reason does the oldest Christian church require of those 
 entering on marriage the most solemn review of all the past life, the con- 
 fession and repentance of every sin of thought, word, and deed, and the 
 reception of the Holy Sacrament ; for thus the man and woman who ap- 
 proach the august duty of creating a home are reminded of the sanctity 
 and beauty of what they undertake. In this art of home-making I have 
 set down in my mind certain first principles, like the axioms of Euclid, 
 and the first is : 
 
 No home is possible without love. 
 
 All business marriages and marriages of convenience, all mere culi- 
 nary marriages and marriages of mere animal passion, make the creation 
 of the true home impossible in the outset. Love is the jeweled founda- 
 tion of the New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven, and takes 
 as many bright forms as the amethyst, topaz, and sapphire of that mys- 
 terious vision. In this range of creative art all things are possible to 
 him that loveth, but without love nothing is possible. 
 
 ************ 
 
 Let anyone try to render the song, " Sweet Home," into French, and 
 one finds how Anglo-Saxon is the very genius of the word. The structure 
 of life, in all its relations, in countries where marriages are matter of 
 arrangement, and not of love, excludes the idea of home. 
 
 ************ 
 
 My next axiom is : 
 
 575
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 There can be no true home without liberty. 
 
 The very idea of home is of a retreat where we shall be free to act 
 out our personal and individual tastes and peculiarities, as we cannot do 
 before the wide world. We are to have our meals at what hour we will, 
 served in what style suits us. Our hours of going and coming are to be 
 as we please. Our favorite haunts are to be here or there, our pictures 
 and books so disposed as seems to us good, and our whole arrangements 
 the expression, so far as our means can compass it, of our personal ideas 
 of what is pleasant and desirable in life. This element of liberty, if we 
 think of it, is the chief charm of the home. " Here I can do as I please," 
 is the thought with which the tempest-tossed earth-pilgrim blesses him- 
 self or herself, turning inward from the crowded ways of the world. This 
 thought blesses the man of business, as he turns from his day's care, and 
 crosses the sacred threshold. It is as restful to him as the slippers and 
 gown and easy chair of the fireside. Everybody understands him here. 
 Everybody is well content that he should take his ease in his own way. 
 Such is the case in the ideal home. That such is not always the case in 
 the real home comes often from the mistakes in the house furnishing. 
 Much house furnishing is too fine for liberty. 
 
 ******** **** 
 One thing more. Right on the threshold of all perfection lies the cross 
 to be taken up. No one can go over or around that cross in science or art. 
 Without labor and self-denial neither Raphael nor Michael Angelo nor 
 Newton was made perfect. Nor can man or woman create a true home who 
 is not willing in the outset to embrace life heroically, to encounter labor and 
 sacrifice. Only to such can this divinest power be given to create on 
 earth that which is the nearest image of heaven. 
 
 I jUOTATIONS similar to these already transcribed 
 
 \^ might he made almost without number, so full is 
 
 our literature of expressions relating to the home- If we 
 
 576
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 turn to Dickens, we are met with sentiments like the 
 following : 
 
 If ever household affections and love are graceful things, they are 
 graceful in the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and the proud at 
 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. The 
 man of high descent may love the halls and lands of inheritance as a part 
 of himself, as trophies of his birth and power ; the poor man's attachment 
 to the tenement he holds, which strangers have held before, and may 
 to-morrow occupy again, has a worthier root, struck deep into a purer soil. 
 His household gods are flesh and blood, with no alloy of silver, gold, or 
 precious stones ; he has no property but in the affections of his own heart ; 
 and when they endear bare floors and walls, despite of toil and scanty 
 meals, that man has his love of home from God, and his rude hut becomes 
 a solemn place. 
 
 or, to Dr. Johnson : 
 
 The most authentic witnesses of any man's character are those who 
 know him in his own family, and see him without any restraint or rule of 
 conduct, but such as he voluntarily prescribes for himself. If a man 
 carries virtue with him into his private apartments, and takes no advan- 
 tage of unlimited power or probable secrecy ; if we trace him through the 
 round of his time, and find that his character, with those allowances which 
 mortal frailty must always want, is uniform and regular, we have all the 
 evidence of his sincerity that one man can have with regard to another ; 
 and, indeed, as hypocrisy cannot be its own reward, we may, without hesi- 
 tation, determine that his heart is pure. 
 
 or, to William Ellery Channing : 
 
 The domestic relations precede, and, in our present existence, are 
 worth more than all our other social ties. They give the first throb to the 
 heart, and unseal the deep fountains of its love. Home is the chief school 
 
 577
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 of human virtue. Its responsibilities, joys, sorrows, smiles, tears, hopes, 
 and solicitudes form the chief interests of human life. 
 
 or, to F. W. Robertson : 
 
 Home is the one place in the world where hearts are sure of each 
 other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off 
 that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us 
 to wear in self-defense ; and where we pour out the unreserved communi- 
 cation of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of 
 tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness, and without 
 any dread of ridicule. 
 
 or, to Henry Ward Beecher : 
 
 A man's house should be on the hilltop of cheerfulness and serenity, 
 so high that no shadows rest upon it, and where the morning comes so 
 early, and the evening tarries so late, that the day has twice as many 
 golden hours as those of other men. He is to be pitied whose house is in 
 some valley of grief between the hills, with the longest night and the 
 shortest day. Home should be the center of joy, equatorial and tropical. 
 * * * * Home should be an oratorio 
 
 of the memory, singing to all our after life melodies and harmonies of old 
 remembered joy. 
 
 And thus the recount goes on. It seems as though the col- 
 lective intelligence and heart speak with one voice con- 
 cerning the superlative position which the home should 
 occupy in our affections as well as in our social economy. 
 Standing forth as it does not only as a theme of literature 
 but with the warrant of science, philosophy, religion, and 
 God behind it, there is little wonder that the ideal home is 
 the only fit symbol of heaven. This has been very beauti- 
 fully put by Jones Very: 
 
 578
 
 The Home in Literature. 
 
 With the same letter Home and Heaven begin, 
 
 And the words dwell together in the mind ; 
 For they who would a Home in Heaven win 
 
 Must first a Heaven in Home begin to find. 
 Be happy here, yet with a humble soul 
 
 That looks for perfect happiness in Heaven ; 
 For what thou hast is earnest of the whole 
 
 Which to the faithful shall at last be given. 
 As once the patriarch, in a vision blessed, 
 
 Saw the swift angels hastening to and fro, 
 And the lone spot whereon he lay to rest 
 
 Became to him the gate of Heaven below, 
 So may to thee, when life itself is done, 
 Thy Home on earth and Heaven be one. 
 
 The same conception finds expression in the beautiful 
 sonnet of Dr. J. G. Holland entitled, " Two Homes" : 
 
 I hasten homeward, through the gathering night, 
 Tow'rd the dear ones who in expectance sweet 
 " Await the coming of my weary feet, 
 And please my heart with many a lovely sight 
 Of way-worn neighbors stepping from the street 
 Through doors thrown wide and bursts of light that greet 
 Their entrance, painting all their paths with white ; 
 And then I think, with a great thrill of bliss, 
 That all the world, and all of life it brings, 
 Tell me true tales of other realms than this, 
 As faithful types of spiritual things ; 
 And so I know that home's rewarding kiss 
 Insures the hope of heaven that in me springs. 
 
 579
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY. 
 
 Thie Old=KashLioned Home. 
 
 T^ f^ASHION holds a, legitimate place in human affairs. 
 
 It is intrenched in a constitutional peculiarity of 
 
 - human nature, which is a sufficient guarantee that 
 
 it has a right to be. It is only the abuse of fashion that 
 
 
 makes it repugnant to the better instincts- of man. When 
 
 the proper definition of fashion is presented to the mind it 
 meets with an instinctive approval. 
 
 We would define true fashion as the uniformity that 
 results from the conservation of truth and beauty. That 
 which is true and beautiful is naturally conserved, while 
 that which is false and ugly contains the seeds of its own 
 dissolution. This necessary uniformity resulting from a 
 constant law is natural fashion. 
 
 The fashion of the world, for the most part, is artificial 
 and false. It is simply a temporary uniformity resulting 
 from caprice. There are two elements that enter into the 
 composition of the fashion sentiment, and the virtue or 
 vice of the fashion is determined by the proportion of these 
 elements. First, a love of the beautiful and true, and 
 
 580
 
 The Old-Fashioned Home. 
 
 second, a love of novelty. Any given fashion is capricious, 
 short-lived, and generally absurd, just in proportion as the 
 latter element predominates over the former. 
 
 I HERE is no more appropriate sphere for the display 
 
 V of legitimate fashion than the home world, which, 
 perhaps, in part accounts for the fact that in all ages archi- 
 tecture has stood foremost among the arts. And, perhaps, 
 it is in this field that fashion has maintained itself purest 
 from the adulterations of caprice. Few houses or buildings 
 in the construction of which there is any pretense to archi- 
 tectural skill, exhibit a serious violation of natural and 
 wholesome taste. Unlike the varying patterns of women's 
 bonnets and men's coats, which vibrate from extreme 
 to extreme, the architectural ideal seems to recognize cer- 
 tain fundamental and unchanging laws of taste and 
 harmony. 
 
 It is true that there have been marked changes in 
 architecture. It has grown with the race from the rude 
 structure of the savage to the imposing palace of the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 But in every period there has been an evident tendency 
 to abide perpetually by principles, as fast as men have been 
 able to develop them. 
 
 Each decade witnesses modifications in the details of 
 architectural adornment, but this does not touch the fact of 
 permanence in the architectural ideal. 
 
 583
 
 The Old-Fashioned Home. 
 
 It is, in part, such permanence that makes the old- 
 fashioned houses seem beautiful to us, for these houses, 
 with their well sweeps, huge chimneys, and naked gables, 
 violate no essential law of beauty. 
 
 I O be beautiful and tasteful a thing must violate no 
 V law of its relations. So essential is this that some 
 have defined beauty as " superior fitness." According to 
 this definition a thing may be beautiful to-day and other- 
 wise to-morrow. When it loses its fitness it loses its 
 beauty. But no argument of fitness or unfitness can take 
 away the beauty from the old-fashioned fireplace with its 
 cheerful flames, which, like a band of gold-capped spirits, 
 half in earnest, half in jest, chase each other up the broad 
 chimney. No person of sensitive mind can sit without 
 emotion beside those century-old hearthstones and watch 
 upon a stormy night "the great fires up the chimney roar." 
 We seem to see reflected from the ever changing 
 golden sheen of the blaze the images of merry boys and 
 girls at play, or with their slates and pencils solving by the 
 flickering light the problems assigned them by the old 
 schoolmaster, who long ago dismissed the school for the 
 last time. Oh ! the visions that we see in the fire, visions 
 of the forgotten long ago, of joys and sorrows strangely 
 blent ; visions of romping boyhood and laughing girlhood, 
 visions of love's first dream, of eyes that caught the broken 
 story from trembling lips that could not speak it ; visions 
 
 584
 
 The Old-Fashioned Home. 
 
 of the bridal queen crowned with coronet of maiden 
 blushes; visions of life's stern battle ; visions of sorrow's 
 first shadow, of red-eyed grief and midnight watchings ; 
 visions of all life's checkered pathway, as it winds through 
 flowery fields or over pain's hot desert sands, through the 
 fragrant spice groves of joy or over sorrow's mountain 
 crags. 
 
 We would not proclaim ourselves "fogies" ; far from 
 it. We are enthusiasts in every conceivable species of 
 human reform, and yet we are compelled to consider the 
 old-fashioned home as the typical representative of the 
 natural institution of home. We speak now, not so much 
 with reference to the mere outward difference of architec- 
 tural designs, or interior devisement, which superficially 
 distinguishes the old from the new fashioned home, but 
 more particularly with reference to those inner and vital 
 differences that distinguish the two modes of home life. 
 
 I T is painful to know that the modern home life differs 
 from the old-fashioned chiefly in its departure from 
 the standard of nature. 
 
 There is hardly a feature of the modern home that 
 does not proclaim itself to the most casual observer a 
 defiant breach of natural law. Let us imagine ourselves 
 members of the board of health, and in that capacity let us 
 inspect a typical modern home. A servant responds to the 
 ringing of the bell and informs us that " Mrs. Uptodate is 
 
 585
 
 The Old- Fashioned Home. 
 
 not in," meaning simply that she has not yet at ten 
 o'clock risen. This is simply a patent process of elonga- 
 tion to which the truth is subjected to meet the demands 
 of fashionable society. Of course it is not at all injurious 
 to truth. When we make known our official business we 
 are admitted, and the servant shows us to the kitchen, 
 where we learn nothing in particular except the most 
 approved process of shortening human life, and of destroy- 
 ing the teeth, morals, and what not of the next generation. 
 We next enter the sitting room. We are almost nauseated 
 by the sickening odor of coal gas that is fast escaping 
 
 4 
 
 through the open door of the coal stove while the back 
 damper is closed. The servant assures us, however, that 
 it is nothing unusual, and declares she "can't smell a 
 thing." We go to the window and try to raise it unob- 
 served, but to no purpose. There are two windows, and 
 the outside one doesn't " shove up." The house, of course, 
 has all the modern improvements, including that beautiful 
 invention of double windows, which has, perhaps, length- 
 ened the " consumption column " in the statistics of human 
 mortality more than any other invention of man. " There 
 is a register in the chimney, but Mrs. Uptodate says the 
 room doesn't heat up so well when it is open, so we keep it 
 closed all the time." 
 
 Do the children frequently have colds with sick head- 
 ache ? " O, and to be shure they do most all the time, but 
 Mrs. Uptodate thinks it is because the house isn't war-rm 
 
 586
 
 The Old-Fashioned Home. 
 
 enough, and shure it looks rasonable. She's put a coal 
 stove in their slapin' room." As we find it impossible to 
 answer Bridget's argument, we will proceed to inspect the 
 parlor. As we enter we shudder with a sensation of damp- 
 ness. Bridget draws aside the curtain, and raising the 
 window a few inches turns the slats of one blind on the 
 north side. " Mrs. Uptodate says we mustn't let the light 
 shine in the parlor, because it fades the car-rpet. There 
 ain't been no drop o' light in the room afore since six 
 months ago." 
 
 Let us leave the parlor in its darkened beauty and go 
 to the children's sleeping room, where the coal stove has 
 been set up to keep the little creatures from " catching 
 cold." We find a room nine feet by twelve with one win- 
 dow. Of course the door must be kept closed during the 
 night that the coal stove may be effectual in preventing 
 the children from taking cold. Economy dictates that it 
 isn't necessary that the coal stove should do it all, so a 
 double window is put on and cotton is tucked in around the 
 joints ; anything to keep the "cold air out." 
 
 One of the most ingenious and economical inventions of 
 modern times is the process of warming our dwellings with 
 our own breath. Air that has been breathed once or twice 
 is apt to be a little unwholesome ; but then it saves coal, 
 and so we can afford to have sick headaches, and to rise in 
 the morning with heavy, dull spirits, with furred tongues 
 and yellow skins. 
 
 587
 
 The Old-Fashioned Home. 
 
 \ * |E have not overdrawn our picture of the modern 
 ^ home. Nor have we selected one of the fashiona- 
 ble homes of the rich ; for these, indeed, in many respects, 
 approach the old-fashioned home. They generally have 
 more spacious sleeping rooms, and the greater size of such 
 houses secures better ventilation throughout. It is the 
 average home of the great middle class that we have 
 described, though, perhaps, we have made a freer use of 
 hyperbole than is consistent with ordinary descriptive 
 writing. We do not hesitate to express our conviction that 
 the unhygienic principles involved in the construction and 
 management of the modern home are the prime causes of 
 consumption and dyspepsia, those two fell scourges to the 
 human family, from which probably a far greater number 
 perish than from the stereotyped curses of "war, pesti- 
 lence, and famine." 
 
 If society has a moral right to compel men to train 
 themselves in the use of sword and musket, in order that 
 they may be able to meet and repel the onslaughts of war 
 and conquest, and thus save their children from bondage 
 and disgrace, why has it not also a right to compel them to, 
 so train and govern their bodies hygienically as to repel 
 the fiercer onslaught of foul disease, and thus save their 
 children from the darker bondage of inherited weakness 
 and premature death ? There may be a shade of the 
 ludicrous in our claim, but we believe that society has the 
 same moral right to prohibit, in the construction of all new 
 
 588
 
 The Old-Fashioned Home. 
 
 dwellings, the nine by twelve "bedroom" that it has to 
 prohibit the grogshop ; the same right to enforce ventila- 
 tion and all the general laws of hygiene in our private 
 dwellings, that it has to make laws for the prevention of 
 suicide and infanticide. 
 
 Such an exercise of civil authority would violate no 
 natural right of man. Man belongs not to himself, 
 but to the world. The wheel is not its own but the 
 engine's. We possess but one natural right vouchsafed 
 to us by our Maker, the right to make the most of our- 
 selves, and all sub-divisions of this one great right are 
 inseparably connected with corresponding duties. Indeed, 
 one can have no natural right to perform a single act 
 which it is not his duty to perform. This may not at first 
 receive the ready assent of the general reader, especially 
 of the American, who has been accustomed to give such 
 extravagant definitions to the word liberty. But upon 
 careful thought we trust that all will finally admit its 
 truthfulness. Probably no human being is able at any 
 time to tell just what kind or extent of action is allowed 
 by his natural right, or demanded by this natural duty. 
 We surely have a natural right to eat just that quantity 
 of food that will meet the requirements of our physical 
 nature, no more, no less; and no one would contend that 
 the verdict of duty, if the exact bounds could be ascer- 
 tained, would not be precisely the same. 
 
 This illustration is no more obvious than that which 
 
 589
 
 The Old-Fashioned Home. 
 
 it is intended to illustrate, viz., the application of this 
 principle to every function and relation of life. When one 
 ceases to act in accordance with this principle, and in 
 so doing falls below the aggregate intelligence of society, 
 he becomes a proper subject for civil guardianship and 
 governmental regulation. Few question the right of soci- 
 ety to prevent a man from taking into his stomach poison 
 liquid in the form of alcohol, but why should they question 
 its right to prevent him from taking into his lungs poison 
 gas in the form of air that has been robbed of its oxygen 
 and charged with carbonic acid by the vital demands of 
 half a dozen persons in a tight, unventilated room, its 
 atmosphere, perhaps, still further vitiated by the liberal 
 contributions of a kerosene lamp or two ? Are fluids and 
 gases so different in their nature that society has a moral 
 right to prohibit the use of the poison fluid of the grog- 
 shop, while it has no right to prohibit the free use of the 
 deadly gas of the small, unventilated sleeping room ? 
 
 I 1UR condemnation of the unhygienic features of the 
 
 modern home may seem somewhat strange, but, 
 
 while we acknowledge the views to be radical and the 
 
 language strong, we are sure they do no injustice to our 
 
 convictions. 
 
 While we believe emphatically in all the civilizing 
 forces ; while we would bid Godspeed to every useful 
 invention ; and while our faith in man's progression and 
 
 590
 
 Tlie Old- Fashioned Home. 
 
 ultimate achievements amounts almost to fanaticism, 
 we must still contend that the modern home in most of its 
 features is a retrogression and not an advancement. 
 
 Yet this is not necessary. Nor is it due to the refine- 
 ment of the modern home. It is not attributable to the 
 piano and the cooking range, to the fine pictures, the deco- 
 rations, the drapery and the beauty, but to the unhygienic 
 influences, the carbonic acid and the enervating luxury. 
 
 The people of America need entertain no fears from 
 the frequent ebullitions of political passion. They are the 
 necessary accompaniments of self-government. But on 
 the garnished walls of ten thousand private houses there 
 appears, to him who can read it, a handwriting that hints 
 at possible doom. In the dim, uncertain shadows of the 
 hour a finger points to the deserted banquet halls of Nin- 
 eveh and Babylon and Persia, and in all languid lux- 
 ury there is a sickening suggestion of the feast-couch, 
 Rome's death-bed. The same spell of public and private 
 effeminacy will settle that has prefaced the doom of every 
 perished empire whose pathetic wrecks now strew the 
 shores of time. Physical weakness, especially of women, 
 in every age has been the almost invariable prognostic of 
 national downfall, and who will deny that there are indica- 
 tions in this direction now that may justly excite alarm ? 
 
 We have no sympathy with those mournful, dyspeptic 
 alarmists who are forever sounding the signal of " trouble 
 ahead," for the mere pleasure of listening to the music of 
 
 591
 
 The Old-Fashioned Home. 
 
 their own blast. And yet we believe there are forces at 
 work in modern society that should cause thoughtful men 
 and women seriously to reflect. 
 
 We have not criticised the modern home thus severely 
 because it is a modern home. We condemn only those evil 
 features that constitute no necessary part of the home. 
 
 The more sensible the home the better. The world's 
 latest thought should be its best, and we can truly say 
 from our heart, God bless the noble inventors who are lift- 
 ing the burden of drudgery from the shoulders of women ! 
 We are glad that the old-fashioned loom has been used for 
 kindling wood. We are glad that spinning no longer con- 
 stitutes the chief occupation of our girls ; and yet if this 
 release from the bondage of labor results only in idleness, 
 as it does in too many homes, better a thousand times that 
 the hum of the spinning-wheel should again be heard ! 
 
 If the modern home with its many true improvements 
 would conserve the naturalness of the old-fashioned home, 
 we should have one that would be typical of all that hope 
 points to in the great hereafter, but until it does this we 
 must regard the old-fashioned home of our fathers as the 
 best and truest type of that which we hope awaits us. 
 
 " Isolated, bleak, and dreary, stands the old house on the hill. 
 
 Rooms that rang with mirth and music now are empty, silent, still. 
 Desolation reigns supremely, and the old house, bare and lone, 
 Stands with many a broken window, through which cheerful lights 
 once shone. 
 
 592
 
 The Old-Fashioned Home. 
 
 " Wrapped in dust and hung with cobwebs, how each empty, low-ceiled 
 
 room 
 
 Seemingly resents in echoes every loudly spoken tone. 
 Houses old and bare and lonely, thickly o'er this land of ours, 
 Stand, like long-forgotten headstones, 'midst their tangled growth of 
 
 flowers. 
 ****** ****** 
 
 " Never then forsake the roof tree, from its shelter do not roam ; 
 Like a sacred shrine of incense, keep the altar fires of home. 
 For of all the piteous ruins, not one comes so near my heart 
 As some old deserted homestead where once life and love had part." 
 
 593
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY. 
 
 Our Last Karevsrell of Home. 
 
 N the programme of every human life is writ- 
 ten "final scene" monitory of the hurried fare- 
 well, the choking sob, and the parting forever. 
 No matter how bright has been the rainbow of youth's 
 promise, no matter how fair and serene life's course has 
 been, the end of that life shall be sobs and tears. But one 
 is never called from his earthly home until he is willing to 
 leave it. He is persuaded, instead of compelled, to seek 
 another home. We refer, of course, to the process of a 
 natural death, resulting simply from old age. No pro- 
 vision has been made to lighten the agonies of suicide, or 
 of an untimely death. The principle, however, which we 
 shall mention, seems even in these cases to act to a certain 
 extent, but it is only during the actual process of death. 
 It does not lessen that instinctive tenacity to life that 
 makes the very thought of death a source of sorrow. 
 
 It has been said that one may live as long as he 
 chooses, and as a rule this is true, for as a rule one may, 
 by temperance and moderation, die a natural death ; that 
 
 is, by the gradual decay of all the powers. When this 
 
 594
 
 Our Last Farewell of Home. 
 
 is the case the instinct of life is one of the first to die. 
 Hence when one cannot live any longer, he will not choose 
 to live. This is the means by which God persuades us to 
 leave our earthly home. He convinces us and makes us 
 feel that it would be better for us to leave the home that 
 no longer has any charm for us. He takes away the 
 instinctive love of life and transfers the home love. 
 
 We have said that the love of life is one of the first 
 instincts to die. It would, doubtless, be the first were it 
 not for the fact that nature preserves it as long as it can 
 be of any use to us. It is this same instinct that gives the 
 power to resist death, and to live amid influences that 
 tend to destroy life. Without this we could not live an 
 hour. Now it would not be wise in nature to allow this 
 instinct to die so long as we are capable of living any 
 longer. But no sooner has this stage been passed than all 
 dread of death at once ceases, and the person softly sinks 
 into the arms of death as the child sinks into slumber. 
 
 The death of this instinct is not instantaneous, for it 
 is subject to the same law of decay as the other powers. 
 But its death always precedes that of the general system. 
 
 The testimony of the old will confirm this doctrine, 
 that the love of life and the fear of death gradually vanish 
 as they approach life's goal. The poet has said, " There is 
 a beauty in woman's decay." But this beauty of decay is 
 not confined to woman. There is a beauty in the decay of 
 humanity. The law of beauty is the law of completeness. 
 
 595
 
 Our Last Farewell of Home. 
 
 It is embodied in the principle of the circle. All forms 
 of beauty may be reduced to this principle. Hence old 
 age must be the very symbol and embodiment of beauty, 
 for is it not the typical example of completeness ? It rep- 
 resents the completion of a life's experience. It is the tri- 
 umphant period in which the arcs of the great circle are 
 closing with a divine beauty that appeals not to the eye, 
 but to the soul. It must be felt by the spirit that can per- 
 ceive a beauty in the universal plan. 
 
 ji fE are so constituted that in any given period of our 
 ^> lives we are best satisfied with the conditions and 
 circumstances that naturally surround us at that period. 
 The youth wishes that he might always be a youth, the 
 young man wishes that he might always be twenty-five. 
 The mature man thinks he would like to stop just where 
 he is, and forever remain at the height and glory of his 
 powers, but the old man thinks the best time to stop is 
 when the labor of life is done and he can sit down and 
 enjoy rest. It is the old man alone whose wish is granted. 
 He is permitted to rest, and, as he has nothing to do but 
 rest and feast his soul on divine beauty, he is not partic- 
 ular whether he takes that rest and drinks in that beauty 
 while gazing at the sunset of this life or the sunrise of the 
 next. 
 
 Contentment is the natural condition of the human 
 mind. Discontent is an abnormal condition, and the ten- 
 
 596
 
 Our Last Farewell of Home. 
 
 dency to be satisfied with present conditions and circum- 
 stances descends into the minuter relations of life. In 
 summer we feel that we could not possibly endure the 
 winter, but when the winter comes there comes with it 
 new pleasures and delights which we would not exchange 
 for those of the summer. Even on a beautiful morning 
 we are apt to wish it would always remain morning, and 
 when enjoying ourselves at some evening entertainment 
 we think the evening the most delightful part of the day. 
 
 This principle in our nature manifests itself still more 
 forcibly in old age. When we reach that period we are in 
 that condition spiritually as well as physically in which 
 the only pleasures that we can enjoy, or that we desire 
 to be able to enjoy, are just those which are given us. 
 
 In the process of death we see that the lowest powers 
 die first. If the face of the dying be watched there will 
 be seen to play over it, in regular succession, the expres- 
 sion of the various faculties in the order of their rank. 
 The last to die are the moral and religious. 
 
 These leave their divine impress upon the countenance, 
 hence the calm, holy, and serene look so often seen upon 
 the faces of the dead. 
 
 The terror of death recedes just as fast as we approach 
 it, and when we reach the last stage of decay the dark 
 river is found to be illumined by the mirrored stars of 
 faith. 
 
 597
 
 Our Last Farewell of Home. 
 
 JHERE are joys in age which youth cannot know. 
 
 ^ They come not as miserable compensations for 
 infirmity, but they are the ones which approach nearest to 
 perfection. They come as a free gift ; those of youth and 
 manhood must be won by toil. The youth finds no joy 
 in rest nor in meditation, for his history is unwritten and 
 he has nothing to meditate upon. A feverish ambition 
 burns in the brain of the young man, for he feels that he 
 has everything to accomplish in a few short years, and 
 whatever joy he receives he must receive it discounted 
 at the bank of toil. 
 
 Youth and manhood have their joys, pure and deep 
 and holy. Joy is the only natural and normal condition of 
 every human soul through every hour of its being from the 
 cradle to eternity, and yet we must draw this wide distinc- 
 tion between the joys of youth and those of age. The 
 former have in them the element of exhaustion, and are 
 allied to those of intoxication, while the latter seem in 
 their very nature strength-giving. Age derives no mean 
 joy from tracing through their complex evolutions the 
 great events of human history. It is to age alone that 
 these great events are visible from their inception to their 
 completion. Where age beholds beauty, order, and divin- 
 ity, youth beholds but fragments, chaos, and chance. The 
 old man derives a conviction from his long experience and 
 observation that " there's a divinity that shapes our ends." 
 He sees, as youth cannot see, the beauty and significance 
 
 598
 
 Our Last Farewell of Home. 
 
 of a life completed. To him death is but the crowning act 
 in life's great drama, the opening of a golden gate at the 
 end of life's narrow lane. 
 
 t2 and death are counterparts of each other. There 
 are those, however, who believe that physical 
 death came to man as a punishment for sin, and that had 
 it not been for sin, all mankind would have lived eternally 
 upon the earth. But the law that dooms man to physical 
 death is the same which dooms the animalcule. If the 
 coral reefs were in process of formation when the first sin 
 was committed it was because the corals were dying then. 
 Did not death obtain among the finny tribes of the ocean, 
 perhaps a single year would be sufficient to crowd the deep 
 to overflowing ; but if the animals were dying, then must 
 not all which is subject to the organic law have died also ? 
 Man is as subject to the organic law as any other member 
 of the animal kingdom. He eats and drinks and breathes 
 and sleeps as they do. Some of these animals are not only 
 made on the same general plan as man, but they possess 
 every physical organ corresponding in position and action, 
 and both animals and man owe their lives to the vital 
 action in these organs. 
 
 Now can anyone believe that the great process of vital 
 action in man, of digestion and respiration, was governed 
 by some other principle before he did wrong for the first 
 
 599
 
 Our Last Farewell of Home. 
 
 time, and was afterwards changed ? Of all the outgrown 
 doctrines of dogmatic theology, this must be regarded as 
 the most childish and unscientific. We must not be mis- 
 led by creeds which are at variance with natural law. We 
 must not regard death as a penal expedient. It can afford 
 us no hope or consolation to regard it as such. Human 
 death is as much an ordinance of nature as the fading of 
 the rainbow or the withering of the rose. The doom of 
 eternal change is written with a pen divine upon all that 
 lives. We can regard death only as a voyage that sepa- 
 rates us from those we love. We gaze upon a face while 
 over it there falls a stillness deeper than slumber, and the 
 last smile that reaches us from that receding spirit is like 
 the waving of a signal far out at sea. The ship sinks be- 
 neath the horizon into the unknown beyond, and with sad 
 steps we move away from the dark wharf, not knowing 
 whence our friend has gone. 
 
 The doctrine which teaches that physical death is a 
 punishment for sin, we believe, has done much to weaken 
 the faith of mankind in the doctrine of immortality, by 
 giving to it the air of superstition. A genuine outgrowth 
 of man's nature cannot be at variance with the highest 
 philosophy. Man is the highest specimen in the great cab- 
 inet of natural history, the chrysalis that holds a proph- 
 ecy of higher environments. 
 
 We must look beyond the fact of death for hope. We 
 must look to the analysis of that which suffers the change, 
 
 600
 
 Our Last Farewell of Home. 
 
 and see if its nature and relations be such that death can 
 doom it to oblivion. 
 
 In our next chapter we shall try to show that man's 
 nature itself holds the credentials of his immortality ; that 
 just as the nature of the lungs would prove the existence 
 of air, so man's spiritual organization proves the existence 
 of God and the fact of immortality. 
 
 But in this chapter we are considering only the mid- 
 night tragedy of death, in which the scenery is dark and 
 the actors are cruel. We have reason to believe, however, 
 that the curtain falls before the play is ended, for the last 
 scene is too stupendous for the stage appliances of earth. 
 The lights are too dull to represent the glory of that sub- 
 lime tableau. Hence the cunning plot, that makes the 
 curtain fall with a rush that extinguishes the lights and 
 leaves the death-bed watchers frantic and bathed in tears 
 a wailing audience in a darkened theater. 
 
 ' ' Lo ! 'tis a gala night 
 
 Within the lonesome latter years ! 
 An angel throng, bewinged, bedight 
 In veils, and drowned in tears, 
 Sit in a theater of hopes and fears, 
 While the orchestra breathes fitfully 
 The music of the spheres. 
 
 " Mimes, in the form of God on high, 
 
 Mutter and mumble low, 
 And hither and thither fly ; 
 
 Mere puppets they, who come and go 
 601
 
 Our Last Farewell of Home. 
 
 At bidding of vast formless things 
 That shift the scenery to and fro, 
 
 Flapping from out their condor wings 
 Invisible woe ! 
 
 That motley drama ! ah, be sure 
 
 It shall riot be forgot ! 
 With its phantom chased for evermore, 
 
 By a crowd that seifce it riot, 
 Through a circle that ever returneth in 
 
 To the self-same spot ; 
 And much of madness, and more of sin, 
 
 And horror, the soul of the plot ! 
 
 " But see, amid the mimic rout 
 
 A crawling shape intrude ! 
 A blood-red thing that writhes from ovit 
 
 The scenic solitude ! 
 It writhes ! it writhes ! with mortal pangs 
 
 The mimes become its food, 
 And the seraphs sob at vermin fangs 
 
 In human gore imbued. 
 
 ' Out out are the lights, out all ! 
 
 And over each quivering form, 
 The curtain, a funeral pall, 
 
 Comes down with the rush of a storm 
 And the angels all pallid and wan, 
 
 Uprising, unveiling, affirm 
 That the play is the tragedy ' Man,' 
 
 And its hero the Conqueror Worm." 
 
 602
 
 CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE. 
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 have thought it expedient to consider this 
 chapter wholly in the light of reason. And 
 should the devout Christian feel that the cold- 
 ness of its logic is inconsistent with the subject, we assure 
 him that it is not because we are not in the fullest sym- 
 pathy with the Christian ideal, but because we have pur- 
 posely aimed to treat the subject from the standpoint of 
 philosophy. 
 
 This is why we have avoided all reference to scriptural 
 authority, even where such reference would seem pecul- 
 iarly appropriate. 
 
 It is the skeptic who most requires to be convinced 
 of the cardinal truths of religion. But with him scrip- 
 tural evidence has little weight, while he is usually proud 
 of his dialectic attainments. So we believe the thoughtful 
 Christian will rejoice in the method we have chosen. 
 
 It is not our purpose in this chapter to attempt any 
 description of that place or condition toward which the 
 instinct of faith in all ages has pointed mankind. Our 
 efforts will be simply to satisfy inquiring minds that the 
 
 605
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 objective of that universal instinct through which human- 
 ity looks Godward and heavenward, is real and not a delu- 
 sion. The great need of our age is a firm belief in the 
 reality of man's religious nature. The most pernicious 
 effects of modern skepticism are seen in its attempts to 
 undermine this belief. Let mankind once be firmly con- 
 vinced on scientific and philosophical grounds that man is 
 a religious being, that there is a real significance in his reli- 
 gious intuitions, that these intuitions spring from facul- 
 ties that correspond to objective realities, and that his 
 earthly home foreshadows an eternal home, and the ques- 
 tion of creed will take care of itself. 
 
 M-JOWEVER painful may be the fact, it cannot be 
 V_ denied that the startling interrogations of the 
 present age mean something more than can be answered 
 by the old time exhortation. The problem of human des- 
 tiny is one that deepens with the evolutions of history. The 
 hour has come when the great question must be discussed 
 in prose instead of poetry. The awakened spirit of doubt 
 to-day confronts religion with the awful questions: "Is 
 there a God?" "Is there a heaven?" "Is it true that 
 the earth-home is but a type, a working model, of ' a home 
 to be'?" 
 
 The answer to these questions must be accompanied 
 by reasons that appeal to human logic, for, in the flashing 
 
 GOG
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 revelations of modern science, the eye of faith has seemed 
 to grow dim. 
 
 And yet it is but the clamor of the immortal instinct 
 itself that gives rise to these questions, for the belief in 
 God and immortality is as universal as that in obligation 
 and human rights. Every human heart is the theater of 
 this immortal instinct. We care not how the heart may be 
 blinded with the self-deception of atheism, and atheism is 
 always and necessarily self-deception, when the mask is 
 torn off we find immortality written there. 
 
 We do not mean that the human heart has not also 
 been the theater of doubt and fear. God seems to have 
 ordained that in every department of life we should find 
 the hand of truth and grasp it in the dark. Into the 
 unanswering ear of the ages man has poured his wailing 
 cry. Through the dark gorges he has climbed to the 
 star-lit height whence a struggling beam has fallen upon 
 the midnight of human history. 
 
 He has listened in the darkness 
 
 To the music of the spheres, 
 He has solved night's awful secret 
 
 Through the alchemy of fears. 
 
 From the dawn of time he has been trying to say 
 father ; and shall we say that his lisping annuls the infinite 
 argument of instinct ? Who would question the reality of 
 the parental instinct when once he had heard the unsuc- 
 cessful attempt of the little child to speak the honored title? 
 
 607
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 As the child instinctively questions his father concern- 
 ing the great untried future of his life, so humanity with 
 the same instinct pours its anxious yearning into the ear 
 of the universal father. 
 
 3 HALL man live beyond the grave ? was the invol- 
 untary question of startled humanity in the 
 shadow of the first death. That question was asked, not 
 of the empty air, not of the silent wood, not in the forget- 
 fulness of self-communing curiosity ; but beneath the eter- 
 nal stars, upon the waiting knee of faith, it was whispered 
 into an unseen ear. " ' If a man die, shall he live again ? ' 
 is a question older than Job, newer than the latest grave." 
 Formulated theology has entertained it as the fundamen- 
 tal problem, but cannot settle it. Science has grappled 
 with it in vain. Above the proudest flights of reason, 
 above the sweep of tube and lens, beyond the language 
 of the spectroscope, where human eye has never rested, lies 
 the mysterious realm through the silent gate of death. 
 
 The instinct of immortality was not born of any creed. 
 The Church cannot claim it as her offspring. It is the nec- 
 essary outgrowth of the human organization. It was old 
 when love for the first time bent over the couch of death 
 and left its roses and kisses there. In spite of conflicting 
 creeds and dogmas, the universal soul of man rebels 
 against oblivion with an instinct that implicates nature. 
 Either love and devotion and honor and heroism and 
 
 608
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 genius are immortal, or nature, at whose hands we receive 
 the unanswerable instinct, is false. The argument of in- 
 stinct is in its very nature conclusive. It is of the same 
 nature as that of sense. 
 
 This is an age peculiarly sensitive to the charge of 
 superstition. Skepticism is rife among the masses, but this 
 fact is itself fraught with a weighty meaning. "History 
 repeats itself" is an adage, but its vast significance is under- 
 stood and felt by few souls. The life of nature is but the 
 ceaseless movement round a spiral, a circle with an ever 
 increasing diameter. Through doubts and questions the 
 world crept into the light of faith. One grand revolution 
 of the divinely ordained process has been completed and 
 doubts and questions now begin again, but this time 
 farther from the center, on a grander scale. 
 
 These doubts and questionings will lead humanity to 
 prouder heights and more glorious beatitudes when they 
 shall have completed another revolution. The world's 
 highest faith to-day began in the doubts and questions of 
 brutal ignorance. What, then, shall be the issue of those 
 which were born of the telescope and the laboratory ? 
 The proud champions of unbelief are doing a grand work. 
 Every triumph of Ingersoll will in the great revolutions 
 of God's design be found to be a sermon for the truth. He 
 is fast defeating his own ends by hastening the world over 
 its second desert of doubt. 
 
 Science will struggle on with glass and lens till it 
 
 609
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 learns that love gives no lines in the spectroscope, that 
 honor is without physical properties, and conscience is 
 unaffected by the galvanic current. 
 
 Skeptical scientists object to the doctrine of immor- 
 tality, because they cannot demonstrate it with their sci- 
 ence. We cannot scientifically demonstrate that we love 
 our friends, but we know we love them. We cannot prove 
 that beauty exists, yet do we not know that it exists ? It 
 may be that the scientist is unable to prove the existence 
 of God, but every spirit knows that God is. No mathe- 
 matical formula can prove the immortality of the soul 
 but the unformulated science of intuition assures it. 
 
 The conservatism of the universal mind retains the 
 achievements of science, and will, by and by, use them in 
 the demonstration of those very truths which now they 
 are used to disprove. 
 
 \ * fHETHER against the will of science, or in accord- 
 ^ ance with it, her grandest revelation is that the 
 Christian religion is based in the organic constitution of 
 man. 
 
 Every element of the soul, every faculty of the mind, 
 has its mate in the form of a cosmical law. We possess 
 the faculty of reason, and accordingly there exists the 
 law of causation. We possess an instinctive love of 
 music, a distinct and separate faculty of the mind, and 
 there exists the law of harmony. Our mathematical 
 
 610
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 instinct finds its counterpart in the eternal relations of 
 time and space, number and quantity. There are just 
 as many faculties of the mind, hence functions of the 
 brain, as there are laws in the universe. No more, no 
 less. There is no universal principle that has not its 
 representative organ in the human brain. Hence the 
 mental faculties and the natural laws are mutual keys. 
 We believe that the evolutionists have unnecessarily 
 weakened their own cause by a false definition of faculty. 
 They would make the primitive faculties of the mind only 
 so many habits. But the question arises, whence the first 
 impulse that was the necessary antecedent to the first act 
 of the faculty ? Acts cannot become habitual nor heredi- 
 tary until they have been performed at least once. But 
 it requires a faculty to perform them for the first time. 
 Hence the essential characteristics of the faculty the 
 power to give impulses and the skill to perform must 
 have existed prior to the influences of habit and heredity. 
 The fact of manifestation through the instrumentality of 
 a cerebral organ is the one and only unmistakable evi- 
 dence of a primitive faculty. 
 
 Light is doubtless the natural agency by which the 
 power of vision has been developed. Yet light could no 
 more originate that germ of a distinct mental faculty that 
 lies behind all phenomena of vision, and by which we 
 translate those phenomena, than it could create the acorn 
 whose involved potency it simply evolves. The eye existed 
 
 611
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 potentially or the light could not have developed it. Man 
 is as he is because of his environments, but we cannot say 
 that man is because of his environments. We are at least 
 driven to the assumption that matter held a human po- 
 tency independent of all environment. That potency was 
 the germs of human faculties, God-created and God-im- 
 planted. The magic finger of the sunbeam touched them 
 and they awoke, and hammering upon the anvils of mat- 
 ter began to forge, from the materials of their environ- 
 ments, the only weapons they can use, organs. Thus we 
 see why an organ is the only infallible criterion and cre- 
 dential of a faculty. And we see the force of the foregoing 
 reasoning when we remember that the human brain holds 
 an organ whose function is divine worship. Environ- 
 ments could not have created that organ. They could only 
 have developed it. Its "living germ " lay back of all en- 
 vironments, as a divine prophecy, and as proof of the 
 reality of that to which it corresponded. 
 
 Since faculties are as their organs, and since organs 
 are formed by the living principle, out of the material of 
 their environments, it is not wonderful that man should 
 be as his environments. Different environments would 
 doubtless have caused a different mode of action in the 
 faculty of divine worship. Indeed, we have a proof of 
 this. In the heathen mind this faculty gives an instinc- 
 tive desire to find an objective in idols of w T ood and stone. 
 Yet after all the essence of its action is divine worship. 
 
 612
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 And there is a limit beyond which environments cannot 
 produce modifications. They may, however, thwart the 
 effort of the faculty to forge a material organ, hence the 
 significance of extinct species. 
 
 I HE atheist tells us there is no God, but science puts 
 
 ^ its ringer on the God-organ, an organ whose func- 
 tion it is to produce that moral sensation known as rever- 
 ence for God. It produces this effect invariably in savage 
 and in civilized man. Has Nature thus erred ? Has she 
 given us a God-organ, and no God to meet its demand ? 
 a stomach forever doomed to hunger in the presence of 
 imaginary food ; lungs strangling for air in the depths of 
 a universal vacuum ; an ear forever straining to catch the 
 voice of harmony while nature shrinks beneath the wing 
 of everlasting silence ; an eye forever gazing into the 
 blackness of universal night, while no wave of ether 
 touches with its trembling fingers the bosom of the stars ? 
 
 What should we say of such inconsistency in Nature ? 
 And yet to give us a love of God, when there is no God 
 to love, would be as base a falsehood. Every one believes 
 in the eternal consistency of Nature. The atheist has but 
 transferred his worship from God to Nature, and no argu- 
 ment can convince him that she would for once be incon- 
 sistent, but he must tell us why she gave us a God-organ 
 and no God. 
 
 Every precept and every exhortation of the Christian 
 
 613
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 religion is the recognition of some particular function of 
 our being, and every prohibition is the recognition of its 
 liability to perverted or diseased action. 
 
 The ethics of the Christian religion is based on the 
 principle of right and wrong, and science lays its finger on 
 the organ of conscientiousness. Prayer is as much an 
 organic function of the soul as digestion is of the physical 
 system, and for the same reason there is a prayer-organ. 
 
 Will the atheist tell us that nature has given us a 
 prayer-organ and has given us nothing to pray to? One 
 has said that " if there were no God, it would be neces- 
 sary to invent one," for the prayer-organ demands a God 
 as much as the lungs demand air. 
 
 Christ said, " Love thy neighbor as thyself," which was 
 only the organic language of benevolence. He taught the 
 doctrine of spirituality, and science points to the organ 
 of spirituality. And so it is that every teaching of Chris- 
 tianity responds to an organic necessity of our being. The 
 decalogue is written on every human brain. Immortality 
 is an organic instinct. As the migratory bird flies toward 
 the south guided by the faultless pilot instinct, so the soul 
 flies heavenward by an instinct as faultless. 
 
 Christianity is a reality or our instincts are false. 
 God lives or nature lies. We leave our earthly home but 
 to find a better and a brighter one, or over all that is 
 there hang the spectral lenses of deception, and falsehood's 
 elements were blended in the womb of being. 
 
 614
 
 Heaven Our Home. 
 
 \ i I HETHER heaven be a material place or a spiritual 
 ^ condition is a problem that falls outside the pale 
 of our intuitions. For aught we can know, it may be the 
 grand center of centers around which revolve in eternal 
 gyrations the unmeasured systems. Or it may be that it 
 exists independently of space, that its place is wholly 
 spiritual, and that just under the thin veil of materiality 
 around us, above us, and beneath us lies the ineffable realm 
 of the Eternal. 
 
 Whatever may be the essence of heaven, we may rest 
 assured that it will afford the opportunities and conditions 
 of eternal soul growth. The buds that on earth have 
 fallen before their time shall blossom there in fadeless 
 beauty. Genius shall exhibit its divine allegiance, and 
 love shall be crowned the eternal queen. 
 
 There comes a time to the reverent; soul when the veil 
 is lifted, and in the awful hush of that moment we call 
 death, when the fetters are falling from the spirit's limbs, 
 amid strains of music soft as the rustle of wings, it is per- 
 mitted to look upon the unveiled splendor. And often, 
 very often, it beckons to us and whispers with its latest 
 breath, " I hear them now," always laying peculiar stress 
 upon the word "now," which indicates that through the 
 presence of this divine instinct it had been listening. On 
 how many a dying couch have the sacred words, " The 
 pure in heart shall see God," found their last and best 
 verification ! 
 
 615
 
 Heaven Our Home, 
 
 But science cannot reproduce the vision of the dying. 
 Their own faint whispers cannot portray it. We must go 
 down to the dark water. The details of the passage are 
 known only to those who embark in the unseen ship. We 
 cannot tell how, nor when, nor where, nor amid what 
 sights and sounds, we shall enter the unseen realm. We 
 only know that while beyond the chill flood silence 
 reigneth and 
 
 No sound of gently dipping oar 
 Hints to us of the other shore, 
 
 there is still the voice of a divine fact within that 
 whispers, "It is well." The spirit lays its listening ear 
 against the great heart of being, and learns an awful secret 
 that it cannot tell, a secret, at the sound of which it leaps 
 triumphant from the arms of pain, flame-wreathed and 
 singing, thorn-crowned and rejoicing. 
 
 " It must be so : Plato, thou reasonest well, 
 
 Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, 
 
 This longing after immortality? 
 
 Or whence this secret dread and inward horror 
 
 Of falling into naught ? Why shrinks the soul 
 
 Back on itself, and startles at destruction ? 
 
 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us ; 
 
 'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter \V\ 
 
 And intimates eternity to man." V \ 
 
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