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." 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