HOME

 ONE of the brightest pages in the annals of our race, is that which is connected with the love of home. Home is the sacred spot, where the heart has garnered up its choicest earthly treasures; where the character is chiefly formed; where the natural affections are cherished and fostered; where the mind begins to expand; where those habits are formed that assure to industry its appropriate rewards. May we cherish them in ourselves and foster them in our children. In the formation of a proper virtuous character, the influence of home is most important, as well as in the production of the highest happiness. At home, the natural affections receive their culture; at home, the young heart finds something to love, and something to reciprocate that love. The expressions of kindness and affection, made by a father, a mother, a brother, or a sister, call into active service similar feelings in him to whom they are addressed; while the intensity of such feelings is not dissipated by the number or multiplicity, of its objects; nor chilled by the indifference, the neglect of a stranger’s actions, or a stranger’s inattentions. At home, the filial and fraternal feelings find an atmosphere congenial to their growth; and in our riper years, with what delight we review the scenes of our childhood. How the recollections of them strengthen the feelings nurtured in our youth. The hill, the garden, the tree, the nil, and the rich green grass of the meadows, all increase the ties of attachment to the friends that form the centre of attraction to our little world of home.

How many hallowed associations come thronging upon the mind, as we look back to our childhood’s home! The very word stirs the deep fountains of feeling within the breast, and warms even the chilled heart of old age with a glow of unwonted emotion. At the touch of memory’s wand, forms long since mingled with the dust—” bright dreams buried in the far dark past,” and scenes that have vanished like “fancy’s fairy frostwork,” start up in all the freshness of life and reality, until we forget the present, and are alive only to the recollection of the past. We see once more the beloved and revered father,  whose counsels and example taught us that wisdom’s ways are ways of pleasantness, and who was to us the prototype of all earthly noble ness and excellence. Again, we hear the voice of the tender mother whose unwearied love made the sunshine of our childhood, or share her caresses with the brothers and sisters whose joys and sorrows were identified with our own. For a few brief moments, we throw off the cankering fetters of care, and rejoice in the warmth and brightness of our early youth, ere yet the heart had learned the sad lesson of doubt, or treachery, or decay. But in thus looking back, does no painful remembrance throw its dark shadow over the brilliant hues of niemorv s picture? Does no whisper of accusing conscience, reminding us of neglect or unkindness toward any member of the now broken domestic circle, disturb the soul as it gazes on the record of the past? Alas—how bitter is the thought that we might have done far more to contribute to the happiness and improvement of those so dear, if the spirit of Christ had dwelt uniformly in us! That in a thousand in stances, our waywardness or thoughtlessness gave an additional pang to the Warm hearts that beat only for us, and which are now cold and still in death! But repentance, however deep, is unavailing—no sorrow or remorse, can give us back the golden hours of childhood, or restore to our embraces the loved and lost.

But though the past can never be recalled, it is still in our power so to improve the present that we can look back upon it, in the evening of life, with gratitude and pleasure. Those who are still sheltered under the wing of parental love, and those who in maturer age are presiding over a home of their own, are alike interested in any suggestions that may tend to make that home what it should be—the sweetest and most attractive spot this side heaven. How delightful to enter a house like that of which the Psalmist speaks—” a tabernacle filled with the voice of rejoicing ;“ not the vain mirth which exists in connexion with sin, and often conceals an aching heart, but the solid cheerfulness which springs from “peace of conscience, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” Here is a united and happy family—friendship comes in to draw more closely the bonds of nature—all the members suffer or enjoy together; every care is divided, every sorrow diminished, and every joy redoubled by communion and sympathy—and in this earthly intercourse a foretaste is enjoyed of that blessedness which awaits the righteous at the right hand of God in heaven. The effects of such domestic happiness on the character and habits of the children of a household, cannot be easily estimated. As they go out into the world, the remembrance of a father’s faithful counsels, and a mother’s  tender love, will constitute a shield to ward off the fiery darts of temptation, in the hour of severest conflict, these strong cords will draw the inexperienced youth back from the “counsel of the ungodly,” the “way of sinners,” and the “seat of the scornful.”

Whose home is happy? Is it his who is the owner of hundreds of thousands of dollars—whose walls are bright with exquisite pictures, and whose parlors are furnished like a palace? Perhaps so; it may be that his is a very happy home; but the wealth, and the pictures, and the costly furniture do not create that happiness. They may, in deed add very much to the enjoyment of the heart which is at peace without them, but such things are not indispensable to a happy home.

But his is a happy home, even if it be but in a single humble room, who has dear friends, or at least, one friend, awaiting l and who loves him so that every effort is made to render it comfortable and pleasant ;—who meets him with a glad face, and is true in the very heart’s core to him. His is the happy home who carries to it an unselfish and affectionate disposition, and a temper sweetened and made gentle by the discipline of life. There may be no picture on the walls, no carpet on the floor, and the furniture may be scanty indeed,—it matters not—if love and peace are there, the home of the man is happy. Love is the basis of all true joy and pleasure. Selfishness is the bane of life—the darkener and destroyer of home. Why will not men believe it? Why, at least, will not the poor believe it? How superlatively foolish in those who have nothing else there, to cast out love and loving kindness from their homes. If the rich man who has his portion in this world can afford to do this, the poor certainly cannot.

There is much more misery thrown into the cup of life by domestic unkindness than we might at first suppose. In thinking of the evils endured by society from the malevolent passions of individuals, we are apt to enumerate only the more dreadful instances of crime; but what are the few murders which unhappily pollute the soil of this Christian land—what, we ask, is the suffering they occasion—what their demoralizing tendency, when compared with the daily effusions of ill-humor which sadden, may we not fear, many thousand homes?

We believe that an incalculably greater number are hurried to the grave by habitual unkindness than by sudden violence; the slow poison of churlishness and neglect is, of all poisons, the most destructive. If this is true, we want a new definition for the most flagrant of all crimes; a definition which shall leave out the element of time, and call those actions the same, equally censured by the righteous government of Heaven, which proceed from the same motives, and lead to the same result, whether they be done in a moment, or spread out through a series of years. Habitual unkindness is demoralizing, as well as cruel. Whenever it fails to break the heart, it hardens it. To take a familiar illustration: a wife who is never addressed by her husband in tones of kindness, must cease to love him, if she wishes to be happy. It is her only alternative. Thanks to the nobility of her nature, she does not always take it. No; for years she battles with cruelty, and still presses with affection the hand which smites her; but it is fearfully at her own expense. Such endurance preys upon her health, and hastens her exit to the asylum of the grave.

Let home be the nursery of truth, of refinement, of simplicity, and of taste. Study to make it attractive to your children by every means in your power, and lose no opportunity of improving their minds and cultivating their home affections. Let system and order, industry and study, taste and refinement, be cultivated at home, and comfort, harmony, and peace will reign within your dwelling, however humble. Do your children love music, or drawing, or flowers? In courage their taste to the utmost of your ability. Indeed, where the love of music pervades a family, and is judiciously cultivated, it is an important aid in the training of children; for the child whose soul is touched with melody easily yields to the voice of affection, and seldom requires severity. More than this, the harsh tones of the father’s voice, as he commands, and the cutting tones of the mother as she forbids, become, milder and more persuasive, if accustomed to join with their children in these recreations, and thus both parents and children are mutually refined and elevated. Let me add that I can not conceive of any purer enjoyment than is felt by the head of a family, as wife and children gather in about him, and pour forth their sweet voices in songs of praise at the morning sacrifice and evening oblation. If the father has money to spare, I do not doubt that he might make a good investment in a piano, a melodeon, or some other instrument to accompany the voices of his wife and children, provided always that practice on these instruments be not allowed to interfere with the practice of the kneading-trough, the washboard, or with any other duty that a true woman, be she daughter, sister, wife, or mother, ought to understand. These duties and these pleasures are in no degree incompatible with each other. Whatever tends to develop the intellect, to refine the taste, and purify the affections, may find a fitting place in every house.

The loveliest spot on earth is, or should be, home. Man loves the green sunny spots of earth. A tradition seems to lurk in the memory even of the dweller amidst bricks and mortar which inclines his soul with an undefined longing towards Nature arrayed in her unadorned simplicity. There is a charm about the idea of the greenwood shade, and a couch of velvet grass, which fascinates the man in his childhood, and grows with him, as years increase, into absolute fond ness; as if the capacity for the original nomade existence he enjoyed was destined by the unalterable laws of his constitution never to be eradicated. Hence, the flowers we see tended with so much care in the squalid districts of our large cities, and the arid patches, with plants pining in the shade, cultivated with an assiduity which apologizes for many a grave error. But of all the places which Providence, by the instrumentality of an advanced degree of civilization, has created for the comfort of man, is a home.

Then beautify your premises. Every person who owns a foot of earth or has the lease of a southern wall, whereon to let a vine creep up, and lets May or June go by without improving the opportunity of doing something for their beautification, should be considered remiss in a very important duty. No matter if you don’t own the house and yard you occupy, still plant flowers and vines and shrubbery for your own comfort and your own heart’s sake. -

Let the flowers look upward in every place,
Through this beautiful world of ours;
For dear as the smile of an old friend’s face,
Is the smile of the bright, sweet flowers.

I would be glad to see more parents understand that when they spend money judiciously to improve and adorn the house, and the ground around it, they are in effect paying their children a premium to stay at home as much as possible and enjoy it; but when they spend money unnecessarily in fine clothes and jewels for their children, they are paying them a premium to spend their time away from home—that is, in those places where they can attract the most attention and make the most display.

Six things, says Hamilton, are requisite to create a happy home. Integrity must be the architect, and tidiness the upholsterer. It must be warmed by affection, and lighted up with cheerfulness, and industry must be the ventilator, renewing the atmosphere, and bringing in fresh salubrity day by day; while over all, as a protecting glory and canopy, nothing will suffice except the blessing of God.