V TIIK OR, The Key to a Nobler Life BY C. E.\ SARGENT, A. M. WITH LETTER OF INTRODUCTION BY MRS. LUCRETIA R. GARFIELD. KING, RICHARDSON & CO., Publishers, SPRINGFIELD, MASS. DBS MOINES, IOWA. SACRAMENTO, CAL. 189O. ftm 1 1 1 inniiiifai 10 Ad <*&****, fai UM r*" 1. W Wtu_ C Kim, i ir ^- -*-'i i nil i--iiiifiu ii iiiiiim ,r r peace be in thy home y within thy h Ed. /Psych, Library PREFACE. HE reader will notice that we have confined ourselves in the treatment of this work almost exclusively to what is termed the " scientific method." We have not only regarded home itself as an institution of nature, but in the treatment of almost every subject we have tried to involve the exposition 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 our aim to make this book a scientific treatise on the vari- ous 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 so- ciety 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 thus been produced, but the undisputed fact that all the while the old-time home love has been slowly but surely fading away, is sufficient proof that they have not 1503271 iT -bed the obj- h they were written. It ia true that the word "home" is on- in human language, that t iU origin to an innate .* '1 that this eiir like all others grows at its own a< cssions of sentiment Li the great number of those beautiful pro> \ constitutional remedies. B charactr those moral diseases that af nan sot 1 tlic remedies we have PREFACE. T edies. The one organ we have aimed to reach is that which is the most central and vital of any in 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 aight did not their cancerous rootlets reach down into the ixmlness of perverted homes. Still, what a world would this be were it not for the in- stitution 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 divine protection hovers over the slow-breathing multi- tude like the shadow of a great wing ! This book is the product of one not hoary with experi- ence, but of one who has tasted a little of the bitter water, and who has written from the depths of conviction. We hope that the public and the critics will receive his effort w ith feelings as kindly as those with which it is offered, and he will feel that from his soul a burden has been lifted. S. CONTENTS. PAUB. i . . . . lli . . X) i: 1. THE NATURE OF HOME. . . 15 1 TKR II. "F Id 'ME, , l-TEB ZL : . . , . . 35 , 42 ll \: , . . 49 : VI. REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS, . . . . , , . . 73 < IIAI'TKK VII. AMUSEMENTS FOR THE HOME, .... , . . 81 i AITEB VIII. 91 CONTENTS. vii PAGE. CHAPTER IX. JOYS OF HOME, , . . . . 97 CHAPTER X. EDUCATION OF OUR GIRLS, 105 CHAPTER XI. EDUCATION OF OUR BOYS, 119 CHAPTER XII. BOOKS FOR THE HOME, 127 CHAPTER XIII. EVENINGS AT HOME, . 135 CHAPTER XIV. SELF CULTURE, 145 CHAPTER XV. SUNDAYS AT HOME, 159 CHAPTER XVI. RESOLUTIONS AND INDIVIDUAL RULES OF LIFE, . 169 CHAPTER XVII. CORRESPONDENCE AND FORMS, 175 CHAPTER XVIII. MANNERS AT HOME, 193 CHAPTER XIX. FAMILY SECRETS, . . . . 218 CHAPTER XX. DUTIES OF HOME, 222 CIIAI'TKR X x IKNTMBS CIIAITKI: X \ II. 287 \ 1*1 KR XXIII. II "Mr. . . i i.\v . 261 II s HOME, IIAITKK XXVII. \ 285 AT II MM K. . . 291 MX. SUCCESS OB i i>o WED AT HOME, 297 KS ABOUT GENIUS, 306 ;: xxxi. COURAGE TO MEET LIFE'S DUTIES 317 < MATTER XXXII. CONTENTS. ix PAOK. CHAPTER XXXIII. LEAVING HOME, ... 338 CHAPTER XXXIV. MEMORIES OF HOME, . 347 CHAPTER XXXV. TRIALS OF HOME, 352 CHAPTER XXXVI. SORROW AND ITS MEANING, 359 CHAPTER XXXVII. THE WIDOW'S HOME, 371 CHAPTER XXXVIII. HOMELESS ORPHANS, 376 CHAPTER XXXIX. HOMES OF THE POOR, 383 CHAPTER XL. HOMES OF THE RICH, 390 CHAPTER XLI. THE OLD-FASHIONED HOME, 401 CHAPTER XLII. OUR LAST FAREWELL OF HOME, 412 CHAPTER XLHI. HEAVEN Oxjn HOME, 421 PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. im: m:.\m:i: : Perhaps a word from the publishers of volume would be aj-; ri^ht here. the date of the f<> tion .uith>r lias graduated from college with high honors, and truly can we say that r; does am tion of learning bestow its diploma upon one whose faculties are so broadly developed, or who has been more earnest in oration for a life work in ice of mankind. Believ- ing that the ministry of the following pages will ennoble tho heart, purify the mind and elevate that sacred spot around which cluster our joys and our woes, we are Most sincerely yours, KING. RICHAKP- THE FOLLOWING LETTER OF INTRODUCTION WAS ADDRESSED TO REV. O. B. CHENEY, D. D., PRES. OF BATES COLLEGE, ME. fc /L^^^. ^e. *^~^~ , J* ^ *0r*+^* *+~* AN'S life's a book of history: The leaves thereof are days; The letters, mercies closely Joined The title is God's praise. THE NATURE OF HOME. UR home is the one spot on earth where is concentrated the largest per cent, of our earthly interest. There are few human be- ings without a home or the memory of one. The vast multitude that surges through the streets of the great city is made up of indi- vidual 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 and gorgeous tapestry and plushy carpets await their coming. There are those who walk the frosty pave- ment with cold and bleeding feet, whose homes are in damp and dreary cellars, 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 peace and joy and and fn. with sunl': heulthfi; me be a palace, a cot lav u gu me. M)iil it '1, to a certa cs. Of tli .\anl IN lnit ; fill if tin- outward i- rvcra t: :e8sionof the in inasmuch as n. .ti> al w. .'-nee. ; hovel I c and 1 iwell, nor the palace wlu-K -,6 of love ran he a true h- ;.ie is the resort vi\ of Joy, of peace and plenty, where Supporting and supported, polished friend* Ami dear relation* mingle into bliss." Next to religion, tin- h Jiicnt is the thf human lira: L At t: heart a\v :d c.f the in is dead t ^ouud unti D harm. rd is k, when :-s and taking up the sound prd it as if it could not let it die, so many a from i :. but ire of our early D the . until " i.e loosed or the l>e broki t recal! 1 triumj ". ; but . that . I \vill not dim tl.. pic- THE NATURE OF HOME. 19 ture. Whatever else the heart may forget, it cannot for- get 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 chords 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 heauty there." But the ministry of home consists not alone in its fond memories and hallowed associations. It is the great con- servator 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 o ( , I UOXE. ncea of the ro: ling, stormy ! iijiin may not recall all the experiences, ".jles and trilling manhood; 1 >od honi he h< ; 'holographed uj. : fade away. I' Whatever else the lu place of i .not f who is soon to lay off the ami mds to guidi f fiIE NATURE OF JloME. 21 When, think you, were fashioned the pillars of that colossal character ? Did they spring up to meet the emer- gencies of fame and power? No! they were sculptured in the sacred quarry of the cradle with that chisel which only a mother's hand can wield. When we stand in the presence of art's grandest achievements we feel like bow- ing before that genius which can take from the hand of nature a block of marble and hew away the chips that hide a waiting angel. But the mother of Garfield took from the hand of God the unformed elements of a human character and shaped them into something it were blas- phemy to compare with the proudest creation that ever leaped from the brain of genius a God-like man. " O wondrous power! liow little understood! Entrusted to a mother's mind alone, To fashion genius from the soul for good." No argument is necessary to convince us of the potency of home influence in shaping character. There are cer- tain truths to which it is only necessary to call attention, 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 recognized and taught in the trite maxims of every-day life. Napo- leon understood well the nature of home and its mission when he said, "The great need of France is mothers." An old Scotch proverb says, "An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy." Mohammed said, " Paradise is ut the feet of mothers." u of fr. with all of ihlies 01 fail in t: ilil \\ill till t: :is shout ot I .ml fathers, that i . '. :>e is in you : and the instruments which h which to fit r t this s of ho ts of their 1 ame of : the than tl plots of If your bov :xl at L THE NATURE OF HOME. 23 not 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 halls to discuss the great problems that confront the civil- ization of the nineteenth century. Now, if home may be so powerful an influence for good, how important becomes the cultivation of the home senti- ment. To be destitute of this sentiment is almost as great a misfortune as to be destitute of the religious sentiment. Indeed, we believe that one cannot possess a true and ex- alted 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 .a nature, and so \ su It In.- of In :..nr. I t.out ol timbers < Is as a : :ere are tln< who are the possession of an '/"/ In me. Tin- b < . The world called II" kings and peas,. imj.1 :hre>hol , which lie reared in Ar. i-e of tl.' origin of tl. of home is found in itsohvi. tation to the end it S and in the striking analogies which v t be- general : of nnti; vth in nat: , and B MCO by a ]>re-existing guardian. ;i of the oak is nourished and 1 by the u until it is strong enough to draw iirectly !' earth, and to \\iih.stand the -enrolling sun. So it must be with the germ vave in ! '1 if we wish it t.. become a grand and i formity, rishmenl of :.-. We THE NATURE OF HOME. 25 should see that there is the proper spiritual soil from which the little human germ may gather wholesome :r:; lay -.IT the armor, may find lov- steps to ;ill inf.t: > of life in the a;_rgi re we t< |] in the great ,\c shou!'! ;:i its va cesaary to n late tin- l.uiiKiii mind, as it I ,te life. And this God has done in :C. " Home 's not merely four square walls, Though w' 1 ' 1 pictures bung and gilded: Home to where affecUou calls, >* the heart Jialh builded! >! go watch the faithful dove, rig 'nrath the heaven above as; Home is where there ' one to lovel Home is where there ' one to love asl M Home ' not merely roof and room, > cheer it! What b home with none to meet* * to welcome, none to greet us ? Home to sweet, and only sweet, Where there ' one we love to meet us! " TUB POWER OF THE HOME. INFLUENCES OF HOME. T is a law of all initiate life that it is suscept- ible 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 surgery. 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 de- nial 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 succeeds. 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 ; ><- aim- t without 1>: \V.- . < all influences, it is twig is bent tl less true of the mind and soul. :!ii::,.il 1 lOOSe Mg. Who does not know that the n of ti holly <1 t on the manner in which the pupj j'rinciple is recogni/.ed in the old hard to teach an old Wl be our views conccrnin >ral and spiritual relations of the human to the hrii! n. it cann< i that the laws whi< life of each are essentially the same. The difference : quantity rather than qua" What a grand virtue : ' II ,\v charming in chfldhoodl I' '.ime in manhood ! Then let us : the ease with which patience is created or ill in the young animal. f children to outward influences is f imitation, and tl tlu-m for a wise purpose. Ori. 1 child!, would influence the acts of a child we si. INFLUENCES OF HOME. 29 set him an example, we should act as we wish 1dm 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, arid 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 influ- ences. Its safety consists alone in the watchfulness of its guardians. The soldier has his hours of duty, but the par- ent in whose hands is entrusted 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 i-hilil. I: . ti, ' the fhil.i the D the it. be ' ; allow to In- wir ' ai not - iild, an awful :iMl>ility is thrown UJK>- . : inmost soul ure the c> cliihl is trying t" Til-- degree of its true nieiuiin Phil. >ophors tell us, not i:i '1 on tl- 'ions that never cea- r hand ( INFLUENCES Oi- HOME. 31 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 communi- cated along the nerve of your arm to the pendulum, and that motion has gone past your recall, on its eternal errand among the stars. What a solemn thought I You are the parent of the infinite ! n ..iii \\t> >. .1 livo a .c of the Iniiii. preai al trutli an intliu'iu-f in its v of all tin- m\ri.id d. ;id but lives t in the character of our ud thor. We are (lie outgrowth >f all the u'r.unl : of all < > :.'. . ' tho influence of a human tlun: treani from its source Flows seaward, bow lonely soever its course, what some land U gladdened. No star ever rose Aixl set without influence somewhere. Who knows What earth needs from earth's lowest crea life Can be pure In its purpose and strong in r And all life not be purer and stronger there A mother speaks a fretful word to a child at a cri when j ready wo: nee, and in : ir. ht-M .^ thinnest veil through wh: . !'.;: The penitenc .-old upon his lip. ti, its fountain, the heart ..ml child, the i. :lh. t!ie I INFLUENCES OF HOME. 33 a dark assassin. Who can trace to its ultimate effect that fretful word through all its ramifications to infinite conse- quences ? That word shall reverberate through the hails of eternity when planets are dust and stars are ashes. Does any one doubt that the infinite results, in the form of modified thought, speech and action, yet to be experi- enced from the assassination of our late beloved president, are all traceable to the early influences of home ? Who can tell how much of that enormous crime must be shouldered by the parents of Guiteau? But if the ulti- mate consequence of the assassin's evil deed can never be estimated, neither can the good deeds of his victim. Truly may it be said of the immortal Garfield, Such life as his can ne'er be lost; It blends with unborn blood, And through the ceaseless flow of years Moves with the mighty flood. His life is ours, he lives in us, We feel the potent thrill, And through the coming centuries The world shall feel it still. The web of human life is wove Not with a single strand, But every grand and noble man Holds one within his hand. And in that pulseless hand to-day There lies a strand of power, Whose gentle draft shall still be felt Till time's remotest hour. Of all human influences those of home are the most far reaching in their results. The mutual influence of broth- ers and sisters may be almost incalculable. There are many men who owe their honor, their integrity and their 3 Than i pure and i It th;it tli ill. in tlie s. This st-ntin sal tliut we t i-lji believing it purjKJse. O :it of d- !;e of II. -. hat v ujioii tin- ranvas of 1 , fi :u- fling- cliain of nioltfii gold around the dti f the night. But thrse d< 'ii her integrity. So \\v may lit-licve that this ;on which n. :d lieroes ..f l)i .is divinely < ':i closest communion ami t'> In; a both within the enchanted circle of home influence. >t an arrow in the air. It f .1 knew not where. " I t r':itlitl a s. It fi-11 on t-.irtli. I knew u. r wards ID an oak I fo^iuning to end, nd again In the heart of a f Bl'DS OF PROMISE. BUDS OF PROMISE. OME as a natural institution has for its pri- mary object the nurturing of those tender buds of promise which can mature in no other soil. But the human bud, unlike that f) of the flower, does not contain its future wholly wrapt up within itself, but depends more upon the hand that nurtures it. The rose bud, no matter in what soil it grows, no matter what care it receives, must blossom into a rose. No care or neglect, 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 govern the develop- ment of the human intellect, they perhaps might have traced the lightning's course through the infant brain of M Ne\v- I ' Shal-. 6 <>n a bosom, ami \ ..it the worl ti and fnr the hlossom. and let h-r : Tliat lud \\i\\ lops so rapidly as a human l>u not pull ajtart : that hud of j : hour "A: all: ijr pain Only a little funeral pall And empty arms again." DUDS OF PROMISE. -JC 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 promise that have been too early torn open by the thoughtless hand of parental pride. The crying sin of American 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 school rooms than in brooks and groves. Young 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 school room, 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 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 >n of the orator nnd the devo: So tli.it those v. > fill tli- them grand and gi> <>f future possi- i turning ; sweetest perfume > so r> rt. Tlie social forces of the present age are such as t .g childi iiarly liable to j has acquired such an impetus thn :rv inlli;. tliat the minds of infants early < ,at fata! of thought, uhirli roiilts in the thou- of human 1> glitfuln in childl: ,'h to 1 > to the natural infantile t only r, ually ,iii irreparali' Tin ; influence i. Tli- the ov. : of infa: tlic unnatural and abnormal infant mind: nnd the one evil enha: that with digestion in .ng child as tho BVDS OF PROMISE. 4l 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 hns procured a patent for an improvement on some article of the household furniture. " Who can tell what a baby thinks ? \Vlio can follow tho 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 an ebbing tidoi What does he think ef 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 ?" CHILDHOOD. .iinals are born in ;i somewhat condition, but n .<-lpless a* tin- 1m: Car*-. Mahout all natu: ' de- !ll tO quit' times i .1 of their children, minded .uently . Why is this '.' It is sinij'! cause tin- , or mo; :y, the- parental love, is not the outgrowth of a sense of duty. I tiiu t h we possess in common with the brute. 1 that throughout tin- \vhoh- animal tin- ; j.ossess t! in j-roj' . the lenness of the offspring. :s a universal institution, and < .ong as with the human. It was, ::i the etBDete of offspring. t accoin- ."'" SSgN CHILDHOOD. 43 pany its parents in their search for food, iicu 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 tc leave their young while they may attend to the duties im posed 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 provide for them a suitable home, but our observa- tion 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 inces- santly, 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, imd 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 the same amount of trouble. And since it is a law of our selfish nature that unless provision is made by special in- . the . oarth would i: ircnU are not <: ill the trouble* ami anxieties \\-\i. .'lit in i: Ml. The ho that of ; that \v< t that : ro bestowed \\ith i . la true t :< the sweetest joys of life, arc rooted in th- : hut these are all sc< .nd sul> 16 of childhood. II be only ; childhr K only that ;: found those 5 nil'. are necessary to fertilize .racier of the child came it to blossom and bear the fruit of a m>l>' Why !1 great men had homes illustrious urity of their influein >- ? Ti.> to be found in tho fart that the soil of home just thost- iiild'.s 1>. il. he figure, the face, the fcatur Why ; -o small shrunkei ; e ,l am l , manner sug- CHILDHOOD. 45 gost shriveled 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 of a character to be fashioned by the silent and imperceptible influence of his surroundings. And it is this which "Plants the great hereafter in this now." Silently as the falling of snow-flakes the character of that child is forming. We cannot see the bud unfold, and yet we know that to-morrow it will be a rose. So our per- ception 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 than by precept. A child may be told repeatedly that dishonesty is sinful, yet if he detect dishonesty in father, mother, sister or brother, .he will imitate the example. may a well . that -infulm-- ll.'W Shoillil lllotlnTH shtlli o of pasaioi; : like the >t. i iie rammer breeze that fan* the rose, Or eddies down MOM flowery j b bat UM Infant jnle that blows To-morrow with the whirl wind's writ Mothers! "ii of haracter wir however, we are so fatal t<> with .ilf will lew. Bt times that the ehil-:. , his are, should gaze full upon th<- hideoi. t the silken cord :o\v U sometiin - . . and lif i ocomrr lias given the follow itii'ul j< Always send your little chi tever cares may trouble ; a warm good -s as it goe '. ', . 1 i the ^toriny years whit!, one will be li :iertb, and welling up in the heart will rise the the with will IH-. his thrill of useful memo lies. Kiss your little child ': : what would the world be to as 10 children were BO more ? :;.: . - re than the dark before. '.at the learec are to the forest, Ere their sweet . ; uioes Hare been hardened iuto wood, ..? world ar Of a brigfator and *n , ..tie Than reaches the trunks below." HOME TRAINING. 1 HE Iraining of the child necessarily begins with the body, for the young child must be regarded chieily as a young animal. The animal is the first to be developed, and in every well born and healthy child the mani- festations 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 great- ness 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 plrysical sys- tem, and then on this as a foundation to rear the intellec- tual and the moral. If the physical is diseased the mental cannot be healthy. The most important element in a great man is a great body, great in health, in vital stam- ina, and in its capacity to become the foundation for the mind. In view of these facts it becomes of paramount impor tance that the mother have a knowledge of physiology, 4 N ".!! hllS III of mother till she pocaeweft MI. ! - place ad Not i a | 1 hoiild 1 f him. It i Decenary . -uld know just him when he is si not to do fr Iain. 1 him rtunity to l;iv his .4;ill in t mother rrmi-mlxT this : of a sick child i sin. -3 its raothi ; A healthy chilr will his :\iire ' place of instiiu : ting and drinking. Those delicate conditions of the system in HOME TRAILING. 51 which it accepts or rejects nourishment are entirely be- yond the ken of reason. Through the whole animal king- dom, including man, there is an instinct which tells its possessor just what kind of food and how much its system requires. No tests of science could determine this. Tyn- dall may exhaust all his resources in trying to determine 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 of sinful men. And after being defeated in her attempt to poison and vitiate his taste, she would exclaim, "I fear my child is going to be eccentric." Some mothers are al- most terrified at seeing their child eat a piece of bread without butter, although writers on hygiene, whose books are within the reach of all mothers, are agreed that butter is one of the abominations of civilization. It is not our intention to write on the subject of health or diet, but so long as butter, spices and other unnecessarics are admitted to be evils, it seems unpardonably foolish, not to say wicked, to urge the young child to use them, especially since lie does not desire them, and shows by Ins actions that he 'would much prefer not to have his food polluted with such stuff. Let the mother refrain from pampering :!g and r franti i-and \\ho arc annually march: :i to dnmknrds' graves \v at awful in;;. Ktthcre. It is aduii; un\ . Id \\ itli i the ha 1 ' "1 \\ ill ! until his aj ; .Hid oth' All tl:> parental aut 1 1 in ' iMV i; i 1 1 ' ' : account fT the almost nni- I ; ami \vliat tl training to \\hicl; pring. I . So lon^' as children arc growii : h whirl. arc uni- 'd will ho full of dri: liich de prav. HOME TRAINING. 53 the thousand products of human depravity and a luxurious civilization conspire to destroy that pure instinct which God designed to be a peri'ect 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 something and didn't know what else to give them." We .presume 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 deprav- ity may result from a diseased condition of the digestion. with tlio *'. Al- - .inimt he afi. .tug of a : ' .A. Thus ( 4.ii(l the \\ithholdii .r child: ! roei the . ..f eatii. iit-ir childif-u ;ire I \\ liii-li a jiiece ol high' 1 -hildien get in something that tastes good HOME TRAINING. 55 to eat. Now this is a two-fold evil. It is both a physical and 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 ob- served 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 tc c::ct 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 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 is laying for him the foundation of a life of suffering. 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. U his first lesson in unseen s wen v ant of soil in which t All children ar> it, but tl.' grcn: -'th. \ shall la, How shall I kn-j. my c-liil he screams aiul will n iih anythi: ::it, what shall I d<>? Ti. \illfully injures li r i-liild by l;uo\\ ; I ' ' course, through ignor.i .'.ice. -v and natural thin ly let the child ; 1 .11. Chi! but tlii;- r child will !: {> his own you will let him. Whr-n ho screams : >t lawful for him to have, the treatmeir 'injde, let him scrruin. The human mind acts from witlmut them. The child scream- : ng of revenge b< Id. HOME TRAINING. 57 Now the only way to prevent a mental act is to take ,way the motives which prompt to the act. Hence the ray to break a child of the vice of screaming is to remove jhese 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 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 necessarj' 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 ouyld should be kept before his mind. But if he still resists, use the argu- ment of force, paying no attention to his cries and screams. II : the ; tic u .1 y< ing much. the unwise and inji:' when we sav meat be should b left ' till' C.I watches : <>> with i the necessities of the cas. valuable lesson from the cat. S : tin-in ; ::ieir jihysical v. ' . srnva^- :rge the case in the least I ea not v, . I 'm alV.iid my e rat it fcr : will x t the k. il'-T. hut HOME TRAINING. 59 Hie next mouse is usually eaten with a relish. Thus the cat is wiser than the human mother, for she is wise enough to entrust 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, " Who so 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. All sin con- sists simply in the acts that are prompted by instincts which have been depraved. Children's instincts are least depraved, for they are nearest to the source of all purity, llence the child's heart must always be the truest symbol of Heaven. We 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 w r orld from that false philosophy, 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 beating 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? : . It an in- 1 1 COmCS :.-.. A ! . lui- j. ami ! of resentmen He cannot easily be ; '.nowli-dp" in h b to\va: the . Ti.>- : ^er, hat: are among tho.se \vhii-h ve in common with tlu- ->, and \\hil. r tlie dominion of tl. much ;. A'.! to the whole miiul. the .irly as bad. S> ught . ' : : thus d i i -very .c of the i: f an intense true of the chilxl under tls It HOME TRAINING. 61 is the nature of fear, whether great or small, to repress all that is God-like and arouse all that is demoniac. You cannot inflict corporal punishment on a child without fill- ing his little heart with fear. It is a well known fact that under a cruel and tyrannical teacher the pupils rapidly be- come 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 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 does n'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 does n't need to be punished. Who would punish a child after 'lie had ac- knowledged 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 be- fore 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, doesn't ; .iici-s und.T whi it. . and A hil.l in a niinl'l < t with < h lie .:i uuutl- Wi ward .ihout tli- - . obeys the w! Hut hil'l ! The tn; cares . t ward act than fur t' DOt 80 Iimrli niak.- t!i- : ' ik hi : \ the - D OL Qdfl of hi- 'Wii conscience and the spur of duty. If the child -hmild d ; arcnt : y he a and in- :hut tlio other. .ild may _rs f entrusted with tln-ir o\vn freedom, those who arc free .%- ;k witli J'OM-d. He of < of anger, tlie very passion \\li\i-\i tlic .-r won! : ko attempt to II <1 this j>a>sio!i 1 1 her ajijifal to ].'. :vs5cd for tl i lit snhject fr thr p-ui- in tliat ea ihin the '>n of a 1 :n of home training. :-'-ssly for him. 1' il mar l>e ad- the thii; If \\liich shr : : may l>o well t- his sister and send her on .:id, with the understand- HOME TRAINING. 65 ing 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 uncom- fortable in the region of conscience. He should be re- minded, perhaps, during the evening, that he is under moral obligation to another who has performed a duty that lie 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 argu- ment 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 5 M . to call trash. N pract \vledge of these grand won,- :i. I is pardonable. } > ' are iken in some of v that : is a tbeorv. but it eals so mon sense and intuition of mankind as t dent of the argument of ai <-rience. i ild not con: to spoil a i! will th- !op a noble ( rs will son. ing. iwerful lungs who tin le lives ! 1 h.irdl\ \shd I :lieir .ichs,and intemperate nu-n have hemorrhage of the Inn.:- I >ese are toms of the wuue disease. .-re are many n . I:: : acher of the child. The eagle does : her s to school to le. governess, but chooses t<> i the duty herself, spiritual 1- r and chil! no other teat in tlie child's there are none to which the mother does not 1. key. individnalit ut all his originality and : tay be its natural tender com- ivilization tends directly toward jilr. ancl rsity, and individual peculiaritii-s. but the :c school does not recognize this : Low down in the scale of life we not it o hut little d^ all alikr. \V. oai any difference b< \o foxes of tlie same age and sex t logs and horses differ, because for been influences of man until th- tion corresponds to that of the . In the early ages men differed from one another far less than HOME TRAINING. 69 they do at present. Civilization and a tendency to diver- sity are so closely dependent on common causes that what- ever 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 educated at home. Every peculiarity of talent may be provided for. Then there is a great source of pleasure in the education of one's own children. It tends to perpetuate the author- ity 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 themselves and keep pace with their children in all their studies ; for although dutiful children will always respect their parents however ignorant they may be, yet intelligent parents, those capable of instructing their children, will be re- spected still more. Then, if for no other reason, the chil- of the parent ami the n-^j.. ;!d. 068, l>Ut affections and made them n: >es. N i. did care cease here ! .ally, _,'. and M-nt tl, . been < I ii this a ben of tin. nil turn foi national strife I : those l>oys ever cease to i hat !ly known that with th- ilh which we honor our pa Now the children of such mothers as we ha . utlly a sense of honor and j-an-ntal : :is and -. ith >ee why the cliildren usually religious. The uii life h woman is a stronger arg: lian all the silver irony of prostitir is. re are, of cour>e. 1m; -hers or fathers who can nd this is not necessary in order to iie doctrine we 1. . ..cated. There HOME TRAINING. 71 are but few boys and girls who go to college. Nor is it necessary to keep the children home from school. Th mother can superintend the education of a child even Jvhile 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. There seems to be a growing tendency on the part of mothers to entrust the training of their children to the hands of hired nurses. This is a great error. In the first place, its 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 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 comparatively 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 thou- n 4iiitl times that t D the boa n h HI at. > Bolter in bar oOee hold* UM key tM MMl; sad the It U who urap the coin >*neicr, and make* UM beloic who would be a M Boi (Mr bw feoUfl are, a ChrittUa man." REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. HE rewards and punishments of home should be analogous to those, if not identical with them, which God has already instituted as natural rewards and punishments. There should be little or nothing artificial 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 conscience is the natural reward for the performance of one's duty. If an artificial reward is substi- tuted for this, the motive is transferred from conscience to some selfish faculty, and the whole moral character becomes depraved. Hence no reward should ever be given for the mere performance 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, H is perfectly right and often wise to offer rewards. But 'mso tilings which his o\\ ! I iliilig to do, ami i Ulent lie- in a napkin \\ith. .ut OOUK. if it . own afford tli- \\' tlic sons.- of duty. It >hould pass iitnild n.it l>e re- min<: :t it. '1 ..-i's under which it offer a rew.ml t-> a child. \\'c would not ha :ood, li^ wards should be fnr those acts \\i 't apjirove. Siu-li acts, of bonld be of. ose which i! of the child, if i; ail. \vm; we i: t a base ^e^ made to supplement conscience in such a v, REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 75 come the ruling motive. If it be found that conscience is 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 re- sponse to the demands of sensual gratification. Is it un- reasonable to suppose that the foundation of this evil is laid in childhood through the pernicious practice of re- warding 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 give 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. 76 pecialh in the rilies. "f jjkati - ' .1 far gift than a book or even a steam enj: ttic worst the sul rewards iit to be fulfil. pens in many cases that i falsehood. All promises mad fulfilled, for the whole lift* character of the child m.: uli- ated promise. Let iu> j..tr.-nt assume >msi- '.esson i;. :s of home should be, as far as poss . point and making a d same of pun; which nature herself inflicts fur the offense. 'io natural punishment which Nature has Isehood is the suspicion and clis- ur fellow nv hood, he should be made to feel that he has d ne th.. < the susjncion of the whole family, should be turned upon him with a pitying d B withdrawal of the h 1 love of society, and in addition th- the ii . Selfishness is alwu REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 77 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 bene- fit which he anticipated from his selfish act. The other children should be made to feel that he is actually unwor- thy 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 self- ish man. God has made society on such a plan that it cannot tolerate selfishness. He has also arranged our na- ture so that the very best thing for the selfish man is to have society shun him. It is the 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 accompani- ment of his selfishness, that, it is founded in the everlasting relations of his social nature. When he becomes a man he OUR nous. >m socie he itill persists in his > .11 ill thru MI it ait'l the offense is C ... I' ..-..':' : . : irsued tl,.- . l.iM \\ill in ouree of two kinds ,f pi. same of: One. 1 ii- human miml i-. unable t<> necessan 1 the pain inllii tod lr. th a liii oonaequence tlie child rebels, at 1> e is made more sell i: >1 1 than before. He will and nn TO selfish as he grows - <-s to il punishment fi will rebel against that from the mere force of habit, will come to hate s< \ill be CM -Id aii'i rtiiin a morbid :it of ill will toward * I mi by tin- feeling tlia 1 him a debt, he may be led to commit some idful crime again>t his ft-llowmen. '. ;it H large per cent, of the pir.. hers, and murderers are sii' ^e of the unwise and illogical ion between the offenses and punishments of their childhood. One has truthfully said, " Caprice or violence in cor- recting will go far to justify the transgressor in his own REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS. 79 eyes at least ; he will consider every appearance of injus- tice as a vindication of his own aggression." Who has not seen a confirmation of this among school boys ? Often a boy is whipped by a teacher when if property managed he would willingly express his sorrow for the offense. But after the whipping he goes sullenly to his seat muttering to himself, "I'm glad I did it." He is glad 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 not inclined to take very impar- tial views of subjects. 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. There is no possible human act that is not right or wrong ; if right it is self rewarding, and if wrong it is self- punishing. It is the function of human authority to teach the transgressor wherein his transgressions punish them- selves. " A picture memory brings to m: I look across the years and see Myself beside my mother's knee. . . .. ** Hot wiaer BOW, a man (ray grown, My childhood'* need* are better known. My mother's chastening love I own. M Gray grown , but in our Father's sight A child still groping f To read hit works and ways aright. M I bow myself beneath hi* hand; That pain iUelf for good wa .i planned, I trust, bat cannot understand. "I fondly dream It needs mnxt be. That as my mother me, 80 with his children dealeth be. " I wait, and tnwt the end will prove That here and there, below, above, The "hflttiml 1> t > heals, the poln is lovel " AMUSEMENTS FOR THE HOME. human mind demands amusement. One of its constituent elements is a love of fun. No innate 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 sj^stem of home government which suppresses this element in the chil- dren. 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 cardi- nal vices, it is 'no wonder that he never laughed. But there is no evidence that he did not laugh. The character of his mission 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 8 Of I! laughed, the fact \v \Vc ;i! IK it ' . '. be inijx' Marriagi 1 im- poses obligat < re and work was exi Were it not for the supers "lly of so m said on th: he subject would be entirely superfluous. Probably but f peo- ple a! they have conscientious scruples against laugl. >ands of stern fa: :-ss all latigli- hoines, as a religious dut \vouM wledge to themselvi laughter to be wrong in the abstract, and yet somehow or other they manage to resolve every occasion for laughter into something that ought to be suppress* > to make homo agreeable, and even to furnish occasions for merriment is much as it : nisli f<>ol and shelter. Chi. '.d not be required to remain quiet fcl .ring .iiise the stern f he newspaper. If 1; me- t would be i: LJ to the children, it ; to do so. All parents should consider themselves under obligations to furnish at least u ie paper or magazine ex- AMUSEMENTS FOR THE HOME. 83 pressly for the children. Not one of the ponderous and 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 " or some other paper of similar character, or, perhaps, what is better 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 ob- tained, also healthful vocal exercise and elocutionary drill. Another source of amusement, peculiarly appropriate 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 : " The man that hath no music iu himself, Nor is not moved by concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils." M . it arc ili ' mil the on wl. icssage save in v, ins. We cannot stand ithont feeling the tios gnr I ; In mt f, cd our sou' 11 ; ;>:-iat(>, tln-ii. as :ini>ic. As v ht yon i'ii. It at all an ex- travagant belief, that much of tl: its remote origin am< Puritans in their cruel preesion of childish mirth at the family board. '1 families in \\ : "children >h>uld be seen but not heard." We ha\ with that doctrine. Such an idea could I 1 only in parental selfishness. In tl; f our ! fathers the chi! indeed, pitiable creatures. Hut we are gradually becoming more civilized on this point. The same principle in human nature that haa - for the "prevention of cruelty to an- imals" has > our sentiments inward chi: >o longer regard th.-m as so many wild beasts put into our hands to be tamed. Children are now allowed to 1 most of their time in the pursuit of fun and to laugh should mingle with their children in their sports and ^- [t ifl not unbecoming to a mother or a father to play with a child, but, on the contrary, it is quit.- coming; and ..trging one of the AMUSEMENTS FOR THE HOME. 87 highest duties that have been imposed 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 delights 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. Ar- ticles of food which we do not ordinarily like, when eaten in the presence of a loved one who does like them, actu- ally 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, al- most continually play with their young ; so does the lion, and probably all wild animals. Animals that cannot by any 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 chil- dren is a subject of more importance than most people are aware of. The oldest of a family of children often has a bad dispo- sition, and it is doubtless due to the fact that it had no 001 BOM*. ! i in ,3 are b 1 their minds ai pad. N >w, if law and bee. . while they are .Id be fouiul. . ason \\ '. irm her ;r home to leave it at tl: poasi' ' I.. el 1: :inl unhappy homes are seldom Ion' ITS. I'm let them :ip in their : likr ! :nl \\lieii tin- h.-ur >f reunion dr;. with its glad tidings and joyful welcome rilel ten ' hut will . ith open hearts and smilii. back again the same : y earned a\\ ay. tliat ' Hut children are not the only beings that. require amuse* incuts. All reqi lired by th shop, the office, or the store. Human being* need but very little of that kind of n- .d what the/ AMUSEMENTS FOR THE HOME. 80 get during the hours of sleep. If there could be found a vocation into' 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 vo- cation, 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 motion- less. Now suppose we discover that the machine is wear- ing 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 sufficient to simply stop the machine a few hours or days and then start it again ? Surely not, for half of it is now actually rusting out from the want 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 accomplish the desired result is to stop the part that has been continually running and start the other part. Tins illustration explains the whole philosophy of amuse- ments 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. OUi <.wn not. when roistering boy or tow or strike The bounding ball, or ki ride Tb mastered steed that, u the rider, lore* Th rasalng eoone, or when with ringing steel Tb* pollahed loe lb*r wi s 'n; All ptauing paitlrpM, iooooent deligbu, That gladden bearu yet impl and ninccre, Let lore parental fi; t lie borne, And eoDMcrate by tharing ; let it .-. . kind, approving smilM eacb merry game That <|n .ind in Uii Tbat beams from crimson cheek* and sparkling eytf lit own renew, and lire its childhood o'er." HOME SMILES. SMILE is the most useful thing in the world hi proportion to its cost. It costs absolutely nothing, but its utility is often beyond esti- mation. It comes as the involuntary and irrepressible expression of a sentiment that lies at the basis of human society. Smiles constitute a part of our language. There seem to be certain combinations of words that require to be supplemented with a smile be- fore they can have any meaning to us. The humors soul, shrouded in the mysteries of personal- ity, yearns to know the essence of other souls, as it were, to touch a band 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. Ac- quaintance, however, is not the proper word, but since human language affords no apter one we shall be obliged to use it. Why should we say that we are acquainted with this one and not with that one ? Acquaintanceship does not consist in a knowledge of an individual's peculiarities of character or disposition, for we sometimes feel ac- ud wiih IX.TSODS whose minds are k a to us. ; taml thrill. Thrir I ho', ^teri- 0118 a: Kr l turn is wholl eeted to us and which we c;. . and yet we feel perfectly acquainted re are others whose minds are as transparent as glass. >ns are perf< D the sight of all. We can almost antic ami vi t we \\ : think of speak '. utise, as we say, we are not acquainted with tl A :* not a con'. lity of .^ r it may be < ad primitive coramuj .'.ionalities of sock-ty have little weiglit. It is more strongly ma: in little chi can talk than in ol: Le. This .iay be, 'ural . In what then dees it consist? V passes b ails when a third party .Mr. , Mr. "? There is usually some form of salu- bo w or the shaking of h ihere is nothing of a permanent or essential nature in node of salutation differs in different nations inanities. The Turks fold their arms across tl. rs touch their noses : and in 'icrn Africa they rub their toes together. Bu > one act that accompanies all these different HOME SMILES. 93 modes, oiie 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 loneliness even in the midst of crowds. Souls cannot come into contact, but they can draw aside the curtain from the window. 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 members become unacquainted with each other. And there is noth- ing so difficult as to renew the acquaintance of brothers 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 springs up between the members of so many families originates in a lack of "smiles at home." US to or the habitual H of tli in the sense of the hi certain articles of dress g on all ,-.ial gra joy a: They se> anther's thoughtful face as \\hen th- the -k of l.i !, or with magic play tr - to twinkling s: :th which we would I as vases of house. 6 legal tender in every famil if kind; ! each member should be willing to take this currency at i value li of those disturbing inllu- ! i.f commerce. And. what than all. it can never be demo- for it bears the utahle stamp of the divine government. members of the family, almost as often as t meet, greet each other with a smile, : that meet in full gaze without a smile soo: sold. The mother, if she would keep the confidence of her son, must be lavish of HOME SMIL Hi). 95 her smiles. Mothers often weep in tlie 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. The smile is nature's cure for the disease of bashfulness. 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 ':hose having the charge of bashful children. Strangers shculd always eocourage a smile in a bashful child. Such children should be met with smiles rather than with words. The smile is tho only form of salutation that a bashful child can use. lie 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, 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 iivtc moroseness and oddity. .., hftbitaal ai mot* eral hea .ire especial! ease of the stomach r li ile* abo pr< tt growth of the religious ;- ', because tl. without a * -ens '.ly !> ti Culti- vate benevolence, for s by giv: : There are few souls that can "si and iiiunlt-r while they smile." Noi.- '. can nu: while iile fn.ni the heart. There may be the same movement .f the facial muscles, hut smiles are not merely contractions of certain u They are mental acte. The act- is philosophy in this haying, for all the music that we hear is that which the soul itself produces when it re- sponds to the myriad voices from without. These s< ami voices from nature, God's great orchestra, must be re- the soul's response before music to us. It is not the music without that we heai ition of it. soul be tuned to the same key so as to give .1 true response, rest assured that our lives will be filled with harmony and joy, for God's hand n< kes a dis- oord, B secret of human jy, then, is to keep th> harp in tune. To the spirit whose harp is out of tune, the is are but unsightly rags with which the mantle of the sky is patched : the mountain in its grandeur ; hard to climb ; the sublime thunder of Niagara is but a 1 difficult to sleep; _TS of birds, the patter of the rain, the laugh- ter and .s of t lie woods are but the troublesome :le of N;r Joy cannot be with gold. There is but thing that Nature will take in .-xi-hange for it. and that is obedience to the divine laws of our being. Joy is the only legitimate and necessary product of every normal and healthy function. It is absolutely impossible for any function of our being, if healthy and normal in its a< to produce anything but joy, no matter what may be the JOYS OF HOME. 99 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 in- tellectual nature she has filled the universe with problems, the solution of which gives us exquisite pleasure. For our spiritual nature she has given the heavenly reward of an ap- proving conscience. Thus is joy the eternal aim of Nature. On whom then rests the blame when life's joys are tar- nished 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 prob- lems irksome ? Whom shall we blame for the seared and deadened conscience that makes duty a task and honor a burden? We fancy that the conscience of none of our readers is yet so far deadened that he will not quickly an- swer, " I myself am to blame." The clamor for joy and pleasure, then, when rightly in- terpreted, is a universal call to duty, for the reward of 100 duty is unalloyed jo\ .1 call t<> stud\ .it of dtr It i* a tin- usep- arablc a* M, .mil without them it :.'; i this o: obedi> tin- phyMcal, ii. .1 and moral la' our being is iition t us, a: .e condition is complied with slu- will shower upon intold. She will make th.- bn-. : morning a sou jht. Tin- v-ry COHM IU08 of e\ will thrill us with that joy which all have felt ;r . undetih. d too subtl. sis. External objects and conditions seen. no part in the program. At most they are only the occa- sions and not the rau.-^-s of the joy. We look into the face of a friend or oi. of a lake and \\< an unutterable joy coursing through all the channels of our being, and welling up M! we ca for our lives t-ll why we laugh. The joy that comes to perfe h with the sweet intoxication of the mor dew, is " the purest ;t ' .eld." Such Kountifi;. for obe We have dwelt thus at length on the laws that go the emotion of jo;. ,.ive an important hearing on the subject of wh ng. JOYS OF HOME. 101 The 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 enjoy- ment, cannot but remain cold and entirely inactive. This department of his nature can be kept alive only by the heat of the hearth-stone. 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 re- moved 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 UM s among Id stage he need -t honest comm- this comes in iU purest and mo 1 form from the he same family. uliar to the iimnil and spiritual naf. be 01 "id far below what this jiart of our be- ing ia capable of yielding, unless it be cultivated in the sanct .:..< ice must be kej>t sharp by the pathe -ils of little children, by tlie tender look- is of mothers and misters, and by the nit ions. I'.nd in these ! the in of In 1 how much is signified by "the joys of "f ours are necessary to imj)re>* that the minds of those who are the of haj-i-y families. With what feelings of delight do look forward to the evening hour when the family. ith joy. shall gather around the board with mirth and laughter. ll<.\v the father's heart thrills at the Midden 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 his daughter's voice. Can heaven yield a sweeter joy : this? the joys of home are not to be measured by actual JOYS OF HOME. 103 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 disgust even at the sights and sounds of the public park. But we never grow tired of mother's song, 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 perennial 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 104 games of earth, may w<- liml our homeward way back acrooa life's meadow and uj> tin- hi: invshold of the home .!, and lay our weary beads upon the bosom of the ie, forever and e " Sweet are the Joys of borne, And pore as tweet; for they Like dw of morn and eTenlof ooma. To make and close the day. ' The world hath iu delights, And tu delusions, too; Bat home to calmer bliss invites, More tranquil and more tree. 44 The mountain flood is strong, Bat fearfal in iu pride; While gently rolls the stream aloof The peaceful valley's aid*. M Life's charities, like light. Spread smilingly afar; Bat stars approached, become more bright, And home is life's own star. " The pilgrim's step in vain Seeks Eden's sacred ground I But in home's holy joys again An Eden may be foir M A glance of bearen to see, tie on earth :- ziven; And yet a happy family Is but an earlier heaven," EDUCATION OF OUR GIRLS. HE education of woman is among the fore- most problems of the nineteenth century. It is something more than a social problem. It is a civil and political, a moral and re- ligious problem as well. Inasmuch as the presence of woman constitutes one of the chief charms and benefits of society, and in- asmuch as it is she who far more than man gives character to society, her education and culture are a social problem. But into her care have been entrusted the nation's future statesmen, those who are soon to be clothed with authority and to make laws for the government of mankind. Hence her education becomes a civil and political problem. Not only is she entrusted with the guardianship 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 generation ; and thus does the education of woman become a great moral problem. Again, since she shapes the moral character of the world, lor. HOME. in, the eternal destiny of man depends upon character in this : it here. <>mes In* hese momentous fuels what should c< the i of our girls? Human life is short an powers of endurance are limited. None of us can reasona- bly hope to accomplish all that our im. D may j,i to our minds as desirable. We approp. great sea of knowledge. We sur. ot do be 1 -aac Newton, who picked up only a few pebbles on the shore. But whether we are able t<> pick up one or many of these pebbles we should select only those whoso shape best adapt them to our purpose. 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. \V 1. ., no sym- pathy with this utilitarian idea. We pity the man \\ a,ble even t and utility. That mind which does not see the highest use in Niagara is but po' 'loped and poorly ekill in execution; if we do not ribute our indifference to the " lack (f eultu: is too short and its duties too ; us for a to spend years in acquiring ; : "duction of a mere sound, and one in which, in spite of her cul 1 by the ordinary canary J >ird. V d be made an instrument and not a toy. All this may he true, says the mother, but how shall I it.- my daughter'.' It is easy to generalize and to ;ng systems; but what is the particular method which I must follow in order to avoid thi In place, it is necessary to have a just view ug woman's place in the economy of society. It is useless to give advice in regard to the higher edu woman to those who covertly or otherwise regard woman as an inferior being, whose highest and most legitimate is to swing a cradle through the air twelve 1. a day. \V.- would not express other than the tenderest nente concerning the divine mission of motherhood. has the reader ever asked himself what it is that makes motherhood so divine ? Is it not, after all, that 1 1 lifts woman above motherhood, that can make EDUCATION OF OUR GIRLS. 109 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 appli- cable to man ? Would those who think that the quoted words express a fine thought be offended with the follow- ing? The great vocation of man is husbandhood and fatherhood? 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 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 110 .... . each morning to sing its little ti of praise u: may rock the cradle it : n-1 time to gl r God with h .ct. We would see t sister an-i !: !.: h;md in v school; we would &e promoted to the grammar school ; we would see _: on through the course all i; there is any radical difference in their mental would see them graduate from the high school together, and together enter the university, and here igh four years of intellectual conlli >uld see them stand side by side in that fiercely contested arena, and with tongue and pen and brain comp< those * whose winning foreshadows life's success. \V see t! graduating exercises, fearlessly giv- >rld a specimen of their thought and elo- " Mid tba sweet inspiration of mode and flowers." Nor would we see tln-m part h.-re : but with brave' hearts en -ame profession. W- >ee no good reason why women should not serve their kind a.s lawyers, doc- tore, and ministers. It i^ tin.- tin-re are object! hinderances incidental to their sex, but these we believe are fully counterbalance* 1 M qualifications in which they must be acknowledged even superior. In medicin .-t < Lining to be the opinion of the EDUCATION OF OUR GIRLS. Ill world that woman, whatever may be her incidental disabili- ties, is by nature even better endowed than man with some of the peculiarities of talent that prophesy success. 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 profes- sions. It is not the general superiority of woman that we seek to prove, but simply that for the profession of medi- cine, at least, c'^e 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. Many of the arguments which prove her fitness to min- ister as a physician to the diseased bodies of mankind also go to prove her special fitness to minister as a moral physi- cian to their diseased souls. Wny then should our talented and ambitious girls la- ment that there is no field open for them. There are very few profession also enter if < county to step asid. . the band of society has marked <>ut t I'.ut while m possesses so man \ the profi here art> :e adapt* a professional life, and the sun be said of sMonal ii cannot meet uire- ments of the great mass r of boy^. 1 In- greatest good to the gi 'lumber" should b \\"' must go, tl :u- little larm-lmusc- the little cottage beneath the hill. Not that the : house and the cottage are the abodes of intellectual v ness. On the conti \vs that the w< great minds, like wheat, potatoes and aj lally pnxli: not be denied that the mass of the people, those to v> h to speak, are bolized by the farm-house and the cottage. What. thru, shall cnnstitut' ;icatie more secure if tl in in but ; ike. It .niiy \\hirh par. the great cities at midnight, in Few are nut; vith- d.mgers and temptations of city li: greater than those of the coin There can be but one explanation of this fact. perior ed 1 facilities of the < : use her virtue in the ; EDUCATION OF OUR GIRLS. 115 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 puppy-hood and secluded from his sight every kind of bird. When he released him to test the merits of 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 righl 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. Whatever may be true concerning the question of wo- , however, '. lv .11 in- iiat WO!:. . Nnr ; of making \vi: md im>: . of life. riding t! lated '.vhat different ol '.i man ]' .I inetli could l>e shown that men and won engage iu the cul to the more ;i->tlietic f the hi .:i to the rougher airi n. If a flower garden or nursery \\ in the it of rough stubble, none .: it would be natural for the man to m \hile the woman d tend the in its midst. This would be true iiuwn that woman should help to till So if it sh-iuld be shown that woman 1. to j.; probK- EDUCATION OF OL'R (URLS. 117 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 t n e midst of the rough Ytubble of human society. Woman's education, then, is necessarily very imperfect, 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 dust- pan and broom. It means something more than a mere knowledge of the daily routine of housekeeping, in the popular sense of that word. Woman holds in her hands the physical health of the world. Three times each day our lives and health are at ihe mercy and practical judgment of woman. Nay, more, Tor the world's character is largely what its food makes it. Indirectly, then, she exerts a modifying influence 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 sci- ences, 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 moth- ers, and also through the medium of books, how to engage in the noble occupation of housewife with the best advan- tage to mankind. 118 h an education cannot be obtained solely from prac- .11 the kitchen. The whole mind must be iiiui disciplined by a study of nature and IKT l.i\v>. m can possibly fulfill, in the best mann- M housewife without a good general education. " Thro* years she grew in sun and shower; Then nature said, " A lovelier flower On earth waa ncrer town; This child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make A lady of my own. " Myself will to my darling be Both law ami 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 np the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hen the silence and the calm, Of mate insensate things. ' The floating clouds their state shall land To her; for her the willow bend; Nor shall she fall 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 rivnlets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face." EDUCATION OF OUR BOYS. N education does not necessarily mean the discipline of a college course. In the present condition of society, that advantage is, as a matter of necessity, reserved for compara- ^ tively few. In its true significance educa- tion 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 sep- Xlf J arate spheres, while the power of co-ordi- W nated 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 t 'it ; whiM tlM Duun muscles of his body are so able to lift half : - ility till lit- bee" r of the world's admiration, it' such were pos- if his liable, i; : a glutt' he is stubborn, if he is niiconscienti. piritually blind, if he i> . if he i- i human want and Bl An "ii on this broad basis should be Y human being. We would not by any means be understood as ui valuing the education of the intellect. The importai; .tion of a pc- ominensurate with t! ilic power itself, ai -ily no j.ower o; more importanco than i .A luoation is within the reach of possesses the ambition for it, even 'ither friends nor money. T students in this country who ar. through college by t: . energy and labor. In of our colleges, a young man of activity a luring the i enougl: during the term. So that he who tl r kno\\! has no legitimate excuse if he does not avail hii: _:e education. None should ;. bring < EDUCATION OF OUR BOYS. 121 dence than the illustrious triumphs of a Garfield. 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 dark 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 have unwittingly surrendered life's argument to the merciless opponent of circumstances by the unwise concession of their own weakness. 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- stituted that a college education would bring them the N r \\ ,'. 1 v. 1 al as to < ices ma- pur- re of :ty is n..: '-orao. well educate .'ess who have become great and useful by the lig! have learned the science of mathematics with ;i for a .:id the ocean beach for a slate. Bir we meet foot boy in : ioking r. ; <>f advice have we for him? He wil'. about the grand possibilities which ' glorious republic offers to the poorest and the ; he will listen to the story of those great souls who have climbed to glory over fence rails and have finished he wil :s with ' "What shall I do and how shall I b< . we can answer these questions. As the the desired result, he can pick up a rag, just as he wont to do, and examine it, not a- \\ith the simple purpose of determining whether he shall j ut it into one or the other of two baskets: but make it the text-book with which to begin an e<: hose older and wiser than himself what made of and how it is made. They will point him t< :ider. where, if he tells his pur '"ii and learn something of the m. j rim ij.lrv involved in the manufacture of the rng. If he EDUCATION OF OUR BOYS. 123 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 philan- thropy in the world which he before had considered so cold and heartless. Young man; boot-black; rag-picker; obscure farmer boy; or dweller in the dingy haunts of the "city; remem- ber that Freedom's goddess holds over your head a crown. She never crowns a royal idiot ; she scorns fine clothes and gloved hands, and she never puts that crown on any but a sweaty brow. From every lowly cottage roof, However poor and brown, From every dusty hovel, points A hand at glory's crown. Although it is true that men can be good farmers or 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 It] ami an ]. t<> make the most of himself by acquiring a 1; edneatiiui. Knowledge, like virtue, should be an end in i< Think of a mother teaching her children to be virtuous ccts of financial success would be We should pity the moral weakness of that mother. We all instinctively recognize virtue as a id in itself. It i< a part of that (tod-like nature of which . part of our very in. tality. S Ige, Way then should we tall: il and education simply as means to facilitate EDUCATION OF OUR BOYS. 125 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. Education is the handmaid of religion. The statistics 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 relig- ion, why are all our colleges and seminaries under the di- rect supervision of the Christian church ? Education has transformed the savage into the Christian. The wide gulf that stretches between the beastly cannibal and the God- like Christian man has been bridged by the invisible cables of education, and away into the infinitely potential fu- ture 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 school mistress 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 fascinating pictures that we cannot help reading the de- scription of them. She found us with the beasts. Pa- tiently 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 ol of mode; will load i uinj.l In her laboratory wi ;il lead us proudly up anil presi-nt us t> r. at whose :,ide wi- sit and niulrr \\ln-M' tuition wt- shall turn our eyes Ward ami r shall study tin: inlini: iniiiiites. " The heights by preat men reached and kept Were not attained by Hudden (light; But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night." BOOKS FOR THE HOME. OME one has said that "to thoroughly know one book is to have a key to all libraries." The vast battalion of books that fill the shelves of our great libraries is almost ap- palling to behold, alcove upon alcove piled into the very domes of colossal buildings. Think of what they contain : the crystallized thought and wisdom of the centuries, and yet where shall we begin to make an analysis of that wisdom. We may call for a given book, but we find that book laps over on both sides of its subject. Figuratively speaking, it leaned for support both ways upon its shelf. One subject is dependent upon another so that we cannot thoroughly know a single book in all that great library without knowing all. The classification may be admirable, yet it is after all but the classification of the dependent parts of a sublime and incomprehensible whole. How despair seizes the lover of wisdom, how hopeless seems his task, when he gazes upon those awful records of human thought. His feelings may be defined as those of mental strangulation. As we sit beneath the great dome and watch the men and women, with noiseless footsteps and ' r to spea! tli;tt is yet unwri; e, thru, we cannot n>mpa>s tlie ran;.: thought, since we must be (.> an ir. In, tin- problem for us to solve viz., \vi !1 \ve break th;. sliall we : . > is one of the probh age imposes, and, perhaps, tin : !i parents are called upon to solve. A.-> chiri! iml. I that the infant mind ha.- itive mental pi. id surely should not. be ei they may and should be guided, and tin produchi- ' excrescent The books of a family, not less than ti shaj>e the de> howt- regret to say '.bition in t! of the (]-. Barents ;ir.' ignorant, bookfl thai iw read onlj bj lump- BOOKS FOR THE HOME. 129 light, while the parents suppose that no lights are in the house. Parents ! if you knew the books that, while you are sleeping at midnight, your children are reading by that dim light which casts its glimmer into the street, you would blush with shame. Books are advertised in our daily newspapers under the veil of pathological philanthropy, to which the advertiser dares not put his name. Boys are directed to send so many postage stamps to a post-office box, to which there are many keys. A hint to the wise is all that is necessary. We will not enlarge upon this class of literature which disgraces the civilization of our age. But, like the " pesti- lence that walketh in darkness," none knows or feels it till it breathes its fatal breath into his face. This hellish lit- erature lies piled mountain high in the dark and subter- raneous caverns of society, and under the added gloom of midnight it is read by the baleful torches of lust. Our public schools are flooded with books that the teacher never sees. They constitute the text books from which the lessons are learned and recited without the aid of a tutor. Perhaps it is impossible to wholly eradicate this social evil. No parent is sure that his child has not already been contaminated. But parental vigilance is the only remedy that falls within the province of this work. We have said enough concerning the books that should not be read. We come now to a more difficult task, viz., to determine what books should be read. 8 Id be read by each and ver, ha\ litli in the wi>< :.itea and inborn incnt.il ourse is iturc of our p;. y the o! j hiM and student by forcing all casts of mind i: :non mold, is strong enough alnady without helping on its bad effects by recommending the same course <; for all. We do nut mean by this, of . teacher, and guardian >hould n their charge with reference to the selection <>f books. \\' do not deny tin- \\isdoin of marking out a co ing, if it be done with express reference to th peculiarities of those for whom it : i by some one who is thoroughly conversant \\ith those \<- iarities. dy the minds of their children. :t should know enough of the general prin :ble him to i: lectual and n. I'ntil he does, he si re he attempts to pilot a human mind up the peri' : .ds of childhood and youth. ild is gr ed in shells, fossils, beei all those things that BOOKS FOR THE HOME. 131 pertain to zoological science, and that when his eye for the first time falls on a book devoted to this science, he is de- lighted beyond measure. Could there be anything more unjust and foolish than for that parent to withhold all such books from his child and to mark out a course of reading which should consist largely of psychological works, and books in which he is not at all interested, and compel him to toil through them. It is not, however, impossible that the child may possess a taste for both classes of books which we have mentioned, but if he has not already evinced a taste for both, it is surely the duty of the parent to ascer- tain the facts of the case before he compels him to read those books for which he has evinced no taste. If the boy is continually disposed to marshal his little playmates and march them around the house to the music of a tin pan, he will be a good candidate for West Point, and will proba- bly be found to possess a latent love of history, and may perhaps become an historian. If he is disposed to spend much of his time in the work-shop making his own toys, he will delight in natural philosophy and in the biographies of great inventors. Parents should be able to interpret these outward indications of innate talent, and, regarding them as the cries of a hungry mind, should be quick to furnish the proper food. If the boy who is inclined to invent and to use tools, be compelled by his parents to study history most of the time, instead of natural philosophy, he will very likely conceive a general dislike for all kinds of reading. 1.12 ol ' ' But if In 1 i ose branches _' the lii- -, he wi: unlv a taste ' mind d be first developed in tin- line in which : ices au unmistakable This secures a stability of purpose and au incli . that no after course or promiscuous reading The mind may then be brought : supplementary reading. Nor will this be difiieuh, but on the conti y natural, since it will h :ired a taste for reading. Every book in the great library is the record of some man's individuality, and when you have read the book have read the man. Books differ as men differ. associate with a hundred different people of that acter which one meets every day upon the street. be conscious of the modifying influence which ti over him. But he may afterwanl ;dividual in whose silent presence he will feel the tumultuous thrill of a molding influence. The meeting of such \<- is in one's life, and he is never the same after So with ho.-k>. We may read alcove after alcove of the books that make up the body of a public lib: 1 that we have r rary that adorns the great city is aim* 'iclar has carried home an armful of 1 BOOKS FOR THE HOME. 133 of many books there is no end." But of the writing of great books there has hardly been a beginning. If one wishes to cultivate his social nature and improve himself generally by mingling in society, he cannot do it to the best advantage by going to the circus or the theater. All will admit that the most effectual way is to select a few choice associates better than himself. Now since a library is but a proxy for society, the same rule holds good in respect to it. Read the few great books ; books that work revolutions in our natures, and burn them- selves into our memory and become a part of ourselves. We do not mean that every child should read Plato, for Plato would be the same as no book at all to a child. "Robinson Crusoe" and the "Arabian Nights" are great and revolutionary books from a child's standpoint, and when he has grown stronger, "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Paul and Virginia " are also great and revolutionary. A few such books await him at every stage of his development, so that no one need read any but the great and good books. We have used the word few with reference to good books in a relative rather than an absolute sense. Of course there are in all libraries very many good and great books, but when compared with the mass they are certainly few. But how shall you determine whether a given book be worth reading or not ? By what means are you to be cer- tain that you have selected one of those few? By the testimony of your own soul. If the book throws your whole b< . I shadows upon the star-lit h.m- allo\\rd those i-.md v. . :o looking fur, and i: print of gen i All books, whether great or small, are but -'.ate that one gn -. Inch lii-s open 1" the star-and-ilo\\i i-uiit book of Nature. 'I many imperfect translations and poor conin. he original without : hit ion or con " Books are not seldom talismans and spells, By which the magic art of shrewder wits nn unthinking multitude enthralled. Some to the fascination of a name Surrender judgment, lit MM] winked. Some the style Infatuates, and through labyrinths and wilds Of errur leads them, by a tune entranced. sloth seduces more, too weak to bear The insupportable fatigue of tl. And swallowing, therefor- mse or choice, The total grin unsifted, husks and all. But trees and rivulets, whose rapid course Defies the check of winter, haunts of deer, And sheep-walks populous with bleating lambs, And lanes in whkh the primrose ere her time Peep* through the moss that clothes the hawthorn root, Deceive no student. Wisdom there and Truth, Not shy, as in the world, and to be won By slow solicitation, seize at once The roving thought, and fix it on themselves." EVENINGS AT HOME. HE evening hours are the holy hours of home life. 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 vegetation 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" din- ner 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 cannot reach the lives and charac- ten of those \\h-> h.i\> >y b r.ill.-.l !.il ::t !!,''. :.< -. "day i bit* iU sweet actual In opening tli.- f young tho from the h sunl: Tlie distinctive characteristics of the home life a: fested m< and the family gather mund the :iing. hour of evening h >me life i ..n.nth of the ordinary dai c. It matters litt'. days are spent if .filings : n's soul is not re 'luring tlie day, fur is not favorable. The labor of the day } mud into that attitude in \vhieh it resists r of lif- ;irocess of spiritual i ance, so that the soul that toils is compa: from the snares of temptation. During the hours of labor we are also less susceptible to good influences as well as to evil ones. The whole being puts itself upon the defensive while it toils. Sat with its own condition, it refuses to be changed by outward influences. In this principle we find the explanation of the adage "idlen i rent of vice." The evening E\ KXIMJS AT DOME EVENINGS AT HOME. 137 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. But, fortunately, the evening hour is also the hour in which the good angel can gather his largest audience, 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 protec- tion 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 the 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 evenings, but they should never feel at ease concerning those who desire to spend their even- ings away from home. We do not mean that children should never go away from home evenings. 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 in- fluence. 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 . but v, In ; i mild le.vM'ii in Again, all child are to develop into n and i be brought with tempta! y form M commences, and the more gradually miter t' I welfare. Ai. to their i. bore' alone in th own sense of little ' nt them- I olled upon the floorer played with the hall of fell from mot! , and while the fire-light moved upon vail like the waving of a white wing in the darkm ould not permit so much joy upon the - without having i' :e? Now mother tar- dily rises to light the lamp, and the children gather round the tahle with slate and pencil to grapple with those little tasks and problems that only sweeten life's remembrances. EVENINGS AT HOME. 143 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. Learn 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 before you turn your eyes from that soft fire-light to gaze long upon the splendors where beauty glides 'ueath lights that dazzle. " Gladly now we gather round It, For the toiling day is done, And the gay 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 ? 144 " What ear* we for outward serp Fickle fortune'* frowa or i; If around iu lore Is beam . o can huinan lib been Neath UM oottafa roof and palace, From tb* peasant to the k All are quaffing from life's chalice MM - tkX : .-:.:i:.:i:.. :.: ITIII.,-. Grates are glowing, music flowing From the lips we love the beat; O, the Joy, the bliss of knowing There are hearts whereon to rest! arts that throb with eager gladness Hearts that echo to our own- While grim care and haunting gsdnen Mingle ne'er in look or tone. Care may tread the halls of daylight, Sadness haunt the t Mr, But the weird and witching twi Brings the glowing hearthstone's dower. Altar of our holiest feelings I Childhood's well-remembered shrine I Spirit yeanlings soul revealing* Wreaths immortal round thee twine t " SELF CULTURE. ULTURE is the constant elimination of use- less movements, and the attainment of in- creasing economy in the expenditure 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 eliminate the movements that do not count. He is a spendthrift as regards forces. But the white man,' by means of pa- tient 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 other movements that interfere with, or obstruct the essential 10 146 movements; such as tin- tun. aide, accompanied l>y a \\a-tTul exprndi: the form of a painful at hi :e is in lii> Mu.-h a \\.. vital fon impelling the blood to : BiR-h inc. are UIH no desirable or useful re>ult. Nature has n. us a i '-1 such mo-. them awkward. Slie has also ielight from \vit:. her suggestion we call them graceful. il move- ments, then, are simply economical movements. I: person referred to should walk across the hall with the possible expenditure of vital and mental fun e, the movement would necessarily be graceful. Civil but aggregate culture, ai culture is the spirit essence of economy, we see why it ii .re of political economy has always develo with civilization. Indeed, civilization and .omy are one and the same. Such, then, is the nature of culture in : Let us follow out the principle in its applicatio mental, and moral natures, and see whethe. can find in it anything that shall be of use to us in the .ent of our lives and characters. Our nu: are cultured when we can use them with no waste of force. Our intellects are cultured when we can solve a prob- SELF CULTURE. 147 lem or arrive at a conclusion by the shortest and most direct route of logical deduction. Our moral nature is cultured when duty becomes a graceful and economical movement in the soul ; when the useless movements of sin are eliminated ; when all our spiritual forces are concentra- ted, and it no longer becomes necessary to divide the force by detailing a squadron to guard the harbor of love and duty against the pirate fleets of selfishness. 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 accomplish such wonderful results in the field of thought and investigation is because, through long toil and patient culture, they have learned to concentrate the mental forces by eliminating all useless thoughts. Like the bee, which always takes a straight line, they have ac- quired an intellectual instinct by which they are enabled to take the shortest, directest, and consequently most eco- nomical 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 compelled to hunt out his path, to travel through all the by-ways, the briers, the brambles, and the under- brush, and at last, perhaps, lose his way altogether in the vast swamp of intellectual uncertainty. All culture in its ultimate analysis is necessarily self culture. Culture when used as a verb always means to 148 1 him to tary nu>\ in the d vflL But if ho does not choose to act according ! our wi ceases until he becomes willing ; V,V ca tun- anything that has tin- pon Hence, when \ve l>reak a c<>lt,or train a dog, he cultu: our suggestion. And thus : 1 tlie culture we ;u this li self culture. T .,, -h.-iv suggest, but we must execute ; : must do the work. The sense in which we have used the v.-^rd w i is not very dillen-nt fnnn that in which we h 1 the word "education" in the cliapter on the " IMi: our Boys." Indeed, all that we 1. tion in either chapter might 1. . in the other. We will allow the one t the o; The words educate, train and culture .'tro, for all prac- tical purposes, synonymous, and may lc u>cd interchange- ably. In our chapter on " Home Training '' we have presented some similar thoughts concerning the import;; rain- ing or cultivating the physical, intel! .! na- ture in the proper order, and in the i: That, however, was intended chiefly for advice to SELF CULTURE. 149 cernirig 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 different 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 de- note a higher stage of the same process. The first and chief aim of self culture, as of all education, should be symmetry. The undue strengthening of one part or fac- ulty, to the neglect of another, is not culture, but accord- ing 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 no one can be unduly strengthened without peril to the other and weaker ones. If the stomach be enlarged by overeating, while the lungs be kept weak and small, the whole body will become 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, be- ing 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 ul- cers appear, and perhaps consumption, and all because the stomach was enlarged. Not because the lungs were not 150 culth tivated a! - lo\r the indej ' separate training of ai. : . tlitf . lea be all cultivated to. cultivated th kind of culture to excess. Hut:: all, ir .ot'to specially cultivate any of the physical functions. i fact that circus performers are very short lived ; and yet we would naturally expect them to live to a very old age. II\v full and powerful their ! ::!y the highest medical auth< ;> in well ventilated rooms. It woi:' that Jily immortality were possible, the : :ial gym- nas - boon. Hu: rage duration of their 1 verji short. I: ! we account for this j>aradox? Simply by that principle just named, which demands the symmet- rical and proportionate development of all the func; f the muscles to such an extent, that like wasting fire they ie their vitality. In spite of SELF CULTURE. 151 all hygienic regimen and temperance, their training is not symmetrical, although it may appear to be such. The hu- man body is a delicate machine, and no wheel can be made to turn faster or slower than it was intended to turn with- out tearing off the cogs. But it is often found that in the same individual certain vital organs even without special culture are larger and more powerful than others, and this is doubtless the reason why many apparently healthy peo- ple 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 cul- tivating the weak and restraining the overaction 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 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 mus- 181 cles are full ex h a practice v : to D tin 1 1' diti.>: viier seen in \\ ''nan in men; 1 ;cntlv injure tl. : '.an the : < little injury :t Niitur- kind to those who are too i rant to ascertain their own stituteil us that the best and eful form of CX( is that of walking or running. And that is just of exerc: > of life compel us to take the most of. This form of exercise actually has a dency to balance the organic develfj into action c\ -u of th to benefit th ones relativ^ than 1' ones. For instance, if the lungs are weak and th< :he first to s : and will say so just at that moment \\}. e re ceived the greatest possible amount of good from the run- ning. 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 mus- cles are weak and the lungs strong, then the muscles will control the amount of running, and adapt it to their SELF CULTURE. 153 particular needs. Long before the lungs have received ex- ercise enough to do them much good, the muscles will have received just enough to do them the greatest possible amount of good. Thus we see how it is that running 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 balancing them, for she gives the young of all animals, the human species included, an irrepressible impulse to run almost contin- ually, 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 do more in the direction of curing an organic weakness than all the doctors of Christendom. We have spoken thus minutely on the subject of physi- cal culture because physical culture is not only the basis of all culture, but the same 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 IM variety's *ake. One i his men: essarv tlj.it la- he alilr with co,iul . iulin and calculate an cclip>e. He u. latent talent f.-r muMC as to i iiis not only : .nt luit also: the most profitable occupation of hi anil still violate no essential law of symmetry. Hut if he possesses the talent to such a is to bec< his whole mental energ aion, and he is left to feel that there is nothing e'. music to render life worth living, he has passed the limits 'i the 1,'iw of variety allows him and has br mmetrieal. 1 1 is musical faculty should be restrained, while other faculties should be called to the front and Celled to a-t. This i> a hard task and one which i frotjuently accomplished, for the vory reason th.r difiiculty itself is of such a character son from seeing things in their true li^'ht. \\' talks to him about the grandeur of science and the '. ties of philosophy, he listens with impatience to such fool- ishness. The same is true of all forms of disproporti mental development. Nothing but a knowledge of the mental economy will enable one, under these circumstances, to see himself as he is. When one looks upon hi: from the standpoint of mental science, he eliminates the bias of his own feelings resulting from his stron dencies, and sees himself as others see him. It is SELF CULTURE. 155 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. There 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 law operates precisely the same 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. Moral culture involves no different principle from 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 period- icity ; 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 constantly wider. It is necessary, however, to keep 156 constantly in miml tho fact that .-f him who lays claim to mo ,.it of the com] icy of t: pas- . All sin originates in passional supremacy, while out of tho ceaseless and often equal moral impulses and those of the passions, grow all the uas of human conduct. A person in whom the '. condition exists will remain alike to his friends and an ii! Via. He will be both very good and very When under the dominion of the e.\ .ssions he :>e a fit-nil; but an hour later lie : The saddest condition for a human being is that in which the passions and moral sentiments are so equally 1 that neither can gain a permanent victory over the other. When tin- 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 b loses all stability and permanence. Either condition is noutjh, but on the whole we regard the relation of equality between the passions and the morals as the most dangerous and dcstructi . So deplorable is this condition that we would even regard ,uent ascendency of the passions -er evil. Such a condition offers little hope of recovery, for the ns and moral sentiments both grow by their occa- I victories, the one as fast as the other, and both are SELF CULTURE. 157 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, 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, so that the intellect should see that temptation 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 vigilant 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. liS ik wnton fmrn tin- fount That in thy bosom springs, And enry i ^lod draught atraps or of kings; 80 ahalt tbou find at last, Far from the giddy brain Self-knowledge and self-culture To uocomputed gain." 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 demon- ! strated that it sustains a vital relation to our highest welfare. Hence no work dealing with the varied phases of domestic life would be complete without a chapter on " Sundays at Home." With the exception of the few hours sup- posed 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 him- self. 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 iao special < what purpo- i of no .th do we spend so large a part at home. For tho small part tL. public worship by no u, lined on other 'r and those I which partially or wholly isolate us fr ences of home. How. then, -lull we employ the Su: How shall we secure for it a place among the hijv of home life ? This, of ( 1 depend somewhat npoii the \ hold concerning the nat ; the Sabbath. I '. not our purpose to discuss t! its theological aspect, but simply to com: to yield a contribution to the lessons of home li. , yet it is impossible to do even this without taking some definite ground as to the religious signif: day. It is useless to contend that the Sabbath has no reli. :icance, for to divest it of such significance, would be, in the nature of things, to abolish it fr. If claimed that the Sabbath was born of human : .s of the religioi . to prove that i thus born would be to claim for it a Divine sanction. We believe that the religious nature of man and t: of the Sabbath are complementary, the one to the o But whatever origin may be claimed for the Sabbath, and SUNDAYS AT HOME. 161 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 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 Sabbath, 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 be- lieve 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 exer- cise. 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 instead of strengthening the faculty involved, is directly opposed to the Puritanic observance of the Sabbath ; for how can a child be submitted to more intense mental torture, than to be compelled to spend a whole day where he is not al- lowed to smile, where all conversation is suppressed, ex- cept 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 11 senra ' ire. Tin- : is ! far worse than on at all. This law i is most obvious \vitli and spiritual s. These mu>t act from choiee or they cam: .-ngthencd. Hence the question becomes a most delicate one, "How shall the Sunday be spent at hq>s no further advice to the intelligent parent is required than that he should be guided in all cases by this great law, that every action, in order that it in the part acting, must be accompanied with stead of pain. In the first place, let the Sunday at home be divested "f all needless solemnity ; let it be a day of cheerfulnes- 1 enjoyment, a day of music both instrumental vocal, a day of conversation and reading. Let the chil- dren be taught to think and to meditate on the gr lems of life and the vast concerns of eternity, not in a sol- emn. ,iv, but in a manm : ant with good judgment and common sense. Let them 1 to engage in respectful <: on these questions. Thus will they early d dency to think and hold opinions of their uv> SUNDAYS AT HOME. 1G3 the parents' superior wisdom may detect and point out fal- lacies in their reasoning. There is little danger of sophis- try and false conclusions in these arguments 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 intellectual 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 argu- ment, 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, OUR UOUE. d"tibt, ;iiid question for himself. I m mind, howev.T trustful it may br through chillh< od, must paot :gh its period of doubt ami im.Mit.il his period is passed, the better and the safer. out of those minds which only '( of bigoted fathers, after the awaktMiing .lands a reason. Wi -out themselves to minds, questions that insist upon an answer, d; 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 ast There are probably in the world few atheists who would be such had their young logic been answered with logic and not with authority. We believe that a verj large per cent, of the world's unbelief is due to a wrong system of Sunday discipline. But we would not have the children disregard the solemnity and sanctity of the Sabbath. It is natural 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 re- quires it. For to suppose that the natural duties of life SUNDAYS AT HOME. 165 constitute a burden so heavy that it cannot be borne with- 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. We believe that the philosophy of the Sabbath as a day of rest is to be found in Nature's law of undivided inten- sity, 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, in- tellectual and moral worlds. The physician makes a prac- tical 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 Bpecial 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 ste, and vitally him. 1 y h .leas. Now we have only to regard t! 1 as one boring for his daily bread, but, who b;. ! called up. : ven days, to think upon the great concerns of tli and the unseen. The same instinct that chanic to drop his tool and i-tand : world to do ...-. It is hut the instinctive aj ; tion of this universal law of undivided intensity that < irnnce door, the roar of the engine, an ::,antle of silent thought over the gr< : then a sin to labor on the Sabbath'.' Yes, a sin, a sin against both our physical and our moral nature. i one eats heartily when engaged in in d labor, lie sins against both his mind and : . -ians tell us, we can do nothing more inju: r.iin having concentrated nearly all the vital energy of MI, the stomach is in consequence left feeble- unable to ..f its burden without a great strain, same principle holds with reference to lab on the Sabbath. The absorbing occupation of 1 be tht- f ourselves with the one view to -elf culture. Si: the day of all < I self culture. It is a day in which ;r re- lation ';]. and in accordance with the impulse* of th* moral nntui-f. :;11 , il energies should be ex- SUNDAYS AT HOME. 167 pended in rounding out our characters, and perfecting our whole nature. But he who attempts this great work on the Sabbath, and at the same time attempts to carry on the ordinary la- bors of life, is not only thwarting his own efforts at self- improvement, but is doing that which will shorten his life perhaps a score of years, But he who carries his ordinary labors into the Sabbath does not, of course, observe the day. Then he commits 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 can- not sin against ourselves without sinning against our God. " day to sweet religious thought So wisely set apart, Back to the silent strength of life Help thou my wavering heart. " Nor let the obtrusive lies of sense My meditations draw From the composed, majestic realm Of everlasting law. "Break down whatever hindering shapM 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 Mme Absorh me from their sight. ow U*M outward fora* wh- kind and quantity of food n it is proper to consider the importance of dividin;: each day iuto periods for the performance of special d Learn from self-observation what part of the day m, with greatest advantage spent in reading and study. alone, however, with reference to reading and stud. with reference to each and every function of life. I5ut it is not enough merely to learn these facts. It is f.ir important, as it is far more difficult, to form . resolutions to which this knowledge should prompt This subject naturally suggests the practice of keeping a journal. And, perhaps, there is no duty < f life rand we this a duty of all), which, in j exertion it requires, is capable of yielding sue:. suits in the direction of personal culture. E ti the advantages of being able, at a moment's notice, to p: vritten volume of our lives (not the generalities glowing eulogiums in which biographers and liter. ), such a minute delineation of our thoughts and deeds through all our past y INDIVIDUAL RULES OF LIFE. 171 trail.*-: .no into s th.it please, iin-1 .vith a M hich we delight ilarship, eu! . and inborn nobilit;. j'iriiously as in the I spondence. While general culture of th- IB necessary to the acquirement of this accomplish: the only specific means to be emj the study of the best models. Advantage should be taken of the imi: tendency of little children, and accordingly all the best cor- respondence of tli > should be read repeatedly to the children. They will always \>e interested in a If Aunt or Cousin , and if the letter is a <\ i: it should be read and re-read in the presence of the child till he begins to catch the phraseology. The b the father's business correspondence may be c< to memory by the children. Tnese 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 inakt- use every day. So in regard to these models in ( Icnce. It is not so much the mechanical form of the written pa^-- to v we would call the attention of the young reader, as to that intellectual ideal to v uly of the mod CORRESPONDENCE. 177 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 ab- sent friend, he usually makes a day's work of it even with mother's suggestions, while if that cousin or friend were to visit him, he would not only find no difficulty in prattling all day, but would probably much prefer to dispense with his mother's suggestions. In the following letter from the Hon. Wm. 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 DEAR 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 re- marked, that the more sensible the manj the more dull his letter. 178 ask m< ssoii, in theVira: Sanconiathon, Mai and Berosua. s puts me in mind of the card of impressions from the pencil seals, vrhkh I i; close last mail, f your mot! !.<>! In r re. These ar< best I can find in IJaltimore. I hav- them according to my taste ; l.ut exercise your own and choose for >elf, if either <>f them please you. Shall I bring you a Spanish guitar of Giles' choosing? you be certain that you will stick t<> it ? And some mu.- ;ish guitar? What say you? There are three necklaces that tempt me a beautiful mock :ld, 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 scans described to your nu : and which the blue or the black ? They are very fashionable and beautiful. Any of those wreaths and flowers? Consult your dear mother; always consult her, always res This is the only way to make yourself respectable and ] God bless you, and make you h:i ^Your affectionate fatli WILLIAM wnrr. Tins quality of simplicity is the cliiof virtue of the fam- ily letter and the letter of friendship. In sary to observe but one principal rule, viz., write ji; you would talk if the person to whom you write \vc your side. In a letter to mother or father, is no display your literary skill by the f. words and high-sound in -. When the letters of CORRESPONDENCE. 179 brothers and sisters become essays, be assured that their heart relations are not what they should be. The vocabu- 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 ex- cuse and philosophy of society. It is a miserable substitute at best, and fulfills its office badly enough even when we put all of ourselves into it that we can. It is not egotism to talk about yourself in a letter of friendship, for if youi 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. COLLEGE, Tuesday evening. MY DEAR MOTHEB: 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 L80 on an There is Mar : tli<-n |toj ; . ! ! a lift in th conversing freely with me, In that ca 1 natural. day, as ^ bad been, whom you had seen, what you though- Do this in your letters: acquaint mo sometimes with your stud ies, sometimes with your .1. tell mo of at haractere that you meet with in comj own observations upon them; in short, let me see more <<: in your let How do you go on with Lord Multeney; and how docs he go on at Leipzig? Has ho learning, has he parts, has he aj tion? Is he good or ill-natured? In short, what is he ? Ai least, what do you think of hi t may tell i. reserve, for I promise seer- You are now of an ago that I am desirous of beginning a rial correspondence with you, and, as I shall. part, write you very freely my opinion upon men and things, which I should often be very unwilling that anybody but you or Mr. so, on your part, if you write me withe may depend upon my inviolable secrecy. If you have ever looked into the letters of Madame De Sevigne to her daugh* iadame De Grignan, you must have observed the ease, free- friendship of that correspondence; and yet I hope, and belit-ve, that they did not love one another better than we do. Tell me what hooks you aro 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 tin contain a whole ume on the subject of c< CORRESPONDENCE. 183 little to be said as to what a family letter should be. We will, however, add one more, a genuine love-letter in dis- guise written by Doctor Franklin. There is nothing in the nature of a love-letter, however, that renders necessary any different suggestions from those we have already given under letters of friendship. We have said there that it is yourself, more that 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 senti- mental readers may perhaps be a little disappointed after reading the following letter, and may possibly blame us, and accuse us of malicious intent to dash their expecta- tions. 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. DK. 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 1 to hear from you by his return, and to have the northern news- papers 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 judgment, ! you that w are all v we oxp r will I scud you a word of news that 's .r, love to children, and to Miss Betsey, and Grac i your le*ing husband, a FRANKLIN, < scratched out the loving words, being wr haste by mistake, when I forgot I was angry. There is another class of co: requires the observance of a very difL -s of rules from those already given. We refer to business correspondence. In writing a business letter we should bear in mind that the person addressed cares only f<>r what , e. to say. not for ourselves : in this respect ex .e. reverse of a family letter or a letter of friendship. This is why the chief \irtu3 of a son who is to read it desires to Irani what you have to say .ibmit your business as quickly as possible, in ord- 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 //*/// is the word from which are derived both business and busy, so that the business man is posed to be a In;- : hence he has no time political arguments, nor to c<. the "Trinit; It is true that business relations may ex friends, and they may feel like expressing this in their CORRESPONDENCE. 185 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 friend- ship 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 de- vote 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 : SAN FRANCISCO, CAL., Dec. 29, 1882. EDITORS SPRINGFIELD EEPUBLICAN: G&niUmen: Enclosed find nine dollars ($9.00), for which please send me, the coming year, your widely known and valu- able publication, The Springfield Republican (daily editiui.), and oblige, Yours respectfully, P. O. box 1937. CLARA M. SHELDON. It very frequently happens that the members of the fam- ily are called upon to write, or to reply to what are called letters of invitation. The following models will sho\v the form which custom O has sanctioned : i *; Mr. .-i!i 1 Mrs. Cogswell request the favor of - company at dinner "ti Thursday, January 21, at 5 o'clock. n: IN vi . Mr. and Mrs. (Jile, with much pleasure, accept Mr. and Mrs. Cogswell's kind invitation fur the '..'1st of Janua THE INVITATION DBCLXNi:: Mr. mid Mrs. Gile regret that the condition of Mrs. < r health will not permit them to accept Mr. and Mrs. Cogs invitation to dinner for January 21st. Of course the phraseology need not conform exactly to th;it of the above models. The only uniform charac are a business-like b: limiting nothing f<>: to the subject, and that they be written in the thirl Notice that the invitation does not r your company, etc." It may be true, however, that mon sense can assign no valid reason why the third \ should be used. But since the affectation of fashi>: y has established the custom, it is well for US 1 form to the same, especially since conformity or no;, formity is not a question of conscience. 'per in this connection to give a few of t forms pertaining to the various kinds of business and com- ial transactions which necessarily c<> nificant element in the education, not onl man, but of all who successfully deal with their fellow And rfnce the home is the school in which chil CORRESPONDENCE. 187 supposed to receive in a large degree their education in all that pertains to life and its relations, a work de- voted to the home life would hardly seem complete with- out, at least, a brief consideration of the formulas of business. The following forms embrace all of importance that the business man, whether farmer, mechanic or merchant, un- der ordinary circumstances will be called upon to use : PROMISSORY NOTE ON DEMAND WITH INTEREST. SPRINGFIELD, MASS., Feb. 1, 1883. $225.50. On demand, I promise to pay H. J. Bennett, or order, two hundred and twenty-five -fifo dollars, value received. O. T. THORNTON. PROMISSORY NOTE WITHOUT INTEREST. BARNSTEAD, N. H., Nov. 8, 1883. $19.80. Four months after date, I promise to pay Frank C. Cole, or order, nineteen fifo dollars value received. JOSEPH A. MARSTON. PROMISSORY NOTE NEGOTIABLE. LEWIS-TON, ME., March 3, 1883. $420.00. Sixty days after date, for value received, I promise to pay Everett Remick, or order, four hundred and twenty dollars with interest from date. H. W. COGSWELL. Bos ION, MASS., Jun. l-'.-r value received, I promise to pay Toorin II. Harvey, on demand, seven huixlr- l ami mm ty dollars. WILLIAM .i. Mi-;i:i:iM. Notice in tlie above tlio omission of the phrase- order. " JOINT CnicopBB, MASS., Aug. 6, 1882. $75.00. Thirty days after date, we promise to pay John Shaw, seventy-live dollars, value received. TRUE L. PKHKIN r H. SAK<;K.\T. JOINT AND SEVERAL NOTE. ATIIOL, MASS., Nov. 22, 1882. 1300.00. Valuo received, on demand we, either or both, promise to pay Charles L. Sheldon, or order, three hundred dollars with interest. O. T. MAXKIKU). TRUE B. JOHNSON. The above note might, of course, have any of the charac- teristics of the others. That is, it might be with <>r with- out interest, on demand or after a stated period, negotiable- or not negotiable. There is a modification of the joint and several note, called principal and surety note, like the following : CORRESPONDENCE. ISO CHICHESTEE, N. H., July 9, 1882. $320.00. Ninety days after date, for value received, I promise to pay Charles J. Carpenter, or order, three hundred and twenty dol- lars, with interest from date. F. CABIN LANE, Principal D. K. FOSTER, Surety. The purpose of this note is more frequently met by the endorsement of the surety. That is, the principal signs his name in the usual manner, and the surety endorses the note by writing his name upon the back of it. In this case he does not sign the note with the principal. The endorser must be notified when the note becomes due, otherwise he cannot be held responsible for its payment. CHATTEL NOTE. BANGOR, ME., Jan. 10, 1883. $900.00. For value received, I promise to pay F. E. Perhan & Co., or order, nine hundred dollars in ship masts, to be delivered at Portland during the month of March, 1883. JOSEPH ELY. DRAFT TIME FROM SIGHT. WELLS, ME., Aug. 2, 1882. 1400.00. At ten days sight, pay to Joshua Hatch, or order, four hun- dred dollars, value received, and charge to account of J. G. BLAISDELL. To P, D. BELCHER, Wells, Me. IM -AT 8K. ll.i -, t KM., June 2, 1882. 00. At sight, pay to Eben Clark, or order, one hundred and forty ira, value received, and charge to account of II. < T.I \V. GL Kixo ACo., uglield, Mass. DUE BILL CASH. AUGUSTA, ME., May 4, 1882. $25.00. Due Frank II. Sanborn, on demand, twenty-five dollars interest from date. J. W. HODGDON. DUE BILL MERCHANDISE. BOWDOIN, MK., April 30, 1882. $60.00. Due II. H. Tucker, or order, sixty dollars, payable in < seed at the market price on the first day of July, 1882. W. H. WALK Kit. BANK CHECK. SPRINGFIELD, MASS., Jan. 3, 1883. $700.40. CITY NATIONAL BANK. Pay to the order of J. W. Holton, seven hundred -^ dollars. No. W. C. KING & Co. CORRESPONDENCE. 191 BECEIPT IN FULL OF ALL DEMANDS. SPRINGFIELD, MASS., Feb. 1, 1883. $48.60. Received of W. C. King & Co., forty-eight -j^ dollars in full of all demands to this date. W. H. HOLTON. Perhaps there is no one business form which the common people are so often called upon to use, nor one in which there are so many ludicrous errors committed as the simple form pertaining to indebtedness for ordinary services. How few matrons are able to present in proper form, a simple board bill. The following is the proper form for a bill of in- debtedness for rent: ALTON, N. H., July 9, 1883. MRS. MART N. P. MATHEWS, To MRS. ALMIRA SARGENT, Dr. To four months rent ending July 11, 1882, @ $11.00, $44.00. Received payment, MRS. ALMIRA SARGENT. The above form is applicable to all kinds of indebted- ness for services rendered. In case some article or com- modity represented the service, the name of that article or commodity is put in the place of that of the service, and the bill otherwise may be the same. There are, it is true, many other forms pertaining to business, as deeds, mortgages, bonds, wills, etc., etc., but the occasions which, require a knowledge of these are so 10 M OUR IK iratively r;i to the lm>iness i. pres> -S those foUl: But u: "f important mere mechanical form of any docun.- habit < pressing our thouglits in writing, with naturalness grace, whether in correspondence, in our j in the formulas of business, is of far more in.. This most desirable of all accomplishments comes only as the reward for patient and tireless prat; " To think rightly is of knowledge; to speak fluently U of nature: To read with profit is with rare; but to write aptly is of practice. No talent among men bath more scholars and fewer masters. And nhouldst tbon ask my judgment of that which hath most profit in the world. For answer take thou this; the prudent penning of a 1 " Thon hast not lost an bonr whereof there is a record, A written thought at midnight shall redeem the livelong day. Idea U a shadow that departetb, speech U fleeting as the wind, Beading is an unremembered pastime; bnt a writing is eternal. ** MANNERS AT HOME. ANNERS constitute the natural language in which the biography of every man is written. 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 polite- ness within us. Politeness does not consist in any system of rules, nor in arbitrary forms, but it has a real existence in the instincts of men and wo- men. The ever changing conditions and cir- cumstances of social life may necessitate modifications in the manners and customs of the people, and these modi- fications may and do extend to the domestic circle. Yet the principle of our nature in which the manners, customs, and rules of etiquette all had their origin, is permanent and unchangeable. All the various rules of etiquette for the government of society are but notes and commentaries on the one great rule, " Love thy neighbor as thyself." 13 IN has truthful'. thing else connected with t! are too apt to b< : and trusting to to form tin- manners. 1 '<;' in with the manners leave the hea and inilucn rulo id soul of politeness: ' ;s as ye would that they should do 11; children and youth arc taught, l.y precept air abhor what is selfish, and prefer another's pie;: comfort to tl. :r politeness will be fiuial, and used only when interest True politeness is perfect freedom ai; ers just as you love to be treat !. Nature is alwn ful; fashion, with all her art, can never produce anything half so pleasing. The very perfection of elegance is to imi- tate nature; how much 1 have the reality tha: imitation. Anxiety about the opinions of others f the freedom of nature and tei; kwardncss; all v. -11 if they never tried to assume what they do not possess." Says the author of "The Illustra' Book," "Every denial of or interference with <' 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 rigli La Bmyere says, "Politeness seems to be a certain < MANNERS AT HOME. 195 by the manner of our words and actions, to make other? pleased with us and themselves." Madame Celnart says, " The grand secret of never failing propriety of deportment is to have an intention of always doing right." There 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 perfectly polite, easy, and graceful. But most people require instruction and rules as to the best and most appropriate manner of ex. pressing 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 grammat- ical 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. Personal habits claim the first place in our considera- tion 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 un cleanliness. An unclean person is an object of disgust to all whom he meets. Foulness of character and moral pollution will not isolate one from the sympathy of his fel- 196 , more !v llian physical unc!< \\ urest - a foul breath. \\" but our love will necessarily lose a 1; anb 'cst will change to pity. Hut t: .st of our ; It of nn- B. It i like sand and mud thrown i: Is and Bearing of a 'lino. 1 : sons of unclean hai died of old age. !' in their ol i couie '.eanly in co. e of their infir. but during their younger have been mod- erately Cv \N".- wmild not advise one to adopt radical views on subject and take a daily bath through life, although we doubt if such a course would injure most j would probably bo unnecessary, and would be a needless of time. A full bath once or twice a week is. . all that is necessary to escape the charge of 1 angodly in consequence of filth. >t people do not seem to consider the laws of c] - as applicable to the head and hair. Even those who '"an in other respects are very apt to neglect the hair. Man who have long and thick hair unaware how quickly it becomes filthy ble odor, especially if it be while i However cleanly the :nay be in other respects, the MANNERS AT HOME. 197 hair will necessarily collect much dust and so become un- clean. 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. Perhaps in proportion to the population there are at 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 acknowledge that tobacco in all of its forms is an unalloyed evil, and that they would not desire their children to become ad- dicted to its use. And yet the most effectual way to cause their children to use it certainly is to use it in their 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 to- bacco 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 ex- ample. This is a dangerous influence at best, but it may be rendered more or less so according to the desires and 196 acts of the fa ; i ulCCO are agreeable to them, does s vith some casual jemark : the . He should :ii: the implex: that ho would k'ive worlds It j.s possible that in this v. .iy t. de a child, for thus : .16 to . uth tli.it man . and that it is d.mgerous to trillc with any vice lest it hind him with a chain of i: !!- \\1. he is at home he in. he chooses and throw off all restraints of jo!it< .'.ly finds that when he comes to put on tl. :id it becomes evident that the harness wasn't made for him. tlu 1 children can see that hi :ely urti' ficial and is not his own. Such men when ti occa- ..ly compelled to go into society exj eml). :iongh to outweigh the cost of being de corous and mannerly at home. If parents expect their children to be I they m, b them good manners. The world's fortress that has stood the bombardment of many a i; has fallen under the more subtle force of go<.d manners. There is no way to teach chil . rs excel example. It is an art that cannot be taught to adva; MANNERS AT HOME. 199 theoretically. The tactics of courtesy can never be mas- tered without field practice. If husbands are not courte- ous 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 women. From the "Home and Health" we copy the following valuable rules which seem to be so perfectly to the point that we cannot resist the temptation to appropriate them to our purpose : HOW 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 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. : orenoe your husband. Lovo him. Do not conceal your love for him. sake all for him. Confide in him. Keep his love. Cultivate tin- moilr- 1 'h. Cultivate personal attraetivem-ss. If you read nothing ami make no effort to be intelligent will soon sink into a dull block of stupM Cultivate physical attractiveness. Do not forget the power of inei.lenial attentions. Make your horn- air house clean ami in good order. Preserve sunshi: Study your husband's charac: Cultivate }.'. nature. is a wife. -k to secure your husband'! happiness. Study his interest. Practice frugality. To toil hard for bread, to fight the wolf from the ,l.v>r, to resist impatient creditors, to struggle against complaining- prido at home, is too much to ask of one man. Another phase of home manners 1 in the attitude of children toward their parents. ^ children have not, as a rule, that e and reverence for their parents which they should have. From tho author of "How toBeh.m." wr quote the following MANNERS AT HOME. 201 forcible description of the characteristics of the American Child :- " young America cannot brook restraint, 'las no concep- tion of superiority, and reverences nothing. His ideas of equ&jity admit neither limitation nor qualification. Pie is born with a full comprehension of his oTvn individual right*, 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 par- ents 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 pretentious 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 any woman. One of the evil habits exhibited for the most part at 203 OUR m home is that known as "sulki Th the comfort of the whole family fur t ; grows stronger with age, until i; disposition and prospect of l..i; Oases whrre this ary, how. .; ho should maintain a serious and pharisaical COL m. iv lauijh mildly in sympathy with those who a his wit, provided lie is not the first to laugh. Too great familiarity toward a new acquaintance is not only in had taste, but is fatal to the continuance of friend- ship. The most refined and cultivated always seek t both in their dress and in their behavior, the a; of any desire to attract attention. Extremes in and flashy colors are marks of a low degree of cu tion. Savages are never pleased by the finer blendings r in color or sound. When in company talk as little as possible of your- self or of the business or profession in which you are engaged, at least, do not be the first to introduce : topics. . ry species of affectation is absolutely disgust: I: is also so easily detected that no one but an actor it. When it is necessary to call upon a business man in the hours of business, if possible, select that hour in which you ha\v :ievi- he, is least engaged. And even then MANNERS AT HOME. 205 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 any one, 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 circumstances as will cause another to appear to poor advantage. Never leave a friend suddenly while engaged in an inter- esting conversation. Wait till there is a pause or a turn in the conversation. Do not hesitate to offer any assistance, that the occasion 206 seem to demand, to a lady, be a ^er. In company mention your husband or wife with same degree t with which you would spca!. stranger, and reserve nil pet names for times air.l which they will !> Never violate the confidence of another. Do not seek to avenge a wron^ l>y revealing the secrets of an en< which were told to you while he was a fri 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 othc Treat a woman, whatever may be her social or moral rank, as though she were a princess. Always show a willingness to converse with a lady on any topic that she may select. Do not ask questions concerning the private affairs of your friends, nor be curious in regard to the business rela- tions of any one. Wrangling and contradictions are not only violations of etiquette, but they also violate the requirements of since they defeat the very purpose of respectful discussion, to convince. Return a borrowed book, when you have finished r ing it, without delay. A library made up of borrowed '.
  • . Undertake not to teach your equal in the art he hi: professes ; it savors arrogam-y. 1 ( >. When a man does all he can though it succeeds not blame not him that did it. 17. Being to advise or reprehend any ono, oonsM-T whether it ought to be in public or in pr: y or at some also in what terms to do it ; and in reproving show no signs of choler, but do it with sweetness and mild 18. Mock not nor jest at anything of importance ; break no jests that are sharp or biting, and if you deliver anything or pleasant, abstain from laughing thereat yourself. MANNERS At HOME. 209 19. Wherein you reprove another be unblamable yourself, for example is more prevalent than precept. 20. Use no reproachful language against any one, neither curses or revilings. 21. Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparage- ment of any one. 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 stock- ings set neatly and clothes handsomely. 24. Associate yourself with men of good quality if you es- teem 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. 2G. 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. u 210 Laugh not aloud, nor at al! occasion. I). 'nan's rt unes, though there seem to be some cause. 30. Speak not injurious wori i they give occasi .ml, but friendly salute, hear and answer, and be not pensive win n it o .nv.-r.se. Detract not from others, but neither be excessh ling. Go not tliitl. you know not whether y me or not. Give not advice without being asked; and uheii do it briefly. 34. If two contend together, take not the part of either .MI- ruined, and be not obstinate in your opinions; in i indifferent be of the major side. 35. Reprehend not the imperfection of others, for that oo- longs to parents, masters and superiors. Gaze not on the marks or blemishes of or *-k n>t how they came. What you may speak in seen not before others. ik not in an unknown tongue in company, but in own language; and that as those of quality do, and not as the vulgar. Sublime matters treat seriously. 38. Think before you speak; pronounce not im. bring out your words too heartily, but orderly and di 39. When another speaks, be attentive yourself, and di- not the audience. If any hesitate in his words, help him not, nor prompt him without being desired; interrupt him no answer him till his speech be ended. MANNERS AT HOME. 211 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. 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 in- discretion, 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 judgment 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 counte- nance, especially 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 212 bo your due, or the master have it t< >u sju-ak of G \vith fruits iinii: from the gaze of those v. .tluze. . until we se< MS. It becomes disgust indulge in public ;js are alwav- ;idieule. Not that :i indi (Terence toward his \v blio. Th> I all the ; B s;iid. HI: ud wives should appear lerate of r.n-h oth.-r in publ. . It is pe; :-oj>er that ti. :u-r should proclaim their >n. Hut true love ! ud and re engrossing attention, t laresses which soci.ty in :,nnt \\\. ;te a language that only '. idly given to us a d: ceal them. fact tliat the h- uks from tlie pul ifes- tation of affectioi. i purity, a proof that it is a' . 'innion : ,1 in t],; baaed the philosophy of family 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 in- stinct 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 lit- tle plant, and the mother should follow Nature's example in rearing and training her child. Children punished, or in any way disciplined in the presence of others, are almost always made worse thereby, instead of better. That in- tuitive confidence and mutual knowledge that exists be- tween motHer and child is so delicate in its nature that the presence of a third party, even if it be a brother or a sister, is sometimes fatal to its proper action. Parents should never censure their children, nor even speak disparagingly of them, in the presence of strangers 01 visitors. There are certain private rights which belong to each 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 .pon, we U treapaased '.;;: 1' Inch results in a: falsehood may be produced in a child l>y not < :. him the ii.itur.il right of privacy. We : follow- ing from the autli I 1 ... ok": :ghta commonly trespassed upon. tilting u f good manners, is the privacy, or of :rol of one's own person ami a; e are places in this country v re exists scai the slightest recognit . A man or \v into your house without ig. No room is I unless you lock the door, and an exclusion would l>e an fault l'.:.-;its intrude upon childrt-n and rliildren upon } arriits ! '[":. busband thinka he i u a n-lit t.. nt-r his wife's room, a ife would feel injured if excl by night or day from her In; It is said : r's letters, and claim as a right ;ld have any secrets from the oil. " It is difficult to conceive of such a state of inti-n.-r l.ar- II in a civilized :cnial of and most j.rimitive rights, such an utter absence of cacy and good manners ; and had we not been assur< good authority that such tilings should a respecting them needless and impertinent. FAMILY SECRETS. 219 " Every person in a dwelling should, if possible, have a room as sacred from intrusion as the house is to the fam- ily. 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." This matter of privacy can, no doubt, be carried to ex- cess, and whether we endorse all of the foregoing or not, it certainly contains much truth. The tendency of civil- ization has always been toward the development of indi- viduality 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 multiplica- tion 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 in- creasing 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, no : t hal no right* .In with rock 1 not t; toget ' in tin; . Win of the fa- . nil is re- tmily secrete are rendered more neceeaar ily secrete does not mean family reserve or es- trangement, a thousand times that every inl . ual right should be ignor that hn>bands and v. and brothers and sisters should become cold and di and indifterent. This is tin- nut fatal tliat can befall a family. I nil the death blow to home, and wha: skeleton from which j.irit has forever flown. The family whose members do not mutually c<>nMilt and ad\ise and work tojj- other's good have virtually SUIT- f home, and are living as strangers whom circnm- 'omi>elled to live in close proximity. History irdly an example of a man who has j cess, who did not make his wife a partnt -r in his . Behind every brilliant career there will be f a Martha or a Josephine. The act of 1. family secrets renders more beautiful the i; ^e of :i:t.-ilic ii not dwell within the circle of h bring m< -rally respo: '...trge of special duties that owe their origin to the . The first duty of home in the order of dc- it is developed as >tablished, is the duty of husband and v. : . '^et that they owe any 8] duties to their wives, and s her a debt She has given him what for' r v, the giddy girl niitjht well desire to exchange her dim; I yet physical beauty has its lii^'h Oi -very face of beauty is from the c ! . dimple is Uie finger print of the Divine. A". 'it' r be.i; intellectual and spiritual. Thrice happy is that woman who possesses all these is a star of the first magnitude in the firmament oi human society. God never endowed a woman with thid three: ;'ity without reserving a claim upon he/ power. Such a woman belongs to humanity, miu istrant to human need. DUTIES OF HOME. 225 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- 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 withdrawn. 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 intoxication of wood- land rambles and moonlight poetry. You come to his house, take off the myrtle from your hair and cast the rose- bud from your throat, and exchange the rustling per- fumed robes of love for soiled calico. Can you expect anything but a chilling shock to the affections of him 15 IM re bad stood g moveless o of love ? Ladies need but little nd\ kind c<>: penonal appearance when they go i In- ! for tin- they would appear a little les- ; husbands, and a little more so in the presen own. I der that the husband grows < anil indi: :* wife when he sees her exhaust- ing every resource of invention to en' nets in the presence of other men, while cars con- tinually in his presence with soiled n we h< making an almost Indi- :e of tl. of winning the admiration of some brilliant society man, when their c \vith hands n< s to higher themes than the last and a new d I to ehmvh. This is an almost unive. is free from it. I 1 committed alike hy tlic the po.ir. in ignorance of one of the gi that govern human love. secret of many a conjn ;it little to d . put a in tl. !ie who cannot find time t-> do ; perh. id hy find time to mourn over blighted hopes and buried love. DUTIES OF HOME. 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 de- velop more perfectly in pleasant than in unpleasant homes, We do not mean, however, mere outward attractiveness. It is not essential that the home should overlook some rich and beautiful landscape ; but that the associations of home should be pleasant and agreeable 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 it parent or teacher, who suppresses his child nature. When once the tender bond of sympathy between parent and child haB thus been broken it can never be KM fulh \hen tl.' .1 mail have caused him, in '>.':: him in ae. with By sympathy ^ ! mean l>\e. It i-, j.n- love to e inpathy, or at least without that intimate, almost ; Ifl sympathy th.. between pare liild. Such parents usually children with much tenderness, but ti ace a great gulf D themselves and tli< of ll.' do not D .d that ; :ig child. :t i.f lun'oniin^ "a child again," of going back win -iv the children are, and so growing up again with them. V-.>, tlie way to bring up a child go back and get him and take him along with yu up to manhood. Y ; ii -uhl not stand on the height and call him up, fur IK.- would be very apt to lose hi- \\.iy. 1 not acqi: path. You know it is a narrow path, only wide enough for one, and that all who would .b that height must go "single 1 But the obligations of parents and children are recipro- cal, and corresponding to the duties that parents o\. those that children owe to their parents. That children owe to their parents a debt of gratitude, them the duty of obedience, love is a proposition that reipiir-s no demonstration, for it : the approval of every true child. 1)UTIES OF HOME. 229 Less recognized than the above are the duties that chil- ureu owe to each other. The older children owe to the younger ones the duty of tenderness and consideration for their age, and should not in their dealings with them apply the ethics of society, " Do to others as others do 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 ob- ligation 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 violation 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 supe- rior 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. The duties of home then are simply the aggregate of all the obligations that grow out of the family relation, and on. no the discharge of these d ! tlio home life. Home may be mad. cording to the discharge of these obligations, i how gnat questions of moral ol> : those little ol imposes. The crowning glory life is that it <; supnunest joy from the little events. "Our daily path*, with thorns or flowers We can at will bestrew them; What bliss would gild the passing boon, If we l>nt rU'htly knew them! The way of life is rough at best, Hut l.r. TS yield the roses; So that which leads to Joy and rest The hardest path discloses. * The weeds that oft we cast away, Their simple beauty scorning, Would form a wreath of purest ray, And prove the best adorning. 80 v paths, 'twere well To call each gift a treasure, Howerer slight, where love can dwell With life-renewing pleasure." CONTENTMENT AT HOME. 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 pain- ful 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 influ- ences 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 jack knife that required a new blade and a new i these were d was to him the fo still; so many objects 8c ;i subtle indfpi>: ing solely on aasoci ite to us With tl of our home we IM, and ought to be, c h'- influence of our : l>e evil, if its a: re be injurious, then \v< .r lives in making i 1 and in purify!:. atm< noblest of all forms of human '. we should find contentment. Contentment is simply a willingness to be hat most any sphere or condition of li: 'lie necessary material for happiness if we will only aj'j if there is any outward condition of human i which it does not He within one's power to be con- Our desires feed upon their own gratification. One is always and necessarily d at the moment of the ion. It is only when a desire has been u: fully gratified that the gratification fails to briiiL' ; content. Hem :tent is sub} :ther e. Now there are no pain and sorrow like hich the mind e\ hin its own dominion, and to which it can assign no adequate cause. In such cases the mind itself cannot see why it should feel discoi Such suffering of the mind is analogous to nervousness in the body. How > \re hear it said of sensitive and complaining women, "noth- CONTENTMENT AT HOME. 233 ing ails her, she 's only nervous." We do not stop to con- sider that nervousness is the most absolutely real of all diseases ; it is the reality of the unreal, and the unreality of the real. With healthy nerve and an unvitiated imagi- nation 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 preying at his vitals? or can he render real the iact that his imagination is disordered ? " nothing ails him ! "' There is nothing so absolutely real as a delusion. Nervous- ness is the only real disease. In like manner the only real sorrow is subjective sorrow, that sorrow which the suffer- ing 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 ex- ternal stimulant. The world holds up to our vision many illustrious examples of human sorrow and suffering, suf- fering from outward conditions and circumstances, and, perhaps, the most noted of these is that almost typical char- acter, Job. But the illustrious examples of that other sor- row, the world can never see, for it is the sorrow of mid- night 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. 'Tis from the 234 't fruit divine . He t of in into the sweet f peace and con: in the gr. t sense of the v re reste : iore a crown of \ Discontent, then, is in aim y case t 11, a continual something more than most awful form of human disease in which the < objects and the cognizing faculties are out of gear. ' for disconUM:; ' \\V have said desires feed u n gratification, and the kind of food determines the kind of desires. An unlawlV :i produces in its turn another unlawful <: re is no natural object or circus : respond to an unlawful desire, it full" M objects and circumstances are natural, the unL : must remain ungr.it ified, and aiiig and discontent must also remain, till unlawful <>n has been obtained :ore. :ient illustration of this view of the be seen in the 1 of a si i ilized people this is the condition of al- most every one's appetite. Every one knov he is hungry a simple piece of dry bread the hunger; lnit let him cover it with highl;. CONTENTMENT AT HOME. 235 soned sauce, and after partaking of it attempt to go back to the dry bread, be will find that it tastes insipid and does not satisfy him. If, however, he had taken a juicy pear instead of the spicy sauce, he could have returned to the dry bread with satisfaction. Here then lies a princi- ple. 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 corresponds 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, appe- tite, gives rise to nothing but unhealthy and unlawful de- sires, 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 surrounding circum- stances cannot gratify ? If discontent consists simply in un gratified desires, then it would be reasonable to suppress all desires that we cannot gratify. But would not this be fatal to all progress ? Would it not tend to keep us for- ever on the dead le\el of the present? There is an infi- nite difference between the absolute inability to gratify a IM desire, and the mere inability to gr ; ratify at once his desire for fool suspension of the gt >n does not result in <1; >erhap&, knows that his diligent search will make the gratification still keener when it comes. S<. the ig man v res to be great and useful neen of its final gratification. There is a continual ; ly in the prospect of ultimate g: ire that it is absolutely impo^- in to gratify, tlu-n the quicker it is crushed, ti. If a cripple should become ambitious to be an acr ;4 of that ambition could lead to nothing :i crush all 1 ;it canimt, in the nature of things, be .- Crush all unlawful d( seek to ill lawful ones, and contentment will lie necessary result. " Sweet are the thoughts that savor of content The i j - richer than a crown. Sweet are the night* In careless slumber spent, The poor estate scorn* fortune's angry frown; Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss. " The homely boose that harbors quiet rest. The cottage that affords no pride or care, The mien that 'grees with isic beat, The sweet consort of mirth and mnsic's fare, Obscured life sets down a type of bliss: A mind content both crown and kingdom is." VISITING. O long as man remains a social being, visiting will constitute a part of his avocations. Man is a fragment of being, as each star is a frag- ment of the firmanent. And as the stars are never at rest; as they revolve around each other ; as the smaller ones seei*. to select the larger ones as centers whose superior attrac- tion guides and maps out their path, 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 be- ing. The divine declaration, " It is not good for man to be alone," long before it was written by human pen was writ- ten in the nature of man by virtue of this law, that man is but fragmentary. Hence the necessity and philosophy of society and of the custom of visiting. A home without visitor is not a per- fect home, inasmuch as the members of that home cann >* become \ un- lew they con with il. all seen ui-h homes .itiilics that i stance is eliminated from ; In such cases > : enee and builds around it c-aae, (dually shut organism, as it were in a prison. Society lias the same : .ets, and \\iu-n it in the form of a famil te of fellow sympatl ho do not visit nor receive ^ all vital connection with tin-in ami endows th<-m with;: n walls of their own reserv. . With what pit looks upon such a family! II i the children point to the home a elling of some : to taunt the inmates as the par: int the barn fowl. We pity th family. We have often v the source of their enjoyment can be. That same coldness and lacl makes them shun the w.-rld, nvst will make them cold .".nd distant in one another's E )i homes are usually the abodes of gi It is a curi that thc-e families soon bee inct. live but a few generations at best, becon and VISITING. 239 vicious, and finally die out, and leave the world no better and, perhaps, no worse. There is a lesson in this fact, not only a moral lesson, 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, developed 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 selection. Nature does this in self defense. When a being violates 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 being, although he may still sur- vive 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 is transmitted to his children, who transmit to their offspring in still greater degree the iniquity of the fathers, till finally the family becomes too weak to perpetuate itself. . i.s do h families seldom d<> : id much in; ,mse .\itli the , of tin- p->t the greatest t nf efl'ort and the least expenditi: its forces. Since roan i.s but a frag presence of his supplementary fragments to develop hid I As woman is essential to man and man : :i in order to call out and develop the latent pos>ibiliti< each, so every human being, in order to call forth est possibilities, must dded to his su; humanity. 1: lose his identity in the great cu; of human want before he can find it again in a larger and grander sense. muscle grows strong most rapidly when it wastes most rap i< The magnet grows powerful by imparting its magi) to iron and steel. Tl. grows wise by impan ! >m. The rose fills all tl with t gift of im :h the little rail- way tunnels fly the trains that bear from nature' tory the precious freight that still Now social interco process of imparting 1 VISITING. 241 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. There 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 inter- pretation meets its rebuke in the lives of poets and philoso- phers. The world's grandest characters have been lovers of solitude. There is something pathetically beautiful 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 honey bee loves solitude, and loves it for the same rea- son that Jesus and the poets love it, because guided by a heavenly instinct they know that solitude alone can minis- ter 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 was with the dying throng, still sought the lonely heights, because it was there alone from the divine flower of solitude 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 16 Ill necessities of their 1 :iulti- | when ''ing train, and \\ith i>mvr SOIL All : re solitude, l>ut as tin- bee lor. because t tiiul something tin : hive of huinanr The poet and t: -opher can mini whilf :nain in : but not so with t! mon people "; the toiling men and women \\ ; must Ir field of labor in. the so Id. Tin the gates of cottage and pal;i of humanity. Let us entrnn tain and be en' is make it a part of our life work to n, and in our turn derive from so f it ever comes to us at all. Society does not consist in physical proximity. It not r :ig with one another in tin- di f fine lings and costly tables. Social interr and pro: Contain its own ex<-u><>. It mi: their h of an instinctive ini].' !e within re of mutual interest, in spiritual as well \5>h to recommend that practice among certain classes, of ga;! MI house >se of retailing the morning in- VISITING. 243 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 book-keeping 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 hor- ror when the door bell rang. When Mrs. A. departs amid the mournful protests of Mrs. B., Mrs. B. has too much 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 na- ture, 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 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 in- volved. Then, as the first and essential condition to the culti f tllO !-' from their ou Not in the feast where pride site qut in t! dres> ;l "'l spend the ing around each other's hearthstone, n as fa-slii \\ith ill. it eall.> foilli ;' which i :':! c;in f. We cannot j-ter than l.v (juotiiiij words of that almost is student of human n;. Harriet Beecher Sto ! re -uld be a great deal more obedience to tlio apostolic inj 1 to entertain stran- gers,* if it once conl<; :ly ^-t intu the heal inten ople what it is that strangers want. What do you want when away from home in a strange ( ; N it not the warmth of the home .UMI tin- people th I - it not the hi- ;!ege of 6ieaking and acting yourself out um edly among those who yon kn.w understand you? bad you not rather dine with an old friend on >imj!. mutton offered with a warm heart, than go to a splendid ceremonious dinner j iong peojjle who don't cure a for you . then, set it down in your book that VISITING. 245 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 stranger, 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 be- lief 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 Las perhaps been quite as much over cracked plates and re- stricted 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." UNSELFISHNESS AT HOME. with a 1 law, selfishness its own fiis, declare the universe, and in that unequal is sure to fall. The only way we get < our side is to enlist in his ;r. The conditions of our o\vn hapj so blended and interwoven with the condi- of other's happiness, tlia our own highest interest while we are unmindful of the re of others. There is but one rational and success- ful way in which a man may work for himself, and t! by forgetting self in his desire for the well-being of others. Human society is a vast machine in which every man is a '., but the wheels of a machine never move independ- ently. No matter how small and apparently in.^i may be, they each perform an essential o: their value is represented in the product of the t machine. Man is a compound of function or faculties, and is so constituted that the action of each produces plea- UNSELFISHNESS AT HOME. 247 only pleasure. The sum total of man's happiness, then, depends on the number of faculties that he brings into healthy and normal exercise. One 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 legitimate function is to prompt us to love our neighbor as ourselves, 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 de- rives 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 book-keeping is perfect, and he who expects to receive from society more than he is will- ing 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 pleasures arising from the action of a large number of the most im- portant faculties of the mind. To use a paradox, the only rational and consistent selfishness is that of unselfishness. If we desire our own h: casure we ear f tther up the leavings that .unple i: b, and devour them with the eag' ing dog? ung man who is selfish , . who is eag< st apple, and does not share it with sister or brother. will not \\ith children, when ! a home, beware of those young i do not man: in the sot-iety of lad! only from pulley, or hi' It is a fact wliii'h mathematics alone cannot uore affection we leave at home tl There is something in the nature of -lior f.ii the .iocs. '1 drni. - i haps because his almost pro\ to our sympathies. He cauuot, from the PATIENCE. 2.") 3 would not be merely an experiment upon the brute's intel- lect; it would involve tliis principle of patience. The impatience of the brute in this case would be due to the fact that he had not passed that stage in which all gratifi- cation 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 experiment, however, that we select the right kind of brute, for there are brutes which are en- dowed with a wonderful degree of patience. We may forci- bly illustrate from the brute kingdom both patience and impatience. Those which are endowed with patience are not usually those which are most intelligent. This shows that the phenomenon in the foregoing experiment is not an intellectual one. An ox, which possesses considerable in- telligence, 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 intelli- gence, and yet it must be regarded as one of the noblest attributes, either of man or brute ; for the fact that a quality is possessed by a brute does not prevent it from being among the noblest human attributes. ssed time ^bestso ial pow. ..it in many ca-' wide difference i ink-lie ami that attribute of the soul v | truth. '!'!: llectual assent to the highest >1 that element in the soul whieh ' hold of it as a part of its own living self, lies between faith and reason, j In \v of the subject patience is allied to faith. at which makes us willing to w .t which makes us feel i'. \aiting will bear us a weet fruit i a higher ai rtue than t] has \ at noble element v s time and indirect motion in the gratif: I allied to the divine instinct of the tree that waits f"r the flower and the fruit. Trials, sorrow, and death await us all. It is u~ pt to escape ire inevitable. 1 en the hard burrs of human But PATIENCE, 255 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 pa- tience through which the never-wearying rootlet embraces the rocky ribs of the moveless boulder. 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. 'T 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 couseculiveness of natural law, in the tireless movements of the laboring ant, in the sweet innocence of childhood building its play-house, in the stern bread-battle of human life, r.i the pale, wasting vigilance of the brain-toiling, star- reading scientist, or in divine simplicity, thorn-crowned MM been the captain :i shiniii star*. ith it has i mark the career of num. There is no sh; human glory too bright or too r - human i:n-atiu--s every star that has hand of 1 yon < \\ith of midnight darkness. It is ] eru>h-d ; .ind wrought sublime reforms in hu- .unl up and inret the taunts of ign .:id liigotry ; pat: . ilmly \valkr.l Lack into the >hado\v of.'. .;li "Thy \\ ; done " upon its lips ; par smoke of torment with upti;: \v. Truly has it been said, - i eom forts the ; ami mod rirl ; slie niak- ity, cheerful ! . unmoved !;. reproarli US, and to !< tlie fir>t in ask the faithfu 1 . ' the i: 'ifnl in < It i . :.not PATIENCE. 257 wait ; and here again the accusation must rest with pecu- liar emphasis on Young America. We have yet to learn from orchard and garden 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 en- tertains 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 ponder- ous 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 invinci- ble 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. 17 IM i are apt to be in too much of a hur. ' lad " Learn to labor and to w Hut the great majority . t-n seem f life is to in their teens. Ami nidi one> . exceedingly lofty object, from t who commence an education with such fooli.-h : It in their pursuit of ki at about that time. They are IP >tock of forced knowledge wlm-h they luing college. And, in such ease- udly a great amount, from t! .e to college too early to make it of much ; that many : ^e education \vl. , but i: because i ly na; itliont im]>a te. Their genius 1. hieli Co: ofgeniu>. It i- foreign to it, and n :i \\itli talei/ Genius e .n a, special aptitude for 1. t labor. Our common schools are a living monument of the im- ; nee of America, and k impossible that the PATIENCE. 259 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. But there is another reason why we should cultivate pa- tience. It is conducive to health and longevity. No im- patient 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 impatient 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 minutes and sec- onds, we must strike out from the calculation all those minutes and seconds in which he does not live in the proper sense of the word. This would include all periods of un- consciousness, 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 physi- cal powers require time for recuperation in sleep just in Hut so wast* M! ami tpasi: ^s and feelings of th- I'm ; : .'t done aiiytliii: prest* ''ic impatient, whfle tin- pati* great deal but are seldom i i '1. The ret Tin; iinpa- n cannot stop to see where to ta' so takes hold several times, and makes as i movement*, all of which weary and exhai man takes hold in the right place the fi: thus not only saves time, but physical and n; *o whih :-nt man calmly and without fi: accomplishes life's mission, tin- I man his powers and dies of exhaustion before he gets ready to begin the work. " TU mine to work, and not to win; The Botil must wait to hare her wings; Even time is bat a landmark in The great eternity of things. " Is it so much that Uiou below, art, shooldst fail of thy desire, When death, as we believe and know, Is but a call to come op higher ? " - - TEMPERANCE. HE word temperance, from the Latin temper* antia, 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 to- gether, born amid the thunder storm 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 birth-mark 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 never before found occasion for a word to designate the J-'V! total abstinence from intoxicating beverages. We have no wish t thoM old roots that lie dead and brittle in iges. These d MS were assigned by an infant wnrM, but it has outgrown them now. \\'< , t}, e word "star" signified to us only a shining speck, only a hole to let the light of heaven through." 1'. our ampler viMon they are the chariots" across the longitudes of night. AV ts of human thought. They are born amM that accompany the aggressions of ink-!'. con- irked by the birth of :he death of an old one. Like the corpuscles of the re springing into being and dying with pulsation of the world's brain. are but the moss-covered monuments that mark the < teries of do not mean, of course, that there literally comes use a new word with every new M< -a. Much less do that a word actually that language is a thing of growth, that it is moi to meet the ever changing conditions of human unfolding, :hat words pass out of use or change their : with every outgrown idea. !! v, ho does not dare advocate the temperance cause to- lest and form fea coward, and in a certain sense a dead weight upon society. But those who TEMPERANCE. 263 steal the livery of science and clothe themselves in the cun- ning drapery of sophistry and become the hired pleaders for passion and for vice, deserve the everlasting execration of humanity. If we summon the saddest meaning that "doom" possesses it is but mild beside their crime. To misinterpret the divine message of science, and thus place in the hands of vice the devil's magic wand, is the crown- ing sin of man. And yet there are hundreds that incur this guilt. Men whose names ensure their recognition seek to defend their own vices with the awe inspiring weapons of high sound- ing 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 manifesta- tion 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 occa- sion of a nation's highest energy, but shall we, therefore, 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 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 M4 outward passage. 1 cast out . suinn. \vitb .0 to cast out tlic i ance, \v this ; Inesg, an increased \ irt and .1 s'.velli.. is because the vital forces are aroi: the spot to see v, : 'the : y of fir. . i n ell- ing of the city, in the part a!. id infla: almost exact!}* wha: Tho is striking, and indi i a dciiht t; ion principle is involved in loth cases. W: i have ascertained what i yset es to work to cast tl out. They thr.iw up around it a secretion \vhi it cfl" from all conn* in, and isolates it, and after a short time ifc > out of its own accord. in the same way these vital in the '.ol to the surfa; ^kin, and lungs. kidneys, and hrain. This is why 1< : alcohol has been drunk, its odor may be detected in the breath. With every breath it is thrown out from the lungs. The odor TEMPERANCE. 265 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. But alcohol is said to be a respiratory food, meaning that it is burnt 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 them- selves. There is but one solitary fact that by any method of manipulation can be made to take the semblance of an ar- gument 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 colio 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 midnight assassin, we have a striking illustration of what takes place Mfl when the assassin a! - r "f tl soul. I reign . a8k:> it through the open door of tin- skin. iings, or the brain. ' f the which alcohol occasions. : <>f tl. in tla-i: t to rid deadly foe. The midnight light, ju- mild be a wanning process, but \ve have H.M r k .-.s to prescribe midnight assassins as rt food. \\' ::ne, however, that they might take the place of most of the nostrums of i\\< with disadva suflfering part of tin- ((nnnunity. We must lock lu'yond Good Templars for the si aiice refo: Organization is essential to the success of a re- form, lut it is simply the machim-ry that is driv. '. vc.hi- The solution of {}. than ry of the "pass word." It li.-> in the kno\\ ] of natural law, in tl, M <-f the people. i the people learn t! -ison in all 4iian- and under all c: . whf-n they learn that it may look for gratifying re>uh> in the temperance reform. TEMPERANCE. 207 The world has too little faith in nature and too much in medicine. Disease itself is a curative effort of na> ture, and is not a thing to be conquered by a poison, but an action to be regulated by favorable conditions. So long as people possess that insane faith in the efficacy of medicine, so long will they believe anything that unprinci- pled physicians (?) may choose to tell them about alcohol. The contest is between true philosophy and the lingering superstition of the nineteenth century. Perhaps the most conspicuous mental feature of the sav- age man is his superstitious fear of medicine and the " medicine man." The world has always advanced just as fast as it has lost faith in medicine. There is one fact with which the temperance reform has to contend, more formidable than all others combined. It is the fact that people so readily yield to the 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 ;. Artificial. Peo] bo taught to do tl. n we can expect i to aba: use of a .on shall this be brought about? Surely not bj legislation, not by seizures and fines, but laborious process of education. This education inu ::c, and must be directed for the most part t ing generation. The pathetic stories of <1 drunk- ards may hav influence in shaping public h but a hey can be only > a more sul tial and abiding force. Legal measures may serve purpose, but the reformatory efforts should be dir mainly to the securing of that condition which shall ren- der legal measures unnecessary. This condition must be sought in the education of the children, who not only must be taugl. -tingui.sh the significance of natural .d appetites from the unnatural and abnormal, but their / and education must be such tl. have no unnatural and abnormal appetites, t "n natural appetites are the product of wrong physical training, and intempei 'ie product of unnatural appetit>>. Hence wrong training is the origin of intemperance. In our <>n home training we have spoken of the process by which wrong ] training produces drunk- peat its however, for ;e of ..il emphasis. All that is necessary to make a drunk- S first, a good healthy boy as material j and second, TEMPERANCE. 269 plenty of candy, pastry, pickles, anc iaedicine as 'tools. Any mother with such an outfit can m m -facture a drunk- ard. The process is extremely simple, ^"imkenness, as we have said, is the product of a diseased or unna^'iral appetite, and the appetite may be diseased or rendered unnatural by taking advantage of the slight caprice which all appetites possess, especially in the civilized 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, and every mother knows what we mean by unnatural food. It is not necessary for us to enumerate the many articles to which this adjective is applicable. The phrase at once suggests to the ordinary mind the abominations of spice, pickle, pork, and pastry, that 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 .1 linife an 1 some." She a grea cooking. She sh y as possible, itutc an art: :ie. She should :iifesfc should up his strength." She should, of co; of candy it is good for the teeth, t: >eth. ore importance than nng els< should dose him freely with medicine wl posed. 1 came near forge to advise a free use of tea and coffee. \\Y hare said lut little about intemperance in ' nary way. We have told n ^ of neglected wives and broken-!. rs. \\" ,-e of the subject to the sentimental lecturer. But we have giv language son: :niral, that which we believe the peo- ple need, and that which < ther-ought to refleet upon. The one fact which we ! d to make proii:' that the ajpetite for alcoholic bevera ot necessarily induced Averages themselves, but be created by the use of whatever inflames the system, or iie taste. It is sufficient simply to state that the pref the law of econon . I ithin the ol n of soci- . adage, that i 1 woman can live at expense together than separate certainly a b< >n, offering as it inducement : . the home life. Nature is tl economist. She nt ami yet- --nevolent of all will :x-d fruits, and yet she no way even h- cayed products, but turns them into her h;' makes them over into good fruit, a subtle r the unfrugal hoiisewife v y the remains of the at migli onomioal and gen( : she knows h"- ;1 without being jienurio is not lazy, and yet she al lie shortest path. Of ECONOMY OF HOME. 273 two equally good conductors the electric charge always takes the shorter. It will even choose the poorer con- ductor 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. But 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 existence. 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 shortest dis- tance between two points, and that 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 application of this law. To the low and mean the word economy signifies dishon- 18 .t!i> iliil. Slu the birds and zephyrs her hti :i to >eeds of m .eck of the proud lightning. .or sliagj on the toiling backs of e;irtli4iiakes, ai. . oxygen her dome skillful fingers to n: '.- -d and compli s of chemical el igher office of attor; through hi::. the divorce of unhappily wedded constituents. ECONOMY OF HOME. 275 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 puss 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, written on every tree whose friendly foliage shields us from the scorching sun ; on every spark- ling rivulet that weeps soft tears of rain upon the thirsty land, which in its turn gives back the gracious tribute of its shrubs and flowers, and with an answering compliment flings its rich gift of roses to deck the river banks ; on every circling satellite, upon the moon's sweet face, who ; n 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 lf>w, that to give is to receive, and whoever would receive must give. The prudent farmer, while he is generous and free, will still allow no stream of fertility to run to waste. While 171 he is iin! he will still comjK-l the fcO saw his wood and ' .-.ill nulls no di>honesty in tinning our :o ;ill of > do so. r forces her sen . ai;il lii.w \ve \vi>h 1 it. We must furni>h the tools for her to And even (hen, if they do not suit her. -lie \vi!l : She will not dr . tar. The reason why m* so litll- past ages is because she was so particular about could not suit : Now the highest economy is the highest invention. That i-. : -t economical man, other thi: .1, who is the most skillful in devising tools for u. to work with. Home is abroad field for the exerci-e of ii: It is chiefly in the home, or in some wa with do- find that large class of ii. whieh mini tly to human comfort. It is not neces r. that e ful invention should be the product of an inventive genius. On every farm and i: iioine there' arc tho' opportunities for the exercise of this faculty. The it ECONOMY OF HOME. 27? tive 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 uninven- tive 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 to perform some other service with. 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 re- membering that the men who have made farming pay in rocky New England have nearly all been of this sort. Every wife and mother should be a tailoress, a milliner, and a dress-maker. She should know something 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 cnll her ! should to take the rn together again. She should be able to repair the churn .'.k pans. make use of these n lnnents, they \\; more readily to ! She ca: and fain' in which k I inventive skill will enable one to save mom- Tli- ' economy, how< in saving. Much has been said, and \ out the saving of pennies. 1 . That economy which vingand does not stimulate the inventive and -TS in the direction of acqnisiti- st sure to degenerate into : is and \ ness. 'he case that the saving pro- pensity is carried so far as to be a positive ol ing. As when the farmer refuses to hire help because it must he paid for, and thus a. deteriorate (: nt of a too late ha: . or when vife refuses to employ a domestic servant and becomes on account of overwork. I: , to mow all summer witl t few days' use would accomplish the same result. True eco- ECONOMY OF HOME. 279 nomy consists in that broad and comprehensive knowledge of affairs, that clear foresight and calculation, that willing- ness 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 change directly too. He could not think of selling the beans for money and 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 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. 30 a sentiiip Delves u '"w limits. I o be always Irani niiri- kill in ii. 's sea to sa between these two rocks. W' embark we are \ i more profit well by that experience, and learn the golu we are prone to tbe oppo- me and m:. : the rock of penuriousness. I; i- the inordinate 1 for iU own sake that is the root of all evil; while econ< helm that guides us safely two (lark and threatening rorks. This disposition to hoard money for pent! - proper function, is not, I holly coiul There is a ministry of good in the very sciousness of possession. It is usually easy t the men of wealth in a crowd of people, by their 1 conscious power. It is the natural and legitimate c of man to feel that In- is in a certain sense the queror and possessor of . Th- called the king of beasts, not because he is the largest or the strongest, but bee;. calls hi the king of beasts. !! 'Iocs this ly his nobl. the consciousness of power. How man, like tbi .ould feel and manifest a sense of power, only in a far higher de- ECONOMY OF HOME. 28x gree. It is this conscious power manifesting itself in the human e} 7 e which accounts for the fact that no wild Least 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. This, then, is our plea for wealth, that its moderate pos- session makes men noble and magnanimous. One noble, generous, wealthy man in a community is sometimes 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 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 (M anything in t ; ass Oil t v itit<> t: . \\'i...: li-ht, tlu-i . 11 and mi>f(rtune? Tlio :i with n the uivimi f wt-alt].. . It is not tl. the cconom c. Tlio object df home is to mold r, and t! ecoin 'lould IK-, tin- accuinul.i - and instrunuMitalit: Those things which n t,. the : ["rly tin- nl'jrets of the ecoi: - dollar.- that good 1 h.-ni i to accumulate tter than to gi\ a little bank and tc.u h them that the aecumulatioi, tliat '. in the a< Iwoks and i 'hcn th . old enough to appreciate them, they will, ECONOMY OF HOME. 283 perhaps, have a respectable library. They will also have what ik 'i-.r better, a true idea of life and its significance. If all j arents 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, educatior. . culture, righteousness, and all that can lift the soul, and jring the spirit and genius of humanity nearer to its God. In all c ases 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. " Iron is heaped in mountain piles And gluts the laggard forges, But gold-flakes gleain in dim defiles 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. 1 Were every hill a precious nine, \ ' Were all the rivers fed with wine 1 Life would be rariahed of lu zeal, And thorn of iu nml And sink Into the droamloM rest 1 Up the broad Main that value rears, Stand motive* beck'nlng earthward, To summon men to uobler ,sjLcrea, And lead them worth war HOME ADORNMENTS. AN is an aesthetic being. The love of beauty 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 without seriously deranging the sym- metry of the whole, but it constitutes a great motive power in man's constitution. It is the uplifting element ; it is that in us whicli makes us hunger and thirst after perfection of character. The law of beauty is the law of complete- ness, 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. Na- ture 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 Ml the heavenly bodies are Tlio - Lies are Most of t! or are made iu the y- '-see the spirit of ^'. Bee it in i i the ceaseless round of the resurrect lie rose- 'iat su<_r_: I >uggests Diction . ipon the ing canvas an ul-lifting sugges- :it thought. > nur imag: missing are found to be essential faculties in the ; . is that f.; ich gives us a :tal oper give in something of The la :, whii-h ' kfl and give to everything a circular tend* natu: nee it forms so large and vital a : nature, is not its cultivation of the utn. '. ilence to this part of our nature without HOME ADORNMENTS. 287 violating the whole. To withhold the influences that tend to develop a love of beauty is as sure to cause a one-sided and unsymmetrical growth, as to withhold a needed ele- ment of food. Beauty is one of the elements 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 cabinet 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 no.oning 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. But 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 of i lie angels on needle* < b 110 (! '>ing in tin- tribi:- vcrsal heart of man in all age A flower g;i hat the control of a house : close about the housr. re are ft arts of cities \v! for .1 il. No' in concerning tl rtheless the opinion of the most c that they are positively ' 1th. I: suppose otht : >uld b' analogy, : 'e vegetable kin suines carbo:. ible gas us, but whit ' i the food of plants. I !e oxygen, v ining element of mal life, and which in t ivili/.-.l homes is ' owing to- of proper ventilation. i in part neutralize tli ects of i T the most striking provisions of natu: n in the mutual a ' i of plants and anin. to us just what ire, while we give to t! . 1 1 v admirably ths_-n are : plants adapted to live t- . The beauty of art alone for the ma:, wealth. Artistic and tasteful adornments are HOME ADORNMENTS. 28 & of ingenuity and not of wealth. Trees may be about the house, also vines and roses. Arbors and shad}' 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 ten- derer chord in the spirit's harp if we could look back to a cottage vine-wreathed and rosy-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 tasty 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 canuot 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. It is as much the duty of parents, then, to adorn and beautify their home as it is to keep the moral atmosphere of that home pure. Indeed, the latter cannot exist without the former. The best characters and the noblest men come from the modest 19 IN s \\liu-h ta beautified. Beauty b a po> -ree. The language guage of aspirati till we coultl dhine d i the opening flowers, we should h say : " All things hare their mission, and God gives as ours, lii.s is a part of the mission of flowers: To giro 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 t I's cheek; To blush on the brow of the beautiful 1 To cheer home* of mnnrning where sorrows betide; To rob dreaded death of a pan of his gloom, By decking the dear one array. i mb ; To famish the borne 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." DIGNITY AT HOME. IGNITY is self-respect, or rather the mani- festation of self-respect. It is the involuntary and unconscious expression of one's appraisal of himself. Hence dignity may be called a secondary or dependent 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 benevo- lence. In exhorting one to be polite, it is more philosophical to exhort him to cultivate the Christian grace of benevolence than merely to study eti- quette. 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 dis- honest 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 polite- 10 i;, - . : .. . ' . .} !.: ill- ii IK : ind !. . pocritii al. be a <;ct. Stl : \vli ..-c i usually uir. pet i la- .; " ' some stage oi grow: . are almost alv. ;it in the majority of ca>> ,'vea rise t "lief ori her sentiments than thut of sc character too feebly developed. 1 possesses, if he be n<>t liaughty a: tlie mind [ makes us hate anything th.it is lo\v or mean. . possessor feel that he is better tl it is one of the strongest ue. The dignified man ahva than the undignified. So< .dined to take a man at his own .isal. The world, while it m;i_ '. >n a ma: homage, always believes all the brings aj: :nself, and if a man ' his low and mean associ;. : pro- fane Lo ^hl'lt, by his lack of orld that he is unworthy of its esteem, it will surelj take him at his word. To the dignified man everything that he does becomes dignified. If he is a w ]er, then w* :ues as (M, IQ as statesman DIGNITY AT HOME. 293 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 corre- sponding 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 giddy summit, 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 dig- nity shows him worthy of it, so the parent takes the child at his own price. In proportion as children are dignified will parents grant them liberties, and place them in posi- tions of honor and trust in the family economy. The dig- nified girl need not be a premature woman. She may IM .y with , as she Btill be dignified. 1 '.:.". . .. OODhi it has : not r well-pi who gets (1 not uii.: L Tin- : y sports of 1 M with all the mirth and : rly girlhood, is not i: long as she has a noble purpose in life, and sees a grand ng. . we believe that those who walk with i: and \vh< . aients of true dignity. K\< -ry thing v. is counterfeit betrays its spuriousness, whatever in kill of the counterfeiter. Ti ' : -?gli ll gi ;ill( l *i">- for the frankness and fearlessness of true i .So tl;> hing about tin- i dignity that ;;iity th, : afl'nrd I but true dignity can a fiord t-> !>< light hearted. We find ; upon the mother's brow as she shakes the and creeps uj>on the floor t her . But 1 iidly, when sudd :in a higher duty. d out of t! atiiH ; ht-r baby's life, unv, niles from her face, aii forth in the gh>ry of her woman- hood. It is then that she <\i--. ii^nitv that . DIGNITY AT HOME. 295 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 fall 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 dig- nified will be a central figure among his brothers and sis- ters and schoolmates. There are certain virtues that have corresponding vices, resulting not from the absence but from the excess or wrong direction of the virtue. Dignity is one of those pe- culiar virtues, separated from the vice of conceit only by a thin veil. Economy is a virtue that all boys and girls are exhorted to cultivate, but how thin is the partition that separates this virtue from the hateful vice of penurious- ness, that vice which has shriveled the soul of many a i the w< ic grows close t i! El a law without ex. lane stable the virtue, while th-- be plane, the >le. 'I'h. ly gift of love crowning sentiment (fdivin. is easily turn: a its lofty pedestal into the- mire of . piemen t it is M] ly a thin partition from t! ;ness. Let us then cultivate dignity, but '.vith ;) careful hand. ' A in.inofi i til 'i. '.:'y :i ! ! : i':: t" !,:- < n.'::i!.'-;; He ttuuidrllt s aii Arab in the des< : - of nil men Are against him. ' KC iniinl li.-xily subtrac-t. ill from ! learn to despise him. of sHf-kniiwlotJ^.' vi-il.-tli the front of srlf-rcspect, Tlu-re look thon for tho 111:111 wliom none can know but they will honor. And lielu lowly on the ground, beloved and lovely as the violet." SUCCESS OR FAILURE FORESHADOWED 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 legible, 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 suc- cess. The pious rural maiden, who spends her life in ministering 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- gale, she surely would have shuddered to offer so meager a return to her master. Stt ;-ed?" ees, or his v and native abili; . the in; : stages ral capat length of lit' . ' for success, ugh it has i eded better than ! passed > sand stages, but has missed one stag According t<> tl lion of success, whu-h is the only proper one, all in ;i tlic The cli of all fail He v .s life as a frui; at a i mind, has a LOe of si: - with a million <; In .'. al success i> ung of onlinary ability. It i> certainly i ; that he 8h(Uilil choose tho vocation for which nati: liiin, but it is far more important that he : \viii( h he does choo- There are certain excesses and d- :.ich are . and tliis lack of jicr-istency aericans. With the (Ic; with them i -xcess. ' is so I . natural for lile with occupati SUCCESS OR FAILURE. 301 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 .:.ct accords well with their known fickleness. The young American has much difficulty in decjding what occupation he shall follow. He is usually undecided whether he shall be a shoe-maker or statesman. He gener- ally 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 store on Broad- way, but after a time his work becomes prose instead of poetry. His hasty decision was based on no abiding rela- tion 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 MM El well u time. 1 I '.y the s. 1 the of going to college, anil 1.. coming a . speaker. So his father's link- farm .'1 h.j college, carrying with him aii'l after four years of ai:; e to || life work, having forgotten all ;ii"iit hi resolution to be a groat writer. So habituated 1 come to fresil)k- fur him to be satisfied in any : There is no objection to a mere change of occupation if .-ler it de>irahle. T tal condition that prompts a nig man may be a clerk, a hanker and a printer if he chooses, and ! better for it, provided tin : the accomplish: purpose. If a hoy < > be a prin: printer, and if cin-ui: ble that he should f<>r a ti tion.let him do it that he is simply for ing out of 1 : . I change of motive and d 1 not the mere phv change which produces the best result. SUCCESS OR FAILURE. 303 Now, since success and failure are products of the char- acter, and since character is formed by the influences of home, it is easy to determine with approximate 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 prevented. Children should be taught the importance of persistency. 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 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 sometimes 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 ensure 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 en- sure success in your boy's career don't foster nor tolerate KM . ;i in. i of IK ha shall continue profession or change .\v. If he is y< tvorablc. e the change. It would not as a ru! ;e. \\>- have :-aid that it is h-ss important t! ung man should choose just the occupation for wl.; . than that he i>n>ist in tlie on- -e. There may be exi-cptitms to this, hi: 1 a rule, from the N that without in the o< i for which 1. With persistency he i in the > to which lie is poorly adaj will. '.ity he is sure of failure in a:. \\V would not convoy the i: but little importance to i .; choice are few things in human lift- mo: matrimonial selection, and y-t it : a firm determination to live through lif : n the one wh ;ade in < SUCCESS OR FAILURE. 305 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 failure is the best cure for egotism. It reduces our stand- ard 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. 44 What most men covet, wealth, distinction, power, Are bawbles 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." 20 FALLACIES ABOUT GENIUS. 1 T S may to work i hose !e soul doe> onse to the <>t a gc: rhing that more ' nature than young man, to fancy himself a genius and 1. the necessity of /-/ ; /-. The -ex- pose that folly, and to show the v, crning the nature of gen If work costs you effort, you may be talented but you are not a genius. If it is easy for you to work, and but little self-denial, you are on the border-land < but if you cannot help working, if work i- 'i. if when the spell is upon you ;' their music to give you sleep, if thr less impulse 1 rs on y in at inid- . you may ] nt upon the star-lit heights, "ur mi- roach up to God and down t i Great achievements, although they always acconij FALLACIES ABOUT GENIUS. 307 genius, do not constitute it, they only indicate it, they are the natural language, the gestures 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 every-day 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 outgrowth of an organic function, and this pernicious indefiniteness which makes ludicrous and insignificant distinctions between synony- mous words, will vanish from our literature. Concentra- tion of purpose and intense application are as truly ele- ments of genius as the imagination of the poet. From these 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 elements, such as will, concentration, perseverance, self-reliance, etc., etc., are possessed in equal quantities by all, and 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 can- not compose music like Beethoven as to censure him be- 106 cause he " doca not v, ..it give the deaire are the same that gi ' ; may as poetry!. are as to ex- liim to have the coi.rrntra the elf reliance of Shakespeare, f<>r all these qualities are as much parts of genius, and are just as <: t on hereditary and organic influences a* those which are recog- ;>rime factors of genius, has many and unn, among them the earliest, if not the mo.st marked, is in- tellectual boldness. The first r i of gei scorn for the opinions of men. Genius sees through the clouds that intercept the world's vision, and 1 the v -vmpathizes with gen'r;-. I! v the highest compliment the world can pay to genius. He who does not so; enrage his fell- :nay well ques- i to genius. This rule, however, applies with less force in cer spheres of genius, as music, painting, sculpture, etc. even here the grandest efforts have beei 1 by the critics, the interpreters of genius. Hut in that phere, in which it rough-hews the timbers of the world's new thought, it cannot receive the sympathy of men. 44 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 discordant words and ugly FALLACIES ABOUT GENIUS. 309 thoughts ; tumultuous thoughts ; thoughts that burn into the tablet of the centuries with a hiss. It is the honied words of talent that please the ears of mankind. Another distinguishing characteristic of genius is that it always tells the world something that it did not know be- fore. 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 unwrit- ten 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 re- ceived canons, it is radical and fanatical. It recognizes no formulated law of thought or logic. It both walks upon the earth, and flies in the air. It knows that which talent doubts, and believes that which talent laughs at. It 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 310 MifTcrs because it cannot be a man. The child is ambi- tion- tes as posse - y.Miiarkalih- degn lalities of a child. So t.. .t df harmony iii titn- s not st- riae in ita aspirations into the cloud 1.. io not mean that a without that he might occupy th- ine lows. There are few to \\ is a stranger, yet it causes no suffering and nut touch the question of disappoint i. In its to genius we ha-, the word a>piration with uing. that in which it signifies not m< Imrning, sleepless impulse, which suffers all things, forgets ings of s. labors unceasingly for the accomplishment of its purj So i malicious desire to dash the f college boys wh<> mistake that indefinite B for greatness which every one 1. divine uplifting which not only seeks the goal of j: but actually rejoices t ;>ath to glory is so rough and . It is a characteristic of genius that it loves to t for the sake of crushing :es. No! no! young man. don't wait any longer for gc to blossom, for the fact that you are waiting proves that iid to blossom. ;-aid this exalted and possiMy extravagant FALLACIES ABOUT GENIUS. 311 tribute to genius solely for the purpose of placing in the hands of that class of young men who fancy themselves 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 conceived the idea that to work would be to surrender their claim to genius. Hence they abandon themselves to idleness. 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 wast- ing toil worked themselves into untimely graves. Since genius consists solely in spontaneous and involun- tary 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 rendered useless by the delusion that genius is a compound of wine and laziness than by any other one cause. But let no young man entertain the foolish 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 moving power in genius is impulse, whereas in talent it is usually 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 312 R / weakness of greatness. I iiut and liui. ate it and rm|. itlcr themselves posses. 4 - at least one ch .c UH. So long as the young man of talent can readily fi: field for the full exercise of his ; in which -f toil tire worthy of his high. uot 1 As well might he lament because he was not horn into a : refined and beautiful world than this. So long as he ful- fills the duties which his talent impo- .ould be con tent and happy in his sphere, and never stop to con whether he be a genius or a mediocre. The semi-idiot, if ho employs to the best possible, advantage the weak t;i that he possesses, may be as deserving of praise as Plato, Paul, or Newton. It is the function of genius to go in advance of the world's 'i, and "set the stakes" to guide the advancing col- umn. But one genius can do this f>r an army of sand, while the lieutenants and corpor .lent mi; scattered all along the line. Genius in every relati life is more or less independent of experience. It knows things without learning them. It exemplifies 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 from whence comes the light. It is awed at it/ Loveliness. I thoughts make a beautiful soul, and a utlful soul makes a beautiful face." ; I knew a little girl, Very plain ; might try her hair to curl, All in vain; ier cheek no tint of rose d and blushed, or sought repose : She was plain. the thoughts that through her brain Came and went, recompense for pain, Angels sent: ill many a beauteous thing, er young soul blossoming, Grave content. ry thought was full of grace, Pure and true; I in time the homely face Lovelier grew ; h a heavenly radiance bright, m the soul's reflected light Shining through. t tell you, little child, Plain or poor, our thoughts are undefiled, You are sure the loveliness of worth ; d this beauty not of earth Will endure. St. Nicholas. to 1, 267,984 last year. -The Anti-Semitic more rf.iwia has .become general, n everywhere are filled with the deepest propect of a new per*- threaten* to be more senons thtn a have endured in th tt country, design appears to be to their commercial privileges ticularly odious and unjust con Secretary Windom has banqueted at Tuesday evening, many distinguish* sons taking part The Spanish Forefe i -' r ."_ :ii- I r.-iirl, common with tlie brute creati." ithout it all the higher powers of man would lie helj.lfss prisoner^ in the hands of circumstances. We would not exalt plr ge to that position which we would n>>ihington's int. :id honor and j might h;i ;u vain, for without physical coi they could never have made a nation grand. '1 Christians might have di*-d from tin- ;heir joy, luit without the physical courage that scorns the : there would never have been a martyr. But there are higher forms of courage. To be ;. one must have something more than the courage ; high degree of temperature. He must have the c. 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. Without this of courage no triumphal* would to-day move uj on COURAGE TO MEET LIFE'S DUTIES. 319 the waters, no engine would jar the earth with its iron hoofs, no magic wires would belt the globe with zones of love. History would be unstained with blood, and the simple 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 doom. Every great book in history was born amid the death throes of its heroic 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, thoughtful brows have pressed through weary days and lingering nights against the bars of prison win- dows ! It 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 association with the devil. The authors of new thought are not now doomed to starvation. But notwithstanding all this there never was a period in the history of the world when life demanded so 320 much of courage as Unlay. The most d cow;; th.it which makes u to be ourselves. Tli> and fearless spirit of individi. A thousand years ago one could be conservative and nut fall behind the race, now, while humanity rides on steam and light i. cannot afford to imitate the clumsy gait of those v. through life on foot. With the momentum of six thousand years him, man is now rushing with terrific speed toward the goal of his destiny. He started as a long tmin 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 re- mained almost at rest. There was little demand tlu this form of courage, for every one was like every other, 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'i intellectual and moral sewer. No age of human history has offered such a grand re- ward to courage as the present. In politics and religion we see the disgusting cowardice that makes men slaves to base schemes and cunning tyranny. COURAGE TO MEET LIFE'S DUTIES. 321 There are few men wlio dare to think for themselves ; 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 pro- gramme is moral courage. Let the young man learn to think foi himself. The feeblest thought that was ever born of a human brain, if it be the unrestricted product of that brain and comes forth unfettered by fear of nonconformity, is a grander thing than the proudest creation of genius, if that creation be shaped in trusting subservience to man. One courageous thought is worth more than volumes of prostituted genius. Originality is not a peculiarity of great minds. The smallest minds may become wonder- fully original simply through courage, by daring to ques- tion that which they read and hear. Of course the disa- greeable habit of egotism is not to be encouraged. One should presume himself 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 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 certain aspects of great truths which must, from their na- ture, be discerned by little minds alone. It is cowardice 21 to bi 1 '. IMato says KO. The first III daring \\ith which i: have it Hi mid unmannerly habit of disputing f>*r tlie sake of d; ing is in any way a ss. : dispute in a broader sense, that in which it means to question \\L ibili- ties, to demand consistency, and to doubt, if i. civilization of the nineteenth century was born of d. and questions, whose answers hu\ ! . rson says: "Have courage not to adopt another's o That certainly means inueli. It ii: stand upon our own individuality, and dare to respond to our own name in the roll call of K Courage gives a man a kind of magic control over e\ thing in nature. It actually strengthens the muscles of the body. The courageous man can lift a heavier weight, other things being equal, than the timid man; he can do : work in the same time and with ' .u-tion. Courage adds to one's peace of mind. The timid is never at peace. To him life's dir form of living, malicious i re. v.h-'se only desire tt to be to defeat his efforts and .r weakens every fiber of our being, physical, intel- lectual, and moral ; which, in effect, is the same as COURAGE TO MEET LIFE'S DUTIES. 323 strengthening the obstacles and resistances of life. What- ever strengthens the muscles virtually lightens the weight. Thus does courage give to mail 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 lose* 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, 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 heareifc" THE IMPORTANT STEP. " V tl v of ever ;i time \\licii an iiuj u-p mu moment i'led. '1 whieh tlii.- step is lal. fraught \\ith the might:* tor weal or IT06. It hi'' 1 man life. An error here cai, A happy (lt-i-i>i.n . \\hi.h nothing on cartli c-an In- r(.ii)}>arrt a\\Tul iue of lift- a> a lit mirth and idle jest. There ean 1 .iht tliat thi> torn lies at the r large j- ._ of the that mar the happiness of t!. So long as youni: with each other's affections, as if that were their hi. use, the world will be the theater of untold sorrow. It is true that the love element will : duerd to the standard of a commercial tr I: : the liberty to spread : o\\n divine romanee. We must not take away the : . liieli i its vital breath. m YES OR NO THE IMPORTANT STEP. 325 And yet there are certain phases of it that may and .vhould 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 de- throned and there is no longer any trustworthy guide, and reason may in this case serve as a poor substitute. The foregoing illustration contains the whole truth con- cerning the relation of reason to the love principle. If the delicate sentiments have not been outraged, and the tastes are un vitiated, they will invariably lead to desirable re- sults, 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 sub- mit the dyspeptic caprice of the unregulated love to the sound judgment of reason. It is said that " love is blind," but this fancy originated in the observed phenomena of its perversion, and not of its normal action. There is nothing that can see so well KM as pure love. It is all eyes. N<> of i.-teet the motes which its naked eye The veiling in;. hose love intuit inns are uneloiid.-d will seldom make a mistake in the disposal of tlu- affe< -lions. Tl;. ' r, a danger from cue other sourr> we will presently mention. It is the theory ;hat gir! ladies should n to associate f: ;i until they contemplate matrimony. There seems to be a sickly sent lent on this subject. The young lady mi; was a kind of special j>: > in her love nf that it would have been absolutely impossible for her to love any one else. This diseased sentiment is coi both sexes, but it exists for the most part in those who been excluded from the society of the other sex. fact that girls who have brothers and boys who have sisters always make the wisest matrimonial selection*, is one that bears significantly on this subject. The lady who has never been permitted to associate with gentlemen, and who has no brot! likely to make an,: the bestowal of her affections. The conjugal choice is made through an instinct that is attracted by tlfe genial, and repelled by the uncongenial. But there ia, however, a faint attraction between the sexes even when the parties are not conjugally adapted, and if the young lady has never had an opportunity to compare this faint TEE IMPORTANT STEP. 32? attraction, which she may have felt, with stronger ones, she will be very apt to misinterpret its significance, and regard this slight attraction 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 ladies and gentlemen, even between those who are ill adapted as conjugal partners, but simply a weakening of the attraction. Hence it becomes necessary in order to rightly interpret our impulses that we should have the opportunity to com- pare them. If nature had sharply drawn the lines of attraction and repulsion between the compatible and the incompatible, there could be no such thing as a matrimonial mistake. But since she prefers to suggest, by a weakened attraction, rather than to command by a positive repulsion, it requires a little acuteness to understand her suggestions. It is a fact proved from every realm of natural history that it is the female's rightful function 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 lady should have the opportunity of making her selection from a wide circle of gentlemen friends, 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 OUL .-.ad rough her little .nee. > advocating tl 'irting. to win, :th no s sport, and pleasure that some experience in bein;j pain anoth- by cunning coquettes for the ruthless purpose of seeing them bleed when cast aside than for any other purpose. to express our firm belief that the of flirtation arc more ,tnd (lisa t'n>5r :han those of i as the frost blights th<> buds. They freeze the b ll, and leave :tabar: the cornfield whose fences h.i : away. tb-y leave the h- .ring herds of vice. Hut young ladies and gentlemen may associate without llirtation. There is nothing hotter for a young man to associate as a tViend \vith a pure-minded 'ady, and the benefit is equally *n love \\- makes a mis- Love should never be contemplated 1 '-ho cannot first be firm frie: B .t such exeV association is not at all necessary. It is, perhaps, as well THE IMPORTANT STEP. 329 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 w.ould in- dicate precocity, which should be dreaded as among the worst calamities to which childhood is subject. Young ladies may allow themselves to be frequently es- corted by gentlemen, but should not permit the exclusive at- tention of any particular one unless from the divine motive of pure affection, which alone can sanctify such association. 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, especially of young ladies, have not been permitted to associate with the other sex, and still more have, by flirtations, so vitiated their intui- tiye perceptions of congeniality that these are no longer . perhaps, as uc 1! some I regard t tho.se <..>< h it becomes necessa: slit ute reason in place of In : v to ascr: iirec- :i;ider the given eir-- :v in a healthy state, or if it were to act ui. .ilitions. Its - as strictly subject to law as that of gra lion and may be studied with the most satisf.. Love's preferences are not unreasonable. 1 ' .".. 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 invit- ingly to the blue-eyed, fair-skinned, shor:. guine young man, from any mere whim of la The hand that guides the stars is not more ui than the law of sexual preferences. Nor is this law hid- den and inscrutable. It lies upon the su: easily discovered and formula Briefly stated, ii is simply the law by which individual eccentricities are prevented from coming unuM ; !ly accumulate and reinforce .til all the affinities of the race would l in un .able differences. THE IMPORTANT STEP. 331 Jtist iii so far as one departs from symmetry in his o\vn 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, re-establishes 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 symmetri- cal 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 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 in- consistent. 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 i t be- nding arcs v. H.t :hcn, all tli.r :i our ii. ujugal adaptation 1 simply t as. . excesses and de- sex. Th limit, however, to the decree of difference that is permi , h should cannot symputhi/.e with the i.lh<-:. which interest the unusually refined will naturally 1 .1 not . but somewhat gruff, and .-he will often \x proud of his deep .mlu-d 1. arse :md vulgarity she cannot sympathize with, and >], k that derive of difference. On' neetl <'toneu' h one tune fron. another; hut th> ntly endowed, a* ipt-ri. -rity of the other. It is not so necessary that in respeet to talei ect to chara tion. The talents, tastes and proficiencies OUtJ be in the same general line in 1 but all j peculi.ir ind all eecentri ion should be consci entiously submitted to the law of sexual preference. THE IMPORTANT STEP. 333 But a riglit matrimonial selection is not all that is nec- essary. The preservation of love is the finest of the fine arts. To "win a heart is within the capacity of most men, but to keep it lies within the power of few. He who shall discover the magic secret of preserving love, and shall -in- duce the world to adopt it, shall confer the grandest bless- ing ever yet conferred by mortal. He shall deserve a prouder fame than ever draped a funeral car, or marched beneath a nation's drooping banners. Humanity shall write his name close beside that which is written upon the universal heart. This tribute will not seem overwrought to those who understand and realize 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 idiotic, its intellectually and morally deformed, were the unwelcome offspring of un- loved 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 or- dain 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 unkissed lips? Is it true that love is but the brilliant rainbow that spans the storm wrapt arch of life, and trembles for a moment through the silver mist of human tears, then fades forever while we gaze ? \V ><1 has : in. in the ; in all the firu huiiKin j'\-s, \vhi: iv\< .\v of iity demands the preservation nf I pun- ishrs its withdrawal with intellectual and in <-y. The magic secret of which we spoke lies not in the means of j 'reserving love, Imt in securing .Id's con- sent to use tl. I that lie within its reach. Th- no secret in the : They are contained in the formulated expression of a well known law that love cannot live unless its ph;. is entirely and completely subjected to its spiritual. Spiritual love lives by its own right, but the phy only by lease of the spiritual. They can live only on one changeless and eternal condition, and that condition is the perfect supremacy of the spiritual over tho physical. This then is all that is necessary to the pres- ervation of wedded love. When this condition is rev* the spiritual phase soon dies altogether, and at last even the physical itself, and two hearts that once beat tog' red past reuniting. it the world so stubbornly fuses to profit by its own experience. Every untried THE IMPORTANT STEP. 335 that sails so proudly from the port with its "freight of spirits twain " passes on every side a shivering wreck ; yet they heed riot the wailing cries from the perishing, but sail straight onward to the fatal rock on which nature has set the seal of her deepest damnation. We have pointed out the divine means by which alone love can live. Try it, O man ! O woman ! and be blessed. Try it by all the holy visions of your hopeful youth. Try it by all the divine 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, nor brook a question why. 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 consis- tencies of your being, by every argument from the exhaust- less realm of natural history, by every law of nature and of God, yoa bear the badge of rightful sovereignty. ' Fair youth, too timid to lift yosr eyes To the maiden with downcast look, As you mingle the gold and hrown of your curls Together over a book; A fluttering hope that he dare not HUM Itooorn heaves; Ai. r fingen rit the leaves. yon two will walk .-. year at tome sweet day' elate, And j..iir talk will fall u> . i :..ne, i liken bar cheek to a rose; And tli. -ii her I.T-C will tiii-ili and glow, liappy red; Ontbloahing all the flower* that grow Anear iu the garden-bed. " If you plead fur hope, she may bashful drop Her head - And you will be lovers and sweethearts then Aa youths and maidens go: Lovers and sweethearts, dreaming dreams, With never a thought that life is made Of great realities; " That the cords of love must be strong aa tloarh h hold and keep a heart, Not daisy-chains, that snap In the breeze, Or break with their weight apart; For the pretty colors of youth's fair morn Fade nut from the n< And hlii-hint; love* in the roses born Alas! with the roses die! " Bnt the love, that when youth's morn b past, Still sweet and true survives, fuith we need to lean upon In the rri*os of our lives: The love that shin<- in the eyes grown dim, In the roioe that trembles, speaks; And sees the roses that a year ago Withered and di. .-eka; : hat sheds a halo rouud us still, Of soft immortal li^-lit. Wl.' _'e youth's golden coronal r a crown of >;lv. r \vL THE IMPORTANT STEP. 337 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 thaks- Who are joined no more to part; For death comes not to the living soul, Nor age to the loving heart! " LEAVING HOME Vr.RY one i "ting t cannot fr: :ig wini: '.{ that . If the chiM: :i at home through life, if tl.' the n.-r r of things the institution of V, for each ho: with the accumulating . till at length it wi.uld outgrow tl define a home, and tin- institution would 1 To avert this disaster n. d that the child shall leave his home wl: competent to and should ori; :>>r home. Thus each generation repeats gramme of tl: 'ing. The propor function of the home is to serve as the nur- oung g< and womanhood till they have become sufiit to compel society ami Id them physical and mental sustenance. And yet tl. ',"-. ' j , V >-, LEAVING HOME. 339 hardly serves our purpose, since the child 'does not leave his home to enter into the great tide of the world and be- come a flouting 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. Ac- cordingly the young man, as he approaches the age of ma- turity, 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 re- cords the character of the soil and climate, so the young man carries ever with him the old home. Every mother U carried into the city on the brow of her son. Her care, her love, her examples, her prayers, are all written there. The city knows the country in this way. It reads the 840 : v <>f tho country on t! '.'.i;!d [ liich they ;ire .sendi: ;he hill world, and tin- silent in!: with the surging ; th.it di! :i life along the crowd M.'ther! your life is not insignificant. It cannot 1 :om universal I -hall bear it into the great tide that : of the fireside is written upon the altai - thedrals. in senate chambers, and in ; :bed in invi>ible characters upon the si'' boats and railway trains, and oi, f the brilliant temples of trade. The great outv conimercial storm and sunshine, of laughter and weeping, of honor and dishonor, draws its life fron. linked to the hearthstone by a thousand ties that run far under the surface of society. The leaving of ho: experience in one's life freighted with monn quences. It is a fact in botany that the criti d in the life of a plant is when it has c stored up in the seed for its support, and is ji: ning to put forth its tender little rootlets into the outer soil, to draw henceforth in ii. from the earth's great storehouse. So the critical and danger a child's life is when he has burst the environmei/ LEA VING HOME. 341 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 dashing in bewildering torrents at his feet, if amid the surges and the clinging 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 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 danger after he has once passed by a brilliantly lighted den of iniquity. 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 suscepti ble to evil influences, and if he succeeds in establishing his social relations in the city on the proper basis, and becomes himself established as a permanent member of society, he iscomp.i: .:>. I ' .. :, is always a which a ry in the rhythi: of tl. ami in a equivalent of its never ceasing nm\. cum- :>tible to sot : Tliose things which aw. .ken I the r the most powerful ii. ying to veil thr rur. city life. Unfortunately for tin ..'imintie in life is often tl: 1 wit !i profligacy and vice 1 ;itions and brill the glittering but d u;uiee of IVe's life, and tlie y of Byron's gilded vice, have gone out ! which the veil of the storm has hidd 1 1. -nee the evil influences of the city which strongly to the young country lad, sud-1 tho.v which sparkle with the gems of wit. and lull to sleep on ing couches with the drowsy strains of tinkling i. Were it not f--r that ::\ human nature that sees poetry in vice, the leaving such a catastrophe to the young man. 1' : ouM be careful not to allow their children, except it. cases of neces- LEAVING IIOME. 343 sity, to leave home until their characters are so far estab- lished as to be comparatively safe from the evil influences that must surround them elsewhere. Young children are never safe away from home. There is no age in which a person can enter for the first [hue into general society away from home with absolute safety, yet the danger is particularly great to the young. Tf a child is of a romantic turn of mind and enjoys the reading of novels, his parents should be particularly solici- tous 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, indicates the presence of those characteristics which render one pe- culiarly 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 rela- tions in advance for him. Arrangements can almost al- ways 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 in- fluences. Probably the most frequent cause for which children 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 be- coming n in manv of t: 's, while 1 remain at homo and un ; >M of th- .ts. Thi i.'iiM he abandoned I re are several tliat condiine to render child. liarlv liable to danger. In I ally at that age when they would 1.- i, and, second, tin- occupation at school being < wholly mental, tl. :s left without snfiiricnt cxc and, in consequence, the whole jihy>ieal 1> ancv which is very dangerous unle>s und-'r and oversight of jiarents. Aurain, the stringent rules of conduct at most boarding schools always have a : to awaken the mischievous in iris. It i which has b.-eii proved l.y the experien 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 ordinary hoarding school ru!' ve to the a- of the sexes. In many eases the young man might call upon a lady school-mate 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 se- cret sense of having violated rules whose authority they are supposed to recognize often has a disastrous effect upon LEAVING HOME. 345 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 sem- inary 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. What- ever 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 pa- thetic scene than that divine tableau of youth's departure from the old home where mother and child, beneath the changing colors of joy and sorrow, stand folded in the final embrace amid the silence of tears and kisses. That gush of holy emotion serves a purpose in the economy of our nature ; it is to bind the soul with cords of everlasting remembrances to that firm anchor in the great deep of life, the home of childhood. " I never knew how well I loved The little cot where I was horn, 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 340 The tear drop* gltetened on her ebek. Ami Boon ftho turned and plucked a rot* That grew bc*ido UM ooUag< An.! 'nycoat, As ue had often doue before. I went away: 'twas long ago, :i my life Mml I close, Tin- ! .i:> : ir. .iM.r. I . .m k:iuw \Vill bo a faded little rose." MEMORIES OF HOME. EAR to us still are the friendships we formed at the public schools, and hard was the breaking of those ties, yet we cherish no such memories of our school-mates 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 the sweet dream of childhood. If we are making 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 dec- orated with the picture of the old one. You may place the wide expanse of ocean between the two homes, but memory will paint the |T| 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 B48 and taste can may la .:h and :.. lie wall, i.ang , M pictiit.-. ])., \\ . ,.T. If ; it down, an invi-ibl- :. . and it day to see it. V>u . still' .ight than in the light of day. If the associa- of that old hon; '>een unpleasant, if then that picture a mother, who, in the little room you us* occupy, sits your waywardness, with the dark an; of sorrow writ: lunw, if ith downcast l",>k, a fatlicr sitting by the if with his ! ;ing upon his hands. irely old because you broke his heart, how will that pi haunt your guilty soul in the night, how will its sadness enibi' :y cup of jy, and turn to wormwood ; urc. .unot ask that father's forgiveness, it is too late You cannot go to mother, whose loving hand might, per- . put a veil over that hateful picture, or hang in its .ore beautiful one. It is too late for this, foi 1 bring a coffin to that old home, long, long ago, and 1 that coffin will be painted in one corner of the "he old home, but tl here ; laved with yovr little sister will be torn d will be changed, everything will lo< I MEMORIES OF HOME. 349 perhaps, the old orchard. But this will revive no pleasant memories, nothing but the sad day when you quarreled about picking the apples, and struck your little brother, tfho 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 grave 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 mother's forehead smooth, and father's hair unsilvered just as long as you can. If you cannot love mother and make her happy, you cannot truly love and make happy the heart of any woman. We 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 care- ful 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 experiences between the ages of thirty-five and fort} r , at least, not in such a way that the remembrance exerts an iuflii- !' li our cli.u.. ;tial th; life. There The urdinarv lufl ^ of life impression u; \\\\\ ! find a special i ni. .Ii; in our lives \\ln-n the ^..od and kindly influence- are supposed to mold into consistent form the eh meiits of our character, a \ rineipie is introduced win those influences arc nude to lie >"li r The iiistrunientaiity through will - the spirii :y \vhic'. I. No i : "d of cur lives so lends itself to the play of our o\vn in, -\a. Tin . life's experience that so quickly and lal'y awakens in the lie. .'iits that ally us "to angels and to God" as the sa nories of home. This fact constitutes a positive p., \\.-r in our lives, and growing out of this fact is tL :' life, the duly the character of our home such thai ishcd memories shall be a developing and gladdening influ- ence tlirough life. MEMORIES OF HOME. 351 " 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 on 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 s In the valley, low and still. M 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 I " TRIALS OF HOME. : in another chapter. Ul the head of uals, hut which aiv not universal. '1 who languish in :it and more terrible wards oi '_'reat hospital. I', it l>y the trials of home M those -and little annoyances of lif- sphere of action is i In their individual eapacit y tlu-y are in.-i^iiifi- '. and j>rrlia]i> unworthy o!' jet their aggre] is writt. dark and heavy lines on many a mother's lnw. ] the crosses from which none esca ences of every human being. Those who scorn unworthy of notice do not understand tin ing. If every human desire v jiiate to its own imi: :atification, t dd be no such thing ^ointments. But every want of huma: rated from its gratification by tl..- length and breadth of an effort, and the greater the want, the longer and broader the TRIALS OF HOME. 353 required effort. And it often happens that the effort is too short to span the chasm. There is no system of measure- ment 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 measured. 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 consult books without indexes, but to the sufferer they oppres ,r short space of No trurr words were ever mte:ed. Who has not no- the al: 'lute control which an uneasy boot will sonietii; iiiii.d '.' A sermon t .my sound almost divine to us in a pair of slippers, but y, in a pair of now boots, we should have regarded the same sermon as intolerably stupid. A star actor, if thrown suddenly into tin < e 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 bake ; > will produce such :> in us that we hardly know ourselves. The toothache ; 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 vi.sihle trace survive*, These are the mainspring* after all. Destinv is not without tln-r, hut within, Thy make thyself." All these facts only show what a powerful influence lit- tle things may have over us. Our lives are made up of mom- i the character of each moment <: ipon the influences of that moment ; and it requires but a small influence to change the character of a n. TRIALS OF HOME. 355 All growth is but a perpetual conquest over opposing forces. There can be no growth, physical, intellectual, or spiritual, except through the resistance to that element in which it grows. It is not necessary, however, that these conquests should come as the issue of great efforts or over- whelming 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 wash-tub, 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 disap- pointment 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 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 IM stroke. There come> : that .. . and lendt-nry ii; has been found to he groundless with the relief a wish that it might seen the w.,: The testhn Du Chaillu concerning hi- i\ .-lings when IK- li.i'l been stricken down by a lion cnce of this principle in huuuin nature. II.- . . ; resae* his feelings as those of jKjrfect satisfaction air. Uion to his fate. Edgar A. Poe, with his almo>t divine intuition, makes one of the characters in his M \>< . ;r, : M.icl- strom " experience something of this Mime feeling. Tin iigs of course are but momentary Hashes of infinity, but they show that Clod has imjilanted in us an instinctive sa i with the inevitable, however deeply it may involve our own souls in pain and sorrow. V. one refuses to be reconciled to a great bereavement, there 1 in his heart a secret feeling of rebellion. It m 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 his sorrow is superficial and does not take hold on the depths of his nature. In the little - of life this principle is seldom mani- fested. This is why small troubles weigh far more heavily upon the heart in proj>ortion to their magnitude than f. TRIALS OF HOME. 357 great ones. We are of the opinion, however, that it was the divine plan that this principle should manifest 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. This, then, is our advice to those who are weighed down with the little trials of life : cultivate the instinct of resig- nation, try to feel satisfied with every fate that befalls you. This is not an impossible task. Your efforts will be re- warded. It will become easier and easier for you to at- tempt to do it, until at last your trials will become joys. If you cannot feel that God ordained your 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 reason 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 358 health. If 1 ' M in mind that he sufTe: because his .- iflVr- ing but i; .arac- ter will in the end blossom IWth a: 1'ruits all the gweeter for the trials. \v:..,-'. ! -t in (Jod is steadfast, He will help yon, never mind." SORROW AND ITS MEANING. A 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 prob- lem 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 unguish 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 wide-spread and vast in its relations as that of pain and suffering exist in nature, and implicate no higher instrumentality than human folly? It : e all .suflV: , the i' fftO- iiirh \v. to guard nj/ 1 suffer! .<-e divinely sano 1, but, < :igin !ly to the volun: 'ii of man. God lias given us no faculty by which we can pre- dict an earthquake. II placed us upon the earth I .(I finished it, while yet his engines were roaring, and his furnaces glowing, while the deadly sparks were still Hying from his mighty anvil. \% in order that man should be wholly responsible for pain and suffering, he should have faculties sufficiently rful to grasp and analyze the divine plan, so that he might anticipate and make provision for all po- movements in the universe. The fact that man cannot thus anticipate the changes of direction in the universal :nent, proves danger and pain and sorrow to be di- vinely appointed. The ant cannot anti ::e move- ment of the foot that steps upon its little mound. Is it not possible, after all, that history with all its crim- son 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 being's mighty orchestra, is it not possible that all this, Constitutes a mighty whole, of v. Mime SORRO W AND ITS MEANING. 361 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 philos- ophy after all, that which lays the human will itself in the hands of God, the only " Uncaused Cause," and acknowl- edges the endorsement upon the parchment of human his- tory, of him who holds in his volition the potentialities of all history ? 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." Perhaps, if we could see creation in its entirety, and know the inter-relations of its myriad parts, we should rejoice over that which now causes us sorrow. To us, the grand- eur 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 nec- essary 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 isolation can see nothing but evil in the engines of sorrow that pass over our 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 MM, know all, fur the awful secret of the Absolute is concealed in every finite en;i;v. I : .ning the rt infini D why an atom of oxygen prefers an atom of potassium to one of gold : i. uilil know not only the secret of love's ca ; the essence of the Divine Fatherhood. " Flower In the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies: Hold yon here, root and all, in my hand* Little dower, but it I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what Ood and man is." Human knowledge cannot reach the essence of things. We cannot know our dearest friend only a few manifesta- tions 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 inde; ently and from its own caprice. So we regard each move- ment in the universe as separate and independent. The and bars and gears by which each and every move- ment is linked with every other, lie beyond the horizon of our vision. If we could but discern the inter-relations of things, we might learn that the grandest event in human : v is linked in sequential relation with the flutter of an insect' and that the annihilation of an atom and : would bo equal catastrophes. Perchance we might see, in the ineffable light of that awful vision, how po SORRO W AND ITS MEANING, 363 tential joys unspeakable have been born in darkened chain bers; how every wreathed casket bears a universal imn istry, and that, " The brightest rainbows ever play Above the fountains of our tears." But 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 disas- ter where the causes of sorrow cannot be anticipated, surely this sorrow and affliction must have an individual ministry commensurate with its cost, or the wisdom of Him who ordained it is implicated. We may rest assured that sorrow serves some purpose in the economy 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. " The gods in bounty work up storms about ns, That give mankind occasion to exert Their hidden strength, and throw out 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 *s 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 : v labor. A iin: -s of r< a universal ' .itiire t t a littlo than re: :lic spirit. It i* inci- te of t' the effects of i inent, and sustains to it y tlie same : that ( al labor sustains to the muscle. ! lult soul that has known a pang of sorrow has long since \v. It is true that the soul does not require pain with that degree of regularity with which tin- niu.-r],-s mpiire ' but it is simply because, through memory and re-Ik" the influence is distributed. A single great stroke of row will oft. , subdue, and ripen a whole life. since it is lived over and over again in the silent solitude of thought, it becomes life-long in its ministry. Who has not read this sacred ministry of sorrow on those brows of saintly triumph, the thrones of peace? W- have not yet, it is true, caught the divine secret of justice is maintained in the unequal distributi- human suffering. \Vc 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, found it not. One student is compelled by his instructors to practice SORRO W AND ITS MEANING. 365 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 in- justice 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 ex- ercise. It is wisest to allow the physician under whose 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 physical 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 in- feriority. All these conditions and qualifications may that the purpose which : the econonn -ig has a this 'cm of ji: '. problem of In .in, under the su; M who n< the architect of i i:n, but wh" ! its appliance to the requirements of our spiritual le to our -gress, temptation, every pang of sorrov bar in tl. gymnarimn, and we in oar infii ledge and \ e can weigh only the j injustice of apparent discrimination. We murmur . bend ben of grief, and bitterly complain as we are made to revolve in agonizing contor : the cross-bar of adversity. V.-t could our ( pered to the light of an universal sun, and v. to pierce the starry vi-tus of infinite meaning, v>i;l. glance through the lens of infinite intellige the burning focn it lens how would the burn from off the shining disk of this g: >lem, Justice. SORROW AND ITS MEANING. 3G7 Perhaps 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 discipline ; till it can stand with face wreathed in the smile of peace, subdued and tender and god-like, while with never a sigh it beholds the waves of desolation sweep over its fondest hopes. Thou- sands of souls have been educated in sorrow's school till they were able to do this. Almost every one has experi- enced 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 re- lations, 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 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 calumny. 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 cor Ere his song can be divine." We cannot doubt that every pang, every disappointment, 3C8 blinding stroke of ;/ Mcst* ing that in * which v. mini . not al\\ay> l>r immedhtr and UM be to our own .M-llish selves, but somewhere in etern/ 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 1 scourge; or when the scorpion lash of pestilence smites the back of dying Memphis; or when the brilliant foot-lights with fiery fingers have caressed the oily scenery and the public hall becomes a tomb for charred and un- known 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 en- dorsement of the Divine hand. I Io\v else can we explain SORRO W AND ITS MEANING. 369 the philosophy of that instinctive acquiescence in the inevitable, 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 be- reavement. 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 gives birth to calmness and resignation ? Is it not a hint from the infalli- ble book of human instinct, that whatever may be true of 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 universal 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 mean- ing to be above and beyond the proudest effort of human analysis. I cannot say that I ought not to suffer, 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." 24 870 Is it not possible, mi} same great which ' the dea