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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hearth-Stone, by Samuel Osgood
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Hearth-Stone
+       Thoughts upon Home-Life in Our Cities
+
+
+Author: Samuel Osgood
+
+
+
+Release Date: September 26, 2011  [eBook #37540]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEARTH-STONE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
+Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/hearthstonethoug00osgoiala
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HEARTH-STONE:
+
+Thoughts upon Home-Life in Our Cities.
+
+by
+
+SAMUEL OSGOOD,
+
+Author of "Studies in Christian Biography,"
+"God with Men, or Footprints of Providential Leaders," &C.
+
+
+      "This is the famous stone
+        That turneth all to gold:
+  For that which God doth touch and own
+        Cannot for less be told."
+                                 GEORGE HERBERT.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New-York:
+D. Appleton and Company,
+200 Broadway.
+London: 10 Little Britain.
+1854.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858 by
+D. Appleton And Company,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern
+District of New-York.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+These thoughts are published for the same reason that led the author from
+time to time to put them upon paper,--a wish to meet a want in the sphere
+of the affections rather than to claim any honor in the kingdom of ideas.
+Wherever important questions have been at issue he has not avoided them,
+however conspicuous or controverted; but the volume aims to breathe a
+kindly spirit above the reach of sect and party. He is not ashamed to have
+his style show something of the habit of his profession, and to use, in
+part, ideas that he has expressed in the lyceum and the pulpit in a
+different form.
+
+It will be seen that the several subjects connect themselves more or less
+closely with a year's life in the household, and that the light which
+cheers the whole twelvemonth is kindled on the hearth-stone at Christmas
+and New Year.
+
+The state of things in our American cities is now so peculiar, so marked
+by privilege and peril, that no earnest plea for home affections and
+virtues can be wholly thrown away. To dedicate books to conspicuous names
+is a custom now almost obsolete, and if the Author were to venture upon
+any dedication of this little volume it would read somewhat thus:--
+
+  TO THOSE WHO HAVE EVER LOVED HOME,
+  AND WHO WISH TO LOVE IT ALWAYS.
+
+NEW-YORK, _Oct. 22, 1853_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                  Page
+
+  HOME VIEWS OF AMERICAN LIFE        7
+
+  THE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD            27
+
+  THE HOPE OF CHILDHOOD             45
+
+  NEW THINGS                        63
+
+  SOLICITUDE OF PARENTS             79
+
+  REVERENCE IN CHILDREN             91
+
+  BROTHERS AND SISTERS             105
+
+  MARRIAGE                         119
+
+  OUR FRIENDS                      135
+
+  MASTER AND SERVANT               151
+
+  THE DIVINE GUEST                 167
+
+  THE ORPHAN                       183
+
+  THE YOUNG PRODIGAL               199
+
+  EDUCATION OF DAUGHTERS           213
+
+  BUSINESS AND THE HEART           233
+
+  SUMMER IN THE COUNTRY            249
+
+  RETURNING HOME                   265
+
+  THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE          277
+
+
+
+
+Home Views of American Life.
+
+
+
+
+HOME VIEWS OF AMERICAN LIFE.
+
+
+What day of all the year gives an American a happier sense of his civil
+and domestic blessings, than the old feast of the ingathering--the
+time-hallowed Thanksgiving? Once more it has come round; and our pen is
+disposed to catch a little of its genial temper before the hearth-stone.
+
+This is peculiarly the home festival of our people, and throughout all the
+States of our republic it is affectionately cherished. As such, resting
+upon a good old precedent, it appeals to a permanent want, and gains
+interest with years. The character of the day has somewhat changed, and
+the domestic element in its uses preponderates far over the
+ecclesiastical. Yet much of the old feeling remains, and thousands gather
+in the churches, all the better prepared by the hour of worship, for the
+hours of fireside enjoyment. Large scope is usually given the preacher at
+this time, and many a timid man ventures upon bold themes, quite free to
+take the political, or social, or philanthropic, or ecclesiastical view of
+the country or the world, as he may choose. The preacher may not
+complain, then, of the essayist for taking something of the same liberty,
+and trenching a little upon the prerogative of the pulpit. It is surely
+not amiss to open this series of discursive papers with some thoughts upon
+our home blessings, upon God's hand in giving them, and our work in
+spreading them.
+
+Our home blessings! Take first the most obvious view of them. Consider the
+plenty that abounds. I speak not of the few affluent, but of the great
+majority who enjoy the common lot. What abundance in their homes! Look at
+the household of any unpretending citizen, and say what realm of earth,
+what domain of nature, does not send its treasures thither? The orchards,
+the fields, the pastures, the hills, the rivers, the mines, the oceans,
+bring their tribute to the fireside. From the shores of the Mediterranean
+come the olive, the grape, the orange, the fig, the date. The farther
+Indies send their fragrant herbs and sweet spices. The repast of a frugal
+family is rarely set forth without offerings from all quarters of the
+globe. The cottager's lamp, that burns by night, is fed with oil from the
+Arctic zone. The light of day shines through clear crystal, that shows the
+perfection of the arts, and the cheapness of their most beautiful
+products. In humble abodes the wonders of manufacture appear. Rich cotton
+stuffs tell of the affluence of the Southern soil and the skill of the
+Northern artisan. Luxuries, of old the prerogative of princes, are now
+familiar things. The silks of France and Italy are worn by the wife and
+daughters of the farmer and the mechanic. I will not try to describe the
+mansions of the wealthy, although these, when graced by refinement, and
+exalted by piety and charity, may give impressive views of the ample
+bounty of Providence. It is better to contemplate the plenty within reach
+of the common lot. Among what people, in what age, has the common lot been
+so favored as with us? When in the earth's history have so many persons
+had reason to be grateful at the feast of the ingathering as now? We boast
+not of great banquets, in which the luxury of the few is wrung from the
+misery of the many. We speak not of pearls dissolved in the wine cup, and
+the price of cities thus quaffed at a draught. Our country, prouder than
+the empire of a Caligula, or a Cleopatra, can point to the households of
+her people, and in the amount of their combined blessings pity the poverty
+of the builders of the Coliseum or the Pyramids. Other lands may have
+prouder palaces and more princely fortunes. None can show so many favored
+homes. Go to thy home, and tell how great things the Lord, the giver of
+the harvests, hath done for thee in its plenty.
+
+Consider too its peace as well as its plenty. No wars disturb it, nor
+rumors of war. No civil strifes threaten its tranquillity. No tyrannical
+powers intrude upon its freedom. Every household is better guarded than
+any feudal castle. Equal laws make it more impregnable than walls or
+moats. Public opinion is a host of defence stronger than an army with
+banners. We do not indeed forget our own imperfections and failings. We do
+not forget that millions are in bondage in our land, and that if they have
+homes in favored cases, they have them by their owners' mercy, not by
+their own legal right. Yet to-day the slave is somewhat a sharer in his
+master's bounty, and this feast, that carries our thoughts back to the
+time of the great Hebrew Exodus, allows us to enjoy the liberty that God
+has bestowed upon us and these free States, and forbids us to despair of
+the redemption of any of the races yet held in bondage. It is something to
+boast of, that slavery is the exception now among civilized nations,
+instead of being, as of old, the universal law for the weaker from the
+stronger. For ourselves, we disclaim all share in its origin and
+continuance, deeming it to be a local misfortune to be deplored, not a
+national institution to be honored.
+
+As a nation, we are lovers of equal law. The sober thought, nurtured by
+the best experience of the Atlantic States, finds its response in the new
+regions of the farthest West, and not even the mad thirst for gold has
+made the restless people on our Pacific coast forgetful of their
+birthright of liberty and law. A mighty habit of civil order has entered
+into our national life. The strongholds of order are in our homes. There
+each man finds the motive that leads him to resist alike the disorganizer
+and the invader. Thence we derive the assurance of the best of standing
+armies; for men that have households to defend, will be as little inclined
+to yield to hostile invasion as to destructive revolution. How peaceful
+our homes! As mighty is the power nurtured within them that makes them so.
+
+Go home, and in addition to the blessings of plenty and of peace, consider
+the means of intellectual and spiritual culture there. The laboring man
+may own a better library than a prince or prelate of the olden time. For a
+pittance trifling even to him, he may have tidings daily from all quarters
+of his own country, and from foreign lands. His children bring with them
+more learning from the common school, than would have sufficed of old to
+constitute the wisdom of a sage. For a less sum than the tippler gives for
+the draught that fevers his blood and crazes his brain, the artisan may
+adorn his house with choice works of art, through the cheap and beautiful
+products of the engraver's skill; and thus the beautiful from the hand of
+man and of God, may refine and cheer the common lot. Music, that voice of
+the beautiful arts, is becoming a familiar blessing, and a part of
+ordinary education. Groups of children by the fireside, and in the field
+and garden, sometimes at the corners of the streets or in their walk home
+from school, are heard singing their songs and hymns together, thus
+exchanging discord for peace, quarrels for harmony. Even the utilities
+that are becoming the custom of our time, have their refining and exalting
+influences. The light that streams up in our streets and houses, is the
+handmaid of a light brighter than its own. The pure water that gushes up
+in so many homes, has connections far more substantial than fanciful with
+the living water of the divine word. Facts enough show that human
+civilization needs, in the most literal sense, its water-baptism before
+its spirit-baptism can be realized.
+
+The spirit is not lost sight of even in this utilitarian age. In religion
+the means of culture have their consummation. Within every home, in any
+degree worthy the name, Christianity proves its power, whether the gospel
+be nominally professed or not. The very unity of the family comes from
+Him, who has decreed the purity of the home by his fundamental law, and
+bound parents to each other and their offspring by a tie at once of
+principle and affection. Greater still the blessing where Christianity is
+fully known and practised in its truths and graces, where the pleasant
+fireside is a consecrated altar, and the earthly mansion opens ever into
+the heavenly.
+
+Consider then the blessings of our homes--their plenty, their peace, their
+means of intellectual and spiritual culture.
+
+Consider them well, and moreover, own God's hand in them.
+
+God is Creator and Lord of nature. From him comes the plenty of our homes.
+Man does not create, he finds the bounties of his lot. His utmost industry
+and skill but find the blessings stored up for him. We may look upon the
+kingdom of nature from many points of view. We may consider the organism
+of the heavens, the great periods of the earth's apparent formation, the
+influence of climate and position upon the history of nations, and see
+God's hand in natural laws. But what view of the universe is more sublime,
+and at the same time more touching, than that from the home? The heavens
+themselves help in keeping it upon its foundation by the force of the
+great law of attraction, whilst every element and domain of the earth
+conspires to give it blessing. Tenderly indeed does the Lord of this
+great Cosmos care for the dwellings of men. His love looks down from the
+stars of heaven that shine into the casement, and is reflected from the
+little flower that blooms in the garden, or cheers the sick man's chamber.
+To God, Creator and Preserver, be our thanksgiving.
+
+God is in history, and to his hand we trace the peace of our homes. Our
+familiar social blessings are not the exhalations of a day, but the growth
+of ages. No clearer or more striking view of the development of the Divine
+plans in the course of events can be given than the domestic view. All
+that God has done for man as an individual soul or as a social being, thus
+is made to appear. There is a providence in the development of liberty,
+and so too in the progress of law, and in the combination of them both in
+a true social order. What better symbol of their combination and proof of
+providential guidance than the peaceful home? How vast the providential
+agencies instrumental in framing that statute-book which, next to the
+Bible, is the safeguard of the dwelling, and which bands the whole nation
+together in defence of every citizen's right,--the constitution of our
+country, to us the bequest of ages, guided by an arm mightier than man's,
+and to issues beyond his dream. In two grand lines of influence it brings
+to every household the co-ordinate powers which, from quarters once
+antagonistic, unite in a true civilization. It guarantees to every family
+the liberty so dearly prized by the old parent races of the Germanic
+North, whilst it gathers them into a great nation under the guidance of
+that law which was the bequest of the Roman empire to the world. These
+and all the leading lines of history meet in the home, and in them we own
+God's guiding hand. From the East with the Star of true empire, came the
+benign power that united these two mighty agencies of our civilization.
+Surely it was the religion of Jesus that wedded Roman law to Germanic
+liberty, and laid the foundations of constitutional freedom and domestic
+peace. Blessed indeed was that bridal, and the living Word that hallowed
+the union still dispenses the blessing, and calls the children of its
+lineage to a future brightening unto the perfect day.
+
+The Constitution, and above it, the Bible! In this is the Word of God, and
+the way of life, present and eternal. It is the chief agency in
+intellectual and spiritual culture, giving the mind its true aim, the soul
+its rightful dignity, life its highest grace. Where the Bible is held in
+honor, the home has purity and elevation. Interesting indeed is the
+ecclesiastical view of Christianity. For its priests and temples we have
+no words of disparagement. Yet we most honor the church in honoring the
+home, for where the family is most blessed, there the church is most
+worthy. The history of the gospel neither ends nor begins with that of
+cathedrals and priesthoods. Since God laid the foundation of domestic
+purity on Sinai, since Jesus bore the grace of the gospel to the homes of
+Judah and Galilee, the brightest illustrations of the beauty and power of
+religion have been given in abodes far less stately than the temple, or
+the cloister, or the palace. The end is not yet, not yet developed are our
+grounds of gratitude to the Heavenly Father for the gospel in the
+blessings of our homes. God's love in giving them, we own and adore.
+
+Responsibility walks ever hand in hand with privilege, and human duty
+follows in the path of Divine goodness. No topic of graver import can be
+urged now, than that of the obligation of Christian people to diffuse
+domestic blessings. This topic carries us into the heart of the momentous
+social questions of our age. The Christian should have his answer ready,
+an answer too which considers all the needs of man's being, and respects
+alike his physical and moral wants.
+
+The most obvious, certainly the most obtrusive evil in the homes of the
+wretched, is poverty. The love of God, who has given for man's use the
+earth and its fulness, the gospel of Him who fed the hungry and healed the
+sick, teach us to look with tender interest upon the poor, and try to
+redeem them from a lot as full of temptation as of suffering. Of public
+and private almsgiving, I will not speak now, important in their places as
+these are. There is a need far greater than these can alleviate, and I
+cannot dwell upon them here, pertinent as it would be to urge the worth of
+those benevolent schemes that aim to provide comfortable homes for the
+poor, and commodious baths and wash-houses in their neighborhoods. These
+charities appeal to enlightened self-interest, as well as humanity, and,
+if we will not ask in kindness who is my neighbor, we shall ask in fear,
+either of pestilent disease or aggressive violence. The springs of human
+energy are to be moved as never before, and the wretched are to be made to
+help themselves as never before; or our civilization, certainly European
+civilization, will stand on the brink of an abyss fearful as at the
+dissolution of the old Roman Empire. Poverty has, in some cases, made an
+alliance that gives omens of a conspiracy worse than Catiline's, and, with
+cunning quickened by want, sharpens its knife upon the stone which has
+fallen to its lot instead of bread,--bent upon living by destruction, if
+it is not taught to live by producing. It is an indisputable fact that in
+many countries the majority are so ignorant and inefficient, that the
+whole annual product of the land is not sufficient to provide for their
+decent wants. The theorists of France, who have been losing their wits in
+the airy heights of pantheistic socialism, hoping to find a way to plenty,
+other than the old way of labor and frugality, may well remember the
+answer of the admirable political economist, Chevalier, and look for
+plenty rather in making property more desirable than less so, and giving
+the whole people the desire and the opportunity of profitable labor. The
+material product of France at the highest estimate, he declares, does not
+exceed ten thousand millions of francs, and thus at this estimate, an
+equal division would give each person 78 centimes, or about 14-1/2 cents
+per day, for food, lodging, clothing, education, enjoyment. Thus, he adds,
+even upon the supposition of an absolute distribution of products, France
+is not in a condition to give the majority of her children a tolerable
+subsistence. Of course millions of citizens now come far short of this
+miserable pittance. What is the inference? Certainly the productive
+industry of the nation must be increased, that there may be plenty in the
+home. Let more wealth be produced, and each man be put in a position to
+get a due share of it, and the misery is alleviated, and plenty in the
+household stops the spirit of reckless revolution, and gives the spirit of
+peace, and motive and time for the higher aims of life.
+
+What shall increase the national wealth and distribute it with due justice
+in the homes of the people? Communism? Not so; for destroying the very
+idea of property is not the way to increase the aggregate of property. Who
+will work, if his gains are not secured to him and his children? Who will
+plant the grain or the vine, if the field or the vineyard is to be an open
+pasture, which any idler may waste? The way to enlarge and distribute
+wealth is rather to strengthen the foundations of property, and give all
+motive to earn their share of it by labor, temperance, and economy.
+
+Here we believe that every nation is bound to apply the force of law to
+reach the root of the difficulty. I am not proposing to discuss the
+various projects set on foot to insure the more equable distribution of
+property--such as the homestead laws of some of our own States, or the
+measures in train to redeem the peasants of Ireland from their slavish
+penury. Very certain it is, that we need to watch jealously the
+distribution of the public lands, to keep them from the grasp of avarice
+and intrigue, and to hold out the utmost inducements to actual settlers to
+till and own the soil. It is interesting to find that upon this one point,
+the most sanguine of the Land Reformers have much countenance from the
+most judicious conservatives, and the wary sagacity of Webster himself
+saw no peril in securing a part of the national domain to every
+persevering cultivator. It is also interesting to observe that, whilst the
+ultraist advocates of a protective tariff have signally lowered their
+tone, some of the most earnest advocates of free trade, as the only
+philosophical theory, are favoring such judicious protective duties as
+shall tend to bring the producer and consumer near together, check the
+wastefulness of needless transportation, and thus prepare the way for the
+final triumph of free trade by the action of associative industry. All
+such expedients however good in themselves, are of no avail apart from a
+broad and energetic policy that meets the difficulty in the face. We mean
+the education of the entire people in schools open to all the children of
+the nation. Thus we reach the home--thus we open the eyes and quicken the
+energies of the people--thus we enlarge the products of intelligent labor,
+and guard against the worst evils of human inequality. Thus we open the
+way for a better social science and organization, and favor the associated
+enterprise, which is the best safeguard against communism. The educated,
+industrious population will take their own lot into their own hands, and
+by practising a truer philosophy of accommodation, they will apply in
+their home economy something of that wise policy which has been left too
+exclusively to the use of the favored few. The architecture of the house,
+and the arrangements of the neighborhood, will show the influence. Whilst
+gardens, filled with rare exotics, and stately mansions adorned with the
+graces of art, may still be the prerogative of affluence; we shall see the
+comfortable and tasteful houses of the unpretending classes ranged about
+pleasant and salubrious squares, with all the appliances of health and
+order, usually deemed beyond their means. For my own part, I know no more
+cheering aspect of our country and our age, than that which is furnished
+by some of those villages, which have been built up in the vicinity of our
+great cities by associations of mechanics, securing to each man an
+independent home. The fact that a set of men, educated in our free
+schools, and with no means but the fruit of their own honest toil, provide
+such homes for themselves, must give a benevolent observer more genuine
+satisfaction, and more encouraging hope, than any of the proudest triumphs
+of capital, whether a palace in the city or a palace upon the water. It is
+not out of place here to say, that the highest honor will belong to him
+among our architects, who most skilfully plans a model house for the many
+of us who have moderate or slender means--a house that shall for the least
+outlay best secure the retirement, the refinement, and the health that
+make a true home. Honor to the science that has busied itself with this
+problem, and to the capital which has tried to carry the solution into
+practice thus far!
+
+A true system of popular education in connection with our laws regarding
+inheritance, is raising up a generation which will not long be ignorant of
+the power of intelligence, industry, and friendly accommodation, in
+developing a social policy beyond the reach of the fanatical theorists of
+the old world, who have impoverished the nations in their promise of
+plenty, and shed blood in rivers in the name of fraternity. The great mass
+of the people, it is to be hoped, will continue to have that home feeling,
+which is as mighty in conservation as in defence. We shall remain as we
+are in the best sense of the term--the most conservative nation on the
+face of the earth. That race of Ishmaelites, the homeless, the desperate,
+the Bedouins of civilization, whose hand is against every man's, whose
+delight is in commotion, whose life is in destruction, whose hope is in
+the despair of others, will disappear, kept down in their true place, or
+what is better, transformed into intelligent, industrious citizens, lovers
+of the state, the church, and the home.
+
+Thus do we commend the worth of industry and the education upon which it
+rests, in diffusing the household blessings that we enjoy. But we build
+upon a sandy foundation without a positive religious basis. Upon that the
+household rests for its primary dependence, and they that sustain and
+practise Christian principles are benefactors alike of the dwelling and
+the church. Not merely among the wretched and ignorant does the gospel
+utter its rebukes, and urge its duties in reference to this point. It is
+in quarters far different that the great wrong has been done, and a great
+work is demanded. Errors of principle as errors of life, have power from
+the station that renders them conspicuous, or the refinement that clothes
+them with grace. Of errors of life in those who give to dissipation the
+prestige of eloquence, and throw the grace of splendor around vices that
+strike at the foundations of domestic purity, I will not now undertake to
+treat. A passing word, however, upon certain modes of thinking and
+talking, which sow the seeds of those vices in quarters the most opposite.
+The pantheistic theories that confound all moral distinctions by
+confounding the distinction between God and nature, and make of passion a
+devotion, by calling all enthusiasm inspiration, have had their origin
+chiefly among secluded dreamers, bent, perhaps, upon amusing leisure by
+reckless speculation. Idly as the summer winds that float the thistle-down
+on their breath, have they vented their speculations, until amazed that
+their own fields and their neighbor's have been sown with tares by these
+gossamer voyagers. Wherever pantheism goes, there license follows in its
+train. More perilous than atheism, because more alluring, it defies
+passion, and in the name of inspiration degrades man to the brute. It
+blasts life with its torrid fires, as atheism freezes by its polar cold.
+In the extremes of society--the affluent and the wretched--this tendency
+is found, alike in its speculative and practical form, in its denial of
+personal responsibility, its enthroning of indulgence in the place of
+discipline. Many a stately home is desolate, many an humble dwelling
+miserable, because the God of the gospel is denied, and that
+uncompromising law which secures the home its purity, peace and power, has
+been broken.
+
+Chief among the blessings of the household, then, we name the gospel. It
+gives the crown to industry and education. Crowning industry and education
+thus alike by our personal bearing, our public policy, we give as we have
+received, and acknowledge our duty, as we own God's love in our domestic
+blessings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bring near to ourselves now, in its personal and cheering aspect, the
+topic before us. To God, the Lord of nature, Ruler of events, Father of
+our spirits, be all the glory. Be his love the spring of our humanity. In
+the bounty of our hand, in the bounty of an example personal and domestic,
+which in itself is a benefaction, in an enlarged public, nay Christian
+spirit, let us freely give as we have received; that plenty, peace, piety,
+may cheer the dwellings of men and regenerate the world. This day be our
+thanksgiving at once a prayer of faith and a vow of humanity. It is the
+old home festival of our fathers that we are to keep. Whose heart does not
+yearn with sacred remembrances and affections to-day? The emigrant, the
+traveller, the sailor, all turn their thoughts homeward as the day
+approaches, and lament that their steps cannot follow their desires. Under
+sunny skies, amid the balmy gales and luscious fruits of the tropics, the
+wanderer yearns to cross the familiar threshold, and our bleak North in
+her wintry robe is dearer than Italy or the Indies. Many an exile has
+feelings that speak in such simple words as these:
+
+  "My father's bones, New England,
+    Sleep in thy hallowed ground,
+  My living kin, New England,
+    In thy precious paths are found;
+  And though my body dwelleth here,
+    And my weary feet here roam,
+  My spirit and my hopes are still
+    In thee, my own loved home."
+
+Yet distance does not rob even the exile of all the blessings, and he
+knows that he is not forgotten. Families separated throughout the year,
+now gather together. Sons and daughters return to the parental fireside
+and are children again. The patriarchal times, surely among all of the
+Pilgrim race, and not among them alone, come back. The father stands as
+head and minister of the family. Many a happy band of children rise up and
+call the mother blessed. The absent are not forgotten--the departed are
+tenderly remembered--seats vacant at the table have occupants in the
+hearts of the survivors.
+
+It is well--it is well--this home-festival of the ingathering. God gives
+the abounding harvest, and our fellow-men are to us the stewards of his
+bounty. Devoutly to Him, kindly to them, let the hours pass. Health to the
+absent, a tear for the departed--a smile for the present--good will to all
+on earth--glory to God in the highest.
+
+Let the young rejoice, and the old be young again. Let memory solemnize us
+by her images of scenes and days gone by, whilst hope cheers us by
+auspicious promises of the future on earth, and of the heavenly mansions,
+the soul's eternal home.
+
+_Thanksgiving Day._
+
+
+
+
+The Ideal of Womanhood.
+
+
+
+
+THE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD.
+
+
+It is the Eve of Christmas, and above the cheerful family circle that
+gathers about the hearth, the faces of the holy family look benignly down,
+and Mary's own smile seems to brighten the genial light. All surely must
+call that mother blessed, who celebrate the birth of the Holy Child. The
+Angel of the annunciation seems always to be speaking anew in the anthem
+of the Nativity as if the voice which told Mary of her high destiny
+celebrated also its fulfilment, and the "Hail Mary" were but the prelude
+of the "Glory to God in the Highest."
+
+Our thought this evening turns upon the Mother of Christ, as illustrating
+the ideal of woman and the sources of her power. In the manger at
+Bethlehem, the mother and child were together--together during the years
+of preparation for the public ministry--together at the cross. We honor
+both in honoring either. Especially in calling Mary blessed, do we honor
+Christ, for we remember not merely what she was to him, but what he has
+been to her and her sex and her race.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us look at the subject from our own point of view, nor try to put on
+the mask of affected sentiment or to stand on the stilts of borrowed
+dogmas. There is much beauty and power in the Catholic notions of the
+Blessed Virgin, but they are not our convictions. The sweetest hymns in
+the Breviary are in her praise, and her heavenly face has been the chief
+charm of Catholic art, else altogether too grim with spectral monks and
+ghostly confessors. This one fact it is most interesting to remark, that
+as Christianity was divested of its genial and humane graces, and our
+Saviour himself was removed from the personal sympathies of men by a faith
+too forgetful of his humanity in vindicating his divinity, the affections
+of Christians sought in the Blessed Mother the solace denied them by
+prevalent views of the Divine Son. As the monkish spirit grew darker, the
+face of Mary beamed more brightly. The age that embodied its terrors in
+the "Dies Irę," breathed its tenderness in the "Stabat Mater," the
+exquisite hymn whose authorship, strange to say, has been with show of
+reason ascribed to the most thorough-going of the Popes, Innocent the
+Third, the man who dared to put England under an interdict. It is not for
+such reasons that we are moved to speak of Mary now. We are not oppressed
+by a religion that so crushes the natural affections and rebukes the
+domestic feelings, that we need to look for solace to one taken
+arbitrarily from her place among women and invoked as Queen of Heaven,
+above all saints and angels, next to God. Looking upon our homes, so
+pleasant and so genial with woman's graces and children's gladness, we
+prefer to say the "Hail Mary" as the gospel gives it, and not as the
+priest has understood it. We can say, "Blessed art thou _among_
+women"--_among_ them, not _above_ them--among them to illustrate their
+mission from God, their work on earth--their part in heaven.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Think of Mary first as illustrating true womanhood in its mission from
+God. Fathers and sons, as well as mothers and daughters, think. In our
+notions of education, society, reform, we are all afloat unless we start
+with right ideas; and whence are they but from the Eternal Mind. We know
+God as he reveals himself, and creation in its highest aspects reveals the
+thought of God. The Divine Being is Self-Existent, Almighty, All-wise,
+Ever-blessed, dwelling in light and love unspeakable. But the moment that
+we pass from the contemplation of his attributes to the survey of his
+works, we see every where partial manifestations of his fulness. Only as
+we bring together the various elements and beings of nature, do we
+comprehend the universe as expressing the mind of God. Throughout the
+whole we observe a law of duality, a harmony of contrasts, the two
+parallel footprints in the majestic march of Him who is the infinite
+Wisdom and Love. We see this form of development from the lowest to the
+highest plane of nature--in the affinities of the gases--in the strange
+and mighty forces of electricity and magnetism--in the rays of light--in
+the kingdom of plants--in the animated kingdom. In the human race it has
+its fullest expression. There the Most High has left most clearly the
+image of himself, and recorded the might and the loveliness of his own
+attributes. To the one sex he has given, in largest measure, strength,--to
+the other, beauty; to the one, aggressive force--to the other, winning
+affections--to the one, the palm in the empire of thought--to the other,
+the palm in the empire of feeling. We need not pursue the parallel, nor
+rebuke the folly of those who would make the line of separation too sharp,
+and deny heart to man or wisdom to woman, forgetting that in man thought
+should be pervaded with feeling, and in woman feeling should be guided by
+thought. It is enough to look to Mary as she stood in the hour of her joy,
+and listen to what she said, who has been called beyond any other of her
+sex, to be their benefactor and interpreter:--
+
+  My soul doth magnify the Lord,
+  And my spirit doth rejoice in God, my Saviour,
+  For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden;
+  For behold! from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
+
+Various ages may have various degrees of culture, and in knowledge and
+accomplishment the daughters of Christendom may now far surpass those
+taught in the simpler homes of Israel. Yet where among those favored with
+education or gifted with genius, shall we find a better interpreter of
+womanhood in its mission from God, than that trusting Hebrew in her filial
+faith and unwavering devotion. Of her, the Aspasias proud of the society
+of sages and orators, might learn that there is a faith passing knowledge,
+and a purity more refining than any literary taste; from her the Cornelias
+might learn of a kingdom greater than that to which they vowed their sons;
+from her the Sapphos might hear of a vision beyond that of any
+impassioned fancy; and the Cleopatras of a gem brighter than any in their
+crown. Her soul attuned to devotion by the Psalms of her great ancestor,
+David, and inflamed with hope by the visions of prophets, and schooled to
+patient charity by the choicest examples of the mothers in Israel, she
+stands at the centre of Providential history, receiving from the former
+ages their mantle of honor, and transmitting it to the new ages enriched
+with a divine grace, destined to brighten with time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of Mary's life and work, few particulars are given--but those few are
+expressive of her whole character. She who kept her faithful watch on the
+night of the nativity, never belied the promise of that time. With mingled
+solicitude and reverence, tenderness and fortitude, she guarded her child,
+marked the gradual rising of the consciousness of Divinity within him, and
+waited between hope and fear for the development of his mysterious life.
+
+One of the most gifted women of our age, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, thus
+portrays Mary's feelings as she looked upon her child sleeping:
+
+  "Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One.
+    *       *       *       *
+  I am not proud--meek angels, put ye on
+  New meeknesses to hear such utterance rest
+  On mortal lips, 'I am not proud'--_not proud_!
+  Albeit in my flesh God sent His Son,
+  Albeit over Him my head is bowed,
+  As others bow before Him, still mine heart,
+  Bows lower then their knees! O centuries
+  That roll, in vision, your futurities
+        My grave athwart!
+  Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep
+        Watch o'er this sleep!
+  Say of me as the Heavenly said, 'Thou art
+  The blessedest of women!' blessedest,
+  Not holiest, not noblest--no high name,
+  Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame,
+  When I sit meek in heaven!--
+        For me--for me--
+  I often wandered forth, more child than maiden,
+  Among the lonely hills of Galilee,
+  Whose summits looked heaven-laden!
+  Listening to silentness, that seemed to be
+  God's voice, so soft, yet strong--so fain to press
+  Upon my heart, as Heaven did on the height,--
+  And waken up its shadows by a light,
+  And show its vileness by a holiness!
+  Then I knelt down, as silent as the night,
+        Too self-renounced for fears;
+  Raising my small face to the boundless blue,
+  Whose stars did mix and tremble in my tears!
+  God heard _them_ falling often--with his dew."
+
+Think of the lot of Christ, and remember how closely another heart beat in
+unison with his heart--how nearly parallel her life ran with his life.
+Pass from the manger to the Cross, and those two scenes are enough to
+suggest the outlines of her experience during that eventful interval.
+Listen to the words--"Woman, behold thy son"--and to the disciple, "behold
+thy mother." Think of what followed--the joy at Christ's rising to dwell
+in visible presence with his own, and after his ascension to dwell with
+them in his witnessing Spirit. Among those who remembered the promise: "Lo
+I am with you always, even unto the end of the world," there was one who
+added a mother's love to a disciple's faith, as in the coming of the
+Comforter to her soul, she received her new birth into the kingdom of God,
+through him who had his birth on earth from her. Confided as she had been
+to the disciple whom Jesus so loved, a guest in his household, the
+constant companion of the growing circle of believers, how could she be
+without great influence on their faith and fellowship? When she passed
+away, a new light rose for them in the heavens. Their religion was not a
+code of moral precepts, or a set of theological propositions, but a gospel
+of speaking facts and living words. Their religion was Christ and all that
+is Christlike. Their heaven was no ethereal abstraction, no pantheistic
+merging of spirits in infinity; but the home of true souls--the mansions
+of the Father opened by Christ to all the faithful, and surely unto her
+who guarded his infant weakness and wept over his dying agonies. On earth
+and in heaven the blessed mother stood to them for the ideal of true
+womanhood, and early Christian antiquity is full of traces of the tender
+and beautiful affection felt for her, before superstition seized upon the
+lovely sentiment and hardened it into a priestly dogma. Yet under the
+dogma, the true feeling has never been wholly lost sight of, and with many
+who are called idolatrous, the homage to St. Mary is but an exalted form
+of reverence to a moral loveliness, now in heaven. Our own Germanic
+ancestors shared more deeply in the sentiment probably than any other
+people, as they came from their cold homes in northern Europe--received
+the gospel of Christ from the missionaries of the church, and rejoiced to
+find their national feeling of chivalrous respect for woman confirmed and
+spiritualized by the honors paid to her, whom angels hailed as full of
+grace, and whose name all Christendom spoke with blessing. This high
+sentiment, somewhat sobered by our Protestant faith and our household
+utilities, has come to us with our religion and our homes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is becoming a somewhat practical, and in both hemispheres, an agitating
+question, how far the accepted Christian idea of true womanhood should be
+enlarged or amended to meet the demands of our own age. The voice of Mary
+Wolstoncroft, claiming masculine freedom for sex, has found a thousand
+echoes, and assemblies of women, no strangers to Christian culture, clamor
+for a new day of social and political emancipation. Their demands are not
+to be treated with ridicule, for under all their extravagance lurk truths
+of momentous import. Who can think of the thousands and hundreds of
+thousands of the sex, whose utmost labors hardly keep off cold and
+starvation--of the wretched notions of education and life, which so
+enfeeble the poor and corrupt the affluent--of the false social system
+which is so ready to smile upon the destroyer of innocence, and curse the
+victim of his arts; who can think of the scenes in the hovels of innocent
+poverty, the dens of loathsome vice, and the gilded saloons of painted
+misery, upon which the shadows of this blessed eve are now falling, and
+not be willing to pardon some thing to the spirit of mercy, even if its
+tones seem to us too shrill for gentle lips? Who is not willing to
+remember, moreover, that if they assert a folly, who claim for woman the
+political offices that must rob the home of her fidelity; they assert, and
+actually are diffusing a more dangerous error, who in more silken speech
+brand the household virtues as servile drudgery, and whose lives are a
+continued and studious round of elegant and jewelled vagrancy from the
+sacred uses and blessed companionships of their own fireside; nay, whose
+eyes seem only to open when the lights of the theatre and ball-room blaze,
+and whose pulses really beat only in exciting assemblies under the
+delirium of the wine-cup and the voluptuous dance. From both errors the
+true idea of womanhood may save our time, and, nevertheless, confer upon
+us the substantial good, which is so dimly seen by the rival schools of
+culture--the fashionable and the masculine. Well taught and trained, our
+daughters may have all true graces without Parisian levity, and all
+intellectual discipline without Amazonian boldness.
+
+No greater mistake can be made than that which would take woman from her
+sphere of dignity and power, and make her the rival of man in pursuits
+which require his ruder nature and sterner will. Mary, the wife of Godwin,
+with her obtrusive band of far more extravagant followers, opens no path
+of honor and power compared with that pointed out by Mary of Nazareth, the
+light of her home, the guardian of her Holy Child; encouraging the
+disciples by a voice, the mightier on account of its not being heard in
+the streets, and to them and to all after them, a name for spiritual
+loveliness, and all gentle and confiding graces, among the souls exalted
+to heaven. Using present agencies, and following the guidance of the
+gospel, the mothers and sisters in our Israel, may deal more wisely and
+strongly with the social problems of our time, and do their part for the
+kingdom of God--than by crowding to the ballot-box, screaming in the
+caucus, or snatching at the staff of office. So deeply is this the
+conviction of the most judicious of the sex, that many words on the
+subject would be superfluous. Nor would we add any to the many words that
+have been shed upon the question of the equality of the sexes. As well let
+the rays of the solar light dispute for precedence, and the red ray, so
+blazing, presume to deny the equal worth of the violet ray, which, science
+teaches us, has power to make iron magnetic, and which more than its more
+bold companion on the other side of the prism, makes the impression on the
+silvered plate--itself the most magical pencil in the skilful hand of that
+unrivalled painter, the sun. God has united both rays in the sweet light
+of true humanity, and what He has joined together, let not man try to put
+asunder.
+
+The greater danger is in a servile acquiescence in prevalent worldliness
+and mediocrity--a disposition to repeat the common pleas of precedent,
+and to live solely in the externals of society. In our own beloved
+country, where liberty, without example, is extended to woman, and a
+courtesy, without limit, is shown her, they who hold in their keeping the
+future of their sex should not be content to follow the rule of court
+journals, or bow to the dicta of Parisian modists, who are fond of ruling
+over morals, as over costume. Our liberty should give them a stronger and
+more rational intellectual discipline than in the lands more enslaved by
+precedent. Our courtesy, that national chivalry, which insists on
+deference as much towards the rustic maiden as the city belle, will be
+sadly abused if made the occasion of an obtrusive arrogance, which claims
+precedence as a right, and elbows its way through crowds of men who are
+more ready to yield by grace than by command.
+
+Our country has from the first cherished a noble idea of womanhood, and
+under its influence the strength of its sons, and the refinement of its
+daughters have been nurtured. Kindly omens abounded in the first days of
+its history. Our continent itself is one of the omens. That you may not
+call me too fanciful or sentimental, let me quote from an eloquent writer
+on the philosophy of geography, as he compares the Old and New Worlds.
+"The number of the continents in the Old World," which is double that of
+the New World, their grouping in a more compact and solid mass--make it
+already and pre-eminently the continental world. It is a mighty oak, with
+a stout and sturdy trunk, whilst America is the slender and flexible
+palm-tree, so dear to this continent. The Old World, if it is allowable to
+employ here comparisons of this nature, calls to mind the square, solid
+figure of man; America the lithe shape and delicate form of woman.
+
+So America stood like a fair bride in her ocean home, adorned for her
+husband, that mighty race from the East, that came in the path of the
+sunshine, as if following the lord of day, who is as a bridegroom coming
+out of his chamber. Our heroes bore with them a Christian ideal of
+womanhood, and by it were gentle as they were strong. It came with
+Columbus in the cherished image of that noble queen, who gave gold and
+hope to an enterprise elsewhere rejected with derision; and the thought of
+Isabella mingled with that of the Blessed Mother, as he planted the cross
+on the western shores. It came with the cavaliers who gave Virginia its
+name and honor, and whose foremost and noblest chief found a counterpart
+of his own ideal in the Indian girl, who saved his life by risking her
+own, giving Christian mercy, to receive in return the Christian's faith
+and home; owning, by the baptismal vow, the Great Spirit whom she had seen
+in cloud and heard in the wind, thenceforth, as the God and Father of our
+Lord Jesus Christ. It came with the Huguenots of Carolina, the Catholics
+of Maryland, the Friends of Pennsylvania, the Hollanders of Manhattan, and
+not last nor least, with the Pilgrims of that Mayflower, whose seeds
+struck deep into the New England soil, and whose scions have borne beauty
+and fragrance to the hills and valleys, the farms and cities of our
+motherland, making the wilderness blossom as the rose, when the sweet
+Marys gave grace to Puritan homes.
+
+Herein lies a great element of power and of hope for our country. Our soil
+is rich, our lakes and rivers are vast, our strength is great, our courage
+good, our schools are many, our wealth is unexampled. But these are not
+all--nor are these the elements that are to tame our barbaric borders, and
+lead to harmony our chaotic and scattered members. The church and home
+must go together, and unite our nation under the empire of Christ, as
+under the empire of civil law. The church and home are advancing together
+from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore. The farmer of Oregon, the miner of
+California, are not to be beyond the pale of Christian civilization. Even
+they shall hear the chimes that tell of the nativity of the Saviour--they
+shall find in their homes, rude cabins though they may be, pleasant faces,
+whose womanly grace and childish confidence shall reveal a light kindled
+of old by the Blessed Mother, and nurtured for ever by her Holy Child.
+
+Here patriotism and Christianity blend in one. Anathema upon the false
+speculations and foul vices that assault the family institution. Blessed
+be the gospel of Him who asserts the uncompromising law of domestic
+purity, and opens most tenderly the Divine benignity, when most urging the
+Divine commandment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a branch of this subject which I cannot treat--one, perhaps, that
+dwells too much in the region of higher sentiment to be the theme of
+popular discussion, and which no writer can easily handle, without seeming
+to be borrowing from the ancient theology its comments on the Song of
+Songs, or delving in the dark but rich mines of Swedenborg's Arcana. Yet
+it would be no far-fetched topic, whilst speaking of her who has been
+called the Queen of Heaven, and regarded by the Fenelons and Catharines of
+faith, as the type of celestial loveliness, to treat of the ideal of
+womanhood in the spiritual world. Surely the higher a true culture rises,
+the more clearly each great family of souls becomes more true to its own
+genius, and the higher companionship known on earth, in the most refined
+society, and the worthiest families, illustrates the permanence of those
+traits that give man and woman their intellectual and moral
+characteristics. The earthly loves, which Christ came to consecrate, bear
+the germs of immortal uses, and are like Mary's own emblem the rose,
+which, though born in the earth, lifts its bloom and wafts its fragrance
+to the heavens. I know no more elevated illustration of this view than
+that given by the Milton of Italy, the solemn Dante, who, in his vision of
+Heaven, wanders through the celestial courts with the spirit that had been
+the charm of his earthly life, and who, often as he stood confounded
+before some new mystery, found his perplexities solved by the readier
+intuition of his sainted companion. The higher companionship in
+literature, art, society, religion, which we enjoy in this world, and
+which is so incomplete when men or women are alone, gives some idea of the
+state of souls on high, where they that shine most, and they that love
+most, cherubim and seraphim, blend their holy ministries and bow together
+before the Eternal Presence.
+
+A homelier view of the subject must end our meditation--a view, however,
+that opens into the heavenly world. The homelier the better--the nearer to
+our hearts. Let us call Mary blessed to-day for ourselves, and for our own
+families and friends. Bless her, now that we are thinking of all good
+mothers, whether the queen true to her children on her island-throne, or
+the faithful mother in the farmer's cottage;--so many on the earth--so
+many who have gone from the world, and whose remembered faces now bring
+heaven near. Bless her now, that we are thinking of the happy children
+gathered together in the name of her Holy Child--as we think of the hosts
+of little children whom He has called and is calling to Himself. It is a
+time to be sober, and a time to be merry. In our soberness and our mirth,
+alike let us remember God's love for us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
+
+God's blessing, readers, upon you all--mothers, fathers, children,
+brothers, sisters, friends--meeting or to meet in the sanctuary, or in
+your homes! His love bring all together at last around the tree of life,
+whose fruit is peace eternal!
+
+_Christmas Eve._
+
+
+
+
+The Hope of Childhood.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOPE OF CHILDHOOD.
+
+
+The account of the Flight to Egypt, so illustrated by the old masters,
+brings three images before us, all in themselves interesting, and
+expressive of lasting realities. Central, is the figure of a young child,
+speaking at once of childhood and the God who blesses it. On either side
+what contrast in the associated forms! On one hand stands Mary, watching
+with unwearied vigils over her precious charge. In the distance, in his
+stately palace, the dark form of the tyrant king rises before us; his
+hands stained with the blood of a noble wife and three sons, his
+conscience torn by remorse, his wrath the more inflamed from the
+consciousness of deserving vengeance, his despotic will brooking no
+thought of rivalry, and dooming to death the infant innocents of a whole
+town to make sure of destroying the predicted Messiah.
+
+Here is an emblem of what is over in the world. Here is childhood, its
+guardian angel, and its evil genius. May not the scene suggest some
+thoughts upon Christianity as the guardian of childhood against the spirit
+of the world, which is its foe?
+
+The mother and child fled to Egypt, there to languish or be forgotten?
+Herod sat in his palace hall, there to rule and prosper? No. Ere the year
+closed, he died; before death came, already a mass of putrefaction. He
+died, signing with his fainting hands his will and the death-warrant of
+his oldest son; thus dispensing death and empire in his last act. He died,
+and the magnificence of his funeral mocked the wretchedness of his
+decease. The body was borne aloft on a bier, which was adorned with gems;
+the winding-sheet was of purple; his whole army, native and foreign,
+marched in war array to his grave. As the gorgeous procession by slow
+stages passed to the stately mausoleum, twenty-five miles distant at the
+Herodium, word went to the fugitives in Egypt, that the tyrant was dead.
+Who at that time, in the excitement of the funeral, or the festivities of
+the succession--who cared for the obscure family, that stole on its way
+quietly to Nazareth? The mother and child lived! They founded a kingdom
+that dies never.
+
+Richly that Christ-child repaid his mother's watching, alike to her and to
+her sex. The religion of Christ has been the strength and comfort of
+parents, and the hope of their children. Its power in the nurture of the
+young mind has been illustrated in every age, and connects itself now
+momentously with the most important topics of our time. What topic more
+congenial with this Christmas season, so consecrated to associations with
+childhood and youth, leading us back to the cradle of the infant Redeemer,
+and opening a festival in which young hearts all over the world rejoice?
+The child ever needs protection; Herod ever in some form rages;
+Christianity like a mighty maternal heart needs ever to keep its watch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Look upon the past history of Christendom from this point of view, and how
+novel and interesting is the result! We have been taught to associate the
+progress of Christianity with the account of theological controversies,
+bitter disputes, bloody persecutions, proud hierarchies; and thus we too
+often read the annals of the Church with shame or contempt. But take a
+fairer and more intimate view: think of Christianity in connection with
+childhood and youth, trace its influence upon the home, the school, the
+Church, in this aspect. Do this, and we shall find ourselves moved by the
+annals of every age to tenderness and gratitude; for in every age
+Christianity has been the guardian of childhood against the spirit of the
+world, its foe. When the Saviour took young children in his arms and
+blessed them, he performed an act which has not been without significance
+in all subsequent time.
+
+In the primitive time the Christian confessors showed how fondly they had
+been taught to regard their offspring, to care for their souls in life and
+in death, to commend them with deathless love to Him who had opened the
+gates of everlasting life. In the Roman catacombs, far beneath the city,
+the places of early Christian worship and burial, the inscriptions on the
+tombstones well express the parental feelings of that time. An uncommonly
+large portion of the epitaphs given in the description belong to
+children, and they express the tenderest affection. "Virginius remained
+but a short time with us." "Sweet Faustina, may you live in God."
+"Laurence to his sweetest son, Severus, borne away by angels on the
+seventh Ides of January." How different the spirit breathed in such
+inscriptions from that inspired by the idolatry, that formed a god of the
+war-spirit that makes childhood desolate and orphaned, or bows down before
+Moloch and casts children into the fire at his feet!
+
+Turn even to those ages that are called by eminence dark--the time of
+monkish austerity and priestly sway. There is much in their annals to move
+indignation and sometimes horror. But interpret them fairly, and we find
+much to move our admiration and love. Consider that embodiment of the
+middle ages, the Gothic cathedral, wonderful alike for the vastness of its
+proportions and the delicacy of its details. There may be austerity in the
+priests that attend its altars, fanaticism in the monks who chant its
+litanies, cruelty in the mailed men who kneel at its chancel. But how
+tender is the expression of the whole in reference to childhood! The Holy
+Mother and her Divine child beam upon the worshipper from illuminated
+missals and painted windows. Conspicuous at the vestibule or by the altar,
+stands the baptismal font. Thither the child of the poorest peasant is
+brought, and by the baptismal water the child is recognized as belonging
+to the kingdom not of this world, a lamb of the good Shepherd. Not for the
+few rich, noble or mighty, but even for him, the least of the earth, this
+temple was erected, and by that rite the church, imperial in its stately
+palace, promises to watch over the child, care for his soul in sorrow,
+sickness and death. What would childhood have been in the dark ages
+without the Church? What other power could have stood between innocence
+and its tempter and destroyer? Who would have withstood Herod, if the
+mother heart of Christianity had withheld its guardianship?
+
+The Protestant Reformation consider, and through all its conflicts and
+persecutions, what tenderness is shown on both sides towards childhood! To
+secure the young heart to Christ and the Church, the rival parties labored
+with indefatigable zeal. In the zeal and policy of Loyola we may see how
+tenderly the old Church sought to keep or regain her hold upon the young
+by measures suited to the time. Would we know Luther's mind, look upon him
+as he sits with lute in hand at his fireside, enjoying the gladness of his
+children at the Christmas tree;--look at him, as with pen in hand and the
+veins of his forehead dilated with the excitement, he writes the immortal
+appeal to the powers of Germany in behalf of free schools, which has
+joined his name with Milton's as champion of popular education. Think too
+of the Pilgrim Fathers, so tender and thoughtful in their stern
+self-denial, in their wilderness home erecting church and school-house
+side by side, both sacred to God and his people.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it is time to look round upon the world as it now is. The most
+important question is: What is to be done for the young? This question
+comprises every other, for the generation that is growing up will soon
+have the destinies of the race in its charge. Surely Christianity needs to
+be watchful, for Herod is still abroad. His spirit is still the spirit of
+the world--of the world's passions and its policy--breathing now in the
+oppression that neglects or overburdens the young, and now in the
+capricious indulgence that betrays with a kiss and kills in the name of
+love.
+
+The world's passions conspire against childhood and youth. The lust and
+intemperance, which degrade the parent, press heavily upon the child, and
+because of them, thousands of young hearts find themselves in a world that
+for them has few smiles. All the temptations that inflame the senses,
+prompt to vice, and kindle hatred, conspire against the young, alike by
+corrupting those who should be their protectors, and sowing prematurely
+the seeds of wickedness in youth itself. Every haunt of dissipation, every
+resort of revelry, whether the drunkard's den or the fashionist's
+brilliant saloon of corruption, is a conspiracy against youth, and coins
+its gold from the life-blood of young hearts. The massacre of the
+Innocents still goes on. The spirit of Herod yet lives, and acts in a
+manner more insidious than an open death-warrant. It lives in the passions
+of a world ready to sacrifice all to its lusts.
+
+And the world's policy is not kind to childhood. What murderers are those
+its chief idols, Mars and Mammon! How cruel the game of war and the lust
+of gold! Who rules over the strife that robs children of parents who go to
+die in foreign lands? What genius, Herod or Christ, presides over the
+scene, when death-dealing batteries are planted before peopled cities, and
+the blood and brains of women and children are dashed out at every volley?
+Ye Christian chivalry, ye battle-loving parents, answer that question as
+for yourselves and your children!
+
+The lust of gold, that moves the world's habitual policy, is less savage
+but not much more merciful. The spirit of trade demands gain, and claims
+childhood too much as an instrument of gain. In the Old World, what
+myriads whom school or church never blesses or knows, are, almost from
+infancy, trained to the mine or loom, shut out from free air and play,
+cramped in body, as in mind. The conscience of Christians is waking up to
+the subject, I know, still what a world of wretchedness remains
+unalleviated! No poem in the language contains more terrific truth, than
+that noted ode, called "The Cry of the Children," blending, as it does,
+the tragic depth of Ęschylus with the tender pathos of Cowper.
+
+  They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
+      And their looks are sad to see,
+  For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses
+      Down the cheek of infancy--
+  "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;"
+      "Our young feet," they say, "are very weak!
+  Few paces have we taken, yet are weary--
+      Our grave-rest is very far to seek!"
+  Ask the old why they weep, and not the children,
+      For the outside earth is cold,--
+  And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
+      And the graves are for the old!
+
+  Two words, indeed, of praying we remember;
+      And at midnight's hour of harm,--
+  "Our Father," looking upward in the chamber,
+      We say softly for a charm.
+  We know no other words, except "Our Father,"
+      And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,
+  God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
+      And hold both within his right hand which is strong.
+  "Our Father!" If He heard us, He would surely
+      (For they call him good and mild)
+  Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,
+      "Come and rest with me, my child!"
+
+  And well may the children weep before you;
+      They are weary, ere they run;
+  They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
+      Which is brighter than the sun:
+  They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom;
+      Are bitter with despairing, but not calm--
+  Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom--
+      Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm,--
+  Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly
+      No dear remembrance keep;
+  Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly:
+      Let them weep! let them weep!
+  They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
+      And their look is dread to see,
+  For you think you see their angels in their places,
+      With eyes meant for Deity.
+
+An ode such as this was not without effect upon the heart of England; nor
+is the humanity which it imbodies rare in our land. The spirit of trade
+among us is not wilfully cruel, but it is too devoted to gain--negligent
+of the claims of youth, when not unkind. Neglected ones in our own streets
+have too frequent cause to reproach us--neglected ones who are strangers
+to the blessings of our civilization, and who learn our laws first from
+their penalties, and become acquainted with the lessons of the prison, not
+of church or school. They, alas, who might be an honor to their sex, are
+made to recruit the ranks of shame, and what is the spirit of Herod
+compared with the world's heart to fallen woman, alike in the wickedness
+that tempts and the scorn that awaits the fall.
+
+And not solely among the neglected of the earth does the spirit of the
+world lie in wait for childhood and youth. We might speak of the
+indulgence that pampers and vainly ruins the soul--of the kindness that
+kills those whom it aims to bless--of the neglect of health, natural and
+spiritual laws, which luxury introduces into modes of home education--of
+the want of a firm discipline that is kindest when firmest--of a practical
+infidelity that robs childhood of its sacred birthright, by robbing it of
+trust in God and the eternal life. Herod rages truly in the passions and
+the policy of the world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But not unchecked! Christianity with its great maternal heart is true to
+her watch, and calling helpers to her side. Let us acknowledge it. The
+great work of Christians now, is with the young. The work is two-fold, one
+of growth and of conquest, one that would rear up the offspring of faith
+within the divine kingdom, and one which would visit the neglected and
+reclaim them from the enemies' power.
+
+The work must begin, indeed, in the hearts of the mature, fostered there
+by communion with God and Christ, fostered by sacred thought and earnest
+resolution. Beginning there, it is to be carried out into the great
+spheres of life, in which childhood receives its direction. Vain for us to
+attempt to imbue the young mind with truths, which we receive only in
+name--vain the attempt to feed yearning souls with empty words, or breathe
+into them a higher life, with appeals so faithless and loveless as to bear
+falsity in their very tone, and fall dead upon the ear. As the bee watched
+by Solomon alighted upon the living rose, and shunned the pretended one,
+so childhood knows well the tone of sincerity, and craves reality for its
+mental food. Let it find the reality.
+
+Let it find it in the home. Home, blessed word always, thrice blessed,
+this day, that speaks to us of Jesus, who has secured to the household so
+much of its purity and affection, and that brings to mind the loved ones
+beneath our own roofs, who have hardly slept the night from anxious
+waiting for the morning dawn. Home--what an engine of power, alike to harm
+and to bless! Let it be Christian in form and in spirit. There let God be
+acknowledged in praise and prayer. There let the eternal world be
+unveiled, and every blessing bring it near in gratitude, and every trial
+draw down its consolation. There let the young breathe in the spirit of
+the gospel. There let Mary keep her watch of love, and Herod waits in vain
+to destroy.
+
+Let the world's bad spirit be withstood, too, in the schools. The cry is
+now rising in every part of Christendom--from the backwoodsmen of the
+Rocky Mountains to the cities of the Old World, of late, stirred by a
+mighty want--Education, Universal Education! In no section, certainly, of
+our land, is this spirit comparatively more earnest than with us--for,
+beyond question, this State has been recently passing through an
+intellectual revival altogether unexampled in the annals of our Free
+Schools. Christians should rejoice in the movement, and should rescue
+popular education from the blighting touch of avarice and superstition.
+Let it go on in its work of growth and conquest--nurturing the children of
+the privileged, reclaiming the offspring of the neglected, carrying out a
+mode of education based upon the laws of God and the soul of man, mindful
+of every faculty, grace, affection, that God has hallowed and human wisdom
+unfolds. Let nothing that has been done lead us to be unmindful of what is
+to be done, alike in the extension and elevation of the schools. We wonder
+at the system of training pursued of old, which led youth to regard the
+school as a prison. Higher yet the idea must rise, as better views are
+entertained of the capacities of the child, and the intellectual helps and
+moral associations that bring them out. We need the idea of the
+Christ-child in the school. Let that haunt the minds of parents and
+teachers, and that sacred ideal of childhood will not be without loving
+disciples, whose voices shall make the songs of the schoolroom as sacred
+and acceptable as temple chants or choral litanies. A better spirit, and
+one that demands the co-operation of all Christian people, has shown
+itself in our city of late, in the new efforts to seek out neglected
+children, and open to them the blessings of education, and industry and
+religion. The establishment of the Mission at the Five Points, of the
+Children's Aid Society, of the Asylum for Friendless Boys, have made an
+era in the Christian annals of New-York, which all right-minded persons
+should bless, alike in their word and their work. Add to these efforts for
+the poor and neglected, the new institutions, such as the Free College and
+the Cooper Institute, which offer such unwonted privileges to worthy boys
+of the humblest means, and we have no reason to despair of the future of
+this great city, or to distrust the school as a noble ally of the church.
+
+The Christian church! Here the spirit of the guardian mother ought
+eminently to prevail. The church should be the mother of the young. Oh,
+how cold and dreary is the idea, deemed by many the essential of
+Protestant truth, the idea that the young, or at least, little children,
+can have no vital connection with the Church; but must wait for some
+preternatural visitation in maturer years to call them to the arms of the
+great spiritual mother, and make them feel themselves hers. How
+unsatisfactory the doctrine, that children are to grow up, as if outside
+of the church, with the prospect of one day being taken in. Be ours the
+cheering view, sanctioned, surely, by the analogies of revelation, the
+faith of centuries, and by the love of parents, that the child should be
+regarded as by birth and baptism admitted into the Christian kingdom, and
+to be nurtured from the very first in the principles and affections
+congenial with the government of God. Let this idea be accepted, and power
+and blessing would come in its train. Higher consecration would crown the
+home, better wisdom would guide the strength of father, and holier love
+fill the soul of mother, from their communion with the kingdom that claims
+parent and child for its own. The Christ-child should be remembered in the
+Christian Church. When remembered truly, he will save childhood from
+Herod's hands.
+
+This season is a time of anticipation and hope. It needs no very vivid
+imagination to bring before us the myriads of homes over Christendom, that
+ring with young mirth, and look cheerfully upon the opening age. Yet the
+grave question cannot but press itself upon us, What is in store for the
+generation, that is soon to stand in our places, and bear the burdens of
+life in our stead? Interesting, engrossing indeed are the fields of
+science, art, enterprise, enjoyment, now dawning upon us and promising a
+bright meridian to the new generation. Yet fearfully many dark spots in
+the horizon rise in the distance, and portend ill to many whose experience
+of the world is yet to come. The great want is of an earnest purpose,
+looking to an eternal aim, and enforced by a true plan of social life. The
+young host is ready, but needs better guidance. Muratori, the Italian
+historian, tells us, that in the twelfth century, in the contagion of the
+crusades, children caught the spirit, and an army of 30,000 was gathered
+from village and city, and marshalled by a child, started for the Holy
+Land and the Tomb of Christ. They marched on till they came to Marseilles,
+and the great sea stopped their fond dream. They wandered about
+distracted, and thousands miserably perished. Perhaps too romantic story
+for sober truth! But what a parallel to it in our age! A mighty host of
+youths starts on its way to a land of imagined holiness and peace. Vague
+aspirations, selfish passions, spiritual yearnings for the good and true,
+move their hearts. A child will lead them; the child who is to be the
+strong man of the age, and who is not yet known. Sadly, sadly, will they
+be disappointed, unless the leader is himself divinely led, and the heart
+of the Christ-child lives in him, and thus in the hearts of this
+generation, the Messiah is born anew.
+
+Every true purpose, all genuine faith speeds the day of his new coming,
+and hastens the downfall of Herod and his host.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Friends, Readers, let your hearts apply the lesson of this day, and let
+your hearts be cheered and solemnized by its associations. Think of your
+homes and the loved ones there. Think too of the loved ones departed, and
+deem them not lost, but gone before! Love your children, and love them the
+more by looking on them in the gospel light, by loving them as in God and
+Christ!
+
+Think too of our own early days. How vividly they at times come back, so
+that we almost forget maturity and its cares, and are children once more.
+Let them come back now, and with them all their tender associations--with
+them thoughts of early home; brothers, sisters, father, and more than all
+of her, who stood to us in Mary's place, and blessed us with a Christian
+Mother's love!
+
+But can the association rest there? No! Upward to Him, so holy in
+childhood, so glorious in maturity--to Him, Friend and Saviour, Messiah,
+from whom our best blessings flow, let our gratitude rise, and to God,
+through Him, let our devotion be exalted! We have no hymn to the Virgin
+Mother, no Ora pro Nobis for the beatified Madonna. Simple faith is better
+than romantic tradition. To us heaven is fairer for possessing that Mother
+and that Child.
+
+_Christmas Day._
+
+
+
+
+New Things.
+
+
+
+
+NEW THINGS.
+
+
+Measured by any human standard, how daring was the vision of the Christian
+seer! From Patmos, his watchtower of rock in the Ęgean Sea, midway between
+the hemispheres of ancient civilization, he surveyed the ruling powers of
+the world, declared their doom, and the rise of a new kingdom, even the
+City of God. The predominant forces of the existing age took visible shape
+before his inspired imagination. Jewish bigotry, Pagan idolatry, Roman
+despotism, led on by the master spirit of evil, stood before him, as so
+many fearful monsters. Equally vivid were the forms of divine agency by
+which they were to be subdued. From Him who sat upon the throne revealed
+in heaven, came the decree, "Behold, I make all things new." Our pen need
+not lose its cheerfulness in writing of this opening year, with such
+imagery in view.
+
+How much of that vision has been proved true? Enough surely to save it
+from the charge of presumption, enough to ascribe its daring rather to a
+devotion mindful of divine guidance than to a wilfulness impatient of
+delay. The former things have passed away. The old temple is remembered
+only for the sake of its spiritual archetype. The despot's purple has
+faded before the bloodstained robes of the martyrs. The idols to which
+men bowed on both the Ęgean shores, the European and the Asiatic, have
+fallen. Even the crescent, that has for a time displaced the cross, and
+which now in the city of Constantinople gleams from the dome of St.
+Sophia, forms no exception to the statement, for it marks no idolatrous
+shrine, but like the orb which it represents is but a partial reflection
+of the great source of light, before which it must one day grow pale.
+
+Gradually, but none the less mightily, the new power went on its way, and
+ere long from beyond the Mediterranean on the Carthaginian shore, there
+came a great response to the exile of the Ęgean. When Augustine wrote his
+"City of God," the philosopher of history confirmed the vision of the
+seer, as he celebrated the triumphs of that word which planted the cross
+above the throne of the Cęsars. Tempting indeed is the historical survey
+this presented, but we must not yield to the enticement. We must quit this
+grand prospect of the nations, and speak of the Gospel, as sent chief of
+all for the renewal of the soul and the redemption of the home.
+World-regenerating power as it is, its first prerogative is its
+life-renewing office.
+
+This principle we are prepared to lay down at the outset, that in the
+order of Providence Jesus Christ is the spiritual head of the human race,
+and that men and nations find redemption and true life from God through
+Him. What was said of old, needs to be said now "Behold I make all things
+new"--now in the ears alike of those who have never heard Christian
+truth, and of those who have lulled themselves to slumber beneath its
+familiar sound. Nay, the most sincere Christians need constant renewing in
+the light of first principles and by the spirit of true life. Their piety
+is apt to harden into formalism--their charity to narrow into some kind of
+clanship--their industry to sink into a low worldly prudence apart from
+all divine aims.
+
+It is not easy for any of us to begin the New-Year without a pleasant
+sense of freshness or renovation, as if some former burdens had passed
+away and many things had become new. This is well, and needs only to be
+made better. As we renew our friendships, we should not fail to renew our
+relation with the Great Friend, and invoke his blessing upon the opening
+months.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We need first of all to review our principles. These we regard as
+constituting the essentials of our faith. However right they may have
+been, we are very apt to lose sight of them, or gradually, perhaps almost
+unconsciously, allow others to creep into their place. The word of Christ
+to us now is as of old, "Believe." What do we believe? What to us is the
+greatest reality? Many things are true--what to us is the truth? Many
+words are important--what to us is _the_ word? Answer not in the language
+of decent custom or technical phrase, but from the heart. We have all said
+at some time more or less definitely, "We believe in God, the Creator of
+the world, in Jesus Christ his Son and express image, in the Holy Spirit,
+the witness within the soul." When we believe thus truly, then we have
+the true principles of living. We own the Divine government, acknowledge
+its representative, honor its form of life. But our belief becomes an
+empty word, unless with enlarged knowledge and experience, it is
+constantly renewed; and as we pass into new fields of thought, action,
+observation, we subdue this added territory to the rightful sovereignty,
+and interpret all things in the light of Divine truth. Have we done
+this--are we doing it? Or have we left our faith behind us, and in our
+world of business or pleasure, do we find ourselves either utterly without
+God, or with Him only in the most vague and distant idea? True faith is
+not overcome by the world, but overcomes the world.
+
+We learn a great many things as our years pass, and there is a
+knowledge--do we not know it? that increaseth sorrow. Such is all the
+knowledge that shuts out the light of God; and leads man away from a
+filial faith in the Eternal Parent and the heavenly home. Such stores
+indeed increase our nominal domain, but only as he would enlarge his
+estate who were to conquer Sahara and pitch his tent among desert sands
+where no living water is.
+
+Faith--the faith that God is Father of men--that he is in Christ, and
+through Him will visit us in the soul and the life, makes all things
+new--constantly leads us into new experience of Divine truth, and makes
+old things appear in a new light. This is no narrow creed for the recluse
+or the mystic. It is for men of all tempers and conditions. Nay, they need
+it most, whose pursuits are most likely to chain them down to the earth.
+For them indeed occasional leisure and recreation has no small solace.
+But, the best solace for world-weariness is the rest of the soul in God;
+the mind's trust in the greatest of realities, the Being of beings. All
+pleasure that deadens this trust but adds to the weariness which it would
+charm away and is the serpent's whisper, that promises the peace which
+comes only from the heavenly dove. Above all our prudence, all our labors
+and expedients, we are compelled to look for the true light. Revive,
+increase our faith, and straightway all things are new. God reveals new
+features of his Providence, and things familiar have a new expression, and
+speak no longer only of the earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Who can recur thus to first principles and find from them better light and
+peace, without carrying the renewing influence into the sphere of the
+affections? Here the Divine Word has a voice for us--a voice too much
+neglected because identified either with a perplexing theological system
+or a shallow sentimentalism. God is love, and he that loveth not knoweth
+not God. This truth came from Him who made the soul, and knows well its
+wants. Bring it near to us and feel its renovating power. There seems
+always indeed to be a peculiar peril in moralizing upon the affections,
+and they are very apt to be chilled by the precepts that most insist upon
+their vitality and warmth. But the Christian Gospel is little disposed to
+waive its imperious claims from fear of the metaphysician or the
+sentimentalist. It says Love God and the brethren, and bids us make this
+truth practical. As the years pass, instead of having less affection, we
+ought to have more. A true life always has more, as it enlarges its
+experience and its faculty--not indeed more of that superficial
+sensibility which is the burden of so many moon-struck rhymesters and the
+great staple of the common romancers, but more of that divine charity,
+that vital good-will, which holds filial communion with the Father, and,
+striving to be perfect even as he is perfect, carries the light and warmth
+of its presence into every sphere of life. In fact, the highest human
+wisdom is affectionate as it is mature. The novice in thought may be sharp
+and crabbed, but the sage is tolerant and kind. He who sees the truth in
+its reality, sees that it is the form which contains and expresses
+goodness. If there be a kind of intellectual power that is bitter and
+malicious, it is sure to be only some shape of low cunning or some
+perversion of the better reason--some perversion that shows Lucifer's
+fall, if it shine with something of his light. The Master and they who
+learned of him were full of love as of wisdom. Such is the plan of God's
+moral government based upon the nature of his own being.
+
+The Father calls us to be followers of him as dear children, and in the
+sober thought of mature years to cherish more than the impulsive affection
+of childhood. He demands that our whole life-plan should be guided, nay,
+pervaded with good-will. If there be less sensitiveness upon the surface
+of the character, there should be a deeper sentiment within. He is ready
+to help us win the grace, which he commends. Through devout thought,
+whether of meditation or prayer--through every act which brings us near to
+himself, whether of self-denying humanity or of common neighborly
+kindness, he is ready to impart to the soul something of the fulness of
+his Spirit, and renew our being in its central spring.
+
+We need this influence in our near affinities and remoter relations. The
+ice gathers about us, and should be melted away. The most intimate ties
+become dull and indifferent through custom, and the nearest friends,
+because of their nearness, lose interest as if estranged. In the same
+Divine fountain we refresh every home feeling and social sympathy.
+Realizing anew our relation to God, we are ready to see more of his
+goodness in all things around, and regard every aspect of humanity, as a
+call upon us to appreciate his love for us by our own for his creatures.
+The point of view is at once changed, and we look upon our fellow-beings
+no longer in the spirit of harsh critics, exacting all things and owing
+nothing, but as ourselves dependants upon Divine favor, and owing mercy
+even as we have received. Every human tie is in peril, when this sentiment
+is forgotten. When its force is felt, every sphere of life has a blessing.
+Home wears a new smile, and its mutual deference repeats the great law of
+Heaven. Strifes among kindred and acquaintances cease. The sternest censor
+of the follies and vices of mankind mingles mercy with his judgment, and
+considers with thoughtful compassion the infirmities at which the cynic
+scoffs. Because he opens his heart, he does not shut his eyes, but with
+judgment keen, yet tender and forbearing, in a spirit wise and benign,
+nay, Christlike, he looks upon the strange drama of human life, and whilst
+he cannot wholly solve its problem, sees enough of God in the universe and
+among men to submit the ultimate solution to the Divine Power, and finds a
+very sure way of helping on the Divine plans by a life of justice, energy
+and good-will. Who of us does not need more of this spirit, more sense of
+God's love to us, as the great source of kind affection to one another?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For want of it, and of the filial faith in which it has its root, we
+wither up, and our best strength is lost. Nay, our very work
+languishes--our labor, whatever it may be, loses its zest. There is no man
+of generous mind, who has not at some time accepted his life-work in a
+spirit truly religious, feeling that its burdens are to be borne in a
+Christian temper, and its duties done with reference to exalted aims. But
+how often the better purpose languishes, and we pursue our toil away from
+the fountains of true life, separating the spheres which God has joined
+together, robbing our daily life of the freshness and power, which our
+youthful zeal possessed without care, and which need only to be truly
+cared for to be preserved, nay, to grow in vigor. It is not always so with
+us, but too often; and there are none who do not need renovation in
+respect to their life-plan and work. Some things we should do, that we
+have not done--some things, that we have done, should have been left
+undone. There is much efficacy in a sober and honest review of our
+personal career, of what we have achieved, suffered, gained, lost, and of
+what has been our use alike of our successes and disappointments. God has
+given to us something of his own power of judgment, and we are the better
+either by the rebuke or the encouragement of the "Ill-done" or the
+"Well-done," pronounced by ourselves upon ourselves. More power still
+comes from bringing all the higher resources of our being upon our labor,
+refusing to become the serfs of a slavish routine of task-work, and
+keeping our hours and weeks fresh alike by the faculties that we exert,
+and the aims to which we look. Happy, indeed, the man, whatever be the
+sphere of his action, whose being is renewed rather than exhausted by his
+toil. Only a filial faith and love can insure this blessing. A cheerful
+temper is much, but not all; and no merely animal spirits can suffice to
+renovate the mind under so many vicissitudes and disappointments as most
+lives present. A man's _spirit_ is the chief fact in determining his
+_spirits_, and the spirit can be kept fresh and strong only by communion
+with the God who gave it. They who take the work of life as given by God
+in kindness, and as to be done faithfully and cheerfully, filially, keep
+and enlarge their power. Whatever their sphere, they wait upon the Lord,
+and they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength--they shall
+mount up with wings as eagles--they shall run and not be weary--they shall
+walk and not faint.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus following the leadings of Divine Providence, we find the true
+fountain of life. All things are ever new, and in our faint human
+experience we are able to know something of the bliss of that Infinite
+and Omniscient, to whom all things are known--to whom there is no past or
+future, yet whose is the fulness of an ever-renewing life, the great I Am,
+from everlasting to everlasting. Existence becomes more serene, yet more
+earnest; less impassioned, not less affectionate; less impulsive, but far
+more interesting. There are two kinds of renewal, distant as are earth and
+heaven. The one comes from the novelty of a constant variety, the other
+from the freshness of an ever truer life. Just across the sea the exile of
+Patmos could have found an excellent example to place in contrast with the
+spirit of renewal which he urged. The Athenian--and he is in this respect
+more favored with followers than in his Attic refinement--spent his time
+in seeking for some new thing. Common life was stupid, its business was
+contemptible and fit only for slaves. Different the spirit, as the lot of
+this novelty hunter from that of the Christian with his ever renewed mind.
+The one finds what is new by skimming over surfaces, the other by drawing
+from inexhaustible depths. The one scatters his forces as he seeks to
+refresh them, the other concentrates his powers in the very process of
+renovation. The one yields to a passion for mental dissipation that burns
+and wastes like a fever, the other follows a law of life, whose pulses
+beat in ever serener health--nay, beat in ever-renewing vigor, and sound
+no funeral marches to the grave. In short, the one indulges in a mental
+distraction that has in itself the principle of exhaustion; the other is
+nurtured by the Divine aliment which gives a life that is eternal.
+
+Are not our own experience and observation full of illustrations of the
+truth that has been presented. Are not history and biography constant
+witnesses of the ever-renovating power of a genuine faith, and love, and
+work, and also of the fate of worldly passion to exhaust its own springs
+of enjoyment. How signal an illustration we may take from the destiny of
+two men of the last century, who, more than any others, moved France and
+England--the nations to which they spoke. Mirabeau, a man of robust frame
+and singular native eloquence, was cut down in the very meridian of his
+day by a disease which was an expressive close and consequence of the
+fitful fever of his life of passion. His last words, in their gorgeous
+rhetoric, showed with what opiates he had drugged his soul: "Sprinkle me
+with perfumes, crown me with flowers, and thus let me sink into the
+eternal sleep." Within that very month, a far different death-scene was
+presented across the British Channel. An old man of nearly four-score
+years and ten, rests peacefully upon his bed, surrounded by a company of
+friends, who feel quite as much joy as grief, as they look upon his face
+and hear his words. Although of frame naturally delicate, and of gifts by
+no means brilliant, he has moved the hearts of myriads by his appeals, and
+won a name better than that of founders of empires. The very week previous
+he had continued his round of labors, and his strength was not abated as
+he pleaded his Master's cause. He sank to his rest in God with the words
+of the anthem,
+
+  "I'll praise my Maker with my breath,"
+
+on his lips, and the strain which was broken by the touch of death seemed
+to his companions to be finished by a voice from the spiritual world,
+saying:
+
+  "Praise shall employ my nobler powers;
+  My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
+  While life, and thought, and being last,
+  Or immortality endures."
+
+Mirabeau and Wesley! Thus different are the ends of wilful passion and
+unswerving fidelity. All lives, according as they are true or false, renew
+this contrast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Behold, I create all things new," saith the Lord. For good or for ill,
+this decree must be applied to us. In some way we are all changing as the
+years pass. Our lives are wasting away, unless they are renovated by a
+truer spirit, and thus winning ever more than they lose. What do we most
+need that time may be ever newer and happier, and the hours move on
+neither with lagging weariness nor drunken haste, but in the Divine order
+marked out for them by their Lord?
+
+Are there not some things to be put off, as well as some things to be put
+on? Answer honestly as we look the New Year in the face--answer as to a
+messenger from God. What weight are we carrying, that we need to lay
+aside? What evil habit is fixing itself upon us, shutting out the light of
+God, chilling the better affections, deadening the nobler powers, and
+threatening, perhaps, beneath its insidious smile to take from existence
+more of its beauty and joy and strength? Let each consider well his own
+besetting sin, and put it off. With the falling burden, scales fall from
+his eyes--he sees God anew. For him the former things have passed
+away--all things are become new. What makes our being fresher and happier
+than the conviction that the coming years are better than the past!
+
+Off with the old burdens, and put on the new armor. There is something for
+each of us to do--something for each one of us specific and peculiar as
+our own individuality--something for all of us as universal as our common
+humanity. The specific thing and the universal good pursue as if for life
+itself. God bless us in the striving, and crown us in the work. Each year
+in its sober experience give us new hopes for ourselves and the future of
+our race.
+
+_New Year._
+
+
+
+
+Solicitude of Parents
+
+
+
+
+SOLICITUDE OF PARENTS.
+
+
+Our thoughts turn now more particularly to the circle of home relations,
+and we propose to give some plain views of them with an especial eye to
+the temptations of city life. The duty of parents is the topic first in
+order.
+
+Few if any words are given in the Scriptures to persuading parents to love
+their children, or to wish to provide for them. The affection is taken for
+granted, and they who have it not are set aside by themselves as monsters.
+If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house,
+he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.
+
+It is not upon the parental sentiment itself, but upon its due direction,
+that Christianity rests its emphasis; as well it may, for what sentiment
+has gone more astray from the true mark, and in mistaken kindness hurt
+those whom it would most bless. "What man," asks our Saviour, "would give
+his son a stone instead of bread, or a serpent instead of a fish?" Not
+one, if he really knew it or saw it. Yet what is more frequent than such
+wrong indirectly done?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Take the first and most obvious form of parental solicitude, the form
+literally connected with the question just cited--we mean the physical
+maintenance of children. It would be wasting words in this or any
+respectable assembly, to try to prove that parents should provide food and
+clothing for their offspring. Yet here, and every where, in our mode of
+making this provision, many very grave questions may arise. Kind feeling
+is not enough. Without knowledge and forethought, we may hurt where we
+wish to help--we may kill where we wish to cure. At every step we need
+better counsel than any instinctive fondness, or childish caprice, or
+worldly fashion. The Creator has a lesson for us in the use of all his
+gifts, and if we do not heed it, what we give as bread may turn out a
+stone, and what seems to us a fish may sting like a serpent.
+
+In providing food, clothing, air, exercise, for our children, we are to
+study those solemn and inexorable laws which God has enacted for the rule
+of the body. In this lower court of creation there is no pardoning power,
+and the wrong done to the constitution in childhood is a wrong for a
+lifetime. We apprehend that in no one point is our American society more
+in error and more at variance, not only with natural laws, but even with
+the best European standard, than in the physical education of children.
+They are fed often on the trash of the confectioner, instead of the simple
+aliments nearest the hints of nature, and by improper dress and hours they
+are forced into a precocious maturity of mind and body, equally hurtful to
+both.
+
+Does any one doubt the importance or dignity of such caution? The doubt
+vanishes the moment we see the connection between physical education, and
+the whole tone of thought and feeling--nay, the entire aim of life. The
+tastes for food, and dress, and amusement, cherished in children of tender
+years, may be committing them to a judicious or a corrupt method of
+life--may be their initiation into a school of self-control and wisdom, or
+passion and extravagance. The drunkard, the sot, nay, the debauchee, may
+date their wretchedness from childhood. Many a family has been ruined by
+habits of extravagance that began in the finery and feasting of the
+nursery. They that dwell in cities should take close heed to the prevalent
+danger, and not think themselves safe merely because they do as other
+people do. Consider how common the error is to mistake precocity for
+promise--to disturb the sacred reserve of nature--to tear open the
+curtained bud of childhood, and boast of the forced growth so ruinous to
+the tender plant, and then let us learn anew to respect the bidding of the
+Creator and follow his appointed way. Here we should be willing to take a
+stand as nonconformists, and have it appear in the beginning, that we are
+not educating our children to be the apes of the world's fashions, or
+slaves of its caprices, but to be rational and moral creatures, a blessing
+to their home and community, a light in the kingdom of God. Let them learn
+early to find happiness in common things--to enjoy simple pleasures--to
+love the glow of healthful action above the fever of artificial
+excitements, the constant bounties of nature beyond the costly gifts of
+luxury.
+
+What we have said applies more directly to providing for children during
+their tender years. In rude communities here the care mostly stops, and
+the boy at least, as soon as he is strong enough to be master of his
+limbs, is left pretty much to take care of himself. But as society becomes
+more refined and luxurious, it is very obvious that the solicitude of
+parents looks more towards providing for the maturer years than for the
+minority of their children. It becomes, perhaps, the absorbing question,
+how shall we establish them properly in life--what effort or self-denial
+must we use to secure their future success?--a great question, and one
+which troubles many an earnest mind, and heaves society itself with
+misgivings.
+
+It often presents itself in a very tangible form, and by some is confined
+to one point--to concern for property. I will not disparage the desire of
+parents to secure a comfortable living to their children. But it is safe
+to say that this desire is strong enough when compared with matters more
+essential even in their bearing on a comfortable living. Surely the chief
+assurance of a sufficient livelihood is a good practical education. A
+reasonable man will not think it important to leave more than a frugal
+competence to his children, yet he ought to think himself unkind, nay
+cruel, if he spare any labor or sacrifice needed to educate them to do
+their part effectively and happily in the world. A large inheritance is
+easily lost, and may be retained without adding any happiness or dignity
+to its owner or the community, but a good education stands by its
+possessor; the strength of his trials and the ornament of his joys.
+
+We need to look well to this at a time when, under the very name of
+education, foul wrong is done to the active energies, and a systematic
+imbecility of mind and body has the stamp of elegance. That only is a good
+education which so stores the mind and brings out the powers as to fit one
+to take an honest place in life, and do well the work given us to do. Such
+a culture will have an eye upon the uncertainties of fortune, and prepare
+the pupil to provide for himself, and all who are reasonably dependent
+upon him. Such a culture it is the duty of every parent to give, and the
+right of every child to receive. It is clear, however, that it cannot be
+given without going in the face of many dainty prejudices, which are so
+ready to pamper unreasonable wants and slight the plain utilities. The
+Hebrew laws required, that children, even those of nobles should be taught
+some useful art, and the Saviour of men and the chief of his apostles were
+bred in accordance with this law. There is no security against shameful
+servitude short of this, that a youth shall have enough in himself, know
+enough, and can do enough, to take and keep an honorable place in the
+world. Too often this great truth is slighted, and men toil in such a way
+as to procure for their children a dainty training that enlarges the
+surface of their wants, whilst it lessens the domain of their energies,
+and so puts a mill-stone upon a son's back, whilst thinking to give him
+bread.
+
+Yet more sternly we must carry out the doctrine of the need of an
+education essentially self-relying. The father has and should have more
+tender solicitude for the daughter than the son, and there is no
+affection that the blessed God has breathed into the human heart more
+beautiful and holy than this, giving as it does such grace to the rudest
+and the most refined homes, teaching gentle speech to many a rough
+peasant, and imbuing the most cultivated man with a delicacy and
+tenderness beyond any of the charms of courts or chivalry. Yet this
+sentiment needs to be wise as well as kind; nay, wise in order to be kind;
+and a just father will strive to train his daughter to be equal to either
+fortune. However large or small his fortune, he will remember its
+uncertainties, and beware of sanctioning the too prevalent folly which
+regards woman as born to be petted and dependent, and brands a rational
+and self-relying education as masculine and ungraceful. If we have our
+eyes open, we must see the wretchedness of this system, and regard every
+daughter as cruelly treated who is not enabled without loss of
+self-respect, in case of need, to take a stand for herself, and prefer to
+an uncongenial marriage or a degrading dependence, reliance upon her own
+arts of accomplishment or utility. The same preparation that fits her to
+meet the time of trial, fits her to adorn prosperity, and to be that noble
+creature, the woman who guides an affluent household with energy and love,
+and who adds to the graces most prized in the social circle the grace that
+is born of God and radiates the light of Heaven.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of course it is utterly idle to urge the need of such an education for
+sons and daughters, by limiting its uses solely to worldly advantage. We
+go up to the true basis of life for firm ground to build upon. Take that
+ground decidedly, and then we view all true culture as part of the
+training of souls under the Kingdom of God. We are not to live by bread
+alone, but by every Divine word, by all of God's gifts to us. They are
+cruel parents who slight the moral and spiritual wants of their children
+and train them in worldly passions. This is, in the saddest sense, giving
+them a stone instead of the Bread of Life. So we all think and are ready
+to say. Take care lest our conduct belies our words. Whatever its position
+or professions may be, that is a wretched household, whose polity is not
+based upon a Divine standard--which does not acknowledge a rectitude above
+the world's ways and breathe faith in God and things eternal. The very
+discipline of a true home will be modelled after the heavenly order, and
+will try to win the spirit of the benignant Father of all, who tempers
+firmness with kindness so wonderfully in the government of his creatures.
+
+Firmness is not enough--kindness is not enough, but the two must go
+together. Firmness without kindness becomes the stony austerity that
+crushes the will into servile conformity instead of training it to filial
+obedience; kindness without firmness readily becomes a feeble expediency
+that changes with the hour in a facility serpentine in more senses than
+one. Firmness with kindness gives a discipline authoritative and flexible,
+applying just principles in a mild prudence suited to all times and needs.
+Of old perhaps the rigid temper most abounded, and austerity made
+parental rule a rod of iron; but now the other extreme most prevails, and
+a feeble indulgence allows self-will to be the law of childhood, and
+fosters in many a dwelling a juvenile jacobinism, which needs only time
+and chance to ripen into utter anarchy. This error does cruel wrong to
+parent and child--to the child by fostering an ungovernable temper, a
+perverse caprice that scoffs at all restraint and chafes even at the
+limitations which God has imposed; to the parent by bringing upon him the
+contempt of those who owe him respect, and by the painful conviction that
+the indulgence begun in apparent kindness has been as fatal as wilful
+severity. Away with the folly and the puny sentimentalism from which it
+springs! Let us look at the law of God founded in the written Word and in
+the very nature of things. The family is the safeguard of society--a
+government founded by Heaven itself. Parents are to rule, children are to
+obey. This principle, if carried out with energy and discretion, will
+adapt itself to the various ages and circumstances of life. The element of
+authority will be imbued with the attractive power of the truth and love
+upon which it rests, and as the child grows into youth or maturity, the
+authority that trained him, without losing its dignity, will appear less
+and less an arbitrary will--nay, authority itself will seem but the
+sterner aspect of persuasion.
+
+For all this we need an unworldly faith and a spiritual mind. They that
+would nurture others in the true life must themselves be nurtured upon its
+true element. For themselves they must breathe the prayer for daily bread
+in a true sense of its meaning--a true sense of dependence on God for
+moral power as for bodily strength. Nothing short of a temper and purpose
+truly religious will make the household a school of faith and a home of
+wisdom and peace. We are apt to be too negligent, indeed, of modes of
+instruction and forms of worship. Too often a parent neglects to tell his
+children what is deepest in his own heart, and with many not wholly
+worldly persons, the years pass away without any regular habits of
+Christian teaching and worship in the family. The remedy cannot come from
+mere formalism, but it must spring from a truer heart--more of the right
+spirit showing itself in the right way--in all wisdom and prudence,
+charity and devotion.
+
+Speaking thus, who of us does not see a startling thought staring us in
+the face--the thought that our own personal character is the measure of
+our influence, and that we cannot expect to teach or impress what we have
+not taken to our own hearts. We cannot cheat our children into the virtue
+which we affect, for they will find us out, and distinguish what we do and
+are, from what we say. Influence cannot rise above the level of character,
+nor the fountain above the fountain-head. What motive to a truer
+life--what warning against vice and godlessness--what encouragement in all
+good--that the chief patrimony of children is the character of their
+parents, and with this treasure small gifts are wealth, and without this
+treasure rich gifts are poor indeed. Unhappy is the man who leaves to his
+children the influence of a heart hard as stone and a worldliness wily as
+a serpent! Precious the influence--blessed the memory of a parent, whose
+life has made the ways of wisdom pleasant and peaceful, secured to his
+offspring a childhood pure and happy, given a sacred and cheerful
+remembrance to be the handmaid of an immortal hope.
+
+The affections, it has been said, press downward more strongly than they
+rise upward, and parents love their children more than children can love
+them in return. If this were so, it would but the more illustrate the
+fact, that life is not utterly selfish, and men live not for themselves
+alone. It is true, that we do not live for ourselves alone. The merchant
+at his counting-houses has thoughts beyond his gold and
+merchandize--visions more fair and kindly than these; and the hard-handed
+workman who does his ruder labor, spares of his earnings for his children
+at school. But the love is not all on one side, although time may be
+needed to adjust the balance, and teach childhood to appreciate a true
+parental care. God holds the balance, and will make it true. In the motive
+and in the result, he secures the reward of fidelity. Time and eternity
+will show, that the love which he has inspired shall win harvests of
+blessings that cannot perish.
+
+
+
+
+Reverence in Children.
+
+
+
+
+REVERENCE IN CHILDREN.
+
+
+The Ten Commandments, the foundations of all law, both religious and
+civil, among civilized nations, are divided, all are aware, into two
+tables: the first treating of duties relating directly to God--the second
+treating of duties relating to man--the two covering the essential grounds
+of religion and morals. The command to honor father and mother begins the
+second table of the Law. Why should it not? for what so fitly stands at
+the head of the moral code, as the law that puts order into the household?
+The family is the form of government, first in time and first in
+importance. Home is older than church or court; a parent's authority prior
+to that of priest or judge. With the family, social order began--without
+family union, social order must end.
+
+There is something striking in the transition from the first to the second
+table--the transition from Jehovah's assertion of his own sovereignty to
+his tender regard for the welfare of men. We seem to be looking down from
+the awful mountain with its barren crags into the peaceful valley with its
+pleasant homes and grassy lawns, rejoicing that the summits pealing with
+thunder send down refreshing breezes and fruitful showers into those
+plains below.
+
+Looking up to God, who claims of us supreme homage as his due, and then in
+his own sovereign right urges upon us to fulfil our dues to each other, we
+speak now of the duties of children or the honor to be rendered by them to
+parents.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Do any ask what are the grounds of the Commandments? The grounds are
+obvious, and the law, which God enacts, instead of being an arbitrary
+decree, is in entire harmony with the nature of things. It would perhaps
+be needless to dwell on these grounds, were there not something in the
+temper of our times, that calls them in question--in fact, certain notions
+of intellectual liberty among theorists, that combine with the passions
+and caprices of youth to unsettle many a household, and threaten the peace
+of society itself. Against the sentimentalist, who makes light of all
+natural ties to glorify the individual's own intuitions or affinities, and
+against the little rebel, who comes to the same conclusion by a much
+shorter process, we urge the Divine law, "Honor thy father and thy
+mother."
+
+Honor them, because God bids it, and bids it not merely in the written
+code, but by the whole order of his providence, by the very constitution
+of society. However we may dispute about the best form or true foundation
+of government--maintain monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, to be the
+best form--declare Divine law, social compact, or popular will, to be the
+true foundation, all must agree in the Divine origin of the family and
+the Divine right of parental government. The instincts of nature, the
+words of revelation, the dictates of experience and expediency, all agree
+in this, and all illustrate the mind of God, the Creator of the family.
+The mind of God himself speaks or should speak through the parent to the
+child, so, that filial obedience is fitly another name for piety; so, that
+prayer itself borrows its most hallowed word from the reverence nurtured
+at home.
+
+Trace out the law of dependence, and see how fully it urges the
+commandment--the law of dependence that rests with parents so much of the
+welfare of the child. Not merely food, clothing, and home, but all the
+higher goods of life, experience, wisdom, virtue, are to be looked for
+thus. As a general rule, benignant Providence itself has its chosen
+almoner in father and mother, and the gifts are blessed as they are
+received in reverence. We may indeed suppose monstrous cases, in which
+unnatural parents exact such folly or wrong, that obedience ceases to be a
+virtue. Such cases are not frequent enough to alter the general law, and
+even in these, a true child, in refusing to conform to what is evil in the
+sight of God, will do it in such a way as still to keep the commandment,
+and treat tenderly even a perverse father, and expostulate with his
+tyranny in a temper fitted more to subdue than irritate its violence. Such
+monstrous cases need little notice in any Christian community, where
+parents are generally ready enough to do the best, and give the most in
+their power for their children. In fact, for them, the Decalogue has no
+law, as if nature needed no decree to enforce parental love, and the
+affections of themselves pressed heavily enough downwards. The great need
+was and is of enforcing the obligation, that looks upward from child to
+parent. Our modern culture, with all its scope and refinement, has no
+substitute for this obligation; nay, needs it more than ever to check the
+wilfulness and laxity so likely to come from precocious fancy and
+unbridled temper. Experience is constantly showing, that even the external
+promise connected with the commandment meets the wants of our own times
+also, and now, as of old, filial obedience secures an efficient life and
+peaceful civilization,--"that it may be well with thee, and that thy days
+may be long in the land which the Lord thy God shall give." How many
+bright and dark chapters of recent history show how close is the
+connection between stability of society and filial respect--between
+allegiance to every worthy institution and the discipline that learns to
+regard a superior authority at home. This outward sanction the Gospel
+accepts, and carries it into the spiritual kingdom. By many a precept the
+apostles enforce the command, and by word and example, by the beatitudes
+of the mount, and the obedience of the cross, our Saviour imparts new
+blessing and worth to its observance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We have a foundation then to build upon, and filial respect rests upon the
+Word of God, the welfare of the home, the good of society, and the peace
+of the soul. Let the sentiment be worthy of the Divine foundation. If
+worthy it will appear first of all as a feeling of affectionate reverence.
+It will not be worship as with the Chinese absolutist, nor mere
+friendship, as in the code of many a radical. The parent is of the same
+nature with the child, and is not to be adored; he is superior in age,
+experience and authority, and should have more than the friendly courtesy
+of an equal. Superior in degree, though not in kind, he is to be regarded
+with affectionate respect and deference. Any subjection more or less than
+this comes of wrong, and leads to wrong. To exact utter servitude is
+tyranny--to lower reasonable authority into flattery, entreaty, or
+apology, is an imbecile indulgence which a child should be as unwilling to
+ask as a parent to give.
+
+If any hearers are ready to quarrel with us for presuming to define the
+quality and conditions of one of the great social sentiments, and to say
+that all the affections are best let alone without any forcing process, we
+are not troubled for a reply. No modern folly has been more thoroughly put
+down by analysis and experience, than the sentimentalist's notion, that
+the affections are wholly their own law, and are not to be trained under
+reason, conscience and religion. Even in those sentiments which have most
+of the spontaneous play of genius--those which rejoice in poetry, music,
+and all the beautiful arts, the perceptions must first be trained to the
+nicest sense of the truth of things, and the rigid discipline of every
+true artist shames the folly of the dreamers who would make it appear,
+that the great art of life, as a school of the affections, is to be left
+to itself. No--our principles have vast power over our feelings, and they
+who from the beginning are trained to accept the great loyalties of a
+divine kingdom, will be loyal in their affections as in their creed, and
+their affections will come forth and grow up as the vine does by help of
+the very trellis which overlooks it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The filial sentiment thus accepted and nurtured will not be idle, but will
+show itself in the tone of manners, the rule of conduct, the law of life.
+
+Manners are but lesser morals, and closely connected with the greater
+morals. Good manners begin at home, and if they do not begin there, the
+desire for them is apt to end in poor affectation. The soul of politeness
+is mutual deference, and where should this have its origin but in the
+respect most directly sanctioned by God? Too often the true filial honor
+is forgotten, and, perhaps, from thoughtlessness more than disrespect,
+children are sometimes seen usurping the prerogatives of age, speaking in
+tones of petulant authority, and crowding themselves into the places of
+elders. The best place for them is their own place. Their own dignity, as
+well as that of their parents, is best furthered by the deference, that
+gives the household its best order and makes it the school of the graces,
+that adorn society with its pleasing gradations, and cheer the way to its
+best virtues. Full enough is the temptation, especially in cities, to fall
+short of this true deference and to rob childhood and youth of their best
+character. Manners, instead of being nurtured on the Christian root, are
+left too much to the dancing-master, and there are hosts of boys and
+girls adept in postures and airs proper for the ballet, and strangers to
+the reverence and simplicity that most honor them in honoring their
+elders. Precocious passion for dress and society is the bane of the one,
+and ridiculous affectation of manhood, especially of its follies, is the
+shame of the other. The girl, instead of being calmly at rest in a child's
+healthful slumber, is aping the belle in the ball-room; and the boy is
+walking the street with his cigar, perhaps boasting of his powers at the
+bottle, instead of being where he should be, in his bed, getting strength
+for true manliness, not fevering himself into a ludicrous manikin. "Learn
+to show piety at home," is thus another form of the ancient law, "Honor
+thy father and thy mother."
+
+The sentiment so essential to good manners will show itself as a rule of
+conduct, and filial honor will take the form of obedience. During the
+years of dependence this obedience is to be entire, for the parent must
+think and act for the child. No matter what precocity of memory or
+imagination, what privileges of education or amount of attainments, may
+seem sometimes to reverse the order of precedence, the child is to follow
+the parent's counsels, and in so doing will gain alike in wisdom and
+discipline, for the experience of age is wiser than the pert wit of youth,
+and submission to a superior will is essential to a true schooling for the
+vicissitudes of life. It is not well to overstrain prerogative, and to
+insist on obedience as a sacrifice, where it might be made an attraction,
+if the reasons of the case are fully set forth. Nor is it well to make
+obedience wholly dependent upon a statement of reasons, for many things
+must be done for reasons that youth cannot appreciate, and kindness is
+never so decided as when the impatient shortsightedness of childhood is
+overruled by the far-seeing wisdom of maturity. Reason there should be in
+every request; but if the request were allowed to wait until the reasons
+could be understood, parental care would cease with the first restraint,
+and childhood would be left to itself at the first task or pain. God
+himself is our helper here, for he, who calls us in so many things to walk
+by faith without sight, has fitted youth for the same discipline, and made
+mild authority in the end more attractive and efficient than premature
+argument or feeble flattery.
+
+Obedience, thus considered, will not be servile but filial, and will find
+its own honor in doing honor to its guardians. It will lead children to
+ask constantly what they can do for the happiness of the family and the
+welfare of its members. This duty is too little thought of, especially
+where there is none of that pressure of want which compels children to
+help in the maintenance of the family. No matter how great the wealth of
+parents or the retinue of servants on the watch for every care, there is
+still place for the earnest co-operation of each member of the family, and
+no refinements of living have abolished the duty of mutual help, and the
+grace of mutual deference. In most families the services of the children
+are needed for many friendly offices of greater or less importance, and
+none will deny that the comfort of every household is closely connected
+with what the children do or fail to do for its welfare. So early does the
+work, the responsible work of life begin, and so early may its springs of
+beneficence be opened.
+
+Let any true household illustrate what we mean. What beauty in the filial
+confidence that reveals its troubles and needs, and asks counsel of
+superior wisdom! What comfort in the countless little services that
+lighten a father or mother's care, or soothe their troubles! What grace in
+the unbought courtesies that youth may throw around the home, the refined
+deference, the kind remembrances too often left to the parade of
+drawing-rooms, but the proper ornament of the family circle! What power
+over the pains of sickness, or the languor of convalescence, in the
+solicitude and consideration which children may show, and showing, may
+bring to the weary pillow a balm more healing than medical art! And if
+stinted means require frugal expenditures, or even the active labor of the
+young, what worth in the filial thoughtfulness that anticipates the
+necessary economy, instead of repining encourages frugality, and asks to
+be useful instead of insisting on being indulged.
+
+And when fortune, station, or intellectual eminence reward youthful
+aspiration, the aspirant never wins more respect than when he makes his
+parents his confidants and companions. Here our common nature is not at
+fault, for whenever in any public exercise or examination a young person
+does remarkably well, we all think at once of the parents, and the
+pleasure of the assembly is not complete until the people have confirmed
+their own enjoyment by sympathy with the father and mother. There is great
+power in this fact, and what it implies--great power in the fact that
+children honor parents by being truly honorable, and repay best the
+sacrifices of so many anxious years by making their own lives a credit and
+comfort to father and mother. This benefit lasts as long as life itself,
+and the integrity and efficiency of mature years carries out to the limit
+of existence the affectionate reverence of childhood.
+
+Here the whole world is one, and the human heart is the same in all ages,
+and history and experience meet. What state of society can be blind to the
+meaning of the imprecation which was pronounced at the entrance into the
+promised land, and joined in the same doom the idolator and him who should
+"set light by his father and mother?" What philosophy can gainsay the sage
+of the Book of Proverbs, whose sententious moralizing rises into prophetic
+grandeur as he speaks of the unnatural son: "The eye that mocketh at his
+father or refuseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick
+it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." Who needs any interpretation
+of the feelings of David, or Joseph, or Solomon, in their joy or trial?
+How heartrending was the grief of the Psalmist over his recreant
+son--"Would to God, I had died for thee, my son, my son!" What beauty, as
+well as simplicity in the inquiry of Joseph for his father, when the prime
+minister of Egypt dismissed his courtly train, and weeping aloud, could
+only ask "Doth my father yet live?" What grandeur far above its gold and
+gems surrounded the throne of Solomon, when he rose to meet his mother,
+and called her to a seat at his right hand. "And the king said unto her,
+Ask on, my mother, for I will not say thee nay." What pathos and sublimity
+in the Saviour of men, when, embracing home and heaven in his parting
+words on the Cross, he commended his spirit to the Eternal Father, and
+intrusted his mother to the beloved disciple's care. We need no more than
+this to show how the gospel glorifies the law, and crowns its morality and
+piety alike in its perfect love--"Woman, behold thy son"--"Disciple,
+behold thy mother."
+
+Hear the amen that goes from Calvary to Sinai--and Honor thy father and
+thy mother!
+
+
+
+
+Brothers and Sisters.
+
+
+
+
+BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
+
+
+When Cain asked "Am I my brother's keeper?" it seemed a very strange
+question to come from a man who had just murdered his brother and held him
+so cruelly in his keeping. Fear led Cain to disguise his guilt by
+repudiating his obligation, through an interrogation more negative than a
+flat denial. What he said in guilty fear, many are now ready to say in
+pretended humanity, and it is one of the conceits of our time to make
+light of ties of kindred in the name of a world-wide philanthropy. A
+melo-dramatic patriotism not particularly famous for domestic attachment
+has been ready to swear brotherhood to the whole nation, perhaps the whole
+race, and many a scape-grace who has been a sad plague to his own kindred,
+has been heard shouting at the top of his voice the three noble watchwords
+of which fraternity is a climax. Philanthropists sometimes labor under a
+similar error, and people who have had no especial solicitude or felicity
+in helping their own families and neighbors, presume to despise such near
+at hand interests as trivial, and seek to reform the world in a wholesale
+way. Professed Christians are not wholly free from the error. Some
+certainly there are who are ready to _brother_ and _sister_ all
+Christendom with most profuse generosity of tongue, who show their little
+sense of the meaning of the term by pinching selfishness towards those of
+their own blood, that seems to say, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
+
+It is well, that large views of social obligation are making headway, and
+that Christianity has so mightily rebuked the narrowness of exclusive
+cliques and clanships. But if humanity is to be true in its progress, it
+must be true in its source; and if a man love not his brother whom he hath
+seen, how can he love not merely God whom he hath not seen, but the
+brother whom he hath not seen? In fact what is regard for our brother but
+the first and most obvious application of the second of the two great
+commandments? Our brother is our next neighbor, and even our humanity must
+begin with him, that it may be really worth any thing. We turn now to the
+collateral relations of the household, or the duties of brothers and
+sisters. Sacred and suggestive subject, speaking to each of us in the
+tones of our own peculiar experience. Let it speak to the conscience as
+well as to the sensibilities and the memory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Where shall we begin but at the beginning, that is with the will of God,
+which is the ground of every duty? The family, as we have seen and
+believe, is the first form of society, a government founded by the
+Creator. All that can be said in favor of its peace and order, goes to set
+forth its collateral as well as its ascending and descending ties--to urge
+the obligations of brothers and sisters as well as parents and children.
+Co-operation between the former is as essential to the home, as are
+protection and dependence between the latter.
+
+But to come more closely to the point, is it not true that proper respect
+for parents urges the duty now under consideration and just filial love
+must needs be fraternal? Children cannot be true to their parents without
+being true to each other, and the welfare and charm of the household
+depends in no small degree upon the mutual help and moral harmony of its
+younger members. Children are not regarded as so many separate units, but
+as an organic whole, as members one of another; and when they are
+considerate and harmonious, they have new grace and worth in the parent's
+eye, more so to his heart, than the features of the fairest landscape
+where the particulars combine in the whole, and light, shade, grove and
+river, hill and valley--fair in themselves, are fairer together, can
+possibly have to the eye of the lover of nature. What under the heavens is
+more pleasant and lovely than brethren who with all their differences of
+taste and temperament still agree in aim and spirit? It is indeed like the
+dew of Hermon, that threw its silver veil over mountain and valley, and
+refreshed and beautified each tree and flower with a baptism from heaven.
+
+But this relation of fraternal love to filial is but one of its aspects.
+Brothers and sisters are related by what they owe directly to each other,
+as well as by what they owe to parents. The will of God, that bids them
+agree for their parents' sake, bids them also agree for their own sake.
+Mutual educators of each other they must be, and by means far more
+powerful than school-books or lessons. They are constantly together, and
+this intercourse must be a selfish collision, if it be not a friendly
+reciprocity. In childhood, they must needs be frequent rivals for the
+favors and duties of the home, subjects of indulgences or sacrifices, that
+must awaken strife, unless they are shared in mutual deference. With
+childhood, however, the relation does not end, but may have in mature
+years its gravest importance, for in the order of nature parents are
+likely to be first taken from the world, and to all human view they may be
+beyond the reach of kindness or unkindness. But the relation of children
+to each other promises to last far longer, may create between the elder
+and younger a relation parental as well as filial, and for good or ill it
+must in some way continue as long as life itself. How essential, then,
+that a tie so enduring should be rightly regarded, and that in childhood,
+youth and maturity, it should keep its benignant hold over the family!
+
+Nor does its importance end here. The method of God is, that the
+affections shall grow outward from within, and that being trained in
+kindness at home, men should be prepared to show good will to each other
+in all the concerns of life. As the patriarchal dispensation, in the grand
+course of ages, widened into the universality of the gospel, so in every
+true life, a just family culture is to expand into a generous humanity,
+that learns at home how to speak of a broader brotherhood, and a higher
+fatherhood. Whether God's method is not wiser than man's let experience
+show by contracting the windy declamation, that mistakes rhetorical
+generalities for comprehensive benevolence, and the judicious,
+unostentatious beneficence that carries out in all its relations the sober
+good will cherished in a wholesome household discipline, and so on a true
+pattern strives to build up the larger household of faith. The one begins
+at the root, and so branches out in blessing--the other would begin with
+the branches, which wither away when parted from the root.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So then in the will of God, revealed in the constitution of the family,
+the welfare of its members, the spirit of humanity, we find the foundation
+of the duties of brothers and sisters. The fraternal sentiment must be in
+accordance. In all our affections, there must needs be some lights and
+shades that depend upon the individual's gifts and experience, for no man
+is a rule for all, and we must differ in our likings as in our looks. Yet
+all primal obligations have essential features in common; and the
+fraternal sentiment, although less instructive than the parental, and more
+complex than the filial, has quite as decidedly a character of its own.
+The phrenologist may not locate it in a special organ of the brain, and
+the metaphysician may not make of it an instinct by itself, but it has its
+root none the less in nature, and loses no interest from expanding so
+generously under true associations and culture. When true, the fraternal
+sentiment unites congeniality with consanguinity, and developes friendship
+from kindred blood, as the parted branches open into leaves, and
+blossoms, and fruits, kindred in their aims as their source. Its nature is
+better shown by tracing out its just influence than by attempting to
+arrest its flitting shades of hue, or to analyze its constituent elements.
+Here, too, is the practical bearing of the subject, a bearing which many
+slight far more from thoughtlessness than from indifference. In what light
+are brothers or sisters called to regard each other?
+
+Their first obvious duty is that of due consideration for each other. They
+are to consider each other's circumstances, needs, trials, dispositions,
+opportunities, and never allow selfishness or indifference to blind them
+to what belongs to them in common. Does this need to be said of persons
+who are so near, as of necessity to be always in each other's thoughts?
+Ah, what is more frequent and obvious, than that familiarity tempts
+indifference, and that our very primal duties, like the stars which are
+their emblems, are easily forgotten because they may at any time be seen?
+The things most significant are likely to be near at hand, and religion,
+like philosophy, finds its chief triumphs in opening the meaning of what
+God has brought to our very door. A part of the power of absence from home
+lies in breaking the spell of familiarity, and leading the absent one to
+look impartially upon the familiar circle, and upon his own place and
+conduct there. Many a youth or maiden has returned from a journey or
+voyage wiser far in sense of home duties than proud of the accomplishments
+of travel. True consideration will not need absence to teach this lesson,
+but from its calm point of view the absent one will survey the common
+spheres of life, and try to live for others as under the eye of God.
+
+In each family there will be decided need for mutual consideration, and
+there must be strife, unless there is mutual deference. All cannot have
+all the favors, and the division of them may embroil a household as
+bitterly as the division of an empire has embroiled rival heirs of
+thrones. Where means are limited, mutual sacrifices not always easy must
+be made, and few families pass many years without feeling the power of
+consideration, or of selfishness in meeting the privations that must go
+round their circle. When means are abundant, and every wish has ready
+wealth at its command, the form of forbearance may change, but its
+essential spirit is none the less needed. There will still be differences
+of talent, looks, manners, opportunities, health, experience, that require
+in the most prosperous household the same virtues, that give the humblest
+cottage its dignity and peace. In every family, there will be some call
+for peculiar consideration or regard to some member of it, according as
+sickness, infirmity, youth, age, deficient or extraordinary ability, may
+call upon the stronger to serve the weaker. What wretchedness when the
+call is slighted, even by one! Who can calculate the mischief wrought by a
+sensual or reckless brother, who makes every thing secondary to his own
+passions and pleasures, or by a frivolous and heartless sister, who makes
+a god of fashion and enslaves the whole house to her monstrous vanity!
+Who, too, can calculate the influence of a high-minded brother in guiding
+and cheering the younger members of the family, or of a devoted and
+judicious sister in soothing every impatient humor with a face in which
+shines, perhaps, the light of the sainted mother's countenance? When all
+unite in some common solicitude, God gives their daily bread and cup a
+sacramental grace, and from some sufferer whom they watch over together, a
+mighty blessing, uniting, exalting them all, comes forth, and seems to say
+in the sacred name, "Ye have done it unto me."
+
+Consideration will lead to confidence, and will banish deceit, that viper
+of society, from the hearth-stone, which too often warms it into life. Let
+confidence begin early, move the lips first lisping for utterance, and
+continue in maturity, when the world's folly that sometimes names itself
+experience shall try to teach disguise as prudence, and artifice as
+wisdom. Whatever we may think of the confessor, as an official person,
+confession is founded in the nature of things, and God bids us confess our
+faults one to another. Who ought to be confidential, if not those whose
+experience and destiny so unite their lives? I cannot even glance at the
+chief forms of this confidential relation. One aspect may be specified
+which is too often forgotten--that between brother and sister. If these
+were more candid advisers, each would be better for it--each imparting to
+each the counsel that each can give. With feminine insight and purity,
+what a kind and gentle, yet strict and earnest censor of youthful excess,
+the one may be. With manly judgment and honor, what a firm and scrupulous,
+yet tender and considerate adviser in reference to many follies and
+dangers may the other be. Giddy as young people often are in their
+pleasures and caprices, it has sometimes seemed to me, that if a plan of
+life were to be drawn up by the youth of a family for each other, few
+treatises of morals would surpass it in purity of spirit or rectitude of
+principle. Some follies would be sure to fall. Where would intemperance
+and its kindred vices be, if sisters were taken as counsellors? Where
+would indecent costumes, immodest dances, equivocal friendships be, if
+brothers were more frequent advisers? This negative influence is not a
+tithe of the worth of the relation, which God in his infinite tenderness
+and wisdom has decreed--a relation so able to enrich ties of nature by
+every grace of mind and heart, and from likeness and unlikeness of
+constitution to develope one of the finest harmonies of our being. Its
+beauty cheers many a dark age of ancient rudeness, and adorns many of the
+brightest chapters of our modern culture. Would we know what brother and
+sister have been to each other, listen to the triumphal song of Miriam, as
+she braced anew the great heart of the law-giver with timbrel and psalm;
+or look to the grave of Lazarus, where Mary and Martha stood with Him who
+was the Resurrection and the Life. Do we ask more modern instances, stand
+under the open heavens and remember how Caroline Herschel shared the
+vigils of their illustrious explorer--open the pages of Neander, and think
+of her whose devotedness made a pleasant home of his otherwise solitary
+study, and encouraged him in his noble work of tracing out the progress of
+the divine life throughout all the mazes of theological controversy, and
+making church history a book of the heart, instead of the disputatious
+understanding. Do we need more--only conjecture the number of cases nearer
+at hand in which youth have been counselled and helped on through years of
+preparation to their calling or profession by a sacrifice that looked not
+to the world for motive, and asked not of the world reward for its
+success.
+
+I need only name the crowning duty of brothers and sisters--the duty of
+being mutual helpers, for this is implied in what we have said of
+consideration and confidence. They whom God has so united should stand by
+each other in every worthy way--not selfishly exacting favors, but earnest
+to do good. Too often the contrary has indeed been the case, and history
+in most conspicuous passages, from the death of Abel and the exposure of
+Joseph to the wars of the Plantagenets and the feuds of the Bourbons,
+shows that strifes are bitterest when nearest home, and "a brother
+offended is indeed harder to be won than a strong city, and their
+contentions are like the bars of a castle." Less conspicuous, because less
+monstrous, are the opposite cases, and Christianity itself leads the noble
+list of fraternal worthies, by presenting in its first disciples so many
+who carried ties of blood into bonds of faith, and strove together to the
+last for the kingdom that would make all brothers in God. The various
+forms of fraternal aid need not be specified, nor the cases described in
+which the death of parents or peculiar circumstances enhance the
+obligation, and the responsibility of parents devolves upon the elder
+children. Whatever the age, the welfare of children is closely connected
+with their mutual conduct, and its power reaches not merely to the
+division of time and cares, but to the highest interests of mind and
+heart. Firm principle, spiritual faith, devoted purposes, act and react
+collaterally with great power, and in the social as in the natural world,
+it is the side light and warmth that most applies the cheering rays from
+above. Happy the home where true peace dwells between kindred, and all
+various gifts are held in unity of spirit! While the circle remains
+unbroken, it is strong against the world. When broken it is still not
+desolate, and the orphan is not without a helper. There is love enough on
+earth to join with the love that has gone heavenward to make life
+cheerful, and keep hope firm.
+
+Let all apply these thoughts. Children, apply them, and be kind in all you
+do and say. Youth, apply them, and be thoughtful where you are often
+tempted to be reckless. Elders, apply them, and never allow care or
+worldliness to chill the better affections of early days. Deep in the
+heart let the old home live, and its pleasant memories, brightened by
+kindly offices, open ever into immortal hopes. Old things must pass away,
+but from the Christian they can only pass away by being all made new--new
+in a spirit, that remembers best when progressing most, and crowns all
+friendships with charity divine.
+
+
+
+
+Marriage.
+
+
+
+
+MARRIAGE.
+
+
+It is a remarkable fact, that He who came to be the Saviour from sin,
+whose name is coupled with the sorrow that he would alleviate, began his
+public ministry at a marriage, and gave the first proof of his powers
+amidst its festivities. Yet why wonder at it--for where should the Gospel
+begin its work if not with the union that founds the family and should
+secure every social and moral good? How, moreover, could the genius of
+Christianity better show itself than by such a practical rebuke of the
+asceticism that scorned the social affections, and would make of life a
+ghostly austerity, just as if man were heavenly by being unearthly? It
+needs no great ingenuity to imagine our Lord's feelings, as with his
+kindly and majestic thought he looked upon that scene, and gave his
+blessing to the youth and maiden who were probably of his own kin. He saw
+all the serious and trying aspects of human life even in its best estate,
+yet none the less gave them joy upon their union.
+
+It is well that he was at that feast. The ages since have remembered his
+presence, and his sacred name, heard still at the marriage, deepens its
+memory, and consecrates its joy. The two ideas thus connected in fact are
+connected in principle, and the moralist need not in any enlightened
+community fear to speak of the Christian view of marriage, or care at all
+either for the giggling levity that sees nothing solemn in the subject, or
+for the sanctimonious gravity, that considers religion profaned by being
+made practical. There are some difficulties in the way of a frank
+treatment of the subject; I know our customs do not favor the homely
+simplicity of the language of the Bible in the discussion of marriage, and
+he must be very adventurous who undertakes to use the plain speech of the
+old divines, whether in the quaint aphorisms of Thomas Fuller or the
+jewelled periods of Jeremy Taylor. Yet it is not well to be very
+fastidious or mystify any subject by ingenious circumlocution, and we
+propose to say some plain words on the relation of husbands and wives in
+continuation of these thoughts upon home duties.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not much need be said upon the foundation of this relation. It rests
+clearly upon the will of God, the best good of the parties, and the
+welfare of society.
+
+As the Creator and Preserver of mankind, as the Lord of Nature and the
+Father of Spirits, God has made us social beings, and decreed that the
+most important association should be a lasting one. The natural law, which
+in lower creatures establishes a transient union, enacts the permanence of
+the higher relation, and when profoundly studied agrees with the precepts
+of Revelation and the results of the best experience.
+
+God's will is clearly shown in the effect of marriage upon the moral
+condition of the parties themselves. It is generally essential to their
+true life--to the proper development of their affections and faculties.
+Under good Providence, it is the school of the heart, the motive to the
+most laudable exertion and sacrifice. There are persons indeed whose
+peculiar duties may exempt them from its cares,--scholars, devotees,
+philanthropists, who may give their whole heart to their chosen
+speciality, and make of science, religion or humanity their family and
+home. Yet these are not the general rule, and even these generally prove
+that the peculiar power acquired by concentrating their whole mind upon a
+single pursuit gives them force at the expense of breadth of culture, and
+may be morbid because preternatural. The monk and nun, in the convent or
+out of it, have done noble things, and every faithful memory must bless
+them for it--but not the noblest things. They have shown much mercy, yet
+quite as much spiritual pride. If they have fed the poor, they have framed
+the Mass Book and the Confessional. If they have cared for the orphan,
+they have also invented infant damnation and the Inquisition, insisting on
+hell hereafter for all not baptized by their priesthood, and devising a
+hell here below for all heretics against their creed. Unmarried people
+ruled Christendom for a thousand years, and that they did not rule in
+wisdom, the Bible, history, and our best modern culture all declare. Nay,
+the very sage of modern celibacy, Swedenborg, gave years of his life and
+the chief labors of his pen to prove, that the best wisdom comes from
+minds united conjugially, imbuing thought with affection, and informing
+affection with thought, and so best interpreting the God in Christ. They
+who may be puzzled by his mystical lore will have no difficulty with the
+more practical argument, or refuse to allow that the most healthy thought
+and feeling, the most comprehensive culture, frequents the home which a
+true marriage makes.
+
+"Marriage," says Jeremy Taylor, "is the mother of the world, and preserves
+kingdoms and fills cities and churches and heaven itself. Celibate, like
+the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but
+sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity; but marriage, like
+the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower,
+and labors, and unites into societies and republics, and sends out
+colonies, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the
+interest of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath
+designed the present constitution of the world."
+
+To carry out the argument and show the necessity of this relation to due
+provision for children, to the peace and purity of society at large, would
+but lead us into common-places that can as well be spared. Better pass on
+and speak of the nature and duties of the relation in question.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It differs from the other relations that we have thus far considered,
+first of all in the fact, that it is elective or voluntary. The tie is one
+of choice, not of blood, and of course this fact of itself speaks to
+reason and conscience to stir themselves in the choice, instead of leaving
+it to a giddy eye or a silly ear. The relation, moreover, is exclusive,
+and in this fact it is distinguished from all ties of blood and all other
+ties of choice. Again it is entire--extending to all the interests of
+human life. Elective, exclusive, entire, marriage is thus the most
+momentous of human relations. Decalogue, Gospel, Providence, experience,
+all declare it such, and rest upon an act of choice the only obligation
+that brooks no rival and allows no limitation.
+
+In accordance with the tenderness and dignity of the relation, the ruling
+sentiment and correspondent duties must be. Of the sentiment, more than
+filial or parental love, more than brotherhood, for which friendship is an
+inadequate name, and which at once fascinates by natural affinities and
+binds with the sacredness of religion, I have no elaborate analysis to
+give. We escape at once the peril of maudlin sentimentality and
+metaphysical abstraction, by speaking of the sentiment in the practical
+fruits, which best show its nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We say first of all, that husband and wife should be true to each
+other--true first and last. Wo to them, if they begin their relation with
+a lie, either spoken or acted. They promise to love, honor and cherish
+each other, and they lie abominably in the sight of God and their own
+consciences, if they nullify the solemn promise by capricious levity or
+sordid selfishness. Full liberty of conscience must be allowed for the
+action of various minds, temperaments, circumstances, and not all
+dispositions are to be judged by the same degree of the moral thermometer.
+Yet of all diversities of gifts, this statement holds good, that marriage
+begins in an impious falsehood, if the parties do not regard each other
+with affection and respect, and do not mean to be mutual helpers. An
+earth-born impulse should not steal a sacred name, nor a mercenary bargain
+intrude its traffic into precincts more sacred than the temple courts. The
+sale of a human creature under the marriage ring is more degrading because
+more voluntary than under the auctioneer's hammer, and God will not
+withhold his verdict against the profanation of his altars by such outrage
+against nature and the Gospel.
+
+The beginning is true, when the bond is sincerely assumed, and spirit and
+truth go fully together when the whole mind and heart agree in a
+congeniality without alloy and without misgiving.
+
+True in the beginning, husband and wife are to be true in their progress
+together. Of that gross falsity against which God launches an express law
+of the Decalogue, and of whose curse on the offender and the victim, so
+many wretched lives and homes are the providential commentary, I need not
+speak with minuteness. Fidelity demands more than any negative
+policy--demands truthfulness throughout the whole relation, the confidence
+that will not mask its face or thought in reserve, and will deem it a
+fraud to confer with any third party upon any matter belonging in its
+nature to the two. It is the beginning of bitter sorrow, when this limit
+is overstepped, and that enamel of mutual confidence is broken, which kind
+Heaven has given for the protection of so delicate a nerve.
+
+Nor does truthfulness end here. It must be positive in word and in
+action--prompting the parties to share their thoughts and plans together,
+and to prove by devotion to each other's welfare the truth of what they
+say. We spare the digression to many satirists so attractive, and saying
+nothing of the cheats of married life, whether the frauds of selfishness
+or the wiles of overfondness, we are better pleased to leave the other
+aspect of the picture uppermost, and speak of God's blessing upon all who
+keep their truth by being true as well as kind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We add now a second duty of married persons--one that has a very prosaic
+sound, touching a matter so near the springs of feeling. We say that
+husband and wife should be reasonable--reasonable that they may be true in
+fact as well as in purpose. Feeling of itself, even when healthy, is a
+poor guide, sadly blind without reason. Whether it go with love or
+indifference, folly carries misery into the home. The proverb is true
+enough--
+
+  "A stone is heavy and the sand weighty,
+  But a fool's wrath is heavier than both;"
+
+and we might add, a fool's love is quite as heavy as his wrath. We speak
+not of the folly, which is a natural misfortune, but that of minds
+befooling themselves by levity, or dissipation, or idleness. Nothing
+wears better than good sense, and nothing is more essential to permanent
+congeniality and usefulness. It is sometimes a stern censor, but only
+because it wishes to be an honest friend. Let married persons take it for
+their counsellor and it will settle for them many questions, which inflame
+self-will and disturb love itself. They need above all others to be
+reasonable, to look to reason with all its revealed lights as the
+interpreter of God's will to them, and of their own relation to each
+other. It is a great thing for them to start in life with reasonable views
+of the most common-place arrangements of the household. How much
+disappointment, and bitterness, and sin, come from unreasonable views of
+expense, and who will undertake to estimate the amount of domestic misery
+resulting from household extravagance? The dress of many a wife, and the
+wine account of many a husband has been the ruin of the family. Let every
+couple start with a fair understanding as to what they can afford to
+spend, and keep sacredly within the limit. If the world laughs at their
+simplicity, they can well afford to laugh at the world's folly, and time
+will be very likely to put the laugh upon the right side. Much might be
+said of the deplorable influence of the extravagant notions of most young
+women in preventing thoughtful men from taking the risks of marriage, and
+we hazard nothing in saying that the worst vices of cities are closely
+connected with the growth of feminine extravagance. America will lose her
+birthright and have no trace of the old domestic order, if the folly runs
+through the land, and most girls are brought up to exact more expense
+than the average returns of industry and talent can earn.
+
+Good sense, that honest counsellor, will save the parties from all
+controversy about prerogative, will interpret their peculiar jurisdictions
+duly; teaching the man to take the lead without magisterial assumption, to
+be the guardian without playing the tyrant; teaching the woman to follow
+his fortunes without being his slave, and to accept his deference without
+becoming his imbecile toy; exhibiting both in their likeness and
+difference, equals and not equals, so that the twain are made one by a due
+balance of gifts and harmony of contrasts.
+
+Is there not need of urging with some emphasis the worth of reasonable
+relations between husband and wife? Are they not too ready to make a
+compromise of follies--the one annoyed by having her tastes and habits
+reviewed in the strong light of a masculine understanding--the other
+irritated at having his hard worldliness criticised by feminine refinement
+or sensibility--the two sometimes settling the difficulty by
+non-interference--the one left to extravagance and frivolity, if she will
+consent not to insist upon having her husband's time or thought--the other
+allowed to drudge as he will, if he will not intrude his utilitarianism
+into her sphere, or apply common sense to the charming follies that devour
+the dollars and the days. It is all wrong, and no gifts of fortune can
+make up for the want of thoroughly rational companionship between parties
+so allied, and so apt to belittle each other by triviality. Both are
+gainers by it, and intellectually as well as morally--the more gainers as
+in generous studies of nature, art, history, society, they take a common
+interest in the enlarging and ennobling fields of thought, and their
+habitual confidence makes them educators of each other. Without being
+alarmed by the valiant Minervas who brandish their flashing spears from
+reform platforms, and declare an independence at which the old
+Revolutionary signers would have stood aghast, we believe that the most
+thorough practical discipline is to be found in this home school, and the
+enlargement of feminine perception and the refining of masculine vigor,
+would advance vastly under such a culture. There would be a better mutual
+understanding of the two great domains of life, and a holy alliance
+between the two great families of minds. In plain language, if husband and
+wife would advise with each other fully on all important subjects, the
+robust understanding would be much helped by the quick wit, and fewer
+foolish things, far fewer evil things would be done in the world. In
+phrase more ideal, yet equally true, if insight were better allied with
+argument--ready sensibility with executive strength--nice perception with
+comprehensive judgment, reason would have a new avatar on earth, and the
+light of God would shine as never before in its beauty and its power into
+each household, and over the great globe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One more aspect of the class of duties before us now, we have to state,
+and one that comprises and carries out every other. They who marry are to
+live united in all the interests and purposes of existence.
+
+The most obvious ground of union is the maintenance of the home and the
+welfare of the family. The order of Providence seems to require the one to
+provide by his labor or enterprise the means of livelihood, and the other
+to see that they are properly used. As manners are simple, and fortunes
+limited, the union of interests here is a very grave matter, and
+inefficiency or self-will on either side brings discomfort, perhaps
+wretchedness. As manners are refined, and luxuries abound, the same unity
+of minds is equally essential to give grace and true worth to the home.
+Let each respect the other in the several spheres, and combine to make
+both what they should be. Let not a man's laborious gains be squandered in
+folly, nor a wife's faithful care be disparaged as trivial. To use a
+homely word with a sacred meaning, who will not ask a blessing on good
+housekeeping? Is it not one of the fine as well as the useful arts--do not
+its very utilities like the fountain of living water sparkle into beauty?
+Happy they who know more of it than the tender mercies of hotels and
+boarding-houses reveal. They do _not_ learn it well, unless they mingle
+faith with their economies, and keep the home in divine peace, as well as
+in worldly thrift. A home divided against itself cannot stand. Who shall
+keep it one save He in whom alone all souls can have the unity of the
+spirit and the bond of peace, and whose blessing is needed quite as much
+in a ducal palace as in the plainest farm-house?
+
+How shall we urge at length this point of union, or illustrate its bearing
+upon all interests, plans, and hopes? It is a great thing for two frail
+natures to live as one for life long. Two harps are not easily kept always
+in tune, and what shall we expect of two harps each of a thousand strings?
+What human will or wisdom cannot do, God can do, and His Providence is
+uniting ever more intimately, those who devoutly try to do the work of
+life and enjoy its goods together. For them there is in store a respect
+and affection--a peace and power, all unknown in the heyday of young
+romance. Experience intertwines their remembrances and hopes in stronger
+cords, and as they stand at the loom of time, one with the strong warp,
+the other with the finer woof, the hand of Providence weaves for them a
+tissue of unfading beauty and imperishable worth. A blessing on the brave
+and gentle spirit of the elect poet of our time, Alfred Tennyson, for
+speaking in his exquisite verse a truth that might too much task our
+prosaic analysis:--
+
+    "For woman is not undeveloped man,
+  But diverse; could we make her as the man,
+  Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this
+  Not like to thee, but like in difference;
+  Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
+  The man be more of woman, she of man;
+  He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
+  Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
+  She mental breath, nor fail in childward care:
+  More as the double-natured Poet each:
+  Till at the last she set herself to man,
+  Like perfect music unto noble words;
+  And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
+  Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers,
+  Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
+  Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
+  Distinct in individualities,
+  But like each other even as those who love.
+  Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:
+  Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm:
+  Then springs the crowning race of humankind."
+
+"It is the worst clandestine marriage," said old Thomas Fuller, "when God
+is not invited to it, wherefore, beforehand beg his gracious assistance."
+Equally bad, we add, is the marriage, where His presence is not retained,
+and they who at first sought His blessing do not hold to it ever to keep
+them true and thoughtful, to lift them into a union to which the Beloved
+Son was not ashamed to compare His own communion with souls. Perfection on
+earth we may not ask, nor call a hasty word or impatient thought
+unpardonable. They who love much must expect to forgive something and
+forbear sometimes. But this may be expected and is demanded, that they who
+take each other's welfare in charge should never do any intentional
+unkindness, or fail of aught that may be done for the other's welfare.
+This may be expected and is demanded, that when the tie that binds them is
+severed by the only power that can fitly part them, and they are to part
+at death--they should look back with mutual blessing to the hour of their
+first union, be assured that through all vicissitudes and infirmities,
+they have tried to make each other better and happier, and that they have
+learned of Him whose name at their Cana made their wedding sacred, to
+trust in the realm where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but
+are as the angels of God.
+
+Shrink not from applying the truth now before us to ourselves. Parents,
+apply it, and in training your sons and daughters use good sense upon a
+subject so often left to utter folly. They talk and think about it enough
+in a certain way, and with such poor aids as trashy novels and paltry
+gossip. Let them think and talk about it wisely, and let them not, if you
+can help it, learn wisdom at the cost of wretchedness. Respect Heaven's
+own laws, and do not allow the world's fashions and tyrannies to get the
+better of reason and conscience in controlling the most important of
+destinies. Husbands and wives, apply the troth--allow no routine to chill
+affection--no monotony to break down thoughtfulness. If the envious years
+should not allow you to celebrate your golden or even your silver wedding,
+live while you may in the wisdom which is the word of love, and the worth
+of it is beyond silver or gold or rubies.
+
+
+
+
+Our Friends.
+
+
+
+
+OUR FRIENDS.
+
+
+Every important word in human language is of itself a chapter of history,
+and if we could read it rightly would tell us the mind of all the ages
+that have shaped its form, and all the individuals who have given its
+meaning. Starting from the beginning, every such word passes from century
+to century, nation to nation, and makes of itself a medium as universal as
+the air which forms its tones. We cannot open our mouths, in any kind or
+honest way, without declaring the creed of humanity, that began with man's
+creation, and has been enlarged or exalted by every sage and benefactor of
+our race. What word that is applied to men expresses this creed more than
+that of "friend?" From the very first, men have called each other friends,
+and our Saviour did not create, but developed the sense of the term, when
+he called his disciples friends. In the language in which Jesus was
+educated, the word flowed in the melody of David so true to friendship and
+to faith, and in the sentences of Solomon, never forgetful in his keenest
+prudence of the worth of friends. In the language which the evangelists
+borrowed from Greece, the word had won to itself many a classic charm, and
+in passing from the conversations of Socrates to the gospel of Christ, it
+deepened its meaning without damping its joy. St. John took from his
+Master's lips more than Plato took from the mouth of Socrates, when that
+evangelist penned the words, "I have called you friends." This holy
+sanction has not been forgotten, nor has Christ's spirit left the word.
+Every age fills it anew with meaning, as the golden chalice from age to
+age is filled anew at the altar. Daily life and high art and letters show
+its power. It is breathed in many a song and hymn of home affections and
+fireside companionship. To what pathos it subdues the majestic muse of
+Milton in his lament for Lycidas--to what solemnity it lifts the wayward
+heart of Shelley in his elegy on Adonais--and when since the Hebrew harp
+that thrilled such sorrow at the death of David's friend, has there been a
+holier and lovelier tribute to friendship than in the offering which in
+our utilitarian age the genius of Tennyson has laid on the tomb of Arthur
+Hallam? These are great instances indeed, but they speak what all may
+feel. Nay, what is the secret of the power of the poet or sage, except
+that he can best say what comes home to us all?
+
+Friends,--We have and must have some whom we call such. Happy are we if
+they can be truly so called. It is not for us to choose, whether we shall
+have friends at all or in any sense, but it is ours to choose, whether we
+shall have them in the right sense. All people, however depraved, will
+have some associates whose company they to some extent enjoy, and he who
+cares for nobody and for whom nobody cares, may be set aside from the
+human family as essentially monstrous. Of monsters we are not treating,
+but of men, and with our common nature in view, I speak now of the duties
+of friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This relation is founded in the will of God and the being of man. God has
+made us dependent upon each other for protection and comfort. The
+dependence is not limited by family ties alone, but extends to a large
+circle, in some measure indeed to all with whom we deal or speak. Nor is
+it confined to material interests. Friendship is as much a moral fact
+under Providence as light or gravitation is a physical fact. We like to
+see and talk with people for the pleasure of their society, and are
+unhappy when long away from those we know best. God has made this to be so
+in the structure of our nature, and His work as Creator has been
+constantly carried out by His providential care for society and all its
+affinities.
+
+Our need of friends shows His designing will, and His designing will is
+all the clearer as this need is well supplied. In fact, we cannot be truly
+ourselves without society. Our thoughts and feelings cannot fully come out
+apart from congenial companionship. It cheers us, it quickens our powers,
+stirs our purposes, and the very best things that have been done in the
+world prove its worth. Christ himself needed it, rejoiced in it,
+consecrated it. As His disciples went forth two and two to found the
+heavenly kingdom, the social element kept company with the religious in
+their own hearts, and in their creed. The divine charity which the gospel
+inspired, cherished personal friendships as well as general humanity. The
+grim hermit, in an age whose faith gloried in sacrificing companionship to
+piety, was glad to know that other persons like himself were in the same
+wilderness, and would have been frantic at the very idea of being the only
+person living in the world. His lonely cell was many a time lighted up by
+images of friends still loved.
+
+A freer age has brought out anew the friendship of the gospel, and little
+as enlightened people nowadays may be inclined to put on the dress and
+phrases of the Quaker, there has probably never been a time when so many
+accepted the essential ideas which led George Fox, William Penn and their
+associates to reject the old names and forms, and call the Christian
+Church simply a society of friends. There is a kindly feeling over the
+world now, and much of the best hope of humanity rests upon the fact, that
+so many judicious and influential people of every land know each other
+pleasantly and wish each other well. So friendship even in this sinful
+world is showing God's will for us, bringing out our own faculties and
+fulfilling the divine plans for mankind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sentiment, that animates the relation, needs little definition or
+analysis. In some sense, all understand it, although its best sense a
+true life only can teach. They are friends, who are attached to each
+other, with any kind of liking or loving. The attachment may begin in
+interest, as with parties in business or in pleasure, as with the votaries
+of some art or science, and as the interest or the pleasure is low or
+elevated, the attachment will shape its character. But however it begins,
+it never continues well and becomes genuine, unless the parties stand upon
+the same platform of principle, agree in what is highest and best, and in
+some way come within the scope of the Master's sense of a true friend,
+when he said, "I have not called you servants--I have called you friends."
+
+Undoubtedly they are the best friends who differ much in incidental traits
+and agree in the essentials of character. Their likeness and their
+unlikeness brings them together. Their likeness makes them congenial, and
+their unlikeness makes them instructive and interesting to each other.
+Herein they follow the law of elective affinities, that runs through
+nature, and which makes a certain contrast essential to true harmony.
+Elective, yet not exclusive or entire, as the relation is, friends choose
+each other freely without ties of kindred blood, and however cordial the
+choice may be, it does not imply exclusive regard or entire union of
+interests. Affection, as well as esteem, enters into the sentiment, but in
+comparison with relations of blood and marriage, the element of esteem is
+generally larger in its composition than that of affection. It is esteem
+growing into affection rather than affection growing into esteem.
+
+Come now to the practical point of view, and consider the duties of
+friends for ourselves. We have and desire to have friends, those who are
+such in general and those who are such particularly. What are we to do to
+keep or make them?
+
+First of all we are to be sincere. Herein we must stand directly at issue
+with the fashionable world, that looks upon all sociability as an affair
+of manner, and manner as but one branch of costume--the mere dress of the
+tongue and eyes and looks. Let manner be respected, as it should be, yet
+what is it in its best estate but the simple and thoughtful expression of
+a gentle heart and a noble mind? It cannot be put on like a cloak, but
+must grow out as foliage and bloom from the life. It is so generally with
+manners in promiscuous society, but especially so between friends. They
+must be sincere alike for the sake of giving and of gaining the true goods
+of friendship. The heart itself thus acts happily, delighting in the free
+utterance of its convictions away from the world's folly and harshness. It
+craves a congenial sphere to breathe freely and fully. Sincere alike in
+his playful talk and serious conservation, a man finds his nature
+expanding as his life opens under genial influences refreshing as sunshine
+and dew. Sincerity indeed needs a grain of caution, and a thoughtful
+person will not tell his whole mind always. But judicious reserve need not
+be won at the cost of truth or by the sin of hypocrisy. Taught discretion
+by some experience of the ridicule or the deceit in store for garrulous
+frankness, a true friend will be sincere always, yet need not feel
+himself called upon to open his whole heart to those unable or unwilling
+to give his confidence hospitality. His spirit will not be without answer.
+Truth will sit upon his lips and win truth for him. The true will find the
+true.
+
+But not only are we to be sincere for the vast comfort and gain of free,
+genial companionship, but for its direct service to others. If we wish to
+know ourselves, we should be willing to help others know themselves by
+telling them the truth. Says Lord Bacon, "there is no such flatterer as a
+man's self, and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self
+as the liberty of a friend." It is easy enough to get more or less than
+the truth regarding our failings, and friends often fret and spoil each
+other by a mutual retail of compliments and scandals which they make a
+business of collecting to be used in congratulation or condolement. What
+is better in view of such tale-bearing than a sincere counsellor, who at
+due times will tell the simple and entire truth, and above flattery and
+calumny will give honest advice upon faults of character and errors of
+conduct,--mingling kindness with caution, and never so encouraging as when
+thoroughly frank? This is a nice point, and one full of difficulties, yet
+the point is a main one, and a brave, generous heart need not fear the
+difficulties. No man is a true friend, who is not ready to be a faithful
+adviser, willing to wound self-love in its tenderest part, and give
+passing pain for the sake of lasting blessing. Not often and never with
+any assumption must he do this, but humbly as before the searcher of
+hearts, and in view of the benign and majestic being who washed his
+disciples' feet before telling them of their defects, and opening to them
+the fulness of his wisdom and love.
+
+Again, friends should be earnest as well as sincere--earnest not merely in
+feeling or temperament, but in the aims of life. What are we good for to
+others, unless we have heart ourselves for what is worthy, and are trying
+to be and do something for whatsoever is true, honest, pure and lovely,
+and of good report? A man is worth little or nothing to others unless he
+is earnest for worth in itself. What more frequent cause is there of the
+too frequent flatness of what passes for society, than the want of
+earnestness in its members, the prevalence of a monotonous mediocrity of
+thought and manner, which makes people uninteresting because they are not
+interested in much of any thing sensible or elevating? How much power
+there is in the true companionship to which each brings the zest of his
+own pursuit, the enthusiasm of his own favorite aim, and all are made
+wiser and happier by the thought and spirit of each. Part of the influence
+of such friendship is seen at once in cheerful looks and renewed courage.
+The better part is not seen, for wherever persons really in earnest meet
+together, no matter what their calling or topic may be, there is a power
+among them, that brings their heart into closer relation with the eternal
+heart, and whether conscious of it or not, men go away confirmed in
+faith--deepened, whatever their creed, in the sense that God is, and his
+spirit is abroad among his people.
+
+The nobler their pursuit or their habitual aims, the greater power do
+friends give and take by their earnestness--the better the spirit which
+they bring to their personal intercourse. They are more interesting as
+individuals, as they are mutually interested in matters above themselves,
+and instructive and attractive to each other. Every honorable interest
+unites those who cherish it, and beautifully has Jeremy Taylor said, "He
+that does a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thread
+that ties their hearts together." Of every honorable interest the quaint
+old poet's saying upon honor itself holds good:--
+
+  I could not love thee, dear, so much,
+  Loved I not honor more.
+
+What earnestness for every generous aim filled the heart of him who sat at
+the table of communion, inflamed the earthly minds around with heavenly
+faith and fervor, as he bade them be one with him in God, after he had
+said, "I have called you friends." Blessing repeated in some measure where
+any sincere and earnest people interchange thoughts and feelings! Blessing
+written on all true companionship since Jesus lived and died!
+
+Need we add kindness to sincerity and earnestness as essentials of
+friendship, for is it not implied? Implied, certainly, although there is a
+certain kind of earnest sincerity, that lacks the tenderness which this
+word expresses. It expresses none other than the crowning grace of charity
+in its familiar application. Kindness, genuine and between persons of
+congenial minds, watchful to yield its balms and dews, when fortune is
+sharp or the world is a weariness, instant ever with a sympathy unaffected
+and unobtrusive in trouble and in joy--living commentary upon the sacred
+sentence:--
+
+  "A faithful friend is the medicine of life,
+  And they that fear the Lord shall find him."
+
+Then griefs by being communicated are less and joys greater. "Indeed,"
+says South, "sorrow like a stream loses itself in many channels, and joy,
+like a ray of the sun, reflects with a greater ardor and quickness when it
+rebounds upon a man from the breast of a friend."
+
+In such kindness there will be an element of magnanimity which will check
+the selfish calculation that measures regard by gold, and exchanges
+relations of affinity for bonds of profit and loss. We will not say there
+is no friendship in trade, but that it is incongruous to make trade of
+friendship. The more the relation is one of reciprocal sentiment, and the
+less it is unbalanced by patronage or dependence, the more it moves in its
+own element and yields its own reward.
+
+The more likely too it is to be lasting, and crown sincerity, earnestness,
+and kindness, with constancy. Too many things there are to break the unity
+of our lives, and scatter into fragments our book of experience. Yet some
+ties we need, and may have, that run their silken thread through its
+various chapters, and make a volume of the leaves else fragmentary as the
+Sibyl's. True friends are such ties, and whether of our kindred or not,
+they can be won by friendliness and kept only by constancy. Some deemed
+such may fall off and become indifferent, perhaps false, but who that has
+any heart cannot feel happy in some form of constant kindness, and say
+with the Scripture and from experience:
+
+  "A friend loveth at all times,
+  And a brother is born for adversity."
+
+Happiness indeed, when as we go through life and take its ups and downs,
+and look upon its ever-enlarging horizon, we can meet betimes and often
+some one or more whom we have known from youth, and whose very faces and
+voices express our best remembrances and hopes. As rising above dull
+etiquette, we call them by their familiar names, and say William, or
+Henry, or Mary, or Ellen, grim time seems to drop his inexorable scythe,
+and the roses that appeared withered in our path bloom out as amaranths of
+immortality. Power, as well as pleasure, comes from the interview,
+especially if, under the incentive, noble friendship gives its
+fascinations to wisdom, and thus stirred we review our lives closely,
+scrutinize our ways seriously, and our whole experience rises up under a
+new charm to warn us of evil and urge us to good, ready to say
+religiously:
+
+  "Change not a friend for any good, by no means,
+  Neither a faithful brother for the gold of Ophir."
+
+Do we think enough of this whole subject of companionship--enough of it
+for ourselves and our children? In some way, perhaps, we may think enough
+of being in society, and we may have a sharp eye on our list of
+acquaintance, be eager enough for the silly race of ostentatious eating,
+drinking, and dressing, that is the life of our semi-barbarous fashion, or
+for the frivolous social circles, where friendship is part of the play,
+and they who flatter each other to the face, laugh at each other as soon
+as the back is turned; and in perhaps honeyed words character is depicted
+as sharply as if cannibals had but changed their policy, and brought their
+teeth to bear in a different way, not upon the flesh but upon the life.
+Perhaps we have a better ambition, and desire for ourselves and our
+children the society of the refined, and wise, and good. This is well, but
+one point must not be overlooked. There is no getting into really good
+society but by growing into it. We may win entrance to the houses and
+tables of distinguished people perhaps, but our real friendship with
+persons of sterling character must depend on our character and culture.
+Ask honestly--what are we, what have we made and are making of ourselves
+and our children? And our worth will be the precise measure of the
+friendship we deserve and are likely to have. Here is motive for the best
+culture of the mind and heart. A man's own essential character--what he
+thinks, knows, is, and can do,--it is this that opens to him true
+companionship, and by a law as universal as that of specific gravity, he
+rises or falls to his own level. Is it not worth a life's effort to be
+worthy to win and enjoy the intimate companionship of choice minds?
+
+Do we think of this in the training of our children? Do we try to educate
+their social affections morally and intellectually--strive to make our
+houses attractive to sensible people, to give our sons distaste for
+profligates, and our daughters disgust for fops and fools? Are we laying
+the foundations of sincere and elevating relations that shall put the due
+check upon the evil communications that so corrupt good manners? If not,
+think seriously of the neglect, and do better, as you fear God and love
+the best in the life he has given us.
+
+Cheerfully, gratefully, leave the subject as we consider what He has done
+for us, and ask His blessing on all whom we hold dear. God bless our
+friends! Bless them all in their widest and their inmost circle; bless all
+the kindly people with whom we have interchanged pleasant words, and who
+more than the landscape have reflected in any way his light and love;
+bless all who from age or wisdom have taught us truth and reverence,
+instructors, guardians, counsellors, pastors, on earth or gone from the
+earth; bless those nearer sharers of our lot, sincere, earnest, tender,
+constant companions, whose names are familiar at our table and sacred in
+our prayers; bless Him, whose gospel crowns all good will with its divine
+love, and calling all friends who lived in God's love, leaves to all the
+benediction of His parting prayer: "Holy Father! keep through thine own
+name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are."
+
+
+
+
+Master and Servant.
+
+
+
+
+MASTER AND SERVANT.
+
+
+We are careful how we treat our equals--very careful how we treat our
+superiors. Do we think seriously enough of our treatment of inferiors? We
+ought to think of this, for their sake and our own--for their sake,
+because they are so much under our own influence; for our own sake,
+because we deserve just such treatment from those above us as we give to
+those beneath us? Do any try to escape the latter inference by denying the
+premises and saying that they are their own masters and ask no favors from
+any one? This will not do, nor will any petulant rhetoric change the
+solemn facts of the Divine government. We all have superiors as well as
+inferiors; in some points we are all masters, in some points all servants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is the law of God certainly, that there should be inequalities of
+gifts, and from these diverse gifts, whether of talent or opportunity or
+both, come varieties of place and influence. There is no such thing as
+perfect equality in the universe, except in the mathematician's calculus,
+or the metaphysician's theory. Neither God nor man has ever made two
+things exactly alike, and the diversity that appears between two blades of
+grass from the same stalk, or two needles from the same mechanism, is of
+course greater as we rise in the scale to creatures, so various and
+complex in faculties and discipline as mankind. Think not, however, that
+this inequality favors pride on the one hand, and sycophancy on the other.
+The Creator has more wisely adjusted the checks and balances of his
+government. In some respects, he has made every man dependent upon his
+fellows. The greatest sage needs to learn something from the peasant, and
+to receive much from his toil. The king must serve the country which he
+professes to rule, and the best wisdom of his counsellors must serve the
+throne. The merest glance at society round us shows an endless gradation
+of varied service. The ablest lawyer is quite as much bound to devote his
+talents to his client's cause, as his client is bound to requite his
+labor. The merchant prince, creditor to many, has creditors also of his
+own. He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's
+freeman; likewise also, he that is called, being free, is Christ's
+servant. In some sense, then, every man is a servant, and in some sense,
+too, every servant is a master, or in something commands.
+
+Is not this arrangement well? The fact that it is so essential to the
+Divine government would prove this; but can we not see its good fruits?
+The difference of relation calls out the various faculties of our being,
+and life, like nature itself, teaches us to use our eyes and minds by
+looking and striving above, below, and around. If we would bring out the
+skill and strength of the hand, we must lift up, as well as hold on, and
+so, by dealing with things high and low its muscles are pliant and strong.
+It is the same with all our powers, and there is no man, who is thoroughly
+educated or brought out, who does not obey as well as command. The motto
+of the Black Prince, "Ich Dien," "I serve," is written on every true man's
+standard, and no man is fit to rule who has not learned to obey.
+
+Society in all ages, and especially in our own, has been testing this
+truth, and nothing is more obvious now than the general striving after a
+truer adjustment of mutual service. It haunts us at every turn. In the
+topic of work and wages, it is the problem of the political economist,--in
+the relation of people and ruler, it agitates every government on
+earth,--in the question of master and servant, it comes home to every
+family. Our position towards it now is a very simple and practical one.
+Carrying out our plan of treating home duties, we come now to the
+treatment of inferiors, especially those of our own household, or the
+relation of masters and servants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We start with a clear principle, that defines at once the sentiment that
+belongs to this relation. Both parties have the same essential nature, and
+we use the term inferiors simply as denoting the fact of service, and the
+attendants of that fact. The servant may be, and often is, a better man
+than his master--sometimes a wiser one. Yet his position, in a very
+obvious sense, is inferior, and whilst having privileges of his own, he
+is subject in his sphere of service to his master's orders. This
+subjection implies no surrender of moral dignity. The service should be
+given as from man to man, and so received; and the difference of position
+affects the office, and not the moral worth of the parties. Even the bond
+servant, according to St. Paul, is not to be deprived of his moral
+dignity, but is to be treated as under God a serving brother. As much as
+this is asserted now by the moralists of slavery, such as Dr. Thornwell
+and his school, who maintain that purchase does not make the buyer owner
+of the slave, but merely of his labor. Surely less than this position,
+which is so speciously assumed to justify bond-service, should not be
+allowed to the servant who is freely such. Let the service be what it may,
+and implying whatever lowliness of gifts, so long as it can be honestly
+rendered, it implies no degradation; and a good servant is morally to be
+respected as much as his master. Premising this, and remembering that
+whatever is said of one kind of service has a bearing upon all kinds, we
+are ready to look practically upon the duties of the relation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is most profitable for us, in addressing a community who employ so many
+people in their homes and business, to treat the subject chiefly as it
+bears upon masters or employers, although in doing this the duty of
+servants must needs be implied. This is implied, certainly, in the
+position which we lay down at starting, when we say, that it is the
+master's duty first of all, to have in himself the fidelity which he
+requires from his servant. Here both parties meet, and are called to be
+trusty. The best examples and the plainest reasonings establish this
+ground. Does a great commander, like Washington, send an officer or
+soldier upon some difficult expedition, he asks of his inferior to be true
+to the principle which he accepts, and his whole tone and manner says, "I
+serve the country in my way, and so do you under my orders and in your
+way." Our Saviour himself cherished the very allegiance which he required
+of his followers; nay, he grounded its obligation upon the very nature of
+the Divine mind, when he bade them work, while it is day, and said, "My
+Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Whenever a master or employer takes
+lower ground than that of mutual trust, he puts himself below his servant.
+If he professes only to follow his own caprices, and yet asks his servant
+to be faithful, he exacts fidelity, whilst he cherishes caprice, and so in
+the moral scale takes a place below his inferior.
+
+He thus fails of setting the true example of trustiness to his servant,
+and of having, by due fellow feeling, proper consideration for him. He is
+like the harsh creditor in the parable, who, having first been a reckless
+defaulter to the king, after having begged forgiveness for the enormous
+debt of fifteen millions, turned at once upon his poor fellow-servant,
+took him by the throat, and had him cast into prison for the paltry sum of
+about fourteen dollars. He was a treacherous man, and so could neither
+reasonably demand fidelity, nor have fellow feeling for honest misfortune.
+His lot is due to every man who repudiates his solemn responsibility to
+God and his neighbor, yet insists upon utter deference from those beneath
+him in a capricious tyranny, which is far beneath faithful service. Every
+household should learn the lesson, and wherever its most favored members
+do not feel the solemn obligations of life, and live for objects beyond
+their own caprices, they are rebuked by their very exactions, and should
+be shamed by the very fidelity they ask. A true family will set this
+matter right by teaching practically, that no wealth, nor station, nor
+elegance, nullifies responsibility, and its daily method will prove that
+the doctrine of stewardship is accepted in parlor and chamber before it is
+preached to the basement and attic. In fact, no true man will be content
+with being less useful than his servants, and certainly many an affluent
+and high-minded master meets an amount of responsibility, and does an
+amount of labor, chiefly mental, perhaps, compared with which the round of
+domestic service is light. He is in his way trusty, and may well ask his
+inferiors to be so. It is this spirit only that will effectually procure
+the service we need, and provide domestics who will be friends instead of
+mere hirelings; helpers in the care of our children, instead of debasers
+of their speech and manners; specimens of the good servant, who, says an
+old author, "is one that out of a good conscience serves God in his
+master, and so hath the principle of obedience in himself."
+
+Stating thus a duty common to both parties, we pass on to a second point,
+pressing more directly upon one of them, however, and carrying out the
+idea already presented. The apostle's words urge it best when he says:
+"Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing
+that ye also have a Master in heaven." It is probably needless to urge
+this point here in its external sense, and insist upon giving fair wages
+and punctual payment. It may be important for some persons, however, who
+are so absorbed in their own comfort as to be almost unaware that poor
+people can suffer from a cause to themselves so trifling, to be reminded
+that, in dealing with the poor, small sums affect great interests, and
+that great wrong is done by overlooking the value of a few days of time or
+wages to people in their employ. A dollar withheld for a week from a needy
+seamstress, may be a greater harm than the non-payment of thousands to
+creditors rolling in wealth.
+
+But there is a higher sense of just and equal due. Character is a great
+thing, and quite as much to servant as to master. Character in service
+should be sacredly respected, and it is shamefully wronged when men pass
+sweeping judgment upon a whole class because they have been duped by a
+portion, or, when in a feeble good nature, they are as tolerant of
+falsehood as truth, of fraud as honesty. There is, indeed, sad want of
+veracity and fidelity in the class most frequent in our domestic
+service--the class by religion and associations almost a distinct caste in
+our nation. There is also among them much kindness and industry--sometimes
+wonderful self-sacrifice, and, with all their failings, their place could
+not well be supplied. The greater their ignorance and obtuseness, the
+more need of training them to a sense of right by setting a bounty upon
+good character. It is a foul wrong to commend the thievish or lazy, in
+order to be rid of them, or withhold due name to the faithful, in the hope
+of retaining their services. Certainly the ages in which loyalty was the
+crowning virtue have abounded in examples of devoted service, and our own
+anomalous and unsettled times are not without countless instances of like
+temper. Now, as of old, the apostle's word is remembered by many:
+"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, and not unto men;
+knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance.
+But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done,
+and there is no respect of persons."
+
+Just to servants in appreciating their character, we are to yield them due
+privileges favorable to character. We shall not, then, voluntarily hurt
+them by their ready disposition to copy their masters' failings. We shall
+not then, by our white lies, give them the material which so readily turns
+black by a little wear. We shall not deal in inuendos and irreverence,
+that so easily become ribaldry and blasphemy in passing to less dainty
+lips, nor yield to an excess at our tables, which teaches drunkenness to
+coarser palates. We shall be unwilling to disturb for our dependents the
+quiet which we ask for ourselves on the Lord's Day; and therefore shall
+dispense with needless feasting or riding on that day, shunning the too
+frequent error of increasing our hospitality in entertaining guests by the
+sacrifice of the religious privileges of our servants, and of estimating
+the social respectability of a church by the number of rational souls who
+wait at its door in companionship with horses, while lords and ladies sit
+or kneel on downy cushions at the altar to speak of communion with Him who
+is no respecter of persons, and of the utter damnation of all the
+unbelieving and ungodly. The good master, says Thomas Fuller, remembers
+the old law of the Saxon king Ina: "If a villain work on Sunday by his
+lord's command, he shall be free."
+
+Nor should this regard for the character of servants end in mere
+negations. They should have the positive influence of a Christian temper
+in the family, and, when arbitrary creeds do not prevent it, they should
+have liberty to be present at such family devotions as may be held for the
+edifying of the household. So do we interpret justice in this relation in
+its bearing on fortune and character. Some might think our view very
+defective, from leaving out the element of entire social equality. If by
+this be meant a recognition of the moral worth of faithful servants, we
+make the recognition, and deem them the equals of all whom they equal in
+character. But, if social familiarity be the test of equality, it is
+answer enough that this is a matter of congeniality or elective affinity,
+and nothing could be more arbitrary and unjust than to force persons into
+a familiarity for which their education, tastes, and labors disqualify
+them. Such a course would comport as little with justice as with mercy.
+
+Mercy,--rest upon that word. We have said that both parties should be
+trusty, and have urged justice upon the master especially. We now add,
+that he should merciful.
+
+We are all frail and erring, and need great forbearance for ourselves. Why
+be unwilling to bestow it on the less favored? We all make some mistakes,
+and how can we expect the less intelligent to be freer from error? Why be
+irritated if every thing is not done precisely to our liking? They that
+forbear threatening may win better service by that fact, for nothing so
+provokes carelessness and disheartens effort, as the impatience that
+regards a mistake as a crime, and brands an oversight as an insult.
+
+We ourselves are variable in health, spirits and energy, and must make
+allowance for the like variation in persons probably less disciplined than
+ourselves. We may show due consideration without fickleness, and kindness
+without familiarity. Cruel, indeed, is the wrong that confounds the
+fidelity that is struggling to do well in spite of temporary illness, with
+the idleness that wantonly neglects any well-known duty. Some misgivings
+very kind people may reasonably have in regard to servants in feeble
+health; and the Christian charity of a community will continue very
+deficient until they, who render faithful service, are cared for better in
+private houses or proper institutions in seasons of sickness.
+
+Upon this subject we are apt to speak too arrogantly when we contrast our
+domestic manners with those of persons burdened with bond servants, and to
+call him as of necessity a tyrant who may be more than ourselves a
+protector. In our just condemnation of slavery, remember that much
+kindness lightens its bonds; and, remembering too, the millions of dollars
+in legal property which masters have relinquished, when we preach, as we
+may justly do, stern self-sacrifice to others, learn well that the duty of
+caring for inferiors has applications quite as solemn under a Northern as
+under a Southern sky.
+
+It is common, I know, to talk of the ingratitude of inferiors and the
+thanklessness of mercy. Alas! there is enough in our own hearts to justify
+misgivings, and when we think how ingrate we are, we may look more with
+pity than bitterness upon the indifference with which so many receive
+favors, sometimes making their very constancy the plea of insolent demand.
+Nevertheless, mercy will not be without reward, and, in due season, will
+penetrate with its own spirit minds sadly blunted by harsh usage. Hand in
+hand with judgment and rectitude, it will win here below the promised
+blessing, and obtain its own beatitude for its giver.
+
+Mercy,--what is it but humanity--love in its downward look, the look with
+which Jesus went about among men? Looking thus downward, the soul sees a
+verdure, and rejoices in a genial light and warmth not found in any proud
+star-gazing: for the best blessing of heaven is reflected upon its lowly
+gaze. Mercy,--he who comes short of it, comes short of his neighbor and
+his God. It is the ground of all devotion. The home where it dwells not,
+dwells without God in the world. More than can be expressed in any act, we
+need it; even an abiding sentiment, broad as our race, deep as our need.
+Looking upon a criminal, a blunt preacher said; "There goes John Newton,
+but by the grace of God." Says an old divine: "Well may masters consider
+how easy a transposition it had been for God to have made him to mount
+into the saddle that holds the stirrup, and him to sit down at the table
+who stands by with the trencher." Looking upon our inferior any where, let
+us have something at heart which says: "Friend, brother, true I am better
+off in this world's goods than you, but whether fortune or desert has made
+the difference, that fact does not decide, and, whether deserved or
+undeserved, my superiority teaches humility, not pride--responsibility,
+not arrogance."
+
+Review now the course of meditation upon the more direct home duties. We
+treated of ties of nature in speaking of parents, children, brothers and
+sisters; of ties elective in speaking of husbands and wives, friends; and
+now we add the last class of elective ties, by passing from relations of
+equality to that of master and servant. We have cherished through these
+pages a degree of home feeling together, and in some points our various
+experiences must have accorded. Such subjects cannot be treated with any
+sort of fidelity, without touching some deep convictions and sacred
+remembrances. They have solemnity and also cheerfulness, telling of vast
+privileges to impress momentous duties.
+
+Thus onward do we go,--not alone, but with companions, superiors, equals,
+inferiors--all giving and taking influence; if we will have it so, God
+with us through all and in all. If superiors inflame ambition, let them
+teach respect; if equals make our enjoyment, let them move our good will;
+if inferiors tempt our pride, let them kindle our benevolence. We cannot
+cherish this spirit in vain. A kindly heart will win from the lowly many a
+blessing, and develope many a power. Among the thoughts that give peace to
+a man's dying pillow, none will be sweeter than the remembrance or image
+of those whose lowly condition he has bettered, and asked no reward of the
+world. Since Christ has lived, rich indeed has been the heavenly treasure
+laid up by such compassion towards those who bear the world's heavy
+burdens and have few of its smiles. Forgetting them, we forget our
+Saviour, who made their cause so his own, and we repudiate our share of
+His blessing upon the faithful servant!
+
+
+
+
+The Divine Guest.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE GUEST.
+
+
+The long rainy season was over, the roads once more were settled, and the
+happiest festival of all the year joined with the charms of Spring to draw
+the Hebrew people toward their sacred city. Nowhere in the whole land was
+there more to cheer the eye than in the beautiful town through which the
+festal caravans from the north were now passing on their way to the
+Passover. Jericho was called "the City of Palms," from the profusion of
+those stately trees in its fertile valley. These now added spring blossoms
+to their evergreen foliage; the sycamore was beginning to give cheering
+promise of its figs, and the balsam-tree, whose gum was worth twice its
+weight in silver, was showing its scanty and precious bloom in the walled
+gardens, whose wealth Mark Anthony gave to Cleopatra as a fit gift from a
+conqueror to a queen. The people were astir with the excitement of the
+season, as the travellers began to pour into the city. Soon word went
+round that the noted prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, was approaching, with a
+large company about him. The wonder grew, as the report of a great miracle
+upon the blind Bartimeus went from mouth to mouth. The fever reached into
+quarters not abounding in Jewish enthusiasm, and quickened the calmer
+blood of the revenue officers of the Roman government. The chief of them
+went out to get a glimpse of the famous preacher, whom so many hailed as
+the long-expected Messiah. The rich publican, being a man of small
+stature, and, from his political relations, not likely to receive much
+civility from the crowd at such a time, climbed up into a sycamore
+fig-tree, whose spreading branches probably overhung the street. If seen
+at all by the populace it was with little favor, for they hated alike his
+connection with Rome and his lax, or, perhaps, his enlarged views of the
+Jewish creed. To the surprise of all as much as himself, the publican is
+singled out by the Messiah from among them all in the words: "Zaccheus,
+make haste and come down; for to-day I must abide in thy house." The
+result of this interview is all that is said of Christ's stay in that
+place. The city, once an abode of kings, has passed away, and enough of
+its ruin only remains to allow tradition to point out in a crumbling tower
+and a solitary tree the publican's house and watch post. The story
+remains, the burden of the rude rhyme of the primer, a text for many a
+homily of old,--a topic for us now.
+
+And what does it teach so much as this: that Christianity, like Christ
+himself, ever strives to make the spectator feel that he is seen and is
+followed home? Religion at home is the lesson, religion as a check upon
+personal domestic feelings, and the life of domestic graces.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is force in the point of view thus presented in the change of the
+critic into the subject of criticism. Christianity is apt to be regarded
+as a public ceremonial, a holiday spectacle, associated with fair weather
+and large assemblies. People respect its institutions, and desire the
+influence of them upon themselves and their families, are glad to be
+impressed by any peculiar eloquence, and instructed by any peculiar
+wisdom. But are they ready enough to take the attitude that becomes them
+in view of the appeals of religion? Do they listen to the Gospel as to the
+voice of God speaking to them personally; and beyond the church and
+ministry, do they recognize the Providential power that has founded these
+institutions, and which condescends to act through them? Is there not
+sometimes a reversal of the true point of view? Instead of reverence in
+the sanctuary, is there not superciliousness? Are there not many, who seem
+never to have thought of bowing their heads in devotion, who have learned
+to wag them with the airs of supercilious criticism? Are there not many
+who are pushed up far higher in conscious elevation, than the publican's
+sycamore tree; who need to hear the voice of the Master speaking from his
+Gospel and Church, "Come down, make haste, for to-day I must abide in thy
+house?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Thy house!"--still nearer the appeal is brought by this expression. "Thy
+house!" "I will go home with thee," says the Master always in his Word,
+and his search-warrant has never lost its power. There is something in
+every heart that shrinks from public gaze, and every family justly
+cherishes the privacy of the household. But God, if he sees us any where,
+sees us there, and we reverence Him, as we receive His Word as our
+household guest. There can be no serious faith or purpose until we come to
+this, and are ready to take religion home with us. It will very likely
+show things in a new, and sometimes startling light. We may, perhaps, pass
+a tolerably creditable examination, when tested by our manner in street,
+or church, or general society. Sometimes the deference of good breeding
+may wear the look of inherent kindness, and refinement of address may seem
+like spirituality of character. It was a severer trial for the publican,
+"To-day I must abide with thee," than the mere summons to "Make haste, and
+come down."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is a trial that we must all undergo the moment we begin to think
+seriously for ourselves; a trial, too, that cannot be shunned without
+losing the best blessings of life. Let the household be examined according
+to the standard, which we do honestly regard as reasonable and religious.
+What are the household gods? We have not, like the Romans, the custom of
+setting up images in our homes, and keeping a votive flame always burning
+before them. Yet the sentiment which the Roman custom expressed, we must
+in some way entertain. Every household has its idols, the emblems of its
+faith or infidelity. It has many associations peculiar to itself, and
+makes its own choice moreover among the associations that prevail in the
+neighborhood, or world, or age. It has its own Manes, or its especial
+remembrances of the departed;--it has its Lares, or favorite family
+standards;--it has its Penates, or its own selection from the idols or
+authorities of the people. These influences exist in the highest home and
+in the humblest--are to be traced in the old nobilities, whose caste,
+party, and creed, are fixed by the allegiance of a thousand years, and in
+the unpretending villager who thinks himself highly favored in ancient
+lore, as he reads in his family Bible the name and birth of his
+grandfather. Nor are the same influences wholly wanting to those who wish
+to repudiate their ancestry, the spendthrift upstarts of fortune, whose
+crest, manufactured to order, is but an attempt to hide the only honorable
+fact in the family history, that one ancestor was a plain, industrious
+man, with energy enough to earn by his trade the wealth that heirs
+squander in folly. Generally, it needs little antiquarian study to learn
+the ruling genius of the house. It is not only in the house of Atreus or
+Oedipus, or in the line of the Stuarts and the Bourbons, that family
+griefs have their succession, and a thread of tragedy runs through their
+whole history. Every family is troubled with its besetting sorrows and
+sins. No man is wise until he understands his own pedigree, and interprets
+himself, not simply as an isolated fact in the world, but as a branch of
+the life-tree upon which he grew. If reflection does not inform the
+family of its peculiar traits, experience will not fail to make the
+revelation. The idle chat of the house will often exhibit the ruling
+spirit, and the prattle of many a lisping child betrays the idols that he
+has been trained to honor. Some names of folly or wisdom most frequent on
+the lips alike of parents and children, will be the household words that
+show the spirit that predominates. These names, and all attendant
+influences, are to be judged by their bearing on the true aims of home.
+Ask a few plain questions as the Master asks in the appeals of his
+religion.
+
+Does content live with us, or its opposite, discontent? The question
+cannot be answered by any general considerations of fortune or position.
+Surely discontent is found in the most extreme cases, and wealth feels
+often very poor and limited because its desires rise with its means, and
+its means may be distanced far by some more successful aspirant to
+fortune. Discontent, ready guest of heart and home always, but never more
+frequent than among us with whom plenty so swells desire, and competition
+so quickens rivalry! With us, alas, too frequent guest, impoverishing
+abundance by inordinate desires, and burdening too many with cares and
+anxieties beyond reason and beyond strength! Often sad effect of our
+luxurious civilization, that in apparently the greater number of
+households, property brings new forms of want, and the demands of
+ostentation become more rapacious than the natural appetites! How many
+need now and always to lower their vain pride, and dignify their
+mediocrity or consecrate their affluence by hearing the Master's voice
+"Come down: to-day I must abide in thy house."
+
+In some especial form the spirit of discontent is apt to tempt every
+household, in view of some especial want, or vanity, or ambition. With it,
+too, come some elements of strife, or indifference, or worldliness, that
+need peculiar watching. Domestic life, indeed, is sacred from prying
+curiosity, and it argues generally little to one's credit, to be very
+accurately posted up in the accounts of home troubles. Without playing the
+part of the busybody, we may study the facts of human nature, and be aware
+of the developments of society. We may believe, that where several wills
+are brought together, they can harmonize only as they agree by appealing
+to a common standard; that no tempers, however pliant, can accord without
+mutual principle; that none in authority can govern others without first
+governing themselves; that a Christian spirit, earnest, kindly, devoted,
+is the only safeguard of the peace and elevation of the home.
+
+What to many seems the very genius of household comfort, an easy, pleasant
+worldliness, is a wretched dependence, and will serve one very little in
+bearing up against the trials of affliction, or the dangers of prosperity.
+Worldliness may furnish a house, but it needs more, far more, to make a
+home. Too often the very spirit that prides itself upon crowding the house
+with magnificence, robs it of every true home grace. Whatever may be the
+show of hospitality, there is no good cheer for an earnest heart, nothing
+that returns the Christian benediction, "Peace be with this house." Too
+often what is called by eminence, "society," has not one truly social
+element. We read that some years ago, when the button-makers of England
+were in distress, the Court relieved them at once by directing four extra
+buttons to be added to the coat tails of approved mode. A refined
+traveller from France, Germany, or even England, might suppose that most
+of our city society had originated in some such benevolent purpose, and
+our usual style of party giving had its origin in a movement for the
+relief of confectioners, dancing-masters, dressmakers, and liquor dealers,
+so monstrous is our outlay of money in their line, and so feeble our sense
+of artistic beauty and conversational zest. No less a guest than he who
+went with the Publican is needed to give the true grace, and as Christ has
+been reverently and affectionately received, homes have abounded. There
+was far more of favor than rebuke in the offer then made, and so it has
+always proved, whenever and however accepted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What is it to take the Master home with us, but to receive the most tender
+and intimate revelation of God's love ever granted to men,--a searching
+judge, an honest censor indeed, but more than this, a compassionate
+friend, a heavenly comforter? Receive him thus, and the whole tone of life
+rises. Discontent, strife, worldliness, are rebuked. The dwelling then
+rests upon the Rock of Ages, the light of heaven comes mingled with the
+sunshine, and divine nurture goes with the daily bread and the vital air.
+A Supreme will being recognized, all refractory desires are checked and
+finally subdued into the subjection which is perfect freedom. All the
+while a reserve power is preparing for the emergencies that may arise.
+Then man proves his best dignity by adorning strength with gentleness. The
+woman rises to her true power by the magic touch of that confiding faith,
+which ever wins divine virtue from the Master's mantle, even as for the
+lowly suppliant at Capernaum.
+
+Limitation of means is borne with equanimity, and developes new energies
+instead of breaking down the spirits. Enlarged fortune widens the sphere
+of beneficence, and repeats the Publican's vow in some way: "Lord, the
+half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from
+any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." New jubilee of
+justice and generosity would it not be, if true guidance of the households
+of Christendom could train desires and purposes, such as sprung up in that
+man's heart whilst Jesus of Nazareth dwelt in his home. We know not all
+that transpired in the interview between this kindly host, and his Divine
+guest; but the conclusion leads us to believe that the conversation turned
+less upon the forms of ceremony and degrees of belief, than upon practical
+righteousness, such as appeared impressed so mightily upon the heart of
+Zaccheus in making his declaration of the worth of justice and mercy. How
+many households would at once stop their folly and extravagance, and open
+their eyes to the solemn realities of life, if the Divine guest were to be
+sought in such a spirit.
+
+As to the precise form in which Christianity should be acknowledged in the
+family, we do not propose to lay down any minute, much less any arbitrary
+rules. The great thing is to cherish a sense of God's presence, and
+providence, and rule the spirit in the piety and charity which he
+approves. The stated recognition of his authority we urge ever, and the
+desirableness of regular use of the scriptures, and prayer daily in the
+home. If there be fear of routine and indifference, let a true purpose
+overcome that, and prove that the most thorough habit comports with, nay
+favors, the highest freedom, and the soul, like the body, is not shackled
+by an accustomed method of nurture. Of course, no round of ceremonials can
+be any substitute for living religion; and there is proof enough, that the
+most rigid routine of lip service may co-exist with the utmost asperity
+and worldliness. Tokens, alas, there are sometimes, that what passes for
+piety may bring no Christian graces to the dwelling; and some bigot, who
+mistakes hatred of the world for godliness, or some flaunting modist, who
+has adopted a church as a fashion, may bring churlishness or conceit in
+sheep's clothing into the house. These, and all such shams, make true
+religion more beautiful, and lend new attraction to the page which records
+the visit of Christ to a dwelling which the scowling Pharisee scorned, but
+which the love of God so richly blessed.
+
+Then let the Master be welcome to the household. We cannot do without him.
+We need him to keep us in God and with one another. Let the atmosphere of
+the home have the fragrance of his heavenly spirit. It was one of the
+trials of the early Christians, that they could not live in pagan
+households without being constantly pained by symbols and usages hostile
+to their faith. The Greek or Roman wife, if converted to the Gospel, was
+scandalized by the idols on the hearth-stone, and often brought to death
+for refusing to join in the idolatry; whilst in the camp and court,
+paganism was constantly thrusting its pageants upon the follower of the
+cross. Our modern life is not much troubled with many such tests of faith,
+and most of our more showy households are utterly innocent of any signs
+either of Christian or Pagan import in their furniture. From what is seen
+in some parlors, whether in books or periodicals, or in pictures or
+statues, we might infer the fondness of the dwellers, now for the battle
+or the chase; now for the shows of fashion, or the haunts of dissipation;
+now for the wonders of science and art; now for the shipping interest and
+the stock market. But too rarely does the household have a true and
+expressive representation of the ideas most precious to a Christian mind.
+An ostentatious vulgarity is too much the rule in constructing and
+adorning the dwelling, and a Christian taste is the exception. How many of
+our showy dwellings, instead of impressing a cultivated foreigner with a
+sense of the owner's refinement or spirituality, would only make it clear
+that the owner had money in plenty to spend, and knew not how to spend it
+wisely. Let these things be looked to. Let the economy of the household be
+of itself a confession of faith. Let there he something to show that they
+who dwell here are God's children, and live within his kingdom. Let not
+gold be lavished upon unmeaning articles that show rather the capacity of
+expense than the capacity of meditation, or which, like the mirrors that
+are the chief ornament of so many houses, favor no reflection beyond that
+of the vanity which they multiply. If we care for art, let Christian art
+be not slighted, and with the landscape that portrays the beauty or
+grandeur of creation, let there be some expressive token that the Father
+has watched over men by his Providence, and blessed their homes by his
+Word. We are changing people, almost a nomad race. One of the oldest
+inhabitants of this metropolis lately remarked, that within his knowledge,
+not one man now keeps house in the dwelling occupied by his father. Of
+this fact I know nothing, yet sure it is, that we need in the frequent
+change of abodes, to build more deeply and securely the spiritual home,
+and live more among the memorials of things eternal. In the absence of
+ancestral homesteads with their hallowed scenes and memorials, we should
+seek to transmit some lasting tokens of our mind, and not make our
+households as evanescent in their array as the fickle breath of this
+world's fashions. In some way surely our best thoughts and labor should
+live for those who come after us, and with goods few or many, as may be,
+there should go some witness of truth eternal. Alike from our common
+nature and our peculiar vicissitudes, we need to be deeply grounded in the
+love of Him who came to open heavenly mansions into our earthly
+habitations, and to make Him our abiding guest.
+
+Looking into the ancient books of devotion, I find this date associated
+with a household name, and sacred to the memory of a Christian woman,
+Monica, the mother of Augustine. Such thoughts of home and its best
+influences are well, coming to us, as they do, so fragrant with the
+friendly and pious affections of ages. Monica lived long enough to see her
+wayward boy a firm disciple at last, and after all his wanderings of
+thought, devoted to Christ with all the enthusiasm of his nature. How
+touching is that passage of his confessions in which he speaks of laying
+her body in the grave, and returning to his lonely home to bless her for
+her faithful care, and lament his blindness to her gentle pleadings. How
+comforting the hymn of Ambrose that rose to his mind, as if by some
+angel's whisper, and lifted his thoughts to the realm whither mother and
+son had trusted to meet in a companionship beyond parting and beyond
+tears. Bless this and all like remembrances in former times, or in our own
+experience. Praise God for all the peace and power, the loveliness and
+wisdom, that have entered the homes where Christ has been welcomed. Let
+praise continue in prayer, and live in watching and good works.
+
+_First of May._
+
+
+
+
+The Orphan.
+
+
+
+
+THE ORPHAN.
+
+
+The genial air of May comes to us all laden with the sweet breath of
+opening blossoms, and has a balm for the spirits as well as for the
+health. It stirs within us a sentiment deeper than we know how to define,
+revives our chilled or buried ideals, and makes every heart young again.
+It cannot but give something of its own tone to our thought, and we find
+that in all nations this month has been a continued festival in the
+calendar, and associated with the loveliest imagery of earth and heaven.
+The heathen nations, who gave the month its present name, called it so
+after the fairest of their goddesses, and Christians following a similar
+sentiment, and desirous also of enlisting every natural feeling in the
+service of a purer faith, transferred the honors of Maia to Mary, and in
+every land white flowers deck the shrines of the Madonna, and the "Hail
+Mary" is the burden of the matin and vesper hymn. Some of the hymns and
+aspirations connected with the season convey thoughts with which an
+earnest Protestant may sympathize, and grateful for the maternal love that
+has made our lives so blessed, we cannot ridicule, although we cannot
+imitate the Italian devotee, who salutes the Holy Mother as the
+representative of God's tender mercy to man through her sex, in words of
+such fervor:--
+
+  "Joy of my heart! O let me pay
+  To thee thine own sweet month of May.
+
+  Mother! be love of thee a ray
+  From Heaven to show the heavenward way.
+
+  Sweet Day-Star! let thy beauty be
+  A light to draw my soul to thee."
+
+May we not once more speak the name of Mary, the Blessed Mother, not to
+adore her as a divinity, but to win from her an illustration of our common
+humanity in one of its great sorrows and consolations? Cheerfully as under
+the returning smile of heaven, solemnly as in presence of much grief, our
+meditation now turns upon orphanage of the affections, as one of the facts
+of our homes, and upon the secondary relations which may be its solace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Consider, first of all, the fact as one of the events of every life,
+sooner or later. Mary at the Cross is a representation of our common
+humanity in its bereavements. Every mother and every parent in some way
+enters into her anguish, as she saw the life of her Divine Son ebbing from
+those cruel wounds. She was indeed doubly bereaved,--at once childless and
+fatherless for the victim upon the Cross had been at once the son of her
+travail and the father of her faith, born of her into the world that she
+might be born of Him into the spiritual kingdom. His own pains did not
+make Him insensible to her anguish, nor indifferent to the fact common to
+our nature, which feels itself always so void and desolate, when the being
+of all most loved is suddenly taken away. Tenderly He provided for her the
+consolation that she needed, by commending her to the disciple, whose ever
+present kindness would be so great a solace in itself, and so powerful a
+remembrance of the departed by its associations. The disciple took to his
+house from that hour the mother of Him upon whose bosom he had leaned.
+
+Life is full of cases that illustrate the same principles, although not
+connected with facts so peculiar. It may be said indeed, that some kind of
+orphanage is the lot of every person, whose years are not early cut off,
+and whose heart is not utterly hardened against home affections. The order
+of nature is that children should survive their parents, and very many of
+us in tender childhood have learned the worth of kind and judicious
+parents, by being called to face the trials and cares of life without
+their counsel and comfort. When the case is reversed, and the parent is
+mourner for the child, the desolation of the heart is quite as great, and
+the affections, deprived of their wonted object, are, perhaps, more deeply
+wounded than the child's can be, even when losing the only protector in
+losing the parent; so strongly do the affections press downward, and so
+mightily does the love that sacrifices so much for offspring grow by its
+own exercise. Every day this bereavement strikes somewhere, and since my
+last word to you, it has stricken parents whose oldest child was last
+Sunday present at church, and to-day is in his grave;--on Sunday I spoke
+to that bright boy pleasantly at our school, and on Friday said the
+funeral service over his coffin. Never can such a bereavement come without
+leaving a feeling of double orphanage, for parents in losing their
+offspring lose at once an instructor as well as a pupil; and surely the
+eldest born of a family, however young, is spiritually father or mother of
+much that is best in the parent's heart. Survey life in its whole compass,
+enlarge our own experience by observation, and we need no argument to
+interpret Mary's desolation at the Cross, or to learn that some form of
+orphanage is the common lot; nay, that before life ceases, some portion of
+our life is severed, when those in whose companionship we had lived are
+taken away. The world is full of such desolation, and there are many to
+whom existence is a burden, because its light has thus gone out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But God has always some providential alleviations in store for such
+bereavement, and let us turn from the fact to its solace. In some form the
+mercy of that voice from the Cross may always be heard, "Woman, behold thy
+son! Disciple, behold thy mother!" The Christian church itself never
+practically unmerciful to its people, even in its sternest days, has
+always rejoiced to comfort orphanage by the solace of secondary relations;
+providing new protégés for the childless, new guardians for the
+fatherless, and new homes for the homeless. There are few families of
+large experience and just feeling, where something of this same office has
+not been performed; and where, although other gifts may not be needed, the
+solace of sympathy is never withheld.
+
+It becomes an important practical question with many, how those secondary
+relations shall be formed, which may in some measure take the place of the
+ties severed by death. Here may be children without father, or mother, or
+both. Here are homes that are childless either through death or by the
+absence of the blessing, whose absence is of itself to our nature as a
+bereavement. It is not well to leave the heart void, and God himself,
+whose Spirit moved our Saviour to commend his mother to his disciple, has
+provided alleviations. They who need them for themselves or seek them for
+others must use their best judgment and principle in the choice. There may
+be gross wrong or frivolous error in the selection, for there are some so
+desperate as to drown grief in dissipation, and others so light-minded as
+to lavish upon a parrot, or a dog, or a horse, the affections that belong
+to immortal creatures.
+
+There are three most obvious modes of selection. The orphan finds a
+protector by some natural relationship, or by attracting some guardian
+friend, or by being placed under the care of one, who occupies by marriage
+the position of the parent taken away. Each of these secondary relations
+has been full of blessing, as also of danger and trial. Many are the cases
+in which a desolate child has been abused by a relative, swindled by a
+friend, and oppressed by a stepfather or stepmother. But not judging
+through plays and romances, but through life as we see it from a perhaps
+favored position, we have cause of much satisfaction in view of the
+secondary relations spoken of. How many a lonely child finds counsellors
+and helpers among kindred and friends, who keep alive in his heart the
+parent's memory by their kindness, and deepen the first relation by the
+second! How many desolate parents comfort themselves by comforting others;
+and how much grief is soothed, like Mary's, by distilling healing balm for
+others from its own wounds! Among the ministers of mercy, that cheer this
+too benighted world, none is more powerful than that which carries comfort
+to the suffering in the name of some departed child; and who shall number
+the countenances that contemplate the little ones, whose angels behold the
+face of our Father in Heaven, to copy their tenderness, and throw their
+light upon the path of the disconsolate?
+
+Of one class of secondary relations, I cannot but say a word in justice to
+the subject, and in a different tone from that which usually prevails. The
+word stepmother has become a proverb in the language, and persons who
+should know better, sometimes idly speak, so as to add to its odious
+significance. But may not this relation be assumed in so true and devoted
+a spirit, and its offices be so performed, as to be great mercy to the
+orphan? No wonder indeed, that wretchedness comes from the misalliances
+that sometimes introduce a giddy trifler without ideas, or a selfish
+worldling without conscience, into the place that has been made sacred by
+a true Christian mother now no more in the world,--when, in fact, some
+greedy hawk creeps into the nest of the dove, or the wanton butterfly
+invades the cell of the ant, or the provoking wasp steals the sweets of
+the honey-bee's hive. No wonder that trouble comes, when natural rivalries
+and jealousies are embittered by one, who is mother in name but not in
+feeling, one whose first joy is personal vanity, and whose least wish is
+to sacrifice any whim for the welfare of those now entrusted to her care.
+Well may the curse of Heaven rest upon such connections. Let not a shallow
+fancy or reckless impulse, never excusable, but least excusable in mature
+years, dictate a choice so sacred as that which replaces the natural
+parent by another. Let the choice be guided by words as sacred as those
+which came from the Cross, and let him, who commends his children to
+another's care, use his best thought and principle, as if called in this
+way to say, "Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!"
+
+Whatever may be the form of the secondary relation, whether the virtual
+adoption be from natural relationship, from friendliness or by marriage,
+two obvious principles should preside over the choice, as in the example
+of the Cross. The secondary relation should be such as not to shame the
+first; and such also as to be a mutual blessing, a blessing to the
+orphaned and the protector. When Jesus commended his mother to his most
+loved disciple's care, he carried out the spirit of his own entire life,
+and placed her in the charge of one whose companionship would be a
+constant remembrance of himself. The lessons of the former years were
+deepened by those that followed--the disciple was ever nearer his Master
+by the mother's presence and the mother was nearer to her Son by the
+disciple's ministry. Happy are they whose existence, however saddened by
+bereavement, is not broken into incongruous or antagonistic
+fragments,--happy are the orphan hearts who, like that adopted mother and
+son, cherish throughout life the same high allegiance, and mature their
+first vows in their secondary obligations.
+
+This cannot well be, unless the second principle named be observed, and
+due congeniality be found between the orphaned and the protector. Some
+choice may generally be used, and the choice should turn on the fitness of
+the one to guide and the other to be guided. No statement is given of the
+process in our Saviour's mind, that led him to make the bequest of the
+Cross, that legacy of love. But He knew what was in man, and knew well how
+much the mother and disciple were fitted for that filial companionship;
+the one by his deep intuitive mind fitted to enlighten her faith, and the
+other by her boundless affection fitted to inflame his piety and charity,
+to kindle his meditative wisdom into seraphic love. Let not the example be
+lost upon those who shrink from claiming equal sanctity. Are any of us to
+choose for an orphan or a half-orphan a protector, whether a guardian or
+an adopted parent, remember the legacy of the Cross, and in Christ's name
+minister to the desolate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We have illustrated first, the fact of orphanage, and secondly, the
+secondary relations that may be its alleviation. May we not add, that
+where the principles recommended are adopted, great blessing results to
+both parties concerned, the protector, and the protected. If, as the poet
+says,
+
+  "An orphan's curse would drag to hell
+      A spirit from on high!"
+
+an orphan's blessing can lift to the mercy-seat of God a frail spirit of
+the earth. Many a time has this blessing been granted, and they who have
+befriended the lonely, have found a friend in God's own Providence. Is it
+not remarkably the case, that orphan children when judiciously and kindly
+counselled and cautioned, well repay all solicitude, and well appreciate,
+as a gratuitous offering from their protector, the care which, if from a
+parent, they might regard as a matter of course, hardly claiming any
+grateful recognition? A relation of peculiar beauty sometimes springs up,
+at once filial and friendly, blending in itself the affections both of
+companion and child. The remark applies to step-children as well as to
+those who are wards by adoption or guardianship. "Hence," says that gifted
+and fervent writer, Henry Zchokke, "not rare instances in which
+step-children manifest more cordial sympathy, more touching attachment
+towards their foster parents, than their own children. For what the latter
+are apt to take as matter of obligation, the former look upon as token of
+disinterested love and genuine goodness; and a grateful mind brings before
+them all the kindness and fidelity which they received from step-parents
+in the years of minority. As children, they may not understand what you
+have given, although they may see how you gave it. But when grown up, they
+understand what you have done for them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When under this form of adoption or the others specified, there is surely
+enough to interpret such secondary relations cheerfully, and history is
+full of passages, that illustrate the blessing of the legacy of the Cross.
+In our own experience we must in some way interpret that legacy, and find
+its joy or its rebuke. Do not leave the subject without touching its
+practical point. If such and so general is the fact of orphanage, such are
+the secondary relations which are providentially offered, and such is
+their solace when properly employed, there is a lesson from the subject,
+which no person can escape, a lesson as to our duty to our own children
+and to others. First of all, bear in mind the lonely, and strive to be
+comforter, and to find comforters for them. Think tenderly of the
+orphaned, who are in any way near your own sphere, whether from
+relationship, friendship, or any other association. It may not be, it is
+not generally money, that is most needed, but kindness, counsel,
+encouragement. Many an orphan boy is saved by a judicious word and timely
+hand from a friend of his lost father or mother, and many a lonely girl
+finds the path of peace and usefulness smoothed for her by those who
+remember the parent's image in the daughter's face. The story of Moses,
+the foundling of the Nile, and of Joseph, the exile from Jacob's house,
+is often repeated in the lives of youths, like them in loneliness, and not
+wholly unlike them in subsequent energy and honor. Think of this in your
+homes, and make them pleasant and instructive and elevating to some guests
+sought by you, because you can make them happy, and who will repay your
+blessing better than guests of idleness or vanity, sometimes too eagerly
+sought, who may besot and befool your children by folly and excess. Think
+of it in your places of business, and seek openings of usefulness for the
+unprotected. Then you may hear, nay, have you not heard other voices than
+those of hard traffic there? then you may see, have you not seen, springs
+of living water gushing from the dusty pavements which you tread? Think of
+the orphan. For his own sake, do it, and for our own and our children's
+sake. The probability is, that what others ask of us we shall need for
+ourselves. We must expect that our children will be in want of the very
+sympathy which we are to show; for who can be sure of leaving his
+offspring mature enough in years and wisdom to demand no guardian care in
+place of the parental? It becomes, therefore, an imperious duty to educate
+our children in such a manner, as to secure them trusty friends; to give
+them habits of self-reliance, that shall save them from annoying others by
+burdensome dependence; to train them to conciliating manners, attractive
+conversation, elevated ideas, that shall win for them the companionship
+and protection of the wise and good, keep them in right paths, and mature
+in their new homes all the worthy seeds of old scenes and affections.
+Then when the hour of our parting comes, we can think not wholly with
+sorrow of the legacy of the Cross; believing that they who have trusted in
+us, may trust in each other, or in friends divinely given, and that future
+years will deepen the former communion.
+
+The great security, that this shall be so, is found where Christ placed
+it, in the Father. "I will not leave you comfortless,"--or orphaned, as
+the word is literally to be translated,--"I will come to you. Ye shall
+know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." They that learn
+to live in the Father's love, are saved from the worst bereavement, and
+the orphanage of the earth opens to them the parentage of heaven. The
+first and secondary relationships of earth are both commended and
+consecrated by the relation prior to them both and primal of all, however
+late it may be understood; for in spiritual as well as earthly ties, it
+requires time and thought to know our truest friend; and the playmates of
+an hour win the child of mortality's ear more readily than the far-seeing
+parent, or than the Ancient of Days, the Father of all. Remember that
+whatever paternal wisdom or maternal tenderness we have ever known here,
+has its source and archetype on high. There dwells the Godhead that spoke
+and wrought through the victim of the Cross; there shines the wisdom that
+opened that disciple's vision; there burns the love that glowed in the
+mother's faithful heart. From the unseen, comes all the glory that is
+seen; and if any of us have an orphaned heart, as in some respects we all
+may have, let us find its solace in God, and whatever is God's. Let the
+sweet breath of May, that whispers to devotees of Mary's holy maternity,
+fill our hearts with more than vernal promise, ideals of more than human
+loveliness,--call us away from all wintry chills to the light and love of
+the Parent above all parents--to the home that unites all homes in one.
+
+_May._
+
+
+
+
+The Young Prodigal.
+
+
+
+
+THE YOUNG PRODIGAL.
+
+
+How marked and how various has been the response of men to the Parable of
+the Prodigal Son since it first came from the lips of Him whose life so
+exemplified its mercy. Through all those changing centuries, the home has
+kept its place in the affections of mankind, and that pathetic domestic
+picture has never failed to waken regrets and compassion. The happiest
+household is not without some errors that cry for forgiveness, and not
+many are the families whose peace is not troubled by some prodigal. The
+parable presents at once an example of earthly experience and a lesson of
+heavenly mercy. Not forgetting the heavenly lesson, we dwell now more upon
+the earthly example, as we speak of the prodigal in the family, especially
+of his fall and his recovery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The prodigal in the family! Far more frequently than the world knows,
+might this epithet in truth be spoken, for it is not by any means from
+notorious spendthrifts and open profligates, that wicked waste scatters
+the goods of a household. If a certain man who had two sons, found in one
+of them a prodigal under the simple manners of a rustic age, what may the
+father of a large family anticipate in a state of society which makes
+extravagance almost a necessity, and in a great city which brings the
+vices and follies of every far country on earth to his very door. Never
+perhaps since Jesus spoke, have His words found more ample illustration
+than in this great city, that calls thousands and tens of thousands of
+young men from rural homes to the fierce scramble for gold, and the
+feverish chase for pleasure, and which in so many ways offers to drown in
+dissipation the anguish of remorse.
+
+It is not by any means always the worst boy of the family who takes the
+road to ruin. It may be base passion or reckless selfishness that leads
+him astray, but it is quite as likely to be too cordial impulses, exposing
+him to enticing companions, or too sanguine hopes, entailing upon him
+disappointment and despair. Of the many prodigals whom we have known in
+our own lifetime, not a few surely have been generous natures, whom it was
+impossible not to pity, and not hard to love. Sometimes the very
+temperament that makes a youth amiable, and that should make him noble,
+wins to him the most alluring of tempters, and he falls before some Satan
+who comes to him as an angel of light.
+
+The very tenderness shown to him at home may add to his besetting
+weakness, by encouraging habits of self-indulgence. In fact, the parable
+itself allows room for the surmise, that the younger son, from having
+less care put upon him than the elder, was less schooled in self-reliance,
+and because every thing was done for him as the pet of the family, he was
+in danger of doing too little for himself. Certainly indulgence may be as
+dangerous an extreme as sternness, and as many youths are spoiled by over
+fondness as are made desperate by unkindness. Sometimes both extremes
+unite in the same fitful temper, and children, now petted and now cursed,
+learn indolence and rebellion in the same perverse domestic school. Rare
+is the wisdom that can adjust the discipline to each temperament, and
+encourage without over-indulgence, and correct without harshness. Not
+always, however, is the fault of the child to be traced to error in the
+parent, for every child has powers and responsibilities of his own, and
+besides his own perverse will, there is a third party that frequently
+comes in to make mischief.
+
+At home or abroad this tempter may come, and in forms as many as are the
+shapes of folly and sin. The son may not have erred simply in desiring to
+go from home to seek his fortunes. He may have intended to use his portion
+of the inheritance in a more profitable way than at home, and perhaps
+return to the quiet old farm-house, rich in treasure and experience, a
+benefactor to the whole family. Youth is full of dreams, and of not
+ignoble dreams, and of the thousands of young men who every month go out
+into the world to seek their fortune, few, if any, mean to throw their
+hopes away in dissipation. Young blood is ever sanguine, and fair indeed
+would this earth be, if it could take the hue and shape of the youthful
+visions that have brooded upon its future. The very fact that a man hopes
+much, may throw him into a despair as intense as his hope, and the
+sanguine dreamer may degenerate under disappointment into the reckless
+prodigal. The portion of the inheritance which was to swell into
+affluence, being broken by some mischance, seems good for nothing but a
+brief round of pleasure, and is squandered in riotous living. Or the
+wanderer may start with the idea that expensive habits will secure to him
+friends and position, until he finds that these habits are his masters,
+and these friends go away when his money is gone. Let any sober-minded man
+who has consistently tried to use well his means and opportunity, remember
+the perils that have lurked in his own path, and he will make some due
+allowance for the temptations that now beset young men. We are not called
+to lower in the least our standard of virtue, but we are to enlarge our
+views to measure the extent of the danger, and to relax our severity to
+win the erring to repentance and amendment. Make the ease our own, and as
+we look upon the many forms of youthful vice and folly around us, see our
+own youth thus come back to us, and read the sad lessons as so many
+chapters in the book of our own possible destiny. Such considerations,
+instead of making us more lax in principle, will make us more strict, by
+making us feel more deeply the curse of that transgression, which we thus
+bring home to our own thoughts. Combine all the various sources of
+temptation, bear in mind the portions that may come severally from the
+youth, his guardians and the world, and it will not appear proof of utter
+depravity that there should be some prodigals on earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The emphasis of the parable turns not upon the fall, but upon the recovery
+of the erring one, and the portraiture of the various steps in the
+recovery is so drawn to the life, as to answer with due change of manners
+and costume for any age. Mark its progress, in the mind of the youth and
+the parent, and in the final reconciliation of the two.
+
+Mark the change in the feelings of the son. In a short time what a
+transition in the lot of this reckless roaming boy. His dream of fortune
+and pleasure has been most rudely broken, and the spendthrift is the
+penniless outcast. A season of famine, or what in our more commercial age
+would be called hard times, came on, and the pressure that bears upon all
+drives him to the very verge of starvation. Where are the gay mansions now
+that opened their doors so eagerly to the young stranger, so lavish with
+his wealth? Where are the boon companions that borrowed his money, and
+rode his horses, and drunk his wine? Where such friends are very likely to
+be in time of need; ready to cut the acquaintance of the wretch upon whose
+prosperity they have fattened and fawned. He is in a sad plight, and might
+have been driven to some desperate crime--to murder or to suicide, did he
+not learn one of the blessed lessons of God's Providence, and use misery
+as a stern, yet judicious schoolmaster, to lead him to remorse and
+penitence.
+
+Suffering wakens him from his vain dream, and he sees things now as they
+are,--takes upon his shoulders the burden of his griefs,--confesses that
+he has abused the very generosity of his father, and is no longer worthy
+to be called his son. Remorse, no proof of depravity past redemption, but
+proof rather that conscience still lives, and is vindicating her holy law,
+exalted the poor outcast, even in humbling him to the dust, and lifts the
+wretch into the penitent, with those words, "I will arise, and go to my
+father."
+
+This penitence crowns the new experience of the prodigal, and brings him
+into a new sphere of thought and action. He feels the power of a love that
+he had slighted, and which now pleads with his soul in an eloquence all
+the mightier from its tone of expostulation and pity. His childhood
+reappears to him in all its innocence and privilege,--the old homestead,
+with its familiar walls and trees, haunts him not as a dream, but as the
+one reality, and seems to eye his wretchedness with wonder and compassion.
+He is a changed man now, and turns his face upon the long journey
+homeward, not merely as an outcast hungry and miserable, but as a penitent
+seeking forgiveness of the kindness which he had outraged, and asking to
+do a servant's work on the estate whose income he had wasted.
+
+Look to the other side of the picture, and think of what has been going on
+in the father's heart. No particulars are given of his feeling during the
+season of separation, but his heart is a chapter in the book, that life
+is ever laying open, and what is told of him at the crisis, indicates
+well his temper during the interval. He had but two boys, and his whole
+hope and love must have centred in them and their destiny. They may have
+been dearer to him from being all the memorial left to him of the mother
+long since taken from the world. The younger may have been the pet of his
+leisure hours, whilst the elder was busy with the cares of the farm; for
+there is likely to be a pet child in every family. But the plain facts are
+enough without laying any tax upon the imagination. He had the common
+heart of good men, and had shown his willingness to make sacrifices for
+his children. Many a time in lonely hours he must have thought of the
+wanderer, and wondered if the boy whom he never forgot, could forget him.
+The prosperity of his business, the plenty of his crops, the number of his
+flocks and herds, could not satisfy him; even the sight of the son now
+with him, but reminded him how broken was his family and how divided his
+heart. Touches of compassion would mingle with his lonely regrets, and
+remembering the common weakness of our humanity, he would consider the
+amount of temptation in wait for every novice, and have misgivings at
+allowing him to go out alone into the world. Many a time his wistful gaze
+would rest upon the road taken by the departing wanderer, and he would ask
+himself if the youth would ever return, and in what condition. One day as
+he looked, that lonely road had for him a startling apparition. Far in the
+distance appears a tired, tattered wayfarer, a mere vagrant to the common
+gaze; but one of the many who seem heir of misery, and for whom
+compassion itself has little reasonable hope. But no; the eye of affection
+is ever sharpsighted, and the father sees under that beggar's garb the
+step and air of his long-lost son; and one look tells to him the whole
+story of his fortunes. He is a poor and broken-down creature, and comes
+home penitent, to ask mercy of the love that he had so offended. All is
+told in those simple words of welcome "But when he was yet a great way
+off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his
+neck, and kissed him."
+
+This was the meeting--such was the reconciliation! Full as it is of
+absorbing feeling, its moral element is not to be forgotten. Read its
+lessons, and we note first of all forgiveness of the offence in view of
+the penitence of the offender; secondly, restoration to favor on the
+ground of amendment; thirdly, justice to all parties and no injustice to
+the rights of the elder son, who had not wasted his patrimony, yet, who
+was moved to look with a jealous eye at the feasting in honor of his
+prodigal brother's return. Mercy is triumphant, yet justice is not
+slighted, and whilst the prodigal is restored to his place in his father's
+heart and household, all the consequences of his transgression do not
+cease; his portion of the substance is not as if he had wasted nothing,
+and he is not exempt from a long course of self-discipline and correction.
+Forgiveness does not end discipline, but rather begins its just action, by
+bringing the offender into the sphere of moral and spiritual allegiance.
+
+Such is the story of the Prodigal Son in his fall and his recovery--a rich
+lesson of earthly experience and of heavenly faith. What family is there
+that is not called at some time, and in some measure, to apply its point
+to themselves?
+
+Parents and guardians have some trials that the world knows of, and some
+that escape the public ear. Rare, indeed, the home that has no trace of
+the prodigal, and makes no demand on the heart of forgiveness. Our
+prevalent manners seem to set a bounty upon prodigality, and make youth,
+the true season of control and preparation, the ill-timed season for
+indulgence and extravagance. Many sons have the spending of a prince's
+income without the spur of a prince's ambition; and probably not a few
+families in our own community encourage a reckless waste that would be
+thought wicked in many a palace; whilst the self-will, thus pampered, is
+not trained to labor for any definite aim or worthy object. In homes less
+affluent, the case may be still worse, and the sons and daughters of
+persons in a medium position catch the bad ambition, and launch out into
+an extravagance as ruinous as it is infatuated. It is wrong--all wrong.
+The prodigal, in his craving for pardon, well marked the error of his
+course, and proved how much he had sinned against a father's purpose in
+intrusting him, prematurely, with such means of usefulness and honor, to
+be squandered in idleness and shame. Happy they who learn the lesson
+without such bitter experience, and who start from the first with a worthy
+object in view. Here is the great question that over presses upon us: How
+check the waste of talent and substance among our youth? how redeem the
+most susceptible years from frivolity and extravagance? There can be
+essentially but one answer, however various the forms of its expression.
+From the very first, let the young be trained to pursue some worthy
+object, and let the ideal of dignity be placed not in dainty indolence,
+but in active usefulness. Let every household cherish this creed in all
+its spirit and economy; let education be called perversion when it does
+not foster this purpose; let mercy itself when most tender and forgiving,
+most earnestly breathe this incentive.
+
+Never was a young generation launched forth upon a more alluring and
+bewildering sea than that which now wafts its inviting breezes towards our
+rising youth. Opportunities thicken and dazzle as never before, and
+dangers multiply with opportunities; the spur is put to self-indulgence,
+whilst the reins of discipline are slackened, and society is starting upon
+an untried and adventurous track, that raises in sober minds quite as much
+fear as hope. But heaven is always above us, and its light need never fail
+us. Let the blessed Master's plea for heavenly mercy reveal to us more
+clearly the way of obedience, and the very tears of penitence water the
+root of faith and resolution. Youth, so impassioned, self-willed,
+sanguine,--be prodigal no more. Look to the mark placed before you by your
+Father in heaven, and measure your dignity by your fidelity to your work.
+Son--daughter--waste your heart and strength no more upon follies and
+sins. You have the happiness of many in your keeping, and the Infinite
+Parent above will smile upon your penitence, and bless you in your
+fidelity.
+
+Who can look upon the number of youths without high aims and faithful
+purposes, who are growing up in our cities with opportunities so
+unparalleled, and not find himself haunted with that ever-recurring
+question, "What shall we do with our sons?" A state of society that is
+based upon wealth as the chief good, may offer especial danger to the
+sons, from the very fact that it gave such incentives to the energy of the
+fathers, and the wealth gained in hardship may be wasted in dissipation.
+Some sons, indeed, catch the thrift of their laborious parents, and from
+love of money, or from family pride, or some better ambition, try to keep
+or increase their inheritance. But even these are too rarely trained to
+know the highest uses of property, or the true art of employing the
+leisure which it offers for recreations, that refresh instead of
+dissipating the powers. How many there are far below their level, who seem
+to lose every earnest motive in being free from the necessity of exertion,
+and who give the infection of their corrupt idleness and false honor to
+companions who can ill afford any dainty self-indulgence. The commercial
+spirit that places business energy at the top of the scale of talents and
+dignities, may do something to check such prodigality; but only a
+thoroughgoing, manly purpose, looking devoutly to God's will and the
+solemn work of life, can lay the axe to the root of the evil.
+
+Consider, seriously, young man, that you have a work to do in the world,
+whilst it is still called to-day. The charm of life, as well as its true
+honor, lies in the earnest pursuit of a worthy object. Beware of adding by
+your presence to the number of young men about town, who are all sail and
+no ballast, and whose wreck sooner or later is produced by the very
+surface spread to the fickle winds of passion. Balance yourself by the
+weight of conscious responsibility; guide yourself with a single eye to
+the mark of true living. Be something--a genuine reality--not an empty
+sham--something in power and in position, not one of the nothings who
+parrot the reigning follies and vices. Be yourself--yourself as God has
+called you to be by the gift of your powers and opportunities, instead of
+trying vainly to be somebody else, by affecting ways and honors never
+intended for you; yes, be yourself, even if your genius bids you work at
+the mechanic's bench or at the machinist's lathe, instead of trying to be
+somebody else in a profession for which you are not adapted, or in aping a
+lazy gentility which is a disgrace to any rational creature of God. Be
+thus something--be thus yourself--and you cannot be false to man or God. A
+true master purpose will quicken and energize the whole being. No longer a
+prodigal yourself, your spirit so free and devoted, so blending hearty
+manliness with earnest faith, will lead many a wanderer home.
+
+
+
+
+Education of Daughters.
+
+
+
+
+EDUCATION OF DAUGHTERS.
+
+
+"Nothing is more neglected than the education of daughters," said Fenelon,
+in the first sentence of his noted work on the subject. This cannot be
+said with truth now, when so much time, thought and money, are given to
+their instruction in the most opposite quarters. Whilst thinking upon this
+topic, it seems to me as if every one of its leading aspects had sent a
+representation of itself to help our judgment. This month, even the
+stranger in our city must have had his attention attracted by the costume
+and speech-making of the somewhat brave champions of the Woman's Rights'
+party, who have been holding their conventions; and, as if to show up one
+extreme by another, the debates of radicalism have run parallel with the
+rites of superstition; and, on his way to the hall that rings with
+feminine voices that claim masculine honors, he may as he passes many
+churches catch the strains of those vesper hymns to the Virgin Mother, by
+which Romanism strives to make this beautiful Mary confirm its daughters
+in the faith, by that ideal of womanhood so deified in its own loveliness
+without need of any borrowed grace of man's.
+
+In his next morning's walk, he will see in the many processions of
+boarding-school girls promenading with no very elastic step, quite another
+aspect of woman's destiny, and one that may give him mingled feelings as
+he meditates upon the future of American mothers and their posterity. If
+the stranger comes from a foreign country, he will be interested less in
+these three aspects of the subject, than in a fourth of far less assuming
+air. He will be more impressed with the looks of the daughters of the
+people, with cheery step on their way to the public schools, than with the
+champions of reform, the pupils of fashion, or the devotees of the ancient
+ritual. Surely the education of girls is not neglected among us; yet,
+whether it is wisely attended to, is one of the most serious and pressing
+questions of our day,--a question in which every family is vitally
+concerned. There are few readers who are not ready to give some thought to
+the true idea and method of female education.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We must look for the true idea reverently, as under religious guidance,
+not according to our own caprices or opinions. Nothing surely should awe
+our wilful conceits into docile attention, more than the effort to find
+the calling and the place of the being beyond all others dependent upon
+our care. Where but in the school of the Creator and Preserver himself,
+shall we learn what our daughters are called to be under his Providence?
+Where but therein shall we learn to decipher that fair and wonderful
+hieroglyph which God himself carved out in the person of Eve, and which
+remains to this day the most expressive cipher of heaven's grace and care.
+
+The language of the Psalmist, so often quoted, is sufficient to define the
+idea of female education when freely interpreted. If our daughters,
+according to his prayer, should be as corner-stones, polished after the
+similitude of a palace, it is clear that their education is to have
+accomplishment and solidity such as to fit them for their place as the
+main supports of social life. They are to be polished stones. Does not
+this expression bring the sanction of Holy Writ against the too frequent
+notion that woman is made only to be the servant of man, and that her
+chief destiny is to be the drudging underling of his will; not like the
+polished stone of a palace wall, but the rough rock at the
+foundation,--useful, indeed, but buried under the dust. This idea exists
+not merely in savage countries, where woman is actually man's slave, and
+reared to be such from childhood, so that a thoughtful mother mourns when
+a daughter is born; but our own Christendom reads its own darkest chapter
+in the condition of woman, so often forced to drudge for scanty bread and
+raiment, perhaps abused by the very man upon whose bidding she waits, and
+who dements himself in drunkenness whilst she plies her thankless tasks.
+In many quarters where such abominations would be condemned, views
+radically the same are held, and an idea of woman's destiny prevails
+which takes her from her rightful place as the equal of man, which sinks
+her into his drudge, without time for intellectual and spiritual culture,
+with little of the leisure and conversation that beguile care of its
+sting, and toil of its weariness. Nay, how often is this destiny
+unconsciously entailed upon daughters by thoughtless, yet not consciously
+unkind, parents, who train up their girls without high aims and enlarged
+views, sending them into new homes so poorly endowed with commanding
+motives and practical knowledge, as to sink down into the dull monotony of
+domestic drudgery. Though the hands may not be overtasked, if the soul is
+weighed down to a servile routine, without sentiment or spirituality,
+woman is the slave of man,--the neglected rock beneath his dwelling, and
+not the polished stone of his home.
+
+But this is not the chief danger now, but an opposite extreme equally
+degrading. The danger is not that the daughter shall lack polish, but that
+she will have but little else; and, instead of being a polished stone,
+shall be a polished vanity with no substance at all. Nothing can be more
+false and fatal than the notion that a daughter is to be educated for
+show, whilst the son is to be trained for usefulness. In her own way, the
+sister has quite as much strength of character as the brother has in his
+way, and she is cruelly treated when regarded only as a graceful toy.
+Sometimes this extreme meets the other, and she who in her girlhood was a
+dainty plaything, becomes in womanhood a plodding drudge, without a
+particle of worthy spirit or elevated thought to retain the love won by
+her beauty, or to replace the fervor lost with her youth. It is very wrong
+to make accomplishments the main thing in female education.
+Accomplishments are poor tricks, unless their polish is but the smoothness
+of substantial knowledge and judgment. A showy girl who can dance, sing,
+and prattle two or three foreign languages, without being able to speak
+and write sensibly in her own tongue, is one of the most lamentable of
+counterfeits, and may chance to blight the peace and dignity of more
+hearts than one by her shams. She is the product of that flashy system of
+training, which is doing more mischief in America than any where else, and
+making society a tawdry Vanity Fair instead of a companionship of hearts
+and homes. Not a few of our daughters seem taught to think that
+distinction in society is graduated by clothes and confectionery, and to
+measure their social honor or obscurity by their ability to follow the
+silly code of extravagance. If the folly were confined to those who have
+such affluence as craves prodigality in expense to reduce the overplus, it
+might be comparatively harmless, but it bears most severely upon families
+of limited means, where mothers and daughters are in a fever to ape the
+extravagance that they ought to pity. Why all this infatuated excess in
+dress? What do our daughters, in their tender years, need for their grace
+and dignity beyond the simplest costume that good taste dictates as the
+fit robing of girlish innocence? Even a pure French taste, which, in other
+respects favors such excess, teaches an almost Christian simplicity in
+this respect; and the spectacle, so common with us, of school girls
+bedizened with costly dresses of all colors, and loaded with jewels, would
+be ludicrous in a Parisian drawing-room, as a walking, jingling toy-shop
+attached to a human creature. It is a fine remark of Fenelon in rebuking
+the foolish passion for dress, that if daughters were educated in a purer
+classic taste, and would study the beautiful in the schools of painting
+and sculpture, they would shun many excesses in costume on account of
+their deformity, as well as their extravagance. What judgment the good
+archbishop would have passed upon our present mode of sweeping the dusty
+sidewalks with costly robes of silk and velvet, we have no means of
+judging, for this folly seems a recent invention. What a recent French
+moralist, who claims to walk in the path of Fenelon, says of France, is
+doubly true of America: "The great care," says L'Aimé Martin, "is to
+please the world, rather than to resist it: the wish is to shine, to
+reign:--vanity, that is the end to which tender mothers do not cease to
+point their daughters, and upon which the world that pushes them on sees
+them wrecked with indifference! Vanity in accomplishments! vanity in
+dress! vanity in learning! This show covers all: to seem, not to be, makes
+the sum and substance of education." These strong words must have cost the
+bland French moralist some pain; but does not their strength come from
+their truth? Do they not apply, with fearful truth, to American society?
+Does not the prevalent code of feminine ostentation bear with cruel
+weight upon our domestic life, making almost a social necessity of the
+merest conventional artificiality, and raising up a generation of listless
+imbeciles, who measure their social salvation by the magnitude of their
+exactions and the littleness of their achievements? in short, setting up a
+code of dignity, in which utter uselessness not seldom bears the highest
+honor. It would be, probably, a somewhat peculiar revelation, if the young
+women who go from boarding-schools into our gay society were to submit to
+a thorough catechizing as to what they expect to receive in the world, and
+what they expect to do in return. The statistics thus gathered might shed
+some light upon our social and political economy, and disclose a standard
+of empty extravagance, not very common among the titled nobility of the
+Old World. Away with the error upon which the whole mischief rests,--the
+error that our daughters are not rational creatures, and that the very
+strength of their character is not the best reason and rule of their
+accomplishment. Let them be polished stones, not tinsel, with a refinement
+and solidity worthy their endowments.
+
+Associating thus the attribute of polish with that of solidity, in our
+idea of the education of daughters, we complete the definition by
+maintaining, that the two qualities should be so combined as best to fit
+the daughter for her providential position as the equal of man; not his
+rival, nor his slave, nor his toy. We claim for the daughter entire
+mental, moral, and religious equality with the son, yet find in the law
+alike of nature and revelation a distinction between their gifts and
+spheres. It would be merely beating the air to argue either point,--to try
+to prove that woman has all the faculties of human nature, and if, in her
+case, they are otherwise adjusted than with man, the difference is such as
+to forbid boasting on either side, and to favor mutual help instead of
+selfish rivalry. Nor need we couch our lance against the reform school
+that claims for woman a masculine position, and asks to have all offices
+open to her ambition or zeal. We are little in danger of such
+extravagances, and our daughters are more likely to slight the high moral
+influence now within their sphere, than to hanker after the notoriety of
+professional life or anniversary platforms. Our current modes of society
+are so lenient towards those who unsex themselves on the stage, or in the
+ball-room, that the moralist need trouble himself very little with the
+loquacious sisterhood, that seems determined to have the public ear upon
+most exciting questions. The most discouraging thing in their prospect is
+in the indifference of their own sex to their appeals. Men prefer to hear
+women talk in a less obtrusive manner; and women seem likely to follow
+their time-hallowed precedent, and to have men for their orators, leaders,
+physicians, and preachers. The freest system will not alter the divine
+order, and whatever worthy reforms may come, the end will be the
+reconsecration of woman in her true sphere--as the equal, not the rival,
+of man. Hers will still be full half the world, and the best half of it
+too. To be the polished corner-stone in the palace which the ruling heart
+makes royal, is honor and responsibility enough. To carry out this idea
+of the education of daughters by a just method, is a work second to none
+other to be done or meditated in this world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What have we to say of such a method? Nothing but simply to appeal to
+God's own will as shown in the daughter's faculties and in the spheres in
+which she is called to move. Let the method be such as best developes her
+powers and fits her for her position.
+
+How great a thing it is to understand a soul, said Theresa of Spain, in
+view of the young hearts committed to her care after all her own trials of
+faith. How great a thing it is to understand a daughter's mind in which
+sensibility, that demands sympathy, has so much larger a place than logic,
+that needs only to be reasoned out. We believe that there is sex in mind,
+and that the essential type of womanhood appears equally in the example of
+the highest culture and genius, as in the average standard. Every page
+shows the woman's guiding pen, no matter whether a De Staėl or a Godwin
+ranges into the bolder realms of thought, or an Edgeworth or Hemans walks
+among the daily affections and cares of life. A true culture must be based
+upon this fact, and the mind must be trained in accordance. Little may be
+gained by persisting in making a dry logician of a school girl, for
+abstract reasoning is rarely a woman's forte, but precisely on that
+account, the reason must be appealed to by the living truth, which will
+find a ready response from perceptions so quick and intuitive as often to
+see at a glance what the logical understanding will with difficulty argue
+out.
+
+It is a great mistake to try to train a girl to be a man in cast of mind
+or way of life. We can never slight the hint of nature without bringing
+down her retribution, and temporary success but delays the evil day. What
+better instance of this error have we than in the memoirs of that gifted
+woman so well known to most of our readers, and probably a personal friend
+to not a few of them, Margaret Fuller Ossoli? Her mental career is now
+made public property by able and congenial biographers; and who of us does
+not see the unconscious cruelty of the stern discipline which sought to
+mould her mind after the masculine standard, and which so repressed the
+springs of feminine power, until Providence took the noble woman into its
+own school, and the wife and mother learned a wisdom and a peace that
+classic letters and metaphysical theories never taught her; nay, far
+beyond the stature of the "Muse," and the "Minerva," that were once her
+chosen types of female dignity? Honor to her name, alike for the mistakes
+and the excellencies illustrated by her eventful life?
+
+Truly trained, the girl will have as much _reason_ as the boy; and hers
+will be more intuitive, whilst his may be more formal and severe in its
+_reasoning_. Strength of character will be hers, not, perhaps, so much the
+stern sense of justice that most marks the masculine conscience, as the
+full and earnest affection that adds mercy to justice and love to duty.
+Force of will shall be hers, not perhaps the iron will of man, but what is
+quite as well, and in its place better, the heroic patience that conquers
+evil by enduring it. The result shall be a disciplined, sagacious
+intellect without masculine hardness, delicate sensibility without
+imbecile listlessness, active energy without moping drudgery, a
+combination of powers and graces that wins homage from every heart.
+
+I would not adopt any definition of woman's powers less generous than the
+hint of nature and the will of God. Rather allow the largest scope to the
+development of every gift, and trust the feminine instinct to vindicate
+its own prerogative, whatever be the talent called into requisition.
+Marked cases show that the feminine mind may sometimes have the faculty
+for the severest mathematical reasoning, and England and America have been
+taught this fact by the philosophical achievements of women who are an
+honor alike to the delicacy and the intellect of their sex. Full well do I
+remember a visit to William Mitchell the Nantucket astronomer, years ago,
+when I saw that the father and the daughter had each a station and a set
+of instruments for taking simultaneous observations of the heavens. Since
+that day a gold medal from the king of Denmark has marked the daughter's
+triumph as the discoverer of a new comet. I am not ashamed to say, that at
+the time of the visit I had been several days puzzling over a difficult
+sum in algebra, and that, with a few touches of her pencil, the young lady
+made clear as day what I had but suspected, that the difficulty was in an
+error of the text-book. She evidently understood Arbogast's polynomial
+theorem better than I did.
+
+But the great difficulty in this whole matter is not so much in a proper
+definition of characteristics to be cherished, as in the application of
+proper motives to bring out those characteristics. With boys the motive is
+near at hand, for the world speaks to them with its imperious voice and
+bids them prepare for some specific post of profit or ambition. Without
+such practical spur, our sons would be a languid generation, since
+self-culture merely for its own sake, as an amateur pursuit without any
+specific object, is a dull affair, that very feebly goes. Even those young
+men who have had a thorough collegiate education are very apt to forget
+their learning, and to lose their literary gift unless they carry out the
+work of education in actual affairs and keep their attainments by using
+them. What shall take the place of such motive in the education of our
+daughters? What aim shall we place before them in their early studies and
+keep before them in after years? Serious indeed is the question, and too
+frivolously answered by the hosts of bright girls who go from school into
+a career of folly and dissipation.
+
+There can be but one answer, and that the most Christian word. It is
+simply this:--"Daughter, you are under God's rule, and all your gifts and
+acquisitions are sacred trusts. Consecrate them by a true service. Look
+upon your life as folly and nothingness, until you regard it as a solemn
+charge and resolve to use its opportunities faithfully. Choose in the
+first bloom of your hope the true, the Christian standard of character,
+and give religion the grace and power of your youthful enthusiasm. You
+have from Heaven itself a sacred commission, large as the sphere of your
+sex, specific as the compass and aim of your own individual talents and
+position." Take this ground, and it will appear that the daughter will
+find in her own religious susceptibility, and in the Divine grace, a
+motive to self-culture as efficient as the son finds in the spur of
+business and competition. Both indeed need the same religious discipline,
+but the one needs it more as an impelling, the other more as a restraining
+motive.
+
+Let the motive spirit be just and fervent, it remains a question with
+daughters what shall be the chosen purpose of their after lives.
+Circumstances must in some measure influence their choice, for with a
+large portion, not merely taste, but the necessity of securing a
+livelihood, is to be consulted. But in either case the law of fitness is
+to be the guide; and all, without exception, make a sad mistake, who do
+not train themselves to some pursuit capable alike of adorning their
+affluence and of guarding them against need. It is very clear that there
+is some fatal error in the physical education of girls that needs
+correcting before they can be sure of any independence of position. "Very
+few girls that I know are well," said a lady some time ago in speaking of
+the large circle of scholars under her observation. As American boys are
+not wanting in robust health, there must be some radical error in the
+training of the other sex, that they are so fragile, and that they fade
+and languish so prematurely. It is obvious that the power of the free air,
+generous exercise, and wholesome hours and diet, is too little understood,
+whilst the confectioner's trash often takes the place of substantial
+food, and the delicate nerves that the fresh breezes of heaven, the cold
+water of the spring, are so ready to soothe and brace with genial health,
+are sometimes insanely dosed with brandy or opium at caprice to an extent
+that might be too much for the constitution of a Goliath of Gath. There is
+no reason to believe that our daughters are doomed by nature to be less
+healthy than our sons, or less fitted for a field of usefulness congenial
+with their gifts. Small indeed in comparison with the field opened to
+sons, is the sphere at present for the talents of daughters. But small as
+it may seem, it has not yet been fully occupied, and it will be sure to
+enlarge when its capacities are faithfully tested. Certainly the saddest
+limitation of feminine competence comes from overdoing some few branches
+of labor, and there are great departments of the useful and the beautiful
+arts little resorted to by their skill. For ourselves, we have no fear of
+harming the delicacy of our daughters by opening to them any honorable
+field of culture or industry to which their tastes and talents call them.
+It is a sacred duty to employ well every faculty given by the Creator, and
+full and fair opportunity to develop all their gifts should be afforded.
+If young women wish to be lawyers, preachers, physicians, or merchants, we
+would put no harsher obstacle before them than our honest opinion that
+such is not their providential career, whilst we would do every thing in
+our power to throw open to their pursuit those spheres of action most
+congenial with their nature. In the industrial arts who shall number the
+departments in which the quick perception and ready fingers and
+instinctive neatness of girls would fit them for success more than the
+other sex? Who shall limit the range of beautiful arts open to their taste
+and genius? What may they not do with the pen, voice, pencil and chisel?
+Who shall begin to unfold the future of woman as the Providential teacher
+of mankind? Who shall adequately measure her present power over the young?
+Honor to the teacher, whether with or without a mother's motive! Honor
+to the host of teachers who are now bearing to every border of our
+own land, the seeds of sound learning and social refinement. The
+school-mistress--not the crone whom Shenstone once painted--but the
+earnest, hopeful, high-minded daughter of a worthy home, is one of the
+ruling powers of our land, and at her approach barbarism yields and
+civilization reigns. I know well what I am talking about, and from years
+of pastoral experience I have learned to bless her work and worth.
+
+But without dwelling more on this topic of employment, or expatiating upon
+the gifts of daughters for teaching in its various branches, and the
+demand for a higher order of teachers than are now easily found, may we
+not say that society among us is sadly crude and imperfect, from the
+inadequate culture of those especially called to be its light and joy?
+What art among those called beautiful or useful, can rank above the art of
+guiding the economy of the home, ruling its prosaic abilities so aptly,
+that they too shall wear an ideal expression, and the peace of God shall
+go with the goods his bounty hath provided? Who shall exaggerate the
+worth of the conversational power so congenial with the natural eloquence
+of women, and so apt for want of culture or high purpose to degenerate
+into the poorest gossip? Who shall over-estimate the power of her who,
+from a full and ready mind bears to every circle the charm of an apt,
+sparkling, and kindly utterance, making beauty a spiritual benediction
+where it exists, and where beauty is denied, making up for its absence by
+a grace that no loveliness of feature can rival? Blessed indeed this
+ministry, when deep and holy faith completes the consecration, and our
+daughters employ for the solace of the afflicted, or the light of the
+benighted, the gifts and attainments which make their name so blessed
+among friends and in homes.
+
+Polished corner-stones of the temple, they are then builded upon Him who
+is the chief corner-stone, and parents with all their solicitude for
+beings so tenderly framed, and so exposed to the vicissitudes of the
+world, may leave them in perfect faith in guardianship of a heavenly
+goodness that cannot fail them. Great wrong we do them, unless, by the
+most decided precept and example, we lead them to the Heavenly Father,
+through the Gospel and the Church of Him, who is the Way and the Life.
+What miserable folly it is that looks upon feminine piety as a weakness,
+coming from an understanding too feeble to doubt, or a will too infirm to
+be self-relying! The daughter's strength and wisdom are in her faith and
+love. The mind is most illuminated when most opened to the light that God
+sheds upon the confiding, and there is many a house in which the wife and
+daughter's piety rises into a wisdom far beyond the husband and brother's
+hard worldly understanding. Bless God for the mission of Him whose deepest
+truth and inmost life were revealed to the sisters of Bethany, when hid
+from the Scribes and the Pharisees, and who found in their spiritual
+sympathy a solace which did not desert him, when his foremost disciple
+denied his name. It is the recipient soil, tender and watered by gentle
+dews, that nurtures the acorn into the oak by an alchemy that the flinty
+rock knows nothing of. Thus has it been with the mighty seed of the Word.
+What would have become of it, had there been no feminine faith and love to
+receive and nurture it into the tree of life? May that grace which has so
+worked upon the heart of woman, and raised her from bondage, and given her
+a new throne on earth, work among us, and redeem our daughters from the
+snares of the world.
+
+_Week of Religious Anniversaries._
+
+
+
+
+Business and the Heart.
+
+
+
+
+BUSINESS AND THE HEART.
+
+
+Paul, the spiritualist and devotee, was eminently a practical man, and by
+what he did and what he said, gave it to be understood, that life has a
+serious business to be done, as well as a firm faith and hearty affections
+to be cherished. He himself was an efficient business man, and in his
+letters, preaching, and whole administration, he showed singular ability
+in dealing with men, and carrying his point in spite of their prejudices,
+or his own disadvantages. Even money matters, he did not neglect; but
+whilst rigidly simple and independent in his own habits, he had a wary eye
+upon the needs of the rising churches, insisted upon due charities and
+careful expenditure--nay, he expressly declared that the faculty for
+business was to be welcomed among the Christian gifts, and to be used for
+the common good, as decidedly as the faculty for teaching and exhorting.
+He bids men unite diligence in business with fervor of spirit, and a true
+service of God.
+
+"Not slothful in business," he said at a time, when in the first love of
+their new faith, many were in danger of slighting practical affairs for
+the raptures of devotion, or in impatience for the second coming of
+Christ, and the age of Millennial rest. "Not slothful in business," may we
+not say now, great as is the temptation with many to think, that we do not
+need any such advice in an age and country where business seems to ride
+over every thing else, and trample down all fervor of spirit and service
+of God. Reflect a little upon the clause in its connection, and we shall
+see how admirably all the words go together, and fill out the sense.
+Interpreting them so, we will speak of the business man in and out of his
+business character, and especially in his character at home, or as a man
+of affections--at home, that place where he must show pretty thoroughly
+what he is at heart, to family and friends. To see what he is elsewhere,
+we will look at him first at his work, for his course there will decide in
+a great measure his spirit elsewhere. Look into his store, or study,
+workshop, or office, and what is he doing? Whatever it may be, it is the
+serious work of his life, and is taking most of his time and thought. He
+says to himself, however much or little he likes his occupation, "This is
+my business, and thus I use my faculties, and earn my livelihood, and
+maintain my family, and win whatever means or influence I can for objects
+that I approve." He is willing very honestly to accept the motto, "not
+slothful in business" for himself and all in his employment. Does he know
+how much meaning lies within those words?
+
+Sometimes when he thinks himself a prodigy of care and industry, and in
+the fever of hurry and anxiety, he is almost ready to give up every holy
+thought and Christian feeling for the absorbing chase, is not his very
+turmoil the fruit of slothfulness? If he had been better disciplined, more
+thoughtful, more methodical, would he not have been spared all this fever
+of mind, and excepting, perhaps, certain peculiar emergencies, would not
+the care as well as the evil of each day have been sufficient for itself,
+and send him to his home with heart open to friendly affections, and ready
+to thank Heaven for sweetening the repose of his pillow by the work he has
+done? Surely there is no way to make business so troublesome as by
+neglecting it. The only way of being rid of it, is to do it well, and the
+most thorough and careful system is more favorable to peace and
+spirituality of mind than slipshod negligence. If a man does not attend to
+his business it will attend to him, and dog him night and day, like a
+baying hound in chase of a stricken deer. If a man goes beyond negligence
+and is dishonest, so much the worse, for the best experience says, that
+dishonesty is a mistake, as well as a vice--the poor resort of bunglers in
+trade, as well as pigmies in morals. Nothing frets, and in the end
+confounds a man more than to patch together a tissue of lies, and this
+trouble a thorough business training must shun.
+
+The very habit of earnest attention is wholesome, and need not end where
+it begins. Sluggishness of mind and heart is a sad foe to all true life,
+and he who studies generously, and does earnestly the work of any worthy
+calling, so far educates himself, and is open to all better influences by
+the discipline. Who of us, whatever our vocation, is not willing to take
+very modest views of himself in this respect? Whether in one of the
+learned professions, or in mercantile pursuits, have we been awake to the
+highest aspects of our position, and used its opportunities so well, that
+we may sincerely call it a liberal vocation? How many professional men
+there are, who are mere drudges among drugs, parchments, and ceremonials?
+how many merchants, may I not say, are there, who are profoundly ignorant
+of the history and relations of their own craft, ignorant of that
+wonderful science of trade which is changing the face of the world, and
+placing itself among the momentous facts of Providence. Consider the
+opportunities of a merchant to observe character, to study times, and
+nations; to procure the arts, books, and society best for the mind; to
+trace even the changes in the market to causes that connect themselves
+with the world's want or welfare,--then say, who is not slothful in
+business? Think too, of the best practical examplars of mercantile
+culture,--how much of those two ruling forms of practical ability, the
+soldier's and the statesman's, have combined in the merchant's enterprise
+and comprehension, and an emphasis beyond that of the market-place will
+attach to the words--"Not slothful in business." Nay, how can a man be
+thoroughly faithful to his daily calling, and use the judgment, energy,
+and punctuality essential to the best efficiency, without a training that
+looks beyond the shop or office, and introduces him into all the generous
+relations of life? In fact, what is business well understood, but the
+practical side of life in all its moral and spiritual aspects, as well as
+its bodily wants?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Certainly in its own way, the world is ready to require a certain kind of
+heartiness in practical affairs, and to regard a certain fervor of feeling
+as a pleasant trait in diligence. In its own way it will repeat the second
+clause of the apostle, and add "fervent in spirit" to "not slothful in
+business." The spirit of trade itself is among us very earnest, and those
+men are liked best by their associates, who grace practical energy by a
+good share of hearty fellowship and generous enthusiasm. This is well, but
+it is not all of the interpretation of the words. Fervor thus interpreted
+sometimes would be more fitly called fever, for it is more the hot haste
+of the blood than the genial life of the affections, more the gambler's
+madness than the disciple's zeal. Fervor in spirit means far less and far
+more than this--far less in extravagance and far more in power. It means
+that the cares of business should neither chill the heart with avarice,
+nor inflame it with passion; and that a man should be more spiritual as he
+becomes more practical.
+
+Does any one wonder at this statement? Some persons indeed speak, as if
+the spiritual and the practical were antagonist terms. But they are quite
+the reverse, and eminently in alliance. Consider them on their human and
+their divine side. What is more practical than spirit? what more essential
+to efficient action? Certainly he who acts out the most and the best
+spirit is the most practical man. He who is most experienced in training
+himself or others to practical affairs, knows very well that success comes
+according as spirit animates the daily routine, and each day's details
+grow out of a root of hearty interest. We really believe that the greatest
+business men have been full of spirit, and that the greatest spiritualists
+have been eminently practical,--the mere drudge being a faulty business
+man, and the mere dreamer a very poor spiritualist.
+
+But illustrate the principle on the divine side, by considering the method
+of God. Does He not work by His Spirit? He has breathed it, in some
+measure, into all creatures, chiefly into man; and is it not the necessity
+of its nature to work? There is something of it in every living thing, and
+this something is its true life. From our abounding harvests select a
+grain of wheat or corn. Within that little seed lodges a power which no
+man fully comprehends, but which is essential to the world's life. Ask it
+to explain itself, and it says not a word; grind it to powder, and the
+dust is but dust. Keep it whole, and in the spring-time within the ground,
+its spirit will come out first in the green blade, and last in the golden
+ears. This is always the method of God, to work from within outward; from
+the spirit to the work. What is the course of nature but the going forth
+of life from the spirit to the work, and from the work back again to the
+spirit, all genuine growth multiplying the vitality from which it sprung?
+It is what the philosopher calls the law of ultimates, or the process
+from firsts to lasts and from lasts to firsts. The Gospel is its best
+illustration; for it put a new spirit into men, and worked itself out in
+new works, all its works diffusing and quickening the spirit from which
+they sprung. It took hold of the world practically, and made it a business
+to do away with old evils, and build up a kingdom more enlarged, and
+kindly, and pure,--more spiritual than the earth had seen before.
+
+But how apply these thoughts to business now,--how insist upon fervor of
+spirit in pursuits whose aim is money-making; and, on our own principles,
+is not the spirit of trade itself the thing needed? We reply that
+money-making of itself is not the proper or the general end of trade, but
+only a means to a higher end. Trade is one of the essential forms of
+industry, and a true man will pursue it that he may do his part well in
+the world, and care well for all who depend upon or who justly claim his
+care. Money is one step in the process, not the end, and that man is a
+poor creature, below even the common worldly standard, whose success,
+instead of fixing his thoughts on his hoards, does not fill his mind and
+heart with new hopes for his family and friends, and people his unromantic
+counting-house with hovering images of his children and home, visions of
+ampler culture and nobler charities. Leaving out of the account some
+miserable creatures, who heap up gold for themselves, and crush their
+heart under the heap, we must allow that there is much heart in trade, and
+the better class of business men have kindly and elevated aims in view.
+How much the arts and sciences, letters, philanthropy, and religion, owe
+to the merchant, the whole career of commerce shows. Think of what trade
+has done for the higher aims of society; study the fruits of commerce in
+modern times; read of the Medici, the Roscoes, the Gurneys, and the noble
+men in our land who have endowed our best institutions, and say what you
+please of the miser, but say not a word against the true merchant. Justice
+may be his ruling virtue, but mercy is not wholly absent, since
+forgiveness is often called for, and no liberal merchant can be found who
+cannot repeat honestly the prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive
+our debtors." There is much heart in trade, yet not enough by any means,
+and a cold worldliness sometimes gains ground with those worthy of better
+things, and, in fact, desirous of better things. Men worthy of better
+things become more superficial and ostentatious with time and increased
+means, and, instead of acting independently and sensibly, join in vain
+rivalry of a set of people, whose emptiness is proved every time their
+mouths are opened. When shall the due check be found, and the true heart
+abound, and the spirit be fervent indeed?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We rest our answer upon the last clause of the apostle: "Serving the
+Lord." It places before us distinctly the true end of life,--the service
+of God, and insists upon our regarding this in the choice and conduct of
+our business, so that it shall be a part of our religion. Does this seem
+chimerical? Not so; for it is surely the only view of religion that
+business men will consent to call practical. They think little of mere
+professions, and judge of men by their doings. They make merry at the
+thought of trusting a man's word, because he belongs to some specified
+church; and they can quote too many cases of solemn persons who try to
+trade upon their alleged piety, who seem to think long prayers an offset
+to a little double dealing, and who, in more ways than one, shorten the
+commandments to piece out the catechism. Such judgment is well, only let
+it be consistent, and teach the judging party to look well to its ways,
+and lay hold of the substance in disgust at the mere shadow.
+
+Here is the liberal and strict doctrine: that all of life is under God's
+government, and should be conformed to the order of His law and
+Providence. Our business is part of our life, and should bear upon its
+highest spiritual interest. Any principle short of this is utter
+worldliness, and any principle that goes further than this, and shuts
+religion up in creeds and forms, is bigotry and superstition. The
+principle comes to nothing, unless it shapes our plans, and we start and
+go on with the resolution not to sacrifice true life in pursuit of the
+means of living. It comes to nothing, unless we follow a plan which makes
+a business of religion, instead of a religion of business, and insists
+upon a daily method which will give the mind and heart its due, careful
+quite as much of the claims of home affections, refined tastes, and
+elevating thoughts, as of the price-current and the market-place. Business
+is full of stubborn facts, and the true service of God or religion must
+be made as stubborn a fact as any of them, and keep its ground for all
+honesty, and purity, and kindness, and fidelity. It may be done, and the
+very method and energy trained in practical affairs may complete the plan
+of true living, and make and keep a place in the heart for home and
+friends, for humanity and God.
+
+Is there not imperious call for such service,--for a decided stand in
+behalf of the moral and spiritual interests of our being? If men are ever
+so successful, how poor their success is apart from generous and Christian
+aims,--how poor is wealth, if it is only the means of a demoralizing
+extravagance, and he who began life as an industrious worker sinks into a
+swollen Sybarite, pampering his daughters into simpering, vaporing
+fashionists, and his sons into dainty, inefficient, good-for-nothing
+spendthrifts. How noble, on the other hand, is success, when it helps out
+worthy aims; and the friend of arts and letters, charity and piety, it
+gives peace to the soul in rendering service to God. If success do not
+come, and reverses follow, how essential is the stronghold of faith and
+peace, which will not fail to keep a man safe from the worst evil if he
+has faithfully kept himself within its covert. For the demands of either
+fortune, as well as for the good, not temporal but eternal, men are called
+to add to their diligence in business fervor of spirit in the service of
+God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Street-preaching is, we are told, to be the order of the day, and the poor
+and neglected are to hear the Word from lips before strange to them. Not
+only in the haunts of the miserable, and the streets narrow and wretched,
+is such ministry needed. Many a street, stately with warehouses and banks,
+needs more than any thing a voice that can reach the heart, and enlist the
+chiefs of business in a service better than luxury and worldliness. No
+revival is more demanded than the conversion of the votaries of wealth,
+not to some new creed or mannerism, but to a true and godly way of life.
+In some way this must be done, and God must have the sagacity and force
+for his own cause which are so often in bondage to the world. His spirit
+must breathe new life along the great arteries of trade, and make men
+better without making them less strong, multiplying the examples of
+characters like Gurney the banker, devout and charitable without ceasing
+to be shrewd, or, like Peel the statesman, using the comprehensive
+judgment, learned in practical business, for the welfare of his country
+and the glory of God. We need and must have a new order of men, and of
+their coming many bright signs appear,--men at once practical and
+spiritual, knowing well the world and its ways; not to be its servants,
+but to subdue its fierce forces into obedience to the kingdom not of this
+world. There are dreamers enough, and drudges enough. The want is of men
+with eyes wide open, and hearts quick and true. In no age more than ours
+has the deep need and earnest hope of society better interpreted the
+apostle's definition of a truly practical man, "Not slothful in business,
+fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."
+
+God himself seems to stoop from heaven and show the worth of this
+character, in showing in himself the grand archetype of the practical
+mind. Nearer he comes, and reveals in all powers and laws, in the light,
+and air, and rain, in tree and rock, in earth and man, the working of his
+mind. He tells us anew, that he made the world, and that we find out the
+wisdom of his work, as we learn to do our work wisely. With him the useful
+goes with the lovely and the spiritual. Every dew-drop or sunbeam does a
+mighty business for him, and shows his loveliness and illustrates his
+service as it cheers the landscapes and helps the harvest. With reverence
+be it spoken, yet with all confidence: the God in whose image we are made
+is the eternal exemplar of the practical mind. In Christ we are followers
+of him when we do all our work earnestly, spiritually, faithfully, under
+his government; and open within our business a door into all the home
+affections and friendly graces of the earth,--all the sweet charities and
+blessed hopes of heaven.
+
+Let not the thought lose itself in generalities. Our business men are
+strong and earnest in many things, and are probably as enterprising and
+efficient as any set of men in the world. Merchants, do you hold precious
+your written obligations? What of the unwritten? What would your credit be
+if you slighted your business promises as you often slight your Christian
+obligations, and treated the world as you treat the moral and spiritual
+interests of your home and church? Think seriously and do better. In
+spirit and in truth as well as in energy, be "followers of God as dear
+children."
+
+Your pursuits train you to calculation; despise not the word, but keep it,
+and weigh it well. It is a noble word, and the calculus is one line of the
+Divine reason. God calculates,--he geometrizes--he seeks due proportion,
+and number, and weight,--he counts time, and the round of the seasons; and
+the paths of the planets point the days, even the seconds, on the
+dial-plate of the heavens, and prove the punctuality of God. Calculate
+well and as he does. The good Samaritan calculated when he took care of
+the wounded man, and the priest calculated as he left him by the
+road-side. Howard calculated when he gathered the statistics of
+philanthropy, and Arnold calculated when he sold his country for gold and
+ambition. Judas calculated when he betrayed his Master for the pieces of
+silver, and Jesus calculated when he asked, "What does it profit a man if
+he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in
+exchange for his soul?"
+
+Among the great facts of our welfare, place the mind and heart, home
+affections, heavenward thoughts, and our business will have new blessings
+from Him whom we serve.
+
+
+
+
+Summer in the Country.
+
+
+
+
+SUMMER IN THE COUNTRY.
+
+
+That was a beautiful and expressive ordinance of the Old Dispensation
+which enjoined a rural festival upon the conscience of the faithful. Every
+year the whole nation were ordered to pass a week in rural bowers woven of
+the boughs of goodly trees, in remembrance of the time when their fathers
+dwelt in the wilderness, and God led them to the Land of Promise. By the
+Israelites, the ancient festival is still remembered, and one of the most
+gifted of their modern writers thus describes its observance in Southern
+Europe.
+
+"Large branches of the palm and cedar, the willow, acacia and the oak, cut
+so as to prevent their withering for the seven days, formed the walls of
+the tent; their leaves intermingling overhead so as to form a shelter, and
+yet permit the beautiful blue of the heavens to peep within. Flowers of
+every shade and scent formed a bordering within, and bouquets, richly and
+tastefully arranged, placed in vases, filled with scented earth, hung from
+the branches forming the roof. Fruit, too, was there,--the purple grape,
+the ripe, red orange, the paler lemon, the lime, the pomegranate, the
+citron."
+
+This festival in its ancient form, Christians do not observe, although we
+may see some of its traces in the camp-meetings of Methodism and in the
+evergreen boughs of Catholicism. Yet its essential idea should, and does
+remain. Each year we are sadly dull and worldly, if the luxuriance of
+summer does not lift our thoughts to Him who sustained our fathers in
+their hard conflict with rude nature, and enabled them to change the
+savage wilderness into fertile fields, and peaceful groves. Grovelling
+indeed we are, if, upon our return from the pleasant retreats where we
+have sought rest and recreation, we cannot bring back some grateful
+remembrances of what we have seen and enjoyed in rural places.
+
+The old festival, kept as it was by the whole nation at Jerusalem, in
+green tents, was a kind of annual consecration of the relation between the
+city and the country. Thus the feast had at once a special and an
+universal meaning. The bigot may have thought only of the years of
+wandering, when, in nomad tents, the chosen race escaped from their
+oppressors. But more enlarged and sensitive minds, of the race of David
+and Isaiah, interpreted the season far more generously; and we are assured
+by the presence of Him who went from Nazareth to take part in the scene,
+that some eyes looked upon those rural tabernacles which stood among the
+streets of Jerusalem, as emblems of the permanent relations which man
+should sustain to nature,--of the constant ministry of the works of God to
+man.
+
+Our topic now is the relation between the town and the country, especially
+the power of rural life upon them who dwell in cities.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We consider first the various objects which present themselves for
+contemplation. Cowper's contrast may have been too strong, when he said
+that "God made the country, and man made the town," for, in both places,
+we are surrounded by the works of God and man. The farm, as well as the
+busy street, shows what human toil can do, and they that live in cities
+are in themselves, and in the plenty that sustains them, constant proofs
+of the bounty of God; whilst upon all places the sunshine and the rain do
+fall with equal mercy. Yet, in the country, we see more of nature in its
+divine adaptations, less perverted by the artifices of man. The eye is not
+limited by streets and walls to some narrow spot, nor is the landscape
+curtailed of its breadth and beauty to suit the grasping policy of
+traffic. Generally the hand of rural art and labor rather interprets than
+obscures the plan of nature. The regions well cultivated are often the
+most picturesque, and at once charm by their scenery, and instruct by
+their varied uses and adaptations. We see man in just relations towards
+the soil as its cultivator, and towards the animal world as their master
+and friend. He lives in close sympathy with the heavens, the earth, the
+animated tribes. The sun in its rise, and course, and setting, counts to
+him the hours, and divides his times of labor and repose. He breathes the
+air as the Creator mingled it, and draws from the soil something of that
+quickening, vital force, which the great Mother never refuses to her
+children, who seek her. He enlarges the circle of his friendships more
+widely even than in metropolitan coteries, and has friends among birds and
+fowls; while, with the sheep, and horse, and ox, as well as with kindly
+neighbors, he can keep company. He is daily called to see the harmonious
+plan of the universe, the co-operation between light, and air, and rain,
+and dew, between all elements and all creatures in the universe of God. In
+fact, apart from any philosophical curiosity, the very necessity of his
+calling must make him not a little a sage in the observation of nature.
+When science is added to observation, the greater, of course, the
+privilege of his position, the more readily does he unlock the treasures
+around him, and his rural hours may be hours of favored vision, nay, of
+sacred communion.
+
+But is not man the crown of nature? and where is man to be found in such
+perfection, as in the great centres where men congregate? If we would be
+wise, why not seek the great multitude and dwell most among the crowd? I
+will not disparage city life as a school of instruction in the science of
+human nature. He who knows nothing of the great market-places, and social
+resorts of his race, is ignorant certainly of our nature under very
+important aspects. But to be constantly mingling with men, is a very
+different thing from the true knowledge of man. The judicious analysis of
+a few characters will teach more wisdom than a superficial observation of
+ten thousand passers by, just as the dissection of a plant or an animal
+shows more of its structure than a glance at a whole kingdom or continent
+frequented by the same tribes. Human nature may be wisely studied wherever
+it is to be found, and if extent, as well as sharpness of observation is
+essential, we must remember that all men do not live in cities; that the
+country has its own forms of humanity; and moreover, that they who dwell
+among the great crowd, learn best in more quiet scenes to judge of the
+true meaning of the bustling life around them; and they that are wisest in
+their views of the busy town, are they who have been able to survey its
+characters and circumstances frequently, from the commanding elevation and
+distance of rural retirement.
+
+Men and their arts, indeed, appear in utmost number and force in cities;
+but without the constant reinforcements from the country, the tribute of
+fresh energy and enterprise, the products of mechanical ingenuity, and of
+agricultural labor, the metropolis would soon languish, deprived at once
+of its daily bread, and its best intellectual resources. Even the
+beautiful arts, which adorn the homes and halls of cities, appeal to an
+eye and taste that ought to be well schooled in the observation of nature,
+and the canvas can never reveal its best meaning to minds conversant only
+with crowded streets and busy marts. If we must go to the city to see the
+gathered treasures of rural labor and skill, we must go to the country to
+learn to comprehend the affluence of the city, to understand the secret of
+its wealth, and to interpret the wonders of its useful and beautiful
+arts.
+
+Surely, then, we cannot but recognize the worth of the country in respect
+to the objects which it presents. Its beauty, although in some measure
+expressive of the work of man's hand, is most eloquent with the glory of
+God. Its plainest utilities bloom into loveliness, and to a devout ear
+sing out in anthems. Its wealth speaks less of man's arrogance than of
+heaven's bounty. We might institute in this respect a comparison between
+the pursuits of men in town and country. They are in both situations
+toiling for gain, and in both cases more or less in competition with men,
+and in contact with natural laws. But in the country, men depend less upon
+shrewd bargaining, and far more upon the direct return of their labor in
+the products of the soil. They deal more directly with their Creator, and
+there is more constancy and security, if not so much excitement of hope
+and fear in their gains. Refreshing and instructive it is for those whose
+business habits lead them to look upon the chances of traffic as the
+source of wealth, to learn for themselves how much stronger security the
+Creator has given for the sustenance of man; and important as are finance
+and traffic, the best treasures of man come from the soil in return for
+his skill and industry. Surely the pursuits most habitual in rural life
+teach many a sober lesson to men fevered with the competitions of traffic.
+We might show also that the country may afford quite as valuable hints in
+the simplicity of its pleasures, as in the sobriety of its industry. They
+who are in the habit of regarding enjoyment as the result of some costly
+dissipation, need to learn of nature a stern, yet blessed lesson, and
+find that true happiness is not a far-fetched luxury, but is very near us,
+when we live near to God, and true to his laws. Wretched are they who make
+of their seasons of recreation but a new round of dissipation, and repeat
+the orgies of the winter in the retreats of the summer!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is often asked whether life in the town or the country is, on the
+whole, most favorable to the formation of character,--the pursuit of true
+wisdom, virtue, happiness. Without being obliged to take either side of
+the question, it is sufficient at present to urge the importance of
+guarding against the peculiar exposures of each condition; and especially,
+of urging people of the town to look well to the sins that beset them, and
+seek in the broad fields truths that they need in their own homes.
+
+They live in the midst of excitement and need sobriety. If they have more
+intensity, they have also more fever of mind, and may take counsel wisely
+of those whose temper is more serene, if, perhaps, sometimes more
+sluggish, and whose habits are likely to be more equable, if in danger of
+becoming sometimes monotonous. We absolutely need the influence of rural
+life to soothe our spirits and calm our nerves. The pulse itself abates
+its fevered beat, and the heart is quieted down into harmony with the
+gentler pulse of nature. If the town offers stimulus to the visitor from
+the country, the country repays the gift by giving calmness, and thus the
+power of new energy to the visitor from the city.
+
+A serene frame of body and mind is certainly one requisite of wisdom, and
+not the only requisite which rural life favors. We need to look beyond the
+horizon of fashion and conventionality, which we are so apt to mistake for
+the entire world, and correct our observations by careful notes of those
+forms of rural life, which, after all our city pride, we must regard as
+most expressive of the common lot of man in all nations and ages. The man
+who sums up all his views of rural manners in the contemptuous word
+_countrified_, will do well to remember that there is not a little reason
+to form a more contemptuous word in reference to such persons as himself,
+and call the fop, who mistakes his circle of loiterers for the human race,
+and his haunts of folly for the world of wisdom, as sillier than the
+simplest rustic, farther from the true mark in being _citified_ than the
+latter in being _countrified_. They that dwell in crowds very easily
+become very knowing, but not necessarily wise. They that frequent the
+haunts of vice and frivolity learn many things that do but add to their
+folly. They do not view life in its best aspects and true aims, nor
+interpret it as its Divine Author teaches. Even those whose minds are open
+to the true science of humanity, need to flee from the crowd to ponder
+soberly upon its lessons. In the busy world, they are constantly finding
+seeds of thought, but in a far less troubled soil these seeds must be
+nurtured and matured. Probably the wisest meditations upon man, society,
+Providence, have been engaged in by persons well taught indeed in the ways
+of the great world, but ruminating in quiet upon its teachings, and
+correcting the prejudices of the hour by the sober reasonings of calmer
+scenes and influences. To such truthful judgment of distant things
+surveyed from its serener retreats, rural life adds a wisdom peculiarly
+its own,--a wisdom such as Solomon so sagaciously incorporated in his
+proverbs, and Jesus so divinely presented in his parables.
+
+It would not be difficult to show the happy influence of familiarity with
+the country in teaching lessons of virtue--in bracing the frame for
+hardier labors--in urging the worth of the lesser ethics of frugality and
+economy, and the higher morals of true manliness and godliness. Virtue is
+moral strength, and is taught in every school that strengthens the moral
+energies. The genial air and simple habits of rural life favor manly
+fortitude, and a manly spirit. Poor would be the future prospects of our
+nation if they rested wholly with the dwarfed and fevered offspring of our
+cities. Our people would ere long lose their place among the nations, and
+would drop their heads in shame in comparison with men trained in hardy
+sports and healthful labors, as the yeomanry and gentry of England.
+Religion itself, which is the crown of true manliness, would languish if
+there were no more check to vice and skepticism than the check, strong
+indeed as it is, which metropolitan churches afford. How wonderfully the
+power of faith among the peasants of La Vendee withstood the sneers and
+threats of Paris, with its armed bands of Atheists in the great
+convulsion, when priests became scoffers and churches were places of
+rioting! How nobly our own churches have been favored by the words and
+thoughts of elect minds devoted to God and his truth, in peaceful villages
+away from the crowded marts! Where would the pulpit find the teachers that
+are needed, if its sole dependence were upon the youth reared in cities? I
+could not but think much of the power of rural life in raising up vigorous
+and independent preachers, whilst I was enjoying a few weeks of recreation
+in the lovely town in which President Dwight prepared himself for his more
+conspicuous ministry at New Haven. I have rambled with delight again and
+again over that noble Greenfield Hill, which he celebrated in a poem, and
+have not wondered that the vast and charming prospect, ranging as it does
+from the broad waters of Long Island Sound to the peak of the Catskill
+Mountains, should have made something of a poet of a theologian, sometimes
+so remorseless a logician. May we not see, however, in his theological
+works, and still more in the pages of his mighty predecessor in theology,
+Edwards, of Northampton, who, too, dwelt among scenes of singular beauty,
+ample proofs that nature never deserts her votaries, nor fails to breathe
+into them a spirit of beauty, that can live, after the harsh dogmas have
+perished like the husks that inclose the grain for the harvest.
+
+I would not disparage our town life, nor call it by any means godless. It
+is happy in being able to command so many resources, happy in being able
+to ally to itself so many influences not its own. Where there are souls
+there God may be known, and where learning and experience gather their
+treasure; we may find light upon the ways of God and his Providence. But
+very poorly do we study this manifold creation, and the word of its
+Creator, if we limit our horizon to the streets and walls, and business
+and pleasure even of the greatest metropolis. The Bible itself--that book
+so full of the poetry of nature--from its first to its last chapter, from
+the Old Eden to the New Jerusalem exhaling the fragrance of fields and
+breathing the genial air of rivers and mountains,--lifting the soul to God
+by the contemplation of his works,--the Bible is a sealed book to us, if
+we do not always read its parallel revelation in the heavens and upon the
+earth. There is an expression in nature which must be caught, like that on
+a friend's countenance, from itself. Description is not enough, and the
+best scientific analysis, however valuable as an aid, is but a poor
+substitute for the original reality. God speaks to us still in his works,
+and what prophets and bards of old have heard, we may now hear. We may
+hear it perhaps all the more eagerly for the comparative rarity of the
+privilege. They that are trained in cities wisely yearn to breathe the
+country air, and in its diviner meaning, interpret the landscape. Pastoral
+poets and rural philosophers find their fondest admirers in such minds.
+Who has exercised this blessed ministry of the interpretation of nature
+better than Wordsworth, poet and philosopher at once as he is? With all
+their exquisite refinement, and their sometimes mystical sentiment, his
+poems are tinted with the hues of sky and mountain, lake and meadow,
+eloquent with the voices of the seasons, breathing the calm spirit of
+nature in its pleadings with the rebel temper of man. In how many of us
+they awaken blessed remembrances of our childhood, refresh us in our worn,
+anxious, and weary life as with the gush of living waters, and the sight
+of grassy meadows! Kind Heaven would not have us lose the companionship of
+nature, and has given us elect minds as well as glorious scenery to be its
+interpretation. There is peace as well as power in listening to such
+ministries. Nor do I fear to place upon this list, those men who have
+brought a fine taste and genial humility to the culture and adornment of
+the soil, the improvement of rural architecture and landscape gardening!
+What name deserves more grateful mention than that of Downing, that lover
+of nature and of the art that best interprets her ideal. I know of no
+village which does not bear directly or indirectly some mark of his mind,
+in the form of a cottage or school-house, or a garden devised after his
+idea. He has brought out the wealth of our forests, and in our summer
+retreat, many a tree that else had been cramped and hidden in the swamp
+has whispered his requiem to our ears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The course of thought which I have pursued regarding the objects and
+influences of country life, will find an answer in many of my city
+readers. We need no tent of green branches to quicken our remembrance of
+Heaven's bounty to us and our fathers in our relations to rural scenes.
+Our memory has a leafy arbor of unfading foliage, in which we may every
+day celebrate God's goodness to us in the gift of so noble a heritage,
+where we dwell and where we may visit.
+
+It is not well to conclude these thoughts upon the influence of scenes
+upon character without urging home the truth, that our ruling principle is
+the main index and source of character; and he is sadly deluded who trusts
+to any position to secure his virtue or to excuse his vices. Apt enough we
+are to be discontented with our lot, and to burden fate or Providence with
+the blame that is our own. We imagine some more favored condition to be
+the sure warranty of success and worth. He who lives among the crowd
+ascribes to their example his vices, and he who lives among the fields
+refers his rudeness to want of better opportunity. Older than the Satire
+of Horace on human discontent is the wish of man for change of fortune,
+even as old as man himself. Better for him to make the best of what he
+has, and find his content thus keeping pace with his progress.
+
+He that dwells in the country, while he should use every opportunity for
+enlarging his circle of experience by travel, must take heed lest he
+slight the privileges of his own position. He may fall into the vices of
+the town among the simpler habits of his neighbors, and be eaten at heart
+by the worst passion while breathing the purest airs of heaven. He must
+learn simple truth of a power above man, or nature will not save him from
+corruption.
+
+He who lives in the city need not ascribe the evil that he suffers solely
+to circumstances, nor expect mental enlargement as the consequence of a
+cosmopolitan home. He must keep true simplicity in the midst of artificial
+conventions, and may narrow himself into an earthworm in the midst of the
+men and the culture of all climes and nations. He may be in bondage to a
+metropolitan mannerism which is quite as slavish as any provincial
+prejudice, and full as far short of a wise humanity as of a genuine faith.
+
+Better counsel do we need than crowds can teach or nature alone can
+unfold. Wherever we dwell, we are to look to a kingdom not of this world,
+and by communion with its sovereign Head, elect Messiah and sainted
+intellects, we are to confirm what is best on earth by what is most
+gracious on high.
+
+Still, though only in thought, need we weave our green bowers to tell us
+of the ancient march through the wilderness to the promised land, for
+still are we on our pilgrimage. Wisely do we keep the feast of tabernacles
+when we erect them at once in our remembrance and hope, looking upon the
+emblems of God's love for us in the past as the assurance of his love when
+the soul shall reach the river whose waters never fail, and rest beneath
+the tree of life whose leaf never fades, whose fruit never withers.
+
+_August._
+
+
+
+
+Returning Home.
+
+
+
+
+RETURNING HOME.
+
+
+Two commands God gave in the beginning and is always giving to his
+creatures. He bids them go forth and return, and the lives of all beings
+are divided between the two. The history of every man is but another
+version of the words, "He went forth and he returned." All his enterprises
+and all his results may be thus simply described.
+
+It is so common, especially in our restless time, to dwell upon the more
+adventurous change, that the milder is apt to be slighted, and, bent upon
+advancing, we make too little account of return as a primal law of life.
+How can we fail to see it written on all things that God has made? It may
+be read upon every dew-drop whose summons back to the heavens the morning
+sunshine brings, and upon every flower whose gorgeous petals signal its
+triumph, and herald the retreat of its vital forces to the earth whence
+they came. Every rising wave murmurs also of an ebbing tide, and every
+beat of the pulse sends back as well as forward the current of life. The
+heavens--they bear majestic witness of Him who rules their hosts. The
+stars are ever returning upon their courses, and marking the seasons that
+time the periods of man. Insect, bird, and beast, follow instinctively the
+same great law; by their transformations, migrations and quickened or
+diminished vitality, they turn in the recurrent cycles in which all things
+have their round. In all ages, thinking minds have been impressed with
+this great fact. We see the impression in the early memorials of sober
+thought. The wise preacher brooded over it, as he spoke of winds and
+waters returning on their path and of there being nothing new under the
+sun. It haunted the visions of the sages of the Nile, and stands out to
+the eye in that serpent symbol which teaches from tombs and temples the
+circle of eternity.
+
+Feeling themselves sometimes swept away upon this great current of events,
+inclosed in this serpent-fold of destiny, men have lost their proper sense
+of responsibility and sunk down into a passive fatalism. From this torpor
+God would ever arouse us, and have us see in the return, as in the going
+forth, the same providential plan--the same sphere of duty and privilege.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How full of privilege is this recurrent aspect of things! Led by the hosts
+of heaven, the seasons walk their benign round, and in their course they
+are ever renewing most delightful relations of life. In the calendar of
+nature there are far more festivals than fasts, and, to a well-taught
+mind, the recurrence of the sadder times and scenes of the year brings
+thoughts more blessed than the world's reckless feasting. Spring and
+summer are always new and always cheering, whilst autumn and winter teach
+lessons and may nurture affections more precious than their gayer
+treasures. The text of nature has ever a marginal commentary taken from
+the book of the heart; and as the text is read and re-read, the commentary
+grows in size and interest, for each year's repeated interviews reveal
+nature and the heart more fully to each other, and give variety ever fresh
+to a friendship constant as the law of God. The great universe was made,
+we must believe, more for the home of rational souls than for the
+playground of giant masses and powers of matter. What aspect of its
+vastness is more tender than that which exhibits its majestic changes as
+waiting upon the discipline and affections of God's children; the great
+sun lighting the laborer to his work, and then withdrawing its light to
+send him to the welcome of his home and the peace of his pillow; the whole
+starry host joining together to make and mark the days and months whose
+returning recalls some pleasant face of life and Providence, makes
+childhood glad, or age peaceful.
+
+Man himself has in his own being a periodicity corresponding with the
+cycles of nature. His active energies, his sensibilities, social and
+devout, his intellectual powers, have their recurrent periods. He is
+strangely ignorant of his own nature, who has not learned that there are
+times and tides within his own soul as well as with seas and stars. The
+plan of the benign Deity for him seems to be such as to secure at once
+constancy, and variety, and progress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Note well the constancy which God, the Ever Faithful and True, ordains for
+man by the recurrent order of his lot. He will not have life a chaos of
+scattered fragments, nor a stray meteor that follows no orbit. It must
+have its periods of outgoing and return. Whatever be our home, the object
+of our love or care, to that we must ever recur; and however capricious
+the humors, or eventful the career, every man's life falls into a certain
+circuit, and every heart revolves in some orbit by a law as sure as that
+which guides Arcturus and Orion. Man, indeed, may be so perverse as to
+abuse the law, but he cannot repeal it. He may give his heart to evil, and
+make his home with wickedness; but wherever he makes it, there this law
+finds him, and, in a round of habit good or bad, returns him after every
+wandering to his own place. Securing thus the constancy of his Providence,
+God teaches us to see the moral significance of the law of return. What a
+lesson is here upon the force of habit! Its power comes from God's own
+constancy, and woe to the man who inverts his nature so sadly, that evil
+instead of good walks in the appointed circuit. Every vice into which he
+falls constantly returns upon him, like the circling waters of the
+whirlpool, which run round and round until lost in the dark deep. Every
+good which he loves, every truth he accepts, every charity he cherishes,
+follows the same law; circling in the ascending order, like the vine that
+twines round and round its trellis, to lift its leaves and fruit into the
+upper air and light. The law of habit we cannot repeal, but our use of it
+depends upon ourselves. It is like the tides, which wait not our bidding
+to rise or fall, but which leave us free to launch wisdom and industry, or
+folly and rapine, upon their waters. The law says that man must return in
+his course. He must go home. Let a true life interpret the benignity of
+this Divine constancy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Consider, also, the variety which comes from the action of this law. The
+interest of existence depends in great measure upon a due proportion of
+constancy and variety. Were there no uniformity, the world would be chaos,
+society Babel, and thought madness; there could be no external stability,
+no intellectual consistency; the senses would recognize no familiar
+things, and memory could make no reliable record. Such a condition is
+hardly conceivable; although feuds and wars sometimes so disturb the
+stability of life as to give some idea of the fatal effect of such
+disorder. Without variety, moreover, the Divine plan would also be broken,
+and a dreary monotony would brood over paradise itself. Benign Heaven has
+blended the two elements in our lot, so that perhaps our highest pleasure
+consists in the return of familiar blessings with varied
+circumstances;--not in absolute novelty or absolute permanence, but in
+scenes, friends, and pursuits ever constant and ever new. Who does not
+know this kindly mingling of joys? What traveller is there in distant
+lands--lands which his boyish fancy has so long yearned to see--who does
+not feel more delight in the return than in the going away? No matter what
+beauties or sublimities of nature and art may have feasted sense and soul,
+the fairest sight is his own familiar home and friends,--the sublimest
+thought is of the God who guarded his childhood, and whose presence he
+feels more deeply as the guardian of his dwelling, than as the dread Being
+who piled up the Alps and poured out the oceans. In any aspect of the
+case, it is recurrence with variety that gives our being much of its
+finest zest. To talk with cherished friends after absence, to revisit
+familiar scenes and meditate on times past and present; to perform, under
+new influences and encouragements, the accustomed round of duty; how much
+of freshest satisfaction is thus found! It is the best novelty and the
+truest constancy. Old things are made new by the fresh spirit infused into
+them, and that which the apostle states as the feeling of a first convert
+to the Gospel, becomes a permanent aspect of life,--"Old things are passed
+away, and all things are become new."
+
+Happy the man who understands self-discipline, so as to secure this charm,
+and mingle constancy and variety in his pursuits. He will divide days and
+years in such a way that life shall be ever more constant and more fresh.
+No servile drudge to worldly care, no capricious pleasure-seeker who is
+always uneasy, because always sated, he will be a faithful worker and a
+cheerful friend, stronger for work by recreation, the wiser for enjoyment
+by his work,--filling his time with such varied uses, that recurrent
+duties shall be welcome to him each in its time, and every day's life
+illustrate in some way the varied uniformity of God's plan for nature and
+humanity. Great obstacles, we know, lie in the way of such order; for care
+is often too imperious and protracted, and pleasure too engrossing, to
+make true method easy; but the obstacles yield before a just purpose, and,
+in the end, every man is the artificer of his habits. He can make his life
+constant to its appointed round, and varied in its constancy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So God teaches us the moral significance of the law of return, by showing
+its bearing on the stability and freshness that give charm to our days.
+Yet more, he teaches us to find in it the true law of progress. He bids us
+return, but not the same, nor to the same,--he bids us return better or
+worse, and to a state of things better or worse. This is a necessity, and
+we are called to make it a happy necessity. Not in a circle of absolute
+uniformity, but in a rounding path, in a spiral course, we wind our way
+upward or downward,--our way turning indeed ever upon itself, yet at a
+higher or lower mark. The very structure of language indicates that true
+progress is the returning of the mind towards its previous experience.
+What is the accumulation of knowledge but remembering the facts of
+previous observation? What is wisdom but the fruit of reflection, or
+turning thought backward upon its course? What is repentance but
+conscience revising past errors? What is reformation but the whole man
+returning to himself and to God? It is progress that gives its most
+cheering aspect to the recurrent order of life.
+
+Return then to thine own home as each day, or week, or season repeats the
+decree. Return to do better than you have ever done,--to see more clearly
+than before the demands of your position, the errors of your way of
+living, your indifference, perhaps unkindness, towards those who daily
+look to you for a nurture, better than that of perishing bread. Return to
+thine own house, and consider whether among the guests there welcomed, the
+only abiding Comforter is entertained, and the good angels that go with
+him are not shut out. Return with thought more free to see things as they
+are from your temporary absence from the trammels of routine, with
+affections fresh from nearer companionship with nature, with powers
+renewed for the sober work of life. Let fortune smile or frown more than
+of old, make sure of your own soul, and do better than you have done.
+
+Constant and varied in many respects our life must be. God bids us add
+progress to the constancy and variety that he has decreed. True to him,
+our days in their returning order, their various events, their steady
+progress, shall go forward, like the march of the faithful host to the
+promised land, their step responsive, their way opening new attractions,
+their course ever onward, and above them, swelling sweet and clear, that
+glorious psalm of jubilee, which in its rhythmic verse and progressive
+flow ever returns upon the same rapturous burden, and repeats the
+hallowed anthem, "His mercy endureth for ever."
+
+Let this be our spirit, and we shall know how wonderfully God reconciles
+two things apparently contradictory; we shall know, that the greater our
+progress, the surer our return,--that more and more the blessed scenes and
+friends of early days shall come back to us. Memory shall mate with hope
+to cheer us, and the evening of life shall add to its own tranquil beauty
+the fairest charms from the morning of our days. The aged man turns ever
+fondly to his childhood, and may enter the kingdom of heaven like a little
+child, even before death unlocks its gates of eternity.
+
+What a thought here opens--opens to us as we return to our homes, and
+think of some who return no more! Beyond these homes, the orbit of our
+being reaches, and one, nay, many call to us, "Come." Over the grave the
+decree is still more solemnly heard. The words, "Thou sayest, return, ye
+children of men," mean more, far, than "dust to dust." "Return, ye
+children of men." "Dust to the dust whence it was,--the spirit to God who
+gave it."
+
+Christ repeats the call in more than the Hebrew's faith, in more, far more
+than the philosopher's hope. Futurity as revealed by him is the way
+homeward to Him from whom our being came,--to all the faithful and lovely,
+who have blessed man and glorified God. We will not scorn the
+philosopher's hope of earthly cycles recurring in progressive order, until
+our globe bears the perfected harvest of a truer civilization, and all
+nature comes to herself. This hope is well, but does not go far enough. As
+we and those dear to us leave the earth, we crave word of a return more
+blessed than any dream of earthly kingdoms and ages. We crave what God has
+given us. The soul about to go into a region by itself unexplored, yearns
+to know that the path is not to night and nothingness, but is a return and
+more than a return to God, the Eternal Father, and to the mansions that
+gather from all earthly homes their purest treasures, and transfigure them
+in the light of heaven.
+
+_September._
+
+
+
+
+The Church in the House.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE.
+
+
+In his letter to Philemon St. Paul salutes "the church in thy house," and
+thus brings home to us a fact which is too often put a great way off. He
+brings the church into the house, and thus makes an every-day reality of
+an institution, which is thought to belong to the disputed territory where
+controversialists quarrel, or the close walls where priestcraft rules. The
+church, what is it? many are virtually ready to ask. Is it a certain style
+of edifice, or platform of opinion, or set of ceremonies or band of
+officials? In the apostle's mind, surely it was a very tangible fact, and
+he closes his letter so full of friendly remembrance and delicate courtesy
+with an affectionate message to the church in his correspondent's house.
+He meant, of course, by the church the Christian people under Philemon's
+roof, whether those who lived there constantly or those who came to
+worship occasionally. The same greeting is several times repeated in
+Paul's letters, and fitly guides us in some thoughts on practising
+Christianity at home, or the Church in the House. We would show that.--
+
+  There should be a church in every house,
+  What makes it a true church in itself,
+  And how it may be true to the church universal.
+
+There should be a church in every house. Nay, we might indeed say, that
+there must be one there, unless the people are heathen or infidels. A
+church is a society of Christians for Christian purposes, and it is not
+easy to see how any worthy family can fail to answer to this large
+definition, if they will only think of it. Is not the compact which united
+the heads of the family to each other, and pledged them to their children,
+a Christian compact, expressly sanctioned by religion, as well as by civil
+law? Can the compact be kept in any tolerable sense without Christian
+influences, and is it not expected as a matter of course, that every house
+shall possess those standards of faith and practice, those Scriptures,
+which set forth Christ as Saviour and mark his people as his own? Is not
+all that is done in piety and charity within the household, as far as it
+goes, a ministration of Christianity? We certainly might justly take
+offence, if it were said of us, that the apostle's salutation could have
+no sort of application to our home, on the ground, that there is nothing
+distinctively Christian there. In all proper humility, consider how we
+have been educated, what books, what teachers we have enjoyed, what
+influences we have won from the great thoughts and great institutions of
+Christendom, what convictions we have tried to cherish amidst all our
+cares and changes;--consider these things, and would it be right to say
+that there is nothing Christian at home, nothing of the church there? Some
+families may indeed seem to be very worldly, almost godless; yet even they
+are likely to have among them, however unworthily; some traces of
+Christian institutions, and within their desecrated roof the Bible with
+its glad tidings, and memory with its treasured wisdom, and conscience
+with undying witness, still speak of God and Christ, and so far the place
+is holy ground.
+
+If thus in some sense there must be something of the church in every
+household not utterly depraved, is it not well to give importance to the
+fact, that what must be in _some_ way should be in the right way? Many men
+have been Christians without knowing it, and many families have been
+churches without thinking of it. All simple, unconscious goodness is to be
+honored; but it is not so frequent as to make conscious effort dangerous,
+nor will the most beautiful and spontaneous piety lose any of its grace by
+opening its eyes fully to what is to be done. Let the spheres of our life
+be distinctly seen, and the affections will be all the freer and fresher
+for the clear vision. Let it be distinctly seen, that they who live in one
+household, by that fact stand in close relations to each other, and have a
+faith to cherish and a work to do. Let it be seen, that the family was the
+oldest church holding its worship before temples were built or priesthoods
+formed, and that the true temple and the true priesthood, instead of
+repealing, do but consecrate anew the patriarchal church, and Moses and
+Jesus both give new power and beauty to the covenant with Abraham and the
+individual family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let there be a church then in every house. We now add, let it be a true
+one. What makes it such, do any ask? The apostle's benediction is a
+sufficient reply. To the church in thy house, grace to you and peace from
+God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace: these are the
+true consecration of the household. Grace, bringing into all souls the
+riches of God's favor, and winning them to him through a heavenly
+faith,--peace, drawing all hearts into unity, and harmonizing all labors
+by one ruling love. Grace--this comprises all that Jesus came to give to
+men, all the divine life that he would impart. Its source is God's own
+Spirit, his wisdom, his power, his mercy--and there is no way of defining
+it so good as the simple gospel way. Consider what was in Jesus, and what
+he gave to those that trusted in him, such a sense of God's being and
+goodness, such life of the soul, such assurance of a divine kingdom both
+present and future, such consecration of all faculties by one
+comprehensive faith,--consider this, and we best discern what grace is,
+and how it gives vigor and beauty to the household as to the individual.
+Its source is in God, but it is to be received by the soul's own will, and
+to open the soul to its influence has been the great effort of all worthy
+theologies, creeds, worship, ministers. We would not disparage any of
+them, while we do plead earnestly for the importance of the church in the
+house, with its own peculiar means of grace, its affections so demanding
+to be confirmed by a love that is divine, its pleasures so readily opening
+the soul to gratitude, its sacrifices so full of blessing when devoutly
+rendered, its labors so rich in the fruits of the Spirit when springing
+from a root of faith, its vicissitudes so eloquent in providential
+lessons, its memories so full of caution, its hopes so thirsting for
+immortality. God surely has opened in our homes precious means of grace,
+and blessed are they who by prayer uttered or unuttered--by devout trust
+spoken or unspoken, use these means sacredly as in the church of Christ! A
+transforming spirit will be at work there, and will transfigure all its
+experience by a divine light, and consecrate all its various gifts and
+faculties by a divine power.
+
+And in its train peace will come--not merely the quiet that checks harsh
+words, and regulates tumultuous cares; but the interior peace that
+tranquillizes each mind without breaking down its force, and harmonizes
+all diversities of talent and temperament without mutilating any nature.
+Peace, as the corresponding Greek word teaches, is that which binds
+together, and who needs this more than those whom God would bind together?
+It is a great thing to have it, and it was a great triumph of Christianity
+to give it. In some respects it was a greater triumph to win to living
+unity the various tempers of the primitive Christian families, than it was
+to subdue the empire of the Cęsars into one confession of faith,--greater
+certainly, inasmuch for various tempers to agree in all the numberless
+points of daily contact is more than to agree in the one point of a
+nominal belief. Paul, in defining the economy of the true church, began by
+declaring, that there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit.
+Blessed in many respects has been the comment of history upon that word of
+inspiration! Who that has any sense of God's use of providential men, does
+not adore the wisdom that has employed such various minds for the same
+great purposes, and made history such a book of Providence, telling us of
+the wise and good and mighty characters of insight or argument, learning
+or eloquence, sensibility or daring, who have done their part to build up
+the kingdom of God? The church is truer as this is better done, and all
+differences of power combine in one work. Carry out this idea at home, and
+what a sphere for that peace of God which would harmonize all diversities
+by one good spirit!
+
+In a worldly point of view shrewd men study the characters of their
+families with something of this aim, and desire to see what their children
+are best fitted to do, that they may choose such callings as shall bring
+out their powers best for the wealth or dignity of the household. This
+desire we are not quarrelling with, but enforcing a higher study of
+character that seeks to look more deeply into the mind, and provide far
+more thoroughly for the great work of life. Do not by any means fail to
+discern the mathematician, the orator, the mechanic, the artist, the
+farmer, or whatever else may be the varieties of talent in your family.
+But discern also the various faculties and dispositions in a religious
+point of view, that each may be duly guided, and all led to use their
+various gifts in the true heart. See the tendencies that need to be
+checked, and above all, those that need to be encouraged; and home
+education will be a Christian nurture in the peace that passeth
+understanding. Far more bountifully than many a kind-hearted but too
+worldly parent thinks, has Providence enriched the house with gifts that
+may be ministries. That boy whose restless impulse seems sometimes
+wilfulness, needs your discriminate care to win his impulse to a noble
+enthusiasm, and may be a reprobate if your neglect leaves him to his
+passions or your violence stings him to retaliation. That girl so keenly
+alive to what is pleasant to the eye and ear, may make of her native taste
+a motive to every vanity, unless you train the sense of beauty into
+reverence for the true loveliness and for the art that copies the
+handiwork of God and makes life beautiful in making it holy. That keen
+little reasoner who vexes you with so many strange questions, the doubting
+Thomas of your fold, may be the chilling sceptic, unless he is encouraged
+to be the thoughtful sage who can answer as well as ask. That sensitive
+child who is so awake to religious impressions, whose choice reading is
+hymns and Bible stories, and whose dreams upon the pillow seem often to be
+in the sweet land of Beulah which so cheered Bunyan's Pilgrim, may by your
+neglect become a morbid bigot, unless by your judicious sympathy she is
+encouraged to become a healthful devotee, cheering and exalting the home
+by that interior life that made Mary of Bethany love to sit at the feet of
+Jesus, which filled with such holy quietude the heart of Jane Guyon, and
+moved with such persuasive mercy the lips of Elizabeth Gurney and Mary
+Ware.
+
+We need not specify the varieties of character that require to be subdued
+or encouraged to the same spirit. Blessed is the home where such peace is
+found; and all are bound together in its unity! No cunning arts of mental
+training, no formal systems new or old, no technical dogmas, no mechanical
+ceremonials, much less can any cold worldly policy do this work. Grace and
+peace must be sought from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, and
+our thoughts, and studies, and labors quite as much as our prayers, must
+rest upon the rock of faith, and look to the blessing from above. Such
+grace and peace at once give strength to the utilities and beauty to the
+courtesies of the house, ruling its economy in a divine order, and
+refining its manners by a tender humanity. There may be various creeds and
+forms in the habits of the various members, yet all are harmonized by one
+faith and charity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such in brief is the true church in the house, and being such, instead of
+petting any narrow familism it will best favor the church universal by
+appreciating its office and helping its work.
+
+It will appreciate its office, for what can better interpret the meaning
+of Christian institutions than a faithful use of the social sphere, first
+of all in time and importance? As we try to be wise and faithful in
+matters nearest to us, how can we but cherish the wisdom kept by the
+church for ages, and the sacred usages which appeal so tenderly to our
+home feelings? How can we fail to honor the exposition of the Divine Word,
+the lessons of public worship, and those various ministrations that take
+such hold upon life as it is, whether to consecrate childhood into the
+privileges of the Divine kingdom, to implore upon human love the Divine
+blessing, to comfort the mourning, to rejoice with the happy, to
+strengthen the dying with an immortal hope, or set forth the Resurrection
+and the Life above the dust of the grave? For the sinful and the lonely,
+indeed, the church universal has a tender and solemn voice, but it is not
+for them alone. The city of God on earth which Jesus founded, has its best
+offices for those who live together in the unity of the Spirit, and the
+church in the house is a better interpreter of its riches of wisdom and
+joy than any conclave of ghostly monks or assembly of keen scholastics.
+
+Where such appreciation is found, true help will not be wanting. Helpers
+to the church will go forth from the household, well trained to further
+the various offices of general piety and charity. Every true family will
+take due account of its own numbers, means, and gifts, to give its just
+share of co-operation in every good word and work. Care for the poor,
+light for the benighted, counsel for the young, strength to the
+wavering--all will be duly given, and even the accomplishments that with
+the worldling are means of giddy dissipation, or vain show, with the
+Christian will be means of edification and comfort, so that winning
+manners shall win souls to God, and voices tuned to melody shall breathe a
+harmony not of this world, and give to the songs of Zion all the beauty of
+holiness. The spirit of antiquated error shall feel the wholesome
+renovation, and the fresh life of the church in the house shall go out
+into theological schools and conventicles, purging away old superstitions
+and carrying every where the catholicity of practical wisdom, wholesome
+sensibilities, and earnest good-will. Thus it is that in the later ages
+fountains of new power have been opened, and pure, genial home principles
+and affections have done more than Luther's theses or John Knox's sermons
+to drive monkery and all its brood of spectral charms and horrors from the
+church visible, and the prospect of the church invisible, and thoroughly
+to reform the creeds of men touching earth and heaven and hell. The end is
+not yet, and a truer, more earnest and affectionate Christianity is to
+carry out the great reformation and bring on a truer catholicity than the
+world has ever seen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus we meditate upon the church in the house, its necessity, its true
+character, its help to the church universal. The topic is itself its own
+personal application. The great point is this, that at home we are to live
+as members of a spiritual kingdom, and strive to infuse the spirit and
+carry the order of that kingdom into the feelings and habits of the
+household. Take this thought seriously to heart, cherish it in meditation
+and prayer, how can it remain idle? By paths seen and unseen, the heavenly
+grace earnestly sought, will enter into the economy of the family, and
+save its peace from the war of hostile tempers and the inroads of a
+domineering world. Wise, and kindly, and devout habits will be formed,
+which make religion at once a spirit and a law, free without being wilful,
+orderly without being mechanical, like the waters of Siloa that flowed
+sparkling in that regular channel so framed by God from rock, and made
+sweet will of their obedience to Him who holds the waters in the hollow of
+his hand.
+
+Such a household will have influences and associations peculiar to itself.
+The sons will be manly and tender; the daughters will be gentle and
+strong: parents and children in their mutual affections shall bring out
+the finer harmonies of human life, that show God's goodness even more
+deeply than the chants of the psalmist's choirs. As changes come, and the
+years pass, treasured remembrances shall fill the home with images sacred
+as the tablets and pictures of ancient chapels, and hopes more living than
+monumental marble can record in solemn church-yards, shall proclaim the
+resurrection and the life over the dead; the absent ones of the family
+will in thought always, and, when they can, in person, make reverent
+pilgrimage to the old hearth-stone; and they who die of that family,
+wherever they close their eyes, will have in the cherished ministrations
+of that church in the house the mightiest of all proofs of the eternal
+home. The house made with hands opens into the eternal spheres, and its
+own life repeats Christ's assurance of heavenly mansions. It will have a
+ministry seen and a ministry unseen, one seen in gentle charities, the
+other known by unseen influences.
+
+  "Uttered not, yet comprehended
+    Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
+  Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
+    Breathing from those lips of air."
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
+
+The following misprints have been corrected:
+  "themseves" corrected to "themselves" (page 20)
+  "diguise" corrected to "disguise" (page 107)
+  "may" corrected to "many" (page 107)
+  "unostentations" corrected to "unostentatious" (page 111)
+  "chidren" corrected to "children" (page 241)
+  "intepretation" corrected to "interpretation" (page 262)
+
+
+
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+<head>
+<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" />
+<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Hearth-Stone, by Samuel Osgood</title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+
+    p {margin-top: .75em; text-align: justify; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+
+    body {margin-left: 12%; margin-right: 12%;}
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+    .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right; font-style: normal;}
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+</head>
+<body>
+<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hearth-Stone, by Samuel Osgood</h1>
+<pre>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre>
+<p>Title: The Hearth-Stone</p>
+<p>       Thoughts upon Home-Life in Our Cities</p>
+<p>Author: Samuel Osgood</p>
+<p>Release Date: September 26, 2011  [eBook #37540]</p>
+<p>Language: English</p>
+<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p>
+<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEARTH-STONE***</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<h4>E-text prepared by Bryan Ness<br />
+    and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.pgdp.net">http://www.pgdp.net</a>)<br />
+    from page images generously made available by<br />
+    Internet Archive<br />
+    (<a href="http://www.archive.org">http://www.archive.org</a>)</h4>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10">
+  <tr>
+    <td valign="top">
+      Note:
+    </td>
+    <td>
+      Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/hearthstonethoug00osgoiala">
+      http://www.archive.org/details/hearthstonethoug00osgoiala</a>
+   </td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>The Hearth-Stone:</h1>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">THOUGHTS UPON HOME-LIFE IN<br />OUR CITIES.</span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center"><small>BY</small><br />
+<span class="large">SAMUEL OSGOOD,</span><br />
+<small>AUTHOR of &#8220;STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHY,&#8221; &#8220;GOD WITH MEN, OR FOOTPRINTS<br />
+OF PROVIDENTIAL LEADERS,&#8221; &amp;C.</small></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td><span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;This is the famous stone</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">That turneth all to gold:</span><br />
+For that which God doth touch and own<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Cannot for less be told.&#8221;</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 10em;"><span class="smcap">George Herbert.</span></span></td></tr></table>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">NEW-YORK:<br />
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,<br />
+200 BROADWAY.<br />
+LONDON: 10 LITTLE BRITAIN.<br />
+1854.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="center">Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858 by<br />
+D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,<br />
+In the Clerk&#8217;s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+<h2>PREFACE.</h2>
+
+<p>These thoughts are published for the same reason that led the author from
+time to time to put them upon paper,&mdash;a wish to meet a want in the sphere
+of the affections rather than to claim any honor in the kingdom of ideas.
+Wherever important questions have been at issue he has not avoided them,
+however conspicuous or controverted; but the volume aims to breathe a
+kindly spirit above the reach of sect and party. He is not ashamed to have
+his style show something of the habit of his profession, and to use, in
+part, ideas that he has expressed in the lyceum and the pulpit in a
+different form.</p>
+
+<p>It will be seen that the several subjects connect themselves more or less
+closely with a year&#8217;s life in the household, and that the light which
+cheers the whole twelvemonth is kindled on the hearth-stone at Christmas
+and New Year.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>The state of things in our American cities is now so peculiar, so marked
+by privilege and peril, that no earnest plea for home affections and
+virtues can be wholly thrown away. To dedicate books to conspicuous names
+is a custom now almost obsolete, and if the Author were to venture upon
+any dedication of this little volume it would read somewhat thus:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="center">TO THOSE WHO HAVE EVER LOVED HOME,<br />
+AND WHO WISH TO LOVE IT ALWAYS.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">New-York</span>, <i>Oct. 22, 1853</i>.</p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="5" summary="table">
+<tr><td>&nbsp;</td><td align="right"><span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>Page</td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Home Views of American Life</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_7">7</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Ideal of Womanhood</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_27">27</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Hope of Childhood</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">New Things</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Solicitude of Parents</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_79">79</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Reverence in Children</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_91">91</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Brothers and Sisters</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Marriage</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Our Friends</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_135">135</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Master and Servant</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Divine Guest</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Orphan</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Young Prodigal</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_199">199</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Education of Daughters</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_213">213</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Business and the Heart</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Summer in the Country</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_249">249</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">Returning Home</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Church in the House</span></td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_277">277</a></td></tr></table>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Home Views of American Life.</h2>
+
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">HOME VIEWS OF AMERICAN LIFE.</span></p>
+
+<p>What day of all the year gives an American a happier sense of his civil
+and domestic blessings, than the old feast of the ingathering&mdash;the
+time-hallowed Thanksgiving? Once more it has come round; and our pen is
+disposed to catch a little of its genial temper before the hearth-stone.</p>
+
+<p>This is peculiarly the home festival of our people, and throughout all the
+States of our republic it is affectionately cherished. As such, resting
+upon a good old precedent, it appeals to a permanent want, and gains
+interest with years. The character of the day has somewhat changed, and
+the domestic element in its uses preponderates far over the
+ecclesiastical. Yet much of the old feeling remains, and thousands gather
+in the churches, all the better prepared by the hour of worship, for the
+hours of fireside enjoyment. Large scope is usually given the preacher at
+this time, and many a timid man ventures upon bold themes, quite free to
+take the political, or social, or philanthropic, or ecclesiastical view of
+the country or the world, as he may choose. The preacher may not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>
+complain, then, of the essayist for taking something of the same liberty,
+and trenching a little upon the prerogative of the pulpit. It is surely
+not amiss to open this series of discursive papers with some thoughts upon
+our home blessings, upon God&#8217;s hand in giving them, and our work in
+spreading them.</p>
+
+<p>Our home blessings! Take first the most obvious view of them. Consider the
+plenty that abounds. I speak not of the few affluent, but of the great
+majority who enjoy the common lot. What abundance in their homes! Look at
+the household of any unpretending citizen, and say what realm of earth,
+what domain of nature, does not send its treasures thither? The orchards,
+the fields, the pastures, the hills, the rivers, the mines, the oceans,
+bring their tribute to the fireside. From the shores of the Mediterranean
+come the olive, the grape, the orange, the fig, the date. The farther
+Indies send their fragrant herbs and sweet spices. The repast of a frugal
+family is rarely set forth without offerings from all quarters of the
+globe. The cottager&#8217;s lamp, that burns by night, is fed with oil from the
+Arctic zone. The light of day shines through clear crystal, that shows the
+perfection of the arts, and the cheapness of their most beautiful
+products. In humble abodes the wonders of manufacture appear. Rich cotton
+stuffs tell of the affluence of the Southern soil and the skill of the
+Northern artisan. Luxuries, of old the prerogative of princes, are now
+familiar things. The silks of France and Italy are worn by the wife and
+daughters of the farmer and the mechanic. I will not try<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> to describe the
+mansions of the wealthy, although these, when graced by refinement, and
+exalted by piety and charity, may give impressive views of the ample
+bounty of Providence. It is better to contemplate the plenty within reach
+of the common lot. Among what people, in what age, has the common lot been
+so favored as with us? When in the earth&#8217;s history have so many persons
+had reason to be grateful at the feast of the ingathering as now? We boast
+not of great banquets, in which the luxury of the few is wrung from the
+misery of the many. We speak not of pearls dissolved in the wine cup, and
+the price of cities thus quaffed at a draught. Our country, prouder than
+the empire of a Caligula, or a Cleopatra, can point to the households of
+her people, and in the amount of their combined blessings pity the poverty
+of the builders of the Coliseum or the Pyramids. Other lands may have
+prouder palaces and more princely fortunes. None can show so many favored
+homes. Go to thy home, and tell how great things the Lord, the giver of
+the harvests, hath done for thee in its plenty.</p>
+
+<p>Consider too its peace as well as its plenty. No wars disturb it, nor
+rumors of war. No civil strifes threaten its tranquillity. No tyrannical
+powers intrude upon its freedom. Every household is better guarded than
+any feudal castle. Equal laws make it more impregnable than walls or
+moats. Public opinion is a host of defence stronger than an army with
+banners. We do not indeed forget our own imperfections and failings. We do
+not forget that millions are in bondage in our land, and that if they have
+homes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> in favored cases, they have them by their owners&#8217; mercy, not by
+their own legal right. Yet to-day the slave is somewhat a sharer in his
+master&#8217;s bounty, and this feast, that carries our thoughts back to the
+time of the great Hebrew Exodus, allows us to enjoy the liberty that God
+has bestowed upon us and these free States, and forbids us to despair of
+the redemption of any of the races yet held in bondage. It is something to
+boast of, that slavery is the exception now among civilized nations,
+instead of being, as of old, the universal law for the weaker from the
+stronger. For ourselves, we disclaim all share in its origin and
+continuance, deeming it to be a local misfortune to be deplored, not a
+national institution to be honored.</p>
+
+<p>As a nation, we are lovers of equal law. The sober thought, nurtured by
+the best experience of the Atlantic States, finds its response in the new
+regions of the farthest West, and not even the mad thirst for gold has
+made the restless people on our Pacific coast forgetful of their
+birthright of liberty and law. A mighty habit of civil order has entered
+into our national life. The strongholds of order are in our homes. There
+each man finds the motive that leads him to resist alike the disorganizer
+and the invader. Thence we derive the assurance of the best of standing
+armies; for men that have households to defend, will be as little inclined
+to yield to hostile invasion as to destructive revolution. How peaceful
+our homes! As mighty is the power nurtured within them that makes them so.</p>
+
+<p>Go home, and in addition to the blessings of plenty and of peace, consider
+the means of intellectual and spiritual<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> culture there. The laboring man
+may own a better library than a prince or prelate of the olden time. For a
+pittance trifling even to him, he may have tidings daily from all quarters
+of his own country, and from foreign lands. His children bring with them
+more learning from the common school, than would have sufficed of old to
+constitute the wisdom of a sage. For a less sum than the tippler gives for
+the draught that fevers his blood and crazes his brain, the artisan may
+adorn his house with choice works of art, through the cheap and beautiful
+products of the engraver&#8217;s skill; and thus the beautiful from the hand of
+man and of God, may refine and cheer the common lot. Music, that voice of
+the beautiful arts, is becoming a familiar blessing, and a part of
+ordinary education. Groups of children by the fireside, and in the field
+and garden, sometimes at the corners of the streets or in their walk home
+from school, are heard singing their songs and hymns together, thus
+exchanging discord for peace, quarrels for harmony. Even the utilities
+that are becoming the custom of our time, have their refining and exalting
+influences. The light that streams up in our streets and houses, is the
+handmaid of a light brighter than its own. The pure water that gushes up
+in so many homes, has connections far more substantial than fanciful with
+the living water of the divine word. Facts enough show that human
+civilization needs, in the most literal sense, its water-baptism before
+its spirit-baptism can be realized.</p>
+
+<p>The spirit is not lost sight of even in this utilitarian age. In religion
+the means of culture have their <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>consummation. Within every home, in any
+degree worthy the name, Christianity proves its power, whether the gospel
+be nominally professed or not. The very unity of the family comes from
+Him, who has decreed the purity of the home by his fundamental law, and
+bound parents to each other and their offspring by a tie at once of
+principle and affection. Greater still the blessing where Christianity is
+fully known and practised in its truths and graces, where the pleasant
+fireside is a consecrated altar, and the earthly mansion opens ever into
+the heavenly.</p>
+
+<p>Consider then the blessings of our homes&mdash;their plenty, their peace, their
+means of intellectual and spiritual culture.</p>
+
+<p>Consider them well, and moreover, own God&#8217;s hand in them.</p>
+
+<p>God is Creator and Lord of nature. From him comes the plenty of our homes.
+Man does not create, he finds the bounties of his lot. His utmost industry
+and skill but find the blessings stored up for him. We may look upon the
+kingdom of nature from many points of view. We may consider the organism
+of the heavens, the great periods of the earth&#8217;s apparent formation, the
+influence of climate and position upon the history of nations, and see
+God&#8217;s hand in natural laws. But what view of the universe is more sublime,
+and at the same time more touching, than that from the home? The heavens
+themselves help in keeping it upon its foundation by the force of the
+great law of attraction, whilst every element and domain of the earth
+conspires to give it blessing. Tenderly indeed does the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> Lord of this
+great Cosmos care for the dwellings of men. His love looks down from the
+stars of heaven that shine into the casement, and is reflected from the
+little flower that blooms in the garden, or cheers the sick man&#8217;s chamber.
+To God, Creator and Preserver, be our thanksgiving.</p>
+
+<p>God is in history, and to his hand we trace the peace of our homes. Our
+familiar social blessings are not the exhalations of a day, but the growth
+of ages. No clearer or more striking view of the development of the Divine
+plans in the course of events can be given than the domestic view. All
+that God has done for man as an individual soul or as a social being, thus
+is made to appear. There is a providence in the development of liberty,
+and so too in the progress of law, and in the combination of them both in
+a true social order. What better symbol of their combination and proof of
+providential guidance than the peaceful home? How vast the providential
+agencies instrumental in framing that statute-book which, next to the
+Bible, is the safeguard of the dwelling, and which bands the whole nation
+together in defence of every citizen&#8217;s right,&mdash;the constitution of our
+country, to us the bequest of ages, guided by an arm mightier than man&#8217;s,
+and to issues beyond his dream. In two grand lines of influence it brings
+to every household the co-ordinate powers which, from quarters once
+antagonistic, unite in a true civilization. It guarantees to every family
+the liberty so dearly prized by the old parent races of the Germanic
+North, whilst it gathers them into a great nation under the guidance of
+that law which was the bequest of the Roman empire to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> the world. These
+and all the leading lines of history meet in the home, and in them we own
+God&#8217;s guiding hand. From the East with the Star of true empire, came the
+benign power that united these two mighty agencies of our civilization.
+Surely it was the religion of Jesus that wedded Roman law to Germanic
+liberty, and laid the foundations of constitutional freedom and domestic
+peace. Blessed indeed was that bridal, and the living Word that hallowed
+the union still dispenses the blessing, and calls the children of its
+lineage to a future brightening unto the perfect day.</p>
+
+<p>The Constitution, and above it, the Bible! In this is the Word of God, and
+the way of life, present and eternal. It is the chief agency in
+intellectual and spiritual culture, giving the mind its true aim, the soul
+its rightful dignity, life its highest grace. Where the Bible is held in
+honor, the home has purity and elevation. Interesting indeed is the
+ecclesiastical view of Christianity. For its priests and temples we have
+no words of disparagement. Yet we most honor the church in honoring the
+home, for where the family is most blessed, there the church is most
+worthy. The history of the gospel neither ends nor begins with that of
+cathedrals and priesthoods. Since God laid the foundation of domestic
+purity on Sinai, since Jesus bore the grace of the gospel to the homes of
+Judah and Galilee, the brightest illustrations of the beauty and power of
+religion have been given in abodes far less stately than the temple, or
+the cloister, or the palace. The end is not yet, not yet developed are our
+grounds of gratitude to the Heavenly Father for the gospel in the
+blessings of our homes. God&#8217;s love in giving them, we own and adore.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>Responsibility walks ever hand in hand with privilege, and human duty
+follows in the path of Divine goodness. No topic of graver import can be
+urged now, than that of the obligation of Christian people to diffuse
+domestic blessings. This topic carries us into the heart of the momentous
+social questions of our age. The Christian should have his answer ready,
+an answer too which considers all the needs of man&#8217;s being, and respects
+alike his physical and moral wants.</p>
+
+<p>The most obvious, certainly the most obtrusive evil in the homes of the
+wretched, is poverty. The love of God, who has given for man&#8217;s use the
+earth and its fulness, the gospel of Him who fed the hungry and healed the
+sick, teach us to look with tender interest upon the poor, and try to
+redeem them from a lot as full of temptation as of suffering. Of public
+and private almsgiving, I will not speak now, important in their places as
+these are. There is a need far greater than these can alleviate, and I
+cannot dwell upon them here, pertinent as it would be to urge the worth of
+those benevolent schemes that aim to provide comfortable homes for the
+poor, and commodious baths and wash-houses in their neighborhoods. These
+charities appeal to enlightened self-interest, as well as humanity, and,
+if we will not ask in kindness who is my neighbor, we shall ask in fear,
+either of pestilent disease or aggressive violence. The springs of human
+energy are to be moved as never before, and the wretched are to be made to
+help themselves as never before; or our civilization, certainly European
+civilization, will stand on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> brink of an abyss fearful as at the
+dissolution of the old Roman Empire. Poverty has, in some cases, made an
+alliance that gives omens of a conspiracy worse than Catiline&#8217;s, and, with
+cunning quickened by want, sharpens its knife upon the stone which has
+fallen to its lot instead of bread,&mdash;bent upon living by destruction, if
+it is not taught to live by producing. It is an indisputable fact that in
+many countries the majority are so ignorant and inefficient, that the
+whole annual product of the land is not sufficient to provide for their
+decent wants. The theorists of France, who have been losing their wits in
+the airy heights of pantheistic socialism, hoping to find a way to plenty,
+other than the old way of labor and frugality, may well remember the
+answer of the admirable political economist, Chevalier, and look for
+plenty rather in making property more desirable than less so, and giving
+the whole people the desire and the opportunity of profitable labor. The
+material product of France at the highest estimate, he declares, does not
+exceed ten thousand millions of francs, and thus at this estimate, an
+equal division would give each person 78 centimes, or about 14&#189; cents
+per day, for food, lodging, clothing, education, enjoyment. Thus, he adds,
+even upon the supposition of an absolute distribution of products, France
+is not in a condition to give the majority of her children a tolerable
+subsistence. Of course millions of citizens now come far short of this
+miserable pittance. What is the inference? Certainly the productive
+industry of the nation must be increased, that there may be plenty in the
+home. Let more wealth be <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>produced, and each man be put in a position to
+get a due share of it, and the misery is alleviated, and plenty in the
+household stops the spirit of reckless revolution, and gives the spirit of
+peace, and motive and time for the higher aims of life.</p>
+
+<p>What shall increase the national wealth and distribute it with due justice
+in the homes of the people? Communism? Not so; for destroying the very
+idea of property is not the way to increase the aggregate of property. Who
+will work, if his gains are not secured to him and his children? Who will
+plant the grain or the vine, if the field or the vineyard is to be an open
+pasture, which any idler may waste? The way to enlarge and distribute
+wealth is rather to strengthen the foundations of property, and give all
+motive to earn their share of it by labor, temperance, and economy.</p>
+
+<p>Here we believe that every nation is bound to apply the force of law to
+reach the root of the difficulty. I am not proposing to discuss the
+various projects set on foot to insure the more equable distribution of
+property&mdash;such as the homestead laws of some of our own States, or the
+measures in train to redeem the peasants of Ireland from their slavish
+penury. Very certain it is, that we need to watch jealously the
+distribution of the public lands, to keep them from the grasp of avarice
+and intrigue, and to hold out the utmost inducements to actual settlers to
+till and own the soil. It is interesting to find that upon this one point,
+the most sanguine of the Land Reformers have much countenance from the
+most judicious <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>conservatives, and the wary sagacity of Webster himself
+saw no peril in securing a part of the national domain to every
+persevering cultivator. It is also interesting to observe that, whilst the
+ultraist advocates of a protective tariff have signally lowered their
+tone, some of the most earnest advocates of free trade, as the only
+philosophical theory, are favoring such judicious protective duties as
+shall tend to bring the producer and consumer near together, check the
+wastefulness of needless transportation, and thus prepare the way for the
+final triumph of free trade by the action of associative industry. All
+such expedients however good in <ins class="correction" title="original: themseves">themselves</ins>, are of no avail apart from a
+broad and energetic policy that meets the difficulty in the face. We mean
+the education of the entire people in schools open to all the children of
+the nation. Thus we reach the home&mdash;thus we open the eyes and quicken the
+energies of the people&mdash;thus we enlarge the products of intelligent labor,
+and guard against the worst evils of human inequality. Thus we open the
+way for a better social science and organization, and favor the associated
+enterprise, which is the best safeguard against communism. The educated,
+industrious population will take their own lot into their own hands, and
+by practising a truer philosophy of accommodation, they will apply in
+their home economy something of that wise policy which has been left too
+exclusively to the use of the favored few. The architecture of the house,
+and the arrangements of the neighborhood, will show the influence. Whilst
+gardens, filled with rare exotics, and stately mansions adorned with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> the
+graces of art, may still be the prerogative of affluence; we shall see the
+comfortable and tasteful houses of the unpretending classes ranged about
+pleasant and salubrious squares, with all the appliances of health and
+order, usually deemed beyond their means. For my own part, I know no more
+cheering aspect of our country and our age, than that which is furnished
+by some of those villages, which have been built up in the vicinity of our
+great cities by associations of mechanics, securing to each man an
+independent home. The fact that a set of men, educated in our free
+schools, and with no means but the fruit of their own honest toil, provide
+such homes for themselves, must give a benevolent observer more genuine
+satisfaction, and more encouraging hope, than any of the proudest triumphs
+of capital, whether a palace in the city or a palace upon the water. It is
+not out of place here to say, that the highest honor will belong to him
+among our architects, who most skilfully plans a model house for the many
+of us who have moderate or slender means&mdash;a house that shall for the least
+outlay best secure the retirement, the refinement, and the health that
+make a true home. Honor to the science that has busied itself with this
+problem, and to the capital which has tried to carry the solution into
+practice thus far!</p>
+
+<p>A true system of popular education in connection with our laws regarding
+inheritance, is raising up a generation which will not long be ignorant of
+the power of intelligence, industry, and friendly accommodation, in
+developing a social policy beyond the reach of the fanatical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> theorists of
+the old world, who have impoverished the nations in their promise of
+plenty, and shed blood in rivers in the name of fraternity. The great mass
+of the people, it is to be hoped, will continue to have that home feeling,
+which is as mighty in conservation as in defence. We shall remain as we
+are in the best sense of the term&mdash;the most conservative nation on the
+face of the earth. That race of Ishmaelites, the homeless, the desperate,
+the Bedouins of civilization, whose hand is against every man&#8217;s, whose
+delight is in commotion, whose life is in destruction, whose hope is in
+the despair of others, will disappear, kept down in their true place, or
+what is better, transformed into intelligent, industrious citizens, lovers
+of the state, the church, and the home.</p>
+
+<p>Thus do we commend the worth of industry and the education upon which it
+rests, in diffusing the household blessings that we enjoy. But we build
+upon a sandy foundation without a positive religious basis. Upon that the
+household rests for its primary dependence, and they that sustain and
+practise Christian principles are benefactors alike of the dwelling and
+the church. Not merely among the wretched and ignorant does the gospel
+utter its rebukes, and urge its duties in reference to this point. It is
+in quarters far different that the great wrong has been done, and a great
+work is demanded. Errors of principle as errors of life, have power from
+the station that renders them conspicuous, or the refinement that clothes
+them with grace. Of errors of life in those who give to dissipation the
+prestige of eloquence, and throw the grace of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> splendor around vices that
+strike at the foundations of domestic purity, I will not now undertake to
+treat. A passing word, however, upon certain modes of thinking and
+talking, which sow the seeds of those vices in quarters the most opposite.
+The pantheistic theories that confound all moral distinctions by
+confounding the distinction between God and nature, and make of passion a
+devotion, by calling all enthusiasm inspiration, have had their origin
+chiefly among secluded dreamers, bent, perhaps, upon amusing leisure by
+reckless speculation. Idly as the summer winds that float the thistle-down
+on their breath, have they vented their speculations, until amazed that
+their own fields and their neighbor&#8217;s have been sown with tares by these
+gossamer voyagers. Wherever pantheism goes, there license follows in its
+train. More perilous than atheism, because more alluring, it defies
+passion, and in the name of inspiration degrades man to the brute. It
+blasts life with its torrid fires, as atheism freezes by its polar cold.
+In the extremes of society&mdash;the affluent and the wretched&mdash;this tendency
+is found, alike in its speculative and practical form, in its denial of
+personal responsibility, its enthroning of indulgence in the place of
+discipline. Many a stately home is desolate, many an humble dwelling
+miserable, because the God of the gospel is denied, and that
+uncompromising law which secures the home its purity, peace and power, has
+been broken.</p>
+
+<p>Chief among the blessings of the household, then, we name the gospel. It
+gives the crown to industry and education. Crowning industry and education
+thus alike<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> by our personal bearing, our public policy, we give as we have
+received, and acknowledge our duty, as we own God&#8217;s love in our domestic
+blessings.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Bring near to ourselves now, in its personal and cheering aspect, the
+topic before us. To God, the Lord of nature, Ruler of events, Father of
+our spirits, be all the glory. Be his love the spring of our humanity. In
+the bounty of our hand, in the bounty of an example personal and domestic,
+which in itself is a benefaction, in an enlarged public, nay Christian
+spirit, let us freely give as we have received; that plenty, peace, piety,
+may cheer the dwellings of men and regenerate the world. This day be our
+thanksgiving at once a prayer of faith and a vow of humanity. It is the
+old home festival of our fathers that we are to keep. Whose heart does not
+yearn with sacred remembrances and affections to-day? The emigrant, the
+traveller, the sailor, all turn their thoughts homeward as the day
+approaches, and lament that their steps cannot follow their desires. Under
+sunny skies, amid the balmy gales and luscious fruits of the tropics, the
+wanderer yearns to cross the familiar threshold, and our bleak North in
+her wintry robe is dearer than Italy or the Indies. Many an exile has
+feelings that speak in such simple words as these:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;My father&#8217;s bones, New England,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sleep in thy hallowed ground,</span><br />
+My living kin, New England,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In thy precious paths are found;</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>And though my body dwelleth here,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And my weary feet here roam,</span><br />
+My spirit and my hopes are still<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">In thee, my own loved home.&#8221;</span></p>
+
+<p>Yet distance does not rob even the exile of all the blessings, and he
+knows that he is not forgotten. Families separated throughout the year,
+now gather together. Sons and daughters return to the parental fireside
+and are children again. The patriarchal times, surely among all of the
+Pilgrim race, and not among them alone, come back. The father stands as
+head and minister of the family. Many a happy band of children rise up and
+call the mother blessed. The absent are not forgotten&mdash;the departed are
+tenderly remembered&mdash;seats vacant at the table have occupants in the
+hearts of the survivors.</p>
+
+<p>It is well&mdash;it is well&mdash;this home-festival of the ingathering. God gives
+the abounding harvest, and our fellow-men are to us the stewards of his
+bounty. Devoutly to Him, kindly to them, let the hours pass. Health to the
+absent, a tear for the departed&mdash;a smile for the present&mdash;good will to all
+on earth&mdash;glory to God in the highest.</p>
+
+<p>Let the young rejoice, and the old be young again. Let memory solemnize us
+by her images of scenes and days gone by, whilst hope cheers us by
+auspicious promises of the future on earth, and of the heavenly mansions,
+the soul&#8217;s eternal home.</p>
+
+<p><i>Thanksgiving Day.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+<h2>The Ideal of Womanhood.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">THE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD.</span></p>
+
+<p>It is the Eve of Christmas, and above the cheerful family circle that
+gathers about the hearth, the faces of the holy family look benignly down,
+and Mary&#8217;s own smile seems to brighten the genial light. All surely must
+call that mother blessed, who celebrate the birth of the Holy Child. The
+Angel of the annunciation seems always to be speaking anew in the anthem
+of the Nativity as if the voice which told Mary of her high destiny
+celebrated also its fulfilment, and the &#8220;Hail Mary&#8221; were but the prelude
+of the &#8220;Glory to God in the Highest.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Our thought this evening turns upon the Mother of Christ, as illustrating
+the ideal of woman and the sources of her power. In the manger at
+Bethlehem, the mother and child were together&mdash;together during the years
+of preparation for the public ministry&mdash;together at the cross. We honor
+both in honoring either. Especially in calling Mary blessed, do we honor
+Christ, for we remember not merely what she was to him, but what he has
+been to her and her sex and her race.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Let us look at the subject from our own point of view, nor try to put on
+the mask of affected sentiment or to stand on the stilts of borrowed
+dogmas. There is much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> beauty and power in the Catholic notions of the
+Blessed Virgin, but they are not our convictions. The sweetest hymns in
+the Breviary are in her praise, and her heavenly face has been the chief
+charm of Catholic art, else altogether too grim with spectral monks and
+ghostly confessors. This one fact it is most interesting to remark, that
+as Christianity was divested of its genial and humane graces, and our
+Saviour himself was removed from the personal sympathies of men by a faith
+too forgetful of his humanity in vindicating his divinity, the affections
+of Christians sought in the Blessed Mother the solace denied them by
+prevalent views of the Divine Son. As the monkish spirit grew darker, the
+face of Mary beamed more brightly. The age that embodied its terrors in
+the &#8220;Dies Ir&aelig;,&#8221; breathed its tenderness in the &#8220;Stabat Mater,&#8221; the
+exquisite hymn whose authorship, strange to say, has been with show of
+reason ascribed to the most thorough-going of the Popes, Innocent the
+Third, the man who dared to put England under an interdict. It is not for
+such reasons that we are moved to speak of Mary now. We are not oppressed
+by a religion that so crushes the natural affections and rebukes the
+domestic feelings, that we need to look for solace to one taken
+arbitrarily from her place among women and invoked as Queen of Heaven,
+above all saints and angels, next to God. Looking upon our homes, so
+pleasant and so genial with woman&#8217;s graces and children&#8217;s gladness, we
+prefer to say the &#8220;Hail Mary&#8221; as the gospel gives it, and not as the
+priest has understood it. We can say, &#8220;Blessed art thou <i>among</i>
+women&#8221;&mdash;<i>among</i> them, not <i>above</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> them&mdash;among them to illustrate their
+mission from God, their work on earth&mdash;their part in heaven.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Think of Mary first as illustrating true womanhood in its mission from
+God. Fathers and sons, as well as mothers and daughters, think. In our
+notions of education, society, reform, we are all afloat unless we start
+with right ideas; and whence are they but from the Eternal Mind. We know
+God as he reveals himself, and creation in its highest aspects reveals the
+thought of God. The Divine Being is Self-Existent, Almighty, All-wise,
+Ever-blessed, dwelling in light and love unspeakable. But the moment that
+we pass from the contemplation of his attributes to the survey of his
+works, we see every where partial manifestations of his fulness. Only as
+we bring together the various elements and beings of nature, do we
+comprehend the universe as expressing the mind of God. Throughout the
+whole we observe a law of duality, a harmony of contrasts, the two
+parallel footprints in the majestic march of Him who is the infinite
+Wisdom and Love. We see this form of development from the lowest to the
+highest plane of nature&mdash;in the affinities of the gases&mdash;in the strange
+and mighty forces of electricity and magnetism&mdash;in the rays of light&mdash;in
+the kingdom of plants&mdash;in the animated kingdom. In the human race it has
+its fullest expression. There the Most High has left most clearly the
+image of himself, and recorded the might and the loveliness of his own
+attributes. To the one sex he has given, in largest measure, strength,&mdash;to
+the other, beauty; to the one,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> aggressive force&mdash;to the other, winning
+affections&mdash;to the one, the palm in the empire of thought&mdash;to the other,
+the palm in the empire of feeling. We need not pursue the parallel, nor
+rebuke the folly of those who would make the line of separation too sharp,
+and deny heart to man or wisdom to woman, forgetting that in man thought
+should be pervaded with feeling, and in woman feeling should be guided by
+thought. It is enough to look to Mary as she stood in the hour of her joy,
+and listen to what she said, who has been called beyond any other of her
+sex, to be their benefactor and interpreter:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">My soul doth magnify the Lord,<br />
+And my spirit doth rejoice in God, my Saviour,<br />
+For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden;<br />
+For behold! from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.</p>
+
+<p>Various ages may have various degrees of culture, and in knowledge and
+accomplishment the daughters of Christendom may now far surpass those
+taught in the simpler homes of Israel. Yet where among those favored with
+education or gifted with genius, shall we find a better interpreter of
+womanhood in its mission from God, than that trusting Hebrew in her filial
+faith and unwavering devotion. Of her, the Aspasias proud of the society
+of sages and orators, might learn that there is a faith passing knowledge,
+and a purity more refining than any literary taste; from her the Cornelias
+might learn of a kingdom greater than that to which they vowed their sons;
+from her the Sapphos might hear of a vision beyond that of any
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>impassioned fancy; and the Cleopatras of a gem brighter than any in their
+crown. Her soul attuned to devotion by the Psalms of her great ancestor,
+David, and inflamed with hope by the visions of prophets, and schooled to
+patient charity by the choicest examples of the mothers in Israel, she
+stands at the centre of Providential history, receiving from the former
+ages their mantle of honor, and transmitting it to the new ages enriched
+with a divine grace, destined to brighten with time.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Of Mary&#8217;s life and work, few particulars are given&mdash;but those few are
+expressive of her whole character. She who kept her faithful watch on the
+night of the nativity, never belied the promise of that time. With mingled
+solicitude and reverence, tenderness and fortitude, she guarded her child,
+marked the gradual rising of the consciousness of Divinity within him, and
+waited between hope and fear for the development of his mysterious life.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most gifted women of our age, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, thus
+portrays Mary&#8217;s feelings as she looked upon her child sleeping:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">*<span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>*<span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>*<span class="spacer">&nbsp;</span>*</span><br />
+I am not proud&mdash;meek angels, put ye on<br />
+New meeknesses to hear such utterance rest<br />
+On mortal lips, &#8216;I am not proud&#8217;&mdash;<i>not proud</i>!<br />
+Albeit in my flesh God sent His Son,<br />
+Albeit over Him my head is bowed,<br />
+As others bow before Him, still mine heart,<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>Bows lower then their knees! O centuries<br />
+That roll, in vision, your futurities<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">My grave athwart!</span><br />
+Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Watch o&#8217;er this sleep!</span><br />
+Say of me as the Heavenly said, &#8216;Thou art<br />
+The blessedest of women!&#8217; blessedest,<br />
+Not holiest, not noblest&mdash;no high name,<br />
+Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame,<br />
+When I sit meek in heaven!&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">For me&mdash;for me&mdash;</span><br />
+I often wandered forth, more child than maiden,<br />
+Among the lonely hills of Galilee,<br />
+Whose summits looked heaven-laden!<br />
+Listening to silentness, that seemed to be<br />
+God&#8217;s voice, so soft, yet strong&mdash;so fain to press<br />
+Upon my heart, as Heaven did on the height,&mdash;<br />
+And waken up its shadows by a light,<br />
+And show its vileness by a holiness!<br />
+Then I knelt down, as silent as the night,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Too self-renounced for fears;</span><br />
+Raising my small face to the boundless blue,<br />
+Whose stars did mix and tremble in my tears!<br />
+God heard <i>them</i> falling often&mdash;with his dew.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Think of the lot of Christ, and remember how closely another heart beat in
+unison with his heart&mdash;how nearly parallel her life ran with his life.
+Pass from the manger to the Cross, and those two scenes are enough to
+suggest the outlines of her experience during that eventful interval.
+Listen to the words&mdash;&#8220;Woman, behold thy son&#8221;&mdash;and to the disciple, &#8220;behold
+thy mother.&#8221; Think of what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> followed&mdash;the joy at Christ&#8217;s rising to dwell
+in visible presence with his own, and after his ascension to dwell with
+them in his witnessing Spirit. Among those who remembered the promise: &#8220;Lo
+I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,&#8221; there was one who
+added a mother&#8217;s love to a disciple&#8217;s faith, as in the coming of the
+Comforter to her soul, she received her new birth into the kingdom of God,
+through him who had his birth on earth from her. Confided as she had been
+to the disciple whom Jesus so loved, a guest in his household, the
+constant companion of the growing circle of believers, how could she be
+without great influence on their faith and fellowship? When she passed
+away, a new light rose for them in the heavens. Their religion was not a
+code of moral precepts, or a set of theological propositions, but a gospel
+of speaking facts and living words. Their religion was Christ and all that
+is Christlike. Their heaven was no ethereal abstraction, no pantheistic
+merging of spirits in infinity; but the home of true souls&mdash;the mansions
+of the Father opened by Christ to all the faithful, and surely unto her
+who guarded his infant weakness and wept over his dying agonies. On earth
+and in heaven the blessed mother stood to them for the ideal of true
+womanhood, and early Christian antiquity is full of traces of the tender
+and beautiful affection felt for her, before superstition seized upon the
+lovely sentiment and hardened it into a priestly dogma. Yet under the
+dogma, the true feeling has never been wholly lost sight of, and with many
+who are called idolatrous, the homage to St. Mary is but an exalted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> form
+of reverence to a moral loveliness, now in heaven. Our own Germanic
+ancestors shared more deeply in the sentiment probably than any other
+people, as they came from their cold homes in northern Europe&mdash;received
+the gospel of Christ from the missionaries of the church, and rejoiced to
+find their national feeling of chivalrous respect for woman confirmed and
+spiritualized by the honors paid to her, whom angels hailed as full of
+grace, and whose name all Christendom spoke with blessing. This high
+sentiment, somewhat sobered by our Protestant faith and our household
+utilities, has come to us with our religion and our homes.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>It is becoming a somewhat practical, and in both hemispheres, an agitating
+question, how far the accepted Christian idea of true womanhood should be
+enlarged or amended to meet the demands of our own age. The voice of Mary
+Wolstoncroft, claiming masculine freedom for sex, has found a thousand
+echoes, and assemblies of women, no strangers to Christian culture, clamor
+for a new day of social and political emancipation. Their demands are not
+to be treated with ridicule, for under all their extravagance lurk truths
+of momentous import. Who can think of the thousands and hundreds of
+thousands of the sex, whose utmost labors hardly keep off cold and
+starvation&mdash;of the wretched notions of education and life, which so
+enfeeble the poor and corrupt the affluent&mdash;of the false social system
+which is so ready to smile upon the destroyer of innocence, and curse the
+victim of his arts;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> who can think of the scenes in the hovels of innocent
+poverty, the dens of loathsome vice, and the gilded saloons of painted
+misery, upon which the shadows of this blessed eve are now falling, and
+not be willing to pardon some thing to the spirit of mercy, even if its
+tones seem to us too shrill for gentle lips? Who is not willing to
+remember, moreover, that if they assert a folly, who claim for woman the
+political offices that must rob the home of her fidelity; they assert, and
+actually are diffusing a more dangerous error, who in more silken speech
+brand the household virtues as servile drudgery, and whose lives are a
+continued and studious round of elegant and jewelled vagrancy from the
+sacred uses and blessed companionships of their own fireside; nay, whose
+eyes seem only to open when the lights of the theatre and ball-room blaze,
+and whose pulses really beat only in exciting assemblies under the
+delirium of the wine-cup and the voluptuous dance. From both errors the
+true idea of womanhood may save our time, and, nevertheless, confer upon
+us the substantial good, which is so dimly seen by the rival schools of
+culture&mdash;the fashionable and the masculine. Well taught and trained, our
+daughters may have all true graces without Parisian levity, and all
+intellectual discipline without Amazonian boldness.</p>
+
+<p>No greater mistake can be made than that which would take woman from her
+sphere of dignity and power, and make her the rival of man in pursuits
+which require his ruder nature and sterner will. Mary, the wife of Godwin,
+with her obtrusive band of far more extravagant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> followers, opens no path
+of honor and power compared with that pointed out by Mary of Nazareth, the
+light of her home, the guardian of her Holy Child; encouraging the
+disciples by a voice, the mightier on account of its not being heard in
+the streets, and to them and to all after them, a name for spiritual
+loveliness, and all gentle and confiding graces, among the souls exalted
+to heaven. Using present agencies, and following the guidance of the
+gospel, the mothers and sisters in our Israel, may deal more wisely and
+strongly with the social problems of our time, and do their part for the
+kingdom of God&mdash;than by crowding to the ballot-box, screaming in the
+caucus, or snatching at the staff of office. So deeply is this the
+conviction of the most judicious of the sex, that many words on the
+subject would be superfluous. Nor would we add any to the many words that
+have been shed upon the question of the equality of the sexes. As well let
+the rays of the solar light dispute for precedence, and the red ray, so
+blazing, presume to deny the equal worth of the violet ray, which, science
+teaches us, has power to make iron magnetic, and which more than its more
+bold companion on the other side of the prism, makes the impression on the
+silvered plate&mdash;itself the most magical pencil in the skilful hand of that
+unrivalled painter, the sun. God has united both rays in the sweet light
+of true humanity, and what He has joined together, let not man try to put
+asunder.</p>
+
+<p>The greater danger is in a servile acquiescence in prevalent worldliness
+and mediocrity&mdash;a disposition to repeat<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> the common pleas of precedent,
+and to live solely in the externals of society. In our own beloved
+country, where liberty, without example, is extended to woman, and a
+courtesy, without limit, is shown her, they who hold in their keeping the
+future of their sex should not be content to follow the rule of court
+journals, or bow to the dicta of Parisian modists, who are fond of ruling
+over morals, as over costume. Our liberty should give them a stronger and
+more rational intellectual discipline than in the lands more enslaved by
+precedent. Our courtesy, that national chivalry, which insists on
+deference as much towards the rustic maiden as the city belle, will be
+sadly abused if made the occasion of an obtrusive arrogance, which claims
+precedence as a right, and elbows its way through crowds of men who are
+more ready to yield by grace than by command.</p>
+
+<p>Our country has from the first cherished a noble idea of womanhood, and
+under its influence the strength of its sons, and the refinement of its
+daughters have been nurtured. Kindly omens abounded in the first days of
+its history. Our continent itself is one of the omens. That you may not
+call me too fanciful or sentimental, let me quote from an eloquent writer
+on the philosophy of geography, as he compares the Old and New Worlds.
+&#8220;The number of the continents in the Old World,&#8221; which is double that of
+the New World, their grouping in a more compact and solid mass&mdash;make it
+already and pre-eminently the continental world. It is a mighty oak, with
+a stout and sturdy trunk, whilst America is the slender and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> flexible
+palm-tree, so dear to this continent. The Old World, if it is allowable to
+employ here comparisons of this nature, calls to mind the square, solid
+figure of man; America the lithe shape and delicate form of woman.</p>
+
+<p>So America stood like a fair bride in her ocean home, adorned for her
+husband, that mighty race from the East, that came in the path of the
+sunshine, as if following the lord of day, who is as a bridegroom coming
+out of his chamber. Our heroes bore with them a Christian ideal of
+womanhood, and by it were gentle as they were strong. It came with
+Columbus in the cherished image of that noble queen, who gave gold and
+hope to an enterprise elsewhere rejected with derision; and the thought of
+Isabella mingled with that of the Blessed Mother, as he planted the cross
+on the western shores. It came with the cavaliers who gave Virginia its
+name and honor, and whose foremost and noblest chief found a counterpart
+of his own ideal in the Indian girl, who saved his life by risking her
+own, giving Christian mercy, to receive in return the Christian&#8217;s faith
+and home; owning, by the baptismal vow, the Great Spirit whom she had seen
+in cloud and heard in the wind, thenceforth, as the God and Father of our
+Lord Jesus Christ. It came with the Huguenots of Carolina, the Catholics
+of Maryland, the Friends of Pennsylvania, the Hollanders of Manhattan, and
+not last nor least, with the Pilgrims of that Mayflower, whose seeds
+struck deep into the New England soil, and whose scions have borne beauty
+and fragrance to the hills and valleys, the farms and cities of our
+motherland,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> making the wilderness blossom as the rose, when the sweet
+Marys gave grace to Puritan homes.</p>
+
+<p>Herein lies a great element of power and of hope for our country. Our soil
+is rich, our lakes and rivers are vast, our strength is great, our courage
+good, our schools are many, our wealth is unexampled. But these are not
+all&mdash;nor are these the elements that are to tame our barbaric borders, and
+lead to harmony our chaotic and scattered members. The church and home
+must go together, and unite our nation under the empire of Christ, as
+under the empire of civil law. The church and home are advancing together
+from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore. The farmer of Oregon, the miner of
+California, are not to be beyond the pale of Christian civilization. Even
+they shall hear the chimes that tell of the nativity of the Saviour&mdash;they
+shall find in their homes, rude cabins though they may be, pleasant faces,
+whose womanly grace and childish confidence shall reveal a light kindled
+of old by the Blessed Mother, and nurtured for ever by her Holy Child.</p>
+
+<p>Here patriotism and Christianity blend in one. Anathema upon the false
+speculations and foul vices that assault the family institution. Blessed
+be the gospel of Him who asserts the uncompromising law of domestic
+purity, and opens most tenderly the Divine benignity, when most urging the
+Divine commandment.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>There is a branch of this subject which I cannot treat&mdash;one, perhaps, that
+dwells too much in the region of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> higher sentiment to be the theme of
+popular discussion, and which no writer can easily handle, without seeming
+to be borrowing from the ancient theology its comments on the Song of
+Songs, or delving in the dark but rich mines of Swedenborg&#8217;s Arcana. Yet
+it would be no far-fetched topic, whilst speaking of her who has been
+called the Queen of Heaven, and regarded by the Fenelons and Catharines of
+faith, as the type of celestial loveliness, to treat of the ideal of
+womanhood in the spiritual world. Surely the higher a true culture rises,
+the more clearly each great family of souls becomes more true to its own
+genius, and the higher companionship known on earth, in the most refined
+society, and the worthiest families, illustrates the permanence of those
+traits that give man and woman their intellectual and moral
+characteristics. The earthly loves, which Christ came to consecrate, bear
+the germs of immortal uses, and are like Mary&#8217;s own emblem the rose,
+which, though born in the earth, lifts its bloom and wafts its fragrance
+to the heavens. I know no more elevated illustration of this view than
+that given by the Milton of Italy, the solemn Dante, who, in his vision of
+Heaven, wanders through the celestial courts with the spirit that had been
+the charm of his earthly life, and who, often as he stood confounded
+before some new mystery, found his perplexities solved by the readier
+intuition of his sainted companion. The higher companionship in
+literature, art, society, religion, which we enjoy in this world, and
+which is so incomplete when men or women are alone, gives some idea of the
+state of souls on high, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> they that shine most, and they that love
+most, cherubim and seraphim, blend their holy ministries and bow together
+before the Eternal Presence.</p>
+
+<p>A homelier view of the subject must end our meditation&mdash;a view, however,
+that opens into the heavenly world. The homelier the better&mdash;the nearer to
+our hearts. Let us call Mary blessed to-day for ourselves, and for our own
+families and friends. Bless her, now that we are thinking of all good
+mothers, whether the queen true to her children on her island-throne, or
+the faithful mother in the farmer&#8217;s cottage;&mdash;so many on the earth&mdash;so
+many who have gone from the world, and whose remembered faces now bring
+heaven near. Bless her now, that we are thinking of the happy children
+gathered together in the name of her Holy Child&mdash;as we think of the hosts
+of little children whom He has called and is calling to Himself. It is a
+time to be sober, and a time to be merry. In our soberness and our mirth,
+alike let us remember God&#8217;s love for us in Jesus Christ our Lord.</p>
+
+<p>God&#8217;s blessing, readers, upon you all&mdash;mothers, fathers, children,
+brothers, sisters, friends&mdash;meeting or to meet in the sanctuary, or in
+your homes! His love bring all together at last around the tree of life,
+whose fruit is peace eternal!</p>
+
+<p><i>Christmas Eve.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p>
+<h2>The Hope of Childhood.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">THE HOPE OF CHILDHOOD.</span></p>
+
+<p>The account of the Flight to Egypt, so illustrated by the old masters,
+brings three images before us, all in themselves interesting, and
+expressive of lasting realities. Central, is the figure of a young child,
+speaking at once of childhood and the God who blesses it. On either side
+what contrast in the associated forms! On one hand stands Mary, watching
+with unwearied vigils over her precious charge. In the distance, in his
+stately palace, the dark form of the tyrant king rises before us; his
+hands stained with the blood of a noble wife and three sons, his
+conscience torn by remorse, his wrath the more inflamed from the
+consciousness of deserving vengeance, his despotic will brooking no
+thought of rivalry, and dooming to death the infant innocents of a whole
+town to make sure of destroying the predicted Messiah.</p>
+
+<p>Here is an emblem of what is over in the world. Here is childhood, its
+guardian angel, and its evil genius. May not the scene suggest some
+thoughts upon Christianity as the guardian of childhood against the spirit
+of the world, which is its foe?</p>
+
+<p>The mother and child fled to Egypt, there to <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>languish or be forgotten?
+Herod sat in his palace hall, there to rule and prosper? No. Ere the year
+closed, he died; before death came, already a mass of putrefaction. He
+died, signing with his fainting hands his will and the death-warrant of
+his oldest son; thus dispensing death and empire in his last act. He died,
+and the magnificence of his funeral mocked the wretchedness of his
+decease. The body was borne aloft on a bier, which was adorned with gems;
+the winding-sheet was of purple; his whole army, native and foreign,
+marched in war array to his grave. As the gorgeous procession by slow
+stages passed to the stately mausoleum, twenty-five miles distant at the
+Herodium, word went to the fugitives in Egypt, that the tyrant was dead.
+Who at that time, in the excitement of the funeral, or the festivities of
+the succession&mdash;who cared for the obscure family, that stole on its way
+quietly to Nazareth? The mother and child lived! They founded a kingdom
+that dies never.</p>
+
+<p>Richly that Christ-child repaid his mother&#8217;s watching, alike to her and to
+her sex. The religion of Christ has been the strength and comfort of
+parents, and the hope of their children. Its power in the nurture of the
+young mind has been illustrated in every age, and connects itself now
+momentously with the most important topics of our time. What topic more
+congenial with this Christmas season, so consecrated to associations with
+childhood and youth, leading us back to the cradle of the infant Redeemer,
+and opening a festival in which young hearts all over the world rejoice?
+The child ever needs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> protection; Herod ever in some form rages;
+Christianity like a mighty maternal heart needs ever to keep its watch.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Look upon the past history of Christendom from this point of view, and how
+novel and interesting is the result! We have been taught to associate the
+progress of Christianity with the account of theological controversies,
+bitter disputes, bloody persecutions, proud hierarchies; and thus we too
+often read the annals of the Church with shame or contempt. But take a
+fairer and more intimate view: think of Christianity in connection with
+childhood and youth, trace its influence upon the home, the school, the
+Church, in this aspect. Do this, and we shall find ourselves moved by the
+annals of every age to tenderness and gratitude; for in every age
+Christianity has been the guardian of childhood against the spirit of the
+world, its foe. When the Saviour took young children in his arms and
+blessed them, he performed an act which has not been without significance
+in all subsequent time.</p>
+
+<p>In the primitive time the Christian confessors showed how fondly they had
+been taught to regard their offspring, to care for their souls in life and
+in death, to commend them with deathless love to Him who had opened the
+gates of everlasting life. In the Roman catacombs, far beneath the city,
+the places of early Christian worship and burial, the inscriptions on the
+tombstones well express the parental feelings of that time. An uncommonly
+large portion of the epitaphs given in the description<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> belong to
+children, and they express the tenderest affection. &#8220;Virginius remained
+but a short time with us.&#8221; &#8220;Sweet Faustina, may you live in God.&#8221;
+&#8220;Laurence to his sweetest son, Severus, borne away by angels on the
+seventh Ides of January.&#8221; How different the spirit breathed in such
+inscriptions from that inspired by the idolatry, that formed a god of the
+war-spirit that makes childhood desolate and orphaned, or bows down before
+Moloch and casts children into the fire at his feet!</p>
+
+<p>Turn even to those ages that are called by eminence dark&mdash;the time of
+monkish austerity and priestly sway. There is much in their annals to move
+indignation and sometimes horror. But interpret them fairly, and we find
+much to move our admiration and love. Consider that embodiment of the
+middle ages, the Gothic cathedral, wonderful alike for the vastness of its
+proportions and the delicacy of its details. There may be austerity in the
+priests that attend its altars, fanaticism in the monks who chant its
+litanies, cruelty in the mailed men who kneel at its chancel. But how
+tender is the expression of the whole in reference to childhood! The Holy
+Mother and her Divine child beam upon the worshipper from illuminated
+missals and painted windows. Conspicuous at the vestibule or by the altar,
+stands the baptismal font. Thither the child of the poorest peasant is
+brought, and by the baptismal water the child is recognized as belonging
+to the kingdom not of this world, a lamb of the good Shepherd. Not for the
+few rich, noble or mighty, but even for him, the least of the earth, this
+temple was erected, and by that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> rite the church, imperial in its stately
+palace, promises to watch over the child, care for his soul in sorrow,
+sickness and death. What would childhood have been in the dark ages
+without the Church? What other power could have stood between innocence
+and its tempter and destroyer? Who would have withstood Herod, if the
+mother heart of Christianity had withheld its guardianship?</p>
+
+<p>The Protestant Reformation consider, and through all its conflicts and
+persecutions, what tenderness is shown on both sides towards childhood! To
+secure the young heart to Christ and the Church, the rival parties labored
+with indefatigable zeal. In the zeal and policy of Loyola we may see how
+tenderly the old Church sought to keep or regain her hold upon the young
+by measures suited to the time. Would we know Luther&#8217;s mind, look upon him
+as he sits with lute in hand at his fireside, enjoying the gladness of his
+children at the Christmas tree;&mdash;look at him, as with pen in hand and the
+veins of his forehead dilated with the excitement, he writes the immortal
+appeal to the powers of Germany in behalf of free schools, which has
+joined his name with Milton&#8217;s as champion of popular education. Think too
+of the Pilgrim Fathers, so tender and thoughtful in their stern
+self-denial, in their wilderness home erecting church and school-house
+side by side, both sacred to God and his people.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>But it is time to look round upon the world as it now is. The most
+important question is: What is to be done for the young? This question
+comprises every other, for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> the generation that is growing up will soon
+have the destinies of the race in its charge. Surely Christianity needs to
+be watchful, for Herod is still abroad. His spirit is still the spirit of
+the world&mdash;of the world&#8217;s passions and its policy&mdash;breathing now in the
+oppression that neglects or overburdens the young, and now in the
+capricious indulgence that betrays with a kiss and kills in the name of
+love.</p>
+
+<p>The world&#8217;s passions conspire against childhood and youth. The lust and
+intemperance, which degrade the parent, press heavily upon the child, and
+because of them, thousands of young hearts find themselves in a world that
+for them has few smiles. All the temptations that inflame the senses,
+prompt to vice, and kindle hatred, conspire against the young, alike by
+corrupting those who should be their protectors, and sowing prematurely
+the seeds of wickedness in youth itself. Every haunt of dissipation, every
+resort of revelry, whether the drunkard&#8217;s den or the fashionist&#8217;s
+brilliant saloon of corruption, is a conspiracy against youth, and coins
+its gold from the life-blood of young hearts. The massacre of the
+Innocents still goes on. The spirit of Herod yet lives, and acts in a
+manner more insidious than an open death-warrant. It lives in the passions
+of a world ready to sacrifice all to its lusts.</p>
+
+<p>And the world&#8217;s policy is not kind to childhood. What murderers are those
+its chief idols, Mars and Mammon! How cruel the game of war and the lust
+of gold! Who rules over the strife that robs children of parents who go to
+die in foreign lands? What genius, Herod or Christ, presides<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> over the
+scene, when death-dealing batteries are planted before peopled cities, and
+the blood and brains of women and children are dashed out at every volley?
+Ye Christian chivalry, ye battle-loving parents, answer that question as
+for yourselves and your children!</p>
+
+<p>The lust of gold, that moves the world&#8217;s habitual policy, is less savage
+but not much more merciful. The spirit of trade demands gain, and claims
+childhood too much as an instrument of gain. In the Old World, what
+myriads whom school or church never blesses or knows, are, almost from
+infancy, trained to the mine or loom, shut out from free air and play,
+cramped in body, as in mind. The conscience of Christians is waking up to
+the subject, I know, still what a world of wretchedness remains
+unalleviated! No poem in the language contains more terrific truth, than
+that noted ode, called &#8220;The Cry of the Children,&#8221; blending, as it does,
+the tragic depth of &AElig;schylus with the tender pathos of Cowper.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">They look up with their pale and sunken faces,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And their looks are sad to see,</span><br />
+For the man&#8217;s grief abhorrent, draws and presses<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Down the cheek of infancy&mdash;</span><br />
+&#8220;Your old earth,&#8221; they say, &#8220;is very dreary;&#8221;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;Our young feet,&#8221; they say, &#8220;are very weak!</span><br />
+Few paces have we taken, yet are weary&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Our grave-rest is very far to seek!&#8221;</span><br />
+Ask the old why they weep, and not the children,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">For the outside earth is cold,&mdash;</span><br />
+And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And the graves are for the old!</span><br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span><br />
+Two words, indeed, of praying we remember;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And at midnight&#8217;s hour of harm,&mdash;</span><br />
+&#8220;Our Father,&#8221; looking upward in the chamber,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">We say softly for a charm.</span><br />
+We know no other words, except &#8220;Our Father,&#8221;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And we think that, in some pause of angels&#8217; song,</span><br />
+God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And hold both within his right hand which is strong.</span><br />
+&#8220;Our Father!&#8221; If He heard us, He would surely<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">(For they call him good and mild)</span><br />
+Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">&#8220;Come and rest with me, my child!&#8221;</span><br />
+<br />
+And well may the children weep before you;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">They are weary, ere they run;</span><br />
+They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Which is brighter than the sun:</span><br />
+They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are bitter with despairing, but not calm&mdash;</span><br />
+Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm,&mdash;</span><br />
+Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">No dear remembrance keep;</span><br />
+Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">Let them weep! let them weep!</span><br />
+They look up with their pale and sunken faces,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">And their look is dread to see,</span><br />
+For you think you see their angels in their places,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">With eyes meant for Deity.</span></p>
+
+<p>An ode such as this was not without effect upon the heart of England; nor
+is the humanity which it imbodies rare in our land. The spirit of trade
+among us is not wilfully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> cruel, but it is too devoted to gain&mdash;negligent
+of the claims of youth, when not unkind. Neglected ones in our own streets
+have too frequent cause to reproach us&mdash;neglected ones who are strangers
+to the blessings of our civilization, and who learn our laws first from
+their penalties, and become acquainted with the lessons of the prison, not
+of church or school. They, alas, who might be an honor to their sex, are
+made to recruit the ranks of shame, and what is the spirit of Herod
+compared with the world&#8217;s heart to fallen woman, alike in the wickedness
+that tempts and the scorn that awaits the fall.</p>
+
+<p>And not solely among the neglected of the earth does the spirit of the
+world lie in wait for childhood and youth. We might speak of the
+indulgence that pampers and vainly ruins the soul&mdash;of the kindness that
+kills those whom it aims to bless&mdash;of the neglect of health, natural and
+spiritual laws, which luxury introduces into modes of home education&mdash;of
+the want of a firm discipline that is kindest when firmest&mdash;of a practical
+infidelity that robs childhood of its sacred birthright, by robbing it of
+trust in God and the eternal life. Herod rages truly in the passions and
+the policy of the world.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>But not unchecked! Christianity with its great maternal heart is true to
+her watch, and calling helpers to her side. Let us acknowledge it. The
+great work of Christians now, is with the young. The work is two-fold, one
+of growth and of conquest, one that would rear up the offspring of faith
+within the divine kingdom, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> one which would visit the neglected and
+reclaim them from the enemies&#8217; power.</p>
+
+<p>The work must begin, indeed, in the hearts of the mature, fostered there
+by communion with God and Christ, fostered by sacred thought and earnest
+resolution. Beginning there, it is to be carried out into the great
+spheres of life, in which childhood receives its direction. Vain for us to
+attempt to imbue the young mind with truths, which we receive only in
+name&mdash;vain the attempt to feed yearning souls with empty words, or breathe
+into them a higher life, with appeals so faithless and loveless as to bear
+falsity in their very tone, and fall dead upon the ear. As the bee watched
+by Solomon alighted upon the living rose, and shunned the pretended one,
+so childhood knows well the tone of sincerity, and craves reality for its
+mental food. Let it find the reality.</p>
+
+<p>Let it find it in the home. Home, blessed word always, thrice blessed,
+this day, that speaks to us of Jesus, who has secured to the household so
+much of its purity and affection, and that brings to mind the loved ones
+beneath our own roofs, who have hardly slept the night from anxious
+waiting for the morning dawn. Home&mdash;what an engine of power, alike to harm
+and to bless! Let it be Christian in form and in spirit. There let God be
+acknowledged in praise and prayer. There let the eternal world be
+unveiled, and every blessing bring it near in gratitude, and every trial
+draw down its consolation. There let the young breathe in the spirit of
+the gospel. There let Mary keep her watch of love, and Herod waits in vain
+to destroy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>Let the world&#8217;s bad spirit be withstood, too, in the schools. The cry is
+now rising in every part of Christendom&mdash;from the backwoodsmen of the
+Rocky Mountains to the cities of the Old World, of late, stirred by a
+mighty want&mdash;Education, Universal Education! In no section, certainly, of
+our land, is this spirit comparatively more earnest than with us&mdash;for,
+beyond question, this State has been recently passing through an
+intellectual revival altogether unexampled in the annals of our Free
+Schools. Christians should rejoice in the movement, and should rescue
+popular education from the blighting touch of avarice and superstition.
+Let it go on in its work of growth and conquest&mdash;nurturing the children of
+the privileged, reclaiming the offspring of the neglected, carrying out a
+mode of education based upon the laws of God and the soul of man, mindful
+of every faculty, grace, affection, that God has hallowed and human wisdom
+unfolds. Let nothing that has been done lead us to be unmindful of what is
+to be done, alike in the extension and elevation of the schools. We wonder
+at the system of training pursued of old, which led youth to regard the
+school as a prison. Higher yet the idea must rise, as better views are
+entertained of the capacities of the child, and the intellectual helps and
+moral associations that bring them out. We need the idea of the
+Christ-child in the school. Let that haunt the minds of parents and
+teachers, and that sacred ideal of childhood will not be without loving
+disciples, whose voices shall make the songs of the schoolroom as sacred
+and acceptable as temple<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> chants or choral litanies. A better spirit, and
+one that demands the co-operation of all Christian people, has shown
+itself in our city of late, in the new efforts to seek out neglected
+children, and open to them the blessings of education, and industry and
+religion. The establishment of the Mission at the Five Points, of the
+Children&#8217;s Aid Society, of the Asylum for Friendless Boys, have made an
+era in the Christian annals of New-York, which all right-minded persons
+should bless, alike in their word and their work. Add to these efforts for
+the poor and neglected, the new institutions, such as the Free College and
+the Cooper Institute, which offer such unwonted privileges to worthy boys
+of the humblest means, and we have no reason to despair of the future of
+this great city, or to distrust the school as a noble ally of the church.</p>
+
+<p>The Christian church! Here the spirit of the guardian mother ought
+eminently to prevail. The church should be the mother of the young. Oh,
+how cold and dreary is the idea, deemed by many the essential of
+Protestant truth, the idea that the young, or at least, little children,
+can have no vital connection with the Church; but must wait for some
+preternatural visitation in maturer years to call them to the arms of the
+great spiritual mother, and make them feel themselves hers. How
+unsatisfactory the doctrine, that children are to grow up, as if outside
+of the church, with the prospect of one day being taken in. Be ours the
+cheering view, sanctioned, surely, by the analogies of revelation, the
+faith of centuries, and by the love of parents, that the child should be
+regarded as by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> birth and baptism admitted into the Christian kingdom, and
+to be nurtured from the very first in the principles and affections
+congenial with the government of God. Let this idea be accepted, and power
+and blessing would come in its train. Higher consecration would crown the
+home, better wisdom would guide the strength of father, and holier love
+fill the soul of mother, from their communion with the kingdom that claims
+parent and child for its own. The Christ-child should be remembered in the
+Christian Church. When remembered truly, he will save childhood from
+Herod&#8217;s hands.</p>
+
+<p>This season is a time of anticipation and hope. It needs no very vivid
+imagination to bring before us the myriads of homes over Christendom, that
+ring with young mirth, and look cheerfully upon the opening age. Yet the
+grave question cannot but press itself upon us, What is in store for the
+generation, that is soon to stand in our places, and bear the burdens of
+life in our stead? Interesting, engrossing indeed are the fields of
+science, art, enterprise, enjoyment, now dawning upon us and promising a
+bright meridian to the new generation. Yet fearfully many dark spots in
+the horizon rise in the distance, and portend ill to many whose experience
+of the world is yet to come. The great want is of an earnest purpose,
+looking to an eternal aim, and enforced by a true plan of social life. The
+young host is ready, but needs better guidance. Muratori, the Italian
+historian, tells us, that in the twelfth century, in the contagion of the
+crusades, children caught the spirit, and an army of 30,000 was gathered
+from village and city,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> and marshalled by a child, started for the Holy
+Land and the Tomb of Christ. They marched on till they came to Marseilles,
+and the great sea stopped their fond dream. They wandered about
+distracted, and thousands miserably perished. Perhaps too romantic story
+for sober truth! But what a parallel to it in our age! A mighty host of
+youths starts on its way to a land of imagined holiness and peace. Vague
+aspirations, selfish passions, spiritual yearnings for the good and true,
+move their hearts. A child will lead them; the child who is to be the
+strong man of the age, and who is not yet known. Sadly, sadly, will they
+be disappointed, unless the leader is himself divinely led, and the heart
+of the Christ-child lives in him, and thus in the hearts of this
+generation, the Messiah is born anew.</p>
+
+<p>Every true purpose, all genuine faith speeds the day of his new coming,
+and hastens the downfall of Herod and his host.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Friends, Readers, let your hearts apply the lesson of this day, and let
+your hearts be cheered and solemnized by its associations. Think of your
+homes and the loved ones there. Think too of the loved ones departed, and
+deem them not lost, but gone before! Love your children, and love them the
+more by looking on them in the gospel light, by loving them as in God and
+Christ!</p>
+
+<p>Think too of our own early days. How vividly they at times come back, so
+that we almost forget maturity and its cares, and are children once more.
+Let them come back now, and with them all their tender associations&mdash;with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>
+them thoughts of early home; brothers, sisters, father, and more than all
+of her, who stood to us in Mary&#8217;s place, and blessed us with a Christian
+Mother&#8217;s love!</p>
+
+<p>But can the association rest there? No! Upward to Him, so holy in
+childhood, so glorious in maturity&mdash;to Him, Friend and Saviour, Messiah,
+from whom our best blessings flow, let our gratitude rise, and to God,
+through Him, let our devotion be exalted! We have no hymn to the Virgin
+Mother, no Ora pro Nobis for the beatified Madonna. Simple faith is better
+than romantic tradition. To us heaven is fairer for possessing that Mother
+and that Child.</p>
+
+<p><i>Christmas Day.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+<h2>New Things.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">NEW THINGS.</span></p>
+
+<p>Measured by any human standard, how daring was the vision of the Christian
+seer! From Patmos, his watchtower of rock in the &AElig;gean Sea, midway between
+the hemispheres of ancient civilization, he surveyed the ruling powers of
+the world, declared their doom, and the rise of a new kingdom, even the
+City of God. The predominant forces of the existing age took visible shape
+before his inspired imagination. Jewish bigotry, Pagan idolatry, Roman
+despotism, led on by the master spirit of evil, stood before him, as so
+many fearful monsters. Equally vivid were the forms of divine agency by
+which they were to be subdued. From Him who sat upon the throne revealed
+in heaven, came the decree, &#8220;Behold, I make all things new.&#8221; Our pen need
+not lose its cheerfulness in writing of this opening year, with such
+imagery in view.</p>
+
+<p>How much of that vision has been proved true? Enough surely to save it
+from the charge of presumption, enough to ascribe its daring rather to a
+devotion mindful of divine guidance than to a wilfulness impatient of
+delay. The former things have passed away. The old temple is remembered
+only for the sake of its spiritual archetype. The despot&#8217;s purple has
+faded before the bloodstained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> robes of the martyrs. The idols to which
+men bowed on both the &AElig;gean shores, the European and the Asiatic, have
+fallen. Even the crescent, that has for a time displaced the cross, and
+which now in the city of Constantinople gleams from the dome of St.
+Sophia, forms no exception to the statement, for it marks no idolatrous
+shrine, but like the orb which it represents is but a partial reflection
+of the great source of light, before which it must one day grow pale.</p>
+
+<p>Gradually, but none the less mightily, the new power went on its way, and
+ere long from beyond the Mediterranean on the Carthaginian shore, there
+came a great response to the exile of the &AElig;gean. When Augustine wrote his
+&#8220;City of God,&#8221; the philosopher of history confirmed the vision of the
+seer, as he celebrated the triumphs of that word which planted the cross
+above the throne of the C&aelig;sars. Tempting indeed is the historical survey
+this presented, but we must not yield to the enticement. We must quit this
+grand prospect of the nations, and speak of the Gospel, as sent chief of
+all for the renewal of the soul and the redemption of the home.
+World-regenerating power as it is, its first prerogative is its
+life-renewing office.</p>
+
+<p>This principle we are prepared to lay down at the outset, that in the
+order of Providence Jesus Christ is the spiritual head of the human race,
+and that men and nations find redemption and true life from God through
+Him. What was said of old, needs to be said now &#8220;Behold I make all things
+new&#8221;&mdash;now in the ears alike of those who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> have never heard Christian
+truth, and of those who have lulled themselves to slumber beneath its
+familiar sound. Nay, the most sincere Christians need constant renewing in
+the light of first principles and by the spirit of true life. Their piety
+is apt to harden into formalism&mdash;their charity to narrow into some kind of
+clanship&mdash;their industry to sink into a low worldly prudence apart from
+all divine aims.</p>
+
+<p>It is not easy for any of us to begin the New-Year without a pleasant
+sense of freshness or renovation, as if some former burdens had passed
+away and many things had become new. This is well, and needs only to be
+made better. As we renew our friendships, we should not fail to renew our
+relation with the Great Friend, and invoke his blessing upon the opening
+months.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>We need first of all to review our principles. These we regard as
+constituting the essentials of our faith. However right they may have
+been, we are very apt to lose sight of them, or gradually, perhaps almost
+unconsciously, allow others to creep into their place. The word of Christ
+to us now is as of old, &#8220;Believe.&#8221; What do we believe? What to us is the
+greatest reality? Many things are true&mdash;what to us is the truth? Many
+words are important&mdash;what to us is <i>the</i> word? Answer not in the language
+of decent custom or technical phrase, but from the heart. We have all said
+at some time more or less definitely, &#8220;We believe in God, the Creator of
+the world, in Jesus Christ his Son and express image, in the Holy Spirit,
+the witness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> within the soul.&#8221; When we believe thus truly, then we have
+the true principles of living. We own the Divine government, acknowledge
+its representative, honor its form of life. But our belief becomes an
+empty word, unless with enlarged knowledge and experience, it is
+constantly renewed; and as we pass into new fields of thought, action,
+observation, we subdue this added territory to the rightful sovereignty,
+and interpret all things in the light of Divine truth. Have we done
+this&mdash;are we doing it? Or have we left our faith behind us, and in our
+world of business or pleasure, do we find ourselves either utterly without
+God, or with Him only in the most vague and distant idea? True faith is
+not overcome by the world, but overcomes the world.</p>
+
+<p>We learn a great many things as our years pass, and there is a
+knowledge&mdash;do we not know it? that increaseth sorrow. Such is all the
+knowledge that shuts out the light of God; and leads man away from a
+filial faith in the Eternal Parent and the heavenly home. Such stores
+indeed increase our nominal domain, but only as he would enlarge his
+estate who were to conquer Sahara and pitch his tent among desert sands
+where no living water is.</p>
+
+<p>Faith&mdash;the faith that God is Father of men&mdash;that he is in Christ, and
+through Him will visit us in the soul and the life, makes all things
+new&mdash;constantly leads us into new experience of Divine truth, and makes
+old things appear in a new light. This is no narrow creed for the recluse
+or the mystic. It is for men of all tempers and conditions. Nay, they need
+it most, whose pursuits are most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> likely to chain them down to the earth.
+For them indeed occasional leisure and recreation has no small solace.
+But, the best solace for world-weariness is the rest of the soul in God;
+the mind&#8217;s trust in the greatest of realities, the Being of beings. All
+pleasure that deadens this trust but adds to the weariness which it would
+charm away and is the serpent&#8217;s whisper, that promises the peace which
+comes only from the heavenly dove. Above all our prudence, all our labors
+and expedients, we are compelled to look for the true light. Revive,
+increase our faith, and straightway all things are new. God reveals new
+features of his Providence, and things familiar have a new expression, and
+speak no longer only of the earth.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Who can recur thus to first principles and find from them better light and
+peace, without carrying the renewing influence into the sphere of the
+affections? Here the Divine Word has a voice for us&mdash;a voice too much
+neglected because identified either with a perplexing theological system
+or a shallow sentimentalism. God is love, and he that loveth not knoweth
+not God. This truth came from Him who made the soul, and knows well its
+wants. Bring it near to us and feel its renovating power. There seems
+always indeed to be a peculiar peril in moralizing upon the affections,
+and they are very apt to be chilled by the precepts that most insist upon
+their vitality and warmth. But the Christian Gospel is little disposed to
+waive its imperious claims from fear of the metaphysician or the
+sentimentalist. It says Love God and the brethren,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> and bids us make this
+truth practical. As the years pass, instead of having less affection, we
+ought to have more. A true life always has more, as it enlarges its
+experience and its faculty&mdash;not indeed more of that superficial
+sensibility which is the burden of so many moon-struck rhymesters and the
+great staple of the common romancers, but more of that divine charity,
+that vital good-will, which holds filial communion with the Father, and,
+striving to be perfect even as he is perfect, carries the light and warmth
+of its presence into every sphere of life. In fact, the highest human
+wisdom is affectionate as it is mature. The novice in thought may be sharp
+and crabbed, but the sage is tolerant and kind. He who sees the truth in
+its reality, sees that it is the form which contains and expresses
+goodness. If there be a kind of intellectual power that is bitter and
+malicious, it is sure to be only some shape of low cunning or some
+perversion of the better reason&mdash;some perversion that shows Lucifer&#8217;s
+fall, if it shine with something of his light. The Master and they who
+learned of him were full of love as of wisdom. Such is the plan of God&#8217;s
+moral government based upon the nature of his own being.</p>
+
+<p>The Father calls us to be followers of him as dear children, and in the
+sober thought of mature years to cherish more than the impulsive affection
+of childhood. He demands that our whole life-plan should be guided, nay,
+pervaded with good-will. If there be less sensitiveness upon the surface
+of the character, there should be a deeper sentiment within. He is ready
+to help us win the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> grace, which he commends. Through devout thought,
+whether of meditation or prayer&mdash;through every act which brings us near to
+himself, whether of self-denying humanity or of common neighborly
+kindness, he is ready to impart to the soul something of the fulness of
+his Spirit, and renew our being in its central spring.</p>
+
+<p>We need this influence in our near affinities and remoter relations. The
+ice gathers about us, and should be melted away. The most intimate ties
+become dull and indifferent through custom, and the nearest friends,
+because of their nearness, lose interest as if estranged. In the same
+Divine fountain we refresh every home feeling and social sympathy.
+Realizing anew our relation to God, we are ready to see more of his
+goodness in all things around, and regard every aspect of humanity, as a
+call upon us to appreciate his love for us by our own for his creatures.
+The point of view is at once changed, and we look upon our fellow-beings
+no longer in the spirit of harsh critics, exacting all things and owing
+nothing, but as ourselves dependants upon Divine favor, and owing mercy
+even as we have received. Every human tie is in peril, when this sentiment
+is forgotten. When its force is felt, every sphere of life has a blessing.
+Home wears a new smile, and its mutual deference repeats the great law of
+Heaven. Strifes among kindred and acquaintances cease. The sternest censor
+of the follies and vices of mankind mingles mercy with his judgment, and
+considers with thoughtful compassion the infirmities at which the cynic
+scoffs. Because he opens his heart, he does not shut his eyes, but with
+judgment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> keen, yet tender and forbearing, in a spirit wise and benign,
+nay, Christlike, he looks upon the strange drama of human life, and whilst
+he cannot wholly solve its problem, sees enough of God in the universe and
+among men to submit the ultimate solution to the Divine Power, and finds a
+very sure way of helping on the Divine plans by a life of justice, energy
+and good-will. Who of us does not need more of this spirit, more sense of
+God&#8217;s love to us, as the great source of kind affection to one another?</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>For want of it, and of the filial faith in which it has its root, we
+wither up, and our best strength is lost. Nay, our very work
+languishes&mdash;our labor, whatever it may be, loses its zest. There is no man
+of generous mind, who has not at some time accepted his life-work in a
+spirit truly religious, feeling that its burdens are to be borne in a
+Christian temper, and its duties done with reference to exalted aims. But
+how often the better purpose languishes, and we pursue our toil away from
+the fountains of true life, separating the spheres which God has joined
+together, robbing our daily life of the freshness and power, which our
+youthful zeal possessed without care, and which need only to be truly
+cared for to be preserved, nay, to grow in vigor. It is not always so with
+us, but too often; and there are none who do not need renovation in
+respect to their life-plan and work. Some things we should do, that we
+have not done&mdash;some things, that we have done, should have been left
+undone. There is much efficacy in a sober and honest review of our
+personal career, of what we have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> achieved, suffered, gained, lost, and of
+what has been our use alike of our successes and disappointments. God has
+given to us something of his own power of judgment, and we are the better
+either by the rebuke or the encouragement of the &#8220;Ill-done&#8221; or the
+&#8220;Well-done,&#8221; pronounced by ourselves upon ourselves. More power still
+comes from bringing all the higher resources of our being upon our labor,
+refusing to become the serfs of a slavish routine of task-work, and
+keeping our hours and weeks fresh alike by the faculties that we exert,
+and the aims to which we look. Happy, indeed, the man, whatever be the
+sphere of his action, whose being is renewed rather than exhausted by his
+toil. Only a filial faith and love can insure this blessing. A cheerful
+temper is much, but not all; and no merely animal spirits can suffice to
+renovate the mind under so many vicissitudes and disappointments as most
+lives present. A man&#8217;s <i>spirit</i> is the chief fact in determining his
+<i>spirits</i>, and the spirit can be kept fresh and strong only by communion
+with the God who gave it. They who take the work of life as given by God
+in kindness, and as to be done faithfully and cheerfully, filially, keep
+and enlarge their power. Whatever their sphere, they wait upon the Lord,
+and they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength&mdash;they shall
+mount up with wings as eagles&mdash;they shall run and not be weary&mdash;they shall
+walk and not faint.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Thus following the leadings of Divine Providence, we find the true
+fountain of life. All things are ever new, and in our faint human
+experience we are able to know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> something of the bliss of that Infinite
+and Omniscient, to whom all things are known&mdash;to whom there is no past or
+future, yet whose is the fulness of an ever-renewing life, the great I Am,
+from everlasting to everlasting. Existence becomes more serene, yet more
+earnest; less impassioned, not less affectionate; less impulsive, but far
+more interesting. There are two kinds of renewal, distant as are earth and
+heaven. The one comes from the novelty of a constant variety, the other
+from the freshness of an ever truer life. Just across the sea the exile of
+Patmos could have found an excellent example to place in contrast with the
+spirit of renewal which he urged. The Athenian&mdash;and he is in this respect
+more favored with followers than in his Attic refinement&mdash;spent his time
+in seeking for some new thing. Common life was stupid, its business was
+contemptible and fit only for slaves. Different the spirit, as the lot of
+this novelty hunter from that of the Christian with his ever renewed mind.
+The one finds what is new by skimming over surfaces, the other by drawing
+from inexhaustible depths. The one scatters his forces as he seeks to
+refresh them, the other concentrates his powers in the very process of
+renovation. The one yields to a passion for mental dissipation that burns
+and wastes like a fever, the other follows a law of life, whose pulses
+beat in ever serener health&mdash;nay, beat in ever-renewing vigor, and sound
+no funeral marches to the grave. In short, the one indulges in a mental
+distraction that has in itself the principle of exhaustion; the other is
+nurtured by the Divine aliment which gives a life that is eternal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>Are not our own experience and observation full of illustrations of the
+truth that has been presented. Are not history and biography constant
+witnesses of the ever-renovating power of a genuine faith, and love, and
+work, and also of the fate of worldly passion to exhaust its own springs
+of enjoyment. How signal an illustration we may take from the destiny of
+two men of the last century, who, more than any others, moved France and
+England&mdash;the nations to which they spoke. Mirabeau, a man of robust frame
+and singular native eloquence, was cut down in the very meridian of his
+day by a disease which was an expressive close and consequence of the
+fitful fever of his life of passion. His last words, in their gorgeous
+rhetoric, showed with what opiates he had drugged his soul: &#8220;Sprinkle me
+with perfumes, crown me with flowers, and thus let me sink into the
+eternal sleep.&#8221; Within that very month, a far different death-scene was
+presented across the British Channel. An old man of nearly four-score
+years and ten, rests peacefully upon his bed, surrounded by a company of
+friends, who feel quite as much joy as grief, as they look upon his face
+and hear his words. Although of frame naturally delicate, and of gifts by
+no means brilliant, he has moved the hearts of myriads by his appeals, and
+won a name better than that of founders of empires. The very week previous
+he had continued his round of labors, and his strength was not abated as
+he pleaded his Master&#8217;s cause. He sank to his rest in God with the words
+of the anthem,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;I&#8217;ll praise my Maker with my breath,&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>on his lips, and the strain which was broken by the touch of death seemed
+to his companions to be finished by a voice from the spiritual world,
+saying:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Praise shall employ my nobler powers;<br />
+My days of praise shall ne&#8217;er be past,<br />
+While life, and thought, and being last,<br />
+Or immortality endures.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Mirabeau and Wesley! Thus different are the ends of wilful passion and
+unswerving fidelity. All lives, according as they are true or false, renew
+this contrast.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>&#8220;Behold, I create all things new,&#8221; saith the Lord. For good or for ill,
+this decree must be applied to us. In some way we are all changing as the
+years pass. Our lives are wasting away, unless they are renovated by a
+truer spirit, and thus winning ever more than they lose. What do we most
+need that time may be ever newer and happier, and the hours move on
+neither with lagging weariness nor drunken haste, but in the Divine order
+marked out for them by their Lord?</p>
+
+<p>Are there not some things to be put off, as well as some things to be put
+on? Answer honestly as we look the New Year in the face&mdash;answer as to a
+messenger from God. What weight are we carrying, that we need to lay
+aside? What evil habit is fixing itself upon us, shutting out the light of
+God, chilling the better affections, deadening the nobler powers, and
+threatening, perhaps, beneath its insidious smile to take from existence
+more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> of its beauty and joy and strength? Let each consider well his own
+besetting sin, and put it off. With the falling burden, scales fall from
+his eyes&mdash;he sees God anew. For him the former things have passed
+away&mdash;all things are become new. What makes our being fresher and happier
+than the conviction that the coming years are better than the past!</p>
+
+<p>Off with the old burdens, and put on the new armor. There is something for
+each of us to do&mdash;something for each one of us specific and peculiar as
+our own individuality&mdash;something for all of us as universal as our common
+humanity. The specific thing and the universal good pursue as if for life
+itself. God bless us in the striving, and crown us in the work. Each year
+in its sober experience give us new hopes for ourselves and the future of
+our race.</p>
+
+<p><i>New Year.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Solicitude of Parents</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">SOLICITUDE OF PARENTS.</span></p>
+
+<p>Our thoughts turn now more particularly to the circle of home relations,
+and we propose to give some plain views of them with an especial eye to
+the temptations of city life. The duty of parents is the topic first in
+order.</p>
+
+<p>Few if any words are given in the Scriptures to persuading parents to love
+their children, or to wish to provide for them. The affection is taken for
+granted, and they who have it not are set aside by themselves as monsters.
+If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house,
+he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.</p>
+
+<p>It is not upon the parental sentiment itself, but upon its due direction,
+that Christianity rests its emphasis; as well it may, for what sentiment
+has gone more astray from the true mark, and in mistaken kindness hurt
+those whom it would most bless. &#8220;What man,&#8221; asks our Saviour, &#8220;would give
+his son a stone instead of bread, or a serpent instead of a fish?&#8221; Not
+one, if he really knew it or saw it. Yet what is more frequent than such
+wrong indirectly done?</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Take the first and most obvious form of parental<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> solicitude, the form
+literally connected with the question just cited&mdash;we mean the physical
+maintenance of children. It would be wasting words in this or any
+respectable assembly, to try to prove that parents should provide food and
+clothing for their offspring. Yet here, and every where, in our mode of
+making this provision, many very grave questions may arise. Kind feeling
+is not enough. Without knowledge and forethought, we may hurt where we
+wish to help&mdash;we may kill where we wish to cure. At every step we need
+better counsel than any instinctive fondness, or childish caprice, or
+worldly fashion. The Creator has a lesson for us in the use of all his
+gifts, and if we do not heed it, what we give as bread may turn out a
+stone, and what seems to us a fish may sting like a serpent.</p>
+
+<p>In providing food, clothing, air, exercise, for our children, we are to
+study those solemn and inexorable laws which God has enacted for the rule
+of the body. In this lower court of creation there is no pardoning power,
+and the wrong done to the constitution in childhood is a wrong for a
+lifetime. We apprehend that in no one point is our American society more
+in error and more at variance, not only with natural laws, but even with
+the best European standard, than in the physical education of children.
+They are fed often on the trash of the confectioner, instead of the simple
+aliments nearest the hints of nature, and by improper dress and hours they
+are forced into a precocious maturity of mind and body, equally hurtful to
+both.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>Does any one doubt the importance or dignity of such caution? The doubt
+vanishes the moment we see the connection between physical education, and
+the whole tone of thought and feeling&mdash;nay, the entire aim of life. The
+tastes for food, and dress, and amusement, cherished in children of tender
+years, may be committing them to a judicious or a corrupt method of
+life&mdash;may be their initiation into a school of self-control and wisdom, or
+passion and extravagance. The drunkard, the sot, nay, the debauchee, may
+date their wretchedness from childhood. Many a family has been ruined by
+habits of extravagance that began in the finery and feasting of the
+nursery. They that dwell in cities should take close heed to the prevalent
+danger, and not think themselves safe merely because they do as other
+people do. Consider how common the error is to mistake precocity for
+promise&mdash;to disturb the sacred reserve of nature&mdash;to tear open the
+curtained bud of childhood, and boast of the forced growth so ruinous to
+the tender plant, and then let us learn anew to respect the bidding of the
+Creator and follow his appointed way. Here we should be willing to take a
+stand as nonconformists, and have it appear in the beginning, that we are
+not educating our children to be the apes of the world&#8217;s fashions, or
+slaves of its caprices, but to be rational and moral creatures, a blessing
+to their home and community, a light in the kingdom of God. Let them learn
+early to find happiness in common things&mdash;to enjoy simple pleasures&mdash;to
+love the glow of healthful action above the fever of artificial
+excitements, the constant bounties of nature beyond the costly gifts of
+luxury.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span>What we have said applies more directly to providing for children during
+their tender years. In rude communities here the care mostly stops, and
+the boy at least, as soon as he is strong enough to be master of his
+limbs, is left pretty much to take care of himself. But as society becomes
+more refined and luxurious, it is very obvious that the solicitude of
+parents looks more towards providing for the maturer years than for the
+minority of their children. It becomes, perhaps, the absorbing question,
+how shall we establish them properly in life&mdash;what effort or self-denial
+must we use to secure their future success?&mdash;a great question, and one
+which troubles many an earnest mind, and heaves society itself with
+misgivings.</p>
+
+<p>It often presents itself in a very tangible form, and by some is confined
+to one point&mdash;to concern for property. I will not disparage the desire of
+parents to secure a comfortable living to their children. But it is safe
+to say that this desire is strong enough when compared with matters more
+essential even in their bearing on a comfortable living. Surely the chief
+assurance of a sufficient livelihood is a good practical education. A
+reasonable man will not think it important to leave more than a frugal
+competence to his children, yet he ought to think himself unkind, nay
+cruel, if he spare any labor or sacrifice needed to educate them to do
+their part effectively and happily in the world. A large inheritance is
+easily lost, and may be retained without adding any happiness or dignity
+to its owner or the community, but a good education stands by its
+possessor; the strength of his trials and the ornament of his joys.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>We need to look well to this at a time when, under the very name of
+education, foul wrong is done to the active energies, and a systematic
+imbecility of mind and body has the stamp of elegance. That only is a good
+education which so stores the mind and brings out the powers as to fit one
+to take an honest place in life, and do well the work given us to do. Such
+a culture will have an eye upon the uncertainties of fortune, and prepare
+the pupil to provide for himself, and all who are reasonably dependent
+upon him. Such a culture it is the duty of every parent to give, and the
+right of every child to receive. It is clear, however, that it cannot be
+given without going in the face of many dainty prejudices, which are so
+ready to pamper unreasonable wants and slight the plain utilities. The
+Hebrew laws required, that children, even those of nobles should be taught
+some useful art, and the Saviour of men and the chief of his apostles were
+bred in accordance with this law. There is no security against shameful
+servitude short of this, that a youth shall have enough in himself, know
+enough, and can do enough, to take and keep an honorable place in the
+world. Too often this great truth is slighted, and men toil in such a way
+as to procure for their children a dainty training that enlarges the
+surface of their wants, whilst it lessens the domain of their energies,
+and so puts a mill-stone upon a son&#8217;s back, whilst thinking to give him
+bread.</p>
+
+<p>Yet more sternly we must carry out the doctrine of the need of an
+education essentially self-relying. The father has and should have more
+tender solicitude for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> daughter than the son, and there is no
+affection that the blessed God has breathed into the human heart more
+beautiful and holy than this, giving as it does such grace to the rudest
+and the most refined homes, teaching gentle speech to many a rough
+peasant, and imbuing the most cultivated man with a delicacy and
+tenderness beyond any of the charms of courts or chivalry. Yet this
+sentiment needs to be wise as well as kind; nay, wise in order to be kind;
+and a just father will strive to train his daughter to be equal to either
+fortune. However large or small his fortune, he will remember its
+uncertainties, and beware of sanctioning the too prevalent folly which
+regards woman as born to be petted and dependent, and brands a rational
+and self-relying education as masculine and ungraceful. If we have our
+eyes open, we must see the wretchedness of this system, and regard every
+daughter as cruelly treated who is not enabled without loss of
+self-respect, in case of need, to take a stand for herself, and prefer to
+an uncongenial marriage or a degrading dependence, reliance upon her own
+arts of accomplishment or utility. The same preparation that fits her to
+meet the time of trial, fits her to adorn prosperity, and to be that noble
+creature, the woman who guides an affluent household with energy and love,
+and who adds to the graces most prized in the social circle the grace that
+is born of God and radiates the light of Heaven.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Of course it is utterly idle to urge the need of such an education for
+sons and daughters, by limiting its uses<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> solely to worldly advantage. We
+go up to the true basis of life for firm ground to build upon. Take that
+ground decidedly, and then we view all true culture as part of the
+training of souls under the Kingdom of God. We are not to live by bread
+alone, but by every Divine word, by all of God&#8217;s gifts to us. They are
+cruel parents who slight the moral and spiritual wants of their children
+and train them in worldly passions. This is, in the saddest sense, giving
+them a stone instead of the Bread of Life. So we all think and are ready
+to say. Take care lest our conduct belies our words. Whatever its position
+or professions may be, that is a wretched household, whose polity is not
+based upon a Divine standard&mdash;which does not acknowledge a rectitude above
+the world&#8217;s ways and breathe faith in God and things eternal. The very
+discipline of a true home will be modelled after the heavenly order, and
+will try to win the spirit of the benignant Father of all, who tempers
+firmness with kindness so wonderfully in the government of his creatures.</p>
+
+<p>Firmness is not enough&mdash;kindness is not enough, but the two must go
+together. Firmness without kindness becomes the stony austerity that
+crushes the will into servile conformity instead of training it to filial
+obedience; kindness without firmness readily becomes a feeble expediency
+that changes with the hour in a facility serpentine in more senses than
+one. Firmness with kindness gives a discipline authoritative and flexible,
+applying just principles in a mild prudence suited to all times and needs.
+Of old perhaps the rigid temper most abounded, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> austerity made
+parental rule a rod of iron; but now the other extreme most prevails, and
+a feeble indulgence allows self-will to be the law of childhood, and
+fosters in many a dwelling a juvenile jacobinism, which needs only time
+and chance to ripen into utter anarchy. This error does cruel wrong to
+parent and child&mdash;to the child by fostering an ungovernable temper, a
+perverse caprice that scoffs at all restraint and chafes even at the
+limitations which God has imposed; to the parent by bringing upon him the
+contempt of those who owe him respect, and by the painful conviction that
+the indulgence begun in apparent kindness has been as fatal as wilful
+severity. Away with the folly and the puny sentimentalism from which it
+springs! Let us look at the law of God founded in the written Word and in
+the very nature of things. The family is the safeguard of society&mdash;a
+government founded by Heaven itself. Parents are to rule, children are to
+obey. This principle, if carried out with energy and discretion, will
+adapt itself to the various ages and circumstances of life. The element of
+authority will be imbued with the attractive power of the truth and love
+upon which it rests, and as the child grows into youth or maturity, the
+authority that trained him, without losing its dignity, will appear less
+and less an arbitrary will&mdash;nay, authority itself will seem but the
+sterner aspect of persuasion.</p>
+
+<p>For all this we need an unworldly faith and a spiritual mind. They that
+would nurture others in the true life must themselves be nurtured upon its
+true element.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> For themselves they must breathe the prayer for daily bread
+in a true sense of its meaning&mdash;a true sense of dependence on God for
+moral power as for bodily strength. Nothing short of a temper and purpose
+truly religious will make the household a school of faith and a home of
+wisdom and peace. We are apt to be too negligent, indeed, of modes of
+instruction and forms of worship. Too often a parent neglects to tell his
+children what is deepest in his own heart, and with many not wholly
+worldly persons, the years pass away without any regular habits of
+Christian teaching and worship in the family. The remedy cannot come from
+mere formalism, but it must spring from a truer heart&mdash;more of the right
+spirit showing itself in the right way&mdash;in all wisdom and prudence,
+charity and devotion.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking thus, who of us does not see a startling thought staring us in
+the face&mdash;the thought that our own personal character is the measure of
+our influence, and that we cannot expect to teach or impress what we have
+not taken to our own hearts. We cannot cheat our children into the virtue
+which we affect, for they will find us out, and distinguish what we do and
+are, from what we say. Influence cannot rise above the level of character,
+nor the fountain above the fountain-head. What motive to a truer
+life&mdash;what warning against vice and godlessness&mdash;what encouragement in all
+good&mdash;that the chief patrimony of children is the character of their
+parents, and with this treasure small gifts are wealth, and without this
+treasure rich gifts are poor indeed. Unhappy is the man who leaves to his
+children the influence of a heart hard as stone and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> a worldliness wily as
+a serpent! Precious the influence&mdash;blessed the memory of a parent, whose
+life has made the ways of wisdom pleasant and peaceful, secured to his
+offspring a childhood pure and happy, given a sacred and cheerful
+remembrance to be the handmaid of an immortal hope.</p>
+
+<p>The affections, it has been said, press downward more strongly than they
+rise upward, and parents love their children more than children can love
+them in return. If this were so, it would but the more illustrate the
+fact, that life is not utterly selfish, and men live not for themselves
+alone. It is true, that we do not live for ourselves alone. The merchant
+at his counting-houses has thoughts beyond his gold and
+merchandize&mdash;visions more fair and kindly than these; and the hard-handed
+workman who does his ruder labor, spares of his earnings for his children
+at school. But the love is not all on one side, although time may be
+needed to adjust the balance, and teach childhood to appreciate a true
+parental care. God holds the balance, and will make it true. In the motive
+and in the result, he secures the reward of fidelity. Time and eternity
+will show, that the love which he has inspired shall win harvests of
+blessings that cannot perish.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Reverence in Children.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">REVERENCE IN CHILDREN.</span></p>
+
+<p>The Ten Commandments, the foundations of all law, both religious and
+civil, among civilized nations, are divided, all are aware, into two
+tables: the first treating of duties relating directly to God&mdash;the second
+treating of duties relating to man&mdash;the two covering the essential grounds
+of religion and morals. The command to honor father and mother begins the
+second table of the Law. Why should it not? for what so fitly stands at
+the head of the moral code, as the law that puts order into the household?
+The family is the form of government, first in time and first in
+importance. Home is older than church or court; a parent&#8217;s authority prior
+to that of priest or judge. With the family, social order began&mdash;without
+family union, social order must end.</p>
+
+<p>There is something striking in the transition from the first to the second
+table&mdash;the transition from Jehovah&#8217;s assertion of his own sovereignty to
+his tender regard for the welfare of men. We seem to be looking down from
+the awful mountain with its barren crags into the peaceful valley with its
+pleasant homes and grassy lawns, rejoicing that the summits pealing with
+thunder send down <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>refreshing breezes and fruitful showers into those
+plains below.</p>
+
+<p>Looking up to God, who claims of us supreme homage as his due, and then in
+his own sovereign right urges upon us to fulfil our dues to each other, we
+speak now of the duties of children or the honor to be rendered by them to
+parents.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Do any ask what are the grounds of the Commandments? The grounds are
+obvious, and the law, which God enacts, instead of being an arbitrary
+decree, is in entire harmony with the nature of things. It would perhaps
+be needless to dwell on these grounds, were there not something in the
+temper of our times, that calls them in question&mdash;in fact, certain notions
+of intellectual liberty among theorists, that combine with the passions
+and caprices of youth to unsettle many a household, and threaten the peace
+of society itself. Against the sentimentalist, who makes light of all
+natural ties to glorify the individual&#8217;s own intuitions or affinities, and
+against the little rebel, who comes to the same conclusion by a much
+shorter process, we urge the Divine law, &#8220;Honor thy father and thy
+mother.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Honor them, because God bids it, and bids it not merely in the written
+code, but by the whole order of his providence, by the very constitution
+of society. However we may dispute about the best form or true foundation
+of government&mdash;maintain monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, to be the
+best form&mdash;declare Divine law, social compact, or popular will, to be the
+true foundation, all must agree<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> in the Divine origin of the family and
+the Divine right of parental government. The instincts of nature, the
+words of revelation, the dictates of experience and expediency, all agree
+in this, and all illustrate the mind of God, the Creator of the family.
+The mind of God himself speaks or should speak through the parent to the
+child, so, that filial obedience is fitly another name for piety; so, that
+prayer itself borrows its most hallowed word from the reverence nurtured
+at home.</p>
+
+<p>Trace out the law of dependence, and see how fully it urges the
+commandment&mdash;the law of dependence that rests with parents so much of the
+welfare of the child. Not merely food, clothing, and home, but all the
+higher goods of life, experience, wisdom, virtue, are to be looked for
+thus. As a general rule, benignant Providence itself has its chosen
+almoner in father and mother, and the gifts are blessed as they are
+received in reverence. We may indeed suppose monstrous cases, in which
+unnatural parents exact such folly or wrong, that obedience ceases to be a
+virtue. Such cases are not frequent enough to alter the general law, and
+even in these, a true child, in refusing to conform to what is evil in the
+sight of God, will do it in such a way as still to keep the commandment,
+and treat tenderly even a perverse father, and expostulate with his
+tyranny in a temper fitted more to subdue than irritate its violence. Such
+monstrous cases need little notice in any Christian community, where
+parents are generally ready enough to do the best, and give the most in
+their power for their children. In fact, for them, the Decalogue has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> no
+law, as if nature needed no decree to enforce parental love, and the
+affections of themselves pressed heavily enough downwards. The great need
+was and is of enforcing the obligation, that looks upward from child to
+parent. Our modern culture, with all its scope and refinement, has no
+substitute for this obligation; nay, needs it more than ever to check the
+wilfulness and laxity so likely to come from precocious fancy and
+unbridled temper. Experience is constantly showing, that even the external
+promise connected with the commandment meets the wants of our own times
+also, and now, as of old, filial obedience secures an efficient life and
+peaceful civilization,&mdash;&#8220;that it may be well with thee, and that thy days
+may be long in the land which the Lord thy God shall give.&#8221; How many
+bright and dark chapters of recent history show how close is the
+connection between stability of society and filial respect&mdash;between
+allegiance to every worthy institution and the discipline that learns to
+regard a superior authority at home. This outward sanction the Gospel
+accepts, and carries it into the spiritual kingdom. By many a precept the
+apostles enforce the command, and by word and example, by the beatitudes
+of the mount, and the obedience of the cross, our Saviour imparts new
+blessing and worth to its observance.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>We have a foundation then to build upon, and filial respect rests upon the
+Word of God, the welfare of the home, the good of society, and the peace
+of the soul. Let the sentiment be worthy of the Divine foundation. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>
+worthy it will appear first of all as a feeling of affectionate reverence.
+It will not be worship as with the Chinese absolutist, nor mere
+friendship, as in the code of many a radical. The parent is of the same
+nature with the child, and is not to be adored; he is superior in age,
+experience and authority, and should have more than the friendly courtesy
+of an equal. Superior in degree, though not in kind, he is to be regarded
+with affectionate respect and deference. Any subjection more or less than
+this comes of wrong, and leads to wrong. To exact utter servitude is
+tyranny&mdash;to lower reasonable authority into flattery, entreaty, or
+apology, is an imbecile indulgence which a child should be as unwilling to
+ask as a parent to give.</p>
+
+<p>If any hearers are ready to quarrel with us for presuming to define the
+quality and conditions of one of the great social sentiments, and to say
+that all the affections are best let alone without any forcing process, we
+are not troubled for a reply. No modern folly has been more thoroughly put
+down by analysis and experience, than the sentimentalist&#8217;s notion, that
+the affections are wholly their own law, and are not to be trained under
+reason, conscience and religion. Even in those sentiments which have most
+of the spontaneous play of genius&mdash;those which rejoice in poetry, music,
+and all the beautiful arts, the perceptions must first be trained to the
+nicest sense of the truth of things, and the rigid discipline of every
+true artist shames the folly of the dreamers who would make it appear,
+that the great art of life, as a school of the affections, is to be left
+to itself. No&mdash;our principles have vast<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> power over our feelings, and they
+who from the beginning are trained to accept the great loyalties of a
+divine kingdom, will be loyal in their affections as in their creed, and
+their affections will come forth and grow up as the vine does by help of
+the very trellis which overlooks it.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>The filial sentiment thus accepted and nurtured will not be idle, but will
+show itself in the tone of manners, the rule of conduct, the law of life.</p>
+
+<p>Manners are but lesser morals, and closely connected with the greater
+morals. Good manners begin at home, and if they do not begin there, the
+desire for them is apt to end in poor affectation. The soul of politeness
+is mutual deference, and where should this have its origin but in the
+respect most directly sanctioned by God? Too often the true filial honor
+is forgotten, and, perhaps, from thoughtlessness more than disrespect,
+children are sometimes seen usurping the prerogatives of age, speaking in
+tones of petulant authority, and crowding themselves into the places of
+elders. The best place for them is their own place. Their own dignity, as
+well as that of their parents, is best furthered by the deference, that
+gives the household its best order and makes it the school of the graces,
+that adorn society with its pleasing gradations, and cheer the way to its
+best virtues. Full enough is the temptation, especially in cities, to fall
+short of this true deference and to rob childhood and youth of their best
+character. Manners, instead of being nurtured on the Christian root, are
+left too much to the dancing-master, and there are hosts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> of boys and
+girls adept in postures and airs proper for the ballet, and strangers to
+the reverence and simplicity that most honor them in honoring their
+elders. Precocious passion for dress and society is the bane of the one,
+and ridiculous affectation of manhood, especially of its follies, is the
+shame of the other. The girl, instead of being calmly at rest in a child&#8217;s
+healthful slumber, is aping the belle in the ball-room; and the boy is
+walking the street with his cigar, perhaps boasting of his powers at the
+bottle, instead of being where he should be, in his bed, getting strength
+for true manliness, not fevering himself into a ludicrous manikin. &#8220;Learn
+to show piety at home,&#8221; is thus another form of the ancient law, &#8220;Honor
+thy father and thy mother.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>The sentiment so essential to good manners will show itself as a rule of
+conduct, and filial honor will take the form of obedience. During the
+years of dependence this obedience is to be entire, for the parent must
+think and act for the child. No matter what precocity of memory or
+imagination, what privileges of education or amount of attainments, may
+seem sometimes to reverse the order of precedence, the child is to follow
+the parent&#8217;s counsels, and in so doing will gain alike in wisdom and
+discipline, for the experience of age is wiser than the pert wit of youth,
+and submission to a superior will is essential to a true schooling for the
+vicissitudes of life. It is not well to overstrain prerogative, and to
+insist on obedience as a sacrifice, where it might be made an attraction,
+if the reasons of the case are fully set forth. Nor is it well to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> make
+obedience wholly dependent upon a statement of reasons, for many things
+must be done for reasons that youth cannot appreciate, and kindness is
+never so decided as when the impatient shortsightedness of childhood is
+overruled by the far-seeing wisdom of maturity. Reason there should be in
+every request; but if the request were allowed to wait until the reasons
+could be understood, parental care would cease with the first restraint,
+and childhood would be left to itself at the first task or pain. God
+himself is our helper here, for he, who calls us in so many things to walk
+by faith without sight, has fitted youth for the same discipline, and made
+mild authority in the end more attractive and efficient than premature
+argument or feeble flattery.</p>
+
+<p>Obedience, thus considered, will not be servile but filial, and will find
+its own honor in doing honor to its guardians. It will lead children to
+ask constantly what they can do for the happiness of the family and the
+welfare of its members. This duty is too little thought of, especially
+where there is none of that pressure of want which compels children to
+help in the maintenance of the family. No matter how great the wealth of
+parents or the retinue of servants on the watch for every care, there is
+still place for the earnest co-operation of each member of the family, and
+no refinements of living have abolished the duty of mutual help, and the
+grace of mutual deference. In most families the services of the children
+are needed for many friendly offices of greater or less importance, and
+none will deny that the comfort of every household is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> closely connected
+with what the children do or fail to do for its welfare. So early does the
+work, the responsible work of life begin, and so early may its springs of
+beneficence be opened.</p>
+
+<p>Let any true household illustrate what we mean. What beauty in the filial
+confidence that reveals its troubles and needs, and asks counsel of
+superior wisdom! What comfort in the countless little services that
+lighten a father or mother&#8217;s care, or soothe their troubles! What grace in
+the unbought courtesies that youth may throw around the home, the refined
+deference, the kind remembrances too often left to the parade of
+drawing-rooms, but the proper ornament of the family circle! What power
+over the pains of sickness, or the languor of convalescence, in the
+solicitude and consideration which children may show, and showing, may
+bring to the weary pillow a balm more healing than medical art! And if
+stinted means require frugal expenditures, or even the active labor of the
+young, what worth in the filial thoughtfulness that anticipates the
+necessary economy, instead of repining encourages frugality, and asks to
+be useful instead of insisting on being indulged.</p>
+
+<p>And when fortune, station, or intellectual eminence reward youthful
+aspiration, the aspirant never wins more respect than when he makes his
+parents his confidants and companions. Here our common nature is not at
+fault, for whenever in any public exercise or examination a young person
+does remarkably well, we all think at once of the parents, and the
+pleasure of the assembly is not complete<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> until the people have confirmed
+their own enjoyment by sympathy with the father and mother. There is great
+power in this fact, and what it implies&mdash;great power in the fact that
+children honor parents by being truly honorable, and repay best the
+sacrifices of so many anxious years by making their own lives a credit and
+comfort to father and mother. This benefit lasts as long as life itself,
+and the integrity and efficiency of mature years carries out to the limit
+of existence the affectionate reverence of childhood.</p>
+
+<p>Here the whole world is one, and the human heart is the same in all ages,
+and history and experience meet. What state of society can be blind to the
+meaning of the imprecation which was pronounced at the entrance into the
+promised land, and joined in the same doom the idolator and him who should
+&#8220;set light by his father and mother?&#8221; What philosophy can gainsay the sage
+of the Book of Proverbs, whose sententious moralizing rises into prophetic
+grandeur as he speaks of the unnatural son: &#8220;The eye that mocketh at his
+father or refuseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick
+it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.&#8221; Who needs any interpretation
+of the feelings of David, or Joseph, or Solomon, in their joy or trial?
+How heartrending was the grief of the Psalmist over his recreant
+son&mdash;&#8220;Would to God, I had died for thee, my son, my son!&#8221; What beauty, as
+well as simplicity in the inquiry of Joseph for his father, when the prime
+minister of Egypt dismissed his courtly train, and weeping aloud, could
+only ask &#8220;Doth my father yet live?&#8221; What grandeur far above its gold and
+gems <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>surrounded the throne of Solomon, when he rose to meet his mother,
+and called her to a seat at his right hand. &#8220;And the king said unto her,
+Ask on, my mother, for I will not say thee nay.&#8221; What pathos and sublimity
+in the Saviour of men, when, embracing home and heaven in his parting
+words on the Cross, he commended his spirit to the Eternal Father, and
+intrusted his mother to the beloved disciple&#8217;s care. We need no more than
+this to show how the gospel glorifies the law, and crowns its morality and
+piety alike in its perfect love&mdash;&#8220;Woman, behold thy son&#8221;&mdash;&#8220;Disciple,
+behold thy mother.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Hear the amen that goes from Calvary to Sinai&mdash;and Honor thy father and
+thy mother!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Brothers and Sisters.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">BROTHERS AND SISTERS.</span></p>
+
+<p>When Cain asked &#8220;Am I my brother&#8217;s keeper?&#8221; it seemed a very strange
+question to come from a man who had just murdered his brother and held him
+so cruelly in his keeping. Fear led Cain to <ins class="correction" title="original: diguise">disguise</ins> his guilt by
+repudiating his obligation, through an interrogation more negative than a
+flat denial. What he said in guilty fear, <ins class="correction" title="original: may">many</ins> are now ready to say in
+pretended humanity, and it is one of the conceits of our time to make
+light of ties of kindred in the name of a world-wide philanthropy. A
+melo-dramatic patriotism not particularly famous for domestic attachment
+has been ready to swear brotherhood to the whole nation, perhaps the whole
+race, and many a scape-grace who has been a sad plague to his own kindred,
+has been heard shouting at the top of his voice the three noble watchwords
+of which fraternity is a climax. Philanthropists sometimes labor under a
+similar error, and people who have had no especial solicitude or felicity
+in helping their own families and neighbors, presume to despise such near
+at hand interests as trivial, and seek to reform the world in a wholesale
+way. Professed Christians are not wholly free from the error. Some
+certainly there are who are ready to <i>brother</i> and <i>sister</i> all
+Christendom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> with most profuse generosity of tongue, who show their little
+sense of the meaning of the term by pinching selfishness towards those of
+their own blood, that seems to say, &#8220;Am I my brother&#8217;s keeper?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>It is well, that large views of social obligation are making headway, and
+that Christianity has so mightily rebuked the narrowness of exclusive
+cliques and clanships. But if humanity is to be true in its progress, it
+must be true in its source; and if a man love not his brother whom he hath
+seen, how can he love not merely God whom he hath not seen, but the
+brother whom he hath not seen? In fact what is regard for our brother but
+the first and most obvious application of the second of the two great
+commandments? Our brother is our next neighbor, and even our humanity must
+begin with him, that it may be really worth any thing. We turn now to the
+collateral relations of the household, or the duties of brothers and
+sisters. Sacred and suggestive subject, speaking to each of us in the
+tones of our own peculiar experience. Let it speak to the conscience as
+well as to the sensibilities and the memory.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Where shall we begin but at the beginning, that is with the will of God,
+which is the ground of every duty? The family, as we have seen and
+believe, is the first form of society, a government founded by the
+Creator. All that can be said in favor of its peace and order, goes to set
+forth its collateral as well as its ascending and descending ties&mdash;to urge
+the obligations of brothers and sisters as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> well as parents and children.
+Co-operation between the former is as essential to the home, as are
+protection and dependence between the latter.</p>
+
+<p>But to come more closely to the point, is it not true that proper respect
+for parents urges the duty now under consideration and just filial love
+must needs be fraternal? Children cannot be true to their parents without
+being true to each other, and the welfare and charm of the household
+depends in no small degree upon the mutual help and moral harmony of its
+younger members. Children are not regarded as so many separate units, but
+as an organic whole, as members one of another; and when they are
+considerate and harmonious, they have new grace and worth in the parent&#8217;s
+eye, more so to his heart, than the features of the fairest landscape
+where the particulars combine in the whole, and light, shade, grove and
+river, hill and valley&mdash;fair in themselves, are fairer together, can
+possibly have to the eye of the lover of nature. What under the heavens is
+more pleasant and lovely than brethren who with all their differences of
+taste and temperament still agree in aim and spirit? It is indeed like the
+dew of Hermon, that threw its silver veil over mountain and valley, and
+refreshed and beautified each tree and flower with a baptism from heaven.</p>
+
+<p>But this relation of fraternal love to filial is but one of its aspects.
+Brothers and sisters are related by what they owe directly to each other,
+as well as by what they owe to parents. The will of God, that bids them
+agree for their parents&#8217; sake, bids them also agree for their own<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> sake.
+Mutual educators of each other they must be, and by means far more
+powerful than school-books or lessons. They are constantly together, and
+this intercourse must be a selfish collision, if it be not a friendly
+reciprocity. In childhood, they must needs be frequent rivals for the
+favors and duties of the home, subjects of indulgences or sacrifices, that
+must awaken strife, unless they are shared in mutual deference. With
+childhood, however, the relation does not end, but may have in mature
+years its gravest importance, for in the order of nature parents are
+likely to be first taken from the world, and to all human view they may be
+beyond the reach of kindness or unkindness. But the relation of children
+to each other promises to last far longer, may create between the elder
+and younger a relation parental as well as filial, and for good or ill it
+must in some way continue as long as life itself. How essential, then,
+that a tie so enduring should be rightly regarded, and that in childhood,
+youth and maturity, it should keep its benignant hold over the family!</p>
+
+<p>Nor does its importance end here. The method of God is, that the
+affections shall grow outward from within, and that being trained in
+kindness at home, men should be prepared to show good will to each other
+in all the concerns of life. As the patriarchal dispensation, in the grand
+course of ages, widened into the universality of the gospel, so in every
+true life, a just family culture is to expand into a generous humanity,
+that learns at home how to speak of a broader brotherhood, and a higher
+fatherhood. Whether God&#8217;s method is not wiser than man&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> let experience
+show by contracting the windy declamation, that mistakes rhetorical
+generalities for comprehensive benevolence, and the judicious,
+<ins class="correction" title="original: unostentations">unostentatious</ins> beneficence that carries out in all its relations the sober
+good will cherished in a wholesome household discipline, and so on a true
+pattern strives to build up the larger household of faith. The one begins
+at the root, and so branches out in blessing&mdash;the other would begin with
+the branches, which wither away when parted from the root.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>So then in the will of God, revealed in the constitution of the family,
+the welfare of its members, the spirit of humanity, we find the foundation
+of the duties of brothers and sisters. The fraternal sentiment must be in
+accordance. In all our affections, there must needs be some lights and
+shades that depend upon the individual&#8217;s gifts and experience, for no man
+is a rule for all, and we must differ in our likings as in our looks. Yet
+all primal obligations have essential features in common; and the
+fraternal sentiment, although less instructive than the parental, and more
+complex than the filial, has quite as decidedly a character of its own.
+The phrenologist may not locate it in a special organ of the brain, and
+the metaphysician may not make of it an instinct by itself, but it has its
+root none the less in nature, and loses no interest from expanding so
+generously under true associations and culture. When true, the fraternal
+sentiment unites congeniality with consanguinity, and developes friendship
+from kindred blood, as the parted branches open into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> leaves, and
+blossoms, and fruits, kindred in their aims as their source. Its nature is
+better shown by tracing out its just influence than by attempting to
+arrest its flitting shades of hue, or to analyze its constituent elements.
+Here, too, is the practical bearing of the subject, a bearing which many
+slight far more from thoughtlessness than from indifference. In what light
+are brothers or sisters called to regard each other?</p>
+
+<p>Their first obvious duty is that of due consideration for each other. They
+are to consider each other&#8217;s circumstances, needs, trials, dispositions,
+opportunities, and never allow selfishness or indifference to blind them
+to what belongs to them in common. Does this need to be said of persons
+who are so near, as of necessity to be always in each other&#8217;s thoughts?
+Ah, what is more frequent and obvious, than that familiarity tempts
+indifference, and that our very primal duties, like the stars which are
+their emblems, are easily forgotten because they may at any time be seen?
+The things most significant are likely to be near at hand, and religion,
+like philosophy, finds its chief triumphs in opening the meaning of what
+God has brought to our very door. A part of the power of absence from home
+lies in breaking the spell of familiarity, and leading the absent one to
+look impartially upon the familiar circle, and upon his own place and
+conduct there. Many a youth or maiden has returned from a journey or
+voyage wiser far in sense of home duties than proud of the accomplishments
+of travel. True consideration will not need absence to teach this lesson,
+but from its calm point of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> view the absent one will survey the common
+spheres of life, and try to live for others as under the eye of God.</p>
+
+<p>In each family there will be decided need for mutual consideration, and
+there must be strife, unless there is mutual deference. All cannot have
+all the favors, and the division of them may embroil a household as
+bitterly as the division of an empire has embroiled rival heirs of
+thrones. Where means are limited, mutual sacrifices not always easy must
+be made, and few families pass many years without feeling the power of
+consideration, or of selfishness in meeting the privations that must go
+round their circle. When means are abundant, and every wish has ready
+wealth at its command, the form of forbearance may change, but its
+essential spirit is none the less needed. There will still be differences
+of talent, looks, manners, opportunities, health, experience, that require
+in the most prosperous household the same virtues, that give the humblest
+cottage its dignity and peace. In every family, there will be some call
+for peculiar consideration or regard to some member of it, according as
+sickness, infirmity, youth, age, deficient or extraordinary ability, may
+call upon the stronger to serve the weaker. What wretchedness when the
+call is slighted, even by one! Who can calculate the mischief wrought by a
+sensual or reckless brother, who makes every thing secondary to his own
+passions and pleasures, or by a frivolous and heartless sister, who makes
+a god of fashion and enslaves the whole house to her monstrous vanity!
+Who, too, can calculate the influence of a high-minded brother in guiding
+and cheering the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> younger members of the family, or of a devoted and
+judicious sister in soothing every impatient humor with a face in which
+shines, perhaps, the light of the sainted mother&#8217;s countenance? When all
+unite in some common solicitude, God gives their daily bread and cup a
+sacramental grace, and from some sufferer whom they watch over together, a
+mighty blessing, uniting, exalting them all, comes forth, and seems to say
+in the sacred name, &#8220;Ye have done it unto me.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Consideration will lead to confidence, and will banish deceit, that viper
+of society, from the hearth-stone, which too often warms it into life. Let
+confidence begin early, move the lips first lisping for utterance, and
+continue in maturity, when the world&#8217;s folly that sometimes names itself
+experience shall try to teach disguise as prudence, and artifice as
+wisdom. Whatever we may think of the confessor, as an official person,
+confession is founded in the nature of things, and God bids us confess our
+faults one to another. Who ought to be confidential, if not those whose
+experience and destiny so unite their lives? I cannot even glance at the
+chief forms of this confidential relation. One aspect may be specified
+which is too often forgotten&mdash;that between brother and sister. If these
+were more candid advisers, each would be better for it&mdash;each imparting to
+each the counsel that each can give. With feminine insight and purity,
+what a kind and gentle, yet strict and earnest censor of youthful excess,
+the one may be. With manly judgment and honor, what a firm and scrupulous,
+yet tender and considerate adviser in reference to many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> follies and
+dangers may the other be. Giddy as young people often are in their
+pleasures and caprices, it has sometimes seemed to me, that if a plan of
+life were to be drawn up by the youth of a family for each other, few
+treatises of morals would surpass it in purity of spirit or rectitude of
+principle. Some follies would be sure to fall. Where would intemperance
+and its kindred vices be, if sisters were taken as counsellors? Where
+would indecent costumes, immodest dances, equivocal friendships be, if
+brothers were more frequent advisers? This negative influence is not a
+tithe of the worth of the relation, which God in his infinite tenderness
+and wisdom has decreed&mdash;a relation so able to enrich ties of nature by
+every grace of mind and heart, and from likeness and unlikeness of
+constitution to develope one of the finest harmonies of our being. Its
+beauty cheers many a dark age of ancient rudeness, and adorns many of the
+brightest chapters of our modern culture. Would we know what brother and
+sister have been to each other, listen to the triumphal song of Miriam, as
+she braced anew the great heart of the law-giver with timbrel and psalm;
+or look to the grave of Lazarus, where Mary and Martha stood with Him who
+was the Resurrection and the Life. Do we ask more modern instances, stand
+under the open heavens and remember how Caroline Herschel shared the
+vigils of their illustrious explorer&mdash;open the pages of Neander, and think
+of her whose devotedness made a pleasant home of his otherwise solitary
+study, and encouraged him in his noble work of tracing out the progress of
+the divine life throughout all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> the mazes of theological controversy, and
+making church history a book of the heart, instead of the disputatious
+understanding. Do we need more&mdash;only conjecture the number of cases nearer
+at hand in which youth have been counselled and helped on through years of
+preparation to their calling or profession by a sacrifice that looked not
+to the world for motive, and asked not of the world reward for its
+success.</p>
+
+<p>I need only name the crowning duty of brothers and sisters&mdash;the duty of
+being mutual helpers, for this is implied in what we have said of
+consideration and confidence. They whom God has so united should stand by
+each other in every worthy way&mdash;not selfishly exacting favors, but earnest
+to do good. Too often the contrary has indeed been the case, and history
+in most conspicuous passages, from the death of Abel and the exposure of
+Joseph to the wars of the Plantagenets and the feuds of the Bourbons,
+shows that strifes are bitterest when nearest home, and &#8220;a brother
+offended is indeed harder to be won than a strong city, and their
+contentions are like the bars of a castle.&#8221; Less conspicuous, because less
+monstrous, are the opposite cases, and Christianity itself leads the noble
+list of fraternal worthies, by presenting in its first disciples so many
+who carried ties of blood into bonds of faith, and strove together to the
+last for the kingdom that would make all brothers in God. The various
+forms of fraternal aid need not be specified, nor the cases described in
+which the death of parents or peculiar circumstances enhance the
+obligation, and the responsibility of parents<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> devolves upon the elder
+children. Whatever the age, the welfare of children is closely connected
+with their mutual conduct, and its power reaches not merely to the
+division of time and cares, but to the highest interests of mind and
+heart. Firm principle, spiritual faith, devoted purposes, act and react
+collaterally with great power, and in the social as in the natural world,
+it is the side light and warmth that most applies the cheering rays from
+above. Happy the home where true peace dwells between kindred, and all
+various gifts are held in unity of spirit! While the circle remains
+unbroken, it is strong against the world. When broken it is still not
+desolate, and the orphan is not without a helper. There is love enough on
+earth to join with the love that has gone heavenward to make life
+cheerful, and keep hope firm.</p>
+
+<p>Let all apply these thoughts. Children, apply them, and be kind in all you
+do and say. Youth, apply them, and be thoughtful where you are often
+tempted to be reckless. Elders, apply them, and never allow care or
+worldliness to chill the better affections of early days. Deep in the
+heart let the old home live, and its pleasant memories, brightened by
+kindly offices, open ever into immortal hopes. Old things must pass away,
+but from the Christian they can only pass away by being all made new&mdash;new
+in a spirit, that remembers best when progressing most, and crowns all
+friendships with charity divine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Marriage.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">MARRIAGE.</span></p>
+
+<p>It is a remarkable fact, that He who came to be the Saviour from sin,
+whose name is coupled with the sorrow that he would alleviate, began his
+public ministry at a marriage, and gave the first proof of his powers
+amidst its festivities. Yet why wonder at it&mdash;for where should the Gospel
+begin its work if not with the union that founds the family and should
+secure every social and moral good? How, moreover, could the genius of
+Christianity better show itself than by such a practical rebuke of the
+asceticism that scorned the social affections, and would make of life a
+ghostly austerity, just as if man were heavenly by being unearthly? It
+needs no great ingenuity to imagine our Lord&#8217;s feelings, as with his
+kindly and majestic thought he looked upon that scene, and gave his
+blessing to the youth and maiden who were probably of his own kin. He saw
+all the serious and trying aspects of human life even in its best estate,
+yet none the less gave them joy upon their union.</p>
+
+<p>It is well that he was at that feast. The ages since have remembered his
+presence, and his sacred name, heard still at the marriage, deepens its
+memory, and consecrates<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> its joy. The two ideas thus connected in fact are
+connected in principle, and the moralist need not in any enlightened
+community fear to speak of the Christian view of marriage, or care at all
+either for the giggling levity that sees nothing solemn in the subject, or
+for the sanctimonious gravity, that considers religion profaned by being
+made practical. There are some difficulties in the way of a frank
+treatment of the subject; I know our customs do not favor the homely
+simplicity of the language of the Bible in the discussion of marriage, and
+he must be very adventurous who undertakes to use the plain speech of the
+old divines, whether in the quaint aphorisms of Thomas Fuller or the
+jewelled periods of Jeremy Taylor. Yet it is not well to be very
+fastidious or mystify any subject by ingenious circumlocution, and we
+propose to say some plain words on the relation of husbands and wives in
+continuation of these thoughts upon home duties.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Not much need be said upon the foundation of this relation. It rests
+clearly upon the will of God, the best good of the parties, and the
+welfare of society.</p>
+
+<p>As the Creator and Preserver of mankind, as the Lord of Nature and the
+Father of Spirits, God has made us social beings, and decreed that the
+most important association should be a lasting one. The natural law, which
+in lower creatures establishes a transient union, enacts the permanence of
+the higher relation, and when profoundly studied agrees with the precepts
+of Revelation and the results of the best experience.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>God&#8217;s will is clearly shown in the effect of marriage upon the moral
+condition of the parties themselves. It is generally essential to their
+true life&mdash;to the proper development of their affections and faculties.
+Under good Providence, it is the school of the heart, the motive to the
+most laudable exertion and sacrifice. There are persons indeed whose
+peculiar duties may exempt them from its cares,&mdash;scholars, devotees,
+philanthropists, who may give their whole heart to their chosen
+speciality, and make of science, religion or humanity their family and
+home. Yet these are not the general rule, and even these generally prove
+that the peculiar power acquired by concentrating their whole mind upon a
+single pursuit gives them force at the expense of breadth of culture, and
+may be morbid because preternatural. The monk and nun, in the convent or
+out of it, have done noble things, and every faithful memory must bless
+them for it&mdash;but not the noblest things. They have shown much mercy, yet
+quite as much spiritual pride. If they have fed the poor, they have framed
+the Mass Book and the Confessional. If they have cared for the orphan,
+they have also invented infant damnation and the Inquisition, insisting on
+hell hereafter for all not baptized by their priesthood, and devising a
+hell here below for all heretics against their creed. Unmarried people
+ruled Christendom for a thousand years, and that they did not rule in
+wisdom, the Bible, history, and our best modern culture all declare. Nay,
+the very sage of modern celibacy, Swedenborg, gave years of his life and
+the chief labors of his pen to prove, that the best<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> wisdom comes from
+minds united conjugially, imbuing thought with affection, and informing
+affection with thought, and so best interpreting the God in Christ. They
+who may be puzzled by his mystical lore will have no difficulty with the
+more practical argument, or refuse to allow that the most healthy thought
+and feeling, the most comprehensive culture, frequents the home which a
+true marriage makes.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Marriage,&#8221; says Jeremy Taylor, &#8220;is the mother of the world, and preserves
+kingdoms and fills cities and churches and heaven itself. Celibate, like
+the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but
+sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity; but marriage, like
+the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower,
+and labors, and unites into societies and republics, and sends out
+colonies, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the
+interest of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath
+designed the present constitution of the world.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>To carry out the argument and show the necessity of this relation to due
+provision for children, to the peace and purity of society at large, would
+but lead us into common-places that can as well be spared. Better pass on
+and speak of the nature and duties of the relation in question.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>It differs from the other relations that we have thus far considered,
+first of all in the fact, that it is elective or voluntary. The tie is one
+of choice, not of blood, and of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> course this fact of itself speaks to
+reason and conscience to stir themselves in the choice, instead of leaving
+it to a giddy eye or a silly ear. The relation, moreover, is exclusive,
+and in this fact it is distinguished from all ties of blood and all other
+ties of choice. Again it is entire&mdash;extending to all the interests of
+human life. Elective, exclusive, entire, marriage is thus the most
+momentous of human relations. Decalogue, Gospel, Providence, experience,
+all declare it such, and rest upon an act of choice the only obligation
+that brooks no rival and allows no limitation.</p>
+
+<p>In accordance with the tenderness and dignity of the relation, the ruling
+sentiment and correspondent duties must be. Of the sentiment, more than
+filial or parental love, more than brotherhood, for which friendship is an
+inadequate name, and which at once fascinates by natural affinities and
+binds with the sacredness of religion, I have no elaborate analysis to
+give. We escape at once the peril of maudlin sentimentality and
+metaphysical abstraction, by speaking of the sentiment in the practical
+fruits, which best show its nature.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>We say first of all, that husband and wife should be true to each
+other&mdash;true first and last. Wo to them, if they begin their relation with
+a lie, either spoken or acted. They promise to love, honor and cherish
+each other, and they lie abominably in the sight of God and their own
+consciences, if they nullify the solemn promise by capricious levity or
+sordid selfishness. Full liberty of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>conscience must be allowed for the
+action of various minds, temperaments, circumstances, and not all
+dispositions are to be judged by the same degree of the moral thermometer.
+Yet of all diversities of gifts, this statement holds good, that marriage
+begins in an impious falsehood, if the parties do not regard each other
+with affection and respect, and do not mean to be mutual helpers. An
+earth-born impulse should not steal a sacred name, nor a mercenary bargain
+intrude its traffic into precincts more sacred than the temple courts. The
+sale of a human creature under the marriage ring is more degrading because
+more voluntary than under the auctioneer&#8217;s hammer, and God will not
+withhold his verdict against the profanation of his altars by such outrage
+against nature and the Gospel.</p>
+
+<p>The beginning is true, when the bond is sincerely assumed, and spirit and
+truth go fully together when the whole mind and heart agree in a
+congeniality without alloy and without misgiving.</p>
+
+<p>True in the beginning, husband and wife are to be true in their progress
+together. Of that gross falsity against which God launches an express law
+of the Decalogue, and of whose curse on the offender and the victim, so
+many wretched lives and homes are the providential commentary, I need not
+speak with minuteness. Fidelity demands more than any negative
+policy&mdash;demands truthfulness throughout the whole relation, the confidence
+that will not mask its face or thought in reserve, and will deem it a
+fraud to confer with any third party upon any matter belonging in its
+nature to the two. It is the beginning of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> bitter sorrow, when this limit
+is overstepped, and that enamel of mutual confidence is broken, which kind
+Heaven has given for the protection of so delicate a nerve.</p>
+
+<p>Nor does truthfulness end here. It must be positive in word and in
+action&mdash;prompting the parties to share their thoughts and plans together,
+and to prove by devotion to each other&#8217;s welfare the truth of what they
+say. We spare the digression to many satirists so attractive, and saying
+nothing of the cheats of married life, whether the frauds of selfishness
+or the wiles of overfondness, we are better pleased to leave the other
+aspect of the picture uppermost, and speak of God&#8217;s blessing upon all who
+keep their truth by being true as well as kind.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>We add now a second duty of married persons&mdash;one that has a very prosaic
+sound, touching a matter so near the springs of feeling. We say that
+husband and wife should be reasonable&mdash;reasonable that they may be true in
+fact as well as in purpose. Feeling of itself, even when healthy, is a
+poor guide, sadly blind without reason. Whether it go with love or
+indifference, folly carries misery into the home. The proverb is true
+enough&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;A stone is heavy and the sand weighty,<br />
+But a fool&#8217;s wrath is heavier than both;&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>and we might add, a fool&#8217;s love is quite as heavy as his wrath. We speak
+not of the folly, which is a natural misfortune, but that of minds
+befooling themselves by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> levity, or dissipation, or idleness. Nothing
+wears better than good sense, and nothing is more essential to permanent
+congeniality and usefulness. It is sometimes a stern censor, but only
+because it wishes to be an honest friend. Let married persons take it for
+their counsellor and it will settle for them many questions, which inflame
+self-will and disturb love itself. They need above all others to be
+reasonable, to look to reason with all its revealed lights as the
+interpreter of God&#8217;s will to them, and of their own relation to each
+other. It is a great thing for them to start in life with reasonable views
+of the most common-place arrangements of the household. How much
+disappointment, and bitterness, and sin, come from unreasonable views of
+expense, and who will undertake to estimate the amount of domestic misery
+resulting from household extravagance? The dress of many a wife, and the
+wine account of many a husband has been the ruin of the family. Let every
+couple start with a fair understanding as to what they can afford to
+spend, and keep sacredly within the limit. If the world laughs at their
+simplicity, they can well afford to laugh at the world&#8217;s folly, and time
+will be very likely to put the laugh upon the right side. Much might be
+said of the deplorable influence of the extravagant notions of most young
+women in preventing thoughtful men from taking the risks of marriage, and
+we hazard nothing in saying that the worst vices of cities are closely
+connected with the growth of feminine extravagance. America will lose her
+birthright and have no trace of the old domestic order, if the folly runs
+through the land,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> and most girls are brought up to exact more expense
+than the average returns of industry and talent can earn.</p>
+
+<p>Good sense, that honest counsellor, will save the parties from all
+controversy about prerogative, will interpret their peculiar jurisdictions
+duly; teaching the man to take the lead without magisterial assumption, to
+be the guardian without playing the tyrant; teaching the woman to follow
+his fortunes without being his slave, and to accept his deference without
+becoming his imbecile toy; exhibiting both in their likeness and
+difference, equals and not equals, so that the twain are made one by a due
+balance of gifts and harmony of contrasts.</p>
+
+<p>Is there not need of urging with some emphasis the worth of reasonable
+relations between husband and wife? Are they not too ready to make a
+compromise of follies&mdash;the one annoyed by having her tastes and habits
+reviewed in the strong light of a masculine understanding&mdash;the other
+irritated at having his hard worldliness criticised by feminine refinement
+or sensibility&mdash;the two sometimes settling the difficulty by
+non-interference&mdash;the one left to extravagance and frivolity, if she will
+consent not to insist upon having her husband&#8217;s time or thought&mdash;the other
+allowed to drudge as he will, if he will not intrude his utilitarianism
+into her sphere, or apply common sense to the charming follies that devour
+the dollars and the days. It is all wrong, and no gifts of fortune can
+make up for the want of thoroughly rational companionship between parties
+so allied, and so apt to belittle each other by triviality. Both are
+gainers by it, and intellectually as well as morally&mdash;the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> more gainers as
+in generous studies of nature, art, history, society, they take a common
+interest in the enlarging and ennobling fields of thought, and their
+habitual confidence makes them educators of each other. Without being
+alarmed by the valiant Minervas who brandish their flashing spears from
+reform platforms, and declare an independence at which the old
+Revolutionary signers would have stood aghast, we believe that the most
+thorough practical discipline is to be found in this home school, and the
+enlargement of feminine perception and the refining of masculine vigor,
+would advance vastly under such a culture. There would be a better mutual
+understanding of the two great domains of life, and a holy alliance
+between the two great families of minds. In plain language, if husband and
+wife would advise with each other fully on all important subjects, the
+robust understanding would be much helped by the quick wit, and fewer
+foolish things, far fewer evil things would be done in the world. In
+phrase more ideal, yet equally true, if insight were better allied with
+argument&mdash;ready sensibility with executive strength&mdash;nice perception with
+comprehensive judgment, reason would have a new avatar on earth, and the
+light of God would shine as never before in its beauty and its power into
+each household, and over the great globe.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>One more aspect of the class of duties before us now, we have to state,
+and one that comprises and carries out every other. They who marry are to
+live united in all the interests and purposes of existence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>The most obvious ground of union is the maintenance of the home and the
+welfare of the family. The order of Providence seems to require the one to
+provide by his labor or enterprise the means of livelihood, and the other
+to see that they are properly used. As manners are simple, and fortunes
+limited, the union of interests here is a very grave matter, and
+inefficiency or self-will on either side brings discomfort, perhaps
+wretchedness. As manners are refined, and luxuries abound, the same unity
+of minds is equally essential to give grace and true worth to the home.
+Let each respect the other in the several spheres, and combine to make
+both what they should be. Let not a man&#8217;s laborious gains be squandered in
+folly, nor a wife&#8217;s faithful care be disparaged as trivial. To use a
+homely word with a sacred meaning, who will not ask a blessing on good
+housekeeping? Is it not one of the fine as well as the useful arts&mdash;do not
+its very utilities like the fountain of living water sparkle into beauty?
+Happy they who know more of it than the tender mercies of hotels and
+boarding-houses reveal. They do <i>not</i> learn it well, unless they mingle
+faith with their economies, and keep the home in divine peace, as well as
+in worldly thrift. A home divided against itself cannot stand. Who shall
+keep it one save He in whom alone all souls can have the unity of the
+spirit and the bond of peace, and whose blessing is needed quite as much
+in a ducal palace as in the plainest farm-house?</p>
+
+<p>How shall we urge at length this point of union, or illustrate its bearing
+upon all interests, plans, and hopes?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> It is a great thing for two frail
+natures to live as one for life long. Two harps are not easily kept always
+in tune, and what shall we expect of two harps each of a thousand strings?
+What human will or wisdom cannot do, God can do, and His Providence is
+uniting ever more intimately, those who devoutly try to do the work of
+life and enjoy its goods together. For them there is in store a respect
+and affection&mdash;a peace and power, all unknown in the heyday of young
+romance. Experience intertwines their remembrances and hopes in stronger
+cords, and as they stand at the loom of time, one with the strong warp,
+the other with the finer woof, the hand of Providence weaves for them a
+tissue of unfading beauty and imperishable worth. A blessing on the brave
+and gentle spirit of the elect poet of our time, Alfred Tennyson, for
+speaking in his exquisite verse a truth that might too much task our
+prosaic analysis:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">&#8220;For woman is not undeveloped man,</span><br />
+But diverse; could we make her as the man,<br />
+Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this<br />
+Not like to thee, but like in difference;<br />
+Yet in the long years liker must they grow;<br />
+The man be more of woman, she of man;<br />
+He gain in sweetness and in moral height,<br />
+Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;<br />
+She mental breath, nor fail in childward care:<br />
+More as the double-natured Poet each:<br />
+Till at the last she set herself to man,<br />
+Like perfect music unto noble words;<br />
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,<br />
+Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers,<br />
+Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,<br />
+Self-reverent each and reverencing each,<br />
+Distinct in individualities,<br />
+But like each other even as those who love.<br />
+Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:<br />
+Then reign the world&#8217;s great bridals, chaste and calm:<br />
+Then springs the crowning race of humankind.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;It is the worst clandestine marriage,&#8221; said old Thomas Fuller, &#8220;when God
+is not invited to it, wherefore, beforehand beg his gracious assistance.&#8221;
+Equally bad, we add, is the marriage, where His presence is not retained,
+and they who at first sought His blessing do not hold to it ever to keep
+them true and thoughtful, to lift them into a union to which the Beloved
+Son was not ashamed to compare His own communion with souls. Perfection on
+earth we may not ask, nor call a hasty word or impatient thought
+unpardonable. They who love much must expect to forgive something and
+forbear sometimes. But this may be expected and is demanded, that they who
+take each other&#8217;s welfare in charge should never do any intentional
+unkindness, or fail of aught that may be done for the other&#8217;s welfare.
+This may be expected and is demanded, that when the tie that binds them is
+severed by the only power that can fitly part them, and they are to part
+at death&mdash;they should look back with mutual blessing to the hour of their
+first union, be assured that through all vicissitudes and infirmities,
+they have tried to make each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> other better and happier, and that they have
+learned of Him whose name at their Cana made their wedding sacred, to
+trust in the realm where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but
+are as the angels of God.</p>
+
+<p>Shrink not from applying the truth now before us to ourselves. Parents,
+apply it, and in training your sons and daughters use good sense upon a
+subject so often left to utter folly. They talk and think about it enough
+in a certain way, and with such poor aids as trashy novels and paltry
+gossip. Let them think and talk about it wisely, and let them not, if you
+can help it, learn wisdom at the cost of wretchedness. Respect Heaven&#8217;s
+own laws, and do not allow the world&#8217;s fashions and tyrannies to get the
+better of reason and conscience in controlling the most important of
+destinies. Husbands and wives, apply the troth&mdash;allow no routine to chill
+affection&mdash;no monotony to break down thoughtfulness. If the envious years
+should not allow you to celebrate your golden or even your silver wedding,
+live while you may in the wisdom which is the word of love, and the worth
+of it is beyond silver or gold or rubies.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Our Friends.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">OUR FRIENDS.</span></p>
+
+<p>Every important word in human language is of itself a chapter of history,
+and if we could read it rightly would tell us the mind of all the ages
+that have shaped its form, and all the individuals who have given its
+meaning. Starting from the beginning, every such word passes from century
+to century, nation to nation, and makes of itself a medium as universal as
+the air which forms its tones. We cannot open our mouths, in any kind or
+honest way, without declaring the creed of humanity, that began with man&#8217;s
+creation, and has been enlarged or exalted by every sage and benefactor of
+our race. What word that is applied to men expresses this creed more than
+that of &#8220;friend?&#8221; From the very first, men have called each other friends,
+and our Saviour did not create, but developed the sense of the term, when
+he called his disciples friends. In the language in which Jesus was
+educated, the word flowed in the melody of David so true to friendship and
+to faith, and in the sentences of Solomon,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> never forgetful in his keenest
+prudence of the worth of friends. In the language which the evangelists
+borrowed from Greece, the word had won to itself many a classic charm, and
+in passing from the conversations of Socrates to the gospel of Christ, it
+deepened its meaning without damping its joy. St. John took from his
+Master&#8217;s lips more than Plato took from the mouth of Socrates, when that
+evangelist penned the words, &#8220;I have called you friends.&#8221; This holy
+sanction has not been forgotten, nor has Christ&#8217;s spirit left the word.
+Every age fills it anew with meaning, as the golden chalice from age to
+age is filled anew at the altar. Daily life and high art and letters show
+its power. It is breathed in many a song and hymn of home affections and
+fireside companionship. To what pathos it subdues the majestic muse of
+Milton in his lament for Lycidas&mdash;to what solemnity it lifts the wayward
+heart of Shelley in his elegy on Adonais&mdash;and when since the Hebrew harp
+that thrilled such sorrow at the death of David&#8217;s friend, has there been a
+holier and lovelier tribute to friendship than in the offering which in
+our utilitarian age the genius of Tennyson has laid on the tomb of Arthur
+Hallam? These are great instances indeed, but they speak what all may
+feel. Nay, what is the secret of the power of the poet or sage, except
+that he can best say what comes home to us all?</p>
+
+<p>Friends,&mdash;We have and must have some whom we call such. Happy are we if
+they can be truly so called. It is not for us to choose, whether we shall
+have friends at all or in any sense, but it is ours to choose, whether we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>
+shall have them in the right sense. All people, however depraved, will
+have some associates whose company they to some extent enjoy, and he who
+cares for nobody and for whom nobody cares, may be set aside from the
+human family as essentially monstrous. Of monsters we are not treating,
+but of men, and with our common nature in view, I speak now of the duties
+of friends.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>This relation is founded in the will of God and the being of man. God has
+made us dependent upon each other for protection and comfort. The
+dependence is not limited by family ties alone, but extends to a large
+circle, in some measure indeed to all with whom we deal or speak. Nor is
+it confined to material interests. Friendship is as much a moral fact
+under Providence as light or gravitation is a physical fact. We like to
+see and talk with people for the pleasure of their society, and are
+unhappy when long away from those we know best. God has made this to be so
+in the structure of our nature, and His work as Creator has been
+constantly carried out by His providential care for society and all its
+affinities.</p>
+
+<p>Our need of friends shows His designing will, and His designing will is
+all the clearer as this need is well supplied. In fact, we cannot be truly
+ourselves without society. Our thoughts and feelings cannot fully come out
+apart from congenial companionship. It cheers us, it quickens our powers,
+stirs our purposes, and the very best things that have been done in the
+world prove its<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> worth. Christ himself needed it, rejoiced in it,
+consecrated it. As His disciples went forth two and two to found the
+heavenly kingdom, the social element kept company with the religious in
+their own hearts, and in their creed. The divine charity which the gospel
+inspired, cherished personal friendships as well as general humanity. The
+grim hermit, in an age whose faith gloried in sacrificing companionship to
+piety, was glad to know that other persons like himself were in the same
+wilderness, and would have been frantic at the very idea of being the only
+person living in the world. His lonely cell was many a time lighted up by
+images of friends still loved.</p>
+
+<p>A freer age has brought out anew the friendship of the gospel, and little
+as enlightened people nowadays may be inclined to put on the dress and
+phrases of the Quaker, there has probably never been a time when so many
+accepted the essential ideas which led George Fox, William Penn and their
+associates to reject the old names and forms, and call the Christian
+Church simply a society of friends. There is a kindly feeling over the
+world now, and much of the best hope of humanity rests upon the fact, that
+so many judicious and influential people of every land know each other
+pleasantly and wish each other well. So friendship even in this sinful
+world is showing God&#8217;s will for us, bringing out our own faculties and
+fulfilling the divine plans for mankind.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>The sentiment, that animates the relation, needs little definition or
+analysis. In some sense, all understand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> it, although its best sense a
+true life only can teach. They are friends, who are attached to each
+other, with any kind of liking or loving. The attachment may begin in
+interest, as with parties in business or in pleasure, as with the votaries
+of some art or science, and as the interest or the pleasure is low or
+elevated, the attachment will shape its character. But however it begins,
+it never continues well and becomes genuine, unless the parties stand upon
+the same platform of principle, agree in what is highest and best, and in
+some way come within the scope of the Master&#8217;s sense of a true friend,
+when he said, &#8220;I have not called you servants&mdash;I have called you friends.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly they are the best friends who differ much in incidental traits
+and agree in the essentials of character. Their likeness and their
+unlikeness brings them together. Their likeness makes them congenial, and
+their unlikeness makes them instructive and interesting to each other.
+Herein they follow the law of elective affinities, that runs through
+nature, and which makes a certain contrast essential to true harmony.
+Elective, yet not exclusive or entire, as the relation is, friends choose
+each other freely without ties of kindred blood, and however cordial the
+choice may be, it does not imply exclusive regard or entire union of
+interests. Affection, as well as esteem, enters into the sentiment, but in
+comparison with relations of blood and marriage, the element of esteem is
+generally larger in its composition than that of affection. It is esteem
+growing into affection rather than affection growing into esteem.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>Come now to the practical point of view, and consider the duties of
+friends for ourselves. We have and desire to have friends, those who are
+such in general and those who are such particularly. What are we to do to
+keep or make them?</p>
+
+<p>First of all we are to be sincere. Herein we must stand directly at issue
+with the fashionable world, that looks upon all sociability as an affair
+of manner, and manner as but one branch of costume&mdash;the mere dress of the
+tongue and eyes and looks. Let manner be respected, as it should be, yet
+what is it in its best estate but the simple and thoughtful expression of
+a gentle heart and a noble mind? It cannot be put on like a cloak, but
+must grow out as foliage and bloom from the life. It is so generally with
+manners in promiscuous society, but especially so between friends. They
+must be sincere alike for the sake of giving and of gaining the true goods
+of friendship. The heart itself thus acts happily, delighting in the free
+utterance of its convictions away from the world&#8217;s folly and harshness. It
+craves a congenial sphere to breathe freely and fully. Sincere alike in
+his playful talk and serious conservation, a man finds his nature
+expanding as his life opens under genial influences refreshing as sunshine
+and dew. Sincerity indeed needs a grain of caution, and a thoughtful
+person will not tell his whole mind always. But judicious reserve need not
+be won at the cost of truth or by the sin of hypocrisy. Taught discretion
+by some experience of the ridicule or the deceit in store for garrulous
+frankness, a true friend will be sincere always,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> yet need not feel
+himself called upon to open his whole heart to those unable or unwilling
+to give his confidence hospitality. His spirit will not be without answer.
+Truth will sit upon his lips and win truth for him. The true will find the
+true.</p>
+
+<p>But not only are we to be sincere for the vast comfort and gain of free,
+genial companionship, but for its direct service to others. If we wish to
+know ourselves, we should be willing to help others know themselves by
+telling them the truth. Says Lord Bacon, &#8220;there is no such flatterer as a
+man&#8217;s self, and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man&#8217;s self
+as the liberty of a friend.&#8221; It is easy enough to get more or less than
+the truth regarding our failings, and friends often fret and spoil each
+other by a mutual retail of compliments and scandals which they make a
+business of collecting to be used in congratulation or condolement. What
+is better in view of such tale-bearing than a sincere counsellor, who at
+due times will tell the simple and entire truth, and above flattery and
+calumny will give honest advice upon faults of character and errors of
+conduct,&mdash;mingling kindness with caution, and never so encouraging as when
+thoroughly frank? This is a nice point, and one full of difficulties, yet
+the point is a main one, and a brave, generous heart need not fear the
+difficulties. No man is a true friend, who is not ready to be a faithful
+adviser, willing to wound self-love in its tenderest part, and give
+passing pain for the sake of lasting blessing. Not often and never with
+any assumption must he do this, but humbly as before<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> the searcher of
+hearts, and in view of the benign and majestic being who washed his
+disciples&#8217; feet before telling them of their defects, and opening to them
+the fulness of his wisdom and love.</p>
+
+<p>Again, friends should be earnest as well as sincere&mdash;earnest not merely in
+feeling or temperament, but in the aims of life. What are we good for to
+others, unless we have heart ourselves for what is worthy, and are trying
+to be and do something for whatsoever is true, honest, pure and lovely,
+and of good report? A man is worth little or nothing to others unless he
+is earnest for worth in itself. What more frequent cause is there of the
+too frequent flatness of what passes for society, than the want of
+earnestness in its members, the prevalence of a monotonous mediocrity of
+thought and manner, which makes people uninteresting because they are not
+interested in much of any thing sensible or elevating? How much power
+there is in the true companionship to which each brings the zest of his
+own pursuit, the enthusiasm of his own favorite aim, and all are made
+wiser and happier by the thought and spirit of each. Part of the influence
+of such friendship is seen at once in cheerful looks and renewed courage.
+The better part is not seen, for wherever persons really in earnest meet
+together, no matter what their calling or topic may be, there is a power
+among them, that brings their heart into closer relation with the eternal
+heart, and whether conscious of it or not, men go away confirmed in
+faith&mdash;deepened, whatever their creed, in the sense that God is, and his
+spirit is abroad among his people.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>The nobler their pursuit or their habitual aims, the greater power do
+friends give and take by their earnestness&mdash;the better the spirit which
+they bring to their personal intercourse. They are more interesting as
+individuals, as they are mutually interested in matters above themselves,
+and instructive and attractive to each other. Every honorable interest
+unites those who cherish it, and beautifully has Jeremy Taylor said, &#8220;He
+that does a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thread
+that ties their hearts together.&#8221; Of every honorable interest the quaint
+old poet&#8217;s saying upon honor itself holds good:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">I could not love thee, dear, so much,<br />
+Loved I not honor more.</p>
+
+<p>What earnestness for every generous aim filled the heart of him who sat at
+the table of communion, inflamed the earthly minds around with heavenly
+faith and fervor, as he bade them be one with him in God, after he had
+said, &#8220;I have called you friends.&#8221; Blessing repeated in some measure where
+any sincere and earnest people interchange thoughts and feelings! Blessing
+written on all true companionship since Jesus lived and died!</p>
+
+<p>Need we add kindness to sincerity and earnestness as essentials of
+friendship, for is it not implied? Implied, certainly, although there is a
+certain kind of earnest sincerity, that lacks the tenderness which this
+word expresses. It expresses none other than the crowning grace of charity
+in its familiar application. Kindness, genuine and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>between persons of
+congenial minds, watchful to yield its balms and dews, when fortune is
+sharp or the world is a weariness, instant ever with a sympathy unaffected
+and unobtrusive in trouble and in joy&mdash;living commentary upon the sacred
+sentence:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;A faithful friend is the medicine of life,<br />
+And they that fear the Lord shall find him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Then griefs by being communicated are less and joys greater. &#8220;Indeed,&#8221;
+says South, &#8220;sorrow like a stream loses itself in many channels, and joy,
+like a ray of the sun, reflects with a greater ardor and quickness when it
+rebounds upon a man from the breast of a friend.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In such kindness there will be an element of magnanimity which will check
+the selfish calculation that measures regard by gold, and exchanges
+relations of affinity for bonds of profit and loss. We will not say there
+is no friendship in trade, but that it is incongruous to make trade of
+friendship. The more the relation is one of reciprocal sentiment, and the
+less it is unbalanced by patronage or dependence, the more it moves in its
+own element and yields its own reward.</p>
+
+<p>The more likely too it is to be lasting, and crown sincerity, earnestness,
+and kindness, with constancy. Too many things there are to break the unity
+of our lives, and scatter into fragments our book of experience. Yet some
+ties we need, and may have, that run their silken thread through its
+various chapters, and make a volume of the leaves else fragmentary as the
+Sibyl&#8217;s. True friends are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> such ties, and whether of our kindred or not,
+they can be won by friendliness and kept only by constancy. Some deemed
+such may fall off and become indifferent, perhaps false, but who that has
+any heart cannot feel happy in some form of constant kindness, and say
+with the Scripture and from experience:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;A friend loveth at all times,<br />
+And a brother is born for adversity.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Happiness indeed, when as we go through life and take its ups and downs,
+and look upon its ever-enlarging horizon, we can meet betimes and often
+some one or more whom we have known from youth, and whose very faces and
+voices express our best remembrances and hopes. As rising above dull
+etiquette, we call them by their familiar names, and say William, or
+Henry, or Mary, or Ellen, grim time seems to drop his inexorable scythe,
+and the roses that appeared withered in our path bloom out as amaranths of
+immortality. Power, as well as pleasure, comes from the interview,
+especially if, under the incentive, noble friendship gives its
+fascinations to wisdom, and thus stirred we review our lives closely,
+scrutinize our ways seriously, and our whole experience rises up under a
+new charm to warn us of evil and urge us to good, ready to say
+religiously:</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Change not a friend for any good, by no means,<br />
+Neither a faithful brother for the gold of Ophir.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Do we think enough of this whole subject of <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>companionship&mdash;enough of it
+for ourselves and our children? In some way, perhaps, we may think enough
+of being in society, and we may have a sharp eye on our list of
+acquaintance, be eager enough for the silly race of ostentatious eating,
+drinking, and dressing, that is the life of our semi-barbarous fashion, or
+for the frivolous social circles, where friendship is part of the play,
+and they who flatter each other to the face, laugh at each other as soon
+as the back is turned; and in perhaps honeyed words character is depicted
+as sharply as if cannibals had but changed their policy, and brought their
+teeth to bear in a different way, not upon the flesh but upon the life.
+Perhaps we have a better ambition, and desire for ourselves and our
+children the society of the refined, and wise, and good. This is well, but
+one point must not be overlooked. There is no getting into really good
+society but by growing into it. We may win entrance to the houses and
+tables of distinguished people perhaps, but our real friendship with
+persons of sterling character must depend on our character and culture.
+Ask honestly&mdash;what are we, what have we made and are making of ourselves
+and our children? And our worth will be the precise measure of the
+friendship we deserve and are likely to have. Here is motive for the best
+culture of the mind and heart. A man&#8217;s own essential character&mdash;what he
+thinks, knows, is, and can do,&mdash;it is this that opens to him true
+companionship, and by a law as universal as that of specific gravity, he
+rises or falls to his own level. Is it not worth a life&#8217;s effort to be
+worthy to win and enjoy the intimate companionship of choice minds?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>Do we think of this in the training of our children? Do we try to educate
+their social affections morally and intellectually&mdash;strive to make our
+houses attractive to sensible people, to give our sons distaste for
+profligates, and our daughters disgust for fops and fools? Are we laying
+the foundations of sincere and elevating relations that shall put the due
+check upon the evil communications that so corrupt good manners? If not,
+think seriously of the neglect, and do better, as you fear God and love
+the best in the life he has given us.</p>
+
+<p>Cheerfully, gratefully, leave the subject as we consider what He has done
+for us, and ask His blessing on all whom we hold dear. God bless our
+friends! Bless them all in their widest and their inmost circle; bless all
+the kindly people with whom we have interchanged pleasant words, and who
+more than the landscape have reflected in any way his light and love;
+bless all who from age or wisdom have taught us truth and reverence,
+instructors, guardians, counsellors, pastors, on earth or gone from the
+earth; bless those nearer sharers of our lot, sincere, earnest, tender,
+constant companions, whose names are familiar at our table and sacred in
+our prayers; bless Him, whose gospel crowns all good will with its divine
+love, and calling all friends who lived in God&#8217;s love, leaves to all the
+benediction of His parting prayer: &#8220;Holy Father! keep through thine own
+name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Master and Servant.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">MASTER AND SERVANT.</span></p>
+
+<p>We are careful how we treat our equals&mdash;very careful how we treat our
+superiors. Do we think seriously enough of our treatment of inferiors? We
+ought to think of this, for their sake and our own&mdash;for their sake,
+because they are so much under our own influence; for our own sake,
+because we deserve just such treatment from those above us as we give to
+those beneath us? Do any try to escape the latter inference by denying the
+premises and saying that they are their own masters and ask no favors from
+any one? This will not do, nor will any petulant rhetoric change the
+solemn facts of the Divine government. We all have superiors as well as
+inferiors; in some points we are all masters, in some points all servants.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>It is the law of God certainly, that there should be inequalities of
+gifts, and from these diverse gifts, whether of talent or opportunity or
+both, come varieties of place and influence. There is no such thing as
+perfect equality in the universe, except in the mathematician&#8217;s calculus,
+or the metaphysician&#8217;s theory. Neither God nor man has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> ever made two
+things exactly alike, and the diversity that appears between two blades of
+grass from the same stalk, or two needles from the same mechanism, is of
+course greater as we rise in the scale to creatures, so various and
+complex in faculties and discipline as mankind. Think not, however, that
+this inequality favors pride on the one hand, and sycophancy on the other.
+The Creator has more wisely adjusted the checks and balances of his
+government. In some respects, he has made every man dependent upon his
+fellows. The greatest sage needs to learn something from the peasant, and
+to receive much from his toil. The king must serve the country which he
+professes to rule, and the best wisdom of his counsellors must serve the
+throne. The merest glance at society round us shows an endless gradation
+of varied service. The ablest lawyer is quite as much bound to devote his
+talents to his client&#8217;s cause, as his client is bound to requite his
+labor. The merchant prince, creditor to many, has creditors also of his
+own. He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord&#8217;s
+freeman; likewise also, he that is called, being free, is Christ&#8217;s
+servant. In some sense, then, every man is a servant, and in some sense,
+too, every servant is a master, or in something commands.</p>
+
+<p>Is not this arrangement well? The fact that it is so essential to the
+Divine government would prove this; but can we not see its good fruits?
+The difference of relation calls out the various faculties of our being,
+and life, like nature itself, teaches us to use our eyes and minds by
+looking and striving above, below, and around. If we<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> would bring out the
+skill and strength of the hand, we must lift up, as well as hold on, and
+so, by dealing with things high and low its muscles are pliant and strong.
+It is the same with all our powers, and there is no man, who is thoroughly
+educated or brought out, who does not obey as well as command. The motto
+of the Black Prince, &#8220;Ich Dien,&#8221; &#8220;I serve,&#8221; is written on every true man&#8217;s
+standard, and no man is fit to rule who has not learned to obey.</p>
+
+<p>Society in all ages, and especially in our own, has been testing this
+truth, and nothing is more obvious now than the general striving after a
+truer adjustment of mutual service. It haunts us at every turn. In the
+topic of work and wages, it is the problem of the political economist,&mdash;in
+the relation of people and ruler, it agitates every government on
+earth,&mdash;in the question of master and servant, it comes home to every
+family. Our position towards it now is a very simple and practical one.
+Carrying out our plan of treating home duties, we come now to the
+treatment of inferiors, especially those of our own household, or the
+relation of masters and servants.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>We start with a clear principle, that defines at once the sentiment that
+belongs to this relation. Both parties have the same essential nature, and
+we use the term inferiors simply as denoting the fact of service, and the
+attendants of that fact. The servant may be, and often is, a better man
+than his master&mdash;sometimes a wiser one. Yet his position, in a very
+obvious sense, is inferior, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span> whilst having privileges of his own, he
+is subject in his sphere of service to his master&#8217;s orders. This
+subjection implies no surrender of moral dignity. The service should be
+given as from man to man, and so received; and the difference of position
+affects the office, and not the moral worth of the parties. Even the bond
+servant, according to St. Paul, is not to be deprived of his moral
+dignity, but is to be treated as under God a serving brother. As much as
+this is asserted now by the moralists of slavery, such as Dr. Thornwell
+and his school, who maintain that purchase does not make the buyer owner
+of the slave, but merely of his labor. Surely less than this position,
+which is so speciously assumed to justify bond-service, should not be
+allowed to the servant who is freely such. Let the service be what it may,
+and implying whatever lowliness of gifts, so long as it can be honestly
+rendered, it implies no degradation; and a good servant is morally to be
+respected as much as his master. Premising this, and remembering that
+whatever is said of one kind of service has a bearing upon all kinds, we
+are ready to look practically upon the duties of the relation.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>It is most profitable for us, in addressing a community who employ so many
+people in their homes and business, to treat the subject chiefly as it
+bears upon masters or employers, although in doing this the duty of
+servants must needs be implied. This is implied, certainly, in the
+position which we lay down at starting, when we say, that it is the
+master&#8217;s duty first of all, to have in himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> the fidelity which he
+requires from his servant. Here both parties meet, and are called to be
+trusty. The best examples and the plainest reasonings establish this
+ground. Does a great commander, like Washington, send an officer or
+soldier upon some difficult expedition, he asks of his inferior to be true
+to the principle which he accepts, and his whole tone and manner says, &#8220;I
+serve the country in my way, and so do you under my orders and in your
+way.&#8221; Our Saviour himself cherished the very allegiance which he required
+of his followers; nay, he grounded its obligation upon the very nature of
+the Divine mind, when he bade them work, while it is day, and said, &#8220;My
+Father worketh hitherto, and I work.&#8221; Whenever a master or employer takes
+lower ground than that of mutual trust, he puts himself below his servant.
+If he professes only to follow his own caprices, and yet asks his servant
+to be faithful, he exacts fidelity, whilst he cherishes caprice, and so in
+the moral scale takes a place below his inferior.</p>
+
+<p>He thus fails of setting the true example of trustiness to his servant,
+and of having, by due fellow feeling, proper consideration for him. He is
+like the harsh creditor in the parable, who, having first been a reckless
+defaulter to the king, after having begged forgiveness for the enormous
+debt of fifteen millions, turned at once upon his poor fellow-servant,
+took him by the throat, and had him cast into prison for the paltry sum of
+about fourteen dollars. He was a treacherous man, and so could neither
+reasonably demand fidelity, nor have fellow feeling for honest misfortune.
+His lot is due to every man who repudiates his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> solemn responsibility to
+God and his neighbor, yet insists upon utter deference from those beneath
+him in a capricious tyranny, which is far beneath faithful service. Every
+household should learn the lesson, and wherever its most favored members
+do not feel the solemn obligations of life, and live for objects beyond
+their own caprices, they are rebuked by their very exactions, and should
+be shamed by the very fidelity they ask. A true family will set this
+matter right by teaching practically, that no wealth, nor station, nor
+elegance, nullifies responsibility, and its daily method will prove that
+the doctrine of stewardship is accepted in parlor and chamber before it is
+preached to the basement and attic. In fact, no true man will be content
+with being less useful than his servants, and certainly many an affluent
+and high-minded master meets an amount of responsibility, and does an
+amount of labor, chiefly mental, perhaps, compared with which the round of
+domestic service is light. He is in his way trusty, and may well ask his
+inferiors to be so. It is this spirit only that will effectually procure
+the service we need, and provide domestics who will be friends instead of
+mere hirelings; helpers in the care of our children, instead of debasers
+of their speech and manners; specimens of the good servant, who, says an
+old author, &#8220;is one that out of a good conscience serves God in his
+master, and so hath the principle of obedience in himself.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Stating thus a duty common to both parties, we pass on to a second point,
+pressing more directly upon one of them, however, and carrying out the
+idea already <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>presented. The apostle&#8217;s words urge it best when he says:
+&#8220;Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing
+that ye also have a Master in heaven.&#8221; It is probably needless to urge
+this point here in its external sense, and insist upon giving fair wages
+and punctual payment. It may be important for some persons, however, who
+are so absorbed in their own comfort as to be almost unaware that poor
+people can suffer from a cause to themselves so trifling, to be reminded
+that, in dealing with the poor, small sums affect great interests, and
+that great wrong is done by overlooking the value of a few days of time or
+wages to people in their employ. A dollar withheld for a week from a needy
+seamstress, may be a greater harm than the non-payment of thousands to
+creditors rolling in wealth.</p>
+
+<p>But there is a higher sense of just and equal due. Character is a great
+thing, and quite as much to servant as to master. Character in service
+should be sacredly respected, and it is shamefully wronged when men pass
+sweeping judgment upon a whole class because they have been duped by a
+portion, or, when in a feeble good nature, they are as tolerant of
+falsehood as truth, of fraud as honesty. There is, indeed, sad want of
+veracity and fidelity in the class most frequent in our domestic
+service&mdash;the class by religion and associations almost a distinct caste in
+our nation. There is also among them much kindness and industry&mdash;sometimes
+wonderful self-sacrifice, and, with all their failings, their place could
+not well be supplied. The greater their ignorance and obtuseness,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> the
+more need of training them to a sense of right by setting a bounty upon
+good character. It is a foul wrong to commend the thievish or lazy, in
+order to be rid of them, or withhold due name to the faithful, in the hope
+of retaining their services. Certainly the ages in which loyalty was the
+crowning virtue have abounded in examples of devoted service, and our own
+anomalous and unsettled times are not without countless instances of like
+temper. Now, as of old, the apostle&#8217;s word is remembered by many:
+&#8220;Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, and not unto men;
+knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance.
+But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done,
+and there is no respect of persons.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Just to servants in appreciating their character, we are to yield them due
+privileges favorable to character. We shall not, then, voluntarily hurt
+them by their ready disposition to copy their masters&#8217; failings. We shall
+not then, by our white lies, give them the material which so readily turns
+black by a little wear. We shall not deal in inuendos and irreverence,
+that so easily become ribaldry and blasphemy in passing to less dainty
+lips, nor yield to an excess at our tables, which teaches drunkenness to
+coarser palates. We shall be unwilling to disturb for our dependents the
+quiet which we ask for ourselves on the Lord&#8217;s Day; and therefore shall
+dispense with needless feasting or riding on that day, shunning the too
+frequent error of increasing our hospitality in entertaining guests by the
+sacrifice of the religious privileges of our servants,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> and of estimating
+the social respectability of a church by the number of rational souls who
+wait at its door in companionship with horses, while lords and ladies sit
+or kneel on downy cushions at the altar to speak of communion with Him who
+is no respecter of persons, and of the utter damnation of all the
+unbelieving and ungodly. The good master, says Thomas Fuller, remembers
+the old law of the Saxon king Ina: &#8220;If a villain work on Sunday by his
+lord&#8217;s command, he shall be free.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Nor should this regard for the character of servants end in mere
+negations. They should have the positive influence of a Christian temper
+in the family, and, when arbitrary creeds do not prevent it, they should
+have liberty to be present at such family devotions as may be held for the
+edifying of the household. So do we interpret justice in this relation in
+its bearing on fortune and character. Some might think our view very
+defective, from leaving out the element of entire social equality. If by
+this be meant a recognition of the moral worth of faithful servants, we
+make the recognition, and deem them the equals of all whom they equal in
+character. But, if social familiarity be the test of equality, it is
+answer enough that this is a matter of congeniality or elective affinity,
+and nothing could be more arbitrary and unjust than to force persons into
+a familiarity for which their education, tastes, and labors disqualify
+them. Such a course would comport as little with justice as with mercy.</p>
+
+<p>Mercy,&mdash;rest upon that word. We have said that both parties should be
+trusty, and have urged justice upon the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> master especially. We now add,
+that he should merciful.</p>
+
+<p>We are all frail and erring, and need great forbearance for ourselves. Why
+be unwilling to bestow it on the less favored? We all make some mistakes,
+and how can we expect the less intelligent to be freer from error? Why be
+irritated if every thing is not done precisely to our liking? They that
+forbear threatening may win better service by that fact, for nothing so
+provokes carelessness and disheartens effort, as the impatience that
+regards a mistake as a crime, and brands an oversight as an insult.</p>
+
+<p>We ourselves are variable in health, spirits and energy, and must make
+allowance for the like variation in persons probably less disciplined than
+ourselves. We may show due consideration without fickleness, and kindness
+without familiarity. Cruel, indeed, is the wrong that confounds the
+fidelity that is struggling to do well in spite of temporary illness, with
+the idleness that wantonly neglects any well-known duty. Some misgivings
+very kind people may reasonably have in regard to servants in feeble
+health; and the Christian charity of a community will continue very
+deficient until they, who render faithful service, are cared for better in
+private houses or proper institutions in seasons of sickness.</p>
+
+<p>Upon this subject we are apt to speak too arrogantly when we contrast our
+domestic manners with those of persons burdened with bond servants, and to
+call him as of necessity a tyrant who may be more than ourselves a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>protector. In our just condemnation of slavery, remember that much
+kindness lightens its bonds; and, remembering too, the millions of dollars
+in legal property which masters have relinquished, when we preach, as we
+may justly do, stern self-sacrifice to others, learn well that the duty of
+caring for inferiors has applications quite as solemn under a Northern as
+under a Southern sky.</p>
+
+<p>It is common, I know, to talk of the ingratitude of inferiors and the
+thanklessness of mercy. Alas! there is enough in our own hearts to justify
+misgivings, and when we think how ingrate we are, we may look more with
+pity than bitterness upon the indifference with which so many receive
+favors, sometimes making their very constancy the plea of insolent demand.
+Nevertheless, mercy will not be without reward, and, in due season, will
+penetrate with its own spirit minds sadly blunted by harsh usage. Hand in
+hand with judgment and rectitude, it will win here below the promised
+blessing, and obtain its own beatitude for its giver.</p>
+
+<p>Mercy,&mdash;what is it but humanity&mdash;love in its downward look, the look with
+which Jesus went about among men? Looking thus downward, the soul sees a
+verdure, and rejoices in a genial light and warmth not found in any proud
+star-gazing: for the best blessing of heaven is reflected upon its lowly
+gaze. Mercy,&mdash;he who comes short of it, comes short of his neighbor and
+his God. It is the ground of all devotion. The home where it dwells not,
+dwells without God in the world. More than can be expressed in any act, we
+need it; even an abiding <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>sentiment, broad as our race, deep as our need.
+Looking upon a criminal, a blunt preacher said; &#8220;There goes John Newton,
+but by the grace of God.&#8221; Says an old divine: &#8220;Well may masters consider
+how easy a transposition it had been for God to have made him to mount
+into the saddle that holds the stirrup, and him to sit down at the table
+who stands by with the trencher.&#8221; Looking upon our inferior any where, let
+us have something at heart which says: &#8220;Friend, brother, true I am better
+off in this world&#8217;s goods than you, but whether fortune or desert has made
+the difference, that fact does not decide, and, whether deserved or
+undeserved, my superiority teaches humility, not pride&mdash;responsibility,
+not arrogance.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Review now the course of meditation upon the more direct home duties. We
+treated of ties of nature in speaking of parents, children, brothers and
+sisters; of ties elective in speaking of husbands and wives, friends; and
+now we add the last class of elective ties, by passing from relations of
+equality to that of master and servant. We have cherished through these
+pages a degree of home feeling together, and in some points our various
+experiences must have accorded. Such subjects cannot be treated with any
+sort of fidelity, without touching some deep convictions and sacred
+remembrances. They have solemnity and also cheerfulness, telling of vast
+privileges to impress momentous duties.</p>
+
+<p>Thus onward do we go,&mdash;not alone, but with companions, superiors, equals,
+inferiors&mdash;all giving and taking influence; if we will have it so, God
+with us through all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> and in all. If superiors inflame ambition, let them
+teach respect; if equals make our enjoyment, let them move our good will;
+if inferiors tempt our pride, let them kindle our benevolence. We cannot
+cherish this spirit in vain. A kindly heart will win from the lowly many a
+blessing, and develope many a power. Among the thoughts that give peace to
+a man&#8217;s dying pillow, none will be sweeter than the remembrance or image
+of those whose lowly condition he has bettered, and asked no reward of the
+world. Since Christ has lived, rich indeed has been the heavenly treasure
+laid up by such compassion towards those who bear the world&#8217;s heavy
+burdens and have few of its smiles. Forgetting them, we forget our
+Saviour, who made their cause so his own, and we repudiate our share of
+His blessing upon the faithful servant!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p>
+<h2>The Divine Guest.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">THE DIVINE GUEST.</span></p>
+
+<p>The long rainy season was over, the roads once more were settled, and the
+happiest festival of all the year joined with the charms of Spring to draw
+the Hebrew people toward their sacred city. Nowhere in the whole land was
+there more to cheer the eye than in the beautiful town through which the
+festal caravans from the north were now passing on their way to the
+Passover. Jericho was called &#8220;the City of Palms,&#8221; from the profusion of
+those stately trees in its fertile valley. These now added spring blossoms
+to their evergreen foliage; the sycamore was beginning to give cheering
+promise of its figs, and the balsam-tree, whose gum was worth twice its
+weight in silver, was showing its scanty and precious bloom in the walled
+gardens, whose wealth Mark Anthony gave to Cleopatra as a fit gift from a
+conqueror to a queen. The people were astir with the excitement of the
+season, as the travellers began to pour into the city. Soon word went
+round that the noted prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> approaching, with a
+large company about him. The wonder grew, as the report of a great miracle
+upon the blind Bartimeus went from mouth to mouth. The fever reached into
+quarters not abounding in Jewish enthusiasm, and quickened the calmer
+blood of the revenue officers of the Roman government. The chief of them
+went out to get a glimpse of the famous preacher, whom so many hailed as
+the long-expected Messiah. The rich publican, being a man of small
+stature, and, from his political relations, not likely to receive much
+civility from the crowd at such a time, climbed up into a sycamore
+fig-tree, whose spreading branches probably overhung the street. If seen
+at all by the populace it was with little favor, for they hated alike his
+connection with Rome and his lax, or, perhaps, his enlarged views of the
+Jewish creed. To the surprise of all as much as himself, the publican is
+singled out by the Messiah from among them all in the words: &#8220;Zaccheus,
+make haste and come down; for to-day I must abide in thy house.&#8221; The
+result of this interview is all that is said of Christ&#8217;s stay in that
+place. The city, once an abode of kings, has passed away, and enough of
+its ruin only remains to allow tradition to point out in a crumbling tower
+and a solitary tree the publican&#8217;s house and watch post. The story
+remains, the burden of the rude rhyme of the primer, a text for many a
+homily of old,&mdash;a topic for us now.</p>
+
+<p>And what does it teach so much as this: that Christianity, like Christ
+himself, ever strives to make the spectator feel that he is seen and is
+followed home? Religion<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> at home is the lesson, religion as a check upon
+personal domestic feelings, and the life of domestic graces.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>There is force in the point of view thus presented in the change of the
+critic into the subject of criticism. Christianity is apt to be regarded
+as a public ceremonial, a holiday spectacle, associated with fair weather
+and large assemblies. People respect its institutions, and desire the
+influence of them upon themselves and their families, are glad to be
+impressed by any peculiar eloquence, and instructed by any peculiar
+wisdom. But are they ready enough to take the attitude that becomes them
+in view of the appeals of religion? Do they listen to the Gospel as to the
+voice of God speaking to them personally; and beyond the church and
+ministry, do they recognize the Providential power that has founded these
+institutions, and which condescends to act through them? Is there not
+sometimes a reversal of the true point of view? Instead of reverence in
+the sanctuary, is there not superciliousness? Are there not many, who seem
+never to have thought of bowing their heads in devotion, who have learned
+to wag them with the airs of supercilious criticism? Are there not many
+who are pushed up far higher in conscious elevation, than the publican&#8217;s
+sycamore tree; who need to hear the voice of the Master speaking from his
+Gospel and Church, &#8220;Come down, make haste, for to-day I must abide in thy
+house?&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>&#8220;Thy house!&#8221;&mdash;still nearer the appeal is brought by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> this expression. &#8220;Thy
+house!&#8221; &#8220;I will go home with thee,&#8221; says the Master always in his Word,
+and his search-warrant has never lost its power. There is something in
+every heart that shrinks from public gaze, and every family justly
+cherishes the privacy of the household. But God, if he sees us any where,
+sees us there, and we reverence Him, as we receive His Word as our
+household guest. There can be no serious faith or purpose until we come to
+this, and are ready to take religion home with us. It will very likely
+show things in a new, and sometimes startling light. We may, perhaps, pass
+a tolerably creditable examination, when tested by our manner in street,
+or church, or general society. Sometimes the deference of good breeding
+may wear the look of inherent kindness, and refinement of address may seem
+like spirituality of character. It was a severer trial for the publican,
+&#8220;To-day I must abide with thee,&#8221; than the mere summons to &#8220;Make haste, and
+come down.&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>It is a trial that we must all undergo the moment we begin to think
+seriously for ourselves; a trial, too, that cannot be shunned without
+losing the best blessings of life. Let the household be examined according
+to the standard, which we do honestly regard as reasonable and religious.
+What are the household gods? We have not, like the Romans, the custom of
+setting up images in our homes, and keeping a votive flame always burning
+before them. Yet the sentiment which the Roman custom expressed, we must
+in some way entertain. Every household<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> has its idols, the emblems of its
+faith or infidelity. It has many associations peculiar to itself, and
+makes its own choice moreover among the associations that prevail in the
+neighborhood, or world, or age. It has its own Manes, or its especial
+remembrances of the departed;&mdash;it has its Lares, or favorite family
+standards;&mdash;it has its Penates, or its own selection from the idols or
+authorities of the people. These influences exist in the highest home and
+in the humblest&mdash;are to be traced in the old nobilities, whose caste,
+party, and creed, are fixed by the allegiance of a thousand years, and in
+the unpretending villager who thinks himself highly favored in ancient
+lore, as he reads in his family Bible the name and birth of his
+grandfather. Nor are the same influences wholly wanting to those who wish
+to repudiate their ancestry, the spendthrift upstarts of fortune, whose
+crest, manufactured to order, is but an attempt to hide the only honorable
+fact in the family history, that one ancestor was a plain, industrious
+man, with energy enough to earn by his trade the wealth that heirs
+squander in folly. Generally, it needs little antiquarian study to learn
+the ruling genius of the house. It is not only in the house of Atreus or
+Oedipus, or in the line of the Stuarts and the Bourbons, that family
+griefs have their succession, and a thread of tragedy runs through their
+whole history. Every family is troubled with its besetting sorrows and
+sins. No man is wise until he understands his own pedigree, and interprets
+himself, not simply as an isolated fact in the world, but as a branch of
+the life-tree upon which he grew. If reflection does<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span> not inform the
+family of its peculiar traits, experience will not fail to make the
+revelation. The idle chat of the house will often exhibit the ruling
+spirit, and the prattle of many a lisping child betrays the idols that he
+has been trained to honor. Some names of folly or wisdom most frequent on
+the lips alike of parents and children, will be the household words that
+show the spirit that predominates. These names, and all attendant
+influences, are to be judged by their bearing on the true aims of home.
+Ask a few plain questions as the Master asks in the appeals of his
+religion.</p>
+
+<p>Does content live with us, or its opposite, discontent? The question
+cannot be answered by any general considerations of fortune or position.
+Surely discontent is found in the most extreme cases, and wealth feels
+often very poor and limited because its desires rise with its means, and
+its means may be distanced far by some more successful aspirant to
+fortune. Discontent, ready guest of heart and home always, but never more
+frequent than among us with whom plenty so swells desire, and competition
+so quickens rivalry! With us, alas, too frequent guest, impoverishing
+abundance by inordinate desires, and burdening too many with cares and
+anxieties beyond reason and beyond strength! Often sad effect of our
+luxurious civilization, that in apparently the greater number of
+households, property brings new forms of want, and the demands of
+ostentation become more rapacious than the natural appetites! How many
+need now and always to lower their vain pride, and dignify their
+mediocrity or consecrate their affluence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> by hearing the Master&#8217;s voice
+&#8220;Come down: to-day I must abide in thy house.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>In some especial form the spirit of discontent is apt to tempt every
+household, in view of some especial want, or vanity, or ambition. With it,
+too, come some elements of strife, or indifference, or worldliness, that
+need peculiar watching. Domestic life, indeed, is sacred from prying
+curiosity, and it argues generally little to one&#8217;s credit, to be very
+accurately posted up in the accounts of home troubles. Without playing the
+part of the busybody, we may study the facts of human nature, and be aware
+of the developments of society. We may believe, that where several wills
+are brought together, they can harmonize only as they agree by appealing
+to a common standard; that no tempers, however pliant, can accord without
+mutual principle; that none in authority can govern others without first
+governing themselves; that a Christian spirit, earnest, kindly, devoted,
+is the only safeguard of the peace and elevation of the home.</p>
+
+<p>What to many seems the very genius of household comfort, an easy, pleasant
+worldliness, is a wretched dependence, and will serve one very little in
+bearing up against the trials of affliction, or the dangers of prosperity.
+Worldliness may furnish a house, but it needs more, far more, to make a
+home. Too often the very spirit that prides itself upon crowding the house
+with magnificence, robs it of every true home grace. Whatever may be the
+show of hospitality, there is no good cheer for an earnest heart, nothing
+that returns the Christian benediction,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> &#8220;Peace be with this house.&#8221; Too
+often what is called by eminence, &#8220;society,&#8221; has not one truly social
+element. We read that some years ago, when the button-makers of England
+were in distress, the Court relieved them at once by directing four extra
+buttons to be added to the coat tails of approved mode. A refined
+traveller from France, Germany, or even England, might suppose that most
+of our city society had originated in some such benevolent purpose, and
+our usual style of party giving had its origin in a movement for the
+relief of confectioners, dancing-masters, dressmakers, and liquor dealers,
+so monstrous is our outlay of money in their line, and so feeble our sense
+of artistic beauty and conversational zest. No less a guest than he who
+went with the Publican is needed to give the true grace, and as Christ has
+been reverently and affectionately received, homes have abounded. There
+was far more of favor than rebuke in the offer then made, and so it has
+always proved, whenever and however accepted.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>What is it to take the Master home with us, but to receive the most tender
+and intimate revelation of God&#8217;s love ever granted to men,&mdash;a searching
+judge, an honest censor indeed, but more than this, a compassionate
+friend, a heavenly comforter? Receive him thus, and the whole tone of life
+rises. Discontent, strife, worldliness, are rebuked. The dwelling then
+rests upon the Rock of Ages, the light of heaven comes mingled with the
+sunshine, and divine nurture goes with the daily bread and the vital<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> air.
+A Supreme will being recognized, all refractory desires are checked and
+finally subdued into the subjection which is perfect freedom. All the
+while a reserve power is preparing for the emergencies that may arise.
+Then man proves his best dignity by adorning strength with gentleness. The
+woman rises to her true power by the magic touch of that confiding faith,
+which ever wins divine virtue from the Master&#8217;s mantle, even as for the
+lowly suppliant at Capernaum.</p>
+
+
+<p>Limitation of means is borne with equanimity, and developes new energies
+instead of breaking down the spirits. Enlarged fortune widens the sphere
+of beneficence, and repeats the Publican&#8217;s vow in some way: &#8220;Lord, the
+half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from
+any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold.&#8221; New jubilee of
+justice and generosity would it not be, if true guidance of the households
+of Christendom could train desires and purposes, such as sprung up in that
+man&#8217;s heart whilst Jesus of Nazareth dwelt in his home. We know not all
+that transpired in the interview between this kindly host, and his Divine
+guest; but the conclusion leads us to believe that the conversation turned
+less upon the forms of ceremony and degrees of belief, than upon practical
+righteousness, such as appeared impressed so mightily upon the heart of
+Zaccheus in making his declaration of the worth of justice and mercy. How
+many households would at once stop their folly and extravagance, and open
+their eyes to the solemn realities of life, if the Divine guest were to be
+sought in such a spirit.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>As to the precise form in which Christianity should be acknowledged in the
+family, we do not propose to lay down any minute, much less any arbitrary
+rules. The great thing is to cherish a sense of God&#8217;s presence, and
+providence, and rule the spirit in the piety and charity which he
+approves. The stated recognition of his authority we urge ever, and the
+desirableness of regular use of the scriptures, and prayer daily in the
+home. If there be fear of routine and indifference, let a true purpose
+overcome that, and prove that the most thorough habit comports with, nay
+favors, the highest freedom, and the soul, like the body, is not shackled
+by an accustomed method of nurture. Of course, no round of ceremonials can
+be any substitute for living religion; and there is proof enough, that the
+most rigid routine of lip service may co-exist with the utmost asperity
+and worldliness. Tokens, alas, there are sometimes, that what passes for
+piety may bring no Christian graces to the dwelling; and some bigot, who
+mistakes hatred of the world for godliness, or some flaunting modist, who
+has adopted a church as a fashion, may bring churlishness or conceit in
+sheep&#8217;s clothing into the house. These, and all such shams, make true
+religion more beautiful, and lend new attraction to the page which records
+the visit of Christ to a dwelling which the scowling Pharisee scorned, but
+which the love of God so richly blessed.</p>
+
+<p>Then let the Master be welcome to the household. We cannot do without him.
+We need him to keep us in God and with one another. Let the atmosphere of
+the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> home have the fragrance of his heavenly spirit. It was one of the
+trials of the early Christians, that they could not live in pagan
+households without being constantly pained by symbols and usages hostile
+to their faith. The Greek or Roman wife, if converted to the Gospel, was
+scandalized by the idols on the hearth-stone, and often brought to death
+for refusing to join in the idolatry; whilst in the camp and court,
+paganism was constantly thrusting its pageants upon the follower of the
+cross. Our modern life is not much troubled with many such tests of faith,
+and most of our more showy households are utterly innocent of any signs
+either of Christian or Pagan import in their furniture. From what is seen
+in some parlors, whether in books or periodicals, or in pictures or
+statues, we might infer the fondness of the dwellers, now for the battle
+or the chase; now for the shows of fashion, or the haunts of dissipation;
+now for the wonders of science and art; now for the shipping interest and
+the stock market. But too rarely does the household have a true and
+expressive representation of the ideas most precious to a Christian mind.
+An ostentatious vulgarity is too much the rule in constructing and
+adorning the dwelling, and a Christian taste is the exception. How many of
+our showy dwellings, instead of impressing a cultivated foreigner with a
+sense of the owner&#8217;s refinement or spirituality, would only make it clear
+that the owner had money in plenty to spend, and knew not how to spend it
+wisely. Let these things be looked to. Let the economy of the household be
+of itself a confession of faith. Let there he something to show<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> that they
+who dwell here are God&#8217;s children, and live within his kingdom. Let not
+gold be lavished upon unmeaning articles that show rather the capacity of
+expense than the capacity of meditation, or which, like the mirrors that
+are the chief ornament of so many houses, favor no reflection beyond that
+of the vanity which they multiply. If we care for art, let Christian art
+be not slighted, and with the landscape that portrays the beauty or
+grandeur of creation, let there be some expressive token that the Father
+has watched over men by his Providence, and blessed their homes by his
+Word. We are changing people, almost a nomad race. One of the oldest
+inhabitants of this metropolis lately remarked, that within his knowledge,
+not one man now keeps house in the dwelling occupied by his father. Of
+this fact I know nothing, yet sure it is, that we need in the frequent
+change of abodes, to build more deeply and securely the spiritual home,
+and live more among the memorials of things eternal. In the absence of
+ancestral homesteads with their hallowed scenes and memorials, we should
+seek to transmit some lasting tokens of our mind, and not make our
+households as evanescent in their array as the fickle breath of this
+world&#8217;s fashions. In some way surely our best thoughts and labor should
+live for those who come after us, and with goods few or many, as may be,
+there should go some witness of truth eternal. Alike from our common
+nature and our peculiar vicissitudes, we need to be deeply grounded in the
+love of Him who came to open heavenly mansions into our earthly
+habitations, and to make Him our abiding guest.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>Looking into the ancient books of devotion, I find this date associated
+with a household name, and sacred to the memory of a Christian woman,
+Monica, the mother of Augustine. Such thoughts of home and its best
+influences are well, coming to us, as they do, so fragrant with the
+friendly and pious affections of ages. Monica lived long enough to see her
+wayward boy a firm disciple at last, and after all his wanderings of
+thought, devoted to Christ with all the enthusiasm of his nature. How
+touching is that passage of his confessions in which he speaks of laying
+her body in the grave, and returning to his lonely home to bless her for
+her faithful care, and lament his blindness to her gentle pleadings. How
+comforting the hymn of Ambrose that rose to his mind, as if by some
+angel&#8217;s whisper, and lifted his thoughts to the realm whither mother and
+son had trusted to meet in a companionship beyond parting and beyond
+tears. Bless this and all like remembrances in former times, or in our own
+experience. Praise God for all the peace and power, the loveliness and
+wisdom, that have entered the homes where Christ has been welcomed. Let
+praise continue in prayer, and live in watching and good works.</p>
+
+<p><i>First of May.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p>
+<h2>The Orphan.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">THE ORPHAN.</span></p>
+
+<p>The genial air of May comes to us all laden with the sweet breath of
+opening blossoms, and has a balm for the spirits as well as for the
+health. It stirs within us a sentiment deeper than we know how to define,
+revives our chilled or buried ideals, and makes every heart young again.
+It cannot but give something of its own tone to our thought, and we find
+that in all nations this month has been a continued festival in the
+calendar, and associated with the loveliest imagery of earth and heaven.
+The heathen nations, who gave the month its present name, called it so
+after the fairest of their goddesses, and Christians following a similar
+sentiment, and desirous also of enlisting every natural feeling in the
+service of a purer faith, transferred the honors of Maia to Mary, and in
+every land white flowers deck the shrines of the Madonna, and the &#8220;Hail
+Mary&#8221; is the burden of the matin and vesper hymn. Some of the hymns and
+aspirations connected with the season convey thoughts with which an
+earnest Protestant may sympathize, and grateful for the maternal love that
+has made our lives so blessed, we cannot ridicule,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> although we cannot
+imitate the Italian devotee, who salutes the Holy Mother as the
+representative of God&#8217;s tender mercy to man through her sex, in words of
+such fervor:&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Joy of my heart! O let me pay<br />
+To thee thine own sweet month of May.<br />
+<br />
+Mother! be love of thee a ray<br />
+From Heaven to show the heavenward way.<br />
+<br />
+Sweet Day-Star! let thy beauty be<br />
+A light to draw my soul to thee.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>May we not once more speak the name of Mary, the Blessed Mother, not to
+adore her as a divinity, but to win from her an illustration of our common
+humanity in one of its great sorrows and consolations? Cheerfully as under
+the returning smile of heaven, solemnly as in presence of much grief, our
+meditation now turns upon orphanage of the affections, as one of the facts
+of our homes, and upon the secondary relations which may be its solace.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Consider, first of all, the fact as one of the events of every life,
+sooner or later. Mary at the Cross is a representation of our common
+humanity in its bereavements. Every mother and every parent in some way
+enters into her anguish, as she saw the life of her Divine Son ebbing from
+those cruel wounds. She was indeed doubly bereaved,&mdash;at once childless and
+fatherless for the victim upon the Cross had been at once the son of her
+travail and the father of her faith, born of her into the world that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> she
+might be born of Him into the spiritual kingdom. His own pains did not
+make Him insensible to her anguish, nor indifferent to the fact common to
+our nature, which feels itself always so void and desolate, when the being
+of all most loved is suddenly taken away. Tenderly He provided for her the
+consolation that she needed, by commending her to the disciple, whose ever
+present kindness would be so great a solace in itself, and so powerful a
+remembrance of the departed by its associations. The disciple took to his
+house from that hour the mother of Him upon whose bosom he had leaned.</p>
+
+<p>Life is full of cases that illustrate the same principles, although not
+connected with facts so peculiar. It may be said indeed, that some kind of
+orphanage is the lot of every person, whose years are not early cut off,
+and whose heart is not utterly hardened against home affections. The order
+of nature is that children should survive their parents, and very many of
+us in tender childhood have learned the worth of kind and judicious
+parents, by being called to face the trials and cares of life without
+their counsel and comfort. When the case is reversed, and the parent is
+mourner for the child, the desolation of the heart is quite as great, and
+the affections, deprived of their wonted object, are, perhaps, more deeply
+wounded than the child&#8217;s can be, even when losing the only protector in
+losing the parent; so strongly do the affections press downward, and so
+mightily does the love that sacrifices so much for offspring grow by its
+own exercise. Every day this bereavement strikes somewhere, and since my
+last word<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> to you, it has stricken parents whose oldest child was last
+Sunday present at church, and to-day is in his grave;&mdash;on Sunday I spoke
+to that bright boy pleasantly at our school, and on Friday said the
+funeral service over his coffin. Never can such a bereavement come without
+leaving a feeling of double orphanage, for parents in losing their
+offspring lose at once an instructor as well as a pupil; and surely the
+eldest born of a family, however young, is spiritually father or mother of
+much that is best in the parent&#8217;s heart. Survey life in its whole compass,
+enlarge our own experience by observation, and we need no argument to
+interpret Mary&#8217;s desolation at the Cross, or to learn that some form of
+orphanage is the common lot; nay, that before life ceases, some portion of
+our life is severed, when those in whose companionship we had lived are
+taken away. The world is full of such desolation, and there are many to
+whom existence is a burden, because its light has thus gone out.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>But God has always some providential alleviations in store for such
+bereavement, and let us turn from the fact to its solace. In some form the
+mercy of that voice from the Cross may always be heard, &#8220;Woman, behold thy
+son! Disciple, behold thy mother!&#8221; The Christian church itself never
+practically unmerciful to its people, even in its sternest days, has
+always rejoiced to comfort orphanage by the solace of secondary relations;
+providing new prot&eacute;g&eacute;s for the childless, new guardians for the
+fatherless, and new homes for the homeless. There are few<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> families of
+large experience and just feeling, where something of this same office has
+not been performed; and where, although other gifts may not be needed, the
+solace of sympathy is never withheld.</p>
+
+<p>It becomes an important practical question with many, how those secondary
+relations shall be formed, which may in some measure take the place of the
+ties severed by death. Here may be children without father, or mother, or
+both. Here are homes that are childless either through death or by the
+absence of the blessing, whose absence is of itself to our nature as a
+bereavement. It is not well to leave the heart void, and God himself,
+whose Spirit moved our Saviour to commend his mother to his disciple, has
+provided alleviations. They who need them for themselves or seek them for
+others must use their best judgment and principle in the choice. There may
+be gross wrong or frivolous error in the selection, for there are some so
+desperate as to drown grief in dissipation, and others so light-minded as
+to lavish upon a parrot, or a dog, or a horse, the affections that belong
+to immortal creatures.</p>
+
+<p>There are three most obvious modes of selection. The orphan finds a
+protector by some natural relationship, or by attracting some guardian
+friend, or by being placed under the care of one, who occupies by marriage
+the position of the parent taken away. Each of these secondary relations
+has been full of blessing, as also of danger and trial. Many are the cases
+in which a desolate child has been abused by a relative, swindled by a
+friend, and oppressed by a stepfather or stepmother. But not judging<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>
+through plays and romances, but through life as we see it from a perhaps
+favored position, we have cause of much satisfaction in view of the
+secondary relations spoken of. How many a lonely child finds counsellors
+and helpers among kindred and friends, who keep alive in his heart the
+parent&#8217;s memory by their kindness, and deepen the first relation by the
+second! How many desolate parents comfort themselves by comforting others;
+and how much grief is soothed, like Mary&#8217;s, by distilling healing balm for
+others from its own wounds! Among the ministers of mercy, that cheer this
+too benighted world, none is more powerful than that which carries comfort
+to the suffering in the name of some departed child; and who shall number
+the countenances that contemplate the little ones, whose angels behold the
+face of our Father in Heaven, to copy their tenderness, and throw their
+light upon the path of the disconsolate?</p>
+
+<p>Of one class of secondary relations, I cannot but say a word in justice to
+the subject, and in a different tone from that which usually prevails. The
+word stepmother has become a proverb in the language, and persons who
+should know better, sometimes idly speak, so as to add to its odious
+significance. But may not this relation be assumed in so true and devoted
+a spirit, and its offices be so performed, as to be great mercy to the
+orphan? No wonder indeed, that wretchedness comes from the misalliances
+that sometimes introduce a giddy trifler without ideas, or a selfish
+worldling without conscience, into the place that has been made sacred by
+a true Christian<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> mother now no more in the world,&mdash;when, in fact, some
+greedy hawk creeps into the nest of the dove, or the wanton butterfly
+invades the cell of the ant, or the provoking wasp steals the sweets of
+the honey-bee&#8217;s hive. No wonder that trouble comes, when natural rivalries
+and jealousies are embittered by one, who is mother in name but not in
+feeling, one whose first joy is personal vanity, and whose least wish is
+to sacrifice any whim for the welfare of those now entrusted to her care.
+Well may the curse of Heaven rest upon such connections. Let not a shallow
+fancy or reckless impulse, never excusable, but least excusable in mature
+years, dictate a choice so sacred as that which replaces the natural
+parent by another. Let the choice be guided by words as sacred as those
+which came from the Cross, and let him, who commends his children to
+another&#8217;s care, use his best thought and principle, as if called in this
+way to say, &#8220;Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be the form of the secondary relation, whether the virtual
+adoption be from natural relationship, from friendliness or by marriage,
+two obvious principles should preside over the choice, as in the example
+of the Cross. The secondary relation should be such as not to shame the
+first; and such also as to be a mutual blessing, a blessing to the
+orphaned and the protector. When Jesus commended his mother to his most
+loved disciple&#8217;s care, he carried out the spirit of his own entire life,
+and placed her in the charge of one whose companionship would be a
+constant remembrance of himself.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> The lessons of the former years were
+deepened by those that followed&mdash;the disciple was ever nearer his Master
+by the mother&#8217;s presence and the mother was nearer to her Son by the
+disciple&#8217;s ministry. Happy are they whose existence, however saddened by
+bereavement, is not broken into incongruous or antagonistic
+fragments,&mdash;happy are the orphan hearts who, like that adopted mother and
+son, cherish throughout life the same high allegiance, and mature their
+first vows in their secondary obligations.</p>
+
+<p>This cannot well be, unless the second principle named be observed, and
+due congeniality be found between the orphaned and the protector. Some
+choice may generally be used, and the choice should turn on the fitness of
+the one to guide and the other to be guided. No statement is given of the
+process in our Saviour&#8217;s mind, that led him to make the bequest of the
+Cross, that legacy of love. But He knew what was in man, and knew well how
+much the mother and disciple were fitted for that filial companionship;
+the one by his deep intuitive mind fitted to enlighten her faith, and the
+other by her boundless affection fitted to inflame his piety and charity,
+to kindle his meditative wisdom into seraphic love. Let not the example be
+lost upon those who shrink from claiming equal sanctity. Are any of us to
+choose for an orphan or a half-orphan a protector, whether a guardian or
+an adopted parent, remember the legacy of the Cross, and in Christ&#8217;s name
+minister to the desolate.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>We have illustrated first, the fact of orphanage, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> secondly, the
+secondary relations that may be its alleviation. May we not add, that
+where the principles recommended are adopted, great blessing results to
+both parties concerned, the protector, and the protected. If, as the poet
+says,</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;An orphan&#8217;s curse would drag to hell<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 2em;">A spirit from on high!&#8221;</span></p>
+
+<p>an orphan&#8217;s blessing can lift to the mercy-seat of God a frail spirit of
+the earth. Many a time has this blessing been granted, and they who have
+befriended the lonely, have found a friend in God&#8217;s own Providence. Is it
+not remarkably the case, that orphan children when judiciously and kindly
+counselled and cautioned, well repay all solicitude, and well appreciate,
+as a gratuitous offering from their protector, the care which, if from a
+parent, they might regard as a matter of course, hardly claiming any
+grateful recognition? A relation of peculiar beauty sometimes springs up,
+at once filial and friendly, blending in itself the affections both of
+companion and child. The remark applies to step-children as well as to
+those who are wards by adoption or guardianship. &#8220;Hence,&#8221; says that gifted
+and fervent writer, Henry Zchokke, &#8220;not rare instances in which
+step-children manifest more cordial sympathy, more touching attachment
+towards their foster parents, than their own children. For what the latter
+are apt to take as matter of obligation, the former look upon as token of
+disinterested love and genuine goodness; and a grateful mind brings before
+them all the kindness and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> fidelity which they received from step-parents
+in the years of minority. As children, they may not understand what you
+have given, although they may see how you gave it. But when grown up, they
+understand what you have done for them.&#8221;</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>When under this form of adoption or the others specified, there is surely
+enough to interpret such secondary relations cheerfully, and history is
+full of passages, that illustrate the blessing of the legacy of the Cross.
+In our own experience we must in some way interpret that legacy, and find
+its joy or its rebuke. Do not leave the subject without touching its
+practical point. If such and so general is the fact of orphanage, such are
+the secondary relations which are providentially offered, and such is
+their solace when properly employed, there is a lesson from the subject,
+which no person can escape, a lesson as to our duty to our own children
+and to others. First of all, bear in mind the lonely, and strive to be
+comforter, and to find comforters for them. Think tenderly of the
+orphaned, who are in any way near your own sphere, whether from
+relationship, friendship, or any other association. It may not be, it is
+not generally money, that is most needed, but kindness, counsel,
+encouragement. Many an orphan boy is saved by a judicious word and timely
+hand from a friend of his lost father or mother, and many a lonely girl
+finds the path of peace and usefulness smoothed for her by those who
+remember the parent&#8217;s image in the daughter&#8217;s face. The story of Moses,
+the foundling of the Nile,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> and of Joseph, the exile from Jacob&#8217;s house,
+is often repeated in the lives of youths, like them in loneliness, and not
+wholly unlike them in subsequent energy and honor. Think of this in your
+homes, and make them pleasant and instructive and elevating to some guests
+sought by you, because you can make them happy, and who will repay your
+blessing better than guests of idleness or vanity, sometimes too eagerly
+sought, who may besot and befool your children by folly and excess. Think
+of it in your places of business, and seek openings of usefulness for the
+unprotected. Then you may hear, nay, have you not heard other voices than
+those of hard traffic there? then you may see, have you not seen, springs
+of living water gushing from the dusty pavements which you tread? Think of
+the orphan. For his own sake, do it, and for our own and our children&#8217;s
+sake. The probability is, that what others ask of us we shall need for
+ourselves. We must expect that our children will be in want of the very
+sympathy which we are to show; for who can be sure of leaving his
+offspring mature enough in years and wisdom to demand no guardian care in
+place of the parental? It becomes, therefore, an imperious duty to educate
+our children in such a manner, as to secure them trusty friends; to give
+them habits of self-reliance, that shall save them from annoying others by
+burdensome dependence; to train them to conciliating manners, attractive
+conversation, elevated ideas, that shall win for them the companionship
+and protection of the wise and good, keep them in right paths, and mature
+in their new homes all the worthy seeds of old scenes and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> affections.
+Then when the hour of our parting comes, we can think not wholly with
+sorrow of the legacy of the Cross; believing that they who have trusted in
+us, may trust in each other, or in friends divinely given, and that future
+years will deepen the former communion.</p>
+
+<p>The great security, that this shall be so, is found where Christ placed
+it, in the Father. &#8220;I will not leave you comfortless,&#8221;&mdash;or orphaned, as
+the word is literally to be translated,&mdash;&#8220;I will come to you. Ye shall
+know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.&#8221; They that learn
+to live in the Father&#8217;s love, are saved from the worst bereavement, and
+the orphanage of the earth opens to them the parentage of heaven. The
+first and secondary relationships of earth are both commended and
+consecrated by the relation prior to them both and primal of all, however
+late it may be understood; for in spiritual as well as earthly ties, it
+requires time and thought to know our truest friend; and the playmates of
+an hour win the child of mortality&#8217;s ear more readily than the far-seeing
+parent, or than the Ancient of Days, the Father of all. Remember that
+whatever paternal wisdom or maternal tenderness we have ever known here,
+has its source and archetype on high. There dwells the Godhead that spoke
+and wrought through the victim of the Cross; there shines the wisdom that
+opened that disciple&#8217;s vision; there burns the love that glowed in the
+mother&#8217;s faithful heart. From the unseen, comes all the glory that is
+seen; and if any of us have an orphaned heart, as in some respects we all
+may have, let us find its solace in God, and whatever is God&#8217;s.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> Let the
+sweet breath of May, that whispers to devotees of Mary&#8217;s holy maternity,
+fill our hearts with more than vernal promise, ideals of more than human
+loveliness,&mdash;call us away from all wintry chills to the light and love of
+the Parent above all parents&mdash;to the home that unites all homes in one.</p>
+
+<p><i>May.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span></p>
+<h2>The Young Prodigal.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">THE YOUNG PRODIGAL.</span></p>
+
+<p>How marked and how various has been the response of men to the Parable of
+the Prodigal Son since it first came from the lips of Him whose life so
+exemplified its mercy. Through all those changing centuries, the home has
+kept its place in the affections of mankind, and that pathetic domestic
+picture has never failed to waken regrets and compassion. The happiest
+household is not without some errors that cry for forgiveness, and not
+many are the families whose peace is not troubled by some prodigal. The
+parable presents at once an example of earthly experience and a lesson of
+heavenly mercy. Not forgetting the heavenly lesson, we dwell now more upon
+the earthly example, as we speak of the prodigal in the family, especially
+of his fall and his recovery.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>The prodigal in the family! Far more frequently than the world knows,
+might this epithet in truth be spoken, for it is not by any means from
+notorious spendthrifts and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> open profligates, that wicked waste scatters
+the goods of a household. If a certain man who had two sons, found in one
+of them a prodigal under the simple manners of a rustic age, what may the
+father of a large family anticipate in a state of society which makes
+extravagance almost a necessity, and in a great city which brings the
+vices and follies of every far country on earth to his very door. Never
+perhaps since Jesus spoke, have His words found more ample illustration
+than in this great city, that calls thousands and tens of thousands of
+young men from rural homes to the fierce scramble for gold, and the
+feverish chase for pleasure, and which in so many ways offers to drown in
+dissipation the anguish of remorse.</p>
+
+<p>It is not by any means always the worst boy of the family who takes the
+road to ruin. It may be base passion or reckless selfishness that leads
+him astray, but it is quite as likely to be too cordial impulses, exposing
+him to enticing companions, or too sanguine hopes, entailing upon him
+disappointment and despair. Of the many prodigals whom we have known in
+our own lifetime, not a few surely have been generous natures, whom it was
+impossible not to pity, and not hard to love. Sometimes the very
+temperament that makes a youth amiable, and that should make him noble,
+wins to him the most alluring of tempters, and he falls before some Satan
+who comes to him as an angel of light.</p>
+
+<p>The very tenderness shown to him at home may add to his besetting
+weakness, by encouraging habits of self-indulgence. In fact, the parable
+itself allows room for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> the surmise, that the younger son, from having
+less care put upon him than the elder, was less schooled in self-reliance,
+and because every thing was done for him as the pet of the family, he was
+in danger of doing too little for himself. Certainly indulgence may be as
+dangerous an extreme as sternness, and as many youths are spoiled by over
+fondness as are made desperate by unkindness. Sometimes both extremes
+unite in the same fitful temper, and children, now petted and now cursed,
+learn indolence and rebellion in the same perverse domestic school. Rare
+is the wisdom that can adjust the discipline to each temperament, and
+encourage without over-indulgence, and correct without harshness. Not
+always, however, is the fault of the child to be traced to error in the
+parent, for every child has powers and responsibilities of his own, and
+besides his own perverse will, there is a third party that frequently
+comes in to make mischief.</p>
+
+<p>At home or abroad this tempter may come, and in forms as many as are the
+shapes of folly and sin. The son may not have erred simply in desiring to
+go from home to seek his fortunes. He may have intended to use his portion
+of the inheritance in a more profitable way than at home, and perhaps
+return to the quiet old farm-house, rich in treasure and experience, a
+benefactor to the whole family. Youth is full of dreams, and of not
+ignoble dreams, and of the thousands of young men who every month go out
+into the world to seek their fortune, few, if any, mean to throw their
+hopes away in dissipation. Young blood is ever sanguine, and fair indeed
+would this earth be, if it could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> take the hue and shape of the youthful
+visions that have brooded upon its future. The very fact that a man hopes
+much, may throw him into a despair as intense as his hope, and the
+sanguine dreamer may degenerate under disappointment into the reckless
+prodigal. The portion of the inheritance which was to swell into
+affluence, being broken by some mischance, seems good for nothing but a
+brief round of pleasure, and is squandered in riotous living. Or the
+wanderer may start with the idea that expensive habits will secure to him
+friends and position, until he finds that these habits are his masters,
+and these friends go away when his money is gone. Let any sober-minded man
+who has consistently tried to use well his means and opportunity, remember
+the perils that have lurked in his own path, and he will make some due
+allowance for the temptations that now beset young men. We are not called
+to lower in the least our standard of virtue, but we are to enlarge our
+views to measure the extent of the danger, and to relax our severity to
+win the erring to repentance and amendment. Make the ease our own, and as
+we look upon the many forms of youthful vice and folly around us, see our
+own youth thus come back to us, and read the sad lessons as so many
+chapters in the book of our own possible destiny. Such considerations,
+instead of making us more lax in principle, will make us more strict, by
+making us feel more deeply the curse of that transgression, which we thus
+bring home to our own thoughts. Combine all the various sources of
+temptation, bear in mind the portions that may come severally from the
+youth,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> his guardians and the world, and it will not appear proof of utter
+depravity that there should be some prodigals on earth.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>The emphasis of the parable turns not upon the fall, but upon the recovery
+of the erring one, and the portraiture of the various steps in the
+recovery is so drawn to the life, as to answer with due change of manners
+and costume for any age. Mark its progress, in the mind of the youth and
+the parent, and in the final reconciliation of the two.</p>
+
+<p>Mark the change in the feelings of the son. In a short time what a
+transition in the lot of this reckless roaming boy. His dream of fortune
+and pleasure has been most rudely broken, and the spendthrift is the
+penniless outcast. A season of famine, or what in our more commercial age
+would be called hard times, came on, and the pressure that bears upon all
+drives him to the very verge of starvation. Where are the gay mansions now
+that opened their doors so eagerly to the young stranger, so lavish with
+his wealth? Where are the boon companions that borrowed his money, and
+rode his horses, and drunk his wine? Where such friends are very likely to
+be in time of need; ready to cut the acquaintance of the wretch upon whose
+prosperity they have fattened and fawned. He is in a sad plight, and might
+have been driven to some desperate crime&mdash;to murder or to suicide, did he
+not learn one of the blessed lessons of God&#8217;s Providence, and use misery
+as a stern, yet judicious schoolmaster, to lead him to remorse and
+penitence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>Suffering wakens him from his vain dream, and he sees things now as they
+are,&mdash;takes upon his shoulders the burden of his griefs,&mdash;confesses that
+he has abused the very generosity of his father, and is no longer worthy
+to be called his son. Remorse, no proof of depravity past redemption, but
+proof rather that conscience still lives, and is vindicating her holy law,
+exalted the poor outcast, even in humbling him to the dust, and lifts the
+wretch into the penitent, with those words, &#8220;I will arise, and go to my
+father.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This penitence crowns the new experience of the prodigal, and brings him
+into a new sphere of thought and action. He feels the power of a love that
+he had slighted, and which now pleads with his soul in an eloquence all
+the mightier from its tone of expostulation and pity. His childhood
+reappears to him in all its innocence and privilege,&mdash;the old homestead,
+with its familiar walls and trees, haunts him not as a dream, but as the
+one reality, and seems to eye his wretchedness with wonder and compassion.
+He is a changed man now, and turns his face upon the long journey
+homeward, not merely as an outcast hungry and miserable, but as a penitent
+seeking forgiveness of the kindness which he had outraged, and asking to
+do a servant&#8217;s work on the estate whose income he had wasted.</p>
+
+<p>Look to the other side of the picture, and think of what has been going on
+in the father&#8217;s heart. No particulars are given of his feeling during the
+season of separation, but his heart is a chapter in the book, that life
+is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> ever laying open, and what is told of him at the crisis, indicates
+well his temper during the interval. He had but two boys, and his whole
+hope and love must have centred in them and their destiny. They may have
+been dearer to him from being all the memorial left to him of the mother
+long since taken from the world. The younger may have been the pet of his
+leisure hours, whilst the elder was busy with the cares of the farm; for
+there is likely to be a pet child in every family. But the plain facts are
+enough without laying any tax upon the imagination. He had the common
+heart of good men, and had shown his willingness to make sacrifices for
+his children. Many a time in lonely hours he must have thought of the
+wanderer, and wondered if the boy whom he never forgot, could forget him.
+The prosperity of his business, the plenty of his crops, the number of his
+flocks and herds, could not satisfy him; even the sight of the son now
+with him, but reminded him how broken was his family and how divided his
+heart. Touches of compassion would mingle with his lonely regrets, and
+remembering the common weakness of our humanity, he would consider the
+amount of temptation in wait for every novice, and have misgivings at
+allowing him to go out alone into the world. Many a time his wistful gaze
+would rest upon the road taken by the departing wanderer, and he would ask
+himself if the youth would ever return, and in what condition. One day as
+he looked, that lonely road had for him a startling apparition. Far in the
+distance appears a tired, tattered wayfarer, a mere vagrant to the common
+gaze; but<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> one of the many who seem heir of misery, and for whom
+compassion itself has little reasonable hope. But no; the eye of affection
+is ever sharpsighted, and the father sees under that beggar&#8217;s garb the
+step and air of his long-lost son; and one look tells to him the whole
+story of his fortunes. He is a poor and broken-down creature, and comes
+home penitent, to ask mercy of the love that he had so offended. All is
+told in those simple words of welcome &#8220;But when he was yet a great way
+off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his
+neck, and kissed him.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This was the meeting&mdash;such was the reconciliation! Full as it is of
+absorbing feeling, its moral element is not to be forgotten. Read its
+lessons, and we note first of all forgiveness of the offence in view of
+the penitence of the offender; secondly, restoration to favor on the
+ground of amendment; thirdly, justice to all parties and no injustice to
+the rights of the elder son, who had not wasted his patrimony, yet, who
+was moved to look with a jealous eye at the feasting in honor of his
+prodigal brother&#8217;s return. Mercy is triumphant, yet justice is not
+slighted, and whilst the prodigal is restored to his place in his father&#8217;s
+heart and household, all the consequences of his transgression do not
+cease; his portion of the substance is not as if he had wasted nothing,
+and he is not exempt from a long course of self-discipline and correction.
+Forgiveness does not end discipline, but rather begins its just action, by
+bringing the offender into the sphere of moral and spiritual allegiance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>Such is the story of the Prodigal Son in his fall and his recovery&mdash;a rich
+lesson of earthly experience and of heavenly faith. What family is there
+that is not called at some time, and in some measure, to apply its point
+to themselves?</p>
+
+<p>Parents and guardians have some trials that the world knows of, and some
+that escape the public ear. Rare, indeed, the home that has no trace of
+the prodigal, and makes no demand on the heart of forgiveness. Our
+prevalent manners seem to set a bounty upon prodigality, and make youth,
+the true season of control and preparation, the ill-timed season for
+indulgence and extravagance. Many sons have the spending of a prince&#8217;s
+income without the spur of a prince&#8217;s ambition; and probably not a few
+families in our own community encourage a reckless waste that would be
+thought wicked in many a palace; whilst the self-will, thus pampered, is
+not trained to labor for any definite aim or worthy object. In homes less
+affluent, the case may be still worse, and the sons and daughters of
+persons in a medium position catch the bad ambition, and launch out into
+an extravagance as ruinous as it is infatuated. It is wrong&mdash;all wrong.
+The prodigal, in his craving for pardon, well marked the error of his
+course, and proved how much he had sinned against a father&#8217;s purpose in
+intrusting him, prematurely, with such means of usefulness and honor, to
+be squandered in idleness and shame. Happy they who learn the lesson
+without such bitter experience, and who start from the first with a worthy
+object in view. Here is the great question that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> over presses upon us: How
+check the waste of talent and substance among our youth? how redeem the
+most susceptible years from frivolity and extravagance? There can be
+essentially but one answer, however various the forms of its expression.
+From the very first, let the young be trained to pursue some worthy
+object, and let the ideal of dignity be placed not in dainty indolence,
+but in active usefulness. Let every household cherish this creed in all
+its spirit and economy; let education be called perversion when it does
+not foster this purpose; let mercy itself when most tender and forgiving,
+most earnestly breathe this incentive.</p>
+
+<p>Never was a young generation launched forth upon a more alluring and
+bewildering sea than that which now wafts its inviting breezes towards our
+rising youth. Opportunities thicken and dazzle as never before, and
+dangers multiply with opportunities; the spur is put to self-indulgence,
+whilst the reins of discipline are slackened, and society is starting upon
+an untried and adventurous track, that raises in sober minds quite as much
+fear as hope. But heaven is always above us, and its light need never fail
+us. Let the blessed Master&#8217;s plea for heavenly mercy reveal to us more
+clearly the way of obedience, and the very tears of penitence water the
+root of faith and resolution. Youth, so impassioned, self-willed,
+sanguine,&mdash;be prodigal no more. Look to the mark placed before you by your
+Father in heaven, and measure your dignity by your fidelity to your work.
+Son&mdash;daughter&mdash;waste your heart and strength no more upon follies and
+sins. You<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> have the happiness of many in your keeping, and the Infinite
+Parent above will smile upon your penitence, and bless you in your
+fidelity.</p>
+
+<p>Who can look upon the number of youths without high aims and faithful
+purposes, who are growing up in our cities with opportunities so
+unparalleled, and not find himself haunted with that ever-recurring
+question, &#8220;What shall we do with our sons?&#8221; A state of society that is
+based upon wealth as the chief good, may offer especial danger to the
+sons, from the very fact that it gave such incentives to the energy of the
+fathers, and the wealth gained in hardship may be wasted in dissipation.
+Some sons, indeed, catch the thrift of their laborious parents, and from
+love of money, or from family pride, or some better ambition, try to keep
+or increase their inheritance. But even these are too rarely trained to
+know the highest uses of property, or the true art of employing the
+leisure which it offers for recreations, that refresh instead of
+dissipating the powers. How many there are far below their level, who seem
+to lose every earnest motive in being free from the necessity of exertion,
+and who give the infection of their corrupt idleness and false honor to
+companions who can ill afford any dainty self-indulgence. The commercial
+spirit that places business energy at the top of the scale of talents and
+dignities, may do something to check such prodigality; but only a
+thoroughgoing, manly purpose, looking devoutly to God&#8217;s will and the
+solemn work of life, can lay the axe to the root of the evil.</p>
+
+<p>Consider, seriously, young man, that you have a work<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> to do in the world,
+whilst it is still called to-day. The charm of life, as well as its true
+honor, lies in the earnest pursuit of a worthy object. Beware of adding by
+your presence to the number of young men about town, who are all sail and
+no ballast, and whose wreck sooner or later is produced by the very
+surface spread to the fickle winds of passion. Balance yourself by the
+weight of conscious responsibility; guide yourself with a single eye to
+the mark of true living. Be something&mdash;a genuine reality&mdash;not an empty
+sham&mdash;something in power and in position, not one of the nothings who
+parrot the reigning follies and vices. Be yourself&mdash;yourself as God has
+called you to be by the gift of your powers and opportunities, instead of
+trying vainly to be somebody else, by affecting ways and honors never
+intended for you; yes, be yourself, even if your genius bids you work at
+the mechanic&#8217;s bench or at the machinist&#8217;s lathe, instead of trying to be
+somebody else in a profession for which you are not adapted, or in aping a
+lazy gentility which is a disgrace to any rational creature of God. Be
+thus something&mdash;be thus yourself&mdash;and you cannot be false to man or God. A
+true master purpose will quicken and energize the whole being. No longer a
+prodigal yourself, your spirit so free and devoted, so blending hearty
+manliness with earnest faith, will lead many a wanderer home.</p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Education of Daughters.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">EDUCATION OF DAUGHTERS.</span></p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Nothing is more neglected than the education of daughters,&#8221; said Fenelon,
+in the first sentence of his noted work on the subject. This cannot be
+said with truth now, when so much time, thought and money, are given to
+their instruction in the most opposite quarters. Whilst thinking upon this
+topic, it seems to me as if every one of its leading aspects had sent a
+representation of itself to help our judgment. This month, even the
+stranger in our city must have had his attention attracted by the costume
+and speech-making of the somewhat brave champions of the Woman&#8217;s Rights&#8217;
+party, who have been holding their conventions; and, as if to show up one
+extreme by another, the debates of radicalism have run parallel with the
+rites of superstition; and, on his way to the hall that rings with
+feminine voices that claim masculine honors, he may as he passes many
+churches catch the strains of those vesper hymns to the Virgin Mother, by
+which Romanism strives to make this beautiful Mary confirm its daughters<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>
+in the faith, by that ideal of womanhood so deified in its own loveliness
+without need of any borrowed grace of man&#8217;s.</p>
+
+<p>In his next morning&#8217;s walk, he will see in the many processions of
+boarding-school girls promenading with no very elastic step, quite another
+aspect of woman&#8217;s destiny, and one that may give him mingled feelings as
+he meditates upon the future of American mothers and their posterity. If
+the stranger comes from a foreign country, he will be interested less in
+these three aspects of the subject, than in a fourth of far less assuming
+air. He will be more impressed with the looks of the daughters of the
+people, with cheery step on their way to the public schools, than with the
+champions of reform, the pupils of fashion, or the devotees of the ancient
+ritual. Surely the education of girls is not neglected among us; yet,
+whether it is wisely attended to, is one of the most serious and pressing
+questions of our day,&mdash;a question in which every family is vitally
+concerned. There are few readers who are not ready to give some thought to
+the true idea and method of female education.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>We must look for the true idea reverently, as under religious guidance,
+not according to our own caprices or opinions. Nothing surely should awe
+our wilful conceits into docile attention, more than the effort to find
+the calling and the place of the being beyond all others dependent upon
+our care. Where but in the school of the Creator and Preserver himself,
+shall we learn what our<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> daughters are called to be under his Providence?
+Where but therein shall we learn to decipher that fair and wonderful
+hieroglyph which God himself carved out in the person of Eve, and which
+remains to this day the most expressive cipher of heaven&#8217;s grace and care.</p>
+
+<p>The language of the Psalmist, so often quoted, is sufficient to define the
+idea of female education when freely interpreted. If our daughters,
+according to his prayer, should be as corner-stones, polished after the
+similitude of a palace, it is clear that their education is to have
+accomplishment and solidity such as to fit them for their place as the
+main supports of social life. They are to be polished stones. Does not
+this expression bring the sanction of Holy Writ against the too frequent
+notion that woman is made only to be the servant of man, and that her
+chief destiny is to be the drudging underling of his will; not like the
+polished stone of a palace wall, but the rough rock at the
+foundation,&mdash;useful, indeed, but buried under the dust. This idea exists
+not merely in savage countries, where woman is actually man&#8217;s slave, and
+reared to be such from childhood, so that a thoughtful mother mourns when
+a daughter is born; but our own Christendom reads its own darkest chapter
+in the condition of woman, so often forced to drudge for scanty bread and
+raiment, perhaps abused by the very man upon whose bidding she waits, and
+who dements himself in drunkenness whilst she plies her thankless tasks.
+In many quarters where such abominations would be condemned, views
+radically the same are held, and an idea of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> woman&#8217;s destiny prevails
+which takes her from her rightful place as the equal of man, which sinks
+her into his drudge, without time for intellectual and spiritual culture,
+with little of the leisure and conversation that beguile care of its
+sting, and toil of its weariness. Nay, how often is this destiny
+unconsciously entailed upon daughters by thoughtless, yet not consciously
+unkind, parents, who train up their girls without high aims and enlarged
+views, sending them into new homes so poorly endowed with commanding
+motives and practical knowledge, as to sink down into the dull monotony of
+domestic drudgery. Though the hands may not be overtasked, if the soul is
+weighed down to a servile routine, without sentiment or spirituality,
+woman is the slave of man,&mdash;the neglected rock beneath his dwelling, and
+not the polished stone of his home.</p>
+
+<p>But this is not the chief danger now, but an opposite extreme equally
+degrading. The danger is not that the daughter shall lack polish, but that
+she will have but little else; and, instead of being a polished stone,
+shall be a polished vanity with no substance at all. Nothing can be more
+false and fatal than the notion that a daughter is to be educated for
+show, whilst the son is to be trained for usefulness. In her own way, the
+sister has quite as much strength of character as the brother has in his
+way, and she is cruelly treated when regarded only as a graceful toy.
+Sometimes this extreme meets the other, and she who in her girlhood was a
+dainty plaything, becomes in womanhood a plodding drudge, without a
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>particle of worthy spirit or elevated thought to retain the love won by
+her beauty, or to replace the fervor lost with her youth. It is very wrong
+to make accomplishments the main thing in female education.
+Accomplishments are poor tricks, unless their polish is but the smoothness
+of substantial knowledge and judgment. A showy girl who can dance, sing,
+and prattle two or three foreign languages, without being able to speak
+and write sensibly in her own tongue, is one of the most lamentable of
+counterfeits, and may chance to blight the peace and dignity of more
+hearts than one by her shams. She is the product of that flashy system of
+training, which is doing more mischief in America than any where else, and
+making society a tawdry Vanity Fair instead of a companionship of hearts
+and homes. Not a few of our daughters seem taught to think that
+distinction in society is graduated by clothes and confectionery, and to
+measure their social honor or obscurity by their ability to follow the
+silly code of extravagance. If the folly were confined to those who have
+such affluence as craves prodigality in expense to reduce the overplus, it
+might be comparatively harmless, but it bears most severely upon families
+of limited means, where mothers and daughters are in a fever to ape the
+extravagance that they ought to pity. Why all this infatuated excess in
+dress? What do our daughters, in their tender years, need for their grace
+and dignity beyond the simplest costume that good taste dictates as the
+fit robing of girlish innocence? Even a pure French taste, which, in other
+respects favors such excess, teaches an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> almost Christian simplicity in
+this respect; and the spectacle, so common with us, of school girls
+bedizened with costly dresses of all colors, and loaded with jewels, would
+be ludicrous in a Parisian drawing-room, as a walking, jingling toy-shop
+attached to a human creature. It is a fine remark of Fenelon in rebuking
+the foolish passion for dress, that if daughters were educated in a purer
+classic taste, and would study the beautiful in the schools of painting
+and sculpture, they would shun many excesses in costume on account of
+their deformity, as well as their extravagance. What judgment the good
+archbishop would have passed upon our present mode of sweeping the dusty
+sidewalks with costly robes of silk and velvet, we have no means of
+judging, for this folly seems a recent invention. What a recent French
+moralist, who claims to walk in the path of Fenelon, says of France, is
+doubly true of America: &#8220;The great care,&#8221; says L&#8217;Aim&eacute; Martin, &#8220;is to
+please the world, rather than to resist it: the wish is to shine, to
+reign:&mdash;vanity, that is the end to which tender mothers do not cease to
+point their daughters, and upon which the world that pushes them on sees
+them wrecked with indifference! Vanity in accomplishments! vanity in
+dress! vanity in learning! This show covers all: to seem, not to be, makes
+the sum and substance of education.&#8221; These strong words must have cost the
+bland French moralist some pain; but does not their strength come from
+their truth? Do they not apply, with fearful truth, to American society?
+Does not the prevalent code of feminine ostentation bear with cruel
+weight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> upon our domestic life, making almost a social necessity of the
+merest conventional artificiality, and raising up a generation of listless
+imbeciles, who measure their social salvation by the magnitude of their
+exactions and the littleness of their achievements? in short, setting up a
+code of dignity, in which utter uselessness not seldom bears the highest
+honor. It would be, probably, a somewhat peculiar revelation, if the young
+women who go from boarding-schools into our gay society were to submit to
+a thorough catechizing as to what they expect to receive in the world, and
+what they expect to do in return. The statistics thus gathered might shed
+some light upon our social and political economy, and disclose a standard
+of empty extravagance, not very common among the titled nobility of the
+Old World. Away with the error upon which the whole mischief rests,&mdash;the
+error that our daughters are not rational creatures, and that the very
+strength of their character is not the best reason and rule of their
+accomplishment. Let them be polished stones, not tinsel, with a refinement
+and solidity worthy their endowments.</p>
+
+<p>Associating thus the attribute of polish with that of solidity, in our
+idea of the education of daughters, we complete the definition by
+maintaining, that the two qualities should be so combined as best to fit
+the daughter for her providential position as the equal of man; not his
+rival, nor his slave, nor his toy. We claim for the daughter entire
+mental, moral, and religious equality with the son, yet find in the law
+alike of nature and revelation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> a distinction between their gifts and
+spheres. It would be merely beating the air to argue either point,&mdash;to try
+to prove that woman has all the faculties of human nature, and if, in her
+case, they are otherwise adjusted than with man, the difference is such as
+to forbid boasting on either side, and to favor mutual help instead of
+selfish rivalry. Nor need we couch our lance against the reform school
+that claims for woman a masculine position, and asks to have all offices
+open to her ambition or zeal. We are little in danger of such
+extravagances, and our daughters are more likely to slight the high moral
+influence now within their sphere, than to hanker after the notoriety of
+professional life or anniversary platforms. Our current modes of society
+are so lenient towards those who unsex themselves on the stage, or in the
+ball-room, that the moralist need trouble himself very little with the
+loquacious sisterhood, that seems determined to have the public ear upon
+most exciting questions. The most discouraging thing in their prospect is
+in the indifference of their own sex to their appeals. Men prefer to hear
+women talk in a less obtrusive manner; and women seem likely to follow
+their time-hallowed precedent, and to have men for their orators, leaders,
+physicians, and preachers. The freest system will not alter the divine
+order, and whatever worthy reforms may come, the end will be the
+reconsecration of woman in her true sphere&mdash;as the equal, not the rival,
+of man. Hers will still be full half the world, and the best half of it
+too. To be the polished corner-stone in the palace which the ruling heart
+makes royal, is honor and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> responsibility enough. To carry out this idea
+of the education of daughters by a just method, is a work second to none
+other to be done or meditated in this world.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>What have we to say of such a method? Nothing but simply to appeal to
+God&#8217;s own will as shown in the daughter&#8217;s faculties and in the spheres in
+which she is called to move. Let the method be such as best developes her
+powers and fits her for her position.</p>
+
+<p>How great a thing it is to understand a soul, said Theresa of Spain, in
+view of the young hearts committed to her care after all her own trials of
+faith. How great a thing it is to understand a daughter&#8217;s mind in which
+sensibility, that demands sympathy, has so much larger a place than logic,
+that needs only to be reasoned out. We believe that there is sex in mind,
+and that the essential type of womanhood appears equally in the example of
+the highest culture and genius, as in the average standard. Every page
+shows the woman&#8217;s guiding pen, no matter whether a De Sta&euml;l or a Godwin
+ranges into the bolder realms of thought, or an Edgeworth or Hemans walks
+among the daily affections and cares of life. A true culture must be based
+upon this fact, and the mind must be trained in accordance. Little may be
+gained by persisting in making a dry logician of a school girl, for
+abstract reasoning is rarely a woman&#8217;s forte, but precisely on that
+account, the reason must be appealed to by the living truth, which will
+find a ready response from perceptions so quick and intuitive as often to
+see at a glance what the logical understanding will with difficulty argue
+out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>It is a great mistake to try to train a girl to be a man in cast of mind
+or way of life. We can never slight the hint of nature without bringing
+down her retribution, and temporary success but delays the evil day. What
+better instance of this error have we than in the memoirs of that gifted
+woman so well known to most of our readers, and probably a personal friend
+to not a few of them, Margaret Fuller Ossoli? Her mental career is now
+made public property by able and congenial biographers; and who of us does
+not see the unconscious cruelty of the stern discipline which sought to
+mould her mind after the masculine standard, and which so repressed the
+springs of feminine power, until Providence took the noble woman into its
+own school, and the wife and mother learned a wisdom and a peace that
+classic letters and metaphysical theories never taught her; nay, far
+beyond the stature of the &#8220;Muse,&#8221; and the &#8220;Minerva,&#8221; that were once her
+chosen types of female dignity? Honor to her name, alike for the mistakes
+and the excellencies illustrated by her eventful life?</p>
+
+<p>Truly trained, the girl will have as much <i>reason</i> as the boy; and hers
+will be more intuitive, whilst his may be more formal and severe in its
+<i>reasoning</i>. Strength of character will be hers, not, perhaps, so much the
+stern sense of justice that most marks the masculine conscience, as the
+full and earnest affection that adds mercy to justice and love to duty.
+Force of will shall be hers, not perhaps the iron will of man, but what is
+quite as well, and in its place better, the heroic patience that conquers
+evil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> by enduring it. The result shall be a disciplined, sagacious
+intellect without masculine hardness, delicate sensibility without
+imbecile listlessness, active energy without moping drudgery, a
+combination of powers and graces that wins homage from every heart.</p>
+
+<p>I would not adopt any definition of woman&#8217;s powers less generous than the
+hint of nature and the will of God. Rather allow the largest scope to the
+development of every gift, and trust the feminine instinct to vindicate
+its own prerogative, whatever be the talent called into requisition.
+Marked cases show that the feminine mind may sometimes have the faculty
+for the severest mathematical reasoning, and England and America have been
+taught this fact by the philosophical achievements of women who are an
+honor alike to the delicacy and the intellect of their sex. Full well do I
+remember a visit to William Mitchell the Nantucket astronomer, years ago,
+when I saw that the father and the daughter had each a station and a set
+of instruments for taking simultaneous observations of the heavens. Since
+that day a gold medal from the king of Denmark has marked the daughter&#8217;s
+triumph as the discoverer of a new comet. I am not ashamed to say, that at
+the time of the visit I had been several days puzzling over a difficult
+sum in algebra, and that, with a few touches of her pencil, the young lady
+made clear as day what I had but suspected, that the difficulty was in an
+error of the text-book. She evidently understood Arbogast&#8217;s polynomial
+theorem better than I did.</p>
+
+<p>But the great difficulty in this whole matter is not so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> much in a proper
+definition of characteristics to be cherished, as in the application of
+proper motives to bring out those characteristics. With boys the motive is
+near at hand, for the world speaks to them with its imperious voice and
+bids them prepare for some specific post of profit or ambition. Without
+such practical spur, our sons would be a languid generation, since
+self-culture merely for its own sake, as an amateur pursuit without any
+specific object, is a dull affair, that very feebly goes. Even those young
+men who have had a thorough collegiate education are very apt to forget
+their learning, and to lose their literary gift unless they carry out the
+work of education in actual affairs and keep their attainments by using
+them. What shall take the place of such motive in the education of our
+daughters? What aim shall we place before them in their early studies and
+keep before them in after years? Serious indeed is the question, and too
+frivolously answered by the hosts of bright girls who go from school into
+a career of folly and dissipation.</p>
+
+<p>There can be but one answer, and that the most Christian word. It is
+simply this:&mdash;&#8220;Daughter, you are under God&#8217;s rule, and all your gifts and
+acquisitions are sacred trusts. Consecrate them by a true service. Look
+upon your life as folly and nothingness, until you regard it as a solemn
+charge and resolve to use its opportunities faithfully. Choose in the
+first bloom of your hope the true, the Christian standard of character,
+and give religion the grace and power of your youthful enthusiasm. You
+have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> from Heaven itself a sacred commission, large as the sphere of your
+sex, specific as the compass and aim of your own individual talents and
+position.&#8221; Take this ground, and it will appear that the daughter will
+find in her own religious susceptibility, and in the Divine grace, a
+motive to self-culture as efficient as the son finds in the spur of
+business and competition. Both indeed need the same religious discipline,
+but the one needs it more as an impelling, the other more as a restraining
+motive.</p>
+
+<p>Let the motive spirit be just and fervent, it remains a question with
+daughters what shall be the chosen purpose of their after lives.
+Circumstances must in some measure influence their choice, for with a
+large portion, not merely taste, but the necessity of securing a
+livelihood, is to be consulted. But in either case the law of fitness is
+to be the guide; and all, without exception, make a sad mistake, who do
+not train themselves to some pursuit capable alike of adorning their
+affluence and of guarding them against need. It is very clear that there
+is some fatal error in the physical education of girls that needs
+correcting before they can be sure of any independence of position. &#8220;Very
+few girls that I know are well,&#8221; said a lady some time ago in speaking of
+the large circle of scholars under her observation. As American boys are
+not wanting in robust health, there must be some radical error in the
+training of the other sex, that they are so fragile, and that they fade
+and languish so prematurely. It is obvious that the power of the free air,
+generous exercise, and wholesome hours and diet, is too little understood,
+whilst the confectioner&#8217;s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> trash often takes the place of substantial
+food, and the delicate nerves that the fresh breezes of heaven, the cold
+water of the spring, are so ready to soothe and brace with genial health,
+are sometimes insanely dosed with brandy or opium at caprice to an extent
+that might be too much for the constitution of a Goliath of Gath. There is
+no reason to believe that our daughters are doomed by nature to be less
+healthy than our sons, or less fitted for a field of usefulness congenial
+with their gifts. Small indeed in comparison with the field opened to
+sons, is the sphere at present for the talents of daughters. But small as
+it may seem, it has not yet been fully occupied, and it will be sure to
+enlarge when its capacities are faithfully tested. Certainly the saddest
+limitation of feminine competence comes from overdoing some few branches
+of labor, and there are great departments of the useful and the beautiful
+arts little resorted to by their skill. For ourselves, we have no fear of
+harming the delicacy of our daughters by opening to them any honorable
+field of culture or industry to which their tastes and talents call them.
+It is a sacred duty to employ well every faculty given by the Creator, and
+full and fair opportunity to develop all their gifts should be afforded.
+If young women wish to be lawyers, preachers, physicians, or merchants, we
+would put no harsher obstacle before them than our honest opinion that
+such is not their providential career, whilst we would do every thing in
+our power to throw open to their pursuit those spheres of action most
+congenial with their nature. In the industrial arts who shall number the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>
+departments in which the quick perception and ready fingers and
+instinctive neatness of girls would fit them for success more than the
+other sex? Who shall limit the range of beautiful arts open to their taste
+and genius? What may they not do with the pen, voice, pencil and chisel?
+Who shall begin to unfold the future of woman as the Providential teacher
+of mankind? Who shall adequately measure her present power over the young?
+Honor to the teacher, whether with or without a mother&#8217;s motive! Honor to
+the host of teachers who are now bearing to every border of our own land,
+the seeds of sound learning and social refinement. The
+school-mistress&mdash;not the crone whom Shenstone once painted&mdash;but the
+earnest, hopeful, high-minded daughter of a worthy home, is one of the
+ruling powers of our land, and at her approach barbarism yields and
+civilization reigns. I know well what I am talking about, and from years
+of pastoral experience I have learned to bless her work and worth.</p>
+
+<p>But without dwelling more on this topic of employment, or expatiating upon
+the gifts of daughters for teaching in its various branches, and the
+demand for a higher order of teachers than are now easily found, may we
+not say that society among us is sadly crude and imperfect, from the
+inadequate culture of those especially called to be its light and joy?
+What art among those called beautiful or useful, can rank above the art of
+guiding the economy of the home, ruling its prosaic abilities so aptly,
+that they too shall wear an ideal expression, and the peace of God shall
+go with the goods his bounty hath provided?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> Who shall exaggerate the
+worth of the conversational power so congenial with the natural eloquence
+of women, and so apt for want of culture or high purpose to degenerate
+into the poorest gossip? Who shall over-estimate the power of her who,
+from a full and ready mind bears to every circle the charm of an apt,
+sparkling, and kindly utterance, making beauty a spiritual benediction
+where it exists, and where beauty is denied, making up for its absence by
+a grace that no loveliness of feature can rival? Blessed indeed this
+ministry, when deep and holy faith completes the consecration, and our
+daughters employ for the solace of the afflicted, or the light of the
+benighted, the gifts and attainments which make their name so blessed
+among friends and in homes.</p>
+
+<p>Polished corner-stones of the temple, they are then builded upon Him who
+is the chief corner-stone, and parents with all their solicitude for
+beings so tenderly framed, and so exposed to the vicissitudes of the
+world, may leave them in perfect faith in guardianship of a heavenly
+goodness that cannot fail them. Great wrong we do them, unless, by the
+most decided precept and example, we lead them to the Heavenly Father,
+through the Gospel and the Church of Him, who is the Way and the Life.
+What miserable folly it is that looks upon feminine piety as a weakness,
+coming from an understanding too feeble to doubt, or a will too infirm to
+be self-relying! The daughter&#8217;s strength and wisdom are in her faith and
+love. The mind is most illuminated when most opened to the light that God
+sheds upon the confiding, and there is many a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> house in which the wife and
+daughter&#8217;s piety rises into a wisdom far beyond the husband and brother&#8217;s
+hard worldly understanding. Bless God for the mission of Him whose deepest
+truth and inmost life were revealed to the sisters of Bethany, when hid
+from the Scribes and the Pharisees, and who found in their spiritual
+sympathy a solace which did not desert him, when his foremost disciple
+denied his name. It is the recipient soil, tender and watered by gentle
+dews, that nurtures the acorn into the oak by an alchemy that the flinty
+rock knows nothing of. Thus has it been with the mighty seed of the Word.
+What would have become of it, had there been no feminine faith and love to
+receive and nurture it into the tree of life? May that grace which has so
+worked upon the heart of woman, and raised her from bondage, and given her
+a new throne on earth, work among us, and redeem our daughters from the
+snares of the world.</p>
+
+<p><i>Week of Religious Anniversaries.</i></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Business and the Heart.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">BUSINESS AND THE HEART.</span></p>
+
+<p>Paul, the spiritualist and devotee, was eminently a practical man, and by
+what he did and what he said, gave it to be understood, that life has a
+serious business to be done, as well as a firm faith and hearty affections
+to be cherished. He himself was an efficient business man, and in his
+letters, preaching, and whole administration, he showed singular ability
+in dealing with men, and carrying his point in spite of their prejudices,
+or his own disadvantages. Even money matters, he did not neglect; but
+whilst rigidly simple and independent in his own habits, he had a wary eye
+upon the needs of the rising churches, insisted upon due charities and
+careful expenditure&mdash;nay, he expressly declared that the faculty for
+business was to be welcomed among the Christian gifts, and to be used for
+the common good, as decidedly as the faculty for teaching and exhorting.
+He bids men unite diligence in business with fervor of spirit, and a true
+service of God.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>&#8220;Not slothful in business,&#8221; he said at a time, when in the first love of
+their new faith, many were in danger of slighting practical affairs for
+the raptures of devotion, or in impatience for the second coming of
+Christ, and the age of Millennial rest. &#8220;Not slothful in business,&#8221; may we
+not say now, great as is the temptation with many to think, that we do not
+need any such advice in an age and country where business seems to ride
+over every thing else, and trample down all fervor of spirit and service
+of God. Reflect a little upon the clause in its connection, and we shall
+see how admirably all the words go together, and fill out the sense.
+Interpreting them so, we will speak of the business man in and out of his
+business character, and especially in his character at home, or as a man
+of affections&mdash;at home, that place where he must show pretty thoroughly
+what he is at heart, to family and friends. To see what he is elsewhere,
+we will look at him first at his work, for his course there will decide in
+a great measure his spirit elsewhere. Look into his store, or study,
+workshop, or office, and what is he doing? Whatever it may be, it is the
+serious work of his life, and is taking most of his time and thought. He
+says to himself, however much or little he likes his occupation, &#8220;This is
+my business, and thus I use my faculties, and earn my livelihood, and
+maintain my family, and win whatever means or influence I can for objects
+that I approve.&#8221; He is willing very honestly to accept the motto, &#8220;not
+slothful in business&#8221; for himself and all in his employment. Does he know
+how much meaning lies within those words?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>Sometimes when he thinks himself a prodigy of care and industry, and in
+the fever of hurry and anxiety, he is almost ready to give up every holy
+thought and Christian feeling for the absorbing chase, is not his very
+turmoil the fruit of slothfulness? If he had been better disciplined, more
+thoughtful, more methodical, would he not have been spared all this fever
+of mind, and excepting, perhaps, certain peculiar emergencies, would not
+the care as well as the evil of each day have been sufficient for itself,
+and send him to his home with heart open to friendly affections, and ready
+to thank Heaven for sweetening the repose of his pillow by the work he has
+done? Surely there is no way to make business so troublesome as by
+neglecting it. The only way of being rid of it, is to do it well, and the
+most thorough and careful system is more favorable to peace and
+spirituality of mind than slipshod negligence. If a man does not attend to
+his business it will attend to him, and dog him night and day, like a
+baying hound in chase of a stricken deer. If a man goes beyond negligence
+and is dishonest, so much the worse, for the best experience says, that
+dishonesty is a mistake, as well as a vice&mdash;the poor resort of bunglers in
+trade, as well as pigmies in morals. Nothing frets, and in the end
+confounds a man more than to patch together a tissue of lies, and this
+trouble a thorough business training must shun.</p>
+
+<p>The very habit of earnest attention is wholesome, and need not end where
+it begins. Sluggishness of mind and heart is a sad foe to all true life,
+and he who studies generously, and does earnestly the work of any worthy
+calling,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> so far educates himself, and is open to all better influences by
+the discipline. Who of us, whatever our vocation, is not willing to take
+very modest views of himself in this respect? Whether in one of the
+learned professions, or in mercantile pursuits, have we been awake to the
+highest aspects of our position, and used its opportunities so well, that
+we may sincerely call it a liberal vocation? How many professional men
+there are, who are mere drudges among drugs, parchments, and ceremonials?
+how many merchants, may I not say, are there, who are profoundly ignorant
+of the history and relations of their own craft, ignorant of that
+wonderful science of trade which is changing the face of the world, and
+placing itself among the momentous facts of Providence. Consider the
+opportunities of a merchant to observe character, to study times, and
+nations; to procure the arts, books, and society best for the mind; to
+trace even the changes in the market to causes that connect themselves
+with the world&#8217;s want or welfare,&mdash;then say, who is not slothful in
+business? Think too, of the best practical examplars of mercantile
+culture,&mdash;how much of those two ruling forms of practical ability, the
+soldier&#8217;s and the statesman&#8217;s, have combined in the merchant&#8217;s enterprise
+and comprehension, and an emphasis beyond that of the market-place will
+attach to the words&mdash;&#8220;Not slothful in business.&#8221; Nay, how can a man be
+thoroughly faithful to his daily calling, and use the judgment, energy,
+and punctuality essential to the best efficiency, without a training that
+looks beyond the shop or office, and introduces him into all the generous
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>relations of life? In fact, what is business well understood, but the
+practical side of life in all its moral and spiritual aspects, as well as
+its bodily wants?</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Certainly in its own way, the world is ready to require a certain kind of
+heartiness in practical affairs, and to regard a certain fervor of feeling
+as a pleasant trait in diligence. In its own way it will repeat the second
+clause of the apostle, and add &#8220;fervent in spirit&#8221; to &#8220;not slothful in
+business.&#8221; The spirit of trade itself is among us very earnest, and those
+men are liked best by their associates, who grace practical energy by a
+good share of hearty fellowship and generous enthusiasm. This is well, but
+it is not all of the interpretation of the words. Fervor thus interpreted
+sometimes would be more fitly called fever, for it is more the hot haste
+of the blood than the genial life of the affections, more the gambler&#8217;s
+madness than the disciple&#8217;s zeal. Fervor in spirit means far less and far
+more than this&mdash;far less in extravagance and far more in power. It means
+that the cares of business should neither chill the heart with avarice,
+nor inflame it with passion; and that a man should be more spiritual as he
+becomes more practical.</p>
+
+<p>Does any one wonder at this statement? Some persons indeed speak, as if
+the spiritual and the practical were antagonist terms. But they are quite
+the reverse, and eminently in alliance. Consider them on their human and
+their divine side. What is more practical than spirit? what more essential
+to efficient action? Certainly he who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> acts out the most and the best
+spirit is the most practical man. He who is most experienced in training
+himself or others to practical affairs, knows very well that success comes
+according as spirit animates the daily routine, and each day&#8217;s details
+grow out of a root of hearty interest. We really believe that the greatest
+business men have been full of spirit, and that the greatest spiritualists
+have been eminently practical,&mdash;the mere drudge being a faulty business
+man, and the mere dreamer a very poor spiritualist.</p>
+
+<p>But illustrate the principle on the divine side, by considering the method
+of God. Does He not work by His Spirit? He has breathed it, in some
+measure, into all creatures, chiefly into man; and is it not the necessity
+of its nature to work? There is something of it in every living thing, and
+this something is its true life. From our abounding harvests select a
+grain of wheat or corn. Within that little seed lodges a power which no
+man fully comprehends, but which is essential to the world&#8217;s life. Ask it
+to explain itself, and it says not a word; grind it to powder, and the
+dust is but dust. Keep it whole, and in the spring-time within the ground,
+its spirit will come out first in the green blade, and last in the golden
+ears. This is always the method of God, to work from within outward; from
+the spirit to the work. What is the course of nature but the going forth
+of life from the spirit to the work, and from the work back again to the
+spirit, all genuine growth multiplying the vitality from which it sprung?
+It is what the philosopher calls the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> law of ultimates, or the process
+from firsts to lasts and from lasts to firsts. The Gospel is its best
+illustration; for it put a new spirit into men, and worked itself out in
+new works, all its works diffusing and quickening the spirit from which
+they sprung. It took hold of the world practically, and made it a business
+to do away with old evils, and build up a kingdom more enlarged, and
+kindly, and pure,&mdash;more spiritual than the earth had seen before.</p>
+
+<p>But how apply these thoughts to business now,&mdash;how insist upon fervor of
+spirit in pursuits whose aim is money-making; and, on our own principles,
+is not the spirit of trade itself the thing needed? We reply that
+money-making of itself is not the proper or the general end of trade, but
+only a means to a higher end. Trade is one of the essential forms of
+industry, and a true man will pursue it that he may do his part well in
+the world, and care well for all who depend upon or who justly claim his
+care. Money is one step in the process, not the end, and that man is a
+poor creature, below even the common worldly standard, whose success,
+instead of fixing his thoughts on his hoards, does not fill his mind and
+heart with new hopes for his family and friends, and people his unromantic
+counting-house with hovering images of his <ins class="correction" title="original: chidren">children</ins> and home, visions of
+ampler culture and nobler charities. Leaving out of the account some
+miserable creatures, who heap up gold for themselves, and crush their
+heart under the heap, we must allow that there is much heart in trade, and
+the better class of business men have kindly and elevated aims in view.
+How much the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> arts and sciences, letters, philanthropy, and religion, owe
+to the merchant, the whole career of commerce shows. Think of what trade
+has done for the higher aims of society; study the fruits of commerce in
+modern times; read of the Medici, the Roscoes, the Gurneys, and the noble
+men in our land who have endowed our best institutions, and say what you
+please of the miser, but say not a word against the true merchant. Justice
+may be his ruling virtue, but mercy is not wholly absent, since
+forgiveness is often called for, and no liberal merchant can be found who
+cannot repeat honestly the prayer, &#8220;Forgive us our debts, as we forgive
+our debtors.&#8221; There is much heart in trade, yet not enough by any means,
+and a cold worldliness sometimes gains ground with those worthy of better
+things, and, in fact, desirous of better things. Men worthy of better
+things become more superficial and ostentatious with time and increased
+means, and, instead of acting independently and sensibly, join in vain
+rivalry of a set of people, whose emptiness is proved every time their
+mouths are opened. When shall the due check be found, and the true heart
+abound, and the spirit be fervent indeed?</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>We rest our answer upon the last clause of the apostle: &#8220;Serving the
+Lord.&#8221; It places before us distinctly the true end of life,&mdash;the service
+of God, and insists upon our regarding this in the choice and conduct of
+our business, so that it shall be a part of our religion. Does this seem
+chimerical? Not so; for it is surely the only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> view of religion that
+business men will consent to call practical. They think little of mere
+professions, and judge of men by their doings. They make merry at the
+thought of trusting a man&#8217;s word, because he belongs to some specified
+church; and they can quote too many cases of solemn persons who try to
+trade upon their alleged piety, who seem to think long prayers an offset
+to a little double dealing, and who, in more ways than one, shorten the
+commandments to piece out the catechism. Such judgment is well, only let
+it be consistent, and teach the judging party to look well to its ways,
+and lay hold of the substance in disgust at the mere shadow.</p>
+
+<p>Here is the liberal and strict doctrine: that all of life is under God&#8217;s
+government, and should be conformed to the order of His law and
+Providence. Our business is part of our life, and should bear upon its
+highest spiritual interest. Any principle short of this is utter
+worldliness, and any principle that goes further than this, and shuts
+religion up in creeds and forms, is bigotry and superstition. The
+principle comes to nothing, unless it shapes our plans, and we start and
+go on with the resolution not to sacrifice true life in pursuit of the
+means of living. It comes to nothing, unless we follow a plan which makes
+a business of religion, instead of a religion of business, and insists
+upon a daily method which will give the mind and heart its due, careful
+quite as much of the claims of home affections, refined tastes, and
+elevating thoughts, as of the price-current and the market-place. Business
+is full of stubborn facts, and the true service of God or religion must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>
+be made as stubborn a fact as any of them, and keep its ground for all
+honesty, and purity, and kindness, and fidelity. It may be done, and the
+very method and energy trained in practical affairs may complete the plan
+of true living, and make and keep a place in the heart for home and
+friends, for humanity and God.</p>
+
+<p>Is there not imperious call for such service,&mdash;for a decided stand in
+behalf of the moral and spiritual interests of our being? If men are ever
+so successful, how poor their success is apart from generous and Christian
+aims,&mdash;how poor is wealth, if it is only the means of a demoralizing
+extravagance, and he who began life as an industrious worker sinks into a
+swollen Sybarite, pampering his daughters into simpering, vaporing
+fashionists, and his sons into dainty, inefficient, good-for-nothing
+spendthrifts. How noble, on the other hand, is success, when it helps out
+worthy aims; and the friend of arts and letters, charity and piety, it
+gives peace to the soul in rendering service to God. If success do not
+come, and reverses follow, how essential is the stronghold of faith and
+peace, which will not fail to keep a man safe from the worst evil if he
+has faithfully kept himself within its covert. For the demands of either
+fortune, as well as for the good, not temporal but eternal, men are called
+to add to their diligence in business fervor of spirit in the service of
+God.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Street-preaching is, we are told, to be the order of the day, and the poor
+and neglected are to hear the Word<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> from lips before strange to them. Not
+only in the haunts of the miserable, and the streets narrow and wretched,
+is such ministry needed. Many a street, stately with warehouses and banks,
+needs more than any thing a voice that can reach the heart, and enlist the
+chiefs of business in a service better than luxury and worldliness. No
+revival is more demanded than the conversion of the votaries of wealth,
+not to some new creed or mannerism, but to a true and godly way of life.
+In some way this must be done, and God must have the sagacity and force
+for his own cause which are so often in bondage to the world. His spirit
+must breathe new life along the great arteries of trade, and make men
+better without making them less strong, multiplying the examples of
+characters like Gurney the banker, devout and charitable without ceasing
+to be shrewd, or, like Peel the statesman, using the comprehensive
+judgment, learned in practical business, for the welfare of his country
+and the glory of God. We need and must have a new order of men, and of
+their coming many bright signs appear,&mdash;men at once practical and
+spiritual, knowing well the world and its ways; not to be its servants,
+but to subdue its fierce forces into obedience to the kingdom not of this
+world. There are dreamers enough, and drudges enough. The want is of men
+with eyes wide open, and hearts quick and true. In no age more than ours
+has the deep need and earnest hope of society better interpreted the
+apostle&#8217;s definition of a truly practical man, &#8220;Not slothful in business,
+fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>God himself seems to stoop from heaven and show the worth of this
+character, in showing in himself the grand archetype of the practical
+mind. Nearer he comes, and reveals in all powers and laws, in the light,
+and air, and rain, in tree and rock, in earth and man, the working of his
+mind. He tells us anew, that he made the world, and that we find out the
+wisdom of his work, as we learn to do our work wisely. With him the useful
+goes with the lovely and the spiritual. Every dew-drop or sunbeam does a
+mighty business for him, and shows his loveliness and illustrates his
+service as it cheers the landscapes and helps the harvest. With reverence
+be it spoken, yet with all confidence: the God in whose image we are made
+is the eternal exemplar of the practical mind. In Christ we are followers
+of him when we do all our work earnestly, spiritually, faithfully, under
+his government; and open within our business a door into all the home
+affections and friendly graces of the earth,&mdash;all the sweet charities and
+blessed hopes of heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Let not the thought lose itself in generalities. Our business men are
+strong and earnest in many things, and are probably as enterprising and
+efficient as any set of men in the world. Merchants, do you hold precious
+your written obligations? What of the unwritten? What would your credit be
+if you slighted your business promises as you often slight your Christian
+obligations, and treated the world as you treat the moral and spiritual
+interests of your home and church? Think seriously and do better. In
+spirit and in truth as well as in energy, be &#8220;followers of God as dear
+children.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>Your pursuits train you to calculation; despise not the word, but keep it,
+and weigh it well. It is a noble word, and the calculus is one line of the
+Divine reason. God calculates,&mdash;he geometrizes&mdash;he seeks due proportion,
+and number, and weight,&mdash;he counts time, and the round of the seasons; and
+the paths of the planets point the days, even the seconds, on the
+dial-plate of the heavens, and prove the punctuality of God. Calculate
+well and as he does. The good Samaritan calculated when he took care of
+the wounded man, and the priest calculated as he left him by the
+road-side. Howard calculated when he gathered the statistics of
+philanthropy, and Arnold calculated when he sold his country for gold and
+ambition. Judas calculated when he betrayed his Master for the pieces of
+silver, and Jesus calculated when he asked, &#8220;What does it profit a man if
+he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in
+exchange for his soul?&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Among the great facts of our welfare, place the mind and heart, home
+affections, heavenward thoughts, and our business will have new blessings
+from Him whom we serve.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Summer in the Country.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">SUMMER IN THE COUNTRY.</span></p>
+
+<p>That was a beautiful and expressive ordinance of the Old Dispensation
+which enjoined a rural festival upon the conscience of the faithful. Every
+year the whole nation were ordered to pass a week in rural bowers woven of
+the boughs of goodly trees, in remembrance of the time when their fathers
+dwelt in the wilderness, and God led them to the Land of Promise. By the
+Israelites, the ancient festival is still remembered, and one of the most
+gifted of their modern writers thus describes its observance in Southern
+Europe.</p>
+
+<p>&#8220;Large branches of the palm and cedar, the willow, acacia and the oak, cut
+so as to prevent their withering for the seven days, formed the walls of
+the tent; their leaves intermingling overhead so as to form a shelter, and
+yet permit the beautiful blue of the heavens to peep within. Flowers of
+every shade and scent formed a bordering within, and bouquets, richly and
+tastefully arranged, placed in vases, filled with scented earth, hung from
+the branches forming the roof. Fruit, too, was there,&mdash;the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> purple grape,
+the ripe, red orange, the paler lemon, the lime, the pomegranate, the
+citron.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>This festival in its ancient form, Christians do not observe, although we
+may see some of its traces in the camp-meetings of Methodism and in the
+evergreen boughs of Catholicism. Yet its essential idea should, and does
+remain. Each year we are sadly dull and worldly, if the luxuriance of
+summer does not lift our thoughts to Him who sustained our fathers in
+their hard conflict with rude nature, and enabled them to change the
+savage wilderness into fertile fields, and peaceful groves. Grovelling
+indeed we are, if, upon our return from the pleasant retreats where we
+have sought rest and recreation, we cannot bring back some grateful
+remembrances of what we have seen and enjoyed in rural places.</p>
+
+<p>The old festival, kept as it was by the whole nation at Jerusalem, in
+green tents, was a kind of annual consecration of the relation between the
+city and the country. Thus the feast had at once a special and an
+universal meaning. The bigot may have thought only of the years of
+wandering, when, in nomad tents, the chosen race escaped from their
+oppressors. But more enlarged and sensitive minds, of the race of David
+and Isaiah, interpreted the season far more generously; and we are assured
+by the presence of Him who went from Nazareth to take part in the scene,
+that some eyes looked upon those rural tabernacles which stood among the
+streets of Jerusalem, as emblems of the permanent relations which man
+should sustain to nature,&mdash;of the constant ministry of the works of God to
+man.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>Our topic now is the relation between the town and the country, especially
+the power of rural life upon them who dwell in cities.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>We consider first the various objects which present themselves for
+contemplation. Cowper&#8217;s contrast may have been too strong, when he said
+that &#8220;God made the country, and man made the town,&#8221; for, in both places,
+we are surrounded by the works of God and man. The farm, as well as the
+busy street, shows what human toil can do, and they that live in cities
+are in themselves, and in the plenty that sustains them, constant proofs
+of the bounty of God; whilst upon all places the sunshine and the rain do
+fall with equal mercy. Yet, in the country, we see more of nature in its
+divine adaptations, less perverted by the artifices of man. The eye is not
+limited by streets and walls to some narrow spot, nor is the landscape
+curtailed of its breadth and beauty to suit the grasping policy of
+traffic. Generally the hand of rural art and labor rather interprets than
+obscures the plan of nature. The regions well cultivated are often the
+most picturesque, and at once charm by their scenery, and instruct by
+their varied uses and adaptations. We see man in just relations towards
+the soil as its cultivator, and towards the animal world as their master
+and friend. He lives in close sympathy with the heavens, the earth, the
+animated tribes. The sun in its rise, and course, and setting, counts to
+him the hours, and divides his times of labor and repose. He breathes the
+air as the Creator<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> mingled it, and draws from the soil something of that
+quickening, vital force, which the great Mother never refuses to her
+children, who seek her. He enlarges the circle of his friendships more
+widely even than in metropolitan coteries, and has friends among birds and
+fowls; while, with the sheep, and horse, and ox, as well as with kindly
+neighbors, he can keep company. He is daily called to see the harmonious
+plan of the universe, the co-operation between light, and air, and rain,
+and dew, between all elements and all creatures in the universe of God. In
+fact, apart from any philosophical curiosity, the very necessity of his
+calling must make him not a little a sage in the observation of nature.
+When science is added to observation, the greater, of course, the
+privilege of his position, the more readily does he unlock the treasures
+around him, and his rural hours may be hours of favored vision, nay, of
+sacred communion.</p>
+
+<p>But is not man the crown of nature? and where is man to be found in such
+perfection, as in the great centres where men congregate? If we would be
+wise, why not seek the great multitude and dwell most among the crowd? I
+will not disparage city life as a school of instruction in the science of
+human nature. He who knows nothing of the great market-places, and social
+resorts of his race, is ignorant certainly of our nature under very
+important aspects. But to be constantly mingling with men, is a very
+different thing from the true knowledge of man. The judicious analysis of
+a few characters will teach more wisdom than a superficial observation of
+ten thousand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> passers by, just as the dissection of a plant or an animal
+shows more of its structure than a glance at a whole kingdom or continent
+frequented by the same tribes. Human nature may be wisely studied wherever
+it is to be found, and if extent, as well as sharpness of observation is
+essential, we must remember that all men do not live in cities; that the
+country has its own forms of humanity; and moreover, that they who dwell
+among the great crowd, learn best in more quiet scenes to judge of the
+true meaning of the bustling life around them; and they that are wisest in
+their views of the busy town, are they who have been able to survey its
+characters and circumstances frequently, from the commanding elevation and
+distance of rural retirement.</p>
+
+<p>Men and their arts, indeed, appear in utmost number and force in cities;
+but without the constant reinforcements from the country, the tribute of
+fresh energy and enterprise, the products of mechanical ingenuity, and of
+agricultural labor, the metropolis would soon languish, deprived at once
+of its daily bread, and its best intellectual resources. Even the
+beautiful arts, which adorn the homes and halls of cities, appeal to an
+eye and taste that ought to be well schooled in the observation of nature,
+and the canvas can never reveal its best meaning to minds conversant only
+with crowded streets and busy marts. If we must go to the city to see the
+gathered treasures of rural labor and skill, we must go to the country to
+learn to comprehend the affluence of the city, to understand the secret of
+its wealth, and to interpret the wonders of its useful and beautiful
+arts.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>Surely, then, we cannot but recognize the worth of the country in respect
+to the objects which it presents. Its beauty, although in some measure
+expressive of the work of man&#8217;s hand, is most eloquent with the glory of
+God. Its plainest utilities bloom into loveliness, and to a devout ear
+sing out in anthems. Its wealth speaks less of man&#8217;s arrogance than of
+heaven&#8217;s bounty. We might institute in this respect a comparison between
+the pursuits of men in town and country. They are in both situations
+toiling for gain, and in both cases more or less in competition with men,
+and in contact with natural laws. But in the country, men depend less upon
+shrewd bargaining, and far more upon the direct return of their labor in
+the products of the soil. They deal more directly with their Creator, and
+there is more constancy and security, if not so much excitement of hope
+and fear in their gains. Refreshing and instructive it is for those whose
+business habits lead them to look upon the chances of traffic as the
+source of wealth, to learn for themselves how much stronger security the
+Creator has given for the sustenance of man; and important as are finance
+and traffic, the best treasures of man come from the soil in return for
+his skill and industry. Surely the pursuits most habitual in rural life
+teach many a sober lesson to men fevered with the competitions of traffic.
+We might show also that the country may afford quite as valuable hints in
+the simplicity of its pleasures, as in the sobriety of its industry. They
+who are in the habit of regarding enjoyment as the result of some costly
+dissipation, need<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> to learn of nature a stern, yet blessed lesson, and
+find that true happiness is not a far-fetched luxury, but is very near us,
+when we live near to God, and true to his laws. Wretched are they who make
+of their seasons of recreation but a new round of dissipation, and repeat
+the orgies of the winter in the retreats of the summer!</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>It is often asked whether life in the town or the country is, on the
+whole, most favorable to the formation of character,&mdash;the pursuit of true
+wisdom, virtue, happiness. Without being obliged to take either side of
+the question, it is sufficient at present to urge the importance of
+guarding against the peculiar exposures of each condition; and especially,
+of urging people of the town to look well to the sins that beset them, and
+seek in the broad fields truths that they need in their own homes.</p>
+
+<p>They live in the midst of excitement and need sobriety. If they have more
+intensity, they have also more fever of mind, and may take counsel wisely
+of those whose temper is more serene, if, perhaps, sometimes more
+sluggish, and whose habits are likely to be more equable, if in danger of
+becoming sometimes monotonous. We absolutely need the influence of rural
+life to soothe our spirits and calm our nerves. The pulse itself abates
+its fevered beat, and the heart is quieted down into harmony with the
+gentler pulse of nature. If the town offers stimulus to the visitor from
+the country, the country repays the gift by giving calmness, and thus the
+power of new energy to the visitor from the city.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>A serene frame of body and mind is certainly one requisite of wisdom, and
+not the only requisite which rural life favors. We need to look beyond the
+horizon of fashion and conventionality, which we are so apt to mistake for
+the entire world, and correct our observations by careful notes of those
+forms of rural life, which, after all our city pride, we must regard as
+most expressive of the common lot of man in all nations and ages. The man
+who sums up all his views of rural manners in the contemptuous word
+<i>countrified</i>, will do well to remember that there is not a little reason
+to form a more contemptuous word in reference to such persons as himself,
+and call the fop, who mistakes his circle of loiterers for the human race,
+and his haunts of folly for the world of wisdom, as sillier than the
+simplest rustic, farther from the true mark in being <i>citified</i> than the
+latter in being <i>countrified</i>. They that dwell in crowds very easily
+become very knowing, but not necessarily wise. They that frequent the
+haunts of vice and frivolity learn many things that do but add to their
+folly. They do not view life in its best aspects and true aims, nor
+interpret it as its Divine Author teaches. Even those whose minds are open
+to the true science of humanity, need to flee from the crowd to ponder
+soberly upon its lessons. In the busy world, they are constantly finding
+seeds of thought, but in a far less troubled soil these seeds must be
+nurtured and matured. Probably the wisest meditations upon man, society,
+Providence, have been engaged in by persons well taught indeed in the ways
+of the great world, but ruminating in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> quiet upon its teachings, and
+correcting the prejudices of the hour by the sober reasonings of calmer
+scenes and influences. To such truthful judgment of distant things
+surveyed from its serener retreats, rural life adds a wisdom peculiarly
+its own,&mdash;a wisdom such as Solomon so sagaciously incorporated in his
+proverbs, and Jesus so divinely presented in his parables.</p>
+
+<p>It would not be difficult to show the happy influence of familiarity with
+the country in teaching lessons of virtue&mdash;in bracing the frame for
+hardier labors&mdash;in urging the worth of the lesser ethics of frugality and
+economy, and the higher morals of true manliness and godliness. Virtue is
+moral strength, and is taught in every school that strengthens the moral
+energies. The genial air and simple habits of rural life favor manly
+fortitude, and a manly spirit. Poor would be the future prospects of our
+nation if they rested wholly with the dwarfed and fevered offspring of our
+cities. Our people would ere long lose their place among the nations, and
+would drop their heads in shame in comparison with men trained in hardy
+sports and healthful labors, as the yeomanry and gentry of England.
+Religion itself, which is the crown of true manliness, would languish if
+there were no more check to vice and skepticism than the check, strong
+indeed as it is, which metropolitan churches afford. How wonderfully the
+power of faith among the peasants of La Vendee withstood the sneers and
+threats of Paris, with its armed bands of Atheists in the great
+convulsion, when priests became scoffers and churches were places of
+rioting! How nobly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> our own churches have been favored by the words and
+thoughts of elect minds devoted to God and his truth, in peaceful villages
+away from the crowded marts! Where would the pulpit find the teachers that
+are needed, if its sole dependence were upon the youth reared in cities? I
+could not but think much of the power of rural life in raising up vigorous
+and independent preachers, whilst I was enjoying a few weeks of recreation
+in the lovely town in which President Dwight prepared himself for his more
+conspicuous ministry at New Haven. I have rambled with delight again and
+again over that noble Greenfield Hill, which he celebrated in a poem, and
+have not wondered that the vast and charming prospect, ranging as it does
+from the broad waters of Long Island Sound to the peak of the Catskill
+Mountains, should have made something of a poet of a theologian, sometimes
+so remorseless a logician. May we not see, however, in his theological
+works, and still more in the pages of his mighty predecessor in theology,
+Edwards, of Northampton, who, too, dwelt among scenes of singular beauty,
+ample proofs that nature never deserts her votaries, nor fails to breathe
+into them a spirit of beauty, that can live, after the harsh dogmas have
+perished like the husks that inclose the grain for the harvest.</p>
+
+<p>I would not disparage our town life, nor call it by any means godless. It
+is happy in being able to command so many resources, happy in being able
+to ally to itself so many influences not its own. Where there are souls
+there God may be known, and where learning and experience<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> gather their
+treasure; we may find light upon the ways of God and his Providence. But
+very poorly do we study this manifold creation, and the word of its
+Creator, if we limit our horizon to the streets and walls, and business
+and pleasure even of the greatest metropolis. The Bible itself&mdash;that book
+so full of the poetry of nature&mdash;from its first to its last chapter, from
+the Old Eden to the New Jerusalem exhaling the fragrance of fields and
+breathing the genial air of rivers and mountains,&mdash;lifting the soul to God
+by the contemplation of his works,&mdash;the Bible is a sealed book to us, if
+we do not always read its parallel revelation in the heavens and upon the
+earth. There is an expression in nature which must be caught, like that on
+a friend&#8217;s countenance, from itself. Description is not enough, and the
+best scientific analysis, however valuable as an aid, is but a poor
+substitute for the original reality. God speaks to us still in his works,
+and what prophets and bards of old have heard, we may now hear. We may
+hear it perhaps all the more eagerly for the comparative rarity of the
+privilege. They that are trained in cities wisely yearn to breathe the
+country air, and in its diviner meaning, interpret the landscape. Pastoral
+poets and rural philosophers find their fondest admirers in such minds.
+Who has exercised this blessed ministry of the interpretation of nature
+better than Wordsworth, poet and philosopher at once as he is? With all
+their exquisite refinement, and their sometimes mystical sentiment, his
+poems are tinted with the hues of sky and mountain, lake and meadow,
+eloquent with the voices of the seasons, breathing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> calm spirit of
+nature in its pleadings with the rebel temper of man. In how many of us
+they awaken blessed remembrances of our childhood, refresh us in our worn,
+anxious, and weary life as with the gush of living waters, and the sight
+of grassy meadows! Kind Heaven would not have us lose the companionship of
+nature, and has given us elect minds as well as glorious scenery to be its
+<ins class="correction" title="original: intepretation">interpretation</ins>. There is peace as well as power in listening to such
+ministries. Nor do I fear to place upon this list, those men who have
+brought a fine taste and genial humility to the culture and adornment of
+the soil, the improvement of rural architecture and landscape gardening!
+What name deserves more grateful mention than that of Downing, that lover
+of nature and of the art that best interprets her ideal. I know of no
+village which does not bear directly or indirectly some mark of his mind,
+in the form of a cottage or school-house, or a garden devised after his
+idea. He has brought out the wealth of our forests, and in our summer
+retreat, many a tree that else had been cramped and hidden in the swamp
+has whispered his requiem to our ears.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>The course of thought which I have pursued regarding the objects and
+influences of country life, will find an answer in many of my city
+readers. We need no tent of green branches to quicken our remembrance of
+Heaven&#8217;s bounty to us and our fathers in our relations to rural scenes.
+Our memory has a leafy arbor of unfading foliage, in which we may every
+day celebrate God&#8217;s goodness to us in the gift of so noble a heritage,
+where we dwell and where we may visit.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>It is not well to conclude these thoughts upon the influence of scenes
+upon character without urging home the truth, that our ruling principle is
+the main index and source of character; and he is sadly deluded who trusts
+to any position to secure his virtue or to excuse his vices. Apt enough we
+are to be discontented with our lot, and to burden fate or Providence with
+the blame that is our own. We imagine some more favored condition to be
+the sure warranty of success and worth. He who lives among the crowd
+ascribes to their example his vices, and he who lives among the fields
+refers his rudeness to want of better opportunity. Older than the Satire
+of Horace on human discontent is the wish of man for change of fortune,
+even as old as man himself. Better for him to make the best of what he
+has, and find his content thus keeping pace with his progress.</p>
+
+<p>He that dwells in the country, while he should use every opportunity for
+enlarging his circle of experience by travel, must take heed lest he
+slight the privileges of his own position. He may fall into the vices of
+the town among the simpler habits of his neighbors, and be eaten at heart
+by the worst passion while breathing the purest airs of heaven. He must
+learn simple truth of a power above man, or nature will not save him from
+corruption.</p>
+
+<p>He who lives in the city need not ascribe the evil that he suffers solely
+to circumstances, nor expect mental enlargement as the consequence of a
+cosmopolitan home. He must keep true simplicity in the midst of artificial
+conventions, and may narrow himself into an earthworm in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> the midst of the
+men and the culture of all climes and nations. He may be in bondage to a
+metropolitan mannerism which is quite as slavish as any provincial
+prejudice, and full as far short of a wise humanity as of a genuine faith.</p>
+
+<p>Better counsel do we need than crowds can teach or nature alone can
+unfold. Wherever we dwell, we are to look to a kingdom not of this world,
+and by communion with its sovereign Head, elect Messiah and sainted
+intellects, we are to confirm what is best on earth by what is most
+gracious on high.</p>
+
+<p>Still, though only in thought, need we weave our green bowers to tell us
+of the ancient march through the wilderness to the promised land, for
+still are we on our pilgrimage. Wisely do we keep the feast of tabernacles
+when we erect them at once in our remembrance and hope, looking upon the
+emblems of God&#8217;s love for us in the past as the assurance of his love when
+the soul shall reach the river whose waters never fail, and rest beneath
+the tree of life whose leaf never fades, whose fruit never withers.</p>
+
+<p><i>August.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Returning Home.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">RETURNING HOME.</span></p>
+
+
+<p>Two commands God gave in the beginning and is always giving to his
+creatures. He bids them go forth and return, and the lives of all beings
+are divided between the two. The history of every man is but another
+version of the words, &#8220;He went forth and he returned.&#8221; All his enterprises
+and all his results may be thus simply described.</p>
+
+<p>It is so common, especially in our restless time, to dwell upon the more
+adventurous change, that the milder is apt to be slighted, and, bent upon
+advancing, we make too little account of return as a primal law of life.
+How can we fail to see it written on all things that God has made? It may
+be read upon every dew-drop whose summons back to the heavens the morning
+sunshine brings, and upon every flower whose gorgeous petals signal its
+triumph, and herald the retreat of its vital forces to the earth whence
+they came. Every rising wave murmurs also of an ebbing tide, and every
+beat of the pulse sends back as well as forward the current of life. The
+heavens&mdash;they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> bear majestic witness of Him who rules their hosts. The
+stars are ever returning upon their courses, and marking the seasons that
+time the periods of man. Insect, bird, and beast, follow instinctively the
+same great law; by their transformations, migrations and quickened or
+diminished vitality, they turn in the recurrent cycles in which all things
+have their round. In all ages, thinking minds have been impressed with
+this great fact. We see the impression in the early memorials of sober
+thought. The wise preacher brooded over it, as he spoke of winds and
+waters returning on their path and of there being nothing new under the
+sun. It haunted the visions of the sages of the Nile, and stands out to
+the eye in that serpent symbol which teaches from tombs and temples the
+circle of eternity.</p>
+
+<p>Feeling themselves sometimes swept away upon this great current of events,
+inclosed in this serpent-fold of destiny, men have lost their proper sense
+of responsibility and sunk down into a passive fatalism. From this torpor
+God would ever arouse us, and have us see in the return, as in the going
+forth, the same providential plan&mdash;the same sphere of duty and privilege.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>How full of privilege is this recurrent aspect of things! Led by the hosts
+of heaven, the seasons walk their benign round, and in their course they
+are ever renewing most delightful relations of life. In the calendar of
+nature there are far more festivals than fasts, and, to a well-taught
+mind, the recurrence of the sadder<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> times and scenes of the year brings
+thoughts more blessed than the world&#8217;s reckless feasting. Spring and
+summer are always new and always cheering, whilst autumn and winter teach
+lessons and may nurture affections more precious than their gayer
+treasures. The text of nature has ever a marginal commentary taken from
+the book of the heart; and as the text is read and re-read, the commentary
+grows in size and interest, for each year&#8217;s repeated interviews reveal
+nature and the heart more fully to each other, and give variety ever fresh
+to a friendship constant as the law of God. The great universe was made,
+we must believe, more for the home of rational souls than for the
+playground of giant masses and powers of matter. What aspect of its
+vastness is more tender than that which exhibits its majestic changes as
+waiting upon the discipline and affections of God&#8217;s children; the great
+sun lighting the laborer to his work, and then withdrawing its light to
+send him to the welcome of his home and the peace of his pillow; the whole
+starry host joining together to make and mark the days and months whose
+returning recalls some pleasant face of life and Providence, makes
+childhood glad, or age peaceful.</p>
+
+<p>Man himself has in his own being a periodicity corresponding with the
+cycles of nature. His active energies, his sensibilities, social and
+devout, his intellectual powers, have their recurrent periods. He is
+strangely ignorant of his own nature, who has not learned that there are
+times and tides within his own soul as well as with seas and stars. The
+plan of the benign Deity for him seems<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span> to be such as to secure at once
+constancy, and variety, and progress.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Note well the constancy which God, the Ever Faithful and True, ordains for
+man by the recurrent order of his lot. He will not have life a chaos of
+scattered fragments, nor a stray meteor that follows no orbit. It must
+have its periods of outgoing and return. Whatever be our home, the object
+of our love or care, to that we must ever recur; and however capricious
+the humors, or eventful the career, every man&#8217;s life falls into a certain
+circuit, and every heart revolves in some orbit by a law as sure as that
+which guides Arcturus and Orion. Man, indeed, may be so perverse as to
+abuse the law, but he cannot repeal it. He may give his heart to evil, and
+make his home with wickedness; but wherever he makes it, there this law
+finds him, and, in a round of habit good or bad, returns him after every
+wandering to his own place. Securing thus the constancy of his Providence,
+God teaches us to see the moral significance of the law of return. What a
+lesson is here upon the force of habit! Its power comes from God&#8217;s own
+constancy, and woe to the man who inverts his nature so sadly, that evil
+instead of good walks in the appointed circuit. Every vice into which he
+falls constantly returns upon him, like the circling waters of the
+whirlpool, which run round and round until lost in the dark deep. Every
+good which he loves, every truth he accepts, every charity he cherishes,
+follows the same law; circling in the ascending order, like the vine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> that
+twines round and round its trellis, to lift its leaves and fruit into the
+upper air and light. The law of habit we cannot repeal, but our use of it
+depends upon ourselves. It is like the tides, which wait not our bidding
+to rise or fall, but which leave us free to launch wisdom and industry, or
+folly and rapine, upon their waters. The law says that man must return in
+his course. He must go home. Let a true life interpret the benignity of
+this Divine constancy.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Consider, also, the variety which comes from the action of this law. The
+interest of existence depends in great measure upon a due proportion of
+constancy and variety. Were there no uniformity, the world would be chaos,
+society Babel, and thought madness; there could be no external stability,
+no intellectual consistency; the senses would recognize no familiar
+things, and memory could make no reliable record. Such a condition is
+hardly conceivable; although feuds and wars sometimes so disturb the
+stability of life as to give some idea of the fatal effect of such
+disorder. Without variety, moreover, the Divine plan would also be broken,
+and a dreary monotony would brood over paradise itself. Benign Heaven has
+blended the two elements in our lot, so that perhaps our highest pleasure
+consists in the return of familiar blessings with varied
+circumstances;&mdash;not in absolute novelty or absolute permanence, but in
+scenes, friends, and pursuits ever constant and ever new. Who does not
+know this kindly mingling of joys? What traveller is there in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> distant
+lands&mdash;lands which his boyish fancy has so long yearned to see&mdash;who does
+not feel more delight in the return than in the going away? No matter what
+beauties or sublimities of nature and art may have feasted sense and soul,
+the fairest sight is his own familiar home and friends,&mdash;the sublimest
+thought is of the God who guarded his childhood, and whose presence he
+feels more deeply as the guardian of his dwelling, than as the dread Being
+who piled up the Alps and poured out the oceans. In any aspect of the
+case, it is recurrence with variety that gives our being much of its
+finest zest. To talk with cherished friends after absence, to revisit
+familiar scenes and meditate on times past and present; to perform, under
+new influences and encouragements, the accustomed round of duty; how much
+of freshest satisfaction is thus found! It is the best novelty and the
+truest constancy. Old things are made new by the fresh spirit infused into
+them, and that which the apostle states as the feeling of a first convert
+to the Gospel, becomes a permanent aspect of life,&mdash;&#8220;Old things are passed
+away, and all things are become new.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Happy the man who understands self-discipline, so as to secure this charm,
+and mingle constancy and variety in his pursuits. He will divide days and
+years in such a way that life shall be ever more constant and more fresh.
+No servile drudge to worldly care, no capricious pleasure-seeker who is
+always uneasy, because always sated, he will be a faithful worker and a
+cheerful friend, stronger for work by recreation, the wiser for enjoyment
+by his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> work,&mdash;filling his time with such varied uses, that recurrent
+duties shall be welcome to him each in its time, and every day&#8217;s life
+illustrate in some way the varied uniformity of God&#8217;s plan for nature and
+humanity. Great obstacles, we know, lie in the way of such order; for care
+is often too imperious and protracted, and pleasure too engrossing, to
+make true method easy; but the obstacles yield before a just purpose, and,
+in the end, every man is the artificer of his habits. He can make his life
+constant to its appointed round, and varied in its constancy.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>So God teaches us the moral significance of the law of return, by showing
+its bearing on the stability and freshness that give charm to our days.
+Yet more, he teaches us to find in it the true law of progress. He bids us
+return, but not the same, nor to the same,&mdash;he bids us return better or
+worse, and to a state of things better or worse. This is a necessity, and
+we are called to make it a happy necessity. Not in a circle of absolute
+uniformity, but in a rounding path, in a spiral course, we wind our way
+upward or downward,&mdash;our way turning indeed ever upon itself, yet at a
+higher or lower mark. The very structure of language indicates that true
+progress is the returning of the mind towards its previous experience.
+What is the accumulation of knowledge but remembering the facts of
+previous observation? What is wisdom but the fruit of reflection, or
+turning thought backward upon its course? What is repentance but
+conscience revising past errors? What is reformation but the whole man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>
+returning to himself and to God? It is progress that gives its most
+cheering aspect to the recurrent order of life.</p>
+
+<p>Return then to thine own home as each day, or week, or season repeats the
+decree. Return to do better than you have ever done,&mdash;to see more clearly
+than before the demands of your position, the errors of your way of
+living, your indifference, perhaps unkindness, towards those who daily
+look to you for a nurture, better than that of perishing bread. Return to
+thine own house, and consider whether among the guests there welcomed, the
+only abiding Comforter is entertained, and the good angels that go with
+him are not shut out. Return with thought more free to see things as they
+are from your temporary absence from the trammels of routine, with
+affections fresh from nearer companionship with nature, with powers
+renewed for the sober work of life. Let fortune smile or frown more than
+of old, make sure of your own soul, and do better than you have done.</p>
+
+<p>Constant and varied in many respects our life must be. God bids us add
+progress to the constancy and variety that he has decreed. True to him,
+our days in their returning order, their various events, their steady
+progress, shall go forward, like the march of the faithful host to the
+promised land, their step responsive, their way opening new attractions,
+their course ever onward, and above them, swelling sweet and clear, that
+glorious psalm of jubilee, which in its rhythmic verse and progressive
+flow ever returns upon the same rapturous <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>burden, and repeats the
+hallowed anthem, &#8220;His mercy endureth for ever.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Let this be our spirit, and we shall know how wonderfully God reconciles
+two things apparently contradictory; we shall know, that the greater our
+progress, the surer our return,&mdash;that more and more the blessed scenes and
+friends of early days shall come back to us. Memory shall mate with hope
+to cheer us, and the evening of life shall add to its own tranquil beauty
+the fairest charms from the morning of our days. The aged man turns ever
+fondly to his childhood, and may enter the kingdom of heaven like a little
+child, even before death unlocks its gates of eternity.</p>
+
+<p>What a thought here opens&mdash;opens to us as we return to our homes, and
+think of some who return no more! Beyond these homes, the orbit of our
+being reaches, and one, nay, many call to us, &#8220;Come.&#8221; Over the grave the
+decree is still more solemnly heard. The words, &#8220;Thou sayest, return, ye
+children of men,&#8221; mean more, far, than &#8220;dust to dust.&#8221; &#8220;Return, ye
+children of men.&#8221; &#8220;Dust to the dust whence it was,&mdash;the spirit to God who
+gave it.&#8221;</p>
+
+<p>Christ repeats the call in more than the Hebrew&#8217;s faith, in more, far more
+than the philosopher&#8217;s hope. Futurity as revealed by him is the way
+homeward to Him from whom our being came,&mdash;to all the faithful and lovely,
+who have blessed man and glorified God. We will not scorn the
+philosopher&#8217;s hope of earthly cycles recurring in progressive order, until
+our globe bears the perfected<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> harvest of a truer civilization, and all
+nature comes to herself. This hope is well, but does not go far enough. As
+we and those dear to us leave the earth, we crave word of a return more
+blessed than any dream of earthly kingdoms and ages. We crave what God has
+given us. The soul about to go into a region by itself unexplored, yearns
+to know that the path is not to night and nothingness, but is a return and
+more than a return to God, the Eternal Father, and to the mansions that
+gather from all earthly homes their purest treasures, and transfigure them
+in the light of heaven.</p>
+
+<p><i>September.</i></p>
+
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr style="width: 50%;" />
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span></p>
+<h2>The Church in the House.</h2>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p>
+<p class="center"><span class="large">THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE.</span></p>
+
+<p>In his letter to Philemon St. Paul salutes &#8220;the church in thy house,&#8221; and
+thus brings home to us a fact which is too often put a great way off. He
+brings the church into the house, and thus makes an every-day reality of
+an institution, which is thought to belong to the disputed territory where
+controversialists quarrel, or the close walls where priestcraft rules. The
+church, what is it? many are virtually ready to ask. Is it a certain style
+of edifice, or platform of opinion, or set of ceremonies or band of
+officials? In the apostle&#8217;s mind, surely it was a very tangible fact, and
+he closes his letter so full of friendly remembrance and delicate courtesy
+with an affectionate message to the church in his correspondent&#8217;s house.
+He meant, of course, by the church the Christian people under Philemon&#8217;s
+roof, whether those who lived there constantly or those who came to
+worship occasionally. The same greeting is several times repeated in
+Paul&#8217;s letters, and fitly guides us in some thoughts on practising
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>Christianity at home, or the Church in the House. We would show that.&mdash;</p>
+
+<p class="poem">There should be a church in every house,<br />
+What makes it a true church in itself,<br />
+And how it may be true to the church universal.</p>
+
+<p>There should be a church in every house. Nay, we might indeed say, that
+there must be one there, unless the people are heathen or infidels. A
+church is a society of Christians for Christian purposes, and it is not
+easy to see how any worthy family can fail to answer to this large
+definition, if they will only think of it. Is not the compact which united
+the heads of the family to each other, and pledged them to their children,
+a Christian compact, expressly sanctioned by religion, as well as by civil
+law? Can the compact be kept in any tolerable sense without Christian
+influences, and is it not expected as a matter of course, that every house
+shall possess those standards of faith and practice, those Scriptures,
+which set forth Christ as Saviour and mark his people as his own? Is not
+all that is done in piety and charity within the household, as far as it
+goes, a ministration of Christianity? We certainly might justly take
+offence, if it were said of us, that the apostle&#8217;s salutation could have
+no sort of application to our home, on the ground, that there is nothing
+distinctively Christian there. In all proper humility, consider how we
+have been educated, what books, what teachers we have enjoyed, what
+influences we have won from the great thoughts and great institutions of
+Christendom, what<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> convictions we have tried to cherish amidst all our
+cares and changes;&mdash;consider these things, and would it be right to say
+that there is nothing Christian at home, nothing of the church there? Some
+families may indeed seem to be very worldly, almost godless; yet even they
+are likely to have among them, however unworthily; some traces of
+Christian institutions, and within their desecrated roof the Bible with
+its glad tidings, and memory with its treasured wisdom, and conscience
+with undying witness, still speak of God and Christ, and so far the place
+is holy ground.</p>
+
+<p>If thus in some sense there must be something of the church in every
+household not utterly depraved, is it not well to give importance to the
+fact, that what must be in <i>some</i> way should be in the right way? Many men
+have been Christians without knowing it, and many families have been
+churches without thinking of it. All simple, unconscious goodness is to be
+honored; but it is not so frequent as to make conscious effort dangerous,
+nor will the most beautiful and spontaneous piety lose any of its grace by
+opening its eyes fully to what is to be done. Let the spheres of our life
+be distinctly seen, and the affections will be all the freer and fresher
+for the clear vision. Let it be distinctly seen, that they who live in one
+household, by that fact stand in close relations to each other, and have a
+faith to cherish and a work to do. Let it be seen, that the family was the
+oldest church holding its worship before temples were built or priesthoods
+formed, and that the true temple and the true priesthood,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> instead of
+repealing, do but consecrate anew the patriarchal church, and Moses and
+Jesus both give new power and beauty to the covenant with Abraham and the
+individual family.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Let there be a church then in every house. We now add, let it be a true
+one. What makes it such, do any ask? The apostle&#8217;s benediction is a
+sufficient reply. To the church in thy house, grace to you and peace from
+God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace: these are the
+true consecration of the household. Grace, bringing into all souls the
+riches of God&#8217;s favor, and winning them to him through a heavenly
+faith,&mdash;peace, drawing all hearts into unity, and harmonizing all labors
+by one ruling love. Grace&mdash;this comprises all that Jesus came to give to
+men, all the divine life that he would impart. Its source is God&#8217;s own
+Spirit, his wisdom, his power, his mercy&mdash;and there is no way of defining
+it so good as the simple gospel way. Consider what was in Jesus, and what
+he gave to those that trusted in him, such a sense of God&#8217;s being and
+goodness, such life of the soul, such assurance of a divine kingdom both
+present and future, such consecration of all faculties by one
+comprehensive faith,&mdash;consider this, and we best discern what grace is,
+and how it gives vigor and beauty to the household as to the individual.
+Its source is in God, but it is to be received by the soul&#8217;s own will, and
+to open the soul to its influence has been the great effort of all worthy
+theologies, creeds, worship, ministers. We would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> not disparage any of
+them, while we do plead earnestly for the importance of the church in the
+house, with its own peculiar means of grace, its affections so demanding
+to be confirmed by a love that is divine, its pleasures so readily opening
+the soul to gratitude, its sacrifices so full of blessing when devoutly
+rendered, its labors so rich in the fruits of the Spirit when springing
+from a root of faith, its vicissitudes so eloquent in providential
+lessons, its memories so full of caution, its hopes so thirsting for
+immortality. God surely has opened in our homes precious means of grace,
+and blessed are they who by prayer uttered or unuttered&mdash;by devout trust
+spoken or unspoken, use these means sacredly as in the church of Christ! A
+transforming spirit will be at work there, and will transfigure all its
+experience by a divine light, and consecrate all its various gifts and
+faculties by a divine power.</p>
+
+<p>And in its train peace will come&mdash;not merely the quiet that checks harsh
+words, and regulates tumultuous cares; but the interior peace that
+tranquillizes each mind without breaking down its force, and harmonizes
+all diversities of talent and temperament without mutilating any nature.
+Peace, as the corresponding Greek word teaches, is that which binds
+together, and who needs this more than those whom God would bind together?
+It is a great thing to have it, and it was a great triumph of Christianity
+to give it. In some respects it was a greater triumph to win to living
+unity the various tempers of the primitive Christian families, than it was
+to subdue the empire of the C&aelig;sars into one confession of faith,&mdash;greater
+<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>certainly, inasmuch for various tempers to agree in all the numberless
+points of daily contact is more than to agree in the one point of a
+nominal belief. Paul, in defining the economy of the true church, began by
+declaring, that there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit.
+Blessed in many respects has been the comment of history upon that word of
+inspiration! Who that has any sense of God&#8217;s use of providential men, does
+not adore the wisdom that has employed such various minds for the same
+great purposes, and made history such a book of Providence, telling us of
+the wise and good and mighty characters of insight or argument, learning
+or eloquence, sensibility or daring, who have done their part to build up
+the kingdom of God? The church is truer as this is better done, and all
+differences of power combine in one work. Carry out this idea at home, and
+what a sphere for that peace of God which would harmonize all diversities
+by one good spirit!</p>
+
+<p>In a worldly point of view shrewd men study the characters of their
+families with something of this aim, and desire to see what their children
+are best fitted to do, that they may choose such callings as shall bring
+out their powers best for the wealth or dignity of the household. This
+desire we are not quarrelling with, but enforcing a higher study of
+character that seeks to look more deeply into the mind, and provide far
+more thoroughly for the great work of life. Do not by any means fail to
+discern the mathematician, the orator, the mechanic, the artist, the
+farmer, or whatever else may be the varieties of talent in your<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> family.
+But discern also the various faculties and dispositions in a religious
+point of view, that each may be duly guided, and all led to use their
+various gifts in the true heart. See the tendencies that need to be
+checked, and above all, those that need to be encouraged; and home
+education will be a Christian nurture in the peace that passeth
+understanding. Far more bountifully than many a kind-hearted but too
+worldly parent thinks, has Providence enriched the house with gifts that
+may be ministries. That boy whose restless impulse seems sometimes
+wilfulness, needs your discriminate care to win his impulse to a noble
+enthusiasm, and may be a reprobate if your neglect leaves him to his
+passions or your violence stings him to retaliation. That girl so keenly
+alive to what is pleasant to the eye and ear, may make of her native taste
+a motive to every vanity, unless you train the sense of beauty into
+reverence for the true loveliness and for the art that copies the
+handiwork of God and makes life beautiful in making it holy. That keen
+little reasoner who vexes you with so many strange questions, the doubting
+Thomas of your fold, may be the chilling sceptic, unless he is encouraged
+to be the thoughtful sage who can answer as well as ask. That sensitive
+child who is so awake to religious impressions, whose choice reading is
+hymns and Bible stories, and whose dreams upon the pillow seem often to be
+in the sweet land of Beulah which so cheered Bunyan&#8217;s Pilgrim, may by your
+neglect become a morbid bigot, unless by your judicious sympathy she is
+encouraged to become a healthful devotee,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> cheering and exalting the home
+by that interior life that made Mary of Bethany love to sit at the feet of
+Jesus, which filled with such holy quietude the heart of Jane Guyon, and
+moved with such persuasive mercy the lips of Elizabeth Gurney and Mary
+Ware.</p>
+
+<p>We need not specify the varieties of character that require to be subdued
+or encouraged to the same spirit. Blessed is the home where such peace is
+found; and all are bound together in its unity! No cunning arts of mental
+training, no formal systems new or old, no technical dogmas, no mechanical
+ceremonials, much less can any cold worldly policy do this work. Grace and
+peace must be sought from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, and
+our thoughts, and studies, and labors quite as much as our prayers, must
+rest upon the rock of faith, and look to the blessing from above. Such
+grace and peace at once give strength to the utilities and beauty to the
+courtesies of the house, ruling its economy in a divine order, and
+refining its manners by a tender humanity. There may be various creeds and
+forms in the habits of the various members, yet all are harmonized by one
+faith and charity.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Such in brief is the true church in the house, and being such, instead of
+petting any narrow familism it will best favor the church universal by
+appreciating its office and helping its work.</p>
+
+<p>It will appreciate its office, for what can better interpret the meaning
+of Christian institutions than a faithful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> use of the social sphere, first
+of all in time and importance? As we try to be wise and faithful in
+matters nearest to us, how can we but cherish the wisdom kept by the
+church for ages, and the sacred usages which appeal so tenderly to our
+home feelings? How can we fail to honor the exposition of the Divine Word,
+the lessons of public worship, and those various ministrations that take
+such hold upon life as it is, whether to consecrate childhood into the
+privileges of the Divine kingdom, to implore upon human love the Divine
+blessing, to comfort the mourning, to rejoice with the happy, to
+strengthen the dying with an immortal hope, or set forth the Resurrection
+and the Life above the dust of the grave? For the sinful and the lonely,
+indeed, the church universal has a tender and solemn voice, but it is not
+for them alone. The city of God on earth which Jesus founded, has its best
+offices for those who live together in the unity of the Spirit, and the
+church in the house is a better interpreter of its riches of wisdom and
+joy than any conclave of ghostly monks or assembly of keen scholastics.</p>
+
+<p>Where such appreciation is found, true help will not be wanting. Helpers
+to the church will go forth from the household, well trained to further
+the various offices of general piety and charity. Every true family will
+take due account of its own numbers, means, and gifts, to give its just
+share of co-operation in every good word and work. Care for the poor,
+light for the benighted, counsel for the young, strength to the
+wavering&mdash;all will be duly given, and even the accomplishments that with
+the worldling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span> are means of giddy dissipation, or vain show, with the
+Christian will be means of edification and comfort, so that winning
+manners shall win souls to God, and voices tuned to melody shall breathe a
+harmony not of this world, and give to the songs of Zion all the beauty of
+holiness. The spirit of antiquated error shall feel the wholesome
+renovation, and the fresh life of the church in the house shall go out
+into theological schools and conventicles, purging away old superstitions
+and carrying every where the catholicity of practical wisdom, wholesome
+sensibilities, and earnest good-will. Thus it is that in the later ages
+fountains of new power have been opened, and pure, genial home principles
+and affections have done more than Luther&#8217;s theses or John Knox&#8217;s sermons
+to drive monkery and all its brood of spectral charms and horrors from the
+church visible, and the prospect of the church invisible, and thoroughly
+to reform the creeds of men touching earth and heaven and hell. The end is
+not yet, and a truer, more earnest and affectionate Christianity is to
+carry out the great reformation and bring on a truer catholicity than the
+world has ever seen.</p>
+
+<hr style="width: 25%;" />
+
+<p>Thus we meditate upon the church in the house, its necessity, its true
+character, its help to the church universal. The topic is itself its own
+personal application. The great point is this, that at home we are to live
+as members of a spiritual kingdom, and strive to infuse the spirit and
+carry the order of that kingdom into the feelings and habits of the
+household. Take this thought<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> seriously to heart, cherish it in meditation
+and prayer, how can it remain idle? By paths seen and unseen, the heavenly
+grace earnestly sought, will enter into the economy of the family, and
+save its peace from the war of hostile tempers and the inroads of a
+domineering world. Wise, and kindly, and devout habits will be formed,
+which make religion at once a spirit and a law, free without being wilful,
+orderly without being mechanical, like the waters of Siloa that flowed
+sparkling in that regular channel so framed by God from rock, and made
+sweet will of their obedience to Him who holds the waters in the hollow of
+his hand.</p>
+
+<p>Such a household will have influences and associations peculiar to itself.
+The sons will be manly and tender; the daughters will be gentle and
+strong: parents and children in their mutual affections shall bring out
+the finer harmonies of human life, that show God&#8217;s goodness even more
+deeply than the chants of the psalmist&#8217;s choirs. As changes come, and the
+years pass, treasured remembrances shall fill the home with images sacred
+as the tablets and pictures of ancient chapels, and hopes more living than
+monumental marble can record in solemn church-yards, shall proclaim the
+resurrection and the life over the dead; the absent ones of the family
+will in thought always, and, when they can, in person, make reverent
+pilgrimage to the old hearth-stone; and they who die of that family,
+wherever they close their eyes, will have in the cherished ministrations
+of that church in the house the mightiest of all proofs of the eternal
+home. The house made with hands opens into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span> the eternal spheres, and its
+own life repeats Christ&#8217;s assurance of heavenly mansions. It will have a
+ministry seen and a ministry unseen, one seen in gentle charities, the
+other known by unseen influences.</p>
+
+<p class="poem">&#8220;Uttered not, yet comprehended<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Is the spirit&#8217;s voiceless prayer,</span><br />
+Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Breathing from those lips of air.&#8221;</span></p>
+
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<hr class="full" />
+
+<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEARTH-STONE***</p>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Hearth-Stone, by Samuel Osgood
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Hearth-Stone
+       Thoughts upon Home-Life in Our Cities
+
+
+Author: Samuel Osgood
+
+
+
+Release Date: September 26, 2011  [eBook #37540]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEARTH-STONE***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+(http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by
+Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/)
+
+
+
+Note: Images of the original pages are available through
+      Internet Archive. See
+      http://www.archive.org/details/hearthstonethoug00osgoiala
+
+
+
+
+
+THE HEARTH-STONE:
+
+Thoughts upon Home-Life in Our Cities.
+
+by
+
+SAMUEL OSGOOD,
+
+Author of "Studies in Christian Biography,"
+"God with Men, or Footprints of Providential Leaders," &C.
+
+
+      "This is the famous stone
+        That turneth all to gold:
+  For that which God doth touch and own
+        Cannot for less be told."
+                                 GEORGE HERBERT.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+New-York:
+D. Appleton and Company,
+200 Broadway.
+London: 10 Little Britain.
+1854.
+
+Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1858 by
+D. Appleton And Company,
+In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern
+District of New-York.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+These thoughts are published for the same reason that led the author from
+time to time to put them upon paper,--a wish to meet a want in the sphere
+of the affections rather than to claim any honor in the kingdom of ideas.
+Wherever important questions have been at issue he has not avoided them,
+however conspicuous or controverted; but the volume aims to breathe a
+kindly spirit above the reach of sect and party. He is not ashamed to have
+his style show something of the habit of his profession, and to use, in
+part, ideas that he has expressed in the lyceum and the pulpit in a
+different form.
+
+It will be seen that the several subjects connect themselves more or less
+closely with a year's life in the household, and that the light which
+cheers the whole twelvemonth is kindled on the hearth-stone at Christmas
+and New Year.
+
+The state of things in our American cities is now so peculiar, so marked
+by privilege and peril, that no earnest plea for home affections and
+virtues can be wholly thrown away. To dedicate books to conspicuous names
+is a custom now almost obsolete, and if the Author were to venture upon
+any dedication of this little volume it would read somewhat thus:--
+
+  TO THOSE WHO HAVE EVER LOVED HOME,
+  AND WHO WISH TO LOVE IT ALWAYS.
+
+NEW-YORK, _Oct. 22, 1853_.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                  Page
+
+  HOME VIEWS OF AMERICAN LIFE        7
+
+  THE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD            27
+
+  THE HOPE OF CHILDHOOD             45
+
+  NEW THINGS                        63
+
+  SOLICITUDE OF PARENTS             79
+
+  REVERENCE IN CHILDREN             91
+
+  BROTHERS AND SISTERS             105
+
+  MARRIAGE                         119
+
+  OUR FRIENDS                      135
+
+  MASTER AND SERVANT               151
+
+  THE DIVINE GUEST                 167
+
+  THE ORPHAN                       183
+
+  THE YOUNG PRODIGAL               199
+
+  EDUCATION OF DAUGHTERS           213
+
+  BUSINESS AND THE HEART           233
+
+  SUMMER IN THE COUNTRY            249
+
+  RETURNING HOME                   265
+
+  THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE          277
+
+
+
+
+Home Views of American Life.
+
+
+
+
+HOME VIEWS OF AMERICAN LIFE.
+
+
+What day of all the year gives an American a happier sense of his civil
+and domestic blessings, than the old feast of the ingathering--the
+time-hallowed Thanksgiving? Once more it has come round; and our pen is
+disposed to catch a little of its genial temper before the hearth-stone.
+
+This is peculiarly the home festival of our people, and throughout all the
+States of our republic it is affectionately cherished. As such, resting
+upon a good old precedent, it appeals to a permanent want, and gains
+interest with years. The character of the day has somewhat changed, and
+the domestic element in its uses preponderates far over the
+ecclesiastical. Yet much of the old feeling remains, and thousands gather
+in the churches, all the better prepared by the hour of worship, for the
+hours of fireside enjoyment. Large scope is usually given the preacher at
+this time, and many a timid man ventures upon bold themes, quite free to
+take the political, or social, or philanthropic, or ecclesiastical view of
+the country or the world, as he may choose. The preacher may not
+complain, then, of the essayist for taking something of the same liberty,
+and trenching a little upon the prerogative of the pulpit. It is surely
+not amiss to open this series of discursive papers with some thoughts upon
+our home blessings, upon God's hand in giving them, and our work in
+spreading them.
+
+Our home blessings! Take first the most obvious view of them. Consider the
+plenty that abounds. I speak not of the few affluent, but of the great
+majority who enjoy the common lot. What abundance in their homes! Look at
+the household of any unpretending citizen, and say what realm of earth,
+what domain of nature, does not send its treasures thither? The orchards,
+the fields, the pastures, the hills, the rivers, the mines, the oceans,
+bring their tribute to the fireside. From the shores of the Mediterranean
+come the olive, the grape, the orange, the fig, the date. The farther
+Indies send their fragrant herbs and sweet spices. The repast of a frugal
+family is rarely set forth without offerings from all quarters of the
+globe. The cottager's lamp, that burns by night, is fed with oil from the
+Arctic zone. The light of day shines through clear crystal, that shows the
+perfection of the arts, and the cheapness of their most beautiful
+products. In humble abodes the wonders of manufacture appear. Rich cotton
+stuffs tell of the affluence of the Southern soil and the skill of the
+Northern artisan. Luxuries, of old the prerogative of princes, are now
+familiar things. The silks of France and Italy are worn by the wife and
+daughters of the farmer and the mechanic. I will not try to describe the
+mansions of the wealthy, although these, when graced by refinement, and
+exalted by piety and charity, may give impressive views of the ample
+bounty of Providence. It is better to contemplate the plenty within reach
+of the common lot. Among what people, in what age, has the common lot been
+so favored as with us? When in the earth's history have so many persons
+had reason to be grateful at the feast of the ingathering as now? We boast
+not of great banquets, in which the luxury of the few is wrung from the
+misery of the many. We speak not of pearls dissolved in the wine cup, and
+the price of cities thus quaffed at a draught. Our country, prouder than
+the empire of a Caligula, or a Cleopatra, can point to the households of
+her people, and in the amount of their combined blessings pity the poverty
+of the builders of the Coliseum or the Pyramids. Other lands may have
+prouder palaces and more princely fortunes. None can show so many favored
+homes. Go to thy home, and tell how great things the Lord, the giver of
+the harvests, hath done for thee in its plenty.
+
+Consider too its peace as well as its plenty. No wars disturb it, nor
+rumors of war. No civil strifes threaten its tranquillity. No tyrannical
+powers intrude upon its freedom. Every household is better guarded than
+any feudal castle. Equal laws make it more impregnable than walls or
+moats. Public opinion is a host of defence stronger than an army with
+banners. We do not indeed forget our own imperfections and failings. We do
+not forget that millions are in bondage in our land, and that if they have
+homes in favored cases, they have them by their owners' mercy, not by
+their own legal right. Yet to-day the slave is somewhat a sharer in his
+master's bounty, and this feast, that carries our thoughts back to the
+time of the great Hebrew Exodus, allows us to enjoy the liberty that God
+has bestowed upon us and these free States, and forbids us to despair of
+the redemption of any of the races yet held in bondage. It is something to
+boast of, that slavery is the exception now among civilized nations,
+instead of being, as of old, the universal law for the weaker from the
+stronger. For ourselves, we disclaim all share in its origin and
+continuance, deeming it to be a local misfortune to be deplored, not a
+national institution to be honored.
+
+As a nation, we are lovers of equal law. The sober thought, nurtured by
+the best experience of the Atlantic States, finds its response in the new
+regions of the farthest West, and not even the mad thirst for gold has
+made the restless people on our Pacific coast forgetful of their
+birthright of liberty and law. A mighty habit of civil order has entered
+into our national life. The strongholds of order are in our homes. There
+each man finds the motive that leads him to resist alike the disorganizer
+and the invader. Thence we derive the assurance of the best of standing
+armies; for men that have households to defend, will be as little inclined
+to yield to hostile invasion as to destructive revolution. How peaceful
+our homes! As mighty is the power nurtured within them that makes them so.
+
+Go home, and in addition to the blessings of plenty and of peace, consider
+the means of intellectual and spiritual culture there. The laboring man
+may own a better library than a prince or prelate of the olden time. For a
+pittance trifling even to him, he may have tidings daily from all quarters
+of his own country, and from foreign lands. His children bring with them
+more learning from the common school, than would have sufficed of old to
+constitute the wisdom of a sage. For a less sum than the tippler gives for
+the draught that fevers his blood and crazes his brain, the artisan may
+adorn his house with choice works of art, through the cheap and beautiful
+products of the engraver's skill; and thus the beautiful from the hand of
+man and of God, may refine and cheer the common lot. Music, that voice of
+the beautiful arts, is becoming a familiar blessing, and a part of
+ordinary education. Groups of children by the fireside, and in the field
+and garden, sometimes at the corners of the streets or in their walk home
+from school, are heard singing their songs and hymns together, thus
+exchanging discord for peace, quarrels for harmony. Even the utilities
+that are becoming the custom of our time, have their refining and exalting
+influences. The light that streams up in our streets and houses, is the
+handmaid of a light brighter than its own. The pure water that gushes up
+in so many homes, has connections far more substantial than fanciful with
+the living water of the divine word. Facts enough show that human
+civilization needs, in the most literal sense, its water-baptism before
+its spirit-baptism can be realized.
+
+The spirit is not lost sight of even in this utilitarian age. In religion
+the means of culture have their consummation. Within every home, in any
+degree worthy the name, Christianity proves its power, whether the gospel
+be nominally professed or not. The very unity of the family comes from
+Him, who has decreed the purity of the home by his fundamental law, and
+bound parents to each other and their offspring by a tie at once of
+principle and affection. Greater still the blessing where Christianity is
+fully known and practised in its truths and graces, where the pleasant
+fireside is a consecrated altar, and the earthly mansion opens ever into
+the heavenly.
+
+Consider then the blessings of our homes--their plenty, their peace, their
+means of intellectual and spiritual culture.
+
+Consider them well, and moreover, own God's hand in them.
+
+God is Creator and Lord of nature. From him comes the plenty of our homes.
+Man does not create, he finds the bounties of his lot. His utmost industry
+and skill but find the blessings stored up for him. We may look upon the
+kingdom of nature from many points of view. We may consider the organism
+of the heavens, the great periods of the earth's apparent formation, the
+influence of climate and position upon the history of nations, and see
+God's hand in natural laws. But what view of the universe is more sublime,
+and at the same time more touching, than that from the home? The heavens
+themselves help in keeping it upon its foundation by the force of the
+great law of attraction, whilst every element and domain of the earth
+conspires to give it blessing. Tenderly indeed does the Lord of this
+great Cosmos care for the dwellings of men. His love looks down from the
+stars of heaven that shine into the casement, and is reflected from the
+little flower that blooms in the garden, or cheers the sick man's chamber.
+To God, Creator and Preserver, be our thanksgiving.
+
+God is in history, and to his hand we trace the peace of our homes. Our
+familiar social blessings are not the exhalations of a day, but the growth
+of ages. No clearer or more striking view of the development of the Divine
+plans in the course of events can be given than the domestic view. All
+that God has done for man as an individual soul or as a social being, thus
+is made to appear. There is a providence in the development of liberty,
+and so too in the progress of law, and in the combination of them both in
+a true social order. What better symbol of their combination and proof of
+providential guidance than the peaceful home? How vast the providential
+agencies instrumental in framing that statute-book which, next to the
+Bible, is the safeguard of the dwelling, and which bands the whole nation
+together in defence of every citizen's right,--the constitution of our
+country, to us the bequest of ages, guided by an arm mightier than man's,
+and to issues beyond his dream. In two grand lines of influence it brings
+to every household the co-ordinate powers which, from quarters once
+antagonistic, unite in a true civilization. It guarantees to every family
+the liberty so dearly prized by the old parent races of the Germanic
+North, whilst it gathers them into a great nation under the guidance of
+that law which was the bequest of the Roman empire to the world. These
+and all the leading lines of history meet in the home, and in them we own
+God's guiding hand. From the East with the Star of true empire, came the
+benign power that united these two mighty agencies of our civilization.
+Surely it was the religion of Jesus that wedded Roman law to Germanic
+liberty, and laid the foundations of constitutional freedom and domestic
+peace. Blessed indeed was that bridal, and the living Word that hallowed
+the union still dispenses the blessing, and calls the children of its
+lineage to a future brightening unto the perfect day.
+
+The Constitution, and above it, the Bible! In this is the Word of God, and
+the way of life, present and eternal. It is the chief agency in
+intellectual and spiritual culture, giving the mind its true aim, the soul
+its rightful dignity, life its highest grace. Where the Bible is held in
+honor, the home has purity and elevation. Interesting indeed is the
+ecclesiastical view of Christianity. For its priests and temples we have
+no words of disparagement. Yet we most honor the church in honoring the
+home, for where the family is most blessed, there the church is most
+worthy. The history of the gospel neither ends nor begins with that of
+cathedrals and priesthoods. Since God laid the foundation of domestic
+purity on Sinai, since Jesus bore the grace of the gospel to the homes of
+Judah and Galilee, the brightest illustrations of the beauty and power of
+religion have been given in abodes far less stately than the temple, or
+the cloister, or the palace. The end is not yet, not yet developed are our
+grounds of gratitude to the Heavenly Father for the gospel in the
+blessings of our homes. God's love in giving them, we own and adore.
+
+Responsibility walks ever hand in hand with privilege, and human duty
+follows in the path of Divine goodness. No topic of graver import can be
+urged now, than that of the obligation of Christian people to diffuse
+domestic blessings. This topic carries us into the heart of the momentous
+social questions of our age. The Christian should have his answer ready,
+an answer too which considers all the needs of man's being, and respects
+alike his physical and moral wants.
+
+The most obvious, certainly the most obtrusive evil in the homes of the
+wretched, is poverty. The love of God, who has given for man's use the
+earth and its fulness, the gospel of Him who fed the hungry and healed the
+sick, teach us to look with tender interest upon the poor, and try to
+redeem them from a lot as full of temptation as of suffering. Of public
+and private almsgiving, I will not speak now, important in their places as
+these are. There is a need far greater than these can alleviate, and I
+cannot dwell upon them here, pertinent as it would be to urge the worth of
+those benevolent schemes that aim to provide comfortable homes for the
+poor, and commodious baths and wash-houses in their neighborhoods. These
+charities appeal to enlightened self-interest, as well as humanity, and,
+if we will not ask in kindness who is my neighbor, we shall ask in fear,
+either of pestilent disease or aggressive violence. The springs of human
+energy are to be moved as never before, and the wretched are to be made to
+help themselves as never before; or our civilization, certainly European
+civilization, will stand on the brink of an abyss fearful as at the
+dissolution of the old Roman Empire. Poverty has, in some cases, made an
+alliance that gives omens of a conspiracy worse than Catiline's, and, with
+cunning quickened by want, sharpens its knife upon the stone which has
+fallen to its lot instead of bread,--bent upon living by destruction, if
+it is not taught to live by producing. It is an indisputable fact that in
+many countries the majority are so ignorant and inefficient, that the
+whole annual product of the land is not sufficient to provide for their
+decent wants. The theorists of France, who have been losing their wits in
+the airy heights of pantheistic socialism, hoping to find a way to plenty,
+other than the old way of labor and frugality, may well remember the
+answer of the admirable political economist, Chevalier, and look for
+plenty rather in making property more desirable than less so, and giving
+the whole people the desire and the opportunity of profitable labor. The
+material product of France at the highest estimate, he declares, does not
+exceed ten thousand millions of francs, and thus at this estimate, an
+equal division would give each person 78 centimes, or about 14-1/2 cents
+per day, for food, lodging, clothing, education, enjoyment. Thus, he adds,
+even upon the supposition of an absolute distribution of products, France
+is not in a condition to give the majority of her children a tolerable
+subsistence. Of course millions of citizens now come far short of this
+miserable pittance. What is the inference? Certainly the productive
+industry of the nation must be increased, that there may be plenty in the
+home. Let more wealth be produced, and each man be put in a position to
+get a due share of it, and the misery is alleviated, and plenty in the
+household stops the spirit of reckless revolution, and gives the spirit of
+peace, and motive and time for the higher aims of life.
+
+What shall increase the national wealth and distribute it with due justice
+in the homes of the people? Communism? Not so; for destroying the very
+idea of property is not the way to increase the aggregate of property. Who
+will work, if his gains are not secured to him and his children? Who will
+plant the grain or the vine, if the field or the vineyard is to be an open
+pasture, which any idler may waste? The way to enlarge and distribute
+wealth is rather to strengthen the foundations of property, and give all
+motive to earn their share of it by labor, temperance, and economy.
+
+Here we believe that every nation is bound to apply the force of law to
+reach the root of the difficulty. I am not proposing to discuss the
+various projects set on foot to insure the more equable distribution of
+property--such as the homestead laws of some of our own States, or the
+measures in train to redeem the peasants of Ireland from their slavish
+penury. Very certain it is, that we need to watch jealously the
+distribution of the public lands, to keep them from the grasp of avarice
+and intrigue, and to hold out the utmost inducements to actual settlers to
+till and own the soil. It is interesting to find that upon this one point,
+the most sanguine of the Land Reformers have much countenance from the
+most judicious conservatives, and the wary sagacity of Webster himself
+saw no peril in securing a part of the national domain to every
+persevering cultivator. It is also interesting to observe that, whilst the
+ultraist advocates of a protective tariff have signally lowered their
+tone, some of the most earnest advocates of free trade, as the only
+philosophical theory, are favoring such judicious protective duties as
+shall tend to bring the producer and consumer near together, check the
+wastefulness of needless transportation, and thus prepare the way for the
+final triumph of free trade by the action of associative industry. All
+such expedients however good in themselves, are of no avail apart from a
+broad and energetic policy that meets the difficulty in the face. We mean
+the education of the entire people in schools open to all the children of
+the nation. Thus we reach the home--thus we open the eyes and quicken the
+energies of the people--thus we enlarge the products of intelligent labor,
+and guard against the worst evils of human inequality. Thus we open the
+way for a better social science and organization, and favor the associated
+enterprise, which is the best safeguard against communism. The educated,
+industrious population will take their own lot into their own hands, and
+by practising a truer philosophy of accommodation, they will apply in
+their home economy something of that wise policy which has been left too
+exclusively to the use of the favored few. The architecture of the house,
+and the arrangements of the neighborhood, will show the influence. Whilst
+gardens, filled with rare exotics, and stately mansions adorned with the
+graces of art, may still be the prerogative of affluence; we shall see the
+comfortable and tasteful houses of the unpretending classes ranged about
+pleasant and salubrious squares, with all the appliances of health and
+order, usually deemed beyond their means. For my own part, I know no more
+cheering aspect of our country and our age, than that which is furnished
+by some of those villages, which have been built up in the vicinity of our
+great cities by associations of mechanics, securing to each man an
+independent home. The fact that a set of men, educated in our free
+schools, and with no means but the fruit of their own honest toil, provide
+such homes for themselves, must give a benevolent observer more genuine
+satisfaction, and more encouraging hope, than any of the proudest triumphs
+of capital, whether a palace in the city or a palace upon the water. It is
+not out of place here to say, that the highest honor will belong to him
+among our architects, who most skilfully plans a model house for the many
+of us who have moderate or slender means--a house that shall for the least
+outlay best secure the retirement, the refinement, and the health that
+make a true home. Honor to the science that has busied itself with this
+problem, and to the capital which has tried to carry the solution into
+practice thus far!
+
+A true system of popular education in connection with our laws regarding
+inheritance, is raising up a generation which will not long be ignorant of
+the power of intelligence, industry, and friendly accommodation, in
+developing a social policy beyond the reach of the fanatical theorists of
+the old world, who have impoverished the nations in their promise of
+plenty, and shed blood in rivers in the name of fraternity. The great mass
+of the people, it is to be hoped, will continue to have that home feeling,
+which is as mighty in conservation as in defence. We shall remain as we
+are in the best sense of the term--the most conservative nation on the
+face of the earth. That race of Ishmaelites, the homeless, the desperate,
+the Bedouins of civilization, whose hand is against every man's, whose
+delight is in commotion, whose life is in destruction, whose hope is in
+the despair of others, will disappear, kept down in their true place, or
+what is better, transformed into intelligent, industrious citizens, lovers
+of the state, the church, and the home.
+
+Thus do we commend the worth of industry and the education upon which it
+rests, in diffusing the household blessings that we enjoy. But we build
+upon a sandy foundation without a positive religious basis. Upon that the
+household rests for its primary dependence, and they that sustain and
+practise Christian principles are benefactors alike of the dwelling and
+the church. Not merely among the wretched and ignorant does the gospel
+utter its rebukes, and urge its duties in reference to this point. It is
+in quarters far different that the great wrong has been done, and a great
+work is demanded. Errors of principle as errors of life, have power from
+the station that renders them conspicuous, or the refinement that clothes
+them with grace. Of errors of life in those who give to dissipation the
+prestige of eloquence, and throw the grace of splendor around vices that
+strike at the foundations of domestic purity, I will not now undertake to
+treat. A passing word, however, upon certain modes of thinking and
+talking, which sow the seeds of those vices in quarters the most opposite.
+The pantheistic theories that confound all moral distinctions by
+confounding the distinction between God and nature, and make of passion a
+devotion, by calling all enthusiasm inspiration, have had their origin
+chiefly among secluded dreamers, bent, perhaps, upon amusing leisure by
+reckless speculation. Idly as the summer winds that float the thistle-down
+on their breath, have they vented their speculations, until amazed that
+their own fields and their neighbor's have been sown with tares by these
+gossamer voyagers. Wherever pantheism goes, there license follows in its
+train. More perilous than atheism, because more alluring, it defies
+passion, and in the name of inspiration degrades man to the brute. It
+blasts life with its torrid fires, as atheism freezes by its polar cold.
+In the extremes of society--the affluent and the wretched--this tendency
+is found, alike in its speculative and practical form, in its denial of
+personal responsibility, its enthroning of indulgence in the place of
+discipline. Many a stately home is desolate, many an humble dwelling
+miserable, because the God of the gospel is denied, and that
+uncompromising law which secures the home its purity, peace and power, has
+been broken.
+
+Chief among the blessings of the household, then, we name the gospel. It
+gives the crown to industry and education. Crowning industry and education
+thus alike by our personal bearing, our public policy, we give as we have
+received, and acknowledge our duty, as we own God's love in our domestic
+blessings.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Bring near to ourselves now, in its personal and cheering aspect, the
+topic before us. To God, the Lord of nature, Ruler of events, Father of
+our spirits, be all the glory. Be his love the spring of our humanity. In
+the bounty of our hand, in the bounty of an example personal and domestic,
+which in itself is a benefaction, in an enlarged public, nay Christian
+spirit, let us freely give as we have received; that plenty, peace, piety,
+may cheer the dwellings of men and regenerate the world. This day be our
+thanksgiving at once a prayer of faith and a vow of humanity. It is the
+old home festival of our fathers that we are to keep. Whose heart does not
+yearn with sacred remembrances and affections to-day? The emigrant, the
+traveller, the sailor, all turn their thoughts homeward as the day
+approaches, and lament that their steps cannot follow their desires. Under
+sunny skies, amid the balmy gales and luscious fruits of the tropics, the
+wanderer yearns to cross the familiar threshold, and our bleak North in
+her wintry robe is dearer than Italy or the Indies. Many an exile has
+feelings that speak in such simple words as these:
+
+  "My father's bones, New England,
+    Sleep in thy hallowed ground,
+  My living kin, New England,
+    In thy precious paths are found;
+  And though my body dwelleth here,
+    And my weary feet here roam,
+  My spirit and my hopes are still
+    In thee, my own loved home."
+
+Yet distance does not rob even the exile of all the blessings, and he
+knows that he is not forgotten. Families separated throughout the year,
+now gather together. Sons and daughters return to the parental fireside
+and are children again. The patriarchal times, surely among all of the
+Pilgrim race, and not among them alone, come back. The father stands as
+head and minister of the family. Many a happy band of children rise up and
+call the mother blessed. The absent are not forgotten--the departed are
+tenderly remembered--seats vacant at the table have occupants in the
+hearts of the survivors.
+
+It is well--it is well--this home-festival of the ingathering. God gives
+the abounding harvest, and our fellow-men are to us the stewards of his
+bounty. Devoutly to Him, kindly to them, let the hours pass. Health to the
+absent, a tear for the departed--a smile for the present--good will to all
+on earth--glory to God in the highest.
+
+Let the young rejoice, and the old be young again. Let memory solemnize us
+by her images of scenes and days gone by, whilst hope cheers us by
+auspicious promises of the future on earth, and of the heavenly mansions,
+the soul's eternal home.
+
+_Thanksgiving Day._
+
+
+
+
+The Ideal of Womanhood.
+
+
+
+
+THE IDEAL OF WOMANHOOD.
+
+
+It is the Eve of Christmas, and above the cheerful family circle that
+gathers about the hearth, the faces of the holy family look benignly down,
+and Mary's own smile seems to brighten the genial light. All surely must
+call that mother blessed, who celebrate the birth of the Holy Child. The
+Angel of the annunciation seems always to be speaking anew in the anthem
+of the Nativity as if the voice which told Mary of her high destiny
+celebrated also its fulfilment, and the "Hail Mary" were but the prelude
+of the "Glory to God in the Highest."
+
+Our thought this evening turns upon the Mother of Christ, as illustrating
+the ideal of woman and the sources of her power. In the manger at
+Bethlehem, the mother and child were together--together during the years
+of preparation for the public ministry--together at the cross. We honor
+both in honoring either. Especially in calling Mary blessed, do we honor
+Christ, for we remember not merely what she was to him, but what he has
+been to her and her sex and her race.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let us look at the subject from our own point of view, nor try to put on
+the mask of affected sentiment or to stand on the stilts of borrowed
+dogmas. There is much beauty and power in the Catholic notions of the
+Blessed Virgin, but they are not our convictions. The sweetest hymns in
+the Breviary are in her praise, and her heavenly face has been the chief
+charm of Catholic art, else altogether too grim with spectral monks and
+ghostly confessors. This one fact it is most interesting to remark, that
+as Christianity was divested of its genial and humane graces, and our
+Saviour himself was removed from the personal sympathies of men by a faith
+too forgetful of his humanity in vindicating his divinity, the affections
+of Christians sought in the Blessed Mother the solace denied them by
+prevalent views of the Divine Son. As the monkish spirit grew darker, the
+face of Mary beamed more brightly. The age that embodied its terrors in
+the "Dies Irae," breathed its tenderness in the "Stabat Mater," the
+exquisite hymn whose authorship, strange to say, has been with show of
+reason ascribed to the most thorough-going of the Popes, Innocent the
+Third, the man who dared to put England under an interdict. It is not for
+such reasons that we are moved to speak of Mary now. We are not oppressed
+by a religion that so crushes the natural affections and rebukes the
+domestic feelings, that we need to look for solace to one taken
+arbitrarily from her place among women and invoked as Queen of Heaven,
+above all saints and angels, next to God. Looking upon our homes, so
+pleasant and so genial with woman's graces and children's gladness, we
+prefer to say the "Hail Mary" as the gospel gives it, and not as the
+priest has understood it. We can say, "Blessed art thou _among_
+women"--_among_ them, not _above_ them--among them to illustrate their
+mission from God, their work on earth--their part in heaven.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Think of Mary first as illustrating true womanhood in its mission from
+God. Fathers and sons, as well as mothers and daughters, think. In our
+notions of education, society, reform, we are all afloat unless we start
+with right ideas; and whence are they but from the Eternal Mind. We know
+God as he reveals himself, and creation in its highest aspects reveals the
+thought of God. The Divine Being is Self-Existent, Almighty, All-wise,
+Ever-blessed, dwelling in light and love unspeakable. But the moment that
+we pass from the contemplation of his attributes to the survey of his
+works, we see every where partial manifestations of his fulness. Only as
+we bring together the various elements and beings of nature, do we
+comprehend the universe as expressing the mind of God. Throughout the
+whole we observe a law of duality, a harmony of contrasts, the two
+parallel footprints in the majestic march of Him who is the infinite
+Wisdom and Love. We see this form of development from the lowest to the
+highest plane of nature--in the affinities of the gases--in the strange
+and mighty forces of electricity and magnetism--in the rays of light--in
+the kingdom of plants--in the animated kingdom. In the human race it has
+its fullest expression. There the Most High has left most clearly the
+image of himself, and recorded the might and the loveliness of his own
+attributes. To the one sex he has given, in largest measure, strength,--to
+the other, beauty; to the one, aggressive force--to the other, winning
+affections--to the one, the palm in the empire of thought--to the other,
+the palm in the empire of feeling. We need not pursue the parallel, nor
+rebuke the folly of those who would make the line of separation too sharp,
+and deny heart to man or wisdom to woman, forgetting that in man thought
+should be pervaded with feeling, and in woman feeling should be guided by
+thought. It is enough to look to Mary as she stood in the hour of her joy,
+and listen to what she said, who has been called beyond any other of her
+sex, to be their benefactor and interpreter:--
+
+  My soul doth magnify the Lord,
+  And my spirit doth rejoice in God, my Saviour,
+  For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden;
+  For behold! from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
+
+Various ages may have various degrees of culture, and in knowledge and
+accomplishment the daughters of Christendom may now far surpass those
+taught in the simpler homes of Israel. Yet where among those favored with
+education or gifted with genius, shall we find a better interpreter of
+womanhood in its mission from God, than that trusting Hebrew in her filial
+faith and unwavering devotion. Of her, the Aspasias proud of the society
+of sages and orators, might learn that there is a faith passing knowledge,
+and a purity more refining than any literary taste; from her the Cornelias
+might learn of a kingdom greater than that to which they vowed their sons;
+from her the Sapphos might hear of a vision beyond that of any
+impassioned fancy; and the Cleopatras of a gem brighter than any in their
+crown. Her soul attuned to devotion by the Psalms of her great ancestor,
+David, and inflamed with hope by the visions of prophets, and schooled to
+patient charity by the choicest examples of the mothers in Israel, she
+stands at the centre of Providential history, receiving from the former
+ages their mantle of honor, and transmitting it to the new ages enriched
+with a divine grace, destined to brighten with time.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of Mary's life and work, few particulars are given--but those few are
+expressive of her whole character. She who kept her faithful watch on the
+night of the nativity, never belied the promise of that time. With mingled
+solicitude and reverence, tenderness and fortitude, she guarded her child,
+marked the gradual rising of the consciousness of Divinity within him, and
+waited between hope and fear for the development of his mysterious life.
+
+One of the most gifted women of our age, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, thus
+portrays Mary's feelings as she looked upon her child sleeping:
+
+  "Sleep, sleep, mine Holy One.
+    *       *       *       *
+  I am not proud--meek angels, put ye on
+  New meeknesses to hear such utterance rest
+  On mortal lips, 'I am not proud'--_not proud_!
+  Albeit in my flesh God sent His Son,
+  Albeit over Him my head is bowed,
+  As others bow before Him, still mine heart,
+  Bows lower then their knees! O centuries
+  That roll, in vision, your futurities
+        My grave athwart!
+  Whose murmurs seem to reach me while I keep
+        Watch o'er this sleep!
+  Say of me as the Heavenly said, 'Thou art
+  The blessedest of women!' blessedest,
+  Not holiest, not noblest--no high name,
+  Whose height misplaced may pierce me like a shame,
+  When I sit meek in heaven!--
+        For me--for me--
+  I often wandered forth, more child than maiden,
+  Among the lonely hills of Galilee,
+  Whose summits looked heaven-laden!
+  Listening to silentness, that seemed to be
+  God's voice, so soft, yet strong--so fain to press
+  Upon my heart, as Heaven did on the height,--
+  And waken up its shadows by a light,
+  And show its vileness by a holiness!
+  Then I knelt down, as silent as the night,
+        Too self-renounced for fears;
+  Raising my small face to the boundless blue,
+  Whose stars did mix and tremble in my tears!
+  God heard _them_ falling often--with his dew."
+
+Think of the lot of Christ, and remember how closely another heart beat in
+unison with his heart--how nearly parallel her life ran with his life.
+Pass from the manger to the Cross, and those two scenes are enough to
+suggest the outlines of her experience during that eventful interval.
+Listen to the words--"Woman, behold thy son"--and to the disciple, "behold
+thy mother." Think of what followed--the joy at Christ's rising to dwell
+in visible presence with his own, and after his ascension to dwell with
+them in his witnessing Spirit. Among those who remembered the promise: "Lo
+I am with you always, even unto the end of the world," there was one who
+added a mother's love to a disciple's faith, as in the coming of the
+Comforter to her soul, she received her new birth into the kingdom of God,
+through him who had his birth on earth from her. Confided as she had been
+to the disciple whom Jesus so loved, a guest in his household, the
+constant companion of the growing circle of believers, how could she be
+without great influence on their faith and fellowship? When she passed
+away, a new light rose for them in the heavens. Their religion was not a
+code of moral precepts, or a set of theological propositions, but a gospel
+of speaking facts and living words. Their religion was Christ and all that
+is Christlike. Their heaven was no ethereal abstraction, no pantheistic
+merging of spirits in infinity; but the home of true souls--the mansions
+of the Father opened by Christ to all the faithful, and surely unto her
+who guarded his infant weakness and wept over his dying agonies. On earth
+and in heaven the blessed mother stood to them for the ideal of true
+womanhood, and early Christian antiquity is full of traces of the tender
+and beautiful affection felt for her, before superstition seized upon the
+lovely sentiment and hardened it into a priestly dogma. Yet under the
+dogma, the true feeling has never been wholly lost sight of, and with many
+who are called idolatrous, the homage to St. Mary is but an exalted form
+of reverence to a moral loveliness, now in heaven. Our own Germanic
+ancestors shared more deeply in the sentiment probably than any other
+people, as they came from their cold homes in northern Europe--received
+the gospel of Christ from the missionaries of the church, and rejoiced to
+find their national feeling of chivalrous respect for woman confirmed and
+spiritualized by the honors paid to her, whom angels hailed as full of
+grace, and whose name all Christendom spoke with blessing. This high
+sentiment, somewhat sobered by our Protestant faith and our household
+utilities, has come to us with our religion and our homes.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is becoming a somewhat practical, and in both hemispheres, an agitating
+question, how far the accepted Christian idea of true womanhood should be
+enlarged or amended to meet the demands of our own age. The voice of Mary
+Wolstoncroft, claiming masculine freedom for sex, has found a thousand
+echoes, and assemblies of women, no strangers to Christian culture, clamor
+for a new day of social and political emancipation. Their demands are not
+to be treated with ridicule, for under all their extravagance lurk truths
+of momentous import. Who can think of the thousands and hundreds of
+thousands of the sex, whose utmost labors hardly keep off cold and
+starvation--of the wretched notions of education and life, which so
+enfeeble the poor and corrupt the affluent--of the false social system
+which is so ready to smile upon the destroyer of innocence, and curse the
+victim of his arts; who can think of the scenes in the hovels of innocent
+poverty, the dens of loathsome vice, and the gilded saloons of painted
+misery, upon which the shadows of this blessed eve are now falling, and
+not be willing to pardon some thing to the spirit of mercy, even if its
+tones seem to us too shrill for gentle lips? Who is not willing to
+remember, moreover, that if they assert a folly, who claim for woman the
+political offices that must rob the home of her fidelity; they assert, and
+actually are diffusing a more dangerous error, who in more silken speech
+brand the household virtues as servile drudgery, and whose lives are a
+continued and studious round of elegant and jewelled vagrancy from the
+sacred uses and blessed companionships of their own fireside; nay, whose
+eyes seem only to open when the lights of the theatre and ball-room blaze,
+and whose pulses really beat only in exciting assemblies under the
+delirium of the wine-cup and the voluptuous dance. From both errors the
+true idea of womanhood may save our time, and, nevertheless, confer upon
+us the substantial good, which is so dimly seen by the rival schools of
+culture--the fashionable and the masculine. Well taught and trained, our
+daughters may have all true graces without Parisian levity, and all
+intellectual discipline without Amazonian boldness.
+
+No greater mistake can be made than that which would take woman from her
+sphere of dignity and power, and make her the rival of man in pursuits
+which require his ruder nature and sterner will. Mary, the wife of Godwin,
+with her obtrusive band of far more extravagant followers, opens no path
+of honor and power compared with that pointed out by Mary of Nazareth, the
+light of her home, the guardian of her Holy Child; encouraging the
+disciples by a voice, the mightier on account of its not being heard in
+the streets, and to them and to all after them, a name for spiritual
+loveliness, and all gentle and confiding graces, among the souls exalted
+to heaven. Using present agencies, and following the guidance of the
+gospel, the mothers and sisters in our Israel, may deal more wisely and
+strongly with the social problems of our time, and do their part for the
+kingdom of God--than by crowding to the ballot-box, screaming in the
+caucus, or snatching at the staff of office. So deeply is this the
+conviction of the most judicious of the sex, that many words on the
+subject would be superfluous. Nor would we add any to the many words that
+have been shed upon the question of the equality of the sexes. As well let
+the rays of the solar light dispute for precedence, and the red ray, so
+blazing, presume to deny the equal worth of the violet ray, which, science
+teaches us, has power to make iron magnetic, and which more than its more
+bold companion on the other side of the prism, makes the impression on the
+silvered plate--itself the most magical pencil in the skilful hand of that
+unrivalled painter, the sun. God has united both rays in the sweet light
+of true humanity, and what He has joined together, let not man try to put
+asunder.
+
+The greater danger is in a servile acquiescence in prevalent worldliness
+and mediocrity--a disposition to repeat the common pleas of precedent,
+and to live solely in the externals of society. In our own beloved
+country, where liberty, without example, is extended to woman, and a
+courtesy, without limit, is shown her, they who hold in their keeping the
+future of their sex should not be content to follow the rule of court
+journals, or bow to the dicta of Parisian modists, who are fond of ruling
+over morals, as over costume. Our liberty should give them a stronger and
+more rational intellectual discipline than in the lands more enslaved by
+precedent. Our courtesy, that national chivalry, which insists on
+deference as much towards the rustic maiden as the city belle, will be
+sadly abused if made the occasion of an obtrusive arrogance, which claims
+precedence as a right, and elbows its way through crowds of men who are
+more ready to yield by grace than by command.
+
+Our country has from the first cherished a noble idea of womanhood, and
+under its influence the strength of its sons, and the refinement of its
+daughters have been nurtured. Kindly omens abounded in the first days of
+its history. Our continent itself is one of the omens. That you may not
+call me too fanciful or sentimental, let me quote from an eloquent writer
+on the philosophy of geography, as he compares the Old and New Worlds.
+"The number of the continents in the Old World," which is double that of
+the New World, their grouping in a more compact and solid mass--make it
+already and pre-eminently the continental world. It is a mighty oak, with
+a stout and sturdy trunk, whilst America is the slender and flexible
+palm-tree, so dear to this continent. The Old World, if it is allowable to
+employ here comparisons of this nature, calls to mind the square, solid
+figure of man; America the lithe shape and delicate form of woman.
+
+So America stood like a fair bride in her ocean home, adorned for her
+husband, that mighty race from the East, that came in the path of the
+sunshine, as if following the lord of day, who is as a bridegroom coming
+out of his chamber. Our heroes bore with them a Christian ideal of
+womanhood, and by it were gentle as they were strong. It came with
+Columbus in the cherished image of that noble queen, who gave gold and
+hope to an enterprise elsewhere rejected with derision; and the thought of
+Isabella mingled with that of the Blessed Mother, as he planted the cross
+on the western shores. It came with the cavaliers who gave Virginia its
+name and honor, and whose foremost and noblest chief found a counterpart
+of his own ideal in the Indian girl, who saved his life by risking her
+own, giving Christian mercy, to receive in return the Christian's faith
+and home; owning, by the baptismal vow, the Great Spirit whom she had seen
+in cloud and heard in the wind, thenceforth, as the God and Father of our
+Lord Jesus Christ. It came with the Huguenots of Carolina, the Catholics
+of Maryland, the Friends of Pennsylvania, the Hollanders of Manhattan, and
+not last nor least, with the Pilgrims of that Mayflower, whose seeds
+struck deep into the New England soil, and whose scions have borne beauty
+and fragrance to the hills and valleys, the farms and cities of our
+motherland, making the wilderness blossom as the rose, when the sweet
+Marys gave grace to Puritan homes.
+
+Herein lies a great element of power and of hope for our country. Our soil
+is rich, our lakes and rivers are vast, our strength is great, our courage
+good, our schools are many, our wealth is unexampled. But these are not
+all--nor are these the elements that are to tame our barbaric borders, and
+lead to harmony our chaotic and scattered members. The church and home
+must go together, and unite our nation under the empire of Christ, as
+under the empire of civil law. The church and home are advancing together
+from the Atlantic to the Pacific shore. The farmer of Oregon, the miner of
+California, are not to be beyond the pale of Christian civilization. Even
+they shall hear the chimes that tell of the nativity of the Saviour--they
+shall find in their homes, rude cabins though they may be, pleasant faces,
+whose womanly grace and childish confidence shall reveal a light kindled
+of old by the Blessed Mother, and nurtured for ever by her Holy Child.
+
+Here patriotism and Christianity blend in one. Anathema upon the false
+speculations and foul vices that assault the family institution. Blessed
+be the gospel of Him who asserts the uncompromising law of domestic
+purity, and opens most tenderly the Divine benignity, when most urging the
+Divine commandment.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is a branch of this subject which I cannot treat--one, perhaps, that
+dwells too much in the region of higher sentiment to be the theme of
+popular discussion, and which no writer can easily handle, without seeming
+to be borrowing from the ancient theology its comments on the Song of
+Songs, or delving in the dark but rich mines of Swedenborg's Arcana. Yet
+it would be no far-fetched topic, whilst speaking of her who has been
+called the Queen of Heaven, and regarded by the Fenelons and Catharines of
+faith, as the type of celestial loveliness, to treat of the ideal of
+womanhood in the spiritual world. Surely the higher a true culture rises,
+the more clearly each great family of souls becomes more true to its own
+genius, and the higher companionship known on earth, in the most refined
+society, and the worthiest families, illustrates the permanence of those
+traits that give man and woman their intellectual and moral
+characteristics. The earthly loves, which Christ came to consecrate, bear
+the germs of immortal uses, and are like Mary's own emblem the rose,
+which, though born in the earth, lifts its bloom and wafts its fragrance
+to the heavens. I know no more elevated illustration of this view than
+that given by the Milton of Italy, the solemn Dante, who, in his vision of
+Heaven, wanders through the celestial courts with the spirit that had been
+the charm of his earthly life, and who, often as he stood confounded
+before some new mystery, found his perplexities solved by the readier
+intuition of his sainted companion. The higher companionship in
+literature, art, society, religion, which we enjoy in this world, and
+which is so incomplete when men or women are alone, gives some idea of the
+state of souls on high, where they that shine most, and they that love
+most, cherubim and seraphim, blend their holy ministries and bow together
+before the Eternal Presence.
+
+A homelier view of the subject must end our meditation--a view, however,
+that opens into the heavenly world. The homelier the better--the nearer to
+our hearts. Let us call Mary blessed to-day for ourselves, and for our own
+families and friends. Bless her, now that we are thinking of all good
+mothers, whether the queen true to her children on her island-throne, or
+the faithful mother in the farmer's cottage;--so many on the earth--so
+many who have gone from the world, and whose remembered faces now bring
+heaven near. Bless her now, that we are thinking of the happy children
+gathered together in the name of her Holy Child--as we think of the hosts
+of little children whom He has called and is calling to Himself. It is a
+time to be sober, and a time to be merry. In our soberness and our mirth,
+alike let us remember God's love for us in Jesus Christ our Lord.
+
+God's blessing, readers, upon you all--mothers, fathers, children,
+brothers, sisters, friends--meeting or to meet in the sanctuary, or in
+your homes! His love bring all together at last around the tree of life,
+whose fruit is peace eternal!
+
+_Christmas Eve._
+
+
+
+
+The Hope of Childhood.
+
+
+
+
+THE HOPE OF CHILDHOOD.
+
+
+The account of the Flight to Egypt, so illustrated by the old masters,
+brings three images before us, all in themselves interesting, and
+expressive of lasting realities. Central, is the figure of a young child,
+speaking at once of childhood and the God who blesses it. On either side
+what contrast in the associated forms! On one hand stands Mary, watching
+with unwearied vigils over her precious charge. In the distance, in his
+stately palace, the dark form of the tyrant king rises before us; his
+hands stained with the blood of a noble wife and three sons, his
+conscience torn by remorse, his wrath the more inflamed from the
+consciousness of deserving vengeance, his despotic will brooking no
+thought of rivalry, and dooming to death the infant innocents of a whole
+town to make sure of destroying the predicted Messiah.
+
+Here is an emblem of what is over in the world. Here is childhood, its
+guardian angel, and its evil genius. May not the scene suggest some
+thoughts upon Christianity as the guardian of childhood against the spirit
+of the world, which is its foe?
+
+The mother and child fled to Egypt, there to languish or be forgotten?
+Herod sat in his palace hall, there to rule and prosper? No. Ere the year
+closed, he died; before death came, already a mass of putrefaction. He
+died, signing with his fainting hands his will and the death-warrant of
+his oldest son; thus dispensing death and empire in his last act. He died,
+and the magnificence of his funeral mocked the wretchedness of his
+decease. The body was borne aloft on a bier, which was adorned with gems;
+the winding-sheet was of purple; his whole army, native and foreign,
+marched in war array to his grave. As the gorgeous procession by slow
+stages passed to the stately mausoleum, twenty-five miles distant at the
+Herodium, word went to the fugitives in Egypt, that the tyrant was dead.
+Who at that time, in the excitement of the funeral, or the festivities of
+the succession--who cared for the obscure family, that stole on its way
+quietly to Nazareth? The mother and child lived! They founded a kingdom
+that dies never.
+
+Richly that Christ-child repaid his mother's watching, alike to her and to
+her sex. The religion of Christ has been the strength and comfort of
+parents, and the hope of their children. Its power in the nurture of the
+young mind has been illustrated in every age, and connects itself now
+momentously with the most important topics of our time. What topic more
+congenial with this Christmas season, so consecrated to associations with
+childhood and youth, leading us back to the cradle of the infant Redeemer,
+and opening a festival in which young hearts all over the world rejoice?
+The child ever needs protection; Herod ever in some form rages;
+Christianity like a mighty maternal heart needs ever to keep its watch.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Look upon the past history of Christendom from this point of view, and how
+novel and interesting is the result! We have been taught to associate the
+progress of Christianity with the account of theological controversies,
+bitter disputes, bloody persecutions, proud hierarchies; and thus we too
+often read the annals of the Church with shame or contempt. But take a
+fairer and more intimate view: think of Christianity in connection with
+childhood and youth, trace its influence upon the home, the school, the
+Church, in this aspect. Do this, and we shall find ourselves moved by the
+annals of every age to tenderness and gratitude; for in every age
+Christianity has been the guardian of childhood against the spirit of the
+world, its foe. When the Saviour took young children in his arms and
+blessed them, he performed an act which has not been without significance
+in all subsequent time.
+
+In the primitive time the Christian confessors showed how fondly they had
+been taught to regard their offspring, to care for their souls in life and
+in death, to commend them with deathless love to Him who had opened the
+gates of everlasting life. In the Roman catacombs, far beneath the city,
+the places of early Christian worship and burial, the inscriptions on the
+tombstones well express the parental feelings of that time. An uncommonly
+large portion of the epitaphs given in the description belong to
+children, and they express the tenderest affection. "Virginius remained
+but a short time with us." "Sweet Faustina, may you live in God."
+"Laurence to his sweetest son, Severus, borne away by angels on the
+seventh Ides of January." How different the spirit breathed in such
+inscriptions from that inspired by the idolatry, that formed a god of the
+war-spirit that makes childhood desolate and orphaned, or bows down before
+Moloch and casts children into the fire at his feet!
+
+Turn even to those ages that are called by eminence dark--the time of
+monkish austerity and priestly sway. There is much in their annals to move
+indignation and sometimes horror. But interpret them fairly, and we find
+much to move our admiration and love. Consider that embodiment of the
+middle ages, the Gothic cathedral, wonderful alike for the vastness of its
+proportions and the delicacy of its details. There may be austerity in the
+priests that attend its altars, fanaticism in the monks who chant its
+litanies, cruelty in the mailed men who kneel at its chancel. But how
+tender is the expression of the whole in reference to childhood! The Holy
+Mother and her Divine child beam upon the worshipper from illuminated
+missals and painted windows. Conspicuous at the vestibule or by the altar,
+stands the baptismal font. Thither the child of the poorest peasant is
+brought, and by the baptismal water the child is recognized as belonging
+to the kingdom not of this world, a lamb of the good Shepherd. Not for the
+few rich, noble or mighty, but even for him, the least of the earth, this
+temple was erected, and by that rite the church, imperial in its stately
+palace, promises to watch over the child, care for his soul in sorrow,
+sickness and death. What would childhood have been in the dark ages
+without the Church? What other power could have stood between innocence
+and its tempter and destroyer? Who would have withstood Herod, if the
+mother heart of Christianity had withheld its guardianship?
+
+The Protestant Reformation consider, and through all its conflicts and
+persecutions, what tenderness is shown on both sides towards childhood! To
+secure the young heart to Christ and the Church, the rival parties labored
+with indefatigable zeal. In the zeal and policy of Loyola we may see how
+tenderly the old Church sought to keep or regain her hold upon the young
+by measures suited to the time. Would we know Luther's mind, look upon him
+as he sits with lute in hand at his fireside, enjoying the gladness of his
+children at the Christmas tree;--look at him, as with pen in hand and the
+veins of his forehead dilated with the excitement, he writes the immortal
+appeal to the powers of Germany in behalf of free schools, which has
+joined his name with Milton's as champion of popular education. Think too
+of the Pilgrim Fathers, so tender and thoughtful in their stern
+self-denial, in their wilderness home erecting church and school-house
+side by side, both sacred to God and his people.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it is time to look round upon the world as it now is. The most
+important question is: What is to be done for the young? This question
+comprises every other, for the generation that is growing up will soon
+have the destinies of the race in its charge. Surely Christianity needs to
+be watchful, for Herod is still abroad. His spirit is still the spirit of
+the world--of the world's passions and its policy--breathing now in the
+oppression that neglects or overburdens the young, and now in the
+capricious indulgence that betrays with a kiss and kills in the name of
+love.
+
+The world's passions conspire against childhood and youth. The lust and
+intemperance, which degrade the parent, press heavily upon the child, and
+because of them, thousands of young hearts find themselves in a world that
+for them has few smiles. All the temptations that inflame the senses,
+prompt to vice, and kindle hatred, conspire against the young, alike by
+corrupting those who should be their protectors, and sowing prematurely
+the seeds of wickedness in youth itself. Every haunt of dissipation, every
+resort of revelry, whether the drunkard's den or the fashionist's
+brilliant saloon of corruption, is a conspiracy against youth, and coins
+its gold from the life-blood of young hearts. The massacre of the
+Innocents still goes on. The spirit of Herod yet lives, and acts in a
+manner more insidious than an open death-warrant. It lives in the passions
+of a world ready to sacrifice all to its lusts.
+
+And the world's policy is not kind to childhood. What murderers are those
+its chief idols, Mars and Mammon! How cruel the game of war and the lust
+of gold! Who rules over the strife that robs children of parents who go to
+die in foreign lands? What genius, Herod or Christ, presides over the
+scene, when death-dealing batteries are planted before peopled cities, and
+the blood and brains of women and children are dashed out at every volley?
+Ye Christian chivalry, ye battle-loving parents, answer that question as
+for yourselves and your children!
+
+The lust of gold, that moves the world's habitual policy, is less savage
+but not much more merciful. The spirit of trade demands gain, and claims
+childhood too much as an instrument of gain. In the Old World, what
+myriads whom school or church never blesses or knows, are, almost from
+infancy, trained to the mine or loom, shut out from free air and play,
+cramped in body, as in mind. The conscience of Christians is waking up to
+the subject, I know, still what a world of wretchedness remains
+unalleviated! No poem in the language contains more terrific truth, than
+that noted ode, called "The Cry of the Children," blending, as it does,
+the tragic depth of Aeschylus with the tender pathos of Cowper.
+
+  They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
+      And their looks are sad to see,
+  For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses
+      Down the cheek of infancy--
+  "Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;"
+      "Our young feet," they say, "are very weak!
+  Few paces have we taken, yet are weary--
+      Our grave-rest is very far to seek!"
+  Ask the old why they weep, and not the children,
+      For the outside earth is cold,--
+  And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
+      And the graves are for the old!
+
+  Two words, indeed, of praying we remember;
+      And at midnight's hour of harm,--
+  "Our Father," looking upward in the chamber,
+      We say softly for a charm.
+  We know no other words, except "Our Father,"
+      And we think that, in some pause of angels' song,
+  God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather,
+      And hold both within his right hand which is strong.
+  "Our Father!" If He heard us, He would surely
+      (For they call him good and mild)
+  Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely,
+      "Come and rest with me, my child!"
+
+  And well may the children weep before you;
+      They are weary, ere they run;
+  They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
+      Which is brighter than the sun:
+  They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom;
+      Are bitter with despairing, but not calm--
+  Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom--
+      Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm,--
+  Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly
+      No dear remembrance keep;
+  Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly:
+      Let them weep! let them weep!
+  They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
+      And their look is dread to see,
+  For you think you see their angels in their places,
+      With eyes meant for Deity.
+
+An ode such as this was not without effect upon the heart of England; nor
+is the humanity which it imbodies rare in our land. The spirit of trade
+among us is not wilfully cruel, but it is too devoted to gain--negligent
+of the claims of youth, when not unkind. Neglected ones in our own streets
+have too frequent cause to reproach us--neglected ones who are strangers
+to the blessings of our civilization, and who learn our laws first from
+their penalties, and become acquainted with the lessons of the prison, not
+of church or school. They, alas, who might be an honor to their sex, are
+made to recruit the ranks of shame, and what is the spirit of Herod
+compared with the world's heart to fallen woman, alike in the wickedness
+that tempts and the scorn that awaits the fall.
+
+And not solely among the neglected of the earth does the spirit of the
+world lie in wait for childhood and youth. We might speak of the
+indulgence that pampers and vainly ruins the soul--of the kindness that
+kills those whom it aims to bless--of the neglect of health, natural and
+spiritual laws, which luxury introduces into modes of home education--of
+the want of a firm discipline that is kindest when firmest--of a practical
+infidelity that robs childhood of its sacred birthright, by robbing it of
+trust in God and the eternal life. Herod rages truly in the passions and
+the policy of the world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But not unchecked! Christianity with its great maternal heart is true to
+her watch, and calling helpers to her side. Let us acknowledge it. The
+great work of Christians now, is with the young. The work is two-fold, one
+of growth and of conquest, one that would rear up the offspring of faith
+within the divine kingdom, and one which would visit the neglected and
+reclaim them from the enemies' power.
+
+The work must begin, indeed, in the hearts of the mature, fostered there
+by communion with God and Christ, fostered by sacred thought and earnest
+resolution. Beginning there, it is to be carried out into the great
+spheres of life, in which childhood receives its direction. Vain for us to
+attempt to imbue the young mind with truths, which we receive only in
+name--vain the attempt to feed yearning souls with empty words, or breathe
+into them a higher life, with appeals so faithless and loveless as to bear
+falsity in their very tone, and fall dead upon the ear. As the bee watched
+by Solomon alighted upon the living rose, and shunned the pretended one,
+so childhood knows well the tone of sincerity, and craves reality for its
+mental food. Let it find the reality.
+
+Let it find it in the home. Home, blessed word always, thrice blessed,
+this day, that speaks to us of Jesus, who has secured to the household so
+much of its purity and affection, and that brings to mind the loved ones
+beneath our own roofs, who have hardly slept the night from anxious
+waiting for the morning dawn. Home--what an engine of power, alike to harm
+and to bless! Let it be Christian in form and in spirit. There let God be
+acknowledged in praise and prayer. There let the eternal world be
+unveiled, and every blessing bring it near in gratitude, and every trial
+draw down its consolation. There let the young breathe in the spirit of
+the gospel. There let Mary keep her watch of love, and Herod waits in vain
+to destroy.
+
+Let the world's bad spirit be withstood, too, in the schools. The cry is
+now rising in every part of Christendom--from the backwoodsmen of the
+Rocky Mountains to the cities of the Old World, of late, stirred by a
+mighty want--Education, Universal Education! In no section, certainly, of
+our land, is this spirit comparatively more earnest than with us--for,
+beyond question, this State has been recently passing through an
+intellectual revival altogether unexampled in the annals of our Free
+Schools. Christians should rejoice in the movement, and should rescue
+popular education from the blighting touch of avarice and superstition.
+Let it go on in its work of growth and conquest--nurturing the children of
+the privileged, reclaiming the offspring of the neglected, carrying out a
+mode of education based upon the laws of God and the soul of man, mindful
+of every faculty, grace, affection, that God has hallowed and human wisdom
+unfolds. Let nothing that has been done lead us to be unmindful of what is
+to be done, alike in the extension and elevation of the schools. We wonder
+at the system of training pursued of old, which led youth to regard the
+school as a prison. Higher yet the idea must rise, as better views are
+entertained of the capacities of the child, and the intellectual helps and
+moral associations that bring them out. We need the idea of the
+Christ-child in the school. Let that haunt the minds of parents and
+teachers, and that sacred ideal of childhood will not be without loving
+disciples, whose voices shall make the songs of the schoolroom as sacred
+and acceptable as temple chants or choral litanies. A better spirit, and
+one that demands the co-operation of all Christian people, has shown
+itself in our city of late, in the new efforts to seek out neglected
+children, and open to them the blessings of education, and industry and
+religion. The establishment of the Mission at the Five Points, of the
+Children's Aid Society, of the Asylum for Friendless Boys, have made an
+era in the Christian annals of New-York, which all right-minded persons
+should bless, alike in their word and their work. Add to these efforts for
+the poor and neglected, the new institutions, such as the Free College and
+the Cooper Institute, which offer such unwonted privileges to worthy boys
+of the humblest means, and we have no reason to despair of the future of
+this great city, or to distrust the school as a noble ally of the church.
+
+The Christian church! Here the spirit of the guardian mother ought
+eminently to prevail. The church should be the mother of the young. Oh,
+how cold and dreary is the idea, deemed by many the essential of
+Protestant truth, the idea that the young, or at least, little children,
+can have no vital connection with the Church; but must wait for some
+preternatural visitation in maturer years to call them to the arms of the
+great spiritual mother, and make them feel themselves hers. How
+unsatisfactory the doctrine, that children are to grow up, as if outside
+of the church, with the prospect of one day being taken in. Be ours the
+cheering view, sanctioned, surely, by the analogies of revelation, the
+faith of centuries, and by the love of parents, that the child should be
+regarded as by birth and baptism admitted into the Christian kingdom, and
+to be nurtured from the very first in the principles and affections
+congenial with the government of God. Let this idea be accepted, and power
+and blessing would come in its train. Higher consecration would crown the
+home, better wisdom would guide the strength of father, and holier love
+fill the soul of mother, from their communion with the kingdom that claims
+parent and child for its own. The Christ-child should be remembered in the
+Christian Church. When remembered truly, he will save childhood from
+Herod's hands.
+
+This season is a time of anticipation and hope. It needs no very vivid
+imagination to bring before us the myriads of homes over Christendom, that
+ring with young mirth, and look cheerfully upon the opening age. Yet the
+grave question cannot but press itself upon us, What is in store for the
+generation, that is soon to stand in our places, and bear the burdens of
+life in our stead? Interesting, engrossing indeed are the fields of
+science, art, enterprise, enjoyment, now dawning upon us and promising a
+bright meridian to the new generation. Yet fearfully many dark spots in
+the horizon rise in the distance, and portend ill to many whose experience
+of the world is yet to come. The great want is of an earnest purpose,
+looking to an eternal aim, and enforced by a true plan of social life. The
+young host is ready, but needs better guidance. Muratori, the Italian
+historian, tells us, that in the twelfth century, in the contagion of the
+crusades, children caught the spirit, and an army of 30,000 was gathered
+from village and city, and marshalled by a child, started for the Holy
+Land and the Tomb of Christ. They marched on till they came to Marseilles,
+and the great sea stopped their fond dream. They wandered about
+distracted, and thousands miserably perished. Perhaps too romantic story
+for sober truth! But what a parallel to it in our age! A mighty host of
+youths starts on its way to a land of imagined holiness and peace. Vague
+aspirations, selfish passions, spiritual yearnings for the good and true,
+move their hearts. A child will lead them; the child who is to be the
+strong man of the age, and who is not yet known. Sadly, sadly, will they
+be disappointed, unless the leader is himself divinely led, and the heart
+of the Christ-child lives in him, and thus in the hearts of this
+generation, the Messiah is born anew.
+
+Every true purpose, all genuine faith speeds the day of his new coming,
+and hastens the downfall of Herod and his host.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Friends, Readers, let your hearts apply the lesson of this day, and let
+your hearts be cheered and solemnized by its associations. Think of your
+homes and the loved ones there. Think too of the loved ones departed, and
+deem them not lost, but gone before! Love your children, and love them the
+more by looking on them in the gospel light, by loving them as in God and
+Christ!
+
+Think too of our own early days. How vividly they at times come back, so
+that we almost forget maturity and its cares, and are children once more.
+Let them come back now, and with them all their tender associations--with
+them thoughts of early home; brothers, sisters, father, and more than all
+of her, who stood to us in Mary's place, and blessed us with a Christian
+Mother's love!
+
+But can the association rest there? No! Upward to Him, so holy in
+childhood, so glorious in maturity--to Him, Friend and Saviour, Messiah,
+from whom our best blessings flow, let our gratitude rise, and to God,
+through Him, let our devotion be exalted! We have no hymn to the Virgin
+Mother, no Ora pro Nobis for the beatified Madonna. Simple faith is better
+than romantic tradition. To us heaven is fairer for possessing that Mother
+and that Child.
+
+_Christmas Day._
+
+
+
+
+New Things.
+
+
+
+
+NEW THINGS.
+
+
+Measured by any human standard, how daring was the vision of the Christian
+seer! From Patmos, his watchtower of rock in the Aegean Sea, midway between
+the hemispheres of ancient civilization, he surveyed the ruling powers of
+the world, declared their doom, and the rise of a new kingdom, even the
+City of God. The predominant forces of the existing age took visible shape
+before his inspired imagination. Jewish bigotry, Pagan idolatry, Roman
+despotism, led on by the master spirit of evil, stood before him, as so
+many fearful monsters. Equally vivid were the forms of divine agency by
+which they were to be subdued. From Him who sat upon the throne revealed
+in heaven, came the decree, "Behold, I make all things new." Our pen need
+not lose its cheerfulness in writing of this opening year, with such
+imagery in view.
+
+How much of that vision has been proved true? Enough surely to save it
+from the charge of presumption, enough to ascribe its daring rather to a
+devotion mindful of divine guidance than to a wilfulness impatient of
+delay. The former things have passed away. The old temple is remembered
+only for the sake of its spiritual archetype. The despot's purple has
+faded before the bloodstained robes of the martyrs. The idols to which
+men bowed on both the Aegean shores, the European and the Asiatic, have
+fallen. Even the crescent, that has for a time displaced the cross, and
+which now in the city of Constantinople gleams from the dome of St.
+Sophia, forms no exception to the statement, for it marks no idolatrous
+shrine, but like the orb which it represents is but a partial reflection
+of the great source of light, before which it must one day grow pale.
+
+Gradually, but none the less mightily, the new power went on its way, and
+ere long from beyond the Mediterranean on the Carthaginian shore, there
+came a great response to the exile of the Aegean. When Augustine wrote his
+"City of God," the philosopher of history confirmed the vision of the
+seer, as he celebrated the triumphs of that word which planted the cross
+above the throne of the Caesars. Tempting indeed is the historical survey
+this presented, but we must not yield to the enticement. We must quit this
+grand prospect of the nations, and speak of the Gospel, as sent chief of
+all for the renewal of the soul and the redemption of the home.
+World-regenerating power as it is, its first prerogative is its
+life-renewing office.
+
+This principle we are prepared to lay down at the outset, that in the
+order of Providence Jesus Christ is the spiritual head of the human race,
+and that men and nations find redemption and true life from God through
+Him. What was said of old, needs to be said now "Behold I make all things
+new"--now in the ears alike of those who have never heard Christian
+truth, and of those who have lulled themselves to slumber beneath its
+familiar sound. Nay, the most sincere Christians need constant renewing in
+the light of first principles and by the spirit of true life. Their piety
+is apt to harden into formalism--their charity to narrow into some kind of
+clanship--their industry to sink into a low worldly prudence apart from
+all divine aims.
+
+It is not easy for any of us to begin the New-Year without a pleasant
+sense of freshness or renovation, as if some former burdens had passed
+away and many things had become new. This is well, and needs only to be
+made better. As we renew our friendships, we should not fail to renew our
+relation with the Great Friend, and invoke his blessing upon the opening
+months.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We need first of all to review our principles. These we regard as
+constituting the essentials of our faith. However right they may have
+been, we are very apt to lose sight of them, or gradually, perhaps almost
+unconsciously, allow others to creep into their place. The word of Christ
+to us now is as of old, "Believe." What do we believe? What to us is the
+greatest reality? Many things are true--what to us is the truth? Many
+words are important--what to us is _the_ word? Answer not in the language
+of decent custom or technical phrase, but from the heart. We have all said
+at some time more or less definitely, "We believe in God, the Creator of
+the world, in Jesus Christ his Son and express image, in the Holy Spirit,
+the witness within the soul." When we believe thus truly, then we have
+the true principles of living. We own the Divine government, acknowledge
+its representative, honor its form of life. But our belief becomes an
+empty word, unless with enlarged knowledge and experience, it is
+constantly renewed; and as we pass into new fields of thought, action,
+observation, we subdue this added territory to the rightful sovereignty,
+and interpret all things in the light of Divine truth. Have we done
+this--are we doing it? Or have we left our faith behind us, and in our
+world of business or pleasure, do we find ourselves either utterly without
+God, or with Him only in the most vague and distant idea? True faith is
+not overcome by the world, but overcomes the world.
+
+We learn a great many things as our years pass, and there is a
+knowledge--do we not know it? that increaseth sorrow. Such is all the
+knowledge that shuts out the light of God; and leads man away from a
+filial faith in the Eternal Parent and the heavenly home. Such stores
+indeed increase our nominal domain, but only as he would enlarge his
+estate who were to conquer Sahara and pitch his tent among desert sands
+where no living water is.
+
+Faith--the faith that God is Father of men--that he is in Christ, and
+through Him will visit us in the soul and the life, makes all things
+new--constantly leads us into new experience of Divine truth, and makes
+old things appear in a new light. This is no narrow creed for the recluse
+or the mystic. It is for men of all tempers and conditions. Nay, they need
+it most, whose pursuits are most likely to chain them down to the earth.
+For them indeed occasional leisure and recreation has no small solace.
+But, the best solace for world-weariness is the rest of the soul in God;
+the mind's trust in the greatest of realities, the Being of beings. All
+pleasure that deadens this trust but adds to the weariness which it would
+charm away and is the serpent's whisper, that promises the peace which
+comes only from the heavenly dove. Above all our prudence, all our labors
+and expedients, we are compelled to look for the true light. Revive,
+increase our faith, and straightway all things are new. God reveals new
+features of his Providence, and things familiar have a new expression, and
+speak no longer only of the earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Who can recur thus to first principles and find from them better light and
+peace, without carrying the renewing influence into the sphere of the
+affections? Here the Divine Word has a voice for us--a voice too much
+neglected because identified either with a perplexing theological system
+or a shallow sentimentalism. God is love, and he that loveth not knoweth
+not God. This truth came from Him who made the soul, and knows well its
+wants. Bring it near to us and feel its renovating power. There seems
+always indeed to be a peculiar peril in moralizing upon the affections,
+and they are very apt to be chilled by the precepts that most insist upon
+their vitality and warmth. But the Christian Gospel is little disposed to
+waive its imperious claims from fear of the metaphysician or the
+sentimentalist. It says Love God and the brethren, and bids us make this
+truth practical. As the years pass, instead of having less affection, we
+ought to have more. A true life always has more, as it enlarges its
+experience and its faculty--not indeed more of that superficial
+sensibility which is the burden of so many moon-struck rhymesters and the
+great staple of the common romancers, but more of that divine charity,
+that vital good-will, which holds filial communion with the Father, and,
+striving to be perfect even as he is perfect, carries the light and warmth
+of its presence into every sphere of life. In fact, the highest human
+wisdom is affectionate as it is mature. The novice in thought may be sharp
+and crabbed, but the sage is tolerant and kind. He who sees the truth in
+its reality, sees that it is the form which contains and expresses
+goodness. If there be a kind of intellectual power that is bitter and
+malicious, it is sure to be only some shape of low cunning or some
+perversion of the better reason--some perversion that shows Lucifer's
+fall, if it shine with something of his light. The Master and they who
+learned of him were full of love as of wisdom. Such is the plan of God's
+moral government based upon the nature of his own being.
+
+The Father calls us to be followers of him as dear children, and in the
+sober thought of mature years to cherish more than the impulsive affection
+of childhood. He demands that our whole life-plan should be guided, nay,
+pervaded with good-will. If there be less sensitiveness upon the surface
+of the character, there should be a deeper sentiment within. He is ready
+to help us win the grace, which he commends. Through devout thought,
+whether of meditation or prayer--through every act which brings us near to
+himself, whether of self-denying humanity or of common neighborly
+kindness, he is ready to impart to the soul something of the fulness of
+his Spirit, and renew our being in its central spring.
+
+We need this influence in our near affinities and remoter relations. The
+ice gathers about us, and should be melted away. The most intimate ties
+become dull and indifferent through custom, and the nearest friends,
+because of their nearness, lose interest as if estranged. In the same
+Divine fountain we refresh every home feeling and social sympathy.
+Realizing anew our relation to God, we are ready to see more of his
+goodness in all things around, and regard every aspect of humanity, as a
+call upon us to appreciate his love for us by our own for his creatures.
+The point of view is at once changed, and we look upon our fellow-beings
+no longer in the spirit of harsh critics, exacting all things and owing
+nothing, but as ourselves dependants upon Divine favor, and owing mercy
+even as we have received. Every human tie is in peril, when this sentiment
+is forgotten. When its force is felt, every sphere of life has a blessing.
+Home wears a new smile, and its mutual deference repeats the great law of
+Heaven. Strifes among kindred and acquaintances cease. The sternest censor
+of the follies and vices of mankind mingles mercy with his judgment, and
+considers with thoughtful compassion the infirmities at which the cynic
+scoffs. Because he opens his heart, he does not shut his eyes, but with
+judgment keen, yet tender and forbearing, in a spirit wise and benign,
+nay, Christlike, he looks upon the strange drama of human life, and whilst
+he cannot wholly solve its problem, sees enough of God in the universe and
+among men to submit the ultimate solution to the Divine Power, and finds a
+very sure way of helping on the Divine plans by a life of justice, energy
+and good-will. Who of us does not need more of this spirit, more sense of
+God's love to us, as the great source of kind affection to one another?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For want of it, and of the filial faith in which it has its root, we
+wither up, and our best strength is lost. Nay, our very work
+languishes--our labor, whatever it may be, loses its zest. There is no man
+of generous mind, who has not at some time accepted his life-work in a
+spirit truly religious, feeling that its burdens are to be borne in a
+Christian temper, and its duties done with reference to exalted aims. But
+how often the better purpose languishes, and we pursue our toil away from
+the fountains of true life, separating the spheres which God has joined
+together, robbing our daily life of the freshness and power, which our
+youthful zeal possessed without care, and which need only to be truly
+cared for to be preserved, nay, to grow in vigor. It is not always so with
+us, but too often; and there are none who do not need renovation in
+respect to their life-plan and work. Some things we should do, that we
+have not done--some things, that we have done, should have been left
+undone. There is much efficacy in a sober and honest review of our
+personal career, of what we have achieved, suffered, gained, lost, and of
+what has been our use alike of our successes and disappointments. God has
+given to us something of his own power of judgment, and we are the better
+either by the rebuke or the encouragement of the "Ill-done" or the
+"Well-done," pronounced by ourselves upon ourselves. More power still
+comes from bringing all the higher resources of our being upon our labor,
+refusing to become the serfs of a slavish routine of task-work, and
+keeping our hours and weeks fresh alike by the faculties that we exert,
+and the aims to which we look. Happy, indeed, the man, whatever be the
+sphere of his action, whose being is renewed rather than exhausted by his
+toil. Only a filial faith and love can insure this blessing. A cheerful
+temper is much, but not all; and no merely animal spirits can suffice to
+renovate the mind under so many vicissitudes and disappointments as most
+lives present. A man's _spirit_ is the chief fact in determining his
+_spirits_, and the spirit can be kept fresh and strong only by communion
+with the God who gave it. They who take the work of life as given by God
+in kindness, and as to be done faithfully and cheerfully, filially, keep
+and enlarge their power. Whatever their sphere, they wait upon the Lord,
+and they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength--they shall
+mount up with wings as eagles--they shall run and not be weary--they shall
+walk and not faint.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus following the leadings of Divine Providence, we find the true
+fountain of life. All things are ever new, and in our faint human
+experience we are able to know something of the bliss of that Infinite
+and Omniscient, to whom all things are known--to whom there is no past or
+future, yet whose is the fulness of an ever-renewing life, the great I Am,
+from everlasting to everlasting. Existence becomes more serene, yet more
+earnest; less impassioned, not less affectionate; less impulsive, but far
+more interesting. There are two kinds of renewal, distant as are earth and
+heaven. The one comes from the novelty of a constant variety, the other
+from the freshness of an ever truer life. Just across the sea the exile of
+Patmos could have found an excellent example to place in contrast with the
+spirit of renewal which he urged. The Athenian--and he is in this respect
+more favored with followers than in his Attic refinement--spent his time
+in seeking for some new thing. Common life was stupid, its business was
+contemptible and fit only for slaves. Different the spirit, as the lot of
+this novelty hunter from that of the Christian with his ever renewed mind.
+The one finds what is new by skimming over surfaces, the other by drawing
+from inexhaustible depths. The one scatters his forces as he seeks to
+refresh them, the other concentrates his powers in the very process of
+renovation. The one yields to a passion for mental dissipation that burns
+and wastes like a fever, the other follows a law of life, whose pulses
+beat in ever serener health--nay, beat in ever-renewing vigor, and sound
+no funeral marches to the grave. In short, the one indulges in a mental
+distraction that has in itself the principle of exhaustion; the other is
+nurtured by the Divine aliment which gives a life that is eternal.
+
+Are not our own experience and observation full of illustrations of the
+truth that has been presented. Are not history and biography constant
+witnesses of the ever-renovating power of a genuine faith, and love, and
+work, and also of the fate of worldly passion to exhaust its own springs
+of enjoyment. How signal an illustration we may take from the destiny of
+two men of the last century, who, more than any others, moved France and
+England--the nations to which they spoke. Mirabeau, a man of robust frame
+and singular native eloquence, was cut down in the very meridian of his
+day by a disease which was an expressive close and consequence of the
+fitful fever of his life of passion. His last words, in their gorgeous
+rhetoric, showed with what opiates he had drugged his soul: "Sprinkle me
+with perfumes, crown me with flowers, and thus let me sink into the
+eternal sleep." Within that very month, a far different death-scene was
+presented across the British Channel. An old man of nearly four-score
+years and ten, rests peacefully upon his bed, surrounded by a company of
+friends, who feel quite as much joy as grief, as they look upon his face
+and hear his words. Although of frame naturally delicate, and of gifts by
+no means brilliant, he has moved the hearts of myriads by his appeals, and
+won a name better than that of founders of empires. The very week previous
+he had continued his round of labors, and his strength was not abated as
+he pleaded his Master's cause. He sank to his rest in God with the words
+of the anthem,
+
+  "I'll praise my Maker with my breath,"
+
+on his lips, and the strain which was broken by the touch of death seemed
+to his companions to be finished by a voice from the spiritual world,
+saying:
+
+  "Praise shall employ my nobler powers;
+  My days of praise shall ne'er be past,
+  While life, and thought, and being last,
+  Or immortality endures."
+
+Mirabeau and Wesley! Thus different are the ends of wilful passion and
+unswerving fidelity. All lives, according as they are true or false, renew
+this contrast.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Behold, I create all things new," saith the Lord. For good or for ill,
+this decree must be applied to us. In some way we are all changing as the
+years pass. Our lives are wasting away, unless they are renovated by a
+truer spirit, and thus winning ever more than they lose. What do we most
+need that time may be ever newer and happier, and the hours move on
+neither with lagging weariness nor drunken haste, but in the Divine order
+marked out for them by their Lord?
+
+Are there not some things to be put off, as well as some things to be put
+on? Answer honestly as we look the New Year in the face--answer as to a
+messenger from God. What weight are we carrying, that we need to lay
+aside? What evil habit is fixing itself upon us, shutting out the light of
+God, chilling the better affections, deadening the nobler powers, and
+threatening, perhaps, beneath its insidious smile to take from existence
+more of its beauty and joy and strength? Let each consider well his own
+besetting sin, and put it off. With the falling burden, scales fall from
+his eyes--he sees God anew. For him the former things have passed
+away--all things are become new. What makes our being fresher and happier
+than the conviction that the coming years are better than the past!
+
+Off with the old burdens, and put on the new armor. There is something for
+each of us to do--something for each one of us specific and peculiar as
+our own individuality--something for all of us as universal as our common
+humanity. The specific thing and the universal good pursue as if for life
+itself. God bless us in the striving, and crown us in the work. Each year
+in its sober experience give us new hopes for ourselves and the future of
+our race.
+
+_New Year._
+
+
+
+
+Solicitude of Parents
+
+
+
+
+SOLICITUDE OF PARENTS.
+
+
+Our thoughts turn now more particularly to the circle of home relations,
+and we propose to give some plain views of them with an especial eye to
+the temptations of city life. The duty of parents is the topic first in
+order.
+
+Few if any words are given in the Scriptures to persuading parents to love
+their children, or to wish to provide for them. The affection is taken for
+granted, and they who have it not are set aside by themselves as monsters.
+If any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house,
+he hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel.
+
+It is not upon the parental sentiment itself, but upon its due direction,
+that Christianity rests its emphasis; as well it may, for what sentiment
+has gone more astray from the true mark, and in mistaken kindness hurt
+those whom it would most bless. "What man," asks our Saviour, "would give
+his son a stone instead of bread, or a serpent instead of a fish?" Not
+one, if he really knew it or saw it. Yet what is more frequent than such
+wrong indirectly done?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Take the first and most obvious form of parental solicitude, the form
+literally connected with the question just cited--we mean the physical
+maintenance of children. It would be wasting words in this or any
+respectable assembly, to try to prove that parents should provide food and
+clothing for their offspring. Yet here, and every where, in our mode of
+making this provision, many very grave questions may arise. Kind feeling
+is not enough. Without knowledge and forethought, we may hurt where we
+wish to help--we may kill where we wish to cure. At every step we need
+better counsel than any instinctive fondness, or childish caprice, or
+worldly fashion. The Creator has a lesson for us in the use of all his
+gifts, and if we do not heed it, what we give as bread may turn out a
+stone, and what seems to us a fish may sting like a serpent.
+
+In providing food, clothing, air, exercise, for our children, we are to
+study those solemn and inexorable laws which God has enacted for the rule
+of the body. In this lower court of creation there is no pardoning power,
+and the wrong done to the constitution in childhood is a wrong for a
+lifetime. We apprehend that in no one point is our American society more
+in error and more at variance, not only with natural laws, but even with
+the best European standard, than in the physical education of children.
+They are fed often on the trash of the confectioner, instead of the simple
+aliments nearest the hints of nature, and by improper dress and hours they
+are forced into a precocious maturity of mind and body, equally hurtful to
+both.
+
+Does any one doubt the importance or dignity of such caution? The doubt
+vanishes the moment we see the connection between physical education, and
+the whole tone of thought and feeling--nay, the entire aim of life. The
+tastes for food, and dress, and amusement, cherished in children of tender
+years, may be committing them to a judicious or a corrupt method of
+life--may be their initiation into a school of self-control and wisdom, or
+passion and extravagance. The drunkard, the sot, nay, the debauchee, may
+date their wretchedness from childhood. Many a family has been ruined by
+habits of extravagance that began in the finery and feasting of the
+nursery. They that dwell in cities should take close heed to the prevalent
+danger, and not think themselves safe merely because they do as other
+people do. Consider how common the error is to mistake precocity for
+promise--to disturb the sacred reserve of nature--to tear open the
+curtained bud of childhood, and boast of the forced growth so ruinous to
+the tender plant, and then let us learn anew to respect the bidding of the
+Creator and follow his appointed way. Here we should be willing to take a
+stand as nonconformists, and have it appear in the beginning, that we are
+not educating our children to be the apes of the world's fashions, or
+slaves of its caprices, but to be rational and moral creatures, a blessing
+to their home and community, a light in the kingdom of God. Let them learn
+early to find happiness in common things--to enjoy simple pleasures--to
+love the glow of healthful action above the fever of artificial
+excitements, the constant bounties of nature beyond the costly gifts of
+luxury.
+
+What we have said applies more directly to providing for children during
+their tender years. In rude communities here the care mostly stops, and
+the boy at least, as soon as he is strong enough to be master of his
+limbs, is left pretty much to take care of himself. But as society becomes
+more refined and luxurious, it is very obvious that the solicitude of
+parents looks more towards providing for the maturer years than for the
+minority of their children. It becomes, perhaps, the absorbing question,
+how shall we establish them properly in life--what effort or self-denial
+must we use to secure their future success?--a great question, and one
+which troubles many an earnest mind, and heaves society itself with
+misgivings.
+
+It often presents itself in a very tangible form, and by some is confined
+to one point--to concern for property. I will not disparage the desire of
+parents to secure a comfortable living to their children. But it is safe
+to say that this desire is strong enough when compared with matters more
+essential even in their bearing on a comfortable living. Surely the chief
+assurance of a sufficient livelihood is a good practical education. A
+reasonable man will not think it important to leave more than a frugal
+competence to his children, yet he ought to think himself unkind, nay
+cruel, if he spare any labor or sacrifice needed to educate them to do
+their part effectively and happily in the world. A large inheritance is
+easily lost, and may be retained without adding any happiness or dignity
+to its owner or the community, but a good education stands by its
+possessor; the strength of his trials and the ornament of his joys.
+
+We need to look well to this at a time when, under the very name of
+education, foul wrong is done to the active energies, and a systematic
+imbecility of mind and body has the stamp of elegance. That only is a good
+education which so stores the mind and brings out the powers as to fit one
+to take an honest place in life, and do well the work given us to do. Such
+a culture will have an eye upon the uncertainties of fortune, and prepare
+the pupil to provide for himself, and all who are reasonably dependent
+upon him. Such a culture it is the duty of every parent to give, and the
+right of every child to receive. It is clear, however, that it cannot be
+given without going in the face of many dainty prejudices, which are so
+ready to pamper unreasonable wants and slight the plain utilities. The
+Hebrew laws required, that children, even those of nobles should be taught
+some useful art, and the Saviour of men and the chief of his apostles were
+bred in accordance with this law. There is no security against shameful
+servitude short of this, that a youth shall have enough in himself, know
+enough, and can do enough, to take and keep an honorable place in the
+world. Too often this great truth is slighted, and men toil in such a way
+as to procure for their children a dainty training that enlarges the
+surface of their wants, whilst it lessens the domain of their energies,
+and so puts a mill-stone upon a son's back, whilst thinking to give him
+bread.
+
+Yet more sternly we must carry out the doctrine of the need of an
+education essentially self-relying. The father has and should have more
+tender solicitude for the daughter than the son, and there is no
+affection that the blessed God has breathed into the human heart more
+beautiful and holy than this, giving as it does such grace to the rudest
+and the most refined homes, teaching gentle speech to many a rough
+peasant, and imbuing the most cultivated man with a delicacy and
+tenderness beyond any of the charms of courts or chivalry. Yet this
+sentiment needs to be wise as well as kind; nay, wise in order to be kind;
+and a just father will strive to train his daughter to be equal to either
+fortune. However large or small his fortune, he will remember its
+uncertainties, and beware of sanctioning the too prevalent folly which
+regards woman as born to be petted and dependent, and brands a rational
+and self-relying education as masculine and ungraceful. If we have our
+eyes open, we must see the wretchedness of this system, and regard every
+daughter as cruelly treated who is not enabled without loss of
+self-respect, in case of need, to take a stand for herself, and prefer to
+an uncongenial marriage or a degrading dependence, reliance upon her own
+arts of accomplishment or utility. The same preparation that fits her to
+meet the time of trial, fits her to adorn prosperity, and to be that noble
+creature, the woman who guides an affluent household with energy and love,
+and who adds to the graces most prized in the social circle the grace that
+is born of God and radiates the light of Heaven.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Of course it is utterly idle to urge the need of such an education for
+sons and daughters, by limiting its uses solely to worldly advantage. We
+go up to the true basis of life for firm ground to build upon. Take that
+ground decidedly, and then we view all true culture as part of the
+training of souls under the Kingdom of God. We are not to live by bread
+alone, but by every Divine word, by all of God's gifts to us. They are
+cruel parents who slight the moral and spiritual wants of their children
+and train them in worldly passions. This is, in the saddest sense, giving
+them a stone instead of the Bread of Life. So we all think and are ready
+to say. Take care lest our conduct belies our words. Whatever its position
+or professions may be, that is a wretched household, whose polity is not
+based upon a Divine standard--which does not acknowledge a rectitude above
+the world's ways and breathe faith in God and things eternal. The very
+discipline of a true home will be modelled after the heavenly order, and
+will try to win the spirit of the benignant Father of all, who tempers
+firmness with kindness so wonderfully in the government of his creatures.
+
+Firmness is not enough--kindness is not enough, but the two must go
+together. Firmness without kindness becomes the stony austerity that
+crushes the will into servile conformity instead of training it to filial
+obedience; kindness without firmness readily becomes a feeble expediency
+that changes with the hour in a facility serpentine in more senses than
+one. Firmness with kindness gives a discipline authoritative and flexible,
+applying just principles in a mild prudence suited to all times and needs.
+Of old perhaps the rigid temper most abounded, and austerity made
+parental rule a rod of iron; but now the other extreme most prevails, and
+a feeble indulgence allows self-will to be the law of childhood, and
+fosters in many a dwelling a juvenile jacobinism, which needs only time
+and chance to ripen into utter anarchy. This error does cruel wrong to
+parent and child--to the child by fostering an ungovernable temper, a
+perverse caprice that scoffs at all restraint and chafes even at the
+limitations which God has imposed; to the parent by bringing upon him the
+contempt of those who owe him respect, and by the painful conviction that
+the indulgence begun in apparent kindness has been as fatal as wilful
+severity. Away with the folly and the puny sentimentalism from which it
+springs! Let us look at the law of God founded in the written Word and in
+the very nature of things. The family is the safeguard of society--a
+government founded by Heaven itself. Parents are to rule, children are to
+obey. This principle, if carried out with energy and discretion, will
+adapt itself to the various ages and circumstances of life. The element of
+authority will be imbued with the attractive power of the truth and love
+upon which it rests, and as the child grows into youth or maturity, the
+authority that trained him, without losing its dignity, will appear less
+and less an arbitrary will--nay, authority itself will seem but the
+sterner aspect of persuasion.
+
+For all this we need an unworldly faith and a spiritual mind. They that
+would nurture others in the true life must themselves be nurtured upon its
+true element. For themselves they must breathe the prayer for daily bread
+in a true sense of its meaning--a true sense of dependence on God for
+moral power as for bodily strength. Nothing short of a temper and purpose
+truly religious will make the household a school of faith and a home of
+wisdom and peace. We are apt to be too negligent, indeed, of modes of
+instruction and forms of worship. Too often a parent neglects to tell his
+children what is deepest in his own heart, and with many not wholly
+worldly persons, the years pass away without any regular habits of
+Christian teaching and worship in the family. The remedy cannot come from
+mere formalism, but it must spring from a truer heart--more of the right
+spirit showing itself in the right way--in all wisdom and prudence,
+charity and devotion.
+
+Speaking thus, who of us does not see a startling thought staring us in
+the face--the thought that our own personal character is the measure of
+our influence, and that we cannot expect to teach or impress what we have
+not taken to our own hearts. We cannot cheat our children into the virtue
+which we affect, for they will find us out, and distinguish what we do and
+are, from what we say. Influence cannot rise above the level of character,
+nor the fountain above the fountain-head. What motive to a truer
+life--what warning against vice and godlessness--what encouragement in all
+good--that the chief patrimony of children is the character of their
+parents, and with this treasure small gifts are wealth, and without this
+treasure rich gifts are poor indeed. Unhappy is the man who leaves to his
+children the influence of a heart hard as stone and a worldliness wily as
+a serpent! Precious the influence--blessed the memory of a parent, whose
+life has made the ways of wisdom pleasant and peaceful, secured to his
+offspring a childhood pure and happy, given a sacred and cheerful
+remembrance to be the handmaid of an immortal hope.
+
+The affections, it has been said, press downward more strongly than they
+rise upward, and parents love their children more than children can love
+them in return. If this were so, it would but the more illustrate the
+fact, that life is not utterly selfish, and men live not for themselves
+alone. It is true, that we do not live for ourselves alone. The merchant
+at his counting-houses has thoughts beyond his gold and
+merchandize--visions more fair and kindly than these; and the hard-handed
+workman who does his ruder labor, spares of his earnings for his children
+at school. But the love is not all on one side, although time may be
+needed to adjust the balance, and teach childhood to appreciate a true
+parental care. God holds the balance, and will make it true. In the motive
+and in the result, he secures the reward of fidelity. Time and eternity
+will show, that the love which he has inspired shall win harvests of
+blessings that cannot perish.
+
+
+
+
+Reverence in Children.
+
+
+
+
+REVERENCE IN CHILDREN.
+
+
+The Ten Commandments, the foundations of all law, both religious and
+civil, among civilized nations, are divided, all are aware, into two
+tables: the first treating of duties relating directly to God--the second
+treating of duties relating to man--the two covering the essential grounds
+of religion and morals. The command to honor father and mother begins the
+second table of the Law. Why should it not? for what so fitly stands at
+the head of the moral code, as the law that puts order into the household?
+The family is the form of government, first in time and first in
+importance. Home is older than church or court; a parent's authority prior
+to that of priest or judge. With the family, social order began--without
+family union, social order must end.
+
+There is something striking in the transition from the first to the second
+table--the transition from Jehovah's assertion of his own sovereignty to
+his tender regard for the welfare of men. We seem to be looking down from
+the awful mountain with its barren crags into the peaceful valley with its
+pleasant homes and grassy lawns, rejoicing that the summits pealing with
+thunder send down refreshing breezes and fruitful showers into those
+plains below.
+
+Looking up to God, who claims of us supreme homage as his due, and then in
+his own sovereign right urges upon us to fulfil our dues to each other, we
+speak now of the duties of children or the honor to be rendered by them to
+parents.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Do any ask what are the grounds of the Commandments? The grounds are
+obvious, and the law, which God enacts, instead of being an arbitrary
+decree, is in entire harmony with the nature of things. It would perhaps
+be needless to dwell on these grounds, were there not something in the
+temper of our times, that calls them in question--in fact, certain notions
+of intellectual liberty among theorists, that combine with the passions
+and caprices of youth to unsettle many a household, and threaten the peace
+of society itself. Against the sentimentalist, who makes light of all
+natural ties to glorify the individual's own intuitions or affinities, and
+against the little rebel, who comes to the same conclusion by a much
+shorter process, we urge the Divine law, "Honor thy father and thy
+mother."
+
+Honor them, because God bids it, and bids it not merely in the written
+code, but by the whole order of his providence, by the very constitution
+of society. However we may dispute about the best form or true foundation
+of government--maintain monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, to be the
+best form--declare Divine law, social compact, or popular will, to be the
+true foundation, all must agree in the Divine origin of the family and
+the Divine right of parental government. The instincts of nature, the
+words of revelation, the dictates of experience and expediency, all agree
+in this, and all illustrate the mind of God, the Creator of the family.
+The mind of God himself speaks or should speak through the parent to the
+child, so, that filial obedience is fitly another name for piety; so, that
+prayer itself borrows its most hallowed word from the reverence nurtured
+at home.
+
+Trace out the law of dependence, and see how fully it urges the
+commandment--the law of dependence that rests with parents so much of the
+welfare of the child. Not merely food, clothing, and home, but all the
+higher goods of life, experience, wisdom, virtue, are to be looked for
+thus. As a general rule, benignant Providence itself has its chosen
+almoner in father and mother, and the gifts are blessed as they are
+received in reverence. We may indeed suppose monstrous cases, in which
+unnatural parents exact such folly or wrong, that obedience ceases to be a
+virtue. Such cases are not frequent enough to alter the general law, and
+even in these, a true child, in refusing to conform to what is evil in the
+sight of God, will do it in such a way as still to keep the commandment,
+and treat tenderly even a perverse father, and expostulate with his
+tyranny in a temper fitted more to subdue than irritate its violence. Such
+monstrous cases need little notice in any Christian community, where
+parents are generally ready enough to do the best, and give the most in
+their power for their children. In fact, for them, the Decalogue has no
+law, as if nature needed no decree to enforce parental love, and the
+affections of themselves pressed heavily enough downwards. The great need
+was and is of enforcing the obligation, that looks upward from child to
+parent. Our modern culture, with all its scope and refinement, has no
+substitute for this obligation; nay, needs it more than ever to check the
+wilfulness and laxity so likely to come from precocious fancy and
+unbridled temper. Experience is constantly showing, that even the external
+promise connected with the commandment meets the wants of our own times
+also, and now, as of old, filial obedience secures an efficient life and
+peaceful civilization,--"that it may be well with thee, and that thy days
+may be long in the land which the Lord thy God shall give." How many
+bright and dark chapters of recent history show how close is the
+connection between stability of society and filial respect--between
+allegiance to every worthy institution and the discipline that learns to
+regard a superior authority at home. This outward sanction the Gospel
+accepts, and carries it into the spiritual kingdom. By many a precept the
+apostles enforce the command, and by word and example, by the beatitudes
+of the mount, and the obedience of the cross, our Saviour imparts new
+blessing and worth to its observance.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We have a foundation then to build upon, and filial respect rests upon the
+Word of God, the welfare of the home, the good of society, and the peace
+of the soul. Let the sentiment be worthy of the Divine foundation. If
+worthy it will appear first of all as a feeling of affectionate reverence.
+It will not be worship as with the Chinese absolutist, nor mere
+friendship, as in the code of many a radical. The parent is of the same
+nature with the child, and is not to be adored; he is superior in age,
+experience and authority, and should have more than the friendly courtesy
+of an equal. Superior in degree, though not in kind, he is to be regarded
+with affectionate respect and deference. Any subjection more or less than
+this comes of wrong, and leads to wrong. To exact utter servitude is
+tyranny--to lower reasonable authority into flattery, entreaty, or
+apology, is an imbecile indulgence which a child should be as unwilling to
+ask as a parent to give.
+
+If any hearers are ready to quarrel with us for presuming to define the
+quality and conditions of one of the great social sentiments, and to say
+that all the affections are best let alone without any forcing process, we
+are not troubled for a reply. No modern folly has been more thoroughly put
+down by analysis and experience, than the sentimentalist's notion, that
+the affections are wholly their own law, and are not to be trained under
+reason, conscience and religion. Even in those sentiments which have most
+of the spontaneous play of genius--those which rejoice in poetry, music,
+and all the beautiful arts, the perceptions must first be trained to the
+nicest sense of the truth of things, and the rigid discipline of every
+true artist shames the folly of the dreamers who would make it appear,
+that the great art of life, as a school of the affections, is to be left
+to itself. No--our principles have vast power over our feelings, and they
+who from the beginning are trained to accept the great loyalties of a
+divine kingdom, will be loyal in their affections as in their creed, and
+their affections will come forth and grow up as the vine does by help of
+the very trellis which overlooks it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The filial sentiment thus accepted and nurtured will not be idle, but will
+show itself in the tone of manners, the rule of conduct, the law of life.
+
+Manners are but lesser morals, and closely connected with the greater
+morals. Good manners begin at home, and if they do not begin there, the
+desire for them is apt to end in poor affectation. The soul of politeness
+is mutual deference, and where should this have its origin but in the
+respect most directly sanctioned by God? Too often the true filial honor
+is forgotten, and, perhaps, from thoughtlessness more than disrespect,
+children are sometimes seen usurping the prerogatives of age, speaking in
+tones of petulant authority, and crowding themselves into the places of
+elders. The best place for them is their own place. Their own dignity, as
+well as that of their parents, is best furthered by the deference, that
+gives the household its best order and makes it the school of the graces,
+that adorn society with its pleasing gradations, and cheer the way to its
+best virtues. Full enough is the temptation, especially in cities, to fall
+short of this true deference and to rob childhood and youth of their best
+character. Manners, instead of being nurtured on the Christian root, are
+left too much to the dancing-master, and there are hosts of boys and
+girls adept in postures and airs proper for the ballet, and strangers to
+the reverence and simplicity that most honor them in honoring their
+elders. Precocious passion for dress and society is the bane of the one,
+and ridiculous affectation of manhood, especially of its follies, is the
+shame of the other. The girl, instead of being calmly at rest in a child's
+healthful slumber, is aping the belle in the ball-room; and the boy is
+walking the street with his cigar, perhaps boasting of his powers at the
+bottle, instead of being where he should be, in his bed, getting strength
+for true manliness, not fevering himself into a ludicrous manikin. "Learn
+to show piety at home," is thus another form of the ancient law, "Honor
+thy father and thy mother."
+
+The sentiment so essential to good manners will show itself as a rule of
+conduct, and filial honor will take the form of obedience. During the
+years of dependence this obedience is to be entire, for the parent must
+think and act for the child. No matter what precocity of memory or
+imagination, what privileges of education or amount of attainments, may
+seem sometimes to reverse the order of precedence, the child is to follow
+the parent's counsels, and in so doing will gain alike in wisdom and
+discipline, for the experience of age is wiser than the pert wit of youth,
+and submission to a superior will is essential to a true schooling for the
+vicissitudes of life. It is not well to overstrain prerogative, and to
+insist on obedience as a sacrifice, where it might be made an attraction,
+if the reasons of the case are fully set forth. Nor is it well to make
+obedience wholly dependent upon a statement of reasons, for many things
+must be done for reasons that youth cannot appreciate, and kindness is
+never so decided as when the impatient shortsightedness of childhood is
+overruled by the far-seeing wisdom of maturity. Reason there should be in
+every request; but if the request were allowed to wait until the reasons
+could be understood, parental care would cease with the first restraint,
+and childhood would be left to itself at the first task or pain. God
+himself is our helper here, for he, who calls us in so many things to walk
+by faith without sight, has fitted youth for the same discipline, and made
+mild authority in the end more attractive and efficient than premature
+argument or feeble flattery.
+
+Obedience, thus considered, will not be servile but filial, and will find
+its own honor in doing honor to its guardians. It will lead children to
+ask constantly what they can do for the happiness of the family and the
+welfare of its members. This duty is too little thought of, especially
+where there is none of that pressure of want which compels children to
+help in the maintenance of the family. No matter how great the wealth of
+parents or the retinue of servants on the watch for every care, there is
+still place for the earnest co-operation of each member of the family, and
+no refinements of living have abolished the duty of mutual help, and the
+grace of mutual deference. In most families the services of the children
+are needed for many friendly offices of greater or less importance, and
+none will deny that the comfort of every household is closely connected
+with what the children do or fail to do for its welfare. So early does the
+work, the responsible work of life begin, and so early may its springs of
+beneficence be opened.
+
+Let any true household illustrate what we mean. What beauty in the filial
+confidence that reveals its troubles and needs, and asks counsel of
+superior wisdom! What comfort in the countless little services that
+lighten a father or mother's care, or soothe their troubles! What grace in
+the unbought courtesies that youth may throw around the home, the refined
+deference, the kind remembrances too often left to the parade of
+drawing-rooms, but the proper ornament of the family circle! What power
+over the pains of sickness, or the languor of convalescence, in the
+solicitude and consideration which children may show, and showing, may
+bring to the weary pillow a balm more healing than medical art! And if
+stinted means require frugal expenditures, or even the active labor of the
+young, what worth in the filial thoughtfulness that anticipates the
+necessary economy, instead of repining encourages frugality, and asks to
+be useful instead of insisting on being indulged.
+
+And when fortune, station, or intellectual eminence reward youthful
+aspiration, the aspirant never wins more respect than when he makes his
+parents his confidants and companions. Here our common nature is not at
+fault, for whenever in any public exercise or examination a young person
+does remarkably well, we all think at once of the parents, and the
+pleasure of the assembly is not complete until the people have confirmed
+their own enjoyment by sympathy with the father and mother. There is great
+power in this fact, and what it implies--great power in the fact that
+children honor parents by being truly honorable, and repay best the
+sacrifices of so many anxious years by making their own lives a credit and
+comfort to father and mother. This benefit lasts as long as life itself,
+and the integrity and efficiency of mature years carries out to the limit
+of existence the affectionate reverence of childhood.
+
+Here the whole world is one, and the human heart is the same in all ages,
+and history and experience meet. What state of society can be blind to the
+meaning of the imprecation which was pronounced at the entrance into the
+promised land, and joined in the same doom the idolator and him who should
+"set light by his father and mother?" What philosophy can gainsay the sage
+of the Book of Proverbs, whose sententious moralizing rises into prophetic
+grandeur as he speaks of the unnatural son: "The eye that mocketh at his
+father or refuseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick
+it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." Who needs any interpretation
+of the feelings of David, or Joseph, or Solomon, in their joy or trial?
+How heartrending was the grief of the Psalmist over his recreant
+son--"Would to God, I had died for thee, my son, my son!" What beauty, as
+well as simplicity in the inquiry of Joseph for his father, when the prime
+minister of Egypt dismissed his courtly train, and weeping aloud, could
+only ask "Doth my father yet live?" What grandeur far above its gold and
+gems surrounded the throne of Solomon, when he rose to meet his mother,
+and called her to a seat at his right hand. "And the king said unto her,
+Ask on, my mother, for I will not say thee nay." What pathos and sublimity
+in the Saviour of men, when, embracing home and heaven in his parting
+words on the Cross, he commended his spirit to the Eternal Father, and
+intrusted his mother to the beloved disciple's care. We need no more than
+this to show how the gospel glorifies the law, and crowns its morality and
+piety alike in its perfect love--"Woman, behold thy son"--"Disciple,
+behold thy mother."
+
+Hear the amen that goes from Calvary to Sinai--and Honor thy father and
+thy mother!
+
+
+
+
+Brothers and Sisters.
+
+
+
+
+BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
+
+
+When Cain asked "Am I my brother's keeper?" it seemed a very strange
+question to come from a man who had just murdered his brother and held him
+so cruelly in his keeping. Fear led Cain to disguise his guilt by
+repudiating his obligation, through an interrogation more negative than a
+flat denial. What he said in guilty fear, many are now ready to say in
+pretended humanity, and it is one of the conceits of our time to make
+light of ties of kindred in the name of a world-wide philanthropy. A
+melo-dramatic patriotism not particularly famous for domestic attachment
+has been ready to swear brotherhood to the whole nation, perhaps the whole
+race, and many a scape-grace who has been a sad plague to his own kindred,
+has been heard shouting at the top of his voice the three noble watchwords
+of which fraternity is a climax. Philanthropists sometimes labor under a
+similar error, and people who have had no especial solicitude or felicity
+in helping their own families and neighbors, presume to despise such near
+at hand interests as trivial, and seek to reform the world in a wholesale
+way. Professed Christians are not wholly free from the error. Some
+certainly there are who are ready to _brother_ and _sister_ all
+Christendom with most profuse generosity of tongue, who show their little
+sense of the meaning of the term by pinching selfishness towards those of
+their own blood, that seems to say, "Am I my brother's keeper?"
+
+It is well, that large views of social obligation are making headway, and
+that Christianity has so mightily rebuked the narrowness of exclusive
+cliques and clanships. But if humanity is to be true in its progress, it
+must be true in its source; and if a man love not his brother whom he hath
+seen, how can he love not merely God whom he hath not seen, but the
+brother whom he hath not seen? In fact what is regard for our brother but
+the first and most obvious application of the second of the two great
+commandments? Our brother is our next neighbor, and even our humanity must
+begin with him, that it may be really worth any thing. We turn now to the
+collateral relations of the household, or the duties of brothers and
+sisters. Sacred and suggestive subject, speaking to each of us in the
+tones of our own peculiar experience. Let it speak to the conscience as
+well as to the sensibilities and the memory.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Where shall we begin but at the beginning, that is with the will of God,
+which is the ground of every duty? The family, as we have seen and
+believe, is the first form of society, a government founded by the
+Creator. All that can be said in favor of its peace and order, goes to set
+forth its collateral as well as its ascending and descending ties--to urge
+the obligations of brothers and sisters as well as parents and children.
+Co-operation between the former is as essential to the home, as are
+protection and dependence between the latter.
+
+But to come more closely to the point, is it not true that proper respect
+for parents urges the duty now under consideration and just filial love
+must needs be fraternal? Children cannot be true to their parents without
+being true to each other, and the welfare and charm of the household
+depends in no small degree upon the mutual help and moral harmony of its
+younger members. Children are not regarded as so many separate units, but
+as an organic whole, as members one of another; and when they are
+considerate and harmonious, they have new grace and worth in the parent's
+eye, more so to his heart, than the features of the fairest landscape
+where the particulars combine in the whole, and light, shade, grove and
+river, hill and valley--fair in themselves, are fairer together, can
+possibly have to the eye of the lover of nature. What under the heavens is
+more pleasant and lovely than brethren who with all their differences of
+taste and temperament still agree in aim and spirit? It is indeed like the
+dew of Hermon, that threw its silver veil over mountain and valley, and
+refreshed and beautified each tree and flower with a baptism from heaven.
+
+But this relation of fraternal love to filial is but one of its aspects.
+Brothers and sisters are related by what they owe directly to each other,
+as well as by what they owe to parents. The will of God, that bids them
+agree for their parents' sake, bids them also agree for their own sake.
+Mutual educators of each other they must be, and by means far more
+powerful than school-books or lessons. They are constantly together, and
+this intercourse must be a selfish collision, if it be not a friendly
+reciprocity. In childhood, they must needs be frequent rivals for the
+favors and duties of the home, subjects of indulgences or sacrifices, that
+must awaken strife, unless they are shared in mutual deference. With
+childhood, however, the relation does not end, but may have in mature
+years its gravest importance, for in the order of nature parents are
+likely to be first taken from the world, and to all human view they may be
+beyond the reach of kindness or unkindness. But the relation of children
+to each other promises to last far longer, may create between the elder
+and younger a relation parental as well as filial, and for good or ill it
+must in some way continue as long as life itself. How essential, then,
+that a tie so enduring should be rightly regarded, and that in childhood,
+youth and maturity, it should keep its benignant hold over the family!
+
+Nor does its importance end here. The method of God is, that the
+affections shall grow outward from within, and that being trained in
+kindness at home, men should be prepared to show good will to each other
+in all the concerns of life. As the patriarchal dispensation, in the grand
+course of ages, widened into the universality of the gospel, so in every
+true life, a just family culture is to expand into a generous humanity,
+that learns at home how to speak of a broader brotherhood, and a higher
+fatherhood. Whether God's method is not wiser than man's let experience
+show by contracting the windy declamation, that mistakes rhetorical
+generalities for comprehensive benevolence, and the judicious,
+unostentatious beneficence that carries out in all its relations the sober
+good will cherished in a wholesome household discipline, and so on a true
+pattern strives to build up the larger household of faith. The one begins
+at the root, and so branches out in blessing--the other would begin with
+the branches, which wither away when parted from the root.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So then in the will of God, revealed in the constitution of the family,
+the welfare of its members, the spirit of humanity, we find the foundation
+of the duties of brothers and sisters. The fraternal sentiment must be in
+accordance. In all our affections, there must needs be some lights and
+shades that depend upon the individual's gifts and experience, for no man
+is a rule for all, and we must differ in our likings as in our looks. Yet
+all primal obligations have essential features in common; and the
+fraternal sentiment, although less instructive than the parental, and more
+complex than the filial, has quite as decidedly a character of its own.
+The phrenologist may not locate it in a special organ of the brain, and
+the metaphysician may not make of it an instinct by itself, but it has its
+root none the less in nature, and loses no interest from expanding so
+generously under true associations and culture. When true, the fraternal
+sentiment unites congeniality with consanguinity, and developes friendship
+from kindred blood, as the parted branches open into leaves, and
+blossoms, and fruits, kindred in their aims as their source. Its nature is
+better shown by tracing out its just influence than by attempting to
+arrest its flitting shades of hue, or to analyze its constituent elements.
+Here, too, is the practical bearing of the subject, a bearing which many
+slight far more from thoughtlessness than from indifference. In what light
+are brothers or sisters called to regard each other?
+
+Their first obvious duty is that of due consideration for each other. They
+are to consider each other's circumstances, needs, trials, dispositions,
+opportunities, and never allow selfishness or indifference to blind them
+to what belongs to them in common. Does this need to be said of persons
+who are so near, as of necessity to be always in each other's thoughts?
+Ah, what is more frequent and obvious, than that familiarity tempts
+indifference, and that our very primal duties, like the stars which are
+their emblems, are easily forgotten because they may at any time be seen?
+The things most significant are likely to be near at hand, and religion,
+like philosophy, finds its chief triumphs in opening the meaning of what
+God has brought to our very door. A part of the power of absence from home
+lies in breaking the spell of familiarity, and leading the absent one to
+look impartially upon the familiar circle, and upon his own place and
+conduct there. Many a youth or maiden has returned from a journey or
+voyage wiser far in sense of home duties than proud of the accomplishments
+of travel. True consideration will not need absence to teach this lesson,
+but from its calm point of view the absent one will survey the common
+spheres of life, and try to live for others as under the eye of God.
+
+In each family there will be decided need for mutual consideration, and
+there must be strife, unless there is mutual deference. All cannot have
+all the favors, and the division of them may embroil a household as
+bitterly as the division of an empire has embroiled rival heirs of
+thrones. Where means are limited, mutual sacrifices not always easy must
+be made, and few families pass many years without feeling the power of
+consideration, or of selfishness in meeting the privations that must go
+round their circle. When means are abundant, and every wish has ready
+wealth at its command, the form of forbearance may change, but its
+essential spirit is none the less needed. There will still be differences
+of talent, looks, manners, opportunities, health, experience, that require
+in the most prosperous household the same virtues, that give the humblest
+cottage its dignity and peace. In every family, there will be some call
+for peculiar consideration or regard to some member of it, according as
+sickness, infirmity, youth, age, deficient or extraordinary ability, may
+call upon the stronger to serve the weaker. What wretchedness when the
+call is slighted, even by one! Who can calculate the mischief wrought by a
+sensual or reckless brother, who makes every thing secondary to his own
+passions and pleasures, or by a frivolous and heartless sister, who makes
+a god of fashion and enslaves the whole house to her monstrous vanity!
+Who, too, can calculate the influence of a high-minded brother in guiding
+and cheering the younger members of the family, or of a devoted and
+judicious sister in soothing every impatient humor with a face in which
+shines, perhaps, the light of the sainted mother's countenance? When all
+unite in some common solicitude, God gives their daily bread and cup a
+sacramental grace, and from some sufferer whom they watch over together, a
+mighty blessing, uniting, exalting them all, comes forth, and seems to say
+in the sacred name, "Ye have done it unto me."
+
+Consideration will lead to confidence, and will banish deceit, that viper
+of society, from the hearth-stone, which too often warms it into life. Let
+confidence begin early, move the lips first lisping for utterance, and
+continue in maturity, when the world's folly that sometimes names itself
+experience shall try to teach disguise as prudence, and artifice as
+wisdom. Whatever we may think of the confessor, as an official person,
+confession is founded in the nature of things, and God bids us confess our
+faults one to another. Who ought to be confidential, if not those whose
+experience and destiny so unite their lives? I cannot even glance at the
+chief forms of this confidential relation. One aspect may be specified
+which is too often forgotten--that between brother and sister. If these
+were more candid advisers, each would be better for it--each imparting to
+each the counsel that each can give. With feminine insight and purity,
+what a kind and gentle, yet strict and earnest censor of youthful excess,
+the one may be. With manly judgment and honor, what a firm and scrupulous,
+yet tender and considerate adviser in reference to many follies and
+dangers may the other be. Giddy as young people often are in their
+pleasures and caprices, it has sometimes seemed to me, that if a plan of
+life were to be drawn up by the youth of a family for each other, few
+treatises of morals would surpass it in purity of spirit or rectitude of
+principle. Some follies would be sure to fall. Where would intemperance
+and its kindred vices be, if sisters were taken as counsellors? Where
+would indecent costumes, immodest dances, equivocal friendships be, if
+brothers were more frequent advisers? This negative influence is not a
+tithe of the worth of the relation, which God in his infinite tenderness
+and wisdom has decreed--a relation so able to enrich ties of nature by
+every grace of mind and heart, and from likeness and unlikeness of
+constitution to develope one of the finest harmonies of our being. Its
+beauty cheers many a dark age of ancient rudeness, and adorns many of the
+brightest chapters of our modern culture. Would we know what brother and
+sister have been to each other, listen to the triumphal song of Miriam, as
+she braced anew the great heart of the law-giver with timbrel and psalm;
+or look to the grave of Lazarus, where Mary and Martha stood with Him who
+was the Resurrection and the Life. Do we ask more modern instances, stand
+under the open heavens and remember how Caroline Herschel shared the
+vigils of their illustrious explorer--open the pages of Neander, and think
+of her whose devotedness made a pleasant home of his otherwise solitary
+study, and encouraged him in his noble work of tracing out the progress of
+the divine life throughout all the mazes of theological controversy, and
+making church history a book of the heart, instead of the disputatious
+understanding. Do we need more--only conjecture the number of cases nearer
+at hand in which youth have been counselled and helped on through years of
+preparation to their calling or profession by a sacrifice that looked not
+to the world for motive, and asked not of the world reward for its
+success.
+
+I need only name the crowning duty of brothers and sisters--the duty of
+being mutual helpers, for this is implied in what we have said of
+consideration and confidence. They whom God has so united should stand by
+each other in every worthy way--not selfishly exacting favors, but earnest
+to do good. Too often the contrary has indeed been the case, and history
+in most conspicuous passages, from the death of Abel and the exposure of
+Joseph to the wars of the Plantagenets and the feuds of the Bourbons,
+shows that strifes are bitterest when nearest home, and "a brother
+offended is indeed harder to be won than a strong city, and their
+contentions are like the bars of a castle." Less conspicuous, because less
+monstrous, are the opposite cases, and Christianity itself leads the noble
+list of fraternal worthies, by presenting in its first disciples so many
+who carried ties of blood into bonds of faith, and strove together to the
+last for the kingdom that would make all brothers in God. The various
+forms of fraternal aid need not be specified, nor the cases described in
+which the death of parents or peculiar circumstances enhance the
+obligation, and the responsibility of parents devolves upon the elder
+children. Whatever the age, the welfare of children is closely connected
+with their mutual conduct, and its power reaches not merely to the
+division of time and cares, but to the highest interests of mind and
+heart. Firm principle, spiritual faith, devoted purposes, act and react
+collaterally with great power, and in the social as in the natural world,
+it is the side light and warmth that most applies the cheering rays from
+above. Happy the home where true peace dwells between kindred, and all
+various gifts are held in unity of spirit! While the circle remains
+unbroken, it is strong against the world. When broken it is still not
+desolate, and the orphan is not without a helper. There is love enough on
+earth to join with the love that has gone heavenward to make life
+cheerful, and keep hope firm.
+
+Let all apply these thoughts. Children, apply them, and be kind in all you
+do and say. Youth, apply them, and be thoughtful where you are often
+tempted to be reckless. Elders, apply them, and never allow care or
+worldliness to chill the better affections of early days. Deep in the
+heart let the old home live, and its pleasant memories, brightened by
+kindly offices, open ever into immortal hopes. Old things must pass away,
+but from the Christian they can only pass away by being all made new--new
+in a spirit, that remembers best when progressing most, and crowns all
+friendships with charity divine.
+
+
+
+
+Marriage.
+
+
+
+
+MARRIAGE.
+
+
+It is a remarkable fact, that He who came to be the Saviour from sin,
+whose name is coupled with the sorrow that he would alleviate, began his
+public ministry at a marriage, and gave the first proof of his powers
+amidst its festivities. Yet why wonder at it--for where should the Gospel
+begin its work if not with the union that founds the family and should
+secure every social and moral good? How, moreover, could the genius of
+Christianity better show itself than by such a practical rebuke of the
+asceticism that scorned the social affections, and would make of life a
+ghostly austerity, just as if man were heavenly by being unearthly? It
+needs no great ingenuity to imagine our Lord's feelings, as with his
+kindly and majestic thought he looked upon that scene, and gave his
+blessing to the youth and maiden who were probably of his own kin. He saw
+all the serious and trying aspects of human life even in its best estate,
+yet none the less gave them joy upon their union.
+
+It is well that he was at that feast. The ages since have remembered his
+presence, and his sacred name, heard still at the marriage, deepens its
+memory, and consecrates its joy. The two ideas thus connected in fact are
+connected in principle, and the moralist need not in any enlightened
+community fear to speak of the Christian view of marriage, or care at all
+either for the giggling levity that sees nothing solemn in the subject, or
+for the sanctimonious gravity, that considers religion profaned by being
+made practical. There are some difficulties in the way of a frank
+treatment of the subject; I know our customs do not favor the homely
+simplicity of the language of the Bible in the discussion of marriage, and
+he must be very adventurous who undertakes to use the plain speech of the
+old divines, whether in the quaint aphorisms of Thomas Fuller or the
+jewelled periods of Jeremy Taylor. Yet it is not well to be very
+fastidious or mystify any subject by ingenious circumlocution, and we
+propose to say some plain words on the relation of husbands and wives in
+continuation of these thoughts upon home duties.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Not much need be said upon the foundation of this relation. It rests
+clearly upon the will of God, the best good of the parties, and the
+welfare of society.
+
+As the Creator and Preserver of mankind, as the Lord of Nature and the
+Father of Spirits, God has made us social beings, and decreed that the
+most important association should be a lasting one. The natural law, which
+in lower creatures establishes a transient union, enacts the permanence of
+the higher relation, and when profoundly studied agrees with the precepts
+of Revelation and the results of the best experience.
+
+God's will is clearly shown in the effect of marriage upon the moral
+condition of the parties themselves. It is generally essential to their
+true life--to the proper development of their affections and faculties.
+Under good Providence, it is the school of the heart, the motive to the
+most laudable exertion and sacrifice. There are persons indeed whose
+peculiar duties may exempt them from its cares,--scholars, devotees,
+philanthropists, who may give their whole heart to their chosen
+speciality, and make of science, religion or humanity their family and
+home. Yet these are not the general rule, and even these generally prove
+that the peculiar power acquired by concentrating their whole mind upon a
+single pursuit gives them force at the expense of breadth of culture, and
+may be morbid because preternatural. The monk and nun, in the convent or
+out of it, have done noble things, and every faithful memory must bless
+them for it--but not the noblest things. They have shown much mercy, yet
+quite as much spiritual pride. If they have fed the poor, they have framed
+the Mass Book and the Confessional. If they have cared for the orphan,
+they have also invented infant damnation and the Inquisition, insisting on
+hell hereafter for all not baptized by their priesthood, and devising a
+hell here below for all heretics against their creed. Unmarried people
+ruled Christendom for a thousand years, and that they did not rule in
+wisdom, the Bible, history, and our best modern culture all declare. Nay,
+the very sage of modern celibacy, Swedenborg, gave years of his life and
+the chief labors of his pen to prove, that the best wisdom comes from
+minds united conjugially, imbuing thought with affection, and informing
+affection with thought, and so best interpreting the God in Christ. They
+who may be puzzled by his mystical lore will have no difficulty with the
+more practical argument, or refuse to allow that the most healthy thought
+and feeling, the most comprehensive culture, frequents the home which a
+true marriage makes.
+
+"Marriage," says Jeremy Taylor, "is the mother of the world, and preserves
+kingdoms and fills cities and churches and heaven itself. Celibate, like
+the fly in the heart of an apple, dwells in a perpetual sweetness, but
+sits alone, and is confined and dies in singularity; but marriage, like
+the useful bee, builds a house, and gathers sweetness from every flower,
+and labors, and unites into societies and republics, and sends out
+colonies, and keeps order, and exercises many virtues, and promotes the
+interest of mankind, and is that state of good things to which God hath
+designed the present constitution of the world."
+
+To carry out the argument and show the necessity of this relation to due
+provision for children, to the peace and purity of society at large, would
+but lead us into common-places that can as well be spared. Better pass on
+and speak of the nature and duties of the relation in question.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It differs from the other relations that we have thus far considered,
+first of all in the fact, that it is elective or voluntary. The tie is one
+of choice, not of blood, and of course this fact of itself speaks to
+reason and conscience to stir themselves in the choice, instead of leaving
+it to a giddy eye or a silly ear. The relation, moreover, is exclusive,
+and in this fact it is distinguished from all ties of blood and all other
+ties of choice. Again it is entire--extending to all the interests of
+human life. Elective, exclusive, entire, marriage is thus the most
+momentous of human relations. Decalogue, Gospel, Providence, experience,
+all declare it such, and rest upon an act of choice the only obligation
+that brooks no rival and allows no limitation.
+
+In accordance with the tenderness and dignity of the relation, the ruling
+sentiment and correspondent duties must be. Of the sentiment, more than
+filial or parental love, more than brotherhood, for which friendship is an
+inadequate name, and which at once fascinates by natural affinities and
+binds with the sacredness of religion, I have no elaborate analysis to
+give. We escape at once the peril of maudlin sentimentality and
+metaphysical abstraction, by speaking of the sentiment in the practical
+fruits, which best show its nature.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We say first of all, that husband and wife should be true to each
+other--true first and last. Wo to them, if they begin their relation with
+a lie, either spoken or acted. They promise to love, honor and cherish
+each other, and they lie abominably in the sight of God and their own
+consciences, if they nullify the solemn promise by capricious levity or
+sordid selfishness. Full liberty of conscience must be allowed for the
+action of various minds, temperaments, circumstances, and not all
+dispositions are to be judged by the same degree of the moral thermometer.
+Yet of all diversities of gifts, this statement holds good, that marriage
+begins in an impious falsehood, if the parties do not regard each other
+with affection and respect, and do not mean to be mutual helpers. An
+earth-born impulse should not steal a sacred name, nor a mercenary bargain
+intrude its traffic into precincts more sacred than the temple courts. The
+sale of a human creature under the marriage ring is more degrading because
+more voluntary than under the auctioneer's hammer, and God will not
+withhold his verdict against the profanation of his altars by such outrage
+against nature and the Gospel.
+
+The beginning is true, when the bond is sincerely assumed, and spirit and
+truth go fully together when the whole mind and heart agree in a
+congeniality without alloy and without misgiving.
+
+True in the beginning, husband and wife are to be true in their progress
+together. Of that gross falsity against which God launches an express law
+of the Decalogue, and of whose curse on the offender and the victim, so
+many wretched lives and homes are the providential commentary, I need not
+speak with minuteness. Fidelity demands more than any negative
+policy--demands truthfulness throughout the whole relation, the confidence
+that will not mask its face or thought in reserve, and will deem it a
+fraud to confer with any third party upon any matter belonging in its
+nature to the two. It is the beginning of bitter sorrow, when this limit
+is overstepped, and that enamel of mutual confidence is broken, which kind
+Heaven has given for the protection of so delicate a nerve.
+
+Nor does truthfulness end here. It must be positive in word and in
+action--prompting the parties to share their thoughts and plans together,
+and to prove by devotion to each other's welfare the truth of what they
+say. We spare the digression to many satirists so attractive, and saying
+nothing of the cheats of married life, whether the frauds of selfishness
+or the wiles of overfondness, we are better pleased to leave the other
+aspect of the picture uppermost, and speak of God's blessing upon all who
+keep their truth by being true as well as kind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We add now a second duty of married persons--one that has a very prosaic
+sound, touching a matter so near the springs of feeling. We say that
+husband and wife should be reasonable--reasonable that they may be true in
+fact as well as in purpose. Feeling of itself, even when healthy, is a
+poor guide, sadly blind without reason. Whether it go with love or
+indifference, folly carries misery into the home. The proverb is true
+enough--
+
+  "A stone is heavy and the sand weighty,
+  But a fool's wrath is heavier than both;"
+
+and we might add, a fool's love is quite as heavy as his wrath. We speak
+not of the folly, which is a natural misfortune, but that of minds
+befooling themselves by levity, or dissipation, or idleness. Nothing
+wears better than good sense, and nothing is more essential to permanent
+congeniality and usefulness. It is sometimes a stern censor, but only
+because it wishes to be an honest friend. Let married persons take it for
+their counsellor and it will settle for them many questions, which inflame
+self-will and disturb love itself. They need above all others to be
+reasonable, to look to reason with all its revealed lights as the
+interpreter of God's will to them, and of their own relation to each
+other. It is a great thing for them to start in life with reasonable views
+of the most common-place arrangements of the household. How much
+disappointment, and bitterness, and sin, come from unreasonable views of
+expense, and who will undertake to estimate the amount of domestic misery
+resulting from household extravagance? The dress of many a wife, and the
+wine account of many a husband has been the ruin of the family. Let every
+couple start with a fair understanding as to what they can afford to
+spend, and keep sacredly within the limit. If the world laughs at their
+simplicity, they can well afford to laugh at the world's folly, and time
+will be very likely to put the laugh upon the right side. Much might be
+said of the deplorable influence of the extravagant notions of most young
+women in preventing thoughtful men from taking the risks of marriage, and
+we hazard nothing in saying that the worst vices of cities are closely
+connected with the growth of feminine extravagance. America will lose her
+birthright and have no trace of the old domestic order, if the folly runs
+through the land, and most girls are brought up to exact more expense
+than the average returns of industry and talent can earn.
+
+Good sense, that honest counsellor, will save the parties from all
+controversy about prerogative, will interpret their peculiar jurisdictions
+duly; teaching the man to take the lead without magisterial assumption, to
+be the guardian without playing the tyrant; teaching the woman to follow
+his fortunes without being his slave, and to accept his deference without
+becoming his imbecile toy; exhibiting both in their likeness and
+difference, equals and not equals, so that the twain are made one by a due
+balance of gifts and harmony of contrasts.
+
+Is there not need of urging with some emphasis the worth of reasonable
+relations between husband and wife? Are they not too ready to make a
+compromise of follies--the one annoyed by having her tastes and habits
+reviewed in the strong light of a masculine understanding--the other
+irritated at having his hard worldliness criticised by feminine refinement
+or sensibility--the two sometimes settling the difficulty by
+non-interference--the one left to extravagance and frivolity, if she will
+consent not to insist upon having her husband's time or thought--the other
+allowed to drudge as he will, if he will not intrude his utilitarianism
+into her sphere, or apply common sense to the charming follies that devour
+the dollars and the days. It is all wrong, and no gifts of fortune can
+make up for the want of thoroughly rational companionship between parties
+so allied, and so apt to belittle each other by triviality. Both are
+gainers by it, and intellectually as well as morally--the more gainers as
+in generous studies of nature, art, history, society, they take a common
+interest in the enlarging and ennobling fields of thought, and their
+habitual confidence makes them educators of each other. Without being
+alarmed by the valiant Minervas who brandish their flashing spears from
+reform platforms, and declare an independence at which the old
+Revolutionary signers would have stood aghast, we believe that the most
+thorough practical discipline is to be found in this home school, and the
+enlargement of feminine perception and the refining of masculine vigor,
+would advance vastly under such a culture. There would be a better mutual
+understanding of the two great domains of life, and a holy alliance
+between the two great families of minds. In plain language, if husband and
+wife would advise with each other fully on all important subjects, the
+robust understanding would be much helped by the quick wit, and fewer
+foolish things, far fewer evil things would be done in the world. In
+phrase more ideal, yet equally true, if insight were better allied with
+argument--ready sensibility with executive strength--nice perception with
+comprehensive judgment, reason would have a new avatar on earth, and the
+light of God would shine as never before in its beauty and its power into
+each household, and over the great globe.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One more aspect of the class of duties before us now, we have to state,
+and one that comprises and carries out every other. They who marry are to
+live united in all the interests and purposes of existence.
+
+The most obvious ground of union is the maintenance of the home and the
+welfare of the family. The order of Providence seems to require the one to
+provide by his labor or enterprise the means of livelihood, and the other
+to see that they are properly used. As manners are simple, and fortunes
+limited, the union of interests here is a very grave matter, and
+inefficiency or self-will on either side brings discomfort, perhaps
+wretchedness. As manners are refined, and luxuries abound, the same unity
+of minds is equally essential to give grace and true worth to the home.
+Let each respect the other in the several spheres, and combine to make
+both what they should be. Let not a man's laborious gains be squandered in
+folly, nor a wife's faithful care be disparaged as trivial. To use a
+homely word with a sacred meaning, who will not ask a blessing on good
+housekeeping? Is it not one of the fine as well as the useful arts--do not
+its very utilities like the fountain of living water sparkle into beauty?
+Happy they who know more of it than the tender mercies of hotels and
+boarding-houses reveal. They do _not_ learn it well, unless they mingle
+faith with their economies, and keep the home in divine peace, as well as
+in worldly thrift. A home divided against itself cannot stand. Who shall
+keep it one save He in whom alone all souls can have the unity of the
+spirit and the bond of peace, and whose blessing is needed quite as much
+in a ducal palace as in the plainest farm-house?
+
+How shall we urge at length this point of union, or illustrate its bearing
+upon all interests, plans, and hopes? It is a great thing for two frail
+natures to live as one for life long. Two harps are not easily kept always
+in tune, and what shall we expect of two harps each of a thousand strings?
+What human will or wisdom cannot do, God can do, and His Providence is
+uniting ever more intimately, those who devoutly try to do the work of
+life and enjoy its goods together. For them there is in store a respect
+and affection--a peace and power, all unknown in the heyday of young
+romance. Experience intertwines their remembrances and hopes in stronger
+cords, and as they stand at the loom of time, one with the strong warp,
+the other with the finer woof, the hand of Providence weaves for them a
+tissue of unfading beauty and imperishable worth. A blessing on the brave
+and gentle spirit of the elect poet of our time, Alfred Tennyson, for
+speaking in his exquisite verse a truth that might too much task our
+prosaic analysis:--
+
+    "For woman is not undeveloped man,
+  But diverse; could we make her as the man,
+  Sweet love were slain, whose dearest bond is this
+  Not like to thee, but like in difference;
+  Yet in the long years liker must they grow;
+  The man be more of woman, she of man;
+  He gain in sweetness and in moral height,
+  Nor lose the wrestling thews that throw the world;
+  She mental breath, nor fail in childward care:
+  More as the double-natured Poet each:
+  Till at the last she set herself to man,
+  Like perfect music unto noble words;
+  And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time,
+  Sit side by side, full-summed in all their powers,
+  Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be,
+  Self-reverent each and reverencing each,
+  Distinct in individualities,
+  But like each other even as those who love.
+  Then comes the statelier Eden back to men:
+  Then reign the world's great bridals, chaste and calm:
+  Then springs the crowning race of humankind."
+
+"It is the worst clandestine marriage," said old Thomas Fuller, "when God
+is not invited to it, wherefore, beforehand beg his gracious assistance."
+Equally bad, we add, is the marriage, where His presence is not retained,
+and they who at first sought His blessing do not hold to it ever to keep
+them true and thoughtful, to lift them into a union to which the Beloved
+Son was not ashamed to compare His own communion with souls. Perfection on
+earth we may not ask, nor call a hasty word or impatient thought
+unpardonable. They who love much must expect to forgive something and
+forbear sometimes. But this may be expected and is demanded, that they who
+take each other's welfare in charge should never do any intentional
+unkindness, or fail of aught that may be done for the other's welfare.
+This may be expected and is demanded, that when the tie that binds them is
+severed by the only power that can fitly part them, and they are to part
+at death--they should look back with mutual blessing to the hour of their
+first union, be assured that through all vicissitudes and infirmities,
+they have tried to make each other better and happier, and that they have
+learned of Him whose name at their Cana made their wedding sacred, to
+trust in the realm where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but
+are as the angels of God.
+
+Shrink not from applying the truth now before us to ourselves. Parents,
+apply it, and in training your sons and daughters use good sense upon a
+subject so often left to utter folly. They talk and think about it enough
+in a certain way, and with such poor aids as trashy novels and paltry
+gossip. Let them think and talk about it wisely, and let them not, if you
+can help it, learn wisdom at the cost of wretchedness. Respect Heaven's
+own laws, and do not allow the world's fashions and tyrannies to get the
+better of reason and conscience in controlling the most important of
+destinies. Husbands and wives, apply the troth--allow no routine to chill
+affection--no monotony to break down thoughtfulness. If the envious years
+should not allow you to celebrate your golden or even your silver wedding,
+live while you may in the wisdom which is the word of love, and the worth
+of it is beyond silver or gold or rubies.
+
+
+
+
+Our Friends.
+
+
+
+
+OUR FRIENDS.
+
+
+Every important word in human language is of itself a chapter of history,
+and if we could read it rightly would tell us the mind of all the ages
+that have shaped its form, and all the individuals who have given its
+meaning. Starting from the beginning, every such word passes from century
+to century, nation to nation, and makes of itself a medium as universal as
+the air which forms its tones. We cannot open our mouths, in any kind or
+honest way, without declaring the creed of humanity, that began with man's
+creation, and has been enlarged or exalted by every sage and benefactor of
+our race. What word that is applied to men expresses this creed more than
+that of "friend?" From the very first, men have called each other friends,
+and our Saviour did not create, but developed the sense of the term, when
+he called his disciples friends. In the language in which Jesus was
+educated, the word flowed in the melody of David so true to friendship and
+to faith, and in the sentences of Solomon, never forgetful in his keenest
+prudence of the worth of friends. In the language which the evangelists
+borrowed from Greece, the word had won to itself many a classic charm, and
+in passing from the conversations of Socrates to the gospel of Christ, it
+deepened its meaning without damping its joy. St. John took from his
+Master's lips more than Plato took from the mouth of Socrates, when that
+evangelist penned the words, "I have called you friends." This holy
+sanction has not been forgotten, nor has Christ's spirit left the word.
+Every age fills it anew with meaning, as the golden chalice from age to
+age is filled anew at the altar. Daily life and high art and letters show
+its power. It is breathed in many a song and hymn of home affections and
+fireside companionship. To what pathos it subdues the majestic muse of
+Milton in his lament for Lycidas--to what solemnity it lifts the wayward
+heart of Shelley in his elegy on Adonais--and when since the Hebrew harp
+that thrilled such sorrow at the death of David's friend, has there been a
+holier and lovelier tribute to friendship than in the offering which in
+our utilitarian age the genius of Tennyson has laid on the tomb of Arthur
+Hallam? These are great instances indeed, but they speak what all may
+feel. Nay, what is the secret of the power of the poet or sage, except
+that he can best say what comes home to us all?
+
+Friends,--We have and must have some whom we call such. Happy are we if
+they can be truly so called. It is not for us to choose, whether we shall
+have friends at all or in any sense, but it is ours to choose, whether we
+shall have them in the right sense. All people, however depraved, will
+have some associates whose company they to some extent enjoy, and he who
+cares for nobody and for whom nobody cares, may be set aside from the
+human family as essentially monstrous. Of monsters we are not treating,
+but of men, and with our common nature in view, I speak now of the duties
+of friends.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+This relation is founded in the will of God and the being of man. God has
+made us dependent upon each other for protection and comfort. The
+dependence is not limited by family ties alone, but extends to a large
+circle, in some measure indeed to all with whom we deal or speak. Nor is
+it confined to material interests. Friendship is as much a moral fact
+under Providence as light or gravitation is a physical fact. We like to
+see and talk with people for the pleasure of their society, and are
+unhappy when long away from those we know best. God has made this to be so
+in the structure of our nature, and His work as Creator has been
+constantly carried out by His providential care for society and all its
+affinities.
+
+Our need of friends shows His designing will, and His designing will is
+all the clearer as this need is well supplied. In fact, we cannot be truly
+ourselves without society. Our thoughts and feelings cannot fully come out
+apart from congenial companionship. It cheers us, it quickens our powers,
+stirs our purposes, and the very best things that have been done in the
+world prove its worth. Christ himself needed it, rejoiced in it,
+consecrated it. As His disciples went forth two and two to found the
+heavenly kingdom, the social element kept company with the religious in
+their own hearts, and in their creed. The divine charity which the gospel
+inspired, cherished personal friendships as well as general humanity. The
+grim hermit, in an age whose faith gloried in sacrificing companionship to
+piety, was glad to know that other persons like himself were in the same
+wilderness, and would have been frantic at the very idea of being the only
+person living in the world. His lonely cell was many a time lighted up by
+images of friends still loved.
+
+A freer age has brought out anew the friendship of the gospel, and little
+as enlightened people nowadays may be inclined to put on the dress and
+phrases of the Quaker, there has probably never been a time when so many
+accepted the essential ideas which led George Fox, William Penn and their
+associates to reject the old names and forms, and call the Christian
+Church simply a society of friends. There is a kindly feeling over the
+world now, and much of the best hope of humanity rests upon the fact, that
+so many judicious and influential people of every land know each other
+pleasantly and wish each other well. So friendship even in this sinful
+world is showing God's will for us, bringing out our own faculties and
+fulfilling the divine plans for mankind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The sentiment, that animates the relation, needs little definition or
+analysis. In some sense, all understand it, although its best sense a
+true life only can teach. They are friends, who are attached to each
+other, with any kind of liking or loving. The attachment may begin in
+interest, as with parties in business or in pleasure, as with the votaries
+of some art or science, and as the interest or the pleasure is low or
+elevated, the attachment will shape its character. But however it begins,
+it never continues well and becomes genuine, unless the parties stand upon
+the same platform of principle, agree in what is highest and best, and in
+some way come within the scope of the Master's sense of a true friend,
+when he said, "I have not called you servants--I have called you friends."
+
+Undoubtedly they are the best friends who differ much in incidental traits
+and agree in the essentials of character. Their likeness and their
+unlikeness brings them together. Their likeness makes them congenial, and
+their unlikeness makes them instructive and interesting to each other.
+Herein they follow the law of elective affinities, that runs through
+nature, and which makes a certain contrast essential to true harmony.
+Elective, yet not exclusive or entire, as the relation is, friends choose
+each other freely without ties of kindred blood, and however cordial the
+choice may be, it does not imply exclusive regard or entire union of
+interests. Affection, as well as esteem, enters into the sentiment, but in
+comparison with relations of blood and marriage, the element of esteem is
+generally larger in its composition than that of affection. It is esteem
+growing into affection rather than affection growing into esteem.
+
+Come now to the practical point of view, and consider the duties of
+friends for ourselves. We have and desire to have friends, those who are
+such in general and those who are such particularly. What are we to do to
+keep or make them?
+
+First of all we are to be sincere. Herein we must stand directly at issue
+with the fashionable world, that looks upon all sociability as an affair
+of manner, and manner as but one branch of costume--the mere dress of the
+tongue and eyes and looks. Let manner be respected, as it should be, yet
+what is it in its best estate but the simple and thoughtful expression of
+a gentle heart and a noble mind? It cannot be put on like a cloak, but
+must grow out as foliage and bloom from the life. It is so generally with
+manners in promiscuous society, but especially so between friends. They
+must be sincere alike for the sake of giving and of gaining the true goods
+of friendship. The heart itself thus acts happily, delighting in the free
+utterance of its convictions away from the world's folly and harshness. It
+craves a congenial sphere to breathe freely and fully. Sincere alike in
+his playful talk and serious conservation, a man finds his nature
+expanding as his life opens under genial influences refreshing as sunshine
+and dew. Sincerity indeed needs a grain of caution, and a thoughtful
+person will not tell his whole mind always. But judicious reserve need not
+be won at the cost of truth or by the sin of hypocrisy. Taught discretion
+by some experience of the ridicule or the deceit in store for garrulous
+frankness, a true friend will be sincere always, yet need not feel
+himself called upon to open his whole heart to those unable or unwilling
+to give his confidence hospitality. His spirit will not be without answer.
+Truth will sit upon his lips and win truth for him. The true will find the
+true.
+
+But not only are we to be sincere for the vast comfort and gain of free,
+genial companionship, but for its direct service to others. If we wish to
+know ourselves, we should be willing to help others know themselves by
+telling them the truth. Says Lord Bacon, "there is no such flatterer as a
+man's self, and there is no such remedy against flattery of a man's self
+as the liberty of a friend." It is easy enough to get more or less than
+the truth regarding our failings, and friends often fret and spoil each
+other by a mutual retail of compliments and scandals which they make a
+business of collecting to be used in congratulation or condolement. What
+is better in view of such tale-bearing than a sincere counsellor, who at
+due times will tell the simple and entire truth, and above flattery and
+calumny will give honest advice upon faults of character and errors of
+conduct,--mingling kindness with caution, and never so encouraging as when
+thoroughly frank? This is a nice point, and one full of difficulties, yet
+the point is a main one, and a brave, generous heart need not fear the
+difficulties. No man is a true friend, who is not ready to be a faithful
+adviser, willing to wound self-love in its tenderest part, and give
+passing pain for the sake of lasting blessing. Not often and never with
+any assumption must he do this, but humbly as before the searcher of
+hearts, and in view of the benign and majestic being who washed his
+disciples' feet before telling them of their defects, and opening to them
+the fulness of his wisdom and love.
+
+Again, friends should be earnest as well as sincere--earnest not merely in
+feeling or temperament, but in the aims of life. What are we good for to
+others, unless we have heart ourselves for what is worthy, and are trying
+to be and do something for whatsoever is true, honest, pure and lovely,
+and of good report? A man is worth little or nothing to others unless he
+is earnest for worth in itself. What more frequent cause is there of the
+too frequent flatness of what passes for society, than the want of
+earnestness in its members, the prevalence of a monotonous mediocrity of
+thought and manner, which makes people uninteresting because they are not
+interested in much of any thing sensible or elevating? How much power
+there is in the true companionship to which each brings the zest of his
+own pursuit, the enthusiasm of his own favorite aim, and all are made
+wiser and happier by the thought and spirit of each. Part of the influence
+of such friendship is seen at once in cheerful looks and renewed courage.
+The better part is not seen, for wherever persons really in earnest meet
+together, no matter what their calling or topic may be, there is a power
+among them, that brings their heart into closer relation with the eternal
+heart, and whether conscious of it or not, men go away confirmed in
+faith--deepened, whatever their creed, in the sense that God is, and his
+spirit is abroad among his people.
+
+The nobler their pursuit or their habitual aims, the greater power do
+friends give and take by their earnestness--the better the spirit which
+they bring to their personal intercourse. They are more interesting as
+individuals, as they are mutually interested in matters above themselves,
+and instructive and attractive to each other. Every honorable interest
+unites those who cherish it, and beautifully has Jeremy Taylor said, "He
+that does a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thread
+that ties their hearts together." Of every honorable interest the quaint
+old poet's saying upon honor itself holds good:--
+
+  I could not love thee, dear, so much,
+  Loved I not honor more.
+
+What earnestness for every generous aim filled the heart of him who sat at
+the table of communion, inflamed the earthly minds around with heavenly
+faith and fervor, as he bade them be one with him in God, after he had
+said, "I have called you friends." Blessing repeated in some measure where
+any sincere and earnest people interchange thoughts and feelings! Blessing
+written on all true companionship since Jesus lived and died!
+
+Need we add kindness to sincerity and earnestness as essentials of
+friendship, for is it not implied? Implied, certainly, although there is a
+certain kind of earnest sincerity, that lacks the tenderness which this
+word expresses. It expresses none other than the crowning grace of charity
+in its familiar application. Kindness, genuine and between persons of
+congenial minds, watchful to yield its balms and dews, when fortune is
+sharp or the world is a weariness, instant ever with a sympathy unaffected
+and unobtrusive in trouble and in joy--living commentary upon the sacred
+sentence:--
+
+  "A faithful friend is the medicine of life,
+  And they that fear the Lord shall find him."
+
+Then griefs by being communicated are less and joys greater. "Indeed,"
+says South, "sorrow like a stream loses itself in many channels, and joy,
+like a ray of the sun, reflects with a greater ardor and quickness when it
+rebounds upon a man from the breast of a friend."
+
+In such kindness there will be an element of magnanimity which will check
+the selfish calculation that measures regard by gold, and exchanges
+relations of affinity for bonds of profit and loss. We will not say there
+is no friendship in trade, but that it is incongruous to make trade of
+friendship. The more the relation is one of reciprocal sentiment, and the
+less it is unbalanced by patronage or dependence, the more it moves in its
+own element and yields its own reward.
+
+The more likely too it is to be lasting, and crown sincerity, earnestness,
+and kindness, with constancy. Too many things there are to break the unity
+of our lives, and scatter into fragments our book of experience. Yet some
+ties we need, and may have, that run their silken thread through its
+various chapters, and make a volume of the leaves else fragmentary as the
+Sibyl's. True friends are such ties, and whether of our kindred or not,
+they can be won by friendliness and kept only by constancy. Some deemed
+such may fall off and become indifferent, perhaps false, but who that has
+any heart cannot feel happy in some form of constant kindness, and say
+with the Scripture and from experience:
+
+  "A friend loveth at all times,
+  And a brother is born for adversity."
+
+Happiness indeed, when as we go through life and take its ups and downs,
+and look upon its ever-enlarging horizon, we can meet betimes and often
+some one or more whom we have known from youth, and whose very faces and
+voices express our best remembrances and hopes. As rising above dull
+etiquette, we call them by their familiar names, and say William, or
+Henry, or Mary, or Ellen, grim time seems to drop his inexorable scythe,
+and the roses that appeared withered in our path bloom out as amaranths of
+immortality. Power, as well as pleasure, comes from the interview,
+especially if, under the incentive, noble friendship gives its
+fascinations to wisdom, and thus stirred we review our lives closely,
+scrutinize our ways seriously, and our whole experience rises up under a
+new charm to warn us of evil and urge us to good, ready to say
+religiously:
+
+  "Change not a friend for any good, by no means,
+  Neither a faithful brother for the gold of Ophir."
+
+Do we think enough of this whole subject of companionship--enough of it
+for ourselves and our children? In some way, perhaps, we may think enough
+of being in society, and we may have a sharp eye on our list of
+acquaintance, be eager enough for the silly race of ostentatious eating,
+drinking, and dressing, that is the life of our semi-barbarous fashion, or
+for the frivolous social circles, where friendship is part of the play,
+and they who flatter each other to the face, laugh at each other as soon
+as the back is turned; and in perhaps honeyed words character is depicted
+as sharply as if cannibals had but changed their policy, and brought their
+teeth to bear in a different way, not upon the flesh but upon the life.
+Perhaps we have a better ambition, and desire for ourselves and our
+children the society of the refined, and wise, and good. This is well, but
+one point must not be overlooked. There is no getting into really good
+society but by growing into it. We may win entrance to the houses and
+tables of distinguished people perhaps, but our real friendship with
+persons of sterling character must depend on our character and culture.
+Ask honestly--what are we, what have we made and are making of ourselves
+and our children? And our worth will be the precise measure of the
+friendship we deserve and are likely to have. Here is motive for the best
+culture of the mind and heart. A man's own essential character--what he
+thinks, knows, is, and can do,--it is this that opens to him true
+companionship, and by a law as universal as that of specific gravity, he
+rises or falls to his own level. Is it not worth a life's effort to be
+worthy to win and enjoy the intimate companionship of choice minds?
+
+Do we think of this in the training of our children? Do we try to educate
+their social affections morally and intellectually--strive to make our
+houses attractive to sensible people, to give our sons distaste for
+profligates, and our daughters disgust for fops and fools? Are we laying
+the foundations of sincere and elevating relations that shall put the due
+check upon the evil communications that so corrupt good manners? If not,
+think seriously of the neglect, and do better, as you fear God and love
+the best in the life he has given us.
+
+Cheerfully, gratefully, leave the subject as we consider what He has done
+for us, and ask His blessing on all whom we hold dear. God bless our
+friends! Bless them all in their widest and their inmost circle; bless all
+the kindly people with whom we have interchanged pleasant words, and who
+more than the landscape have reflected in any way his light and love;
+bless all who from age or wisdom have taught us truth and reverence,
+instructors, guardians, counsellors, pastors, on earth or gone from the
+earth; bless those nearer sharers of our lot, sincere, earnest, tender,
+constant companions, whose names are familiar at our table and sacred in
+our prayers; bless Him, whose gospel crowns all good will with its divine
+love, and calling all friends who lived in God's love, leaves to all the
+benediction of His parting prayer: "Holy Father! keep through thine own
+name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are."
+
+
+
+
+Master and Servant.
+
+
+
+
+MASTER AND SERVANT.
+
+
+We are careful how we treat our equals--very careful how we treat our
+superiors. Do we think seriously enough of our treatment of inferiors? We
+ought to think of this, for their sake and our own--for their sake,
+because they are so much under our own influence; for our own sake,
+because we deserve just such treatment from those above us as we give to
+those beneath us? Do any try to escape the latter inference by denying the
+premises and saying that they are their own masters and ask no favors from
+any one? This will not do, nor will any petulant rhetoric change the
+solemn facts of the Divine government. We all have superiors as well as
+inferiors; in some points we are all masters, in some points all servants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is the law of God certainly, that there should be inequalities of
+gifts, and from these diverse gifts, whether of talent or opportunity or
+both, come varieties of place and influence. There is no such thing as
+perfect equality in the universe, except in the mathematician's calculus,
+or the metaphysician's theory. Neither God nor man has ever made two
+things exactly alike, and the diversity that appears between two blades of
+grass from the same stalk, or two needles from the same mechanism, is of
+course greater as we rise in the scale to creatures, so various and
+complex in faculties and discipline as mankind. Think not, however, that
+this inequality favors pride on the one hand, and sycophancy on the other.
+The Creator has more wisely adjusted the checks and balances of his
+government. In some respects, he has made every man dependent upon his
+fellows. The greatest sage needs to learn something from the peasant, and
+to receive much from his toil. The king must serve the country which he
+professes to rule, and the best wisdom of his counsellors must serve the
+throne. The merest glance at society round us shows an endless gradation
+of varied service. The ablest lawyer is quite as much bound to devote his
+talents to his client's cause, as his client is bound to requite his
+labor. The merchant prince, creditor to many, has creditors also of his
+own. He that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's
+freeman; likewise also, he that is called, being free, is Christ's
+servant. In some sense, then, every man is a servant, and in some sense,
+too, every servant is a master, or in something commands.
+
+Is not this arrangement well? The fact that it is so essential to the
+Divine government would prove this; but can we not see its good fruits?
+The difference of relation calls out the various faculties of our being,
+and life, like nature itself, teaches us to use our eyes and minds by
+looking and striving above, below, and around. If we would bring out the
+skill and strength of the hand, we must lift up, as well as hold on, and
+so, by dealing with things high and low its muscles are pliant and strong.
+It is the same with all our powers, and there is no man, who is thoroughly
+educated or brought out, who does not obey as well as command. The motto
+of the Black Prince, "Ich Dien," "I serve," is written on every true man's
+standard, and no man is fit to rule who has not learned to obey.
+
+Society in all ages, and especially in our own, has been testing this
+truth, and nothing is more obvious now than the general striving after a
+truer adjustment of mutual service. It haunts us at every turn. In the
+topic of work and wages, it is the problem of the political economist,--in
+the relation of people and ruler, it agitates every government on
+earth,--in the question of master and servant, it comes home to every
+family. Our position towards it now is a very simple and practical one.
+Carrying out our plan of treating home duties, we come now to the
+treatment of inferiors, especially those of our own household, or the
+relation of masters and servants.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We start with a clear principle, that defines at once the sentiment that
+belongs to this relation. Both parties have the same essential nature, and
+we use the term inferiors simply as denoting the fact of service, and the
+attendants of that fact. The servant may be, and often is, a better man
+than his master--sometimes a wiser one. Yet his position, in a very
+obvious sense, is inferior, and whilst having privileges of his own, he
+is subject in his sphere of service to his master's orders. This
+subjection implies no surrender of moral dignity. The service should be
+given as from man to man, and so received; and the difference of position
+affects the office, and not the moral worth of the parties. Even the bond
+servant, according to St. Paul, is not to be deprived of his moral
+dignity, but is to be treated as under God a serving brother. As much as
+this is asserted now by the moralists of slavery, such as Dr. Thornwell
+and his school, who maintain that purchase does not make the buyer owner
+of the slave, but merely of his labor. Surely less than this position,
+which is so speciously assumed to justify bond-service, should not be
+allowed to the servant who is freely such. Let the service be what it may,
+and implying whatever lowliness of gifts, so long as it can be honestly
+rendered, it implies no degradation; and a good servant is morally to be
+respected as much as his master. Premising this, and remembering that
+whatever is said of one kind of service has a bearing upon all kinds, we
+are ready to look practically upon the duties of the relation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is most profitable for us, in addressing a community who employ so many
+people in their homes and business, to treat the subject chiefly as it
+bears upon masters or employers, although in doing this the duty of
+servants must needs be implied. This is implied, certainly, in the
+position which we lay down at starting, when we say, that it is the
+master's duty first of all, to have in himself the fidelity which he
+requires from his servant. Here both parties meet, and are called to be
+trusty. The best examples and the plainest reasonings establish this
+ground. Does a great commander, like Washington, send an officer or
+soldier upon some difficult expedition, he asks of his inferior to be true
+to the principle which he accepts, and his whole tone and manner says, "I
+serve the country in my way, and so do you under my orders and in your
+way." Our Saviour himself cherished the very allegiance which he required
+of his followers; nay, he grounded its obligation upon the very nature of
+the Divine mind, when he bade them work, while it is day, and said, "My
+Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Whenever a master or employer takes
+lower ground than that of mutual trust, he puts himself below his servant.
+If he professes only to follow his own caprices, and yet asks his servant
+to be faithful, he exacts fidelity, whilst he cherishes caprice, and so in
+the moral scale takes a place below his inferior.
+
+He thus fails of setting the true example of trustiness to his servant,
+and of having, by due fellow feeling, proper consideration for him. He is
+like the harsh creditor in the parable, who, having first been a reckless
+defaulter to the king, after having begged forgiveness for the enormous
+debt of fifteen millions, turned at once upon his poor fellow-servant,
+took him by the throat, and had him cast into prison for the paltry sum of
+about fourteen dollars. He was a treacherous man, and so could neither
+reasonably demand fidelity, nor have fellow feeling for honest misfortune.
+His lot is due to every man who repudiates his solemn responsibility to
+God and his neighbor, yet insists upon utter deference from those beneath
+him in a capricious tyranny, which is far beneath faithful service. Every
+household should learn the lesson, and wherever its most favored members
+do not feel the solemn obligations of life, and live for objects beyond
+their own caprices, they are rebuked by their very exactions, and should
+be shamed by the very fidelity they ask. A true family will set this
+matter right by teaching practically, that no wealth, nor station, nor
+elegance, nullifies responsibility, and its daily method will prove that
+the doctrine of stewardship is accepted in parlor and chamber before it is
+preached to the basement and attic. In fact, no true man will be content
+with being less useful than his servants, and certainly many an affluent
+and high-minded master meets an amount of responsibility, and does an
+amount of labor, chiefly mental, perhaps, compared with which the round of
+domestic service is light. He is in his way trusty, and may well ask his
+inferiors to be so. It is this spirit only that will effectually procure
+the service we need, and provide domestics who will be friends instead of
+mere hirelings; helpers in the care of our children, instead of debasers
+of their speech and manners; specimens of the good servant, who, says an
+old author, "is one that out of a good conscience serves God in his
+master, and so hath the principle of obedience in himself."
+
+Stating thus a duty common to both parties, we pass on to a second point,
+pressing more directly upon one of them, however, and carrying out the
+idea already presented. The apostle's words urge it best when he says:
+"Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing
+that ye also have a Master in heaven." It is probably needless to urge
+this point here in its external sense, and insist upon giving fair wages
+and punctual payment. It may be important for some persons, however, who
+are so absorbed in their own comfort as to be almost unaware that poor
+people can suffer from a cause to themselves so trifling, to be reminded
+that, in dealing with the poor, small sums affect great interests, and
+that great wrong is done by overlooking the value of a few days of time or
+wages to people in their employ. A dollar withheld for a week from a needy
+seamstress, may be a greater harm than the non-payment of thousands to
+creditors rolling in wealth.
+
+But there is a higher sense of just and equal due. Character is a great
+thing, and quite as much to servant as to master. Character in service
+should be sacredly respected, and it is shamefully wronged when men pass
+sweeping judgment upon a whole class because they have been duped by a
+portion, or, when in a feeble good nature, they are as tolerant of
+falsehood as truth, of fraud as honesty. There is, indeed, sad want of
+veracity and fidelity in the class most frequent in our domestic
+service--the class by religion and associations almost a distinct caste in
+our nation. There is also among them much kindness and industry--sometimes
+wonderful self-sacrifice, and, with all their failings, their place could
+not well be supplied. The greater their ignorance and obtuseness, the
+more need of training them to a sense of right by setting a bounty upon
+good character. It is a foul wrong to commend the thievish or lazy, in
+order to be rid of them, or withhold due name to the faithful, in the hope
+of retaining their services. Certainly the ages in which loyalty was the
+crowning virtue have abounded in examples of devoted service, and our own
+anomalous and unsettled times are not without countless instances of like
+temper. Now, as of old, the apostle's word is remembered by many:
+"Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as unto the Lord, and not unto men;
+knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance.
+But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done,
+and there is no respect of persons."
+
+Just to servants in appreciating their character, we are to yield them due
+privileges favorable to character. We shall not, then, voluntarily hurt
+them by their ready disposition to copy their masters' failings. We shall
+not then, by our white lies, give them the material which so readily turns
+black by a little wear. We shall not deal in inuendos and irreverence,
+that so easily become ribaldry and blasphemy in passing to less dainty
+lips, nor yield to an excess at our tables, which teaches drunkenness to
+coarser palates. We shall be unwilling to disturb for our dependents the
+quiet which we ask for ourselves on the Lord's Day; and therefore shall
+dispense with needless feasting or riding on that day, shunning the too
+frequent error of increasing our hospitality in entertaining guests by the
+sacrifice of the religious privileges of our servants, and of estimating
+the social respectability of a church by the number of rational souls who
+wait at its door in companionship with horses, while lords and ladies sit
+or kneel on downy cushions at the altar to speak of communion with Him who
+is no respecter of persons, and of the utter damnation of all the
+unbelieving and ungodly. The good master, says Thomas Fuller, remembers
+the old law of the Saxon king Ina: "If a villain work on Sunday by his
+lord's command, he shall be free."
+
+Nor should this regard for the character of servants end in mere
+negations. They should have the positive influence of a Christian temper
+in the family, and, when arbitrary creeds do not prevent it, they should
+have liberty to be present at such family devotions as may be held for the
+edifying of the household. So do we interpret justice in this relation in
+its bearing on fortune and character. Some might think our view very
+defective, from leaving out the element of entire social equality. If by
+this be meant a recognition of the moral worth of faithful servants, we
+make the recognition, and deem them the equals of all whom they equal in
+character. But, if social familiarity be the test of equality, it is
+answer enough that this is a matter of congeniality or elective affinity,
+and nothing could be more arbitrary and unjust than to force persons into
+a familiarity for which their education, tastes, and labors disqualify
+them. Such a course would comport as little with justice as with mercy.
+
+Mercy,--rest upon that word. We have said that both parties should be
+trusty, and have urged justice upon the master especially. We now add,
+that he should merciful.
+
+We are all frail and erring, and need great forbearance for ourselves. Why
+be unwilling to bestow it on the less favored? We all make some mistakes,
+and how can we expect the less intelligent to be freer from error? Why be
+irritated if every thing is not done precisely to our liking? They that
+forbear threatening may win better service by that fact, for nothing so
+provokes carelessness and disheartens effort, as the impatience that
+regards a mistake as a crime, and brands an oversight as an insult.
+
+We ourselves are variable in health, spirits and energy, and must make
+allowance for the like variation in persons probably less disciplined than
+ourselves. We may show due consideration without fickleness, and kindness
+without familiarity. Cruel, indeed, is the wrong that confounds the
+fidelity that is struggling to do well in spite of temporary illness, with
+the idleness that wantonly neglects any well-known duty. Some misgivings
+very kind people may reasonably have in regard to servants in feeble
+health; and the Christian charity of a community will continue very
+deficient until they, who render faithful service, are cared for better in
+private houses or proper institutions in seasons of sickness.
+
+Upon this subject we are apt to speak too arrogantly when we contrast our
+domestic manners with those of persons burdened with bond servants, and to
+call him as of necessity a tyrant who may be more than ourselves a
+protector. In our just condemnation of slavery, remember that much
+kindness lightens its bonds; and, remembering too, the millions of dollars
+in legal property which masters have relinquished, when we preach, as we
+may justly do, stern self-sacrifice to others, learn well that the duty of
+caring for inferiors has applications quite as solemn under a Northern as
+under a Southern sky.
+
+It is common, I know, to talk of the ingratitude of inferiors and the
+thanklessness of mercy. Alas! there is enough in our own hearts to justify
+misgivings, and when we think how ingrate we are, we may look more with
+pity than bitterness upon the indifference with which so many receive
+favors, sometimes making their very constancy the plea of insolent demand.
+Nevertheless, mercy will not be without reward, and, in due season, will
+penetrate with its own spirit minds sadly blunted by harsh usage. Hand in
+hand with judgment and rectitude, it will win here below the promised
+blessing, and obtain its own beatitude for its giver.
+
+Mercy,--what is it but humanity--love in its downward look, the look with
+which Jesus went about among men? Looking thus downward, the soul sees a
+verdure, and rejoices in a genial light and warmth not found in any proud
+star-gazing: for the best blessing of heaven is reflected upon its lowly
+gaze. Mercy,--he who comes short of it, comes short of his neighbor and
+his God. It is the ground of all devotion. The home where it dwells not,
+dwells without God in the world. More than can be expressed in any act, we
+need it; even an abiding sentiment, broad as our race, deep as our need.
+Looking upon a criminal, a blunt preacher said; "There goes John Newton,
+but by the grace of God." Says an old divine: "Well may masters consider
+how easy a transposition it had been for God to have made him to mount
+into the saddle that holds the stirrup, and him to sit down at the table
+who stands by with the trencher." Looking upon our inferior any where, let
+us have something at heart which says: "Friend, brother, true I am better
+off in this world's goods than you, but whether fortune or desert has made
+the difference, that fact does not decide, and, whether deserved or
+undeserved, my superiority teaches humility, not pride--responsibility,
+not arrogance."
+
+Review now the course of meditation upon the more direct home duties. We
+treated of ties of nature in speaking of parents, children, brothers and
+sisters; of ties elective in speaking of husbands and wives, friends; and
+now we add the last class of elective ties, by passing from relations of
+equality to that of master and servant. We have cherished through these
+pages a degree of home feeling together, and in some points our various
+experiences must have accorded. Such subjects cannot be treated with any
+sort of fidelity, without touching some deep convictions and sacred
+remembrances. They have solemnity and also cheerfulness, telling of vast
+privileges to impress momentous duties.
+
+Thus onward do we go,--not alone, but with companions, superiors, equals,
+inferiors--all giving and taking influence; if we will have it so, God
+with us through all and in all. If superiors inflame ambition, let them
+teach respect; if equals make our enjoyment, let them move our good will;
+if inferiors tempt our pride, let them kindle our benevolence. We cannot
+cherish this spirit in vain. A kindly heart will win from the lowly many a
+blessing, and develope many a power. Among the thoughts that give peace to
+a man's dying pillow, none will be sweeter than the remembrance or image
+of those whose lowly condition he has bettered, and asked no reward of the
+world. Since Christ has lived, rich indeed has been the heavenly treasure
+laid up by such compassion towards those who bear the world's heavy
+burdens and have few of its smiles. Forgetting them, we forget our
+Saviour, who made their cause so his own, and we repudiate our share of
+His blessing upon the faithful servant!
+
+
+
+
+The Divine Guest.
+
+
+
+
+THE DIVINE GUEST.
+
+
+The long rainy season was over, the roads once more were settled, and the
+happiest festival of all the year joined with the charms of Spring to draw
+the Hebrew people toward their sacred city. Nowhere in the whole land was
+there more to cheer the eye than in the beautiful town through which the
+festal caravans from the north were now passing on their way to the
+Passover. Jericho was called "the City of Palms," from the profusion of
+those stately trees in its fertile valley. These now added spring blossoms
+to their evergreen foliage; the sycamore was beginning to give cheering
+promise of its figs, and the balsam-tree, whose gum was worth twice its
+weight in silver, was showing its scanty and precious bloom in the walled
+gardens, whose wealth Mark Anthony gave to Cleopatra as a fit gift from a
+conqueror to a queen. The people were astir with the excitement of the
+season, as the travellers began to pour into the city. Soon word went
+round that the noted prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, was approaching, with a
+large company about him. The wonder grew, as the report of a great miracle
+upon the blind Bartimeus went from mouth to mouth. The fever reached into
+quarters not abounding in Jewish enthusiasm, and quickened the calmer
+blood of the revenue officers of the Roman government. The chief of them
+went out to get a glimpse of the famous preacher, whom so many hailed as
+the long-expected Messiah. The rich publican, being a man of small
+stature, and, from his political relations, not likely to receive much
+civility from the crowd at such a time, climbed up into a sycamore
+fig-tree, whose spreading branches probably overhung the street. If seen
+at all by the populace it was with little favor, for they hated alike his
+connection with Rome and his lax, or, perhaps, his enlarged views of the
+Jewish creed. To the surprise of all as much as himself, the publican is
+singled out by the Messiah from among them all in the words: "Zaccheus,
+make haste and come down; for to-day I must abide in thy house." The
+result of this interview is all that is said of Christ's stay in that
+place. The city, once an abode of kings, has passed away, and enough of
+its ruin only remains to allow tradition to point out in a crumbling tower
+and a solitary tree the publican's house and watch post. The story
+remains, the burden of the rude rhyme of the primer, a text for many a
+homily of old,--a topic for us now.
+
+And what does it teach so much as this: that Christianity, like Christ
+himself, ever strives to make the spectator feel that he is seen and is
+followed home? Religion at home is the lesson, religion as a check upon
+personal domestic feelings, and the life of domestic graces.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There is force in the point of view thus presented in the change of the
+critic into the subject of criticism. Christianity is apt to be regarded
+as a public ceremonial, a holiday spectacle, associated with fair weather
+and large assemblies. People respect its institutions, and desire the
+influence of them upon themselves and their families, are glad to be
+impressed by any peculiar eloquence, and instructed by any peculiar
+wisdom. But are they ready enough to take the attitude that becomes them
+in view of the appeals of religion? Do they listen to the Gospel as to the
+voice of God speaking to them personally; and beyond the church and
+ministry, do they recognize the Providential power that has founded these
+institutions, and which condescends to act through them? Is there not
+sometimes a reversal of the true point of view? Instead of reverence in
+the sanctuary, is there not superciliousness? Are there not many, who seem
+never to have thought of bowing their heads in devotion, who have learned
+to wag them with the airs of supercilious criticism? Are there not many
+who are pushed up far higher in conscious elevation, than the publican's
+sycamore tree; who need to hear the voice of the Master speaking from his
+Gospel and Church, "Come down, make haste, for to-day I must abide in thy
+house?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Thy house!"--still nearer the appeal is brought by this expression. "Thy
+house!" "I will go home with thee," says the Master always in his Word,
+and his search-warrant has never lost its power. There is something in
+every heart that shrinks from public gaze, and every family justly
+cherishes the privacy of the household. But God, if he sees us any where,
+sees us there, and we reverence Him, as we receive His Word as our
+household guest. There can be no serious faith or purpose until we come to
+this, and are ready to take religion home with us. It will very likely
+show things in a new, and sometimes startling light. We may, perhaps, pass
+a tolerably creditable examination, when tested by our manner in street,
+or church, or general society. Sometimes the deference of good breeding
+may wear the look of inherent kindness, and refinement of address may seem
+like spirituality of character. It was a severer trial for the publican,
+"To-day I must abide with thee," than the mere summons to "Make haste, and
+come down."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is a trial that we must all undergo the moment we begin to think
+seriously for ourselves; a trial, too, that cannot be shunned without
+losing the best blessings of life. Let the household be examined according
+to the standard, which we do honestly regard as reasonable and religious.
+What are the household gods? We have not, like the Romans, the custom of
+setting up images in our homes, and keeping a votive flame always burning
+before them. Yet the sentiment which the Roman custom expressed, we must
+in some way entertain. Every household has its idols, the emblems of its
+faith or infidelity. It has many associations peculiar to itself, and
+makes its own choice moreover among the associations that prevail in the
+neighborhood, or world, or age. It has its own Manes, or its especial
+remembrances of the departed;--it has its Lares, or favorite family
+standards;--it has its Penates, or its own selection from the idols or
+authorities of the people. These influences exist in the highest home and
+in the humblest--are to be traced in the old nobilities, whose caste,
+party, and creed, are fixed by the allegiance of a thousand years, and in
+the unpretending villager who thinks himself highly favored in ancient
+lore, as he reads in his family Bible the name and birth of his
+grandfather. Nor are the same influences wholly wanting to those who wish
+to repudiate their ancestry, the spendthrift upstarts of fortune, whose
+crest, manufactured to order, is but an attempt to hide the only honorable
+fact in the family history, that one ancestor was a plain, industrious
+man, with energy enough to earn by his trade the wealth that heirs
+squander in folly. Generally, it needs little antiquarian study to learn
+the ruling genius of the house. It is not only in the house of Atreus or
+Oedipus, or in the line of the Stuarts and the Bourbons, that family
+griefs have their succession, and a thread of tragedy runs through their
+whole history. Every family is troubled with its besetting sorrows and
+sins. No man is wise until he understands his own pedigree, and interprets
+himself, not simply as an isolated fact in the world, but as a branch of
+the life-tree upon which he grew. If reflection does not inform the
+family of its peculiar traits, experience will not fail to make the
+revelation. The idle chat of the house will often exhibit the ruling
+spirit, and the prattle of many a lisping child betrays the idols that he
+has been trained to honor. Some names of folly or wisdom most frequent on
+the lips alike of parents and children, will be the household words that
+show the spirit that predominates. These names, and all attendant
+influences, are to be judged by their bearing on the true aims of home.
+Ask a few plain questions as the Master asks in the appeals of his
+religion.
+
+Does content live with us, or its opposite, discontent? The question
+cannot be answered by any general considerations of fortune or position.
+Surely discontent is found in the most extreme cases, and wealth feels
+often very poor and limited because its desires rise with its means, and
+its means may be distanced far by some more successful aspirant to
+fortune. Discontent, ready guest of heart and home always, but never more
+frequent than among us with whom plenty so swells desire, and competition
+so quickens rivalry! With us, alas, too frequent guest, impoverishing
+abundance by inordinate desires, and burdening too many with cares and
+anxieties beyond reason and beyond strength! Often sad effect of our
+luxurious civilization, that in apparently the greater number of
+households, property brings new forms of want, and the demands of
+ostentation become more rapacious than the natural appetites! How many
+need now and always to lower their vain pride, and dignify their
+mediocrity or consecrate their affluence by hearing the Master's voice
+"Come down: to-day I must abide in thy house."
+
+In some especial form the spirit of discontent is apt to tempt every
+household, in view of some especial want, or vanity, or ambition. With it,
+too, come some elements of strife, or indifference, or worldliness, that
+need peculiar watching. Domestic life, indeed, is sacred from prying
+curiosity, and it argues generally little to one's credit, to be very
+accurately posted up in the accounts of home troubles. Without playing the
+part of the busybody, we may study the facts of human nature, and be aware
+of the developments of society. We may believe, that where several wills
+are brought together, they can harmonize only as they agree by appealing
+to a common standard; that no tempers, however pliant, can accord without
+mutual principle; that none in authority can govern others without first
+governing themselves; that a Christian spirit, earnest, kindly, devoted,
+is the only safeguard of the peace and elevation of the home.
+
+What to many seems the very genius of household comfort, an easy, pleasant
+worldliness, is a wretched dependence, and will serve one very little in
+bearing up against the trials of affliction, or the dangers of prosperity.
+Worldliness may furnish a house, but it needs more, far more, to make a
+home. Too often the very spirit that prides itself upon crowding the house
+with magnificence, robs it of every true home grace. Whatever may be the
+show of hospitality, there is no good cheer for an earnest heart, nothing
+that returns the Christian benediction, "Peace be with this house." Too
+often what is called by eminence, "society," has not one truly social
+element. We read that some years ago, when the button-makers of England
+were in distress, the Court relieved them at once by directing four extra
+buttons to be added to the coat tails of approved mode. A refined
+traveller from France, Germany, or even England, might suppose that most
+of our city society had originated in some such benevolent purpose, and
+our usual style of party giving had its origin in a movement for the
+relief of confectioners, dancing-masters, dressmakers, and liquor dealers,
+so monstrous is our outlay of money in their line, and so feeble our sense
+of artistic beauty and conversational zest. No less a guest than he who
+went with the Publican is needed to give the true grace, and as Christ has
+been reverently and affectionately received, homes have abounded. There
+was far more of favor than rebuke in the offer then made, and so it has
+always proved, whenever and however accepted.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What is it to take the Master home with us, but to receive the most tender
+and intimate revelation of God's love ever granted to men,--a searching
+judge, an honest censor indeed, but more than this, a compassionate
+friend, a heavenly comforter? Receive him thus, and the whole tone of life
+rises. Discontent, strife, worldliness, are rebuked. The dwelling then
+rests upon the Rock of Ages, the light of heaven comes mingled with the
+sunshine, and divine nurture goes with the daily bread and the vital air.
+A Supreme will being recognized, all refractory desires are checked and
+finally subdued into the subjection which is perfect freedom. All the
+while a reserve power is preparing for the emergencies that may arise.
+Then man proves his best dignity by adorning strength with gentleness. The
+woman rises to her true power by the magic touch of that confiding faith,
+which ever wins divine virtue from the Master's mantle, even as for the
+lowly suppliant at Capernaum.
+
+Limitation of means is borne with equanimity, and developes new energies
+instead of breaking down the spirits. Enlarged fortune widens the sphere
+of beneficence, and repeats the Publican's vow in some way: "Lord, the
+half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have taken any thing from
+any man by false accusation, I restore him fourfold." New jubilee of
+justice and generosity would it not be, if true guidance of the households
+of Christendom could train desires and purposes, such as sprung up in that
+man's heart whilst Jesus of Nazareth dwelt in his home. We know not all
+that transpired in the interview between this kindly host, and his Divine
+guest; but the conclusion leads us to believe that the conversation turned
+less upon the forms of ceremony and degrees of belief, than upon practical
+righteousness, such as appeared impressed so mightily upon the heart of
+Zaccheus in making his declaration of the worth of justice and mercy. How
+many households would at once stop their folly and extravagance, and open
+their eyes to the solemn realities of life, if the Divine guest were to be
+sought in such a spirit.
+
+As to the precise form in which Christianity should be acknowledged in the
+family, we do not propose to lay down any minute, much less any arbitrary
+rules. The great thing is to cherish a sense of God's presence, and
+providence, and rule the spirit in the piety and charity which he
+approves. The stated recognition of his authority we urge ever, and the
+desirableness of regular use of the scriptures, and prayer daily in the
+home. If there be fear of routine and indifference, let a true purpose
+overcome that, and prove that the most thorough habit comports with, nay
+favors, the highest freedom, and the soul, like the body, is not shackled
+by an accustomed method of nurture. Of course, no round of ceremonials can
+be any substitute for living religion; and there is proof enough, that the
+most rigid routine of lip service may co-exist with the utmost asperity
+and worldliness. Tokens, alas, there are sometimes, that what passes for
+piety may bring no Christian graces to the dwelling; and some bigot, who
+mistakes hatred of the world for godliness, or some flaunting modist, who
+has adopted a church as a fashion, may bring churlishness or conceit in
+sheep's clothing into the house. These, and all such shams, make true
+religion more beautiful, and lend new attraction to the page which records
+the visit of Christ to a dwelling which the scowling Pharisee scorned, but
+which the love of God so richly blessed.
+
+Then let the Master be welcome to the household. We cannot do without him.
+We need him to keep us in God and with one another. Let the atmosphere of
+the home have the fragrance of his heavenly spirit. It was one of the
+trials of the early Christians, that they could not live in pagan
+households without being constantly pained by symbols and usages hostile
+to their faith. The Greek or Roman wife, if converted to the Gospel, was
+scandalized by the idols on the hearth-stone, and often brought to death
+for refusing to join in the idolatry; whilst in the camp and court,
+paganism was constantly thrusting its pageants upon the follower of the
+cross. Our modern life is not much troubled with many such tests of faith,
+and most of our more showy households are utterly innocent of any signs
+either of Christian or Pagan import in their furniture. From what is seen
+in some parlors, whether in books or periodicals, or in pictures or
+statues, we might infer the fondness of the dwellers, now for the battle
+or the chase; now for the shows of fashion, or the haunts of dissipation;
+now for the wonders of science and art; now for the shipping interest and
+the stock market. But too rarely does the household have a true and
+expressive representation of the ideas most precious to a Christian mind.
+An ostentatious vulgarity is too much the rule in constructing and
+adorning the dwelling, and a Christian taste is the exception. How many of
+our showy dwellings, instead of impressing a cultivated foreigner with a
+sense of the owner's refinement or spirituality, would only make it clear
+that the owner had money in plenty to spend, and knew not how to spend it
+wisely. Let these things be looked to. Let the economy of the household be
+of itself a confession of faith. Let there he something to show that they
+who dwell here are God's children, and live within his kingdom. Let not
+gold be lavished upon unmeaning articles that show rather the capacity of
+expense than the capacity of meditation, or which, like the mirrors that
+are the chief ornament of so many houses, favor no reflection beyond that
+of the vanity which they multiply. If we care for art, let Christian art
+be not slighted, and with the landscape that portrays the beauty or
+grandeur of creation, let there be some expressive token that the Father
+has watched over men by his Providence, and blessed their homes by his
+Word. We are changing people, almost a nomad race. One of the oldest
+inhabitants of this metropolis lately remarked, that within his knowledge,
+not one man now keeps house in the dwelling occupied by his father. Of
+this fact I know nothing, yet sure it is, that we need in the frequent
+change of abodes, to build more deeply and securely the spiritual home,
+and live more among the memorials of things eternal. In the absence of
+ancestral homesteads with their hallowed scenes and memorials, we should
+seek to transmit some lasting tokens of our mind, and not make our
+households as evanescent in their array as the fickle breath of this
+world's fashions. In some way surely our best thoughts and labor should
+live for those who come after us, and with goods few or many, as may be,
+there should go some witness of truth eternal. Alike from our common
+nature and our peculiar vicissitudes, we need to be deeply grounded in the
+love of Him who came to open heavenly mansions into our earthly
+habitations, and to make Him our abiding guest.
+
+Looking into the ancient books of devotion, I find this date associated
+with a household name, and sacred to the memory of a Christian woman,
+Monica, the mother of Augustine. Such thoughts of home and its best
+influences are well, coming to us, as they do, so fragrant with the
+friendly and pious affections of ages. Monica lived long enough to see her
+wayward boy a firm disciple at last, and after all his wanderings of
+thought, devoted to Christ with all the enthusiasm of his nature. How
+touching is that passage of his confessions in which he speaks of laying
+her body in the grave, and returning to his lonely home to bless her for
+her faithful care, and lament his blindness to her gentle pleadings. How
+comforting the hymn of Ambrose that rose to his mind, as if by some
+angel's whisper, and lifted his thoughts to the realm whither mother and
+son had trusted to meet in a companionship beyond parting and beyond
+tears. Bless this and all like remembrances in former times, or in our own
+experience. Praise God for all the peace and power, the loveliness and
+wisdom, that have entered the homes where Christ has been welcomed. Let
+praise continue in prayer, and live in watching and good works.
+
+_First of May._
+
+
+
+
+The Orphan.
+
+
+
+
+THE ORPHAN.
+
+
+The genial air of May comes to us all laden with the sweet breath of
+opening blossoms, and has a balm for the spirits as well as for the
+health. It stirs within us a sentiment deeper than we know how to define,
+revives our chilled or buried ideals, and makes every heart young again.
+It cannot but give something of its own tone to our thought, and we find
+that in all nations this month has been a continued festival in the
+calendar, and associated with the loveliest imagery of earth and heaven.
+The heathen nations, who gave the month its present name, called it so
+after the fairest of their goddesses, and Christians following a similar
+sentiment, and desirous also of enlisting every natural feeling in the
+service of a purer faith, transferred the honors of Maia to Mary, and in
+every land white flowers deck the shrines of the Madonna, and the "Hail
+Mary" is the burden of the matin and vesper hymn. Some of the hymns and
+aspirations connected with the season convey thoughts with which an
+earnest Protestant may sympathize, and grateful for the maternal love that
+has made our lives so blessed, we cannot ridicule, although we cannot
+imitate the Italian devotee, who salutes the Holy Mother as the
+representative of God's tender mercy to man through her sex, in words of
+such fervor:--
+
+  "Joy of my heart! O let me pay
+  To thee thine own sweet month of May.
+
+  Mother! be love of thee a ray
+  From Heaven to show the heavenward way.
+
+  Sweet Day-Star! let thy beauty be
+  A light to draw my soul to thee."
+
+May we not once more speak the name of Mary, the Blessed Mother, not to
+adore her as a divinity, but to win from her an illustration of our common
+humanity in one of its great sorrows and consolations? Cheerfully as under
+the returning smile of heaven, solemnly as in presence of much grief, our
+meditation now turns upon orphanage of the affections, as one of the facts
+of our homes, and upon the secondary relations which may be its solace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Consider, first of all, the fact as one of the events of every life,
+sooner or later. Mary at the Cross is a representation of our common
+humanity in its bereavements. Every mother and every parent in some way
+enters into her anguish, as she saw the life of her Divine Son ebbing from
+those cruel wounds. She was indeed doubly bereaved,--at once childless and
+fatherless for the victim upon the Cross had been at once the son of her
+travail and the father of her faith, born of her into the world that she
+might be born of Him into the spiritual kingdom. His own pains did not
+make Him insensible to her anguish, nor indifferent to the fact common to
+our nature, which feels itself always so void and desolate, when the being
+of all most loved is suddenly taken away. Tenderly He provided for her the
+consolation that she needed, by commending her to the disciple, whose ever
+present kindness would be so great a solace in itself, and so powerful a
+remembrance of the departed by its associations. The disciple took to his
+house from that hour the mother of Him upon whose bosom he had leaned.
+
+Life is full of cases that illustrate the same principles, although not
+connected with facts so peculiar. It may be said indeed, that some kind of
+orphanage is the lot of every person, whose years are not early cut off,
+and whose heart is not utterly hardened against home affections. The order
+of nature is that children should survive their parents, and very many of
+us in tender childhood have learned the worth of kind and judicious
+parents, by being called to face the trials and cares of life without
+their counsel and comfort. When the case is reversed, and the parent is
+mourner for the child, the desolation of the heart is quite as great, and
+the affections, deprived of their wonted object, are, perhaps, more deeply
+wounded than the child's can be, even when losing the only protector in
+losing the parent; so strongly do the affections press downward, and so
+mightily does the love that sacrifices so much for offspring grow by its
+own exercise. Every day this bereavement strikes somewhere, and since my
+last word to you, it has stricken parents whose oldest child was last
+Sunday present at church, and to-day is in his grave;--on Sunday I spoke
+to that bright boy pleasantly at our school, and on Friday said the
+funeral service over his coffin. Never can such a bereavement come without
+leaving a feeling of double orphanage, for parents in losing their
+offspring lose at once an instructor as well as a pupil; and surely the
+eldest born of a family, however young, is spiritually father or mother of
+much that is best in the parent's heart. Survey life in its whole compass,
+enlarge our own experience by observation, and we need no argument to
+interpret Mary's desolation at the Cross, or to learn that some form of
+orphanage is the common lot; nay, that before life ceases, some portion of
+our life is severed, when those in whose companionship we had lived are
+taken away. The world is full of such desolation, and there are many to
+whom existence is a burden, because its light has thus gone out.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But God has always some providential alleviations in store for such
+bereavement, and let us turn from the fact to its solace. In some form the
+mercy of that voice from the Cross may always be heard, "Woman, behold thy
+son! Disciple, behold thy mother!" The Christian church itself never
+practically unmerciful to its people, even in its sternest days, has
+always rejoiced to comfort orphanage by the solace of secondary relations;
+providing new proteges for the childless, new guardians for the
+fatherless, and new homes for the homeless. There are few families of
+large experience and just feeling, where something of this same office has
+not been performed; and where, although other gifts may not be needed, the
+solace of sympathy is never withheld.
+
+It becomes an important practical question with many, how those secondary
+relations shall be formed, which may in some measure take the place of the
+ties severed by death. Here may be children without father, or mother, or
+both. Here are homes that are childless either through death or by the
+absence of the blessing, whose absence is of itself to our nature as a
+bereavement. It is not well to leave the heart void, and God himself,
+whose Spirit moved our Saviour to commend his mother to his disciple, has
+provided alleviations. They who need them for themselves or seek them for
+others must use their best judgment and principle in the choice. There may
+be gross wrong or frivolous error in the selection, for there are some so
+desperate as to drown grief in dissipation, and others so light-minded as
+to lavish upon a parrot, or a dog, or a horse, the affections that belong
+to immortal creatures.
+
+There are three most obvious modes of selection. The orphan finds a
+protector by some natural relationship, or by attracting some guardian
+friend, or by being placed under the care of one, who occupies by marriage
+the position of the parent taken away. Each of these secondary relations
+has been full of blessing, as also of danger and trial. Many are the cases
+in which a desolate child has been abused by a relative, swindled by a
+friend, and oppressed by a stepfather or stepmother. But not judging
+through plays and romances, but through life as we see it from a perhaps
+favored position, we have cause of much satisfaction in view of the
+secondary relations spoken of. How many a lonely child finds counsellors
+and helpers among kindred and friends, who keep alive in his heart the
+parent's memory by their kindness, and deepen the first relation by the
+second! How many desolate parents comfort themselves by comforting others;
+and how much grief is soothed, like Mary's, by distilling healing balm for
+others from its own wounds! Among the ministers of mercy, that cheer this
+too benighted world, none is more powerful than that which carries comfort
+to the suffering in the name of some departed child; and who shall number
+the countenances that contemplate the little ones, whose angels behold the
+face of our Father in Heaven, to copy their tenderness, and throw their
+light upon the path of the disconsolate?
+
+Of one class of secondary relations, I cannot but say a word in justice to
+the subject, and in a different tone from that which usually prevails. The
+word stepmother has become a proverb in the language, and persons who
+should know better, sometimes idly speak, so as to add to its odious
+significance. But may not this relation be assumed in so true and devoted
+a spirit, and its offices be so performed, as to be great mercy to the
+orphan? No wonder indeed, that wretchedness comes from the misalliances
+that sometimes introduce a giddy trifler without ideas, or a selfish
+worldling without conscience, into the place that has been made sacred by
+a true Christian mother now no more in the world,--when, in fact, some
+greedy hawk creeps into the nest of the dove, or the wanton butterfly
+invades the cell of the ant, or the provoking wasp steals the sweets of
+the honey-bee's hive. No wonder that trouble comes, when natural rivalries
+and jealousies are embittered by one, who is mother in name but not in
+feeling, one whose first joy is personal vanity, and whose least wish is
+to sacrifice any whim for the welfare of those now entrusted to her care.
+Well may the curse of Heaven rest upon such connections. Let not a shallow
+fancy or reckless impulse, never excusable, but least excusable in mature
+years, dictate a choice so sacred as that which replaces the natural
+parent by another. Let the choice be guided by words as sacred as those
+which came from the Cross, and let him, who commends his children to
+another's care, use his best thought and principle, as if called in this
+way to say, "Woman, behold thy son! Son, behold thy mother!"
+
+Whatever may be the form of the secondary relation, whether the virtual
+adoption be from natural relationship, from friendliness or by marriage,
+two obvious principles should preside over the choice, as in the example
+of the Cross. The secondary relation should be such as not to shame the
+first; and such also as to be a mutual blessing, a blessing to the
+orphaned and the protector. When Jesus commended his mother to his most
+loved disciple's care, he carried out the spirit of his own entire life,
+and placed her in the charge of one whose companionship would be a
+constant remembrance of himself. The lessons of the former years were
+deepened by those that followed--the disciple was ever nearer his Master
+by the mother's presence and the mother was nearer to her Son by the
+disciple's ministry. Happy are they whose existence, however saddened by
+bereavement, is not broken into incongruous or antagonistic
+fragments,--happy are the orphan hearts who, like that adopted mother and
+son, cherish throughout life the same high allegiance, and mature their
+first vows in their secondary obligations.
+
+This cannot well be, unless the second principle named be observed, and
+due congeniality be found between the orphaned and the protector. Some
+choice may generally be used, and the choice should turn on the fitness of
+the one to guide and the other to be guided. No statement is given of the
+process in our Saviour's mind, that led him to make the bequest of the
+Cross, that legacy of love. But He knew what was in man, and knew well how
+much the mother and disciple were fitted for that filial companionship;
+the one by his deep intuitive mind fitted to enlighten her faith, and the
+other by her boundless affection fitted to inflame his piety and charity,
+to kindle his meditative wisdom into seraphic love. Let not the example be
+lost upon those who shrink from claiming equal sanctity. Are any of us to
+choose for an orphan or a half-orphan a protector, whether a guardian or
+an adopted parent, remember the legacy of the Cross, and in Christ's name
+minister to the desolate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We have illustrated first, the fact of orphanage, and secondly, the
+secondary relations that may be its alleviation. May we not add, that
+where the principles recommended are adopted, great blessing results to
+both parties concerned, the protector, and the protected. If, as the poet
+says,
+
+  "An orphan's curse would drag to hell
+      A spirit from on high!"
+
+an orphan's blessing can lift to the mercy-seat of God a frail spirit of
+the earth. Many a time has this blessing been granted, and they who have
+befriended the lonely, have found a friend in God's own Providence. Is it
+not remarkably the case, that orphan children when judiciously and kindly
+counselled and cautioned, well repay all solicitude, and well appreciate,
+as a gratuitous offering from their protector, the care which, if from a
+parent, they might regard as a matter of course, hardly claiming any
+grateful recognition? A relation of peculiar beauty sometimes springs up,
+at once filial and friendly, blending in itself the affections both of
+companion and child. The remark applies to step-children as well as to
+those who are wards by adoption or guardianship. "Hence," says that gifted
+and fervent writer, Henry Zchokke, "not rare instances in which
+step-children manifest more cordial sympathy, more touching attachment
+towards their foster parents, than their own children. For what the latter
+are apt to take as matter of obligation, the former look upon as token of
+disinterested love and genuine goodness; and a grateful mind brings before
+them all the kindness and fidelity which they received from step-parents
+in the years of minority. As children, they may not understand what you
+have given, although they may see how you gave it. But when grown up, they
+understand what you have done for them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When under this form of adoption or the others specified, there is surely
+enough to interpret such secondary relations cheerfully, and history is
+full of passages, that illustrate the blessing of the legacy of the Cross.
+In our own experience we must in some way interpret that legacy, and find
+its joy or its rebuke. Do not leave the subject without touching its
+practical point. If such and so general is the fact of orphanage, such are
+the secondary relations which are providentially offered, and such is
+their solace when properly employed, there is a lesson from the subject,
+which no person can escape, a lesson as to our duty to our own children
+and to others. First of all, bear in mind the lonely, and strive to be
+comforter, and to find comforters for them. Think tenderly of the
+orphaned, who are in any way near your own sphere, whether from
+relationship, friendship, or any other association. It may not be, it is
+not generally money, that is most needed, but kindness, counsel,
+encouragement. Many an orphan boy is saved by a judicious word and timely
+hand from a friend of his lost father or mother, and many a lonely girl
+finds the path of peace and usefulness smoothed for her by those who
+remember the parent's image in the daughter's face. The story of Moses,
+the foundling of the Nile, and of Joseph, the exile from Jacob's house,
+is often repeated in the lives of youths, like them in loneliness, and not
+wholly unlike them in subsequent energy and honor. Think of this in your
+homes, and make them pleasant and instructive and elevating to some guests
+sought by you, because you can make them happy, and who will repay your
+blessing better than guests of idleness or vanity, sometimes too eagerly
+sought, who may besot and befool your children by folly and excess. Think
+of it in your places of business, and seek openings of usefulness for the
+unprotected. Then you may hear, nay, have you not heard other voices than
+those of hard traffic there? then you may see, have you not seen, springs
+of living water gushing from the dusty pavements which you tread? Think of
+the orphan. For his own sake, do it, and for our own and our children's
+sake. The probability is, that what others ask of us we shall need for
+ourselves. We must expect that our children will be in want of the very
+sympathy which we are to show; for who can be sure of leaving his
+offspring mature enough in years and wisdom to demand no guardian care in
+place of the parental? It becomes, therefore, an imperious duty to educate
+our children in such a manner, as to secure them trusty friends; to give
+them habits of self-reliance, that shall save them from annoying others by
+burdensome dependence; to train them to conciliating manners, attractive
+conversation, elevated ideas, that shall win for them the companionship
+and protection of the wise and good, keep them in right paths, and mature
+in their new homes all the worthy seeds of old scenes and affections.
+Then when the hour of our parting comes, we can think not wholly with
+sorrow of the legacy of the Cross; believing that they who have trusted in
+us, may trust in each other, or in friends divinely given, and that future
+years will deepen the former communion.
+
+The great security, that this shall be so, is found where Christ placed
+it, in the Father. "I will not leave you comfortless,"--or orphaned, as
+the word is literally to be translated,--"I will come to you. Ye shall
+know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." They that learn
+to live in the Father's love, are saved from the worst bereavement, and
+the orphanage of the earth opens to them the parentage of heaven. The
+first and secondary relationships of earth are both commended and
+consecrated by the relation prior to them both and primal of all, however
+late it may be understood; for in spiritual as well as earthly ties, it
+requires time and thought to know our truest friend; and the playmates of
+an hour win the child of mortality's ear more readily than the far-seeing
+parent, or than the Ancient of Days, the Father of all. Remember that
+whatever paternal wisdom or maternal tenderness we have ever known here,
+has its source and archetype on high. There dwells the Godhead that spoke
+and wrought through the victim of the Cross; there shines the wisdom that
+opened that disciple's vision; there burns the love that glowed in the
+mother's faithful heart. From the unseen, comes all the glory that is
+seen; and if any of us have an orphaned heart, as in some respects we all
+may have, let us find its solace in God, and whatever is God's. Let the
+sweet breath of May, that whispers to devotees of Mary's holy maternity,
+fill our hearts with more than vernal promise, ideals of more than human
+loveliness,--call us away from all wintry chills to the light and love of
+the Parent above all parents--to the home that unites all homes in one.
+
+_May._
+
+
+
+
+The Young Prodigal.
+
+
+
+
+THE YOUNG PRODIGAL.
+
+
+How marked and how various has been the response of men to the Parable of
+the Prodigal Son since it first came from the lips of Him whose life so
+exemplified its mercy. Through all those changing centuries, the home has
+kept its place in the affections of mankind, and that pathetic domestic
+picture has never failed to waken regrets and compassion. The happiest
+household is not without some errors that cry for forgiveness, and not
+many are the families whose peace is not troubled by some prodigal. The
+parable presents at once an example of earthly experience and a lesson of
+heavenly mercy. Not forgetting the heavenly lesson, we dwell now more upon
+the earthly example, as we speak of the prodigal in the family, especially
+of his fall and his recovery.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The prodigal in the family! Far more frequently than the world knows,
+might this epithet in truth be spoken, for it is not by any means from
+notorious spendthrifts and open profligates, that wicked waste scatters
+the goods of a household. If a certain man who had two sons, found in one
+of them a prodigal under the simple manners of a rustic age, what may the
+father of a large family anticipate in a state of society which makes
+extravagance almost a necessity, and in a great city which brings the
+vices and follies of every far country on earth to his very door. Never
+perhaps since Jesus spoke, have His words found more ample illustration
+than in this great city, that calls thousands and tens of thousands of
+young men from rural homes to the fierce scramble for gold, and the
+feverish chase for pleasure, and which in so many ways offers to drown in
+dissipation the anguish of remorse.
+
+It is not by any means always the worst boy of the family who takes the
+road to ruin. It may be base passion or reckless selfishness that leads
+him astray, but it is quite as likely to be too cordial impulses, exposing
+him to enticing companions, or too sanguine hopes, entailing upon him
+disappointment and despair. Of the many prodigals whom we have known in
+our own lifetime, not a few surely have been generous natures, whom it was
+impossible not to pity, and not hard to love. Sometimes the very
+temperament that makes a youth amiable, and that should make him noble,
+wins to him the most alluring of tempters, and he falls before some Satan
+who comes to him as an angel of light.
+
+The very tenderness shown to him at home may add to his besetting
+weakness, by encouraging habits of self-indulgence. In fact, the parable
+itself allows room for the surmise, that the younger son, from having
+less care put upon him than the elder, was less schooled in self-reliance,
+and because every thing was done for him as the pet of the family, he was
+in danger of doing too little for himself. Certainly indulgence may be as
+dangerous an extreme as sternness, and as many youths are spoiled by over
+fondness as are made desperate by unkindness. Sometimes both extremes
+unite in the same fitful temper, and children, now petted and now cursed,
+learn indolence and rebellion in the same perverse domestic school. Rare
+is the wisdom that can adjust the discipline to each temperament, and
+encourage without over-indulgence, and correct without harshness. Not
+always, however, is the fault of the child to be traced to error in the
+parent, for every child has powers and responsibilities of his own, and
+besides his own perverse will, there is a third party that frequently
+comes in to make mischief.
+
+At home or abroad this tempter may come, and in forms as many as are the
+shapes of folly and sin. The son may not have erred simply in desiring to
+go from home to seek his fortunes. He may have intended to use his portion
+of the inheritance in a more profitable way than at home, and perhaps
+return to the quiet old farm-house, rich in treasure and experience, a
+benefactor to the whole family. Youth is full of dreams, and of not
+ignoble dreams, and of the thousands of young men who every month go out
+into the world to seek their fortune, few, if any, mean to throw their
+hopes away in dissipation. Young blood is ever sanguine, and fair indeed
+would this earth be, if it could take the hue and shape of the youthful
+visions that have brooded upon its future. The very fact that a man hopes
+much, may throw him into a despair as intense as his hope, and the
+sanguine dreamer may degenerate under disappointment into the reckless
+prodigal. The portion of the inheritance which was to swell into
+affluence, being broken by some mischance, seems good for nothing but a
+brief round of pleasure, and is squandered in riotous living. Or the
+wanderer may start with the idea that expensive habits will secure to him
+friends and position, until he finds that these habits are his masters,
+and these friends go away when his money is gone. Let any sober-minded man
+who has consistently tried to use well his means and opportunity, remember
+the perils that have lurked in his own path, and he will make some due
+allowance for the temptations that now beset young men. We are not called
+to lower in the least our standard of virtue, but we are to enlarge our
+views to measure the extent of the danger, and to relax our severity to
+win the erring to repentance and amendment. Make the ease our own, and as
+we look upon the many forms of youthful vice and folly around us, see our
+own youth thus come back to us, and read the sad lessons as so many
+chapters in the book of our own possible destiny. Such considerations,
+instead of making us more lax in principle, will make us more strict, by
+making us feel more deeply the curse of that transgression, which we thus
+bring home to our own thoughts. Combine all the various sources of
+temptation, bear in mind the portions that may come severally from the
+youth, his guardians and the world, and it will not appear proof of utter
+depravity that there should be some prodigals on earth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The emphasis of the parable turns not upon the fall, but upon the recovery
+of the erring one, and the portraiture of the various steps in the
+recovery is so drawn to the life, as to answer with due change of manners
+and costume for any age. Mark its progress, in the mind of the youth and
+the parent, and in the final reconciliation of the two.
+
+Mark the change in the feelings of the son. In a short time what a
+transition in the lot of this reckless roaming boy. His dream of fortune
+and pleasure has been most rudely broken, and the spendthrift is the
+penniless outcast. A season of famine, or what in our more commercial age
+would be called hard times, came on, and the pressure that bears upon all
+drives him to the very verge of starvation. Where are the gay mansions now
+that opened their doors so eagerly to the young stranger, so lavish with
+his wealth? Where are the boon companions that borrowed his money, and
+rode his horses, and drunk his wine? Where such friends are very likely to
+be in time of need; ready to cut the acquaintance of the wretch upon whose
+prosperity they have fattened and fawned. He is in a sad plight, and might
+have been driven to some desperate crime--to murder or to suicide, did he
+not learn one of the blessed lessons of God's Providence, and use misery
+as a stern, yet judicious schoolmaster, to lead him to remorse and
+penitence.
+
+Suffering wakens him from his vain dream, and he sees things now as they
+are,--takes upon his shoulders the burden of his griefs,--confesses that
+he has abused the very generosity of his father, and is no longer worthy
+to be called his son. Remorse, no proof of depravity past redemption, but
+proof rather that conscience still lives, and is vindicating her holy law,
+exalted the poor outcast, even in humbling him to the dust, and lifts the
+wretch into the penitent, with those words, "I will arise, and go to my
+father."
+
+This penitence crowns the new experience of the prodigal, and brings him
+into a new sphere of thought and action. He feels the power of a love that
+he had slighted, and which now pleads with his soul in an eloquence all
+the mightier from its tone of expostulation and pity. His childhood
+reappears to him in all its innocence and privilege,--the old homestead,
+with its familiar walls and trees, haunts him not as a dream, but as the
+one reality, and seems to eye his wretchedness with wonder and compassion.
+He is a changed man now, and turns his face upon the long journey
+homeward, not merely as an outcast hungry and miserable, but as a penitent
+seeking forgiveness of the kindness which he had outraged, and asking to
+do a servant's work on the estate whose income he had wasted.
+
+Look to the other side of the picture, and think of what has been going on
+in the father's heart. No particulars are given of his feeling during the
+season of separation, but his heart is a chapter in the book, that life
+is ever laying open, and what is told of him at the crisis, indicates
+well his temper during the interval. He had but two boys, and his whole
+hope and love must have centred in them and their destiny. They may have
+been dearer to him from being all the memorial left to him of the mother
+long since taken from the world. The younger may have been the pet of his
+leisure hours, whilst the elder was busy with the cares of the farm; for
+there is likely to be a pet child in every family. But the plain facts are
+enough without laying any tax upon the imagination. He had the common
+heart of good men, and had shown his willingness to make sacrifices for
+his children. Many a time in lonely hours he must have thought of the
+wanderer, and wondered if the boy whom he never forgot, could forget him.
+The prosperity of his business, the plenty of his crops, the number of his
+flocks and herds, could not satisfy him; even the sight of the son now
+with him, but reminded him how broken was his family and how divided his
+heart. Touches of compassion would mingle with his lonely regrets, and
+remembering the common weakness of our humanity, he would consider the
+amount of temptation in wait for every novice, and have misgivings at
+allowing him to go out alone into the world. Many a time his wistful gaze
+would rest upon the road taken by the departing wanderer, and he would ask
+himself if the youth would ever return, and in what condition. One day as
+he looked, that lonely road had for him a startling apparition. Far in the
+distance appears a tired, tattered wayfarer, a mere vagrant to the common
+gaze; but one of the many who seem heir of misery, and for whom
+compassion itself has little reasonable hope. But no; the eye of affection
+is ever sharpsighted, and the father sees under that beggar's garb the
+step and air of his long-lost son; and one look tells to him the whole
+story of his fortunes. He is a poor and broken-down creature, and comes
+home penitent, to ask mercy of the love that he had so offended. All is
+told in those simple words of welcome "But when he was yet a great way
+off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his
+neck, and kissed him."
+
+This was the meeting--such was the reconciliation! Full as it is of
+absorbing feeling, its moral element is not to be forgotten. Read its
+lessons, and we note first of all forgiveness of the offence in view of
+the penitence of the offender; secondly, restoration to favor on the
+ground of amendment; thirdly, justice to all parties and no injustice to
+the rights of the elder son, who had not wasted his patrimony, yet, who
+was moved to look with a jealous eye at the feasting in honor of his
+prodigal brother's return. Mercy is triumphant, yet justice is not
+slighted, and whilst the prodigal is restored to his place in his father's
+heart and household, all the consequences of his transgression do not
+cease; his portion of the substance is not as if he had wasted nothing,
+and he is not exempt from a long course of self-discipline and correction.
+Forgiveness does not end discipline, but rather begins its just action, by
+bringing the offender into the sphere of moral and spiritual allegiance.
+
+Such is the story of the Prodigal Son in his fall and his recovery--a rich
+lesson of earthly experience and of heavenly faith. What family is there
+that is not called at some time, and in some measure, to apply its point
+to themselves?
+
+Parents and guardians have some trials that the world knows of, and some
+that escape the public ear. Rare, indeed, the home that has no trace of
+the prodigal, and makes no demand on the heart of forgiveness. Our
+prevalent manners seem to set a bounty upon prodigality, and make youth,
+the true season of control and preparation, the ill-timed season for
+indulgence and extravagance. Many sons have the spending of a prince's
+income without the spur of a prince's ambition; and probably not a few
+families in our own community encourage a reckless waste that would be
+thought wicked in many a palace; whilst the self-will, thus pampered, is
+not trained to labor for any definite aim or worthy object. In homes less
+affluent, the case may be still worse, and the sons and daughters of
+persons in a medium position catch the bad ambition, and launch out into
+an extravagance as ruinous as it is infatuated. It is wrong--all wrong.
+The prodigal, in his craving for pardon, well marked the error of his
+course, and proved how much he had sinned against a father's purpose in
+intrusting him, prematurely, with such means of usefulness and honor, to
+be squandered in idleness and shame. Happy they who learn the lesson
+without such bitter experience, and who start from the first with a worthy
+object in view. Here is the great question that over presses upon us: How
+check the waste of talent and substance among our youth? how redeem the
+most susceptible years from frivolity and extravagance? There can be
+essentially but one answer, however various the forms of its expression.
+From the very first, let the young be trained to pursue some worthy
+object, and let the ideal of dignity be placed not in dainty indolence,
+but in active usefulness. Let every household cherish this creed in all
+its spirit and economy; let education be called perversion when it does
+not foster this purpose; let mercy itself when most tender and forgiving,
+most earnestly breathe this incentive.
+
+Never was a young generation launched forth upon a more alluring and
+bewildering sea than that which now wafts its inviting breezes towards our
+rising youth. Opportunities thicken and dazzle as never before, and
+dangers multiply with opportunities; the spur is put to self-indulgence,
+whilst the reins of discipline are slackened, and society is starting upon
+an untried and adventurous track, that raises in sober minds quite as much
+fear as hope. But heaven is always above us, and its light need never fail
+us. Let the blessed Master's plea for heavenly mercy reveal to us more
+clearly the way of obedience, and the very tears of penitence water the
+root of faith and resolution. Youth, so impassioned, self-willed,
+sanguine,--be prodigal no more. Look to the mark placed before you by your
+Father in heaven, and measure your dignity by your fidelity to your work.
+Son--daughter--waste your heart and strength no more upon follies and
+sins. You have the happiness of many in your keeping, and the Infinite
+Parent above will smile upon your penitence, and bless you in your
+fidelity.
+
+Who can look upon the number of youths without high aims and faithful
+purposes, who are growing up in our cities with opportunities so
+unparalleled, and not find himself haunted with that ever-recurring
+question, "What shall we do with our sons?" A state of society that is
+based upon wealth as the chief good, may offer especial danger to the
+sons, from the very fact that it gave such incentives to the energy of the
+fathers, and the wealth gained in hardship may be wasted in dissipation.
+Some sons, indeed, catch the thrift of their laborious parents, and from
+love of money, or from family pride, or some better ambition, try to keep
+or increase their inheritance. But even these are too rarely trained to
+know the highest uses of property, or the true art of employing the
+leisure which it offers for recreations, that refresh instead of
+dissipating the powers. How many there are far below their level, who seem
+to lose every earnest motive in being free from the necessity of exertion,
+and who give the infection of their corrupt idleness and false honor to
+companions who can ill afford any dainty self-indulgence. The commercial
+spirit that places business energy at the top of the scale of talents and
+dignities, may do something to check such prodigality; but only a
+thoroughgoing, manly purpose, looking devoutly to God's will and the
+solemn work of life, can lay the axe to the root of the evil.
+
+Consider, seriously, young man, that you have a work to do in the world,
+whilst it is still called to-day. The charm of life, as well as its true
+honor, lies in the earnest pursuit of a worthy object. Beware of adding by
+your presence to the number of young men about town, who are all sail and
+no ballast, and whose wreck sooner or later is produced by the very
+surface spread to the fickle winds of passion. Balance yourself by the
+weight of conscious responsibility; guide yourself with a single eye to
+the mark of true living. Be something--a genuine reality--not an empty
+sham--something in power and in position, not one of the nothings who
+parrot the reigning follies and vices. Be yourself--yourself as God has
+called you to be by the gift of your powers and opportunities, instead of
+trying vainly to be somebody else, by affecting ways and honors never
+intended for you; yes, be yourself, even if your genius bids you work at
+the mechanic's bench or at the machinist's lathe, instead of trying to be
+somebody else in a profession for which you are not adapted, or in aping a
+lazy gentility which is a disgrace to any rational creature of God. Be
+thus something--be thus yourself--and you cannot be false to man or God. A
+true master purpose will quicken and energize the whole being. No longer a
+prodigal yourself, your spirit so free and devoted, so blending hearty
+manliness with earnest faith, will lead many a wanderer home.
+
+
+
+
+Education of Daughters.
+
+
+
+
+EDUCATION OF DAUGHTERS.
+
+
+"Nothing is more neglected than the education of daughters," said Fenelon,
+in the first sentence of his noted work on the subject. This cannot be
+said with truth now, when so much time, thought and money, are given to
+their instruction in the most opposite quarters. Whilst thinking upon this
+topic, it seems to me as if every one of its leading aspects had sent a
+representation of itself to help our judgment. This month, even the
+stranger in our city must have had his attention attracted by the costume
+and speech-making of the somewhat brave champions of the Woman's Rights'
+party, who have been holding their conventions; and, as if to show up one
+extreme by another, the debates of radicalism have run parallel with the
+rites of superstition; and, on his way to the hall that rings with
+feminine voices that claim masculine honors, he may as he passes many
+churches catch the strains of those vesper hymns to the Virgin Mother, by
+which Romanism strives to make this beautiful Mary confirm its daughters
+in the faith, by that ideal of womanhood so deified in its own loveliness
+without need of any borrowed grace of man's.
+
+In his next morning's walk, he will see in the many processions of
+boarding-school girls promenading with no very elastic step, quite another
+aspect of woman's destiny, and one that may give him mingled feelings as
+he meditates upon the future of American mothers and their posterity. If
+the stranger comes from a foreign country, he will be interested less in
+these three aspects of the subject, than in a fourth of far less assuming
+air. He will be more impressed with the looks of the daughters of the
+people, with cheery step on their way to the public schools, than with the
+champions of reform, the pupils of fashion, or the devotees of the ancient
+ritual. Surely the education of girls is not neglected among us; yet,
+whether it is wisely attended to, is one of the most serious and pressing
+questions of our day,--a question in which every family is vitally
+concerned. There are few readers who are not ready to give some thought to
+the true idea and method of female education.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We must look for the true idea reverently, as under religious guidance,
+not according to our own caprices or opinions. Nothing surely should awe
+our wilful conceits into docile attention, more than the effort to find
+the calling and the place of the being beyond all others dependent upon
+our care. Where but in the school of the Creator and Preserver himself,
+shall we learn what our daughters are called to be under his Providence?
+Where but therein shall we learn to decipher that fair and wonderful
+hieroglyph which God himself carved out in the person of Eve, and which
+remains to this day the most expressive cipher of heaven's grace and care.
+
+The language of the Psalmist, so often quoted, is sufficient to define the
+idea of female education when freely interpreted. If our daughters,
+according to his prayer, should be as corner-stones, polished after the
+similitude of a palace, it is clear that their education is to have
+accomplishment and solidity such as to fit them for their place as the
+main supports of social life. They are to be polished stones. Does not
+this expression bring the sanction of Holy Writ against the too frequent
+notion that woman is made only to be the servant of man, and that her
+chief destiny is to be the drudging underling of his will; not like the
+polished stone of a palace wall, but the rough rock at the
+foundation,--useful, indeed, but buried under the dust. This idea exists
+not merely in savage countries, where woman is actually man's slave, and
+reared to be such from childhood, so that a thoughtful mother mourns when
+a daughter is born; but our own Christendom reads its own darkest chapter
+in the condition of woman, so often forced to drudge for scanty bread and
+raiment, perhaps abused by the very man upon whose bidding she waits, and
+who dements himself in drunkenness whilst she plies her thankless tasks.
+In many quarters where such abominations would be condemned, views
+radically the same are held, and an idea of woman's destiny prevails
+which takes her from her rightful place as the equal of man, which sinks
+her into his drudge, without time for intellectual and spiritual culture,
+with little of the leisure and conversation that beguile care of its
+sting, and toil of its weariness. Nay, how often is this destiny
+unconsciously entailed upon daughters by thoughtless, yet not consciously
+unkind, parents, who train up their girls without high aims and enlarged
+views, sending them into new homes so poorly endowed with commanding
+motives and practical knowledge, as to sink down into the dull monotony of
+domestic drudgery. Though the hands may not be overtasked, if the soul is
+weighed down to a servile routine, without sentiment or spirituality,
+woman is the slave of man,--the neglected rock beneath his dwelling, and
+not the polished stone of his home.
+
+But this is not the chief danger now, but an opposite extreme equally
+degrading. The danger is not that the daughter shall lack polish, but that
+she will have but little else; and, instead of being a polished stone,
+shall be a polished vanity with no substance at all. Nothing can be more
+false and fatal than the notion that a daughter is to be educated for
+show, whilst the son is to be trained for usefulness. In her own way, the
+sister has quite as much strength of character as the brother has in his
+way, and she is cruelly treated when regarded only as a graceful toy.
+Sometimes this extreme meets the other, and she who in her girlhood was a
+dainty plaything, becomes in womanhood a plodding drudge, without a
+particle of worthy spirit or elevated thought to retain the love won by
+her beauty, or to replace the fervor lost with her youth. It is very wrong
+to make accomplishments the main thing in female education.
+Accomplishments are poor tricks, unless their polish is but the smoothness
+of substantial knowledge and judgment. A showy girl who can dance, sing,
+and prattle two or three foreign languages, without being able to speak
+and write sensibly in her own tongue, is one of the most lamentable of
+counterfeits, and may chance to blight the peace and dignity of more
+hearts than one by her shams. She is the product of that flashy system of
+training, which is doing more mischief in America than any where else, and
+making society a tawdry Vanity Fair instead of a companionship of hearts
+and homes. Not a few of our daughters seem taught to think that
+distinction in society is graduated by clothes and confectionery, and to
+measure their social honor or obscurity by their ability to follow the
+silly code of extravagance. If the folly were confined to those who have
+such affluence as craves prodigality in expense to reduce the overplus, it
+might be comparatively harmless, but it bears most severely upon families
+of limited means, where mothers and daughters are in a fever to ape the
+extravagance that they ought to pity. Why all this infatuated excess in
+dress? What do our daughters, in their tender years, need for their grace
+and dignity beyond the simplest costume that good taste dictates as the
+fit robing of girlish innocence? Even a pure French taste, which, in other
+respects favors such excess, teaches an almost Christian simplicity in
+this respect; and the spectacle, so common with us, of school girls
+bedizened with costly dresses of all colors, and loaded with jewels, would
+be ludicrous in a Parisian drawing-room, as a walking, jingling toy-shop
+attached to a human creature. It is a fine remark of Fenelon in rebuking
+the foolish passion for dress, that if daughters were educated in a purer
+classic taste, and would study the beautiful in the schools of painting
+and sculpture, they would shun many excesses in costume on account of
+their deformity, as well as their extravagance. What judgment the good
+archbishop would have passed upon our present mode of sweeping the dusty
+sidewalks with costly robes of silk and velvet, we have no means of
+judging, for this folly seems a recent invention. What a recent French
+moralist, who claims to walk in the path of Fenelon, says of France, is
+doubly true of America: "The great care," says L'Aime Martin, "is to
+please the world, rather than to resist it: the wish is to shine, to
+reign:--vanity, that is the end to which tender mothers do not cease to
+point their daughters, and upon which the world that pushes them on sees
+them wrecked with indifference! Vanity in accomplishments! vanity in
+dress! vanity in learning! This show covers all: to seem, not to be, makes
+the sum and substance of education." These strong words must have cost the
+bland French moralist some pain; but does not their strength come from
+their truth? Do they not apply, with fearful truth, to American society?
+Does not the prevalent code of feminine ostentation bear with cruel
+weight upon our domestic life, making almost a social necessity of the
+merest conventional artificiality, and raising up a generation of listless
+imbeciles, who measure their social salvation by the magnitude of their
+exactions and the littleness of their achievements? in short, setting up a
+code of dignity, in which utter uselessness not seldom bears the highest
+honor. It would be, probably, a somewhat peculiar revelation, if the young
+women who go from boarding-schools into our gay society were to submit to
+a thorough catechizing as to what they expect to receive in the world, and
+what they expect to do in return. The statistics thus gathered might shed
+some light upon our social and political economy, and disclose a standard
+of empty extravagance, not very common among the titled nobility of the
+Old World. Away with the error upon which the whole mischief rests,--the
+error that our daughters are not rational creatures, and that the very
+strength of their character is not the best reason and rule of their
+accomplishment. Let them be polished stones, not tinsel, with a refinement
+and solidity worthy their endowments.
+
+Associating thus the attribute of polish with that of solidity, in our
+idea of the education of daughters, we complete the definition by
+maintaining, that the two qualities should be so combined as best to fit
+the daughter for her providential position as the equal of man; not his
+rival, nor his slave, nor his toy. We claim for the daughter entire
+mental, moral, and religious equality with the son, yet find in the law
+alike of nature and revelation a distinction between their gifts and
+spheres. It would be merely beating the air to argue either point,--to try
+to prove that woman has all the faculties of human nature, and if, in her
+case, they are otherwise adjusted than with man, the difference is such as
+to forbid boasting on either side, and to favor mutual help instead of
+selfish rivalry. Nor need we couch our lance against the reform school
+that claims for woman a masculine position, and asks to have all offices
+open to her ambition or zeal. We are little in danger of such
+extravagances, and our daughters are more likely to slight the high moral
+influence now within their sphere, than to hanker after the notoriety of
+professional life or anniversary platforms. Our current modes of society
+are so lenient towards those who unsex themselves on the stage, or in the
+ball-room, that the moralist need trouble himself very little with the
+loquacious sisterhood, that seems determined to have the public ear upon
+most exciting questions. The most discouraging thing in their prospect is
+in the indifference of their own sex to their appeals. Men prefer to hear
+women talk in a less obtrusive manner; and women seem likely to follow
+their time-hallowed precedent, and to have men for their orators, leaders,
+physicians, and preachers. The freest system will not alter the divine
+order, and whatever worthy reforms may come, the end will be the
+reconsecration of woman in her true sphere--as the equal, not the rival,
+of man. Hers will still be full half the world, and the best half of it
+too. To be the polished corner-stone in the palace which the ruling heart
+makes royal, is honor and responsibility enough. To carry out this idea
+of the education of daughters by a just method, is a work second to none
+other to be done or meditated in this world.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+What have we to say of such a method? Nothing but simply to appeal to
+God's own will as shown in the daughter's faculties and in the spheres in
+which she is called to move. Let the method be such as best developes her
+powers and fits her for her position.
+
+How great a thing it is to understand a soul, said Theresa of Spain, in
+view of the young hearts committed to her care after all her own trials of
+faith. How great a thing it is to understand a daughter's mind in which
+sensibility, that demands sympathy, has so much larger a place than logic,
+that needs only to be reasoned out. We believe that there is sex in mind,
+and that the essential type of womanhood appears equally in the example of
+the highest culture and genius, as in the average standard. Every page
+shows the woman's guiding pen, no matter whether a De Stael or a Godwin
+ranges into the bolder realms of thought, or an Edgeworth or Hemans walks
+among the daily affections and cares of life. A true culture must be based
+upon this fact, and the mind must be trained in accordance. Little may be
+gained by persisting in making a dry logician of a school girl, for
+abstract reasoning is rarely a woman's forte, but precisely on that
+account, the reason must be appealed to by the living truth, which will
+find a ready response from perceptions so quick and intuitive as often to
+see at a glance what the logical understanding will with difficulty argue
+out.
+
+It is a great mistake to try to train a girl to be a man in cast of mind
+or way of life. We can never slight the hint of nature without bringing
+down her retribution, and temporary success but delays the evil day. What
+better instance of this error have we than in the memoirs of that gifted
+woman so well known to most of our readers, and probably a personal friend
+to not a few of them, Margaret Fuller Ossoli? Her mental career is now
+made public property by able and congenial biographers; and who of us does
+not see the unconscious cruelty of the stern discipline which sought to
+mould her mind after the masculine standard, and which so repressed the
+springs of feminine power, until Providence took the noble woman into its
+own school, and the wife and mother learned a wisdom and a peace that
+classic letters and metaphysical theories never taught her; nay, far
+beyond the stature of the "Muse," and the "Minerva," that were once her
+chosen types of female dignity? Honor to her name, alike for the mistakes
+and the excellencies illustrated by her eventful life?
+
+Truly trained, the girl will have as much _reason_ as the boy; and hers
+will be more intuitive, whilst his may be more formal and severe in its
+_reasoning_. Strength of character will be hers, not, perhaps, so much the
+stern sense of justice that most marks the masculine conscience, as the
+full and earnest affection that adds mercy to justice and love to duty.
+Force of will shall be hers, not perhaps the iron will of man, but what is
+quite as well, and in its place better, the heroic patience that conquers
+evil by enduring it. The result shall be a disciplined, sagacious
+intellect without masculine hardness, delicate sensibility without
+imbecile listlessness, active energy without moping drudgery, a
+combination of powers and graces that wins homage from every heart.
+
+I would not adopt any definition of woman's powers less generous than the
+hint of nature and the will of God. Rather allow the largest scope to the
+development of every gift, and trust the feminine instinct to vindicate
+its own prerogative, whatever be the talent called into requisition.
+Marked cases show that the feminine mind may sometimes have the faculty
+for the severest mathematical reasoning, and England and America have been
+taught this fact by the philosophical achievements of women who are an
+honor alike to the delicacy and the intellect of their sex. Full well do I
+remember a visit to William Mitchell the Nantucket astronomer, years ago,
+when I saw that the father and the daughter had each a station and a set
+of instruments for taking simultaneous observations of the heavens. Since
+that day a gold medal from the king of Denmark has marked the daughter's
+triumph as the discoverer of a new comet. I am not ashamed to say, that at
+the time of the visit I had been several days puzzling over a difficult
+sum in algebra, and that, with a few touches of her pencil, the young lady
+made clear as day what I had but suspected, that the difficulty was in an
+error of the text-book. She evidently understood Arbogast's polynomial
+theorem better than I did.
+
+But the great difficulty in this whole matter is not so much in a proper
+definition of characteristics to be cherished, as in the application of
+proper motives to bring out those characteristics. With boys the motive is
+near at hand, for the world speaks to them with its imperious voice and
+bids them prepare for some specific post of profit or ambition. Without
+such practical spur, our sons would be a languid generation, since
+self-culture merely for its own sake, as an amateur pursuit without any
+specific object, is a dull affair, that very feebly goes. Even those young
+men who have had a thorough collegiate education are very apt to forget
+their learning, and to lose their literary gift unless they carry out the
+work of education in actual affairs and keep their attainments by using
+them. What shall take the place of such motive in the education of our
+daughters? What aim shall we place before them in their early studies and
+keep before them in after years? Serious indeed is the question, and too
+frivolously answered by the hosts of bright girls who go from school into
+a career of folly and dissipation.
+
+There can be but one answer, and that the most Christian word. It is
+simply this:--"Daughter, you are under God's rule, and all your gifts and
+acquisitions are sacred trusts. Consecrate them by a true service. Look
+upon your life as folly and nothingness, until you regard it as a solemn
+charge and resolve to use its opportunities faithfully. Choose in the
+first bloom of your hope the true, the Christian standard of character,
+and give religion the grace and power of your youthful enthusiasm. You
+have from Heaven itself a sacred commission, large as the sphere of your
+sex, specific as the compass and aim of your own individual talents and
+position." Take this ground, and it will appear that the daughter will
+find in her own religious susceptibility, and in the Divine grace, a
+motive to self-culture as efficient as the son finds in the spur of
+business and competition. Both indeed need the same religious discipline,
+but the one needs it more as an impelling, the other more as a restraining
+motive.
+
+Let the motive spirit be just and fervent, it remains a question with
+daughters what shall be the chosen purpose of their after lives.
+Circumstances must in some measure influence their choice, for with a
+large portion, not merely taste, but the necessity of securing a
+livelihood, is to be consulted. But in either case the law of fitness is
+to be the guide; and all, without exception, make a sad mistake, who do
+not train themselves to some pursuit capable alike of adorning their
+affluence and of guarding them against need. It is very clear that there
+is some fatal error in the physical education of girls that needs
+correcting before they can be sure of any independence of position. "Very
+few girls that I know are well," said a lady some time ago in speaking of
+the large circle of scholars under her observation. As American boys are
+not wanting in robust health, there must be some radical error in the
+training of the other sex, that they are so fragile, and that they fade
+and languish so prematurely. It is obvious that the power of the free air,
+generous exercise, and wholesome hours and diet, is too little understood,
+whilst the confectioner's trash often takes the place of substantial
+food, and the delicate nerves that the fresh breezes of heaven, the cold
+water of the spring, are so ready to soothe and brace with genial health,
+are sometimes insanely dosed with brandy or opium at caprice to an extent
+that might be too much for the constitution of a Goliath of Gath. There is
+no reason to believe that our daughters are doomed by nature to be less
+healthy than our sons, or less fitted for a field of usefulness congenial
+with their gifts. Small indeed in comparison with the field opened to
+sons, is the sphere at present for the talents of daughters. But small as
+it may seem, it has not yet been fully occupied, and it will be sure to
+enlarge when its capacities are faithfully tested. Certainly the saddest
+limitation of feminine competence comes from overdoing some few branches
+of labor, and there are great departments of the useful and the beautiful
+arts little resorted to by their skill. For ourselves, we have no fear of
+harming the delicacy of our daughters by opening to them any honorable
+field of culture or industry to which their tastes and talents call them.
+It is a sacred duty to employ well every faculty given by the Creator, and
+full and fair opportunity to develop all their gifts should be afforded.
+If young women wish to be lawyers, preachers, physicians, or merchants, we
+would put no harsher obstacle before them than our honest opinion that
+such is not their providential career, whilst we would do every thing in
+our power to throw open to their pursuit those spheres of action most
+congenial with their nature. In the industrial arts who shall number the
+departments in which the quick perception and ready fingers and
+instinctive neatness of girls would fit them for success more than the
+other sex? Who shall limit the range of beautiful arts open to their taste
+and genius? What may they not do with the pen, voice, pencil and chisel?
+Who shall begin to unfold the future of woman as the Providential teacher
+of mankind? Who shall adequately measure her present power over the young?
+Honor to the teacher, whether with or without a mother's motive! Honor
+to the host of teachers who are now bearing to every border of our
+own land, the seeds of sound learning and social refinement. The
+school-mistress--not the crone whom Shenstone once painted--but the
+earnest, hopeful, high-minded daughter of a worthy home, is one of the
+ruling powers of our land, and at her approach barbarism yields and
+civilization reigns. I know well what I am talking about, and from years
+of pastoral experience I have learned to bless her work and worth.
+
+But without dwelling more on this topic of employment, or expatiating upon
+the gifts of daughters for teaching in its various branches, and the
+demand for a higher order of teachers than are now easily found, may we
+not say that society among us is sadly crude and imperfect, from the
+inadequate culture of those especially called to be its light and joy?
+What art among those called beautiful or useful, can rank above the art of
+guiding the economy of the home, ruling its prosaic abilities so aptly,
+that they too shall wear an ideal expression, and the peace of God shall
+go with the goods his bounty hath provided? Who shall exaggerate the
+worth of the conversational power so congenial with the natural eloquence
+of women, and so apt for want of culture or high purpose to degenerate
+into the poorest gossip? Who shall over-estimate the power of her who,
+from a full and ready mind bears to every circle the charm of an apt,
+sparkling, and kindly utterance, making beauty a spiritual benediction
+where it exists, and where beauty is denied, making up for its absence by
+a grace that no loveliness of feature can rival? Blessed indeed this
+ministry, when deep and holy faith completes the consecration, and our
+daughters employ for the solace of the afflicted, or the light of the
+benighted, the gifts and attainments which make their name so blessed
+among friends and in homes.
+
+Polished corner-stones of the temple, they are then builded upon Him who
+is the chief corner-stone, and parents with all their solicitude for
+beings so tenderly framed, and so exposed to the vicissitudes of the
+world, may leave them in perfect faith in guardianship of a heavenly
+goodness that cannot fail them. Great wrong we do them, unless, by the
+most decided precept and example, we lead them to the Heavenly Father,
+through the Gospel and the Church of Him, who is the Way and the Life.
+What miserable folly it is that looks upon feminine piety as a weakness,
+coming from an understanding too feeble to doubt, or a will too infirm to
+be self-relying! The daughter's strength and wisdom are in her faith and
+love. The mind is most illuminated when most opened to the light that God
+sheds upon the confiding, and there is many a house in which the wife and
+daughter's piety rises into a wisdom far beyond the husband and brother's
+hard worldly understanding. Bless God for the mission of Him whose deepest
+truth and inmost life were revealed to the sisters of Bethany, when hid
+from the Scribes and the Pharisees, and who found in their spiritual
+sympathy a solace which did not desert him, when his foremost disciple
+denied his name. It is the recipient soil, tender and watered by gentle
+dews, that nurtures the acorn into the oak by an alchemy that the flinty
+rock knows nothing of. Thus has it been with the mighty seed of the Word.
+What would have become of it, had there been no feminine faith and love to
+receive and nurture it into the tree of life? May that grace which has so
+worked upon the heart of woman, and raised her from bondage, and given her
+a new throne on earth, work among us, and redeem our daughters from the
+snares of the world.
+
+_Week of Religious Anniversaries._
+
+
+
+
+Business and the Heart.
+
+
+
+
+BUSINESS AND THE HEART.
+
+
+Paul, the spiritualist and devotee, was eminently a practical man, and by
+what he did and what he said, gave it to be understood, that life has a
+serious business to be done, as well as a firm faith and hearty affections
+to be cherished. He himself was an efficient business man, and in his
+letters, preaching, and whole administration, he showed singular ability
+in dealing with men, and carrying his point in spite of their prejudices,
+or his own disadvantages. Even money matters, he did not neglect; but
+whilst rigidly simple and independent in his own habits, he had a wary eye
+upon the needs of the rising churches, insisted upon due charities and
+careful expenditure--nay, he expressly declared that the faculty for
+business was to be welcomed among the Christian gifts, and to be used for
+the common good, as decidedly as the faculty for teaching and exhorting.
+He bids men unite diligence in business with fervor of spirit, and a true
+service of God.
+
+"Not slothful in business," he said at a time, when in the first love of
+their new faith, many were in danger of slighting practical affairs for
+the raptures of devotion, or in impatience for the second coming of
+Christ, and the age of Millennial rest. "Not slothful in business," may we
+not say now, great as is the temptation with many to think, that we do not
+need any such advice in an age and country where business seems to ride
+over every thing else, and trample down all fervor of spirit and service
+of God. Reflect a little upon the clause in its connection, and we shall
+see how admirably all the words go together, and fill out the sense.
+Interpreting them so, we will speak of the business man in and out of his
+business character, and especially in his character at home, or as a man
+of affections--at home, that place where he must show pretty thoroughly
+what he is at heart, to family and friends. To see what he is elsewhere,
+we will look at him first at his work, for his course there will decide in
+a great measure his spirit elsewhere. Look into his store, or study,
+workshop, or office, and what is he doing? Whatever it may be, it is the
+serious work of his life, and is taking most of his time and thought. He
+says to himself, however much or little he likes his occupation, "This is
+my business, and thus I use my faculties, and earn my livelihood, and
+maintain my family, and win whatever means or influence I can for objects
+that I approve." He is willing very honestly to accept the motto, "not
+slothful in business" for himself and all in his employment. Does he know
+how much meaning lies within those words?
+
+Sometimes when he thinks himself a prodigy of care and industry, and in
+the fever of hurry and anxiety, he is almost ready to give up every holy
+thought and Christian feeling for the absorbing chase, is not his very
+turmoil the fruit of slothfulness? If he had been better disciplined, more
+thoughtful, more methodical, would he not have been spared all this fever
+of mind, and excepting, perhaps, certain peculiar emergencies, would not
+the care as well as the evil of each day have been sufficient for itself,
+and send him to his home with heart open to friendly affections, and ready
+to thank Heaven for sweetening the repose of his pillow by the work he has
+done? Surely there is no way to make business so troublesome as by
+neglecting it. The only way of being rid of it, is to do it well, and the
+most thorough and careful system is more favorable to peace and
+spirituality of mind than slipshod negligence. If a man does not attend to
+his business it will attend to him, and dog him night and day, like a
+baying hound in chase of a stricken deer. If a man goes beyond negligence
+and is dishonest, so much the worse, for the best experience says, that
+dishonesty is a mistake, as well as a vice--the poor resort of bunglers in
+trade, as well as pigmies in morals. Nothing frets, and in the end
+confounds a man more than to patch together a tissue of lies, and this
+trouble a thorough business training must shun.
+
+The very habit of earnest attention is wholesome, and need not end where
+it begins. Sluggishness of mind and heart is a sad foe to all true life,
+and he who studies generously, and does earnestly the work of any worthy
+calling, so far educates himself, and is open to all better influences by
+the discipline. Who of us, whatever our vocation, is not willing to take
+very modest views of himself in this respect? Whether in one of the
+learned professions, or in mercantile pursuits, have we been awake to the
+highest aspects of our position, and used its opportunities so well, that
+we may sincerely call it a liberal vocation? How many professional men
+there are, who are mere drudges among drugs, parchments, and ceremonials?
+how many merchants, may I not say, are there, who are profoundly ignorant
+of the history and relations of their own craft, ignorant of that
+wonderful science of trade which is changing the face of the world, and
+placing itself among the momentous facts of Providence. Consider the
+opportunities of a merchant to observe character, to study times, and
+nations; to procure the arts, books, and society best for the mind; to
+trace even the changes in the market to causes that connect themselves
+with the world's want or welfare,--then say, who is not slothful in
+business? Think too, of the best practical examplars of mercantile
+culture,--how much of those two ruling forms of practical ability, the
+soldier's and the statesman's, have combined in the merchant's enterprise
+and comprehension, and an emphasis beyond that of the market-place will
+attach to the words--"Not slothful in business." Nay, how can a man be
+thoroughly faithful to his daily calling, and use the judgment, energy,
+and punctuality essential to the best efficiency, without a training that
+looks beyond the shop or office, and introduces him into all the generous
+relations of life? In fact, what is business well understood, but the
+practical side of life in all its moral and spiritual aspects, as well as
+its bodily wants?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Certainly in its own way, the world is ready to require a certain kind of
+heartiness in practical affairs, and to regard a certain fervor of feeling
+as a pleasant trait in diligence. In its own way it will repeat the second
+clause of the apostle, and add "fervent in spirit" to "not slothful in
+business." The spirit of trade itself is among us very earnest, and those
+men are liked best by their associates, who grace practical energy by a
+good share of hearty fellowship and generous enthusiasm. This is well, but
+it is not all of the interpretation of the words. Fervor thus interpreted
+sometimes would be more fitly called fever, for it is more the hot haste
+of the blood than the genial life of the affections, more the gambler's
+madness than the disciple's zeal. Fervor in spirit means far less and far
+more than this--far less in extravagance and far more in power. It means
+that the cares of business should neither chill the heart with avarice,
+nor inflame it with passion; and that a man should be more spiritual as he
+becomes more practical.
+
+Does any one wonder at this statement? Some persons indeed speak, as if
+the spiritual and the practical were antagonist terms. But they are quite
+the reverse, and eminently in alliance. Consider them on their human and
+their divine side. What is more practical than spirit? what more essential
+to efficient action? Certainly he who acts out the most and the best
+spirit is the most practical man. He who is most experienced in training
+himself or others to practical affairs, knows very well that success comes
+according as spirit animates the daily routine, and each day's details
+grow out of a root of hearty interest. We really believe that the greatest
+business men have been full of spirit, and that the greatest spiritualists
+have been eminently practical,--the mere drudge being a faulty business
+man, and the mere dreamer a very poor spiritualist.
+
+But illustrate the principle on the divine side, by considering the method
+of God. Does He not work by His Spirit? He has breathed it, in some
+measure, into all creatures, chiefly into man; and is it not the necessity
+of its nature to work? There is something of it in every living thing, and
+this something is its true life. From our abounding harvests select a
+grain of wheat or corn. Within that little seed lodges a power which no
+man fully comprehends, but which is essential to the world's life. Ask it
+to explain itself, and it says not a word; grind it to powder, and the
+dust is but dust. Keep it whole, and in the spring-time within the ground,
+its spirit will come out first in the green blade, and last in the golden
+ears. This is always the method of God, to work from within outward; from
+the spirit to the work. What is the course of nature but the going forth
+of life from the spirit to the work, and from the work back again to the
+spirit, all genuine growth multiplying the vitality from which it sprung?
+It is what the philosopher calls the law of ultimates, or the process
+from firsts to lasts and from lasts to firsts. The Gospel is its best
+illustration; for it put a new spirit into men, and worked itself out in
+new works, all its works diffusing and quickening the spirit from which
+they sprung. It took hold of the world practically, and made it a business
+to do away with old evils, and build up a kingdom more enlarged, and
+kindly, and pure,--more spiritual than the earth had seen before.
+
+But how apply these thoughts to business now,--how insist upon fervor of
+spirit in pursuits whose aim is money-making; and, on our own principles,
+is not the spirit of trade itself the thing needed? We reply that
+money-making of itself is not the proper or the general end of trade, but
+only a means to a higher end. Trade is one of the essential forms of
+industry, and a true man will pursue it that he may do his part well in
+the world, and care well for all who depend upon or who justly claim his
+care. Money is one step in the process, not the end, and that man is a
+poor creature, below even the common worldly standard, whose success,
+instead of fixing his thoughts on his hoards, does not fill his mind and
+heart with new hopes for his family and friends, and people his unromantic
+counting-house with hovering images of his children and home, visions of
+ampler culture and nobler charities. Leaving out of the account some
+miserable creatures, who heap up gold for themselves, and crush their
+heart under the heap, we must allow that there is much heart in trade, and
+the better class of business men have kindly and elevated aims in view.
+How much the arts and sciences, letters, philanthropy, and religion, owe
+to the merchant, the whole career of commerce shows. Think of what trade
+has done for the higher aims of society; study the fruits of commerce in
+modern times; read of the Medici, the Roscoes, the Gurneys, and the noble
+men in our land who have endowed our best institutions, and say what you
+please of the miser, but say not a word against the true merchant. Justice
+may be his ruling virtue, but mercy is not wholly absent, since
+forgiveness is often called for, and no liberal merchant can be found who
+cannot repeat honestly the prayer, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive
+our debtors." There is much heart in trade, yet not enough by any means,
+and a cold worldliness sometimes gains ground with those worthy of better
+things, and, in fact, desirous of better things. Men worthy of better
+things become more superficial and ostentatious with time and increased
+means, and, instead of acting independently and sensibly, join in vain
+rivalry of a set of people, whose emptiness is proved every time their
+mouths are opened. When shall the due check be found, and the true heart
+abound, and the spirit be fervent indeed?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We rest our answer upon the last clause of the apostle: "Serving the
+Lord." It places before us distinctly the true end of life,--the service
+of God, and insists upon our regarding this in the choice and conduct of
+our business, so that it shall be a part of our religion. Does this seem
+chimerical? Not so; for it is surely the only view of religion that
+business men will consent to call practical. They think little of mere
+professions, and judge of men by their doings. They make merry at the
+thought of trusting a man's word, because he belongs to some specified
+church; and they can quote too many cases of solemn persons who try to
+trade upon their alleged piety, who seem to think long prayers an offset
+to a little double dealing, and who, in more ways than one, shorten the
+commandments to piece out the catechism. Such judgment is well, only let
+it be consistent, and teach the judging party to look well to its ways,
+and lay hold of the substance in disgust at the mere shadow.
+
+Here is the liberal and strict doctrine: that all of life is under God's
+government, and should be conformed to the order of His law and
+Providence. Our business is part of our life, and should bear upon its
+highest spiritual interest. Any principle short of this is utter
+worldliness, and any principle that goes further than this, and shuts
+religion up in creeds and forms, is bigotry and superstition. The
+principle comes to nothing, unless it shapes our plans, and we start and
+go on with the resolution not to sacrifice true life in pursuit of the
+means of living. It comes to nothing, unless we follow a plan which makes
+a business of religion, instead of a religion of business, and insists
+upon a daily method which will give the mind and heart its due, careful
+quite as much of the claims of home affections, refined tastes, and
+elevating thoughts, as of the price-current and the market-place. Business
+is full of stubborn facts, and the true service of God or religion must
+be made as stubborn a fact as any of them, and keep its ground for all
+honesty, and purity, and kindness, and fidelity. It may be done, and the
+very method and energy trained in practical affairs may complete the plan
+of true living, and make and keep a place in the heart for home and
+friends, for humanity and God.
+
+Is there not imperious call for such service,--for a decided stand in
+behalf of the moral and spiritual interests of our being? If men are ever
+so successful, how poor their success is apart from generous and Christian
+aims,--how poor is wealth, if it is only the means of a demoralizing
+extravagance, and he who began life as an industrious worker sinks into a
+swollen Sybarite, pampering his daughters into simpering, vaporing
+fashionists, and his sons into dainty, inefficient, good-for-nothing
+spendthrifts. How noble, on the other hand, is success, when it helps out
+worthy aims; and the friend of arts and letters, charity and piety, it
+gives peace to the soul in rendering service to God. If success do not
+come, and reverses follow, how essential is the stronghold of faith and
+peace, which will not fail to keep a man safe from the worst evil if he
+has faithfully kept himself within its covert. For the demands of either
+fortune, as well as for the good, not temporal but eternal, men are called
+to add to their diligence in business fervor of spirit in the service of
+God.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Street-preaching is, we are told, to be the order of the day, and the poor
+and neglected are to hear the Word from lips before strange to them. Not
+only in the haunts of the miserable, and the streets narrow and wretched,
+is such ministry needed. Many a street, stately with warehouses and banks,
+needs more than any thing a voice that can reach the heart, and enlist the
+chiefs of business in a service better than luxury and worldliness. No
+revival is more demanded than the conversion of the votaries of wealth,
+not to some new creed or mannerism, but to a true and godly way of life.
+In some way this must be done, and God must have the sagacity and force
+for his own cause which are so often in bondage to the world. His spirit
+must breathe new life along the great arteries of trade, and make men
+better without making them less strong, multiplying the examples of
+characters like Gurney the banker, devout and charitable without ceasing
+to be shrewd, or, like Peel the statesman, using the comprehensive
+judgment, learned in practical business, for the welfare of his country
+and the glory of God. We need and must have a new order of men, and of
+their coming many bright signs appear,--men at once practical and
+spiritual, knowing well the world and its ways; not to be its servants,
+but to subdue its fierce forces into obedience to the kingdom not of this
+world. There are dreamers enough, and drudges enough. The want is of men
+with eyes wide open, and hearts quick and true. In no age more than ours
+has the deep need and earnest hope of society better interpreted the
+apostle's definition of a truly practical man, "Not slothful in business,
+fervent in spirit, serving the Lord."
+
+God himself seems to stoop from heaven and show the worth of this
+character, in showing in himself the grand archetype of the practical
+mind. Nearer he comes, and reveals in all powers and laws, in the light,
+and air, and rain, in tree and rock, in earth and man, the working of his
+mind. He tells us anew, that he made the world, and that we find out the
+wisdom of his work, as we learn to do our work wisely. With him the useful
+goes with the lovely and the spiritual. Every dew-drop or sunbeam does a
+mighty business for him, and shows his loveliness and illustrates his
+service as it cheers the landscapes and helps the harvest. With reverence
+be it spoken, yet with all confidence: the God in whose image we are made
+is the eternal exemplar of the practical mind. In Christ we are followers
+of him when we do all our work earnestly, spiritually, faithfully, under
+his government; and open within our business a door into all the home
+affections and friendly graces of the earth,--all the sweet charities and
+blessed hopes of heaven.
+
+Let not the thought lose itself in generalities. Our business men are
+strong and earnest in many things, and are probably as enterprising and
+efficient as any set of men in the world. Merchants, do you hold precious
+your written obligations? What of the unwritten? What would your credit be
+if you slighted your business promises as you often slight your Christian
+obligations, and treated the world as you treat the moral and spiritual
+interests of your home and church? Think seriously and do better. In
+spirit and in truth as well as in energy, be "followers of God as dear
+children."
+
+Your pursuits train you to calculation; despise not the word, but keep it,
+and weigh it well. It is a noble word, and the calculus is one line of the
+Divine reason. God calculates,--he geometrizes--he seeks due proportion,
+and number, and weight,--he counts time, and the round of the seasons; and
+the paths of the planets point the days, even the seconds, on the
+dial-plate of the heavens, and prove the punctuality of God. Calculate
+well and as he does. The good Samaritan calculated when he took care of
+the wounded man, and the priest calculated as he left him by the
+road-side. Howard calculated when he gathered the statistics of
+philanthropy, and Arnold calculated when he sold his country for gold and
+ambition. Judas calculated when he betrayed his Master for the pieces of
+silver, and Jesus calculated when he asked, "What does it profit a man if
+he gain the whole world and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in
+exchange for his soul?"
+
+Among the great facts of our welfare, place the mind and heart, home
+affections, heavenward thoughts, and our business will have new blessings
+from Him whom we serve.
+
+
+
+
+Summer in the Country.
+
+
+
+
+SUMMER IN THE COUNTRY.
+
+
+That was a beautiful and expressive ordinance of the Old Dispensation
+which enjoined a rural festival upon the conscience of the faithful. Every
+year the whole nation were ordered to pass a week in rural bowers woven of
+the boughs of goodly trees, in remembrance of the time when their fathers
+dwelt in the wilderness, and God led them to the Land of Promise. By the
+Israelites, the ancient festival is still remembered, and one of the most
+gifted of their modern writers thus describes its observance in Southern
+Europe.
+
+"Large branches of the palm and cedar, the willow, acacia and the oak, cut
+so as to prevent their withering for the seven days, formed the walls of
+the tent; their leaves intermingling overhead so as to form a shelter, and
+yet permit the beautiful blue of the heavens to peep within. Flowers of
+every shade and scent formed a bordering within, and bouquets, richly and
+tastefully arranged, placed in vases, filled with scented earth, hung from
+the branches forming the roof. Fruit, too, was there,--the purple grape,
+the ripe, red orange, the paler lemon, the lime, the pomegranate, the
+citron."
+
+This festival in its ancient form, Christians do not observe, although we
+may see some of its traces in the camp-meetings of Methodism and in the
+evergreen boughs of Catholicism. Yet its essential idea should, and does
+remain. Each year we are sadly dull and worldly, if the luxuriance of
+summer does not lift our thoughts to Him who sustained our fathers in
+their hard conflict with rude nature, and enabled them to change the
+savage wilderness into fertile fields, and peaceful groves. Grovelling
+indeed we are, if, upon our return from the pleasant retreats where we
+have sought rest and recreation, we cannot bring back some grateful
+remembrances of what we have seen and enjoyed in rural places.
+
+The old festival, kept as it was by the whole nation at Jerusalem, in
+green tents, was a kind of annual consecration of the relation between the
+city and the country. Thus the feast had at once a special and an
+universal meaning. The bigot may have thought only of the years of
+wandering, when, in nomad tents, the chosen race escaped from their
+oppressors. But more enlarged and sensitive minds, of the race of David
+and Isaiah, interpreted the season far more generously; and we are assured
+by the presence of Him who went from Nazareth to take part in the scene,
+that some eyes looked upon those rural tabernacles which stood among the
+streets of Jerusalem, as emblems of the permanent relations which man
+should sustain to nature,--of the constant ministry of the works of God to
+man.
+
+Our topic now is the relation between the town and the country, especially
+the power of rural life upon them who dwell in cities.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We consider first the various objects which present themselves for
+contemplation. Cowper's contrast may have been too strong, when he said
+that "God made the country, and man made the town," for, in both places,
+we are surrounded by the works of God and man. The farm, as well as the
+busy street, shows what human toil can do, and they that live in cities
+are in themselves, and in the plenty that sustains them, constant proofs
+of the bounty of God; whilst upon all places the sunshine and the rain do
+fall with equal mercy. Yet, in the country, we see more of nature in its
+divine adaptations, less perverted by the artifices of man. The eye is not
+limited by streets and walls to some narrow spot, nor is the landscape
+curtailed of its breadth and beauty to suit the grasping policy of
+traffic. Generally the hand of rural art and labor rather interprets than
+obscures the plan of nature. The regions well cultivated are often the
+most picturesque, and at once charm by their scenery, and instruct by
+their varied uses and adaptations. We see man in just relations towards
+the soil as its cultivator, and towards the animal world as their master
+and friend. He lives in close sympathy with the heavens, the earth, the
+animated tribes. The sun in its rise, and course, and setting, counts to
+him the hours, and divides his times of labor and repose. He breathes the
+air as the Creator mingled it, and draws from the soil something of that
+quickening, vital force, which the great Mother never refuses to her
+children, who seek her. He enlarges the circle of his friendships more
+widely even than in metropolitan coteries, and has friends among birds and
+fowls; while, with the sheep, and horse, and ox, as well as with kindly
+neighbors, he can keep company. He is daily called to see the harmonious
+plan of the universe, the co-operation between light, and air, and rain,
+and dew, between all elements and all creatures in the universe of God. In
+fact, apart from any philosophical curiosity, the very necessity of his
+calling must make him not a little a sage in the observation of nature.
+When science is added to observation, the greater, of course, the
+privilege of his position, the more readily does he unlock the treasures
+around him, and his rural hours may be hours of favored vision, nay, of
+sacred communion.
+
+But is not man the crown of nature? and where is man to be found in such
+perfection, as in the great centres where men congregate? If we would be
+wise, why not seek the great multitude and dwell most among the crowd? I
+will not disparage city life as a school of instruction in the science of
+human nature. He who knows nothing of the great market-places, and social
+resorts of his race, is ignorant certainly of our nature under very
+important aspects. But to be constantly mingling with men, is a very
+different thing from the true knowledge of man. The judicious analysis of
+a few characters will teach more wisdom than a superficial observation of
+ten thousand passers by, just as the dissection of a plant or an animal
+shows more of its structure than a glance at a whole kingdom or continent
+frequented by the same tribes. Human nature may be wisely studied wherever
+it is to be found, and if extent, as well as sharpness of observation is
+essential, we must remember that all men do not live in cities; that the
+country has its own forms of humanity; and moreover, that they who dwell
+among the great crowd, learn best in more quiet scenes to judge of the
+true meaning of the bustling life around them; and they that are wisest in
+their views of the busy town, are they who have been able to survey its
+characters and circumstances frequently, from the commanding elevation and
+distance of rural retirement.
+
+Men and their arts, indeed, appear in utmost number and force in cities;
+but without the constant reinforcements from the country, the tribute of
+fresh energy and enterprise, the products of mechanical ingenuity, and of
+agricultural labor, the metropolis would soon languish, deprived at once
+of its daily bread, and its best intellectual resources. Even the
+beautiful arts, which adorn the homes and halls of cities, appeal to an
+eye and taste that ought to be well schooled in the observation of nature,
+and the canvas can never reveal its best meaning to minds conversant only
+with crowded streets and busy marts. If we must go to the city to see the
+gathered treasures of rural labor and skill, we must go to the country to
+learn to comprehend the affluence of the city, to understand the secret of
+its wealth, and to interpret the wonders of its useful and beautiful
+arts.
+
+Surely, then, we cannot but recognize the worth of the country in respect
+to the objects which it presents. Its beauty, although in some measure
+expressive of the work of man's hand, is most eloquent with the glory of
+God. Its plainest utilities bloom into loveliness, and to a devout ear
+sing out in anthems. Its wealth speaks less of man's arrogance than of
+heaven's bounty. We might institute in this respect a comparison between
+the pursuits of men in town and country. They are in both situations
+toiling for gain, and in both cases more or less in competition with men,
+and in contact with natural laws. But in the country, men depend less upon
+shrewd bargaining, and far more upon the direct return of their labor in
+the products of the soil. They deal more directly with their Creator, and
+there is more constancy and security, if not so much excitement of hope
+and fear in their gains. Refreshing and instructive it is for those whose
+business habits lead them to look upon the chances of traffic as the
+source of wealth, to learn for themselves how much stronger security the
+Creator has given for the sustenance of man; and important as are finance
+and traffic, the best treasures of man come from the soil in return for
+his skill and industry. Surely the pursuits most habitual in rural life
+teach many a sober lesson to men fevered with the competitions of traffic.
+We might show also that the country may afford quite as valuable hints in
+the simplicity of its pleasures, as in the sobriety of its industry. They
+who are in the habit of regarding enjoyment as the result of some costly
+dissipation, need to learn of nature a stern, yet blessed lesson, and
+find that true happiness is not a far-fetched luxury, but is very near us,
+when we live near to God, and true to his laws. Wretched are they who make
+of their seasons of recreation but a new round of dissipation, and repeat
+the orgies of the winter in the retreats of the summer!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is often asked whether life in the town or the country is, on the
+whole, most favorable to the formation of character,--the pursuit of true
+wisdom, virtue, happiness. Without being obliged to take either side of
+the question, it is sufficient at present to urge the importance of
+guarding against the peculiar exposures of each condition; and especially,
+of urging people of the town to look well to the sins that beset them, and
+seek in the broad fields truths that they need in their own homes.
+
+They live in the midst of excitement and need sobriety. If they have more
+intensity, they have also more fever of mind, and may take counsel wisely
+of those whose temper is more serene, if, perhaps, sometimes more
+sluggish, and whose habits are likely to be more equable, if in danger of
+becoming sometimes monotonous. We absolutely need the influence of rural
+life to soothe our spirits and calm our nerves. The pulse itself abates
+its fevered beat, and the heart is quieted down into harmony with the
+gentler pulse of nature. If the town offers stimulus to the visitor from
+the country, the country repays the gift by giving calmness, and thus the
+power of new energy to the visitor from the city.
+
+A serene frame of body and mind is certainly one requisite of wisdom, and
+not the only requisite which rural life favors. We need to look beyond the
+horizon of fashion and conventionality, which we are so apt to mistake for
+the entire world, and correct our observations by careful notes of those
+forms of rural life, which, after all our city pride, we must regard as
+most expressive of the common lot of man in all nations and ages. The man
+who sums up all his views of rural manners in the contemptuous word
+_countrified_, will do well to remember that there is not a little reason
+to form a more contemptuous word in reference to such persons as himself,
+and call the fop, who mistakes his circle of loiterers for the human race,
+and his haunts of folly for the world of wisdom, as sillier than the
+simplest rustic, farther from the true mark in being _citified_ than the
+latter in being _countrified_. They that dwell in crowds very easily
+become very knowing, but not necessarily wise. They that frequent the
+haunts of vice and frivolity learn many things that do but add to their
+folly. They do not view life in its best aspects and true aims, nor
+interpret it as its Divine Author teaches. Even those whose minds are open
+to the true science of humanity, need to flee from the crowd to ponder
+soberly upon its lessons. In the busy world, they are constantly finding
+seeds of thought, but in a far less troubled soil these seeds must be
+nurtured and matured. Probably the wisest meditations upon man, society,
+Providence, have been engaged in by persons well taught indeed in the ways
+of the great world, but ruminating in quiet upon its teachings, and
+correcting the prejudices of the hour by the sober reasonings of calmer
+scenes and influences. To such truthful judgment of distant things
+surveyed from its serener retreats, rural life adds a wisdom peculiarly
+its own,--a wisdom such as Solomon so sagaciously incorporated in his
+proverbs, and Jesus so divinely presented in his parables.
+
+It would not be difficult to show the happy influence of familiarity with
+the country in teaching lessons of virtue--in bracing the frame for
+hardier labors--in urging the worth of the lesser ethics of frugality and
+economy, and the higher morals of true manliness and godliness. Virtue is
+moral strength, and is taught in every school that strengthens the moral
+energies. The genial air and simple habits of rural life favor manly
+fortitude, and a manly spirit. Poor would be the future prospects of our
+nation if they rested wholly with the dwarfed and fevered offspring of our
+cities. Our people would ere long lose their place among the nations, and
+would drop their heads in shame in comparison with men trained in hardy
+sports and healthful labors, as the yeomanry and gentry of England.
+Religion itself, which is the crown of true manliness, would languish if
+there were no more check to vice and skepticism than the check, strong
+indeed as it is, which metropolitan churches afford. How wonderfully the
+power of faith among the peasants of La Vendee withstood the sneers and
+threats of Paris, with its armed bands of Atheists in the great
+convulsion, when priests became scoffers and churches were places of
+rioting! How nobly our own churches have been favored by the words and
+thoughts of elect minds devoted to God and his truth, in peaceful villages
+away from the crowded marts! Where would the pulpit find the teachers that
+are needed, if its sole dependence were upon the youth reared in cities? I
+could not but think much of the power of rural life in raising up vigorous
+and independent preachers, whilst I was enjoying a few weeks of recreation
+in the lovely town in which President Dwight prepared himself for his more
+conspicuous ministry at New Haven. I have rambled with delight again and
+again over that noble Greenfield Hill, which he celebrated in a poem, and
+have not wondered that the vast and charming prospect, ranging as it does
+from the broad waters of Long Island Sound to the peak of the Catskill
+Mountains, should have made something of a poet of a theologian, sometimes
+so remorseless a logician. May we not see, however, in his theological
+works, and still more in the pages of his mighty predecessor in theology,
+Edwards, of Northampton, who, too, dwelt among scenes of singular beauty,
+ample proofs that nature never deserts her votaries, nor fails to breathe
+into them a spirit of beauty, that can live, after the harsh dogmas have
+perished like the husks that inclose the grain for the harvest.
+
+I would not disparage our town life, nor call it by any means godless. It
+is happy in being able to command so many resources, happy in being able
+to ally to itself so many influences not its own. Where there are souls
+there God may be known, and where learning and experience gather their
+treasure; we may find light upon the ways of God and his Providence. But
+very poorly do we study this manifold creation, and the word of its
+Creator, if we limit our horizon to the streets and walls, and business
+and pleasure even of the greatest metropolis. The Bible itself--that book
+so full of the poetry of nature--from its first to its last chapter, from
+the Old Eden to the New Jerusalem exhaling the fragrance of fields and
+breathing the genial air of rivers and mountains,--lifting the soul to God
+by the contemplation of his works,--the Bible is a sealed book to us, if
+we do not always read its parallel revelation in the heavens and upon the
+earth. There is an expression in nature which must be caught, like that on
+a friend's countenance, from itself. Description is not enough, and the
+best scientific analysis, however valuable as an aid, is but a poor
+substitute for the original reality. God speaks to us still in his works,
+and what prophets and bards of old have heard, we may now hear. We may
+hear it perhaps all the more eagerly for the comparative rarity of the
+privilege. They that are trained in cities wisely yearn to breathe the
+country air, and in its diviner meaning, interpret the landscape. Pastoral
+poets and rural philosophers find their fondest admirers in such minds.
+Who has exercised this blessed ministry of the interpretation of nature
+better than Wordsworth, poet and philosopher at once as he is? With all
+their exquisite refinement, and their sometimes mystical sentiment, his
+poems are tinted with the hues of sky and mountain, lake and meadow,
+eloquent with the voices of the seasons, breathing the calm spirit of
+nature in its pleadings with the rebel temper of man. In how many of us
+they awaken blessed remembrances of our childhood, refresh us in our worn,
+anxious, and weary life as with the gush of living waters, and the sight
+of grassy meadows! Kind Heaven would not have us lose the companionship of
+nature, and has given us elect minds as well as glorious scenery to be its
+interpretation. There is peace as well as power in listening to such
+ministries. Nor do I fear to place upon this list, those men who have
+brought a fine taste and genial humility to the culture and adornment of
+the soil, the improvement of rural architecture and landscape gardening!
+What name deserves more grateful mention than that of Downing, that lover
+of nature and of the art that best interprets her ideal. I know of no
+village which does not bear directly or indirectly some mark of his mind,
+in the form of a cottage or school-house, or a garden devised after his
+idea. He has brought out the wealth of our forests, and in our summer
+retreat, many a tree that else had been cramped and hidden in the swamp
+has whispered his requiem to our ears.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The course of thought which I have pursued regarding the objects and
+influences of country life, will find an answer in many of my city
+readers. We need no tent of green branches to quicken our remembrance of
+Heaven's bounty to us and our fathers in our relations to rural scenes.
+Our memory has a leafy arbor of unfading foliage, in which we may every
+day celebrate God's goodness to us in the gift of so noble a heritage,
+where we dwell and where we may visit.
+
+It is not well to conclude these thoughts upon the influence of scenes
+upon character without urging home the truth, that our ruling principle is
+the main index and source of character; and he is sadly deluded who trusts
+to any position to secure his virtue or to excuse his vices. Apt enough we
+are to be discontented with our lot, and to burden fate or Providence with
+the blame that is our own. We imagine some more favored condition to be
+the sure warranty of success and worth. He who lives among the crowd
+ascribes to their example his vices, and he who lives among the fields
+refers his rudeness to want of better opportunity. Older than the Satire
+of Horace on human discontent is the wish of man for change of fortune,
+even as old as man himself. Better for him to make the best of what he
+has, and find his content thus keeping pace with his progress.
+
+He that dwells in the country, while he should use every opportunity for
+enlarging his circle of experience by travel, must take heed lest he
+slight the privileges of his own position. He may fall into the vices of
+the town among the simpler habits of his neighbors, and be eaten at heart
+by the worst passion while breathing the purest airs of heaven. He must
+learn simple truth of a power above man, or nature will not save him from
+corruption.
+
+He who lives in the city need not ascribe the evil that he suffers solely
+to circumstances, nor expect mental enlargement as the consequence of a
+cosmopolitan home. He must keep true simplicity in the midst of artificial
+conventions, and may narrow himself into an earthworm in the midst of the
+men and the culture of all climes and nations. He may be in bondage to a
+metropolitan mannerism which is quite as slavish as any provincial
+prejudice, and full as far short of a wise humanity as of a genuine faith.
+
+Better counsel do we need than crowds can teach or nature alone can
+unfold. Wherever we dwell, we are to look to a kingdom not of this world,
+and by communion with its sovereign Head, elect Messiah and sainted
+intellects, we are to confirm what is best on earth by what is most
+gracious on high.
+
+Still, though only in thought, need we weave our green bowers to tell us
+of the ancient march through the wilderness to the promised land, for
+still are we on our pilgrimage. Wisely do we keep the feast of tabernacles
+when we erect them at once in our remembrance and hope, looking upon the
+emblems of God's love for us in the past as the assurance of his love when
+the soul shall reach the river whose waters never fail, and rest beneath
+the tree of life whose leaf never fades, whose fruit never withers.
+
+_August._
+
+
+
+
+Returning Home.
+
+
+
+
+RETURNING HOME.
+
+
+Two commands God gave in the beginning and is always giving to his
+creatures. He bids them go forth and return, and the lives of all beings
+are divided between the two. The history of every man is but another
+version of the words, "He went forth and he returned." All his enterprises
+and all his results may be thus simply described.
+
+It is so common, especially in our restless time, to dwell upon the more
+adventurous change, that the milder is apt to be slighted, and, bent upon
+advancing, we make too little account of return as a primal law of life.
+How can we fail to see it written on all things that God has made? It may
+be read upon every dew-drop whose summons back to the heavens the morning
+sunshine brings, and upon every flower whose gorgeous petals signal its
+triumph, and herald the retreat of its vital forces to the earth whence
+they came. Every rising wave murmurs also of an ebbing tide, and every
+beat of the pulse sends back as well as forward the current of life. The
+heavens--they bear majestic witness of Him who rules their hosts. The
+stars are ever returning upon their courses, and marking the seasons that
+time the periods of man. Insect, bird, and beast, follow instinctively the
+same great law; by their transformations, migrations and quickened or
+diminished vitality, they turn in the recurrent cycles in which all things
+have their round. In all ages, thinking minds have been impressed with
+this great fact. We see the impression in the early memorials of sober
+thought. The wise preacher brooded over it, as he spoke of winds and
+waters returning on their path and of there being nothing new under the
+sun. It haunted the visions of the sages of the Nile, and stands out to
+the eye in that serpent symbol which teaches from tombs and temples the
+circle of eternity.
+
+Feeling themselves sometimes swept away upon this great current of events,
+inclosed in this serpent-fold of destiny, men have lost their proper sense
+of responsibility and sunk down into a passive fatalism. From this torpor
+God would ever arouse us, and have us see in the return, as in the going
+forth, the same providential plan--the same sphere of duty and privilege.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+How full of privilege is this recurrent aspect of things! Led by the hosts
+of heaven, the seasons walk their benign round, and in their course they
+are ever renewing most delightful relations of life. In the calendar of
+nature there are far more festivals than fasts, and, to a well-taught
+mind, the recurrence of the sadder times and scenes of the year brings
+thoughts more blessed than the world's reckless feasting. Spring and
+summer are always new and always cheering, whilst autumn and winter teach
+lessons and may nurture affections more precious than their gayer
+treasures. The text of nature has ever a marginal commentary taken from
+the book of the heart; and as the text is read and re-read, the commentary
+grows in size and interest, for each year's repeated interviews reveal
+nature and the heart more fully to each other, and give variety ever fresh
+to a friendship constant as the law of God. The great universe was made,
+we must believe, more for the home of rational souls than for the
+playground of giant masses and powers of matter. What aspect of its
+vastness is more tender than that which exhibits its majestic changes as
+waiting upon the discipline and affections of God's children; the great
+sun lighting the laborer to his work, and then withdrawing its light to
+send him to the welcome of his home and the peace of his pillow; the whole
+starry host joining together to make and mark the days and months whose
+returning recalls some pleasant face of life and Providence, makes
+childhood glad, or age peaceful.
+
+Man himself has in his own being a periodicity corresponding with the
+cycles of nature. His active energies, his sensibilities, social and
+devout, his intellectual powers, have their recurrent periods. He is
+strangely ignorant of his own nature, who has not learned that there are
+times and tides within his own soul as well as with seas and stars. The
+plan of the benign Deity for him seems to be such as to secure at once
+constancy, and variety, and progress.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Note well the constancy which God, the Ever Faithful and True, ordains for
+man by the recurrent order of his lot. He will not have life a chaos of
+scattered fragments, nor a stray meteor that follows no orbit. It must
+have its periods of outgoing and return. Whatever be our home, the object
+of our love or care, to that we must ever recur; and however capricious
+the humors, or eventful the career, every man's life falls into a certain
+circuit, and every heart revolves in some orbit by a law as sure as that
+which guides Arcturus and Orion. Man, indeed, may be so perverse as to
+abuse the law, but he cannot repeal it. He may give his heart to evil, and
+make his home with wickedness; but wherever he makes it, there this law
+finds him, and, in a round of habit good or bad, returns him after every
+wandering to his own place. Securing thus the constancy of his Providence,
+God teaches us to see the moral significance of the law of return. What a
+lesson is here upon the force of habit! Its power comes from God's own
+constancy, and woe to the man who inverts his nature so sadly, that evil
+instead of good walks in the appointed circuit. Every vice into which he
+falls constantly returns upon him, like the circling waters of the
+whirlpool, which run round and round until lost in the dark deep. Every
+good which he loves, every truth he accepts, every charity he cherishes,
+follows the same law; circling in the ascending order, like the vine that
+twines round and round its trellis, to lift its leaves and fruit into the
+upper air and light. The law of habit we cannot repeal, but our use of it
+depends upon ourselves. It is like the tides, which wait not our bidding
+to rise or fall, but which leave us free to launch wisdom and industry, or
+folly and rapine, upon their waters. The law says that man must return in
+his course. He must go home. Let a true life interpret the benignity of
+this Divine constancy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Consider, also, the variety which comes from the action of this law. The
+interest of existence depends in great measure upon a due proportion of
+constancy and variety. Were there no uniformity, the world would be chaos,
+society Babel, and thought madness; there could be no external stability,
+no intellectual consistency; the senses would recognize no familiar
+things, and memory could make no reliable record. Such a condition is
+hardly conceivable; although feuds and wars sometimes so disturb the
+stability of life as to give some idea of the fatal effect of such
+disorder. Without variety, moreover, the Divine plan would also be broken,
+and a dreary monotony would brood over paradise itself. Benign Heaven has
+blended the two elements in our lot, so that perhaps our highest pleasure
+consists in the return of familiar blessings with varied
+circumstances;--not in absolute novelty or absolute permanence, but in
+scenes, friends, and pursuits ever constant and ever new. Who does not
+know this kindly mingling of joys? What traveller is there in distant
+lands--lands which his boyish fancy has so long yearned to see--who does
+not feel more delight in the return than in the going away? No matter what
+beauties or sublimities of nature and art may have feasted sense and soul,
+the fairest sight is his own familiar home and friends,--the sublimest
+thought is of the God who guarded his childhood, and whose presence he
+feels more deeply as the guardian of his dwelling, than as the dread Being
+who piled up the Alps and poured out the oceans. In any aspect of the
+case, it is recurrence with variety that gives our being much of its
+finest zest. To talk with cherished friends after absence, to revisit
+familiar scenes and meditate on times past and present; to perform, under
+new influences and encouragements, the accustomed round of duty; how much
+of freshest satisfaction is thus found! It is the best novelty and the
+truest constancy. Old things are made new by the fresh spirit infused into
+them, and that which the apostle states as the feeling of a first convert
+to the Gospel, becomes a permanent aspect of life,--"Old things are passed
+away, and all things are become new."
+
+Happy the man who understands self-discipline, so as to secure this charm,
+and mingle constancy and variety in his pursuits. He will divide days and
+years in such a way that life shall be ever more constant and more fresh.
+No servile drudge to worldly care, no capricious pleasure-seeker who is
+always uneasy, because always sated, he will be a faithful worker and a
+cheerful friend, stronger for work by recreation, the wiser for enjoyment
+by his work,--filling his time with such varied uses, that recurrent
+duties shall be welcome to him each in its time, and every day's life
+illustrate in some way the varied uniformity of God's plan for nature and
+humanity. Great obstacles, we know, lie in the way of such order; for care
+is often too imperious and protracted, and pleasure too engrossing, to
+make true method easy; but the obstacles yield before a just purpose, and,
+in the end, every man is the artificer of his habits. He can make his life
+constant to its appointed round, and varied in its constancy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So God teaches us the moral significance of the law of return, by showing
+its bearing on the stability and freshness that give charm to our days.
+Yet more, he teaches us to find in it the true law of progress. He bids us
+return, but not the same, nor to the same,--he bids us return better or
+worse, and to a state of things better or worse. This is a necessity, and
+we are called to make it a happy necessity. Not in a circle of absolute
+uniformity, but in a rounding path, in a spiral course, we wind our way
+upward or downward,--our way turning indeed ever upon itself, yet at a
+higher or lower mark. The very structure of language indicates that true
+progress is the returning of the mind towards its previous experience.
+What is the accumulation of knowledge but remembering the facts of
+previous observation? What is wisdom but the fruit of reflection, or
+turning thought backward upon its course? What is repentance but
+conscience revising past errors? What is reformation but the whole man
+returning to himself and to God? It is progress that gives its most
+cheering aspect to the recurrent order of life.
+
+Return then to thine own home as each day, or week, or season repeats the
+decree. Return to do better than you have ever done,--to see more clearly
+than before the demands of your position, the errors of your way of
+living, your indifference, perhaps unkindness, towards those who daily
+look to you for a nurture, better than that of perishing bread. Return to
+thine own house, and consider whether among the guests there welcomed, the
+only abiding Comforter is entertained, and the good angels that go with
+him are not shut out. Return with thought more free to see things as they
+are from your temporary absence from the trammels of routine, with
+affections fresh from nearer companionship with nature, with powers
+renewed for the sober work of life. Let fortune smile or frown more than
+of old, make sure of your own soul, and do better than you have done.
+
+Constant and varied in many respects our life must be. God bids us add
+progress to the constancy and variety that he has decreed. True to him,
+our days in their returning order, their various events, their steady
+progress, shall go forward, like the march of the faithful host to the
+promised land, their step responsive, their way opening new attractions,
+their course ever onward, and above them, swelling sweet and clear, that
+glorious psalm of jubilee, which in its rhythmic verse and progressive
+flow ever returns upon the same rapturous burden, and repeats the
+hallowed anthem, "His mercy endureth for ever."
+
+Let this be our spirit, and we shall know how wonderfully God reconciles
+two things apparently contradictory; we shall know, that the greater our
+progress, the surer our return,--that more and more the blessed scenes and
+friends of early days shall come back to us. Memory shall mate with hope
+to cheer us, and the evening of life shall add to its own tranquil beauty
+the fairest charms from the morning of our days. The aged man turns ever
+fondly to his childhood, and may enter the kingdom of heaven like a little
+child, even before death unlocks its gates of eternity.
+
+What a thought here opens--opens to us as we return to our homes, and
+think of some who return no more! Beyond these homes, the orbit of our
+being reaches, and one, nay, many call to us, "Come." Over the grave the
+decree is still more solemnly heard. The words, "Thou sayest, return, ye
+children of men," mean more, far, than "dust to dust." "Return, ye
+children of men." "Dust to the dust whence it was,--the spirit to God who
+gave it."
+
+Christ repeats the call in more than the Hebrew's faith, in more, far more
+than the philosopher's hope. Futurity as revealed by him is the way
+homeward to Him from whom our being came,--to all the faithful and lovely,
+who have blessed man and glorified God. We will not scorn the
+philosopher's hope of earthly cycles recurring in progressive order, until
+our globe bears the perfected harvest of a truer civilization, and all
+nature comes to herself. This hope is well, but does not go far enough. As
+we and those dear to us leave the earth, we crave word of a return more
+blessed than any dream of earthly kingdoms and ages. We crave what God has
+given us. The soul about to go into a region by itself unexplored, yearns
+to know that the path is not to night and nothingness, but is a return and
+more than a return to God, the Eternal Father, and to the mansions that
+gather from all earthly homes their purest treasures, and transfigure them
+in the light of heaven.
+
+_September._
+
+
+
+
+The Church in the House.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHURCH IN THE HOUSE.
+
+
+In his letter to Philemon St. Paul salutes "the church in thy house," and
+thus brings home to us a fact which is too often put a great way off. He
+brings the church into the house, and thus makes an every-day reality of
+an institution, which is thought to belong to the disputed territory where
+controversialists quarrel, or the close walls where priestcraft rules. The
+church, what is it? many are virtually ready to ask. Is it a certain style
+of edifice, or platform of opinion, or set of ceremonies or band of
+officials? In the apostle's mind, surely it was a very tangible fact, and
+he closes his letter so full of friendly remembrance and delicate courtesy
+with an affectionate message to the church in his correspondent's house.
+He meant, of course, by the church the Christian people under Philemon's
+roof, whether those who lived there constantly or those who came to
+worship occasionally. The same greeting is several times repeated in
+Paul's letters, and fitly guides us in some thoughts on practising
+Christianity at home, or the Church in the House. We would show that.--
+
+  There should be a church in every house,
+  What makes it a true church in itself,
+  And how it may be true to the church universal.
+
+There should be a church in every house. Nay, we might indeed say, that
+there must be one there, unless the people are heathen or infidels. A
+church is a society of Christians for Christian purposes, and it is not
+easy to see how any worthy family can fail to answer to this large
+definition, if they will only think of it. Is not the compact which united
+the heads of the family to each other, and pledged them to their children,
+a Christian compact, expressly sanctioned by religion, as well as by civil
+law? Can the compact be kept in any tolerable sense without Christian
+influences, and is it not expected as a matter of course, that every house
+shall possess those standards of faith and practice, those Scriptures,
+which set forth Christ as Saviour and mark his people as his own? Is not
+all that is done in piety and charity within the household, as far as it
+goes, a ministration of Christianity? We certainly might justly take
+offence, if it were said of us, that the apostle's salutation could have
+no sort of application to our home, on the ground, that there is nothing
+distinctively Christian there. In all proper humility, consider how we
+have been educated, what books, what teachers we have enjoyed, what
+influences we have won from the great thoughts and great institutions of
+Christendom, what convictions we have tried to cherish amidst all our
+cares and changes;--consider these things, and would it be right to say
+that there is nothing Christian at home, nothing of the church there? Some
+families may indeed seem to be very worldly, almost godless; yet even they
+are likely to have among them, however unworthily; some traces of
+Christian institutions, and within their desecrated roof the Bible with
+its glad tidings, and memory with its treasured wisdom, and conscience
+with undying witness, still speak of God and Christ, and so far the place
+is holy ground.
+
+If thus in some sense there must be something of the church in every
+household not utterly depraved, is it not well to give importance to the
+fact, that what must be in _some_ way should be in the right way? Many men
+have been Christians without knowing it, and many families have been
+churches without thinking of it. All simple, unconscious goodness is to be
+honored; but it is not so frequent as to make conscious effort dangerous,
+nor will the most beautiful and spontaneous piety lose any of its grace by
+opening its eyes fully to what is to be done. Let the spheres of our life
+be distinctly seen, and the affections will be all the freer and fresher
+for the clear vision. Let it be distinctly seen, that they who live in one
+household, by that fact stand in close relations to each other, and have a
+faith to cherish and a work to do. Let it be seen, that the family was the
+oldest church holding its worship before temples were built or priesthoods
+formed, and that the true temple and the true priesthood, instead of
+repealing, do but consecrate anew the patriarchal church, and Moses and
+Jesus both give new power and beauty to the covenant with Abraham and the
+individual family.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Let there be a church then in every house. We now add, let it be a true
+one. What makes it such, do any ask? The apostle's benediction is a
+sufficient reply. To the church in thy house, grace to you and peace from
+God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace: these are the
+true consecration of the household. Grace, bringing into all souls the
+riches of God's favor, and winning them to him through a heavenly
+faith,--peace, drawing all hearts into unity, and harmonizing all labors
+by one ruling love. Grace--this comprises all that Jesus came to give to
+men, all the divine life that he would impart. Its source is God's own
+Spirit, his wisdom, his power, his mercy--and there is no way of defining
+it so good as the simple gospel way. Consider what was in Jesus, and what
+he gave to those that trusted in him, such a sense of God's being and
+goodness, such life of the soul, such assurance of a divine kingdom both
+present and future, such consecration of all faculties by one
+comprehensive faith,--consider this, and we best discern what grace is,
+and how it gives vigor and beauty to the household as to the individual.
+Its source is in God, but it is to be received by the soul's own will, and
+to open the soul to its influence has been the great effort of all worthy
+theologies, creeds, worship, ministers. We would not disparage any of
+them, while we do plead earnestly for the importance of the church in the
+house, with its own peculiar means of grace, its affections so demanding
+to be confirmed by a love that is divine, its pleasures so readily opening
+the soul to gratitude, its sacrifices so full of blessing when devoutly
+rendered, its labors so rich in the fruits of the Spirit when springing
+from a root of faith, its vicissitudes so eloquent in providential
+lessons, its memories so full of caution, its hopes so thirsting for
+immortality. God surely has opened in our homes precious means of grace,
+and blessed are they who by prayer uttered or unuttered--by devout trust
+spoken or unspoken, use these means sacredly as in the church of Christ! A
+transforming spirit will be at work there, and will transfigure all its
+experience by a divine light, and consecrate all its various gifts and
+faculties by a divine power.
+
+And in its train peace will come--not merely the quiet that checks harsh
+words, and regulates tumultuous cares; but the interior peace that
+tranquillizes each mind without breaking down its force, and harmonizes
+all diversities of talent and temperament without mutilating any nature.
+Peace, as the corresponding Greek word teaches, is that which binds
+together, and who needs this more than those whom God would bind together?
+It is a great thing to have it, and it was a great triumph of Christianity
+to give it. In some respects it was a greater triumph to win to living
+unity the various tempers of the primitive Christian families, than it was
+to subdue the empire of the Caesars into one confession of faith,--greater
+certainly, inasmuch for various tempers to agree in all the numberless
+points of daily contact is more than to agree in the one point of a
+nominal belief. Paul, in defining the economy of the true church, began by
+declaring, that there are diversities of gifts but the same spirit.
+Blessed in many respects has been the comment of history upon that word of
+inspiration! Who that has any sense of God's use of providential men, does
+not adore the wisdom that has employed such various minds for the same
+great purposes, and made history such a book of Providence, telling us of
+the wise and good and mighty characters of insight or argument, learning
+or eloquence, sensibility or daring, who have done their part to build up
+the kingdom of God? The church is truer as this is better done, and all
+differences of power combine in one work. Carry out this idea at home, and
+what a sphere for that peace of God which would harmonize all diversities
+by one good spirit!
+
+In a worldly point of view shrewd men study the characters of their
+families with something of this aim, and desire to see what their children
+are best fitted to do, that they may choose such callings as shall bring
+out their powers best for the wealth or dignity of the household. This
+desire we are not quarrelling with, but enforcing a higher study of
+character that seeks to look more deeply into the mind, and provide far
+more thoroughly for the great work of life. Do not by any means fail to
+discern the mathematician, the orator, the mechanic, the artist, the
+farmer, or whatever else may be the varieties of talent in your family.
+But discern also the various faculties and dispositions in a religious
+point of view, that each may be duly guided, and all led to use their
+various gifts in the true heart. See the tendencies that need to be
+checked, and above all, those that need to be encouraged; and home
+education will be a Christian nurture in the peace that passeth
+understanding. Far more bountifully than many a kind-hearted but too
+worldly parent thinks, has Providence enriched the house with gifts that
+may be ministries. That boy whose restless impulse seems sometimes
+wilfulness, needs your discriminate care to win his impulse to a noble
+enthusiasm, and may be a reprobate if your neglect leaves him to his
+passions or your violence stings him to retaliation. That girl so keenly
+alive to what is pleasant to the eye and ear, may make of her native taste
+a motive to every vanity, unless you train the sense of beauty into
+reverence for the true loveliness and for the art that copies the
+handiwork of God and makes life beautiful in making it holy. That keen
+little reasoner who vexes you with so many strange questions, the doubting
+Thomas of your fold, may be the chilling sceptic, unless he is encouraged
+to be the thoughtful sage who can answer as well as ask. That sensitive
+child who is so awake to religious impressions, whose choice reading is
+hymns and Bible stories, and whose dreams upon the pillow seem often to be
+in the sweet land of Beulah which so cheered Bunyan's Pilgrim, may by your
+neglect become a morbid bigot, unless by your judicious sympathy she is
+encouraged to become a healthful devotee, cheering and exalting the home
+by that interior life that made Mary of Bethany love to sit at the feet of
+Jesus, which filled with such holy quietude the heart of Jane Guyon, and
+moved with such persuasive mercy the lips of Elizabeth Gurney and Mary
+Ware.
+
+We need not specify the varieties of character that require to be subdued
+or encouraged to the same spirit. Blessed is the home where such peace is
+found; and all are bound together in its unity! No cunning arts of mental
+training, no formal systems new or old, no technical dogmas, no mechanical
+ceremonials, much less can any cold worldly policy do this work. Grace and
+peace must be sought from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, and
+our thoughts, and studies, and labors quite as much as our prayers, must
+rest upon the rock of faith, and look to the blessing from above. Such
+grace and peace at once give strength to the utilities and beauty to the
+courtesies of the house, ruling its economy in a divine order, and
+refining its manners by a tender humanity. There may be various creeds and
+forms in the habits of the various members, yet all are harmonized by one
+faith and charity.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Such in brief is the true church in the house, and being such, instead of
+petting any narrow familism it will best favor the church universal by
+appreciating its office and helping its work.
+
+It will appreciate its office, for what can better interpret the meaning
+of Christian institutions than a faithful use of the social sphere, first
+of all in time and importance? As we try to be wise and faithful in
+matters nearest to us, how can we but cherish the wisdom kept by the
+church for ages, and the sacred usages which appeal so tenderly to our
+home feelings? How can we fail to honor the exposition of the Divine Word,
+the lessons of public worship, and those various ministrations that take
+such hold upon life as it is, whether to consecrate childhood into the
+privileges of the Divine kingdom, to implore upon human love the Divine
+blessing, to comfort the mourning, to rejoice with the happy, to
+strengthen the dying with an immortal hope, or set forth the Resurrection
+and the Life above the dust of the grave? For the sinful and the lonely,
+indeed, the church universal has a tender and solemn voice, but it is not
+for them alone. The city of God on earth which Jesus founded, has its best
+offices for those who live together in the unity of the Spirit, and the
+church in the house is a better interpreter of its riches of wisdom and
+joy than any conclave of ghostly monks or assembly of keen scholastics.
+
+Where such appreciation is found, true help will not be wanting. Helpers
+to the church will go forth from the household, well trained to further
+the various offices of general piety and charity. Every true family will
+take due account of its own numbers, means, and gifts, to give its just
+share of co-operation in every good word and work. Care for the poor,
+light for the benighted, counsel for the young, strength to the
+wavering--all will be duly given, and even the accomplishments that with
+the worldling are means of giddy dissipation, or vain show, with the
+Christian will be means of edification and comfort, so that winning
+manners shall win souls to God, and voices tuned to melody shall breathe a
+harmony not of this world, and give to the songs of Zion all the beauty of
+holiness. The spirit of antiquated error shall feel the wholesome
+renovation, and the fresh life of the church in the house shall go out
+into theological schools and conventicles, purging away old superstitions
+and carrying every where the catholicity of practical wisdom, wholesome
+sensibilities, and earnest good-will. Thus it is that in the later ages
+fountains of new power have been opened, and pure, genial home principles
+and affections have done more than Luther's theses or John Knox's sermons
+to drive monkery and all its brood of spectral charms and horrors from the
+church visible, and the prospect of the church invisible, and thoroughly
+to reform the creeds of men touching earth and heaven and hell. The end is
+not yet, and a truer, more earnest and affectionate Christianity is to
+carry out the great reformation and bring on a truer catholicity than the
+world has ever seen.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Thus we meditate upon the church in the house, its necessity, its true
+character, its help to the church universal. The topic is itself its own
+personal application. The great point is this, that at home we are to live
+as members of a spiritual kingdom, and strive to infuse the spirit and
+carry the order of that kingdom into the feelings and habits of the
+household. Take this thought seriously to heart, cherish it in meditation
+and prayer, how can it remain idle? By paths seen and unseen, the heavenly
+grace earnestly sought, will enter into the economy of the family, and
+save its peace from the war of hostile tempers and the inroads of a
+domineering world. Wise, and kindly, and devout habits will be formed,
+which make religion at once a spirit and a law, free without being wilful,
+orderly without being mechanical, like the waters of Siloa that flowed
+sparkling in that regular channel so framed by God from rock, and made
+sweet will of their obedience to Him who holds the waters in the hollow of
+his hand.
+
+Such a household will have influences and associations peculiar to itself.
+The sons will be manly and tender; the daughters will be gentle and
+strong: parents and children in their mutual affections shall bring out
+the finer harmonies of human life, that show God's goodness even more
+deeply than the chants of the psalmist's choirs. As changes come, and the
+years pass, treasured remembrances shall fill the home with images sacred
+as the tablets and pictures of ancient chapels, and hopes more living than
+monumental marble can record in solemn church-yards, shall proclaim the
+resurrection and the life over the dead; the absent ones of the family
+will in thought always, and, when they can, in person, make reverent
+pilgrimage to the old hearth-stone; and they who die of that family,
+wherever they close their eyes, will have in the cherished ministrations
+of that church in the house the mightiest of all proofs of the eternal
+home. The house made with hands opens into the eternal spheres, and its
+own life repeats Christ's assurance of heavenly mansions. It will have a
+ministry seen and a ministry unseen, one seen in gentle charities, the
+other known by unseen influences.
+
+  "Uttered not, yet comprehended
+    Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
+  Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
+    Breathing from those lips of air."
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's note:
+
+Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
+
+The following misprints have been corrected:
+  "themseves" corrected to "themselves" (page 20)
+  "diguise" corrected to "disguise" (page 107)
+  "may" corrected to "many" (page 107)
+  "unostentations" corrected to "unostentatious" (page 111)
+  "chidren" corrected to "children" (page 241)
+  "intepretation" corrected to "interpretation" (page 262)
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HEARTH-STONE***
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+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #37540 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37540)