In w \ tx'> j w> ,X. ££ S ) U~. THE Beautiful Way of Life PICTURES OF HAPPY HOMES AND GLIMPSES OF HEAVENLY MANSIONS, PORTRAYING THE HIGHEST IDEALS Society, Business, Home, Patriotism, Religion THE WAY TO SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS, WHOM TO MARRY, MAKING HOME HAPPY, TRAINING CHILDREN, MORAL OBLIGATIONS, SOCIAL DUTIES AND PLEASURES, PROSPERITY IN BUSINESS, A LIVE CHURCH, LOVE OF COUNTRY, DUTY TO GOD AND THE BEST PREPARATION FOR THE HOME BEYOND. Pearls of Philosophy from the Wisdom of Ages.' (Exquisitely Jllustvcttefc WITH MANY PULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS. — BY THE — / REV. MADISON C. PETERS, ii AUTHOR OF "HOT SHOT," "EMPTY PEWS," "POPULAR SINS. PHILADELPHIA: EMPIRE PUBLISHING COMPANY, 1890. Copyright, 1890, By F. OLDACH, Sr. PREFACE. TT seems to me that this book, The "Path of Glory: " From the Cradle to the Throne, tells its own story, and makes its purpose so clear, that no personal explanation from the author is necessary. Every phase of life is herein depicted, from infancy, as a Babe in the cradle, to its glorious ending, an Immortal Soul, a Saint among the white-robed throng around the Throne of God. These Aims and Aids to Success and Happiness, now and forever, are the experiences and maxims of the wisest and best, offered in the most novel and fascinating form. We have gathered "apples of gold," and set them in "pictures of silver." The no-name articles are either from the author's pen or anonymous. There is not a dull, drowsy, or dry line in the book. We do not stick, stutter, or stammer in telling the truth. Those who get vexed because their follies are aimed at, do so because they are shot. The woman broke the looking-glass because it showed the wrinkles in her face. If we can lead the reader to Success, Honor, and Happiness, in the Home, Moral, Social, Business, Political, Church, Spiritual, and Future Life ; if through this book you find your earthly life a Path of Glory, and at last an eternal resting-place beneath God's Throne, the author will consider himself well paid for his labor. M. C. P. September i 1889, ILLUSTRATIONS. The Morning Visit to the New Home, Frontispiece Where Did You Come from, Baby, Dear? 17 The Spoiled Boy, 29 The Grandparents' Pet 69 Vignette— The Moral Life, 103 "We are Two Travellers, Roger and I," 141 Vignette— The Social Life, 171 All-Hallow Een, 195 The Coquette = • 221 Vignette— The Business Life, 241 Awaiting Papa's Return, 267 A Country Home 281 Vignette — The National Life 311 The Four Leaders of the First Crusade, 337 The Battle of Bunker Hill, 361 Vignette — The Church Life, 381 Late for Church, 397 The Gossips, 411 Vignette— The Spiritual Life, 438 Faith's Firm Foundation, 455 The Guardian Angel, . 485 Vignette — The Future Life 521 Nothing Will Die, • • 5 6x Holy ! Holy ! Holy ! Lord God of Sabaoth 607 IN BEX. THE HOME LIFE. The Baby, 19 No Baby in the House, 20 Choosing a Name, 21 Children, 22 Pure Air in the Children's Rooms, .... 23 Brothers and Sisters, 24 Teasing, 24 Brothers and Sisters at Home, 25 That Boy of Yours, 26 Self-reliance, ". . . . 27 The Spoiled Boy, 28 What to Teach our Daughters, 31 Honoring our Parents, 32 Obey your Parents, 33 Make your Mother Happy, 33 Ingratitude, 35 Don't be Ashamed of your Parents, ... 35 A Word for Father, 36 Motherhood, 37 A Mother's L,ove, 38 Woman's True Sphere, 39 Nursing Fathers, 40 A Word to Busy Fathers, 42 Love, 43 Courtship, 45 Korting, 46 The Whistle, 47 Marriage, 47 Bachelor's Hall, 49 Old Bachelors, . . . t 50 Old Maids, 51 The Holiness of Marriage, 52 Unequally Yoked Together, 52 Advice to Girls, 53 Elopement 54 Avoid Matchmakers, 55 A Maiden's Idea of a Husband, 56 Two Essential Qualities, 57 Visit the Old Home, 57 Intermarriage, 58 Good Housekeeping, 59 The Beautiful Woman, 60 The Professional Beauty, 61 The Word "Wife," 62 The Wife's Duty, 63 The Honeymoon, 63 Marriage not for All, 64 Husbands Seldom Reform, 65 A Woman's Question, . . . 65 A Bride's Mother to the Bridegroom, ... 66 How Can I Tell Her? 67 The Helpful Wife, 68 Be Lovable, 68 Be Intelligent, 71 The Good Wife, 71 The Clinging Wife, 72 Matrimonial Harmony, 73 Godless Mothers 73 Growing Together, 74 Domestic Economy, 75 The Word "Husband," 76 Rules for the Husband, 76 Gentlemen, Fulfil Your Contracts, .... 76 The First Dispute, 78 INDEX. A Woman's Complaint, 78 Music, 95 Advice to Young Married Couples, ... 79 Fault Finding, 80 Shafts at Random Sent, 82 Good Manners at Home, 89 A Home without Love, 90 If We Could Know, 91 Comfort one Another 92 Chaste Language at Home, 93 Our Own, 93 Cheerful Homes, 94 Singing at Home, 95 Home Sweet Home, 96 Home Songs, 97 The Dearest Spot of Earth is Home, ... 97 Home, 98 Home Denned, 99 Two Pictures, 100 Religion at Home, 100 Home the Sweetest Type of Heaven, . . . 101 THE MORAL LIFE. God's Beverage, 105 The Strongest Drink, 107 Apostrophe on Water, 107 The Destroyer, 108 The Cause of Temperance, 109 Shun the Bowl, Ill How Strong Drink Injures Labor, ... 112 Strikes, 114 Rum the Foe of Labor, 114 The Saloon, 118 The Drunkard's Daughter, 120 Danger of Drink, 122 Gambling Ruins at Last, 123 The Story ©f a Judge's Son, 124 America's Most Popular Sin, 125 The Horrors of Cigarette Smoking, ... 128 Opium, 129 Stray Arrows from the Editor's Quiver, . . 130 True Standard of Morality, 135 Jelly Bag Readers, 135 Characteristics of Grumblers, 136 Enervating Influence of Novels, 136 A Glass of Cold Water, 137 Song of the Decanter, 138 Charles Lamb to Young Men, 139 An Eloquent Indictment, 139 There's Danger in the Glass, 140 Alcohol a Poison, 143 What a Jug Did, 144 Degradation of the Inebriate, 145 The Vagabonds, 145 How to Break the Chain, 149 The Gambler's Wife 150 Gambler's and Gambling, 152 Evil Books and Evil Pictures, 158 Habit, 160 The Slavery of Sin, 160 Tobacco, 161 Genius no Excuse for Wrong-Doing, . . . 163 The Grumbler, 164 Young Girls and their Temptations, . . . 164 The Duty of Self-Respect 167 The Habit of Borrowing, 168 The Training of Youth, 169 The Saving Habit, 170 INDEX. THE SOCIAL LIFE. Woman, 173 Woman's Mission, 174 The Elevation of Woman, 176 Be a Woman, 182 How Home is Destroyed, 183 Divorce, 185 The Physical Education of Woman, . . . 207 Heartlessness of Fashion, 209 Woman and Dress, 210 Self-Culture, 210 The Model Woman, 211 Debt, 211 Sweetness of Manners, 213 Saying Rude Things, 213 If We Knew, 213 True Politeness, 215 Books, 215 Origin of Scandal, 215 The Bizzy Body, 207 Intemperance in Talking, 218 Force of Character, 188 The Workingwoman's Cry of Despair, . . 189 The Science of Self-Support, 192 The Dance, 199 Fashion — Right and Wrong, 203 Trifles, 207 Flattery and Churlishness, 220 Envy and Jealousy, 223 True Friendship, 224 The Cynic, 225 Rdcipe' for a Modern Novel, 226 The Novel, 226 Our Barbarous Funeral Customs, 227 Chips from the Editor's Work-Shop, ... 228 The Virtue and Vice of Pride, 235 Borrowed Troubles, 236 What of That, 237 New Every Morning, 237 Growing Old Gracefully, 238 THE BUSINESS LIFE. Leaving Home, 243 Write Them a Letter To-Night, 244 The Right Vocation, 245 Getting the Right Start, 246 The Spirit of Work, 249 Aim and Object in Life 251 The Jack of all Trades, 252 Concentration, 254 Success of Young Men, 254 Poor Boys and Great Eminence, 255 Bruce and the Spider, 257 Going to the City, 259 Tact and Talent, 261 Industry the Only True Source of Wealth, 262 Advice to Young Men, 263 The Epoch of Elevators, 264 Winning Forces in Life, 265 There's Always a River to Cross, 270 Enthusiasm, 272 How to do to Get Along, 275 Look to the Littles, 276 Little Things, 276 INDEX. Self-Reliance, 278 Punctuality, 279 The Witchery of Manner, 280 How to Succeed, 283 Determination — Its Strength and Weakness, 285 Perseverance, ' 286 Luck, 287 Common-Sense Education, 289 Be Progressive, 290 Lying, 290 The Light of Knowledge, 291 Never Despair, 292 Nothing Beautiful Dies, 293 Where There's a Will There's a Way, . . 293 Improve Your Opportunities, 293 Ideas and Principles, 294 Use the Gifts God has Given, 294 Procrastination the Thief of Time, .... 294 Dare to do Right, 295 Do Right because it is Right, 295 How Regulus Kept His Word, 296 Industry and Frugality, 296 Stick to Your Last 296 What is Being Independent, 297 Wealth not Always Success, 297 Riches not to be Envied, 397 Wanted— Men! 298 Sharp Dealing and Distrust, 298 The Use of Riches, 299 The Misuse of Wealth, 300 How to Become a Millionaire, 302 The Immortality of Influence, 303 Love vs. Glory, 303 Counterfeit Success, 304 THE NATIONAL LIFE. What Constitutes a State, . 313 The Destiny of America, 314 America, 315 The Ship of State, 316 The Memory of Washington, 317 Union and Liberty, 318 The Demagogue, 319 The Party Man, 320 Patriotism, 321 The American Flag, 321 The Men to Make a State, 323 Friday is Not Unlucky, 326 Washington's Address to His Troops before the Battle of Long Island, 326 Landing of the Pilgrims, 327 The American Eagle, 328 Mortality Among Nations, 329 A Pure Ballot, 330 The Better Way, 332 An Ideal American, 333 Safeguards of Nations, 334 The Crusade, 334 European and American Civilization, ... 335 Retribution, 340 American Aristocracy, 340 The Pilgrim Fathers, 341 Labor and Wages, 342 The Industrial Problem, 344 INDEX. Encouraging Zeal, 346 Memorial Patriotism, 346 A Surrender Demanded, 347 Republic Presaged 347 Vow of Gratitude, 348 The Liberty Tree Song, 348 An Appeal to Ladies, 349 The Pennsylvania Song, 350 The Faith of Franklin and Jefferson, . . . 351 Washington's Vow, 353 Massa Linkum, 355 Virtuous Loyalty 356 The Honored State, 357 Danger from Intemperance to Our Political Institutions, 357 Heroism, 358 Public Patriotism, 358 Generous Politics, 359 Lydia Darrah's Patriotism, 359 Honorable Recompense, 359 The New South, 360 Bribery Resented, 367 Naturalized Citizens, 367 Economical Government, 368 Unselfish Patriotism, 368 A Century's Progress, 368 One of Washington's Letters, 369 The Good Old Times, 370 Office Seekers, 371 Patriotism of Young Men, 371 An Unequal Warfare, 372 Our Origin and Future, 372 Beginning of the American Revolution, . 374 Old Families, 375 Personal Liberty and the Sabbath, .... 375 The Fountain of Youth 378 Marriage and the State, 378 Grant's Aversion to War, 379 The Growth of Opinion, 379 National Patriotism, 379 The Security of the State, 379 Lafayette on America's Future, 380 Protection by Education, 380 The Stamp Act, 380 THE CHURCH LIFE. The Model Church, 383 Church not a Charity, 384 The Word ".Orthodox," 386 John Junkin's Sermon, 387 Aggressive Christianity, 389 Appeal to a Sexton, 390 Encouragement, 392 The Blessedness of Giving, 393 The Church Must Stay Among the Poor, . 394 The Penny Ye Meant to Gie, 395 On Toleration 39 6 Pulpit Oratory, 399 The Destitute Children, 400 Never Speak 111 of Anyone, 401 I Must Keep My People, 4 02 A Wrong Sort of Charity, 403 INDEX. Use Short Words, 404 Table Prayer, 404 The Hypocrites, 405 Lazy Christians, 405 Look at the Preacher, 406 Objectors, 406 The Sensitive Man, 406 Progress of Christianity, 407 Foreign Missions' Pay, 408 Who's to Blame ? 408 Revivals, 409 Things Unlike a Christian, 410 The Deacon's Prayer, 410 Right Makes Might, 414 True Glory 415 Success in Failure, 416 Indian Apologue, 417 Church Hospitality 418 Reverie in Church, 418 Be Sociable, 420 Bad Manners in Churches, .421 My Creed, 421 Church Rounders, 422 Love for Souls, 423 Theology in Quarters, 424 Singing in Church, 425 A Word With Mrs. Grundy, 426 The Dear Little Heads in the Pen, .... 427 Work for All, 428 No Time for Idleness, 430 Wanted— A Minister's Wife, 430 Getting Rid of the Pastor, 431 Your Mission, 432 Liberalism, 433 The Different Denominations 434 A General Engagement, 435 The Church of the Future 436 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE. The Thought of God, 439 Holy and Reverend, 440 Goodness and Greatness of God, 440 A Christmas Carol, 440 The Ideal Man, 441 The Character of Christ 443 The Bible, 445 Faith, 446 The Necessity of Faith, 446 Believing on Christ, 448 Faith 449 Christian Faith, 452 The Soul's Cry, 452 The Pharisee and Publican, 453 The Widow's Mites, 453 Christianity, 454 The Sabbath, 454 Sin 457 Consequence of the Fall, 458 Hearts, 458 INDEX. 13 Fable for the Moralist, 459 Quartz Crystal and Acorns, 459 Ruin of Neglect, 460 Money Decision, 461 Faithful Guide, 462 The Gospel Call, 463 Now, 463 Life in Christ, 464 The Story of Laddie, 464 An Earnest Plea, 466 Faith and Hope, 467 Training the Faith, 467 The Power of Prayer, 468 Prayer, 469 Always in Prayer, 469 False Worship, 470 The Altered Motto, 470 Influence of Forgiveness, 471 Reasons for Forgiveness 471 Power of Forgiveness, 471 Why I Believe in the Bible, 472 Books of the Bible in Verse, 473 My Mother's Bible, 474 Religious Certainty, 475 The Way, : 476 A Holy Life, 477 Conversion of Children, 477 What are You Doing ? 477 The Ministry of Jesus, 478 Be Uncompromising, 478 The Mysterious, 479 Bind up the Broken Hearted, 480 Art Thou Weary, 480 Divine Greatness, , 481 If I Should Die To-night, 481 The Star of Bethlehem, 482 The Gospel an Anthem, 483 What Love Is, 484 The Spiritual Life, 487 Sins of Omission, 488 Revenge, 489 I Do not Ask, O Lord, 489 Are You Alive, 490 Abide with Me, 491 Personal Influence, 492 A Chapter for Men, 492 A Son Saint, 493 A Well-Built Life, 493 The Right Must Win, 494 The Christian's Addition Table, 495 Security in Temptation, 498 The Feet of the Priest Stood Firm, ... 500 Power of Influence, 501 Ten Thousand Times Ten Thousand, . . . 501 Gathered Fragments, 502 Religion and Temper, 504 The Most Troublesome Man in Church, . . 505 Chronic Objectors 505 Work and Don't Talk, 505 Taking Cheerful Views, 507 The Sufficiency of Christ to Render us Happy 512 The Duty of Joyfulness, 514 A Green Old Age, 515 THE FUTURE LIFE. Resignation, 523 Sunshine for the Sorrowing 524 The Inquiry, 526 Immortality, 527 In Trial, 528 Hymns of Heaven, 529 God's Acre, 530 The Rest of the Just, 530 A Psalm of Life, 531 The Resurrection, 533 14 INDEX. Beyond, 533 Beyond the Grave, 535 Forever with the Lord, 535 Jerusalem my Happy Home, 536 Departure of Friends, 537 Paradise, 538 The Hour of Rest, 538 Is Death the Fnd, 539 The Peace for Consolation, 541 Pass Under the Rod, 542 Lux Benigna, 544 Nearer Heaven, 544 The Rainy Day, 545 Dimensions of Heaven, 545 Duration of Heaven, 546 Ideas of Heaven, 546 Activity in Heaven, 547 Employments in Heaven, 547 The Celestial Art Gallery, 548 The White-Robed Choir, 548 Figures of Heaven, , 549 A Home in Heaven, 550 Hill Tops of Heaven, 551 Homeward Bound, 551 Death and the Future Worlds 552 Heaven Beyond, 552 Heaven a City, 553 Nearness of Heaven, 553 The Land of Beulah, 554 Gain of Dying, 555 Attraction of Heaven, 555 Apples of Gold in Pictures of Silver, . . . 556 The Longing for Immortality, 556 Not the Speculations of Genius, 557 A Silver Light for Every Cloud, 557 Harder to Live than to Die, 557 Best of All, 558 Activity in Heaven, 558 Higher, Higher 558 The Path of Sorrow, 559 Growth in Heaven, 559 How to Live, 559 The Voice of Nature, 560 We Miss Them, 560 Parted, Not Lost, 560 The Use of Afflictions, 560 The Home of Perfect Rest, 563 Don't Wish Them Back, 563 Only Sleeping, 563 The Joy in Sorrow, 564 The Sainted Watchers, 564 The Rose without a Thorn, 565 Sweet Converse, . . . , 565 Separation Not Forever, 565 The Benefits of Trial, 566 Trials Blessings, 566 Glimpses into Glory, 567 Three Wonders, 567 Three Unchangeables, 568 Reason and Immortality, 568 Annihilation Horrible, 568 Heavenly Foretaste, 569 Through the Curtain, 571 Shall We Know Each Other There, ... 571 Heavenly Recognition, 572 Departed Friends, 573 Weep Not for the Dead, .' 575 No Sorrow There, 575 Errands of Love, 576 My Boy, 576 Not Lost but Gone Before, 577 Love Indestructible, 578 Saints Will Dwell Together, 578 No Cause for Woe, 579 When Shall We Meet Again, 579 Farewell, Beloved, Farewell, 580 Sleep On, Babe, 580 Where Your Babe Is, 581 Jerusalem Above, 582 How the Gates Came Ajar, 583 Death Not an Enemy, 584 Death a Leveller, 584 Tell if Thou Knowest, 585 There is a Silver Lining to Every Cloud . 585 INDEX. 15 Revelation and Immortality, 587 Weary, 587 Weep no More, 588 As God Pleases, % 588 Heaven a Home for Death, 588 A Preparation on Preparation, 591 Sweet to Die, 591 Friendship Perpetual, 591 Heaven Not Far Away, 592 The Mother and Her Dying Boy, .... 593 Changed, 594 Heavenly Recognition, 595 Reunion Above, 596 Our First Born, 596 Gone, but Not Lost, 597 A Mother's Lament, 597 The Sainted Dead, 598 Earthly Love Never Dies, ........ 601 Knowledge of Each Other in Heaven, . . 602 An Indian Mother's Love, 603 Not an Airy Speculation, 603 Reunion in Heaven, 605 " Where did ymi cdttie frnm, Baby, dear ? The Path of Glory. THE HOME LIFE THE BABY. W HERE did you come from, baby dear ? Out of the everywhere into the here. Where did you get your eyes so blue ? Out of the sky as I came through. What makes the light in them sparkle and spin ? Some of the starry spikes left in. Where did you get that little tear ? I found it waiting when I got here. What makes your forehead so smooth and high ? A soft hand stroked it as I went by. What makes your cheek like a warm white rose ? Something better than anyone knows. Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss ? Three angels gave me at once a kiss. Where did you get that pearly ear ? God spoke, and it came out to hear. Where did you get those arms and hands ? Love made itself into hooks and bands. Feet, whence did you come, you darling things ? From the same box as the cherubs' wings. How did they all just come to be you ? God thought about me, and so I grew. But how did you come to us, you dear ? God thought of you, and so I am here. — George Macdonald. THE HOME LIFE. THE BABY. A BABY can beat any alarm-clock ever invented for waking a family up in the morning. Give it a chance and it can smash more dishes than the most industrious servant-girl in the country. It can fall down oftener and with less provocation than the most expert tumbler in the circus ring. It can make more genuine fuss over a simple brass pin than its mother would over a broken back. It can choke itself black in the face with greater ease than the most accomplished wretch that ever was executed. It can keep a family in constant turmoil from morning till night and from night till morning without once varying its tune. It can be relied upon to sleep peacefully all day when its father is away at business and cry persistently at night when he is particularly sleepy. It may be the naughtiest, dirtiest, ugliest, most fretful baby in all the world, but you can never make its mother believe it, and you had better not try. It can be a charming and model infant when no one is around, but when visitors are present it can exhibit more temper than both its parents together. It can brighten up a house better than all the furniture ever made, make sweeter music than the finest orchestra organized, fill a larger place in its parents' breasts than they knew they had, and when it goes away it can cause a greater vacancy, leave a greater blank, than all the world put together. — A nonymous. N NO BABY IN THE HOUSE. O baby in the house, I know, 'Tis far too nice and clean. No toys, by careless fingers strewn, Upon the floors are seen. No finger-marks are on the panes, No scratches on the chairs ; No wooden men set up in rows, Or marshalled off in pairs ; No little stockings to be darned, All ragged at the toes ; THE HOME LIFE. No pile of mending to be done, Made up of baby-clothes ; No little troubles to be soothed ; No little hands to fold ; No grimy fingers to be washed ; No stories to be told ; No tender kisses to be given ; No nicknames, "Dove," and "Mouse;" No merry frolics after tea — No baby in the house. — Clara G. Dolliver* CHOOSING A NAME. [HAVE got a new-born sister ; I was nigh the first that kissed her. When the nursing-woman brought her To papa, his infant daughter, How papa's dear eyes did glisten ! She will shortly be to christen ; And papa has made the offer, I shall have the naming of her. Now I wonder what would please her, Charlotte, Julia, or Louisa ? Ann and Mary, they're too common ; Joan's too formal for a woman ; Jane's a prettier name beside ; But we had a Jane that died. They would say if 'twas Rebecca, That she was a little Quaker. Edith's pretty, but that looks Better in old English books ; Ellen's left oft long ago ; Blanche is out of fashion now. None that I have named as yet Are as good as Margaret. Emily is neat and fine ; What do you think of Caroline ? How I'm puzzled and perplexed What to chose or think of next ! THE HOME LIFE. I am in a little fever Lest the name that I should give her Should disgrace her or defame her ; — I will leave papa to name her. — Mary Lamb. CHILDREN. i( \liTHAT the women leave unfinished in our moral education," says V V Goethe, " the children complete in us," and I believe with Oliver Wendell Holmes that many of the noblest and most beautiful traits of a man's character are left undeveloped and unperfected, until he knows what it is to have a little child look up in his face and say " Father." If this he true of man it is even more true of woman. She is undeveloped and unperfected, until she knows what it is to have a little child look up in her face and say "Mother." Children " are the poetry of the world, beams of light, fountains of love, fresh flowers of hearths and homes." They are the salt of the earth, without which it would have no savour. " If children were not in the world, But only men and women grown ; No baby locks in tendrils curled, No baby blossoms blown ; Though men were stronger, women fairer, And nearer all delights in reach, And verse and music uttered rarer, Tones of more godlike speech ; Though the utmost life of life's best hours Found, as it can not now find, words ; Though desert sands were sweet as flowers, And flowers could sing like birds ; But children never heard them, never They felt a child's foot leap and run ; This were a drearier star than ever Yet looked upon the sun." Children are "incarnations of the smile of God." "Children are God's apostles, day by day Sent forth to preach of love, of hope, of peace." THE HOME LIFE. 23 The children bring benedictions from heaven when they come, and while they stay they are perpetual benedictions. " Ah ! what would the world be to us If the children were no more ? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before. What the leaves are to the forest, With light and air for food, Ere their sweet and tender juices Have been hardened into wood,- That to the world are children, Through them it feels the glow Of a brighter and sunnier climate Than reaches the trunks below." PURE AIR IN CHILDREN'S ROOMS. TOO much attention cannot be bestowed on children's sleeping-rooms, especially in the matter of pure air and sunlight. It is, above all, important to prevent foul and steamy vapors from the kitchen and laundry, damp emanations from the cellar, and the impurities from gas and other lights from concentrating there. Some means of ventilation are indispens- able in every dwelling to prevent the rising of impure atmosphere toward the roof. Shut off the children's bed-rooms from the rest of the house, and open a window somewhere near for the escape of the impure air. An alarming practice, and one altogether too prevalent, is the burning of lamps in children's bed-chambers, and this, too, all night with closed windows. Now, it should be known that the flame of a lamp con- sumes the vitalizing portions of the air, and that a room in which a light has been burning for hours is not fit for sleeping in. In addition to this evil, a burning lamp produces another, and that is, restless slumber, as the light causes the brain to respond even through the closed eyelids, and thus make an effort which should be avoided. Teach children to sleep in the dark, by all means. They must, of course, be prepared for bed by lamp light in winter, but the room may be constantly purified after the lamp is extinguished by opening the windows and doors and letting in fresh, cool air. Teach a child also, that it is just as safe from all harm in the dark as 24 THE HOME LIFE. in the light, and that it will be healthier, and happier, and it will believe it, because children have inexhaustible faith in the mother's word. Never allow any one to tell children fear-inspiring, hobgoblin stories, and don't punish them by sending them or threatening to put them in dark places ; thus you will be enabled easily to train them to sleep in the dark. o N parent's knees, a naked, new-born child, Weeping thou sat'st when all around thee smiled : So live, that, sinking in thy last long sleep, Thou then mayst smile while all around thee weep. — From the Chinese. B BROTHERS AND SISTERS. E kind to thy brother ; his heart will have dearth If the smiles of thy joy be withdrawn ; The flowers of feeling will fade at the birth, If love and affection be gone. Be kind to thy brother ; wherever you are ; The love of a brother shall be An ornament purer and richer, by far, Than pearls from the depths of the sea. Be kind to thy sister ! not many may know The depth of true sisterly love ; The wealth of the ocean lies fathoms below The surface that sparkles above ; Thy kindness shall bring to thee many sweet hours, And blessings thy pathway shall crown ; Affection shall weave thee a garland of flowers, More precious than wealth or renown. — Anonymous. TEASING. BROTHERS and sisters do not consider it any harm to tease. That spirit abroad in the family is one of the meanest and most devilish. There is a teasing that is pleasurable, and is only another form of innocent raillery, but that which provokes, and irritates, and makes the eye flash with anger, is to be reprehended. It would be less blameworthy to take THE HOME LIFE. 25 a bunch of thorns and draw them across your sister's cheek, or to take a knife and draw its sharp edge across your brother's hand till the blood spurts, for that would damage only the body, but teasing is the thorn and the knife, scratching and lacerating the disposition and the soul. It is the curse of innumerable households that the brothers tease the sisters, and the sisters the brothers. Sometimes it is the color of the hair, or the shape of the features, or an affair of the heart. Sometimes it is by revealing a secret, or by a suggestive look, or a guffaw, or an "Ahem!" Tease! Tease ! Tease ! For God's sake quit it. — Wedding Ring. BROTHERS AND SISTERS AT HOME. WHAT should be the home intercourse of brothers and sisters ? What should they do toward the home life? How should they live together ? These questions may be answered in general by saying that a close and tender friendship should exist between them. This sounds like a very commonplace remark. Of course brothers and sisters should be friends, and should live together in an intimate relationship as friends. No one denies it. But do we universally find this warm, loving and tender friendship where there are young people in the house? We often find strong ties and attachments, mutual affection and interest, and much that is very beautiful ; but when we come closer and look for friendship in the true sense it is wanting. The brothers and sisters may love one another very truly, but they seek their friends outside the home. They go outside for warm sympathy, for close intimacy, for confidential companionship. It is not hard to find reasons for this. Living always together and knowing one another from infancy, members of the same family are apt to grow uninteresting to one another. The sameness of the society, day after day, takes away its freshness. The common life which they lead under the same roof, with the same pursuits, the same topics for conversation, the same incidents and experiences, the same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows, the same books, the same social life, render it difficult for the members of a household to impress one another in continual repetition and ever freshly kindle inspiration and emotions the one in the other, as friends from other homes can do. Home ties must be cultivated. The fact that it is home and that the ties are natural and thought to be secure ; that the members are sure of each other without making any effort to win confidence and regard ; that love between them is a matter of course, as if by nature, without winning it or cherishing it or troubling themselves to keep it — these are some of the causes for the absence of real Z6 THE HOME LIFE. friendship among brothers and sisters. They imagine that family affection is a sort of instinct, not subject to the laws which control other affections ; that it does not need to be sought or gained or won, as affection must be in others, by giving affection in return, and by the countless little tendernesses and thoughtfulnesses which are shown to others whom they desire to win. They forget that the principle, " He that hath friends must show himself friendly," applies in the family just as well as outside of it. They forget that friendship anywhere must be cherished or it will die ; that coldness and indifference will cause it to wither as the flowers of summer killed by the drought. They imagine, in a word, that the love of the family is so sure that it needs no care, no pains to keep it. Friendships in the family require care and culture as other friendships. We must win the love of those inside the home just as we win the love of those outside. We must prove ourselves worthy ; we must show ourselves unselfish, self- forgetful, thoughtful, kind, tender, patient, helpful. Then, when we have won each other, we must keep the treasures of affection and confidence, just as we do in the case of friends not in the sacred circle of home. If we have a friend whom we respect and prize very highly, we all know at what pains we are to retain this friend. We try to prune from our own character anything that would displease our friend. We cultivate assiduously those qualities of heart and life which he admires. We watch for opportunities to do kindnesses and show favors. We guard against whatever would wound or cause pain. We give our confidence, we trust our friend and prove our affection in countless ways. Let no one suppose that home friendships can be won and kept in any other way. We must live for each other. We must gain each other's heart. We must cherish friendship, or it will not grow. We must watch our words and conduct. We must seek to please, and never wound or grieve. We must deny self and live for another. We must confide in one another. We must cultivate all that is beautiful, holy and true. Friendships in our home, to be true and heart-satisfying, must be formed by the patient knitting of soul to- soul and the growing of life into life. — Home-Making. THAT BOY OF YOURS. TEACH your boy to be accurate. If he be not taught accuracy in child- hood, he will never learn it in his manhood. Teach him to speak accurately on all subjects, and he will scorn to tell a lie. Teach your boy the valuable lesson of consideration for the feelings of others. Teach him to disdain revenge. Impress him with this beautiful sentiment: "Write injuries in dust, but kindnesses in marble." THE HOME LIFE. 27 Let your boy be boyish. A mannish boy, a boy who is a man before his time, is a disagreeable object. I never take any stock in the so-called "good boys" — boys who never get into mischief. It is a good thing if they die young, for they generally turn out bad as men. Early instil into your boy's mind decision of character. The unde- cided boy is sure to become a namby-pamby man. He will be as Dryden says : " Everything by starts and nothing long." Teach your boy courtesy. "Manners make the man," says the proverb. True politeness is rapidly becoming, in this country, one of the "lost arts." Do not give your boy expensive notions. Bring him up to be simple in his habits and pleasures. Teach your boy to look upon labor as a real dignity, and idleness as a disgrace. Teach your boy to be open and frank. If he has carelessly broken anything, and takes the full blame upon himself, and makes no excuses about it, don't punish him, but commend him for his honesty, and he will grow up every inch a man. Teach your boy to be strictly honest in all his dealings with his brothers and sisters. If he disregard their rights he will grow up to dis- regard the rights of men. "As the twig is bent the tree inclines." Put your boy on his honor. Trust his honor. Nothing will improve his character more. The boy that always requires looking after is in danger. .Be your boy's companion; treat him as a gentleman ; and if such treatment does not make him a gentleman, nothing else will. Teach your boy that the best whisky-sling is to sling the bottle or the concealed jug out of the window, and that the best throw of the dice is to throw the dice away. Teach your boy not to despise little things. Life is made up of little things. The " little things " in the aggregate make up whatever is great. Look to the littles. If we make the little events of life beautiful and good, then will the whole life be full of beauty and goodness. SELF-RELIANCE. TEACH your boy to be self-reliant. "Ability and necessity dwell near each other," said Pythagoras. Let your boy learn no other language but this : " You have your own way to make, and it depends upon your own 28 THE HOME LIFE. exertion whether you sink or swim, survive or perish." The wisest charity- is to help a boy to help himself. Teach your boy that there is no such thing as "luck." Good pluck is good luck. Whole-hearted energy crowns men with honors. The word " can't " ought not to be found in your boy's vocabulary. Teach him stick-to-it-ness. Don't flinch. Never fly the track. Hold on; hold fast ; hold out. Teach your boy that the use of tobacco is a filthy, costly and unhealthy habit. The boy with a cigar in his mouth, a swagger in his walk, impudence on his face, a care-for-nothingness in his manner, older than his father (judging from his demeanor), is going too fast. Stop him, father ; stop him ! The chances are ten to one that in a dishonored grave will soon lie the buried hopes of a father, the joys of a mother's heart, and the pride of sisters fair. Teach your boy that if he does not wish to be a nobody, or something much worse than a nobody, he must guard his youth. Never permit your boy to associate with your neighbors' badly- managed boys. " He who goes with wolves soon learns to howl." A boy readily copies all that he sees done, good or bad. A boy's temper and habits will be formed on a model of those with whom he associates. Above all, bring up that boy of yours in " the nurture and admonition of the Lord." The only way to bring him up in the way of the Lord is for you to walk in that way yourself. Let yours, then, be the religious home, and God's blessings will descend upon it. Your children shall be like "olive plants around your table" — the "heritage of the Lord." It will give to the boy's soul its "perfect flowering," and make it "lustrous in the livery of divine knowledge." — Empty Pews. THE SPOILED BOY. THE worst injury anyone can inflict on society is to pet and spoil their children in such a way that when they grow up the world will regret that they did not die in infancy. A mother allows her boy to " answer her back," and treat her rudely. Years after she has gone to her account, another person will reap the bitter harvest of her weakness. The spoiled son will have taken to himself a wife, whom he treats in the same rude manner that he was permitted to adopt towards his mother. A spoiled boy may possibly become a worthy, religious man, but the effect of his having been spoiled will be seen in the large amount of dross that will overlie the gold. He will be ill-mannered, over-bearing, selfish, and generally disagree- "The Spoiled Bay," THE HOME LIFE. 31 able. Mothers ! you can prevent this. When a boy is given to you accept him, not as a plaything merely, but as a most sacred trust — a talent to be put to the best account. Teach him to hate cruelty, to take the part of the weak, to recognize the special gentleness and respectful consideration due to a woman, particularly to his mother and sisters. In this way you may, by the grace of God, prevent your pets from ever becoming pests. Tommy (who had just received a severe scolding) — " Am I really so bad, mamma ? " Mamma — " Yes, Tommy, you are a very bad boy." Tommy (reflectively) — " Well, anyway, mamma, I think you ought to be real glad I'm not twins." — Five Talents of Woman. WHAT TO TEACH OUR DAUGHTERS. TEACH them to make bread. Teach them to make shirts. Teach them to foot up store bills. Teach them not to wear false hair. Teach them to wear thick, warm shoes. Teach them how to wash and iron clothes. Teach them how to make their own dresses. Teach them that a dollar is only a hundred cents. Teach them how to cook a good meal of victuals. Teach them how to darn stockings and sew on buttons. Teach them dry, hard, practical, every-day common sense. Teach them to wear calico dresses, and do it like queens. Give them a good, substantial, common school education. Teach them to regard the morals and not money of their beaus. Teach them all the mysteries of the kitchen, dining-room and the parlor. Teach them that the more one lives within his income the more he will save. Teach them to have nothing to do with intemperate and dissolute young men. Teach them that the further one lives beyond his income the nearer he gets to the poor-house. Teach them that a good, steady mechanic is worth a dozen loafers in broadcloth. 32 THE HOME LIFE. Teach them the accomplishments, music, painting, drawing, if you have time and money to do it. Rely on it that upon your teaching depends, in a great measure, the weal or woe in their after life. HONORING OUR PARENTS. THE religion of the Chinese consists in honoring their ancestors. One good result flows from their religion : they do not speak disrespect- fully of their parents. They do not call their father "the old man," or "the governor." They do not call their mother "the old woman." May not this be the reason why God has given China so long a life as a nation ? Obey your parents : not from fear, but from love. Too many children obey because they know what will come if they don't. They obey because they must or get punished. Mothers are often fretful and fathers tyrants and despots, from whom there is no appeal, provoking their children to wrath, which God forbids. Obey your parents because you love them, because it is right, and because God asks it. Let your obedience be prompt and cheerful. Obey your parents in their absence. So act in their absence that you can always in their presence look them right in the eye. Treat your parent's wish as though it were a command. When George Washington was all ready to go to sea, he discovered that his mother did not wish him to go. As he went in to say good-bye to her, he found her in tears. That was enough for him. He went out and said to his servant : " Take my trunk back again to my room ; I will not break my mother's heart to please myself." When his mother heard what he had done she said : " George, God has promised to bless those who honor their parents, and he will bless you!" And God did bless Washington, and made him a blessing to the world. When he conquered himself he won a greater victory than when he conquered the British at Trenton and at Monmouth and at Yorktown. Washington's obedience to his parents was the turning- point in his life and led to all his after-greatness. The Hon. Thomas H. Benton was for thirty years a United States Senator. When making a speech in New York once, he turned to the ladies present, and spoke thus about his mother : " My mother asked me never to use tobacco, and I have never touched it from that day to this. She asked me never to learn to gamble, and I never learned to gamble. When I was seven years old, she asked me not to drink, and I made a resolution of total abstinence. That resolution I have never broken. And now whatever THE HOME LIFE. 33 service I may have been able to render to my country, or whatever honor I may have gained, I owe it to my mother." Find out what the wishes of your parents are and follow them. OBEY YOUR PARENTS. OBEY your parents in the Lord. God is above your parents. They have no right to command you to do what God forbids. Help your parents all you can. Remember what they have done foi you. When you were helpless they helped you; now when they are helpless help them. Save them as many steps as you can. A young lady will never miss it in marrying a young man who is kind and devoted to his mother. The young lady who sits at the piano and sings " What is Home Without a Mother?" when the mother in question is doing all the hard work, will never make a good wife. Remember this too, that a son's or daughter's spotless name is, while life lasts, a father's truest glory and a mother's greatest joy. Help your parents in old age. Make them comfortable. The young man or the young woman who is ashamed of his or her father or mother because the brilliance has faded out of the eyes and the roses have fled from the cheeks, is a grown-up baby. Visit your parents as often as you can. Cheer them in their declining days. If you cannot visit them write to them often. Amid all the successes of the noble Garfield, nothing stirred his energy more than the thought of the gratification that would be given to his mother's heart. He always found time to write a letter home and tell all that he was doing. Christ, while suffering on the cross, provided a home and a guardian for his mother : " Now, when Jesus therefore saw his mother and the dis- ciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother : Behold thy son ! And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home." How beautifully this sets the example of Christ before us to teach us how to honor our father and mother ! — Empty Pews. MAKE YOUR MOTHER HAPPY. CHILDREN, make your mother happy; Make her sing instead of sigh, For the mournful hour of parting May be very, very nigh. 34 THE HOME LIFE. Children, make your mother happy, Many griefs she has to bear : And she wearies 'neath her burdens, Can you not those burdens share ? Children, make your mother happy ; ' Prompt obedience cheers the heart ; While a wilful disobedience Pierces like a poisoned dart. Children, make your mother happy ; On her brow the lines of care Deepen daily, don't you see them ? While your own are smooth and fair. Children, make your mother happy ; For beneath the coffin-lid, All too soon her face so saint-like, Shall forevermore be hid. Bitter tears and self-upbraiding Can not bring her back again ; And remorseful memories Are a legacy of pain. Oh, begin to-day, dear children, Listen when your mother speaks ; Tender, quick, and sweet obedience For your highest good she seeks. She loves you better than all others, And for your sake herself denies ; Always patient, prayerful, tender, Ever thoughtful, true and wise. Remember while you live, dear children, And should you search the rounded earth, You'll never find a friend more faithful Than the one who gave you birth. — Anonymous THE HOME LIFE. 35 INGRATITUDE. AN old Virginia minister said lately, " Men of my profession see much of the tragic side of life. I have seen men die in battle, have seen children die, but no death ever seemed so pathetic to me as the death of aif aged mother in my church. I knew her first as a young girl, beautiful, gay, full of joy and hope. She married and had four children. Her husband died and left her penniless. She sewed, she made drawings, she taught, she gave herself scarcely any time to eat or sleep. Every thought was for her children, to educate them, to give them the advantages their father would have given them had he lived. She succeeded. She sent her boys to college and her girls to school. When all came home they gave themselves up to their own selfish pursuits. She lingered among them some three years, and then was stricken with mortal illness, brought on by over-work. The children gathered around her bedside. The oldest son took her in his arms. He said: 'You have been a good mother to us.' That was not mucn to say, was it ? It was much to her, who had never heard anything like it before. A flush came over her pallid face, and, with husky voice, she whispered: 'My son, you never said so before!' " DON'T BE ASHAMED OF YOUR PARENTS. SOMETIMES you think mother looks very plain and old-fashioned. Per- haps she does ; perhaps she is more than a little faded and worn ; but did you ever think that it is because she has given so much of the best power and energy of her life to caring for you ? If she had not chosen to toil and suffer and deny herself for your sake ; if she had thought more of herself and less of you, she might have been very much fairer and fresher now. If she had only neglected you instead of herself, she might now shine with you in the parlor, for once her cheeks were as lovely as yours are now. She might have found more rest and less hard work if she had not chosen to spend so many hours in stitching away on frocks, trousers, jackets or dresses for you, making new and mending the old. She might have better clothes even now to wear, so that you would not blush to have your friends meet her with you, if she did not take so much interest in dressing you prettily and richly. It may be that the little allowance of money that she gets is not sufficient to dress both herself and you in fashionable array, and that you may be well clad she wears the same dress and bonnet year after year. Never forget where your mother lost her freshness and youthful beauty; it was in self-denying toil and suffering for your sake. Those wrinkles in her face, those deep care-lines in her cheeks, that weary look in 36 THE HOME LIFE. her eye — she wears all these marks now, where once there was fresh beauty, because she has forgotten herself these long years in loving devotion to you. These scars of time and toil and pain are the seals of her care for you. A WORD FOR FATHER. LOOK at your father, too. He is not as fresh and youthful as once he was. Perhaps he does not dress as finely as some of the young people you see about you or as their father's dress. There are marks of hard toil upon him, marks of care and anxiety, which in your eye seem to disfigure his beauty. It may be that you blush a little sometimes when your young friends meet you walking with him or when he comes into the parlor when you have company, and wish he would take more pains to appear well. Do not forget that he is toiling these days for you, and that his hard hands and his bronzed face are really tokens of his love for you. If he does not appear quite as fresh and handsome as some other men, very likely it is because he has to work harder to give you your pleasant home, your good clothes, your daily food and many comforts and to send you to school. When you look at him and feel tempted to be ashamed of his appearance, just remember this. Perhaps he is an old man, with bent form, white hair, slow step, awkward hand, wrinkled face, and feeble, broken voice. Forget not what history there is in all these marks that look to you like marrings of his manly beatity. The soul writes its story on the body. The soldier's scars tell of heroisms and sacrifices. The merchant's anxious face and knit brow tell of struggle and anxiety. So gluttony and greed and selfishness and licentiousness write out their record in unmistakable lines on the features, and so do kindness, benevolence, unselfishness, and purity. You look at your father and see signs of toil, of pain, of self-denial, of care. Do you know what they reveal ? They tell the story of his life. He has passed through struggles and conflicts. Do you know how much of this Story, if rightly interpreted, concerns you ? Is there nothing in the bent form, the faded hands, the lines of care, that tell you of his deep love for fou and of sufferings endured, sacrifices made, and toils and anxieties for your sake ? When you think thus of what you owe your parents and of what they have borne and wrought for you, can you ever again be ashamed of them ? Will not the shame rather be for yourself that you could ever have been so ungrateful as to blush at their homeliness ? All the reverence of your soul will be kindled into deepest, purest admiration, as you look upon THE HOME LIFE. 37 those marks of love and sacrifice for your sake. You will honor them all the more, the more they are worn and wasted, the more they are broken and their grace and beauty shattered. These tokens of self-neglect and self-sacrifice are the jewels in the crown of love.—/. R. Miller. MOTHERHOOD. O MOTHERS ! Does God give to angels any work grander than yours ? A wise man writes : " Women sigh for fame. They would be sculptors and chisel out of the cold stone forms of beauty to fill the world with admiration of their skill. Or they would be poets to write songs to thrill a nation and to be sung around the world. But is any work in marble so great as hers who has an immortal life laid in her hands to shape its destiny? Is the writing of any poem in musical lines so noble a work as the training of the powers of a human soul into harmony ? Yet there are women who regard the duties and cares of motherhood as too obscure and commonplace tasks for their hands. So when a baby comes a nurse is hired, who, for a weekly compensation, agrees to take charge of the little one, that the mother may be free from such drudgery to devote herself to what she thinks nobler and worthier things — free to keep in the old gay life, free to pet pugs, to dress and drive, to visit and receive, to enjoy balls and operas, and thus she discharges her trust of an immortal life by proxy. " O, that God would give every mother a vision of the glory and splendor of the work that is given to her when a babe is placed in her bosom to be nursed and trained ! Could she have but one glimpse into the future of that life as it reaches on into eternity, could she look into its soul to see its possibilities, could she be made to understand her own responsi- bility for the training of this child, for the development of its life, and for its destiny, she would see that in all God's world there is no other work so noble and so worthy of her best powers, and she would commit to no other hands the sacred and holy trust given to her." Men say that into the strings of some old Cremona violin the life of the master who once played upon it has passed, so that it is as an imprisoned soul, breathing out at every skillful touch. This is only a beautiful poetic fancy. But when a little child in a mother's bosom is loved, nursed, caressed, held close to her heart, prayed over, wept over, talked with, for days, weeks, months, years, it is no mere fancy to say that the mother's life has indeed passed into the child's soul. 38 THE HOME LIFE. " O, mothers of young children, I bow before you in reverence ! Your work is most holy. The powers folded up in the little ones that you hushed to sleep in your bosoms last night are powers that shall exist for- ever. Take up your burdens reverently. Be sure that your heart is pure and that your life is sweet and clean. The Persian apologue says that the lump of clay was fragant because it had lain on a rose. Let your heart be as the rose, and then your child, as it lies upon your bosom, will absorb the fragrance. If there is no sweetness in the rose the clay will not be per- fumed." " She who rocks the cradle rules the world," " for she it is who guides and trains the opening minds of those who shall influence the coming generations. In its earliest years, the mother's every look, tone of voice and action, sink into the heart and memory of her child, and are presently reproduced in his own life. No wonder that a good mother has been called nature's chef d' ceuvre, for she is not only the perfection of womanhood, but the most beautiful and valuable of nature's productions. To her the world is indebted for the work done by most of its great and gifted men. As letters cut in the bark of a young tree grow and widen with age, so do the ideas which a mother implants in the mind of her talented child." A MOTHER'S LOVE. CAN a mother's love be supplied ? No ! a thousand times no ! By the deep earnest yearning of our spirits ; by the weary, aching void in our hearts ; by the restless, unsatisfied wanderings in our affections ; by the hallowed emotions with which we cherish the vision of a grass grown mound in a quiet graveyard among the mountains ; by the reverence, the holy love, the feeling akin to idolatry, with which our thoughts hover about an angel form among the Seraphs of Heaven — by all these we answer, no! Often do I sigh for the sweet, deep security I felt when of an evening, nestling in her bosom, I listened to some quiet tale read in her tender and untiring voice. Never can I forget her sweet glance cast upon me when I appeared asleep ; never her kiss of peace at night. Years have passed away since we laid her beside my father in the old churchyard ; yet, still her voice whispers from the grave, and her eye watches, as I visit spots hallowed to the memory of my mother. Oh ! there is an enduring tenderness in the love of a mother for a son that transcends all other affections. It is neither chilled by selfishness nor daunted by danger; nor weakened by worthlessness; nor stifled by THE HOME LIFE. 39 ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience ; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment; she will glory in his fame and exult in his prosperity; if misfortune overtakes him, he will be dearer to her than ever; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him ; aye ! if all the world cast him off, she will be all the world to him. Alas ! how little do we appreciate a mother's love. But when she is gone ; when the cares and coldness of the world come withering to our hearts ; when we learn how hard it is to find true sympathy ; how few to love us ; how few to befriend us ; then it is that we think of the mother we have lost. O, a mother's grave! Earth has some sacred spots where we feel like loosing our shoes from our feet, and treading with reverence, where common words of social converse seem rude; where vows have been plighted, prayers offered, tears shed. But of all spots on this green earth none is so sacred as that where rests, waiting the resurrection, the ashes of the loved mother. The world's most holy place is a mother's grave. WOMAN'S TRUE SPHERE. WHAT America wants now is about 500,000 old-fashioned mothers, women who shall realize that the highest, grandest institution on earth is the home. There is a world of truth in the following : " Do not, my sister, be dizzied and disturbed by the talk of those who think the home circle too insignificant for a woman's career, and who want to get you out on platforms and in conspicuous enterprises. There are women who have a special outside mission, and do not dare to interpret me as derisive of their important mission. But my opinion is that the woman who can reinforce her husband in the work of life, and rear her children for positions of usefulness, is doing more for God and the race and her own happiness than if she spoke on every great platform, and headed a hundred great enterprises. My mother never made a missionary speech in her life, and at a missionary meeting I doubt whether she could have got enough courage to vote aye or no, but she raised her son John, who has been preaching the Gospel and translating religious literature in Amoy, China, for about forty years. Was not that a better thing to do ? " Compare such an one with one of those die-away, attitudinizing, frivolous, married coquettes of the modern drawing-room, her heaven an opera box on the night of Meyerbeer's ' Robert le Diable,' the ten com- mandments an inconvenience, taking arsenic to improve the complexion, 4 o THE HOME LIFE. and her appearance a confused result of belladonna, bleached hair, anti- mony and mineral acids, until she is compelled to discuss her character and wonder whether the line between a decent and indecent life is, like the equator, an imaginary line." — Talmage. NURSING FATHERS. THERE is no effeminacy in the title " Nursing Fathers," but the con- trary. Fondness for children arises from compassionate feeling for creatures that are helpless and innocent. Happy is he who is happy in his children, and happy are the children who are happy in their father. All fathers are not wise. Some are like Eli, and spoil their children. Not to cross our children is the way to make a cross of them. Help your wives to make home lively and pleasant, so as to keep the ehildren from seeking pleasure and excitement elsewhere. The proverb says, " Clergymen's sons always turn out badly." Why? Because the children are surfeited with severe religion, not the true religion of Christ, who was Himself reproved by the prototypes of such severe men. We give here a sketch of Canon Kingsley as a father, because we do not remember any home life more beautiful and instructive. Because the Rectory-house was on low ground, the Rector of Eversley, who considered violation of the divine laws of health a sort of acted blasphemy, built his children an out-door nursery on the "Mount," where they kept books, toys, and tea-things, spending long, happy days on the highest and loveliest point of moorland in the glebe ; and there he would join them when his parish work was done, bringing them some fresh treasure picked up in his walk, a choice wild-flower or fern or rare beetle, sometimes a lizard or a field-mouse, ever waking up their sense of wonder, calling out their powers of observation, and teaching them lessons out of God's great green book, without their knowing they were learning. Out-of-doors and indoors, the Sundays were the happiest days of the week to the children, though to their father the hardest. When his day's work was done, there was always the Sunday walk, in which each bird and plant - ud brook was pointed out to the children, as preaching sermons to eyes, such as were not even dreamt of by people of the No-eye species. Indoors the Sunday pic- ture-books were brought out, and each child chose its subject for the father to draw, either some Bible story, or bird or beast or flower. THE HOME LIFE. 41 Kingsley had a horror of corporal punishment, not merely because it tends to produce antagonism between parent and child, but because he considered more than half the lying of children to be the result of fear of punishment. " Do not train a child," he said, " as men train a horse, by letting anger and punishment be the first announcement of his having sinned. If you do, you induce two bad habits : first, the boy regards his parent with a kind of blind dread, as a being who may be offended by actions which to him are innocent, and whose wrath he expects to fall upon him at any moment in his most pure and unselfish happiness. Next and worst still, the boy learns not to fear sin, but the punishment of it, and thus he learns to lie." He had no " moods " with his family, for he cultivated, by strict dis- cipline in the midst of worries and pressing business, a disengaged temper, that always enabled him to enter into other people's interests and especially into children's playfulness. " I wonder," he would say, "if there is so much laughing in any other home in England as in ours. He became a light-hearted boy in the presence of his children. When broken toys and nursery griefs were taken to his study, he was never too busy to mend the toy and dry the tears. How blessed is the son who can speak of his> father as Charles Kingsley's eldest son does. " ' Perfect love casteth out fear ! ' was the motto," he says, " on which my father based his theory of bringing up children. From this and from the interest he took in their pursuits, their pleasures, trials, and even the petty details of their every-day life, there sprang up a friendship between father and children, that increased in intensity and depth with years. To speak for myself, he was the best friend — the only true friend I ever had. At once he was the most fatherly and the most unfatherly of fathers — fatherly in that he was our intimate friend and our self-constituted adviser ; unfatherly in that our feeling for him lacked that fear and restraint that make boys call their father "the governor." Ours was the only household I ever saw in which there was no favoritism. Perhaps the brightest picture of the past that I look back to now is the drawing-room at Eversley, in the evenings, when we were all at home and by ourselves. There he sat, with one hand in mother's, forgetting his own hard work in leading our fun and frolic, with a kindly smile on his lips, and a loving light in that bright gray eye, that made us feel that, in the broadest sense of the word, he was our father." Writing to his wife from the seaside, where he had gone in search of health, he says : " This place is perfect ; but it seems a dream and imper- fect without you. Kiss the darling ducks of children for me. How I long 42 THE HOME LIFE. after them and their prattle ! I delight in all the little ones in the street, for their sake, and continually I start and fancy I hear their voices outside. You do not know how I love them; nor did I hardly till I came here. Absence quickens love into consciousness. Tell Rose and Maurice that I have got two pair of bucks' horns — one for each of them, huge old fellows, almost as big as baby." Writing from France " to my dear little man," as he calls his youngest son (for whom he wrote the " Water Babies "), he says : "There is a little Egyptian vulture here in the inn; ask mother to show you his picture in the beginning of the bird-book." There was little danger that the sons of such a clergyman as this would turn out badly. If family government were well carried out in every home, children would be happier and better than they are now. Then there would be, even in our great towns, a partial realization of the words of the Prophet Zachariah, "And the streets of the city shall be full of boys and girls, playing in the streets thereof." — Hozv to Be Happy Though Married. A WORD TO BUSY FATHERS. THE busiest father should find at least a few moments every day to romp with his children. A man who is too stately and dignified to play with his baby or carry his little ones pickback or help them in their sports and games, not only lacks one of the finest elements of true great- ness, but fails in one of his duties to his children. For this is one of the points at which the mother should not be left alone. She is with her children all the day, and carries the burden of their entertainment for long hours without rest or pause. Surely it is only just to her that for the little time the father is in the home he should relieve her. Besides, he owes it to his children, for one of their inalienable rights under his roof and at his hands is happiness. No father can afford to let his children grow up with- out weaving himself into the memories of their golden youth. Norman McLeod says : " Oh, sunshine of youth, let it shine on ! Let love flow out fresh and full, unchecked by any rule but what love creates, and pour itself down without stint into the young heart. Make the days of boyhood happy, for other days of labor and sorrow must come, when the blessing of those dear eyes and clasping hands and sweet caresses will, next to the love of God from whence they flow, save the man from losing faith in the human heart, help to deliver him from the curse of selfishness and be an Eden in the evening when he is driven forth into the wilderness of life." Another writes : "The richest heritage that parents can give is a happy THE HOME LIFE. 43 childhood, with tender memories of father and mother. This will brighten the coming days when the children have gone out from the sheltering home, will be a safeguard in times of temptation and a conscious help amid the stern realities of life." LOVE. LOVE is the light, the majesty of life, that principle to which, after all our struggling, and writhing, and twisting, all things must be resolved. Take it away, and what becomes of the world ! It is a barren wilderness. A world of monuments, each standing upright and crumbling, an army of gray stones, without a chaplet. Things base and foul, creeping, withered, bloodless, and brainless, could spring alone from such a marble-hearted soil. Love's darts are silver; when they turn to fire in the noble heart, they impart a portion of that heavenly flame which is their element. Love is of such a refining, elevating character, that it expels all that is mean and base; bids us think great thoughts, do great deeds, and it changes our common clay into fine gold. It illumines our paths, dark and mysterious as they may be, with the very light of heaven. Oh ! poor, weak, and inexpressive are words with which to tell of love's greatness and power ! Dull, pitiful, and cold ; — dead stones to bring back to us the far-flashing of the sparkling ruby with his heart of fire! The blue eyes of turquoises, or the liquid light of the sapphire should be used to help us spell along, and character out our thoughts of love. The affection that links together husband and wife is a holier and more enduring passion than the enthusiasm of young love. It may want its gorgeousness — it nfay want its imaginative character, but it is richer, and trustier in its attributes. Talk not to us of the absence of love in wedlock. No ! it burns with a steady and brilliant flame, shedding a benign influence upon existence, a million times more precious than the selfish gratifications of "single-blessedness." Domestic love! Who can measure its height or depth? Who can estimate its preserving and purifying power? It sends an ever swelling stream of joy through the household; it binds hearts into one "bundle" of life; it shields from temptation; takes the sting from disappointment; breathes music into the voice ; puts lightness into the foot-step ; gives worth and beauty to the commonest office ; surrounds home with an atmosphere of moral health ; gives power to effort and wings to progress, — it is omni- potent. Love is like a cathedral tower, which begins on the earth and is surrounded by the other parts of the structure, but at length rising above buttressed wall, and arch, and parapet and pinnacle, it shoots spire-like far 44 THE HOME LIFE. into the air, so high that the cross on its summit glows like a spark in the morning light, and shines like a star in the evening sky. LOVE. LOVE iz one oy the pashuns, and the most diffikult one ov all tew deskribe. I never yet hav herd love well defined I hav read several deskrip- shuns ov it, but they were written by those who were in love, (or thought they waz,) and i wouldn't beleave such testimony, not even under oath. Almoste every boddy sum time in their life, haz been in love, and if they think it iz an eazy sensashun tew deskribe, let them set down and deskribe it, and see if the persons who listens tew the deskripshun, will be satisfied with it. I waz in love once miself for 7 long years, and mi friends all sid i had a consupshun, but i knu all the time what ailed me, but couldn't deskribe it. Now all that i kan rekolekt about this luv sikness is, that for those 7 long years i waz, if enny thing, rather more ov a kondem phool than ordinary. Love iz an honorabel dissease enuff tew hav, bekause it iz natral ; but enny phellow who has laid sik with it for 7 long years, after he gits over it, feels sum thing like the phellow who haz phell down on the ice when it iz very wet — he don't feel like talking about it before folks. — Josh .Billings. LOVE. LOVE attracts, it is magnetic ; Love is soothing, sympathetic; Love is incense, always burning ; Love is longing, always yearning; Love is rapture, radiant meekness ; Love is strength, a balm for weakness ; Love is wealth and hope and duty, Love is elegance and beauty; Love is tune and love is song, Love is always, love is long ; Love is lifetime's noblest treasure, Love is thrilling, joyous pleasure; Love is chaste and love is pure, Love for ever shall endure. —Sheffield (Eng.) Telegraph. THE HOME LIFE. 45 COURTSHIP. IF ever caution is needed, it is here. Mistake is so easy; undesigned duplicity is so natural ! The lady wreathed in smiles, and moving with cautious effort to conceal defects of temper and intellect, acquires almost irre- sistible influence. The still small voice of the better judgment whispers, " Beware !" It suggests the lack of one adornment, the excess of a particu- lar defect, the absence of certain desirable qualities and attainments in vain. The heart silences the cooler dictates of the mind ; the question is put, the engagement made, the vows exchanged, the marriage celebrated ; and the wretched parties learn, when too late, their unfitness for each other ; and too often their subsequent life is miserable beyond description. Be careful, therefore, young man, at the very beginning. When a slight fondness for any lady arises, hold it in check till you have time to discover what she is. If manifestly unfit, intellectually, morally, or socially, to be your future wife, stifle your affection, seek other society. The pain of such a resolution will bear no comparison with the agony consequent upon an imprudent marriage. Many young ladies indulge in very nonsensical notions concerning love. They fancy themselves bound to be " smitten " with almost every silly idler who wears a fashionable coat, is tolerably good-looking, and pays them particular attention. Reason, judgment, deliberation, according to their fancies, have nothing to do with love. Hence they yield to their feel- ings, and give their company to young men, regardless of warning, advice, or entreaty. A father's sadness, a mother's tears are treated with contempt, and often with bitter retorts. Their lovers use flattering words ; and, like silly moths fluttering round the fatal lamp, they allow themselves to be charmed into certain misery. Learn that }-our affections are under your own control; that pure affection is founded upon esteem ; that estimable qualities in a man can alone secure the continuance of connubial love; that if these*are not in him, your love has no foundation, and will fall, a wilted flower as soon as the excitement of youthful passion is overpast. — Dr. Wise. A young man, paying special attention to a young lady, was invited into the parlor to await her appearance. A little girl, about five years old, slipped in, and said, " I can always tell when you are coming to the house. When you are going to be here sister begins to sing and be good ; she gives me cake and pie and anything I want ; and she sings so sweetly when you are here ! and, when I speak to her she smiles so pleasantly ! I wish you would stay here all the while ; then I would have a good time. But when 46 THE HOME LIFE. you are off sister is not good. She gets mad ; and, if I ask her for anything she slaps and bangs me about." " Fools and children tell the truth," quoth he, and taking his hat, he left and returned no more. KORTING. KORTING is a luxury, it is sallid, it is ise water, it is a beveridge, it is the pla spell ov the soul. The man who haz never korted haz lived in vain, he haz bin a blind man amung landscapes and waterscapes, he haz bin a deff man in the land ov hand orgins, and by the side ov murmuring canals. Korting is like 2 little springs ov soft water that steal out from under a rock at the fut ov a mountain and run down the hill side by side, singing and dansing and spatering each other, eddying and frothing and kaskading, now hiding under the bank, now full ov sun and now full ov shadder, till bimeby tha jine and then tha go slow. I am in faver ov long korting, it gives the parties a chance to find out each uther's trump cards, it iz good exercise, and iz jist az innersent az 2 merino lambs. Korting iz like strawberries and cream, wants to be did slow, then yu git the fiaver. Az a ginral thing i wouldn't brag on uther galls mutch when i waz korting, it mite look az tho yu knu tew mutch. If yu will kort this wa 3 years, awl the time on the square, if yu don't sa it iz a leetle the slikest time in yure life, yu kan git measured for a hat at my expense, and pa for it. Don't kort for munny, nor buty, nor relashuns, theze things ar jist about az onsartin az the kerosine ile refining bissness, liabel tew git out ov repar and bust at enny minnit. Kort a gal fur phun, fur the luv yu bare hur, fur the vartu and biss- ness thare iz in hur ; kort hur fur a wife, and fur a muther ; kort hur az yu wood kort a farm — fur the strength ov the sile and the parf eckshun ov the title ; kort hur az tho she want a fule, and yu a nuther ; kort hur in the kitchen, in the parlor, over the wash-tub and at the pianner ; kort hur this wa yung man and if yu don't git a good wife and she don't git a good hustband, the fait wont be in the korting. Yung man yu kan reli upon Josh Billings, and if yu kant mak theze rools wurk jist send fur him, and he will sho yu how the thing iz did, and it shant kost yu a sent.— Josh Billings. THE HOME LIFE. 47 THE WHISTLE. *(( VfOU have heard," said a youth to his sweetheart, who stood, 1 While he sat on a corn-sheaf, at daylight's decline, — " You have heard of the Danish boy's whistle of wood ? I wish that that Danish boy's whistle were mine." "And what would you do with it ? — tell me," she said, While an arch smile played over her beautiful face. "I would blow it," he answered; "and then my fair maid Would fly to my side, and would here take her place." "Is that all you wish it for? — That may be yours Without any magic," the fair maiden cried : "A favor so light one's good nature secures ;" And she playfully seated herself by his side. "I would blow it again," said the youth, "and the charm Would work so, that not even Modesty's check Would be able to keep from my neck your fine arm :" She smiled, — and she laid her fine arm round his neck. " Yet once more would I blow, and the music divine Would bring me the third time an exquisite bliss : You would lay your fair cheek to this brown one of mine, And your lips, stealing past it, would give me a kiss." The maiden laughed out in her innocent glee, — " What a fool of yourself with your whistle you'd make ! For only consider, how silly 'twould be, To sit there and whistle for — what you might take." — Robert Story. MARRIAGE. MARRIAGE iz a fair transaction on the face of it. But thare iz quite too often put up jobs in it. It iz an old institushun, older than the pyramids, and az phull ov hyrogliphicks than noboddy can parse. History holds its tongue who the pair waz who fust put on the silken harness, and promised tew work kind in it, thru thick and thin, up hill and down, and on the level, rain or shine, survive or perish, sink or swim, drown or flote. 48 THE HOME LIFE. But whoever they waz they must hav made a good thing out ov it, or so menny ov their posterity would not hav harnessed up since and drov out. Thare iz a grate moral grip in marriage ; it iz the mortar that holds the soshull bricks together. But thare ain't but few pholks who put their money in matrimony who could set down and giv a good written opinyun whi on arth they cum to did it. This iz a grate proof that it iz one ov them natral kind of acksidents that must happen, jist az birds fly out ov the nest, when they hav feathers enuff, without being able to tell why. Sum marry for money, and — don't see it. Sum marry for pedigree, and feel big for six months, and then very sensibly cum tew the conclusion that pedigree ain't no better than skim milk. Sum marry tew please their relashuns, and are surprized tew learn that their relashuns don't care a cuss for them afterwards. Sum marry bekause they hav bin highsted sum whare else ; this iz a cross match, a bay and a sorrel ; pride may make it endurable. Sum marry for love without a cent in their pockets, nor a friend in the world, nor a drop of a pedigree. This looks desperate, but it iz the strength ov the game. If marrying for love ain't a suckcess, then matrimony is a ded beet. Sum marry bekause they think wimmin will be skarse next year, and liv to wonder how the crop holds out. Sum marry tew git rid ov themselfs, and diskover that the game waz one that two could play at, and neither win. Sum marry the seckoned time to git even, and find it a gambling game, the more they put down, the less they take up. Sum marry tew be happy, and finding it, wonder whare all the happi- ness on earth goes to when it dies. Sum marry, they kant tell whi, and liv, they kant tell how. Almoste every boddy gits married, and it iz a good joke. Sum marry in haste, and then set down and think it careful over. Both ways are right, if they hit the mark. Sum marry rakes tew convert them. Thiz is a little risky, and takes. a smart missionary to do it. Sum marry coquett's. This iz like buying a poor farm,, heavily mort- gaged, and working the ballance of yure days tew clear oph the mortgages. Married life has its chances, and this iz jist what gives it its flavour. Everbody luvs tew phool with the chances, bekause every boddy expekts tew win. But i am authorized tew state that everboddy don't win. But, after all, married life iz full az certain az the dry goods bizziness.. THE HOME LIFE. 49 No man kan swear exactly whare he will fetch up when he touches calico. Kno man kan tell jist what calico haz made up its mind tew do next. Calico don't kno even herself. Dri goods ov all kinds is the child ov circumstansis. Sum never marry, ,but this iz jist as risky, the disease iz the same, with no other name to it. The man who stands on the bank shivvering, and dassent, iz more apt to ketch cold, than him who pitches hiz head fust into the river. Thare iz but phew who never marry bekause they wont, they all hanker, and most ov them starve with slices of bread before them (spread on both sides), jist for lack ov grit. Marry young ! iz mi motto. I have tried it and kno what i am talkin about. If enny boddy asks yu whi yu got married, (if it needs be), tell him, yu dorit reccollekt. Marriage is a safe way to gamble — if yu win, yu win a pile, and if yu loze, yu don't loze enny thing, only the privilege ov living dismally alone, and soaking yure own feet. *- I repeat it, in italicks, marry young ! Thare iz but one good excuse for a marriage late in life, and that iz — a second marriage. — Josh. Billings. BACHELOR'S HALL. BACHELOR'S hall! what a quare-lookin' place it is! Kape me from sich all the days of my life ! Sure, but I think what a burnin' disgrace it is Niver at all to be gettin' a wife. See the old bachelor, gloomy and sad enough, Placing his taykettle over the fire ; Soon it tips over — St. Patrick ! he's mad enough (If he were present) to fight wid the squire. Then, like a hog in a mortar-bed wallowing, Awkward enough, see him knading his dough ; Troth ! if the bread he could ate widout swallowing, How it would favor his palate, you know ! His dishcloth is missing ; the pigs are devouring it ; In the pursuit he has battered his shin ; A plate wanted washing; Grimalkin is scouring it; Thunder and turf ! what a pickle he's in ! . 50 ' THE HOME LIFE. His meal being over, the table's left setting- so ; Dishes, take care of yourselves, if you can ! But hunger returns ; then he's fuming and fretting so ! Och ! let him alone for a baste of a man. Pots, dishes, pans, and such grasy commodities, Ashes and prata-skins, kiver the floor ; His cupboard's a storehouse of comical oddities Sich as had niver been neighbors before. Late in the night, then, he goes to bed shiverin' ; Niver the bit is the bed made at all ; He crapes, like a tarrapin, under the kiverin' — Bad luck to the picter of Bachelor's Hall. — John Finley. OLD BACHELORS. DEEP down in my heart I am sorry for old bachelors. Sometimes they are abused. I would as soon think of abusing a man prostrate with inflammatory rheumatism ! Dig into the old bachelor's breast and you find there, instead of a heart, a dried and pulseless lobe, or perchance an urn, with ashes gray, from off the altar fires that long ago have paled. With lashes wet in times of lonely solitude, he murmurs some old, familiar name, and reads with dim vision the memories of an early love. These tears from eyes oft dried by kind old Time are dropped for old love's sake. Young ladies, have you ever uttered one light word of them? I beg you now, repent. Vent your wrath upon some offending infant — not on these. There is a deep philosophy in marriage. The path to happiness leads out of self. Not what we receive makes us happiest, but what we give off. In self-sacrifice we learn life's sweetest lessons. True marriage is living for another. Marriage brings responsibilities, but responsibilities are blessings in disguise. They educate. A young man may count himself blessed when he has a wife and several children to support. They are his anchors. Cut him loose and he might go adrift. If there are more burdens to carry there are more to carry them, and an inspiration that makes burdens delightful. Young gentlemen, lend me your ears. I come not here to discourage matrimony, but to praise it. See the husband at home. The rude world is shut out from his fortress. The bright fire leaps and flares. The wife draws her chair close to his, grasps his hand and pours out the low, sweet strain of a woman's love. I know if there is an old bachelor here to-night his mouth is watering right now. THE HOME LIFE. OLD MAIDS. MARRIAGE is God's holiest ordinance, and home earth's best picture of Heaven. Wifehood and motherhood is the ideal state of woman, as husbandhood and fatherhood is the ideal state of man. Yet marriage is not the one goal of woman, and without it her life a failure. There is a place and work for a sister, daughter and friend, as well as for a wife and mother. Nothing causes so many ill-assorted marriages and their mischievous results as making " old maid " a term of reproach. Light-minded people make fun of the old maid. Many girls have been hurled into matrimony by the dread of being so stigmatized, who repented it to their dying day. This is a free country. If a woman remains single it is her own affair, and outsiders need not concern themselves about it. There is scarcely a woman anywhere, of fair looks and sense, who could not marry some sort of a man. Old maids can give more honorable reasons for living outside the temple of Hymen, than their foolish sisters who rushed in. Some have never found their other selves, or providential circumstances may have prevented the junction of these selves ; or they never have seen the man into whose face they could look with pride, and on whose arm they could lean all their weight with implicit confidence. And is not a life of loneliness better than a loveless marriage? Is not single-blessedness preferable to double-cursed- ness ? Is it not better to live alone and work for your loving, than to live a lie with a man for the sake of being kept ? A marriage with any but a worthy man, a marriage without love, is not simply a mistake, a misfortune, but a humiliating stoop into the dust, a degradation of woman, a mockery that blushes to the skies. There are hundreds of women who laid down all the hopes of wedded bliss for the sake of accomplishing some good work. Some of the brightest, prettiest and most interesting women are so much absorbed in the serious work of life that they regard husbands as altogether unnecessary incon- veniences. They are satisfied and useful. In such cases singleness is an honorable estate. The Bible says it is not good for man to be alone, but does not say it is not good for woman to be alone. The fact is, thousands of women would be ten thousand times better off if they were alone. Many a bride, instead of orange blossoms, might wear nettles, and instead of the wedding-march, a more appropriate tune would be, " The Dead March in Saul." The frogs in ^Esop's fable were extremely wise. They had a great mind to some water, but they would not leap into the well, because they could not get out again. Sisters, look before you leap ! — Madison C. Peters. 52 THE HOME LIFE. THE HOLINESS OF MARRIAGE. WOULD to God that His dear Son were bidden to all the weddings as to that of Cana ! Truly, then, the wine of consolation and blessing would never be lacking. They who would find a blessing in marriage must ponder the holiness and dignity of this mystery, instead of which too often weddings become seasons of mere feasting and disorder. A new home is being formed, in reference to which the bride and groom should think, " This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord." Home is the place of the highest joys ; religion should sanctify it. Home is the sphere of the deepest sorrows ; the consolation of religion should assuage its griefs. Home is the place of the greatest intimacy of heart with heart; religion should sweeten it with the joy of confidence. Home discovers all faults ; religion should bless it with the abundance of charity. Home is the place for impressions, for instruction and culture ; there should religion open her treasures of wisdom and pronounce her heavenly benediction. Young friends, may joy crown you, love bless you, God speed your career ! " Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wiped them soon, The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. They, hand in hand, with wand'ring steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way." UNEQUALLY YOKED TOGETHER. OVID says : " If you wish to marry suitably, marry your equal." If possible, marry a man who is in some way your superior.- Your standing in society will be determined by his. If you marry your inferior, you wrong yourself, your family, and your whole life. As Shakespeare says: " 'Tis meet that noble minds Keep ever with their likes." True are the words of Tennyson in Locksley Hall of every woman who marries her inferior : " Thou shalt lower to his level day by day, What is fine within thee growing coarse to sympathize with clay. As the husband is, the wife is ; thou art mated with a clown, And the grossness of his nature will have power to drag thee down. He will hold thee when his passion shall have spent its novel force, Something better than his dog, a little dearer than his horse." THE HOME LIFE. 53 Now and then a woman of great force of character may lift her husband upward, but she accepts such a labor at the risk of her own higher life. Do not misunderstand me. I do not say that you shall marry for ambition. This is Mrs. Carlyle's experience. She said : " I married for ambition ; Carlyle has exceeded all that my wildest hopes ever imagined of him, and I am miserable." Yet there is no great danger marrying geniuses, as the supply is very limited. Many men think themselves geniuses, and try to make the female sex believe that they are not made of common clay, and that the girl who gets them will be blessed. From such a blessing I would have you adopt the Episcopalian prayer: "Good Lord deliver us/" — Empty Pews. ADVICE TO GIRLS. GIRLS, don't marry a man for money, position or anything but love. Don't do it, if you want to live to a good old age and be happy. You may think that money can bring you all you desire, but it can't. That is where you are mistaken. It can buy a good many things, but it can never purchase contentment for your heart or happiness for your soul. It may bring temporary smiles to your face, but it will leave great shadows in your heart. Don't think I would advise you to marry a worthless fellow just because you love him. A refined, good, intelligent woman should never marry a vulgar, ill-bred man. No, no, never unite yourself to anyone who is not a man in the truest meaning of the word. Neither would I advise a woman to marry a man who had no visible means of supporting her, but don't under any circumstances marry a millionaire or a king if you don't love him. It will not do. People have tried it time and again, only to find it a miserable failure. It may do for awhile. You may revel in gilded halls, and be lost in the giddy rounds of pleasure, but a time will come when these things will be a hollow mockery to you. There will be an " aching void " the world can never fill. Sometimes mothers are to blame for the unhappiness of their daughters. They teach them that respect for their husbands and lots of " boodle " are infinitely to be preferred to that foolishness called love. That would do well enough if life had no waves of trouble, but it takes something more than simple respect to make two hearts cling together in the hour of adversity. A woman that turns her back on wealth and takes the man of her choice may miss some of the luxuries of life, but she will be happy. Don't marry a dude. Better get you a monkey. It is cheaper and a great deal nicer. Don't fool with that class of animals. They generally wear a ten-dollar hat on a ten-cent brain, and the woman who takes one of these chaps will get left about as bad as the Southern Confederacy did at Appomattox. — Home Journal. 54 THE HOME LIFE. ELOPEMENT. WHEN you realize that the sacred and divine institution is being caricatured and defamed by clandestine marriages and escapades all over the land, does there not seem a -call for such discussion ? Hardly a morning or evening paper comes into your possession without reporting them, and there are fifty of these occurrences where one is reported, because it is the interest of all parties to hush them up ; the victims are, all hours of the night, climbing down ladders or crossing over from State to State, that they may reach laws of greater laxity, holding a reception six months after marriage to let the public know for the first time that a half year before they were united in wedlock. Ministers of religion, and justices of the peace, and mayors of cities, willingly joining in marriage runaways from other States and neighborhoods ; the coach-box and the back seat of the princely landau in flirtation ; telegrams flashing across the country for the arrest of absconded school-misses, who started off with armful of books, and taking rail trains to meet their affianced — in the snow-drifts of the great storm that has recently passed over the country some of them, I read, have perished — thousands of people in a marriage whose banns have never been published ; precipitated conjugality ; bigamy triumphant ; marriage a joke ; society blotched all over with a putrefaction on this subject which no one but the Almighty God can arrest. We admit that clandestinity and escapade are sometimes authorized and made right by parental tyranny or domestic serfdom. There have been exceptional cases where parents have had a monomania in regard to their sons and daughters, demanding their celibacy or forbidding relations every way right. Through absurd family ambition parents have some- times demanded qualifications and equipment of fortune unreasonable to expect or simply impossible. Children are not expected to marry to please their parents, but to please themselves. ' Given good morals, means of a livelihood, appropriate age and equality of social position, and no parent has a right to prohibit a union that seems deliberate and a matter of the heart. Domestic crankiness has caused more than one elopement. I know of a few cases where marriage has been under the red-hot anathema of parents and all the neighbors, but God approved, and the homes established have been beautifully and positively Edenic. But while we have admitted that there are real cases of justifiable, rebellion, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred — yea, in nine hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand, these unlicensed departures and decamp- ments by moonlight are ruin, temporal and eternal. It is safer for a woman to THE HOME LIFE. 55 jump off the docks of the East River and depend on being able to swim to the other shore, or get picked up by a ferry-boat. The possibilities are that she may be rescued, but the probability is that she will not. Read the story of the escapades in the newspapers for the last ten years, and find me a half dozen that do not mean poverty, disgrace, abandonment, police court, divorce, death, and hell. " Stolen waters are sweet, and bread eaten in secret is pleasant. But he knoweth not that the dead are there." Satan presides over the escapade. He introduces the two parties to each other. He gets them to pledge their troth. He appoints where they shall meet. He shows them where they can find officiating minister or squire. He points out to them the ticket office for the rail train. He puts them aboard, and when they are going at forty miles the hour, he jumps off and leaves them in the lurch ; for, while Satan has a genius in getting people into trouble he has no genius for getting people out. Robert Pollock thus describes the crazed victim of one of these escapades : "... Yet had she many days Of sorrow in the world, but never wept. She lived on alms, and carried in her hand Some withered stalks she gathered in the spring. When any asked the cause she smiled, and said They were her sisters, and would come and watch Her grave when she was dead. She never spoke Of her deceiver, father, mother, home, Or child, or heaven, or hell, or God ; but still In lonely places walked, and ever gazed Upon the withered stalks, and talked to them ; Till, wasted to the shadow of her youth, With woe too wide to see beyond, she died." — Wedding Ring. AVOID MATCHMAKERS. AT this point let me warn you not to let a question of this importance be settled by the celebrated matchmakers nourishing in almost every community. Depend upon your own judgment divinely illumined. These brokers in matrimony are ever planning how they can unite impecunious innocence to an heiress, or celibate woman to millionaire or marquis, and that in many cases makes life an unhappiness. How can any human being, who knows neither of the two parties as God knows them, and 56 THE HOME LIFE, who is ignorant of the future, give such direction as you require at such a crisis ? Take the advice of the earthly matchmaker instead of the divine guidance, and you may some day be led to use the words of Solomon, whose experience in home life was as melancholy as it was multitudinous. One day his palace, with its great wide rooms and great wide doors and great wide hall, was too small for him and the loud tongue of a woman belaboring him about some of his neglects, and he retreated to the house- top to get relief from the fungal bombardment. And while there he saw a poor man on one corner of the roof with a mattress for his only furniture, and the open sky his only covering. And Sqiomon envies him and cries out: "It is better to dwell in the corner of the housetop than with a brawling woman in a wide house." And one day during the rainy season the water leaked through the roof of the palace and began to drop in a pail or pan set there to catch it. And at one side of him all day long the water went drop! drop! drop! while on the other side a female companion quarrelling about this, and quarrelling about that; the acrimonious and petulant words falling on his ear in ceaseless pelting — drop ! drop ! drop ! and he seized his pen and wrote : " A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike." If Solomon had been as prayerful at the beginning of his life as he was at the close, how much domestic infelicity he would have avoided ? But prayer about this will amount to nothing unless you pray soon enough. Wait until you are fascinated and the equilibrium of your soul is disturbed by a magnetic and exquisite presence, and then you will answer your own prayers, and you will mistake your own infatuation for the voice of God. — Wedding Ring. A MAIDENS IDEAL OF A HUSBAND. GENTEEL in personage, Conduct, and equipage, Noble by heritage, Generous and free : Brave, not romantic ; Learned, not pedantic ; Frolic, not frantic ; This must he be. THE HOME LIFE. 57 Honor maintaining, Meanness disdaining, Still entertaining, Engaging and new. Neat, but not finical; Sage, but not cynical; Never tyrannical, But ever true. — Henry Carey. w TWO ESSENTIAL QUALITIES. HAT you want, O man! in a wife, is not a butterfly of the sunshine, not a giggling nonentity, not a painted doll, not a gossiping gad- about, not a mixture of artificialities which leave you in doubt as to where the humbug ends and the woman begins, but an earnest soul, one that can not only laugh when you laugh, but weep when you weep. There will be wide, deep graves in your path of life, and you will both want steadying when you come to the verge of them, I tell you. When your fortune fails you will want some one to talk of treasures in heaven, and not charge upon you with a bitter " I told you so." As far as I can analyze it, sincerity and earnestness are the foundation of all worthy wifehood. Get that, and you get all. Fail to get that, and you get nothing but what you will wish you never had got. — Ta Image. VISIT THE OLD HOME. 1HOPE that you, the departing daughter, will not forget to write often home ; for whatever betide you, the old folks will never lose their interest in your welfare. Make visits to them also as often, and stay as long as you can, for there will be changes at the old place after awhile. Every time you go you will find more gray hairs on father's head, and more wrinkles on mother's brow ; and after awhile you will notice that the elastic step has become decrepitude. And some day one of the two pillars of your early home will fall, and after awhile the other pillar of that home will fall, and it will be a comfort to yourself, if, when they are gone, you can feel that while you are faithful in your new home you never forgot your old home, and the first friends you ever had, and those to whom you are more indebted than you ever can be to any one else except to God — I mean your father and mother. Alexander Pope put it in effective rhythm when he said: 58 THE HOME LIFE. " Me let tlie tender office long engage To rock the cradle of reposing age ; With lenient arts extend a mother's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death ; Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile one parent from the sky." INTERMARRIAGE. THE Bible forbids intermarriage with the world. The church is not to become mixed with the world by unholy alliances with the ungodly. Intermarriage so filled the antediluvian world with wickedness that the flood became a necessity. We read that the sons of God made love with the daughters of men. They expected by intermarriage to exert a predominating influence upon the wives, and of begetting and rearing up a godly seed, but the experiment proved a disastrous failure. To-day the daughters of God are making love with the sons of men. Intermarriage with the world, in most cases, fills for mankind the cup of life with wormwood and gall. Fond lovers may call this a hard doctrine, and we may wound their susceptibilities, but nevertheless we are telling them the truth. The history of hundreds and thousands of those who have disregarded the divine law on this subject proves it true. Many a girl has had a happy connection with the church. It afforded her much satisfaction and real enjoyment. But she yoked herself with an unbeliever or a worldling. If she got to church she had to go alone, and her treatment was such if she went that life became miserable. And remember that bitter tears can never undo what you ought never to have done at first. It is true, however, that a few religious women have brought their husbands to Christ, but many more have made shipwrecks of their own faith over the marriage altar. The same may take place when a union is effected between two professors of religion, from two different religious denominations. The husband or the wife being a miserable bigot, knows of no religion but that of his or her own sect. He knows no church but his church ; she knows no church but her church. At length the children become the subjects of dispute and ill-will. The husband authoritatively demands them to go with him — the mother claims her share. Harmony between husband and wife is destroyed — the family is thrown into confusion and strife. Husband and wife are said to be "one flesh;" but there is a great difference between a fleshly union and a union of heart and spirit. Is THE HOME LIFE. 59 marriage a Scriptural union, if the one be an infidel or a worldling, and the other a believer and a doer of the Word? or if the religious beliefs are diametrically opposed to each other? Like oil and water cast into one vessel, they may be thrown together under one roof, but life communion, such as the marriage relation is designed to afford, they can never have. You know well that I have no hostile feelings toward those whose religious views are other than mine. I have spoken with distinctness because of a sincere desire to guard your most sacred interests, and secure to you, young ladies and gentlemen, that happiness without which life will be charmless and joyless. I therefore unhesitatingly express the opinion that marriages between persons who do not tread in the same religious path are wholly unadvisable — nay, wrong, for they tend to invite a future teeming «with shadows, clouds and darkness — Madison C. Peters. GOOD HOUSEKEEPING. A GOOD wife must be a good housekeeper. No matter what a girl's accomplishments may be, her education is incomplete if she has not some knowledge in the sciences of bake-ology, boil-ology, cook-ology, stitch- ology and mend-ology. All experience and observation show that good housekeeping is one of the most essential elements of happiness in the household. Even if a girl should never be required to do the work herself,, she ought to know whether the work is done in the proper manner or not. "Give me the fair one in city or country, Whose home and its duties are dear to her heart." Then, too, do not forget that the rich of to-day are very often to-morrow's poor. Croesus, whose name is a synonym for great wealth, was himself taken captive, stripped of all his treasures, and in his old age supported by the charity of Cyrus. The greatest defect in our social system is the aimless way in which girls are brought up. Nine-tenths of them are prepared in neither body nor mind for the lofty duties and serious responsibilities which marriage implies, and marriage, in consequence, has been brought down to a low, sensual plane. Let our girls be brought up to have their regular daily domestic duties, let idleness be forbidden them, and let every woman be clothed with the dignity of a useful life. The great secret of domestic tranquility lies in a good square meal. Meredith says : <6o . THE HOME LIFE. " We may live without poetry, music, and art , We may live without conscience; we may live without heart; We may live without friends ; we may live without books, But civilized man cannot live without cooks. He may live without books; what is knowledge but grieving? He may live without hope; what is hope but deceiving? He may live without love; what is passion but repining? But where is the man that can live without dining ?" With Dr. Holland we believe that there is but one cure for many of our social evils, and that is "universal housekeeping." No hotel or board- ing-house, however pleasant, can supply the want created by an instinctive heart-longing for some place, "be it ever so lowly," which can be called— our home. " A charm from the skies seems to hollow us there, Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere." — Madison C. Peters. THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN. VICTOR HUGO says : " There is in this world no function more important than that of charming. The forest glade would be incomplete with- out the humming-bird. To shed joy, to radiate happiness, to cast light upon dark days, to be the golden thread of our destiny, the spirit of grace and harmony — is not this to render a service ? Here and there we meet one who possesses the power of enchanting all about her; her presence lights up the house ; her approach is like a cheering warmth ; she passes by and we are content ; she stays awhile and we are happy. She is the Aurora with a human face. Is it not a thing divine to have a smile which, none know how, has the power to lighten the weight of that enormous chain which all in common drag behind them ? " When woman does not please she fails to do the work for which she was created. And how is she to please ? By the beauty of her body, her mind, and her conduct, including her temper and her manners. We have never been able to see why moralists should bear a grudge to good looks. With Mr. Herbert Spencer, we think that the saying that beauty is but skin deep is a skin-deep saying. A fine form, a good figure, a fresh complexion, a lovely face, are all outward and visible signs of the physical qualities that on the whole conspire to make up a healthy wife and mother. But there can not be a high order of even physical beauty where indications of mental and moral efficiency are wanting. Talleyrand once said of a lovely woman that "her beauty was her least charm." THE HOME LIFE, 6r THE PROFESSIONAL BEAUTY. THE most pitiable creatures I ever saw were the husbands of "pro- fessional beauties." They all believe, with Socrates, that beauty is " a short-lived tyranny," and with Theophrastus, "a silent cheat." What you want, young man, in a wife, is not a toy to play with, a doll to be dressed, an r.nament to exhibit, but a "helpmeet" — not simply a help-eat. " Woe to him who weds for life Some female cipher called a wife ; Who, destitute of brains or heart, Leaves him not free to act his part ; A torture on the tyrant's plan, Which chains a carcass to a man ! Go wed a Tartar for your bride, Or yoke Xanthippe to your side ; But let not Hymen's holy chain Bind you to some one fair but vain, Who, next to dress, loves you best, And has no soul to make you blest ! Far better is acidity Than flat, stale insipidity ; And such a female is no woman — Her husband must be more than human." — Empty Pews. THE WORD " LADY." THE word "lady," which is derived from the Saxon words hloef, "a loaf," and digan, "to serve," means literally one who serves or dis- penses bread to the family, as "lord" means the supplier of bread. The two words reflect an arrangement of the Almighty which can not be ignored by even the most "advanced" confounder of the respective duties of the sexes. The natural healthy state of things is for the husband to supply the bread and other kinds of food, and for the wife to serve them out to the family in the most beautiful and economical way possible. He was practical, and had been making love on that basis. She was a little that way herself. "Can you cook?" he inquired. "Can you supply everything to be cooked?" she replied. It was a match. 62 THE HOME LIFE, Husbands are too slow in perceiving the value and the difficulty of the work of their loaf-servers, and they sometimes forget that a little help is worth a great deal of fault finding. "My master is all very well," said the dog, "but I wish he had a tail to wag when he is pleased." It is true that some loaf-servers do not deserve much approval. That good old word "lady" is now so "soiled with all ignoble use" that it is more respectable to be called "woman" than "lady." And yet as we have seen, "lady" is an honorable word, and one that teaches a useful lesson.. Looking back on its original meaning it seems quite wonderful how girls and women could ever have thought it unlady-like to go into the kitchen and busy themselves with serving bread and other kinds of food to their families. What is really unlady-like is to be ignorant of household matters. Certainly if any mistress of a moderate income is ashamed of cooking or of knowing all about it, her husband will probably have cause to be ashamed, both of her and of himself, before many years have passed away. THE WORD "*WIFE." RUSKIN, in his "Ethics of the Dust," makes the lecturer ask Dora, one of his pupils, if she knows what that beautiful word " wife " comes from ? Dora (tossing her head) — " I don't think it is a particularly beautiful word." Lecturer — " Perhaps not. At your ages you may think 'bride' sounds better, but 'wife's' the word for wear, depend upon it. It is the great word in which the English and Latin languages conquer the French and Greek. I hope the French will some day get a word for it, instead of their dreadful 'femme.' But what do you think it comes from ? " Dora — " I never did think about it." Lecturer—" Nor you, Sibyl ? " Sibyl — "No; I thought it was Saxon, and stopped there." Lecturer — "Yes; but the great good of Saxon words is, that they usually do mean something. 'Wife' means 'weaver.' You have all the right to call yourselves little housewives when you sew neatly." Dora — " But I don't think we want to call ourselves little housewives." Lecturer — "You must either be housewives or housemoths; remember that. In the deep sense, you must either weave men's fortunes and embroider them, or feed upon them and bring them to decay." Before our great cotton and cloth factories arose, one of the principal employments in every house was the fabrication of clothing ; every family made its own. THE HOME LIFE. 63 The wool was spun into thread by the girls, who were therefore called spinsters ; the thread woven into cloth by their mother, who, accord- ingly, was called the weaver or the wife ; and another remnant of this old truth we discover in the word heirloom, applied to any old piece of furni- ture which has come down to us from our ancestors, and which, though it may be a chair or a bed, shows that a loom was once a most important article in every house. Thus the word "wife" means weaver, and as Arch- bishop Trench well remarks, " In the word itself is wrapped up a hint of earnest, indoor, stay-at-home occupations, as being fitted for her who bears this name." H THE WIFE'S DUTY. IS house you enter — there to be a light, Shining within when all without is night, A guardian angel o'er his life presiding, Doubling his pleasures, and his cares dividing, Winning him back when mingling in the throng, Back from the world we love, alas ! too long, To fireside happiness, to hours of ease, Blest with the charm, the certainty to please. How oft your eyes read his, your gentle mind To all his wishes, all his thoughts inclined : Still subject — ever on the watch to borrow Mirth of his mirth, and sorrow of his sorrow. THE HONEYMOON. JOHNSON says that " the honeymoon is the first month after marriage, when there is nothing but tenderness and pleasure." And certainly it ought to be the happiest month in our lives, but, like every other good thing, it may be spoiled by mismanagement. " In the blythe days of honeymoon, With Kate's allurements smitten, I loved her late, I loved her soon, And called her dearest kitten. But now my kitten's grown a cat, And cross like other wives, Oh ! by my soul, my honest Mat, I fear she has nine lives." 64 THE HOME LIFE. If the kitten should develop into a cat even before the " blythe days of honeymoon " are ended, it is no wonder, considering' the way some of our young people spend the first month of married life. You do not want excitement during the honeymoon, for are you not in love (if you are not you ought to be ashamed of yourself), and is not love all-sufficient? Last week you saw the object of your affection only by fits and starts, as it were, but now you have him or her all to yourselves. " Who hath not felt that breath in the air, A perfume and freshness strange and rare, A warmth in the light, and a bliss everywhere When young hearts yearn together ? All sweets below, and all sunny above, Oh ! there's nothing in life like making love, Save making hay in fine weather." Let cynics say what they will, the honeymoon, when not greatly mismanaged, is a halcyon period. It is a delightful lull between two distinct states of existence, and the married man is not to be envied who can not recall pleasant reminiscences of it. — How to be Happy Though Married. MARRIAGE NOT FOR ALL. THAT marriage is the destination of the human race is a mistake that I want to correct before I go further. There are multitudes who never will marry, and still greater multitudes who are not fit to marry. In Great Britain to-day there are nine hundred and forty-eight thousand more women than men, and that, I understand, is about the ratio in America. By math- ematical and inexorable law, you see, millions of women will never marry. The supply for matrimony greater than the demand, the first lesson of which is that every woman ought to prepare to take care of herself if need be. Then there are thousands of men who have no right to marry, because they have become so corrupt of character that their offer of marriage is an insult to any good woman. Society will have to be toned up and corrected on this subject, so that it shall realize that if a woman who has sacrificed her honor is unfitted for marriage, so is any man who has ever sacrificed his purity. What right have you, O masculine beast ! whose life has been loose, to take under your care the spotlessness of a virgin, reared in the sanctity of a respectable home ? Will a buzzard dare to court a dove ? THE HOME LIFE. 65 HUSBANDS SELDOM REFORM. DO not unite in marriage with a man of bad habits in the idea of reform- ing him. If now, under the restraint of your present acquaintance, he will not give up his bad habits, after he has won the prize you can not expect him to do so. You might as well plant a violet in the face of a northeast storm with the idea of appeasing it. You might as well run a schooner alongside of a burning ship with the idea of saving the ship. The consequence will be, schooner and ship will be destroyed together. The almshouse could tell the story of a hundred women who married men to reform them. If, by twenty-five years of age, a man has been grap- pled by intoxicants, he is under such headway that your attempt to stop him would be very much like running up the track with a wheelbarrow to stop a Hudson River express train. What you call an inebriate nowadays is not a victim to wine or whiskey, but to logwood and strychnine and nux vomica. All these poisons have kindled their fires in his tongue and brain, and all the tears of a wife weeping cannot extinguish the flames. Instead of marrying a man to reform him, let him reform first, and then give him time to see whether the reform is to be permanent. Let him understand that if -he can not do without his bad habits for two years, he must do without you forever. — Wedding Ring. A WOMAN'S QUESTION. ADELAIDE PROCTOR starts grave thoughts in the heart of any girl who will read the following lines thoughtfully. An expectant bride asks : " Before I trust my fate to thee, Or place my hand in thine ; Before I let thy future give Color and form to mine ; Before I peril all for thee, Question thy soul to-night for me. I break all slighter bonds, nor feel A shadow of regret : Is there one link within the past That holds thy spirit yet ? Or is thy faith as clear and free As that which I can pledge to thee ? 66 THE HOME LIFE. Does there within thy dimmest dreams A possible future shine, Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe Untouched, unshared by mine ? If so, at any pain or cost, Oh, tell me before all is lost. Look deeper still. If thou canst feel Within thine inmost soul That thou hast kept a portion back While I have staked the whole, Let no false pity spare the blow, But in true mercy tell me so. Is there within thy heart a need That mine can not fulfil? One chord that any other hand Could better wake or still ? Speak now — lest at some future day My whole life wither and decay. Lives there within thy nature hid The demon-spirit change, Shedding a passing glory still On all things new and strange? — It may not be thy fault alone — But shield my heart against thine own. Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day And answer to my claim That Fate, and that to-day's mistake — Not thou — had been to blame? Some soothe their conscience thus ; but thou Wilt surely warn and save me now." A BRIDE'S MOTHER TO THE BRIDEGROOM. i( F^vEAL gently with her; thou art dear I— J Beyond what vestal lips have told, And like a lamp from fountain clear, She turns confiding to thy fold. THE HOME LIFE. 67 Deal gently, thou, when far away, 'Mid stranger scenes her foot shall rove, Nor let thy tender care decay ; The soul of woman lives in love ; And shouldst thou, wondering, mark a tear Unconscious from her eyelid break, Be pitiful, and soothe the fear That man's strong heart can ne'er partake. A mother yields her gem to thee, On thy true breast to sparkle rare ; She places 'neath thy household tree The idol of her fondest care : By all thy treasured hopes of heaven Deal gently with my own dear child. HOW CAN I TELL HER. H" 'OW can I tell her? By her cellar, Cleanly shelves and whitened wall. I can guess her By her dresser, By the back staircase and the hall, And with pleasure Take her measure By the way she keeps her broom ; Or the peeping At the "keeping" Of her back and unseen rooms. By her kitchen's air of neatness And its general completeness, Wherein in cleanliness and sweetness The rose of order blooms. THE HOME LIFE. THE HELPFUL WIFE. THE Chinese lady glories in her small feet as a badge of helplessness — as a proof, in other words, of her exemption from labor. And there is even here an ideal of fine ladyhood which glories in hands which tell the same story. How different from both these is the picture of the true woman drawn by the pen of inspiration ! " She worketh willingly with her hands ; " " She girdeth her loins with strength and strengtheneth her arms." The very question with which that exquisite portrait is introduced, " Who can find a capable woman ? " — for so lexicographers bid us read it — suggests an ideal of womanhood as far removed as possible from helpless dependence. Not to be a drag, but a spur; not to be a burden, but an ally; not to- be a mere guest in this world, to be waited on and admired, but to be a. brave, true worker in this mass of toiling, suffering, struggling souls — that young woman, is God's call to you. Nor yet is the helpfulness for which God made woman the helpfulness of a mere drudge, to go and come at man's bidding, to cook his food, to nurse his children, to spend life like the Hindoo women in the performance of menial offices behind a screen, while society in its proper sense is left to man alone. This may be helpfulness, but it is not companionship. God meant woman for a higher, broader work than that, and the ideal woman is one who, not despising practical efficiency and simple homely ministries, knows how at the same time to make herself felt, wherever she moves, as friend, as counsellor, as inspiring soul. How different a being is this from the strange compound of whims and prejudices, of artful wiles and affected graces, of useless hands and empty head, of inane speech and frivolous behavior, of worldliness and vanity, known in some circles as the society woman! Alas, for the man to whom the word "woman " stands only for this ! But rich the man above the possessor of the Kohinoor who in his inmost heart cherishes the image of a true woman- wise in counsel, sagacious in insight, prudent in administration, gentle in rebuke, discreet in praise, wonderful in comfort, untiring in industry, unwearied in patience, undaunted in courage, and unfailing in love. — J. H. Worcester. BE LOVABLE. I CHARGE also the wife to keep herself as attractive after marriage as she was before marriage. The reason that so often a man ceases to love his wife is because the wife ceases to be lovable. In many cases what elaboration of toilet before marriage, and what recklessness of appearance after ! The most disgusting thing on earth is a slatternly woman — I mean a ylrje Grcrnalperperjfs' Pet. THE HOME LIFE. 71 woman who never combs her hair until she goes out, or looks like a fright until somebody calls. That a man married to one of these creatures stays at home as little as possible is no wonder. It is a wonder that such a man does not go on a whaling voyage of three years, and in a leaky ship. Costly wardrobe is not required ; but, O woman ! if you are not willing, by all that ingenuity of refinement can effect, to make yourself attractive to your husband, you ought not to complain if he seeks in other society those pleasant surroundings which you deny him. BE INTELLIGENT. I CHARGE you, also, make yourself the intelligent companion of your husband. With these floods of newspapers and books there is no excuse for the wife's ignorance, either about the present or the past. If you have no more than a half-hour every day to yourself, you may fill your mind with entertaining and useful knowledge. Let the merchant's wife read up on all mercantile questions, and the mechanic's wife on all that pertains to his style of work, and the professional man's wife on all the legal, or medical, or theological, or political discussions of the day. It is very stupid for a man, after having been amid active minds all day to find his wife without information or opinions on anything. If the wife knows nothing about what is going on in the world, after the tea-hour has past, and the husband has read the newspaper, he will. have an engagement, and must "go and see a man." In nine cases out of ten when a man does not stay at home in the evening, unless positive duty calls him away, it is because there is nothing to stay for. He would rather talk with his wife than anyone else if she could talk as well. — Wedding Ring. THE GOOD WIFE. EVEN in this unromantic nineteenth century, the following words of Ruskin convey a real and literal truth : " The soul's armor is never set to the heart unless a woman's hand has braced it, and it is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of manhood fails." "There is not a war in the world; no, nor an injustice, but you women are answerable for it; not in that you have provoked, but in that you have not hindered. Men by their nature are prone to fight ; they will fight for any cause, or for none. It is for you to choose their cause for them, and to forbid them when there is no cause. There is no suffering, no injustice, no misery in the earth, but the guilt of it lies with you. Men can bear the sight of it, 72 THE HOME LIFE. but you should not be able to bear it. Men may tread it down without sympathy in their own struggle; but men are feeble in sympathy and contracted in hope ; it is you only who can feel the depths of pain, and conceive the way of its healing." A bachelor was once saying: " Next to no wife, a good wife is best." He was one of those who hold to the old rhyme : " Needles and pins, needles and pins, When a man marries his trouble begins." " You are quite mistaken," said one who overheard him; "next to a good wife, no wife is best." Certainly, if a man's life is not fortunate enough to be influenced by a good wife, the next best thing for him is to escape the influence of a bad one. Most men are what women make them. " Even a bad man in love is better than his wont." " O woman ! lovely woman ! nature made thee To temper man, we had been brutes without thee." And the species of brutes we had been is told us by a Provencal proverb : "Without woman men were but ill-licked cubs." THE CLINGING WIFE. WOMAN is sometimes compared to a vine, while man is the strong oak to which it clings. But there are different kinds of vines. Some wreathe a robe of beauty and a crown of glory for the tree, covering it in summer days with green leaves and in the autumn hanging among its branches rich purple clusters of fruit. Others twine their arms about it, only to sap its very life and destroy its vigor, till it stands decaying and unsightly, stripped of its splendor, discrowned and fit only for the fire. A true woman clings to her husband in holy confidence and loving dependence ; she brings out in him whatever is noblest and richest in his being; she inspires him with courage and earnestness; she beautifies his life ; she softens whatever is rude and harsh in his habits or his spirit ; she clothes him with the gentler graces of refined and cultured manhood, while she yields to him yet really his queen, ruling his whole life and leading him onward and upward in every proper path. But there are wives also like the vines which cling only to blight. The dependence is weak, indolent helplessness. They lean, but impart no THE HOME LIFE. 73 strength ; they cling, but they sap the life ; they put forth no hand to help ; they loll on sofas or promenade the streets ; they dream over sentimental novels ; they gossip in drawing-rooms. They are utterly useless, and being useless, they become burdens even to manliest, tenderest love. Instead of making a man's life stronger, happier, richer, they absorb strength, impair usefulness, hinder success and cause failures. — Home Making. MATRIMONIAL HARMONY. NEVER be ashamed to apologize when you have done wrong in domestic affairs. Let that be a law of your household. The best thing I ever heard of my grandfather, whom I never saw, was this : that once, having uprighteously rebuked one of his children, he himself having lost his patience, and, perhaps, having been misinformed of the child's doings, found out his mistake, and in the evening of the same day gathered all his family together, and said : " Now, I have one explanation to make, and one thing to say. Thomas, this, morning, I rebuked you very unfairly. I am very sorry for it. I rebuked you in the presence of the whole family, and now I ask your forgiveness in their presence." It must have taken some courage to do that. It was right, was it not ? Never be ashamed to apologize for domestic inaccuracy. Find out the points ; what are the weak points, if I may call them so, of your companion, and then stand aloof from them. Do not carry the fire of your temper too near the gunpowder ! If the wife be easily fretted by disorder in the household, let the husband be careful where he throws his slippers. If the husband come home from the store with his patience all exhausted, do not let the wife unnecessarily cross his temper ; but both stand up for your rights, and I will promise the everlasting sound of the war whoop. Your life will be spent in making up, and marriage will be to you an unmitigated curse. Cowper said : " The kindest and the happiest pair, Will find occasion to forbear ; And something, every day they live, To pity, and perhaps forgive." — Talmage. GODLESS MOTHERS. I ADVISE, also, that you make your chief pleasure' circle around about that home. It is unfortunate when it is otherwise. If the husband spend the most of his nights away from home, of choice, and not of neces- sity, he is not the head of the household ; he is only the cashier. If the 74 THE HOME LIFE. wife throw the cares of the household in the servant's lap, and then spend five nights of the week at the opera or theatre, she may clothe her children with satins and laces and ribbons that would confound a French milliner, but they are orphans. O, it is sad when a child has to say its prayers alone because mother has gone off to the evening entertainment! In India they bring children and throw them to the crocodiles, and it seems very cruel ; but the jaws of New York and Brooklyn dissipation are swallowing down more little children to-day than all the monsters that ever crawled upon the banks of the Ganges ! I have seen the sorrow of a godless mother on the death of a child she had neglected. It was not so much grief that she felt from the fact that the child was dead as the fact that she had neglected it. She said: " If I had only watched over and cared for the child, I know God would not have taken it." The tears came not; it was a dry, blistering tempest — a scorching simoon of the desert. When she wrung her hands it seemed as if she would twist her fingers from their sockets. When she seized her hair it seemed as if she had, in wild terror, grasped a coiling serpent with her right hand. No tears ! Comrades of the little one came in and wept over the coffin ; neighbors came in, and the moment they saw the still face of the child the shower broke. No tears for her. God gives tears as the summer rain to the parched soul; but in all the universe the driest and hottest, the most scorching and consuming thing is a mother's heart if she has neglected her child when once it is dead. God may forgive her, but she will never forgive herself. The memory will sink the eyes deeper into the sockets, and pinch the face, and whiten the hair, and eat up the heart with vultures that will not be satisfied, forever plunging deeper their iron beaks. O, you wanderers from home, go back to your duty ! The brightest flowers in all the earth are those which grow in the garden of a Christian household, clambering over the porch of a Christian home.— Talmage. GROWING TOGETHER. UNLESS married people are so sympathetic that they grow together, "like to a double cherry, seeming parted," the never-ceasing round of intercourse between them may cause abrupt, unpolite behavior. At breakfast, at luncheon, at dinner, more or less in the evening, at night, in the morning — all "marriage." i There is generally greater harmony when a husband's duties neces- sitate his remaining several hours of the day from home. THE HOME LIFE. 75 " For this relief much thanks," will be the sentiment of a grateful wife. And to the husband, on his return, home will appear far sweeter than if he had idled about the house all day with nothing to do but torment his wife. Richter says that distance injures love less than nearness. People are more polite when they do not see too much of each other. Let the husband then have a "den" or "growlery" to which he may retire when conscious that the animal should be marked "dangerous," and the wife a boudoir where she may be alone when inclined " to pout or be sulky;" which is the suggestive explanation given by my dictionary of the French term bouder, from which comes our word boudoir or sulking-room — an apartment not less necessary surely than a smoking or billiard-room. Such expedients alleviate the "very-much-married" feeling to which reference has been made. DOMESTIC ECONOMY. * ( IV /| Y dear fellow," said Lavender, "it's all very nice to talk about 1 V 1 economizing and keeping a rigid account of expenses, and that sort of thing ; but I've tried it. Two weeks ago, I stepped in on my way home Saturday night, and bought just the gayest little Russian leather, cream-laid account-book you ever saw, and a silver pencil to match it. I said to my wife after supper : ' My dear, it seems to me it costs a lot of money to keep house.' She sighed and said: 'I know it does, Lavy, but I can't help it. I'm just as economical as I can be. I don't spend half as much for candy as you do for cigars.' I never take any notice of personali- ties, so I sailed right ahead. ' I believe, my dear, that if we were to keep a strict account of every thing we spend we could tell just where to cut down. I've bought you a little account-book, and every Monday I'll give you some money, and you can set it down on one side; and then, during the week, you can set down on the other side everything you spend. And then on Saturday night we can go over it and see just where the money goes, and how we can boil things down a little.' Well, sir, she was just delighted — thought it was a first-rate plan, and the pocket account-book was lovely — regular David Copperfield and Dora business. Well, sir, the next Saturday night we got through supper, and she brought out that account-book, as proud as possible, and handed it over for inspection. On one side was, 'Received from Lavy, 50 dols.' That's all right! Then I looked on the other page, and what do you think was there? ' Spent it allT Then I laughed, and of course she cried, and we gave up the account-book racket on the spot by mutual consent." 76 THE HOME LIFE. Many a man has had occasion to sing with more of sadness than of glee: " Heaven bless our wives, they fill our lives Like bees with sweetest honey, They mend our socks, they soothe life's shocks, But don't they spend the money !" THE WORD "HUSBAND." THE word "husband" is an Anglo-Saxon word, which means the band of the house, the one who organizes it, and holds it together, and controls it. The wife is his chief assistant in this work, though she is often the more efficient of the two— the real band of the house. RULES FOR THE HUSBAND. HUSBAND, love your wife. i. Never find fault with her before others. 2. Per contra, remember the counsel of the good Book : Her husband shall praise her in the gates ; that is, before folks. 3. Bear all her burdens for her ; even then she'll bear more than you do, in spite of you. 4. If you want her to submit to your judgment, never ask her to submit to your selfishness. 5. A woman's life is made up of little things. Make her life happy by little courtesies. 6. Love is a wife's only wages. Don't scrimp in your pay. — Christian Union. GENTLEMEN, FULFIL YOUR CONTRACTS. NOW, be honest and pay your debts. You promised to make her happy. Are you making her happy ? You who are an honest man in other things, and feel the importance of keeping a contract. If you have induced her into a conjugal partnership under certain pledges of kindness and valuable attention, and then have failed to fulfil your word, you deserve to have a suit brought against you for getting goods under false pretenses, and then you ought to be mulcted in a large amount of damages. My brother, do not get mad at what I say, but honestly compare the promises you made, and see whether you have kept them. Some of you THE HOME LIFE. 77 spent every evening of the week with, your betrothed before marriage, and since then you spent every evening away, except you have influenza or some sickness on account of which the doctor says you must not go out. You used to fill your conversation with interjections of adulation, and now you think it sounds silly to praise the one who ought to be more attractive to you as the years go by, and life grows in severity of struggle and becomes more sacred by the baptism of tears — tears over losses, tears over graves. Compare the way some of you used to come in the house in the evening, when you were attempting the capture of her affections, and the way some of you come into the house in the evening now. Then what politeness, what distillation of smiles, what graciousness, sweet as the peach orchard in blossom week ! Now, some of you come in and put your hat on the rack and scowl, and say : " Lost money to-day !" and you sit down at the table and criticise the way the food is cooked. You shove back before the others are done eating, and snatch up the even- ing paper and read, oblivious of what has been going on in that home all day. The children are in awe before the domestic autocrat. Bubbling over with fun, yet they must be quiet ; with healthful curiosity, yet they must ask no questions. The wife has had enough annoyances in the nursery, and parlor, and kitchen, to fill her nerves with nettles and spikes. As you have provided the money for food and wardrobe, you feel you have done all required of you. Toward the good cheer, and the intelligent improvement, and the moral entertainment of that home, which at the longest can last but a few years, you are doing nothing. You seem to have no realization of the fact that soon these children will be grown up or in their sepulchres, and will be far removed from your influence, and that the wife will soon end her earthly mission, and that house will be occupied by others, and you yourself will be gone. Gentlemen, fulfil your contracts. Christian marriage is an affectional bargain. In heathen lands a man wins his wife by achievements. In some countries wives are bought by the payment of so many dollars, as so many cattle or sheep. In one country the man gets on a horse and rides down where a group of women are standing, and seizes one of them by the hair, and lifts her, struggling and resisting, on his horse, and if her brothers and friends do not overtake her before she gets to the jungle, she is his lawful wife. In another land, the masculine candidate for marriage is beaten by the club of the one whom he would make his bride. If he cries out under the pounding, he is rejected. If he receives the blows uncomplainingly, she is his by right. Endurance, and bravery, and skill, decide the marriage in barbarous lands, but Christian marriage is a voluntary bargain, in which you promise protection, support, companionship and love. THE HOME LIFE. Many men are more kind to every body else's wives than to their own wives. They will let the wife carry a heavy coal-scuttle upstairs, and will at one bound clear the width of a parlor to pick up some other lady's pocket- handkerchief. Many husbands bestow attention upon others which they ought to bestow upon their wives. — Wedding Ring. THE FIRST DISPUTE. BEWARE of the first dispute. " Man and wife," says Jeremy Taylor, " are equally concerned to avoid all offences of each other in the beginning of their conversation ; a very little thing can blast an infant blossom ; and the breath of the south can shake the little rings off the vine, when first they begin to curl like the locks of a new weaned boy; but when by age and consolidation they stiffen into the hardness of a stem, and have, by the warm embraces of the sun and the kisses of heaven brought forth their clusters, they can endure the storms of the north, and the loud noises of a tempest, and yet never be broken. So are the early unions of an unfixed marriage ; watchful and observant, jealous and busy, inquisitive and careful, and are apt to take alarm at every unkind word. After the hearts of the man and the wife are endeared and hardened by a mutual confidence and experience, longer than artifice and pretence can last, there are a great many remembrances, and some things present, that dash all little unkindnesses in pieces." Every little dispute between man and wife is dangerous. It forces good humor out of its channel, undermines affection, and insidiously, though perhaps insensibly, wears out, and at last, utterly destroys that cordiality which is the life and soul of matrimonial felicity. As, however, " it's hardly in a body's power to keep at times from looking sour," undue importance ought not to be attached to " those little tiffs that sometimes cast a shade on wedlock." Often they are, as the poet observes, "love in masquerade " " And family jars, look we but o'er the rim, Are filled with honey, even to the brim." A WOMAN'S COMPLAINT. [KNOW that deep within your heart of hearts You hold me shrined apart from common things, And that my step, my voice, can bring to you A gladness that no other presence brings ; THE HOME LIFE. 79 And yet, dear love, through all the weary days, You never speak one word of tenderness, Nor stroke my hair, nor softly clasp my hand Within your own in loving, mute caress. You think, perhaps, I should be all content To know so well the loving place I hold Within your life, and so you do not dream How much I long to hear the story told. You cannot know how, when we two sit alone, And tranquil thoughts within your mind are stirred, My heart is crying like a tired child For one fond look, one gentle, loving word. I weary sometimes of the rugged way ; But should you say, ' Through thee my life is sweet, The dreariest desert that our path could cross Would suddenly grow green beneath my feet. What matters that our granaries are filled With all the richest harvest's golden stores ; If we who own them cannot enter in, But famished stand before the close-barred doors ? And so 'tis sad that those who should be rich In that true love which crowns our earthly lot, Go praying with white lips from day to day For love's sweet tokens, and receive them not. ADVICE TO YOUNG MARRIED COUPLES. BEFORE marriage and afterward,, let them learn to centre all their hopes of real lasting happiness in their own fireside ; let them cherish the faith that in home, and all the virtues which the love of home engenders, lies the Only true source of domestic felicity ; let them believe, that round the household gods contentment and tranquillity cluster in their gentlest and most graceful forms; and that many weary hunters of happiness through the noisy world have learnt this truth too late, and found a cheerful spirit and a quiet mind only at home, at last. How much may depend on the education of daughters, and the conduct of mothers — how much of the brightest part of our old national 8o THE HOME LIFE. character may be perpetuated by their wisdom or frittered away by their folly — how much of it may have been lost already, and how much more in danger of vanishing every day — are questions too weighty for discussion here, but well deserving a little serious consideration from all young couples, nevertheless. To that one young couple, on whose bright destiny the thoughts of nations are fixed, may youth look and not in vain, for an example. That one couple, blest and favored as they are, may they learn, that even the glare and glitter of a court, the splendor of a palace, and the pomp and glory of a throne, yield in their power of conferring happiness to domestic worth and virtue. From that one young couple may they learn, that the crown of a great empire, costly and jewelled though it be, gives place in the estimation of a queen to the plain gold ring that links her woman's nature to that of tens of thousands of her humble subjects, and guards in her woman's heart one secret store of tenderness, whose proudest boast shall be that it knows no royalty save Nature's own, and no pride of birth but being the child of Heaven ! So shall the highest couple in the land for once hear the truth, when men throw up their caps, and cry with loving shouts — "God Bless Them!" — Char la Dickens. FAULT-FINDING. THERE are certain rocks on which home happiness, if it strike, is very likely to split. One of these is fault-finding. The habit of grumbling is fatal to family peace, and if indulged in habitually by any single member of a household is sure to disturb the harmony of all the rest. Like most bad habits, this is formed insensibly ; and many inveterate and fretful fault- finders are so unconscious of their besetting sin that in their own eyes they are models of amiability. " If," they say, " so and so were done or undone we would never complain, but — " Alas! in most houses there are "ifs" and "buts." The most delight- ful and lovable people are only human after all, and have their nervous days and their forgetful days and their days of being generally out of sorts and blue. Very many people have their sharp points, which must be avoided, and their weak places, which are getting in the way; and, in fact, there are very few of us who have not somewhere a spot where it would be quite safe to erect such a warning-post as in winter stands at intervals on the skating pond, "Danger here!" To live with people in the familiarity and complete unreserve of domestic life, and to live so gently and pleasantly THE HOME LIFE. 81 that no one's foibles are made manifest, no one's feelings wounded, and no one's personality unjustly pervaded, implies tact, unselfishness, and almost saintly patience on the part of all concerned. There are homes where love is completely the motive power, and courtesy so unfailingly the custom, that a ripple of trouble rarely disturbs their calm. Unfortunately such homes are not in the majority. In far too many houses there are often undignified and unnecessary scenes at breakfast, dinner, and tea, which are not quite quarrels, but which are probably worse in their effects. As a thunder-storm clears the air and makes the sunshine seem brighter, so a good, honest quarrel once in a great while may — we say it doubtfully, however —make everything lovely afterward. (Lovers, by the way, have been known to quarrel for the pleasure of making up and being friends again.) But a feeble, intermittent, never-ending, still-beginning patter of fault-finding wears away heart and soul and strength. Fancy being R. Wilfer, and living with that angelic creature, his wife ! Fault-finding people usually have their favorite provocations. Thus while the man of the house, who has fallen into the most unmanly way of scolding indiscriminately, anything will afford an occasion, from a forgotten cobweb to a knot in the baby's shoestring. It is an utter impossibility for him to pass by the carving-knife. Carving-knives are edge-tools that seem to have been primarily designed to try the masculine temper. " My dear," says the gentleman, laying down knife and fork, with the air of a martyr, " this knife is dull again. It is singular that we never can have a sharp knife in this house." Precisely as though every other house in the place were furnished to perfection with the finest cutlery, and this only were deficient. After carving-knives, coffee is a convenient objective point. It is too weak or too strong ; it is cold ; it is thick ; it is everything and anything but right. As for the mistress, when she is a scold, farewell to comfort. "All hope abandon ye who enter here " might appropriately be inscribed over the door of every abode where presides a fault-finding wife. Feminine resources are inexhaustible, feminine opportunities are endless; and as for the feminine tongue, Solomon said ages ago, and the accumulated wisdom of the world to-day confirms his conviction, that a dwelling on the house-top would be infinitely pleasanter than life with "a brawling woman in a wide house." "But there are legitimate occasions for fault-finding, are there not?" inquires somebody. Very likely, and when such arise meet them, as it is the best way to meet every difficulty in life, fairly, squarely and bravely. Say the act is wrong in plain words, and have done with it. It is one thing to reprimand or provoke where reproof or rebuke is a duty; it is quite another to keep up a scattering fire of small shot in the way of sarcasm, innuendo and complaint for half a day at a time. 82 THE HOME LIFE. The true remedy in nine cases out of ten, when circumstances are contrary, is to 'accept the situation. "Beware of desperate steps — the darkest day, live till to-morrow, will have passed away." The most aggravating servant, the most provoking neighbor, and the most wilful child are not proof against serene self-control and generous kindness, while fault-finding sows seed that comes up in a harvest of new antagonisms. Accept the situation, whatever it is, with courage and cheerfulness, and remember that neither nerves, temper, carving-knives nor coffee were ever in the slightest degree improved by scolding. — Margaret E. Sangster. SHAFTS AT RANDOM SENT. HUSBAND and wife should burn up in the bonfire of first love all hobbies and "little ways" that could possibly prevent home from being sweet. How happy people they are, though married, who can say of each other what Mrs. Hare says of her husband, in " Memorials of a Quiet Life:" "I never saw anybody so easy to live with, by whom the daily petty things of life were passed over so lightly; and then there is the refinement of feeling which is not to be told in its influence upon trifles." Sydney Smith's definition of marriage is well known. " It resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated ; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them." Certainly those who go between deserve to be punished; and in whatever else they may differ, married people should agree to defend themselves from the well-meant, perhaps, but irritating interference of friends. Above all, they should remember the proverb about the home- washing of soiled linen, for, as old Fuller said : " Jars concealed are half reconciled ; while, if generally known, 'tis a double task to stop the breach at home and men's mouths abroad." " What is the reason," said one Irishman to another, " that you and your wife are always disagreeing ?" " Because," replied Pat, "we are both of one mind — she wants to be master and so do I." Selfishness crushes out love, and most of the couples who are living without affection for each other, with cold and dead hearts, with ashes where there should be a bright and holy flame, have destroyed themselves by caring too much for themselves and too little for each other. Benjamin Franklin wrote to a young friend upon his marriage : " I am glad you are married, and congratulate you most cordially upon it. You are now in the way of becoming a useful citizen, and you have escaped the THE HOME LIFE. 83 unnatural state of celibacy — the fate of many here who never intended it, but who, having too long postponed the change of their condition, find at length that it is too late to think of it, and so live all their lives in a situation that greatly lessens a man's value. An odd volume of a set of books bears not the value of its proportion to the set. What think you of the odd half of a pair of scissors? It can't well cut anything — it may possibly serve to scrape a trencher." " Ven you're a married man, Samivel," says Mr. Weller, to his son Sam, "you'll understand a good many things as you don't understand now, but vether it's vorth vile going through so much to learn so little, as the charity boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter of taste. I rayther think it isn't." Strange that a philosopher of Mr. Weller's profundity should underestimate in this way the value of matrimony as a teacher. We have it on the authority of a man thrice married, that his first wife cured his romance, the second taught him humility, and the third made him a philosopher. There is a sort of would-be wit which consists in jesting at the supposed bondage of the married state. The best answer to this plentiful lack of wit is the fact that some of the best of men have kissed the shackles which a wife imposes, and have either thought or said, "If this be slavery, who'd be free?" Luther, speaking of his wife, said, "I would not exchange my poverty with her for all the riches of Croesus without her." Not long ago, when speaking of his wife, Prince Bismarck said, " She it is who has made me what I am." It is often the case when you see a great man, like a ship, sailing proudly along the current of renown, that there is a little tug — his wife — whom you cannot see, but who is directing his movements and supplying the motive power. This truth is well illustrated by the anecdote told of Lord Eldon, who, when he had received the great seal at the hands of the king, when about to retire, was addressed by his Majesty with the words, " Give my remembrance to Lady Eldon." The chancellor in acknowledging the condescension intimated his ignorance of Lady Eldon's claim to such a notice. "Yes, yes," the king answered, "I know how much I owe to Lady Eldon. I know that you would have made yourself a country curate, and that she has made you my Lord Chancellor." In many a marriage made for gold, The bride is bought and the bridegroom sold. Bishop Taylor said : "If you are for pleasure, marry; if you prize rosy health, marry. A good wife is heaven's last best gift to a man ; his 6 84 THE HOME LIFE angel of mercy ; minister of graces innumerable ; his gem of many virtues ; his casket of jewels; her voice his sweetest music; her smiles his brightest day; her kiss, the guardian of innocence; her arms, the pale of his safety, the balm of his health, the balsam of his life ; her industry his surest wealth ; her economy his safest steward ; her lips his faithful counsellors ; her bosom, the softest pillow of his cares, and her prayers, the ablest advocates of Heaven's blessings on his head." I pity from my heart the unfortunate man who has a bad wife. She is shackles on his feet, a burden to his shoulders, palsy to his hand, smoke to his eyes, vinegar to his teeth, a thorn to his side and a dagger to his heart. You have tied a knot with your tongue you cannot undo with your teeth. A man's best fortune or his worst is his wife. — English Proverbs. The day you marry you kill or cure yourself.— Spanish Proverb. William Penn says, " Never marry but for love ; but see that thou lovest what is lovely." Do not imagine because you are miserable apart, you will be happy together. Hasty marriage seldom proveth well. — Shakespeare. The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages. — Swift. Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, is reported to have sprung from the foam of the sea. When she appeared among the gods, all were charmed with her beauty, and each demanded her for his wife. Jupiter, the father of the gods and men, gave her to Vulcan, in gratitude for the thunderbolts he had forged for him. Thus the most beautiful of the goddesses became the wife of the most ill-favored of the gods ; an illustration of the usual fate of beauty. Mothers who force their daughters into interested marriages are worse than the Ammonites, who sacrificed their children to Moloch — the latter undergoing a speedy death ; the former suffering years of torture, but too frequently leading to the same result. — Lord Rochester. The Cherokee marriage ceremony is very impressive. The man and woman join hands over running water, to indicate that their lives are thenceforth to flow on in the one stream. Flirting is trifling with the most sacred and serious relations of human life. Marriage can never be esteemed if courtship be made a round THE HOME LIFE. • 85 of low frolic and fun. Let all your dealings with women be frank, honest and noble. Be this your motto : I will treat every woman I meet as I would wish another man to treat my innocent, confiding sister. Matthew Henry tells of a couple who were both passionate naturally, but who lived very happily together by simply observing this rule : Never to be both angry at the same time. Take turn about. In the decision of the sacred question of marriage, be not influenced by appearances. The maintaining of appearances is the great snare and evil of our times. Never judge a man by the coat he wears. It may be borrowed or unpaid for. Remember that the deepest rascals are often the finest clothed and smoothest tongued. With what great care you purchase a good df ess ! How you hold it up to the light, that you may see every shade and detect any defect! Be not less considerate in that important event which is to link your life and destiny with another. Be satisfied with nothing but sober reality. — Empty Pews. Be your own match-maker. Depend on personal knowledge of the life and character of the individual who asks your hand and would link his life with yours. Marry into a family which you have long known. The extravagance of girls prevents thousands of young men from marrying. Thousands of young men in this city, already engaged, are putting off marriage from year to year until they can make enough to support their wives. Too many young women want to begin where their parents left off. Too many young men are too proud themselves to commence married life in a quiet, economical way. If they cannot continue their private luxuries and support their wives in style, they put off marriage. Begin as your fathers began, and work up, save up, grow up. This is the only way to get up. Young ladies and gentlemen, I beseech you be true to the best feelings of your hearts, careless about what the world will say, and pure and happy Christian homes will be more abundant. — Empty Pews. When first engaged She used to write On monogram paper Of creamy white. But since we're married — It's rather hard — She says all she wants On a postal-card. 8rf THE HOME LIFE. Maidens like moths are ever caught by glare, Mammon wins his way where seraphs might despair. — Byron. Artemus Ward tells us that when he was at Salt Lake he was intro- duced to Brigham Young's mother-in-law. "I can't exactly tell you how many there is of her, but it's a good deal." Married people require to drive gently when there is in the way the stumbling-block of "a good deal" of mother or other relations-in-law. Certainly Adam and Eve were in Paradise in this respect. " When I want a nice, snug day all to myself," says an ingenious wife, " I tell dear George that dear mother is coming, and then I see nothing of him till one in the morning." 'Are your domestic relations agreeable?" was the question put to an unhappy specimen of humanity. "O, my domestic relations are all right; it is my wife's relations, that are causing all the trouble." An Irishman, but a short time married, was looking unusually sad. "What's the matter?" inquired a friend. He replied : " There isn't room in the house for my mother-in-law, who my wife says must live with us, and so we have divided the house." "And which side did you get?" "O, bedad, I got the outside." But many a man's best friend is his mother-in-law. A good son-in-law and a dutiful daughter-in- law will make a good mother-in-law. Poor Caudle, as a rule, thought discretion the better part of valor, and sought refuge in the arms of soothing slumber ; but there are some men who do not allow their wives to have it all their own way without at least an occasional protest. "Do you pretend to have as good a judgment as I have?" said an enraged wife to her husband. "Well, no," he replied, deliberately, " our choice of partners for life shows that my judgment is not to be compared to yours." When they have a "few words," however, the woman usually has the best of it. " See, here," said a fault-finding husband, "we must have things arranged in this house so that we shall know where everything is kept." "With all my heart," sweetly answered his wife, " and let us begin with your late hours, my love. I should much like to know where they are kept." "Eve kept silence in Eden to hear her husband talk," said a gentle- man to a lady friend, and then added, in a melancholy tone, 'Alas! there have been no Eves since." "Because," quickly retorted the lady, "there have been no husbands worth listening to." Deceive not thyself by over-expecting happiness in the married state. Look not therein for contentment greater than God will give, or a creature in this world can receive, namely, to be free from all inconveniences. Marriage is not like the hill Olympus, wholly clear, without clouds. — Fuller. THE HOME LIFE. 87 Like government, marriage must be a series of compromises; and however warm the love of both parties may be, it will very soon cool unless they learn the golden rule of married life, "To bear and forbear." In matrimony, as in so many other things, a good beginning is half the battle. But how easily may good beginnings be frustrated through infirmity of temper and other causes, and then we must "tread those steps with sorrow which we might have trod with joy." "I often think," says Archdeacon Farrar, "that most of us in life are like many of those sight-seers who saunter through this (Westminster) Abbey. Their listless look upon its grandeur and its memorials furnishes an illustration of the aspect which we present to higher powers as we wander restlessly through the solemn minster-aisles of life. We talk of human misery, how many of us derive from life one-tenth part of what God meant to be its natural blessedness ? Sit out in the open air on a summer day, and how many of us have trained ourselves to notice the sweetness and the multiplicity of the influences which are combining for our delight — the song of birds ; the breeze-beating balm upon our foreheads ; the genial warmth ; the delicate odor of ten thousand flowers? " What is said here of life in general is also true of married life. We go through the temple of Hymen without noticing, much less appreciating, its beauty. Certainly a few people gain as much happiness from their marriage as they might. They expect to find happiness without taking any trouble to make it, or they are so selfishly occupied that they can not enjoy it. In this way many a husband and wife begin to value each other only when death is at hand to separate them. " Married life should be a sweet, harmonious song, and like one of Mendelssohn's 'without words.'" The last word is the most dangerous of infernal machines. Husband and wife should no more fight to get it than they would struggle for the possession of a lighted bomb-shell. Here lies, returned to clay, Miss Arabella Young, Who on the first of May Began to hold her tongue. Six things are requisite to make a happy home. Integrity must be the architect and tidiness the upholsterer. It must be warmed by affection and lightened up with cheerfulness, and industry must be the ventilator, renewing the atmosphere and bringing in fresh salubrity day by day, while THE HOME LIFE. over all, as a protecting canopy and glory, nothing will suffice except the blessings of God. — Dr. Hamilton. Speak kindly in the morning; it lightens the cares of the day and makes the household and all other affairs move along more smoothly. Speak kindly at night, for it may be that before the dawn some loved one may finish his or her space of life, and it will be too late to ask for forgiveness. Speak kindly at all times ; it encourages the downcast, cheers the sorrowing, and very likely awakens the erring to earnest resolves to do better, with strength to keep them. Kind words are balm to the soul. They oil up the entire machinery of life, and keep it in good running order. Many parents are wanting in courtesy to their children. They speak to them roughly, violently and insultingly, and so inflict painful wounds on their self-respect. Do not needlessly refer to their faults and follies. Be considerate. Never allude to the personal defects to which they are already keenly sensitive. Do not needlessly interfere with their plans, and impose on them unreasonable and fruitless sacrifices. Find as little fault with your children as possible, and praise them as much as you can. — Empty Pezvs. Reserve all your social charms for strangers abroad; be dull at home; don't talk; forbid your children to come into the nicely-furnished rooms; have no amusements and no pleasures ; make home as irksome as possible ; forget that you were once young — and your children will make every possible effort to get from home at night and run the streets. — Empty Pews. Home is the resort Of love, of joy, of peace, and plenty, where Supporting and supported, polish'd friends, And dear relations mingle into bliss. — James Thomson. Sweet is the smile of home ; the mutual look Where hearts are of each other sure ; Sweet all the joys that crowd the household nook, The haunt of all affections pure. — John Keble. "She always made home happy " — epitaph in a church-yard, inscribed by a husband after sixty years of wedded life. THE HOME LIFE. 89 GOOD MANNERS AT HOME. 1. Shut every door after you, without slamming - it. 2. Never stamp, jump or run in the house. 3. Never call to persons up-stairs or in the next room ; if you wish to speak to them, go quietly where they are. 4. Always speak kindly and politely to the servants, if you would have them do the same to you. 5. When told to do or not to do a thing by either parent, never ask why you should or should not do it. 6. Tell of your own faults, but not of those of your brothers and sisters. 7. Carefully clean the mud and snow from your boots or shoes before entering the house. 8. Be prompt at every meal. 9. Never sit down at the table or in the parlor with dirty hands or tumbled hair. 10. Never interrupt any conversation, but wait patiently for your turn to speak. 11. Never reserve your good manners for strangers, but be equally polite at home and abroad. A room without pictures is like a room without windows. Pictures are loop-holes of escape to the soul, leading to other scenes and other spheres. Pictures are consolers of loneliness; they are books, they are histories, they are sermons, which can be read without the trouble of turning over the leaves. — Dr. Downing. Two Christians met at a crossing on a Monday morning. Both were parents. As was natural, the conversation turned upon the services of the preceding day. The first speaker opened by saying: "We had a sermon last night from our minister on the religious instruction of children. Why didn't you come and hear it?" "Because," said the other, "I was at home it ! " A man's house should be on the hill-top of cheerfulness and serenity, that no shadows rest upon it, and where the morning comes so early, and the evening tarries so late, that the day has twice as many golden hours as those of other men. . He is to be pitied who is in some valley of grief between the hills, with the longest night and the shortest day. Home should be the centre of joy, equatorial and tropical. — Beecher. 90 THE HOME LIFE, To Adam, Paradise was home. To the good among his descendants, home is Paradise. Home of our childhood ! how affection clings And hovers round thee with her seraph wings ! Dearer thy hills, though clad in autumn brown, Than fairest summits which the cedars crown. —O. W. Holmes. Whenever we step out of domestic life in search of felicity, we come back again, disappointed, tired and chagrined. One day passed under our own roof, with our friends and our family, is worth a thousand in another place. O happy home ! O bright and cheerful hearth ! Look round with me, my lover, friend, and wife, On these fair faces we have lit with life, And in the perfect blessing of their birth, Help me to live our thanks for so much heaven on earth. —M. F. Tupper. Always leave home with loving words, for they may be the last. A great many homes are like the frame of a harp that stands without strings. In form and outline they suggest music, but no melody rises from the empty spaces, and thus it happens that home is unattractive, dreary and dull. A HOME WITHOUT LOVE. THERE are homes where poverty has never left its pinch, nor sickness paid its visit ; homes where there is plenty on the board, and health in the circle, and yet where a skeleton more grim than death haunts the cupboard, and an ache sharper than consumption's tooth gnaws sharply at the heart. Why do those shoulder's stoop so early ere life's noon has passed ? Why is it that the sigh which follows the closing of the door after the husband has gone off to business is a sigh of relief, and that which greets his coming footstep is a sigh of dread ? What means that nervous pressing of the hand against the heart, the gulping back of the lump that rises in the throat, the forced smile, and the pressed back tear ? If we could speak to the husbands who haunt these homes, we would tell them that some such soliloquy as the following is ever passing like a labored breath through the distracted minds of their wives : " Is this the Canaan, this the land of promise, this the milk and honey that were pictured to my fancy THE HOME LIFE. 91 when the walks among the lanes and fields and flowers were all too short, and the whispers were so loving, and the pressure was so fond, and the heart-beat was so passionate ? For what have I surrendered home, youth, beauty, freedom, love — all that a woman has to give in all her wealth of confidence? Harsh tones, cold looks, stern words, short answers, sullen reserve. What more is needed to make home dark, to poison hope, to turn life into a funeral, the marriage robe into a shroud, and the grave into a refuge? It does not want drunkeness, blows, bruises, clenched fists, oaths, to work sacrilege in the temple of the home ; only a little ice where the fire should glow ; only a cold look where the love should burn ; only a sneer where there should be a smile ; only neglect where there should be affectionate care." Husband ! that wife of yours is wretched because you are a liar; because you perjured yourself when you vowed to love and cherish. You are too great a coward to beat her brains out, lest the gallows claim you ; but you are so little a man that you poison her soul with the slow cruelty of an oath daily forsworn and brutally ignored. — How to be Happy tlwugh Married. IF WE COULD KNOW. IF we could know Which of us, darling, would be first to go ; Which would be first to breast the swelling tide, And step alone upon the other side — If we could know ! If it were you, Should I walk softly, keeping death in view ? Should I my love to you more oft express ? Or should I grieve you, darling, any less — If it were you ? If it were I, Should I improve the moments slipping by ? Should I more closely follow God's great plan ? Be filled with sweeter charity to man — If it were I ? If I could know ! We cannot, darling, and 'tis better so. I should forget, just as I do to-day, And walk along the same old stumbling way — If I could know. 92 THE HOME LIFE. I would not know Which of us, darling, will be first to go. I only wish the space may not be long Between the parting and the greeting song; But when, or where, or how we're called to go— I would not know. COMFORT ONE ANOTHER. COMFORT one another : For the way is growing dreary, The feet are often weary, And the heart is often sad. There is heavy burden-bearing, When it seems that none are caring, And we half forget that even we are glad. Comfort one another: With the hand-clasp close and tender, With the sweetness love can render, And looks of friendly eyes. Do not wait with grace unspoken, While life's daily bread is broken ; Gentle speech is oft like manna from the skies. Comfort one another : By the hope of Him who sought us In our peril — Him who bought us, Paying with His precious blood; By the faith that will not alter, Trusting strength that will not falter, Leaning on the One divinely good Comfort one another: Let the grave's gloom lie beyond you, While the Spirit's words remind you Of the home beyond the tomb ; Where no more is pain or parting, Fever's flush to tear-drop starting, But the presence of the Lord, and for all his people room. THE HOME LIFE. 93 CHASTE LANGUAGE AT HOME. LANGUAGE is the vehicle of thought; thought is the spontaneous expression of the condition of the mind ; on the condition of the mind largely depends our happiness or misery. In view of these facts, and the incalculable influence which language, whether written or spoken, exerts upon others, how essential that it should be pure and refined. There is no place more adapted to this refining process than the home circle ; for the refinement of the family becomes the refinement of society. The vulgarities of language should have no place in the household. All lingual improprieties should be rigidly excluded. By-words, slang phrases, allusions from topical songs, and the like, are vulgarities that pain and offend. They are filthy vermin creeping among the clean garments of our thoughts. They belong to the street, the concert saloon, and the brothel, and no respectable apology can be offered for their use. They mar language; they do not contribute to its clearness or its vigor; they are not the "fitly spoken words," which "are like apples of gold in pictures of silver." By constant watchfulness, not only grammatical expression can be obtained, but also chasteness of expression, and the entire family can contribute to that end. We array our bodies with care and taste. Why should we not devote the same attention to the attire of our thoughts ? The elegancies of language can be acquired by the reading of proper books, but they can be more readily acquired by example and companion- ship. Parents who use chaste language will insensibly teach their children to use it. Some one has said that "the Christian, when alone, has his thoughts to watch ; in the family, his temper ; in company, his tongue." In doing so, he will illustrate his morning devotions by his actions through the day. It is sad to say that, in many Christian homes, purity of language is not prized as it ought to be. The father uses slang, the "irrepressible'' brother imports it from school, and the little' child is laughed at for his "cute" repetition of what he hears, and is called precocious, but it is not the kind of precociousness that attains commendable distinction. — Christian at Work. OUR OWN. F I had known in the morning How wearily all the day The words unkind Would trouble my mind I said when you went away, 94 THE HOME LIFE. I had been more careful, darling, Nor given you needless pain, But we vex "our own" With look and tone We may never take back again. For though in the quiet evening You may give me the kiss of peace, Yet it might be That never for me The pain of the heart should cease. How many go forth in the morning, That never come home at night ! And hearts have broken . For harsh words spoken, That sorrow can ne'er set right. We have careful thoughts for the stranger, And smiles for the transient guest, But oft for " our own " The bitter tone, Though we love " our own " the best. Ah, lips with the curve impatient ! Ah, brow with that look of scorn ! 'Twere a cruel fate, Were the night too late To undo the work of the morn. CHEERFUL HOMES. MAKE your home the brightest place on earth, if you would charm your children to the high path of virtue, and rectitude, and religion. Do not always turn the blinds the wrong way. Let the light which puts gold on the gentian and spots the pansy pour into your dwellings. Do not expect the little feet to keep step to a dead march. Do not cover up your walls with such pictures as West's " Death on a Pale Horse," or Tintoretto's " Massacre of the Innocents." Rather cover them, if you have pictures, with " The Hawking Party," and " The Mill by the Mountain Stream," and "The Fox Hunt," and "The Children Amid Flowers," and "The Harvest Scene," and "The Saturday Night Marketing." THE HOME LIFE. 95 Get you no hint of cheerfulness from grasshopper's leap, and lamb's frisk, and quail's whistle, and garrulous streamlet, which from the rock at the mountain top, clear down to the meadow ferns under the shadow of the steep, comes looking for the steepest place to leap off at, and talking just to hear itself talk? If all the skies hurtled with tempest, and everlasting storm wandered over the sea, and every mountain stream went raving mad, frothing at the mouth with mud foam, and there was nothing but simoons blowing among the hills, and there were neither lark's carol nor humming- bird's trill, nor waterfall's dash, but only a bear's bark, and panther's jcream, and wolf's howl, then you might well gather into your homes only the shadows. But when God has strewn the earth and the heavens with beauty and with gladness, let us take into our home-circles all innocent hilarity, all brightness, and all good cheer. A dark home makes bad boys and bad girls in preparation for bad men and bad women. — Talmage. M MUSIC. USIC! Oh, how faint, how weak, Language fails before thy spell ! Why should feeling ever speak, When thou canst breathe her soul so well ? Friendship's balmy words may feign — Love's are e'en more false than they : Oh ! 'tis only music's strain Can sweetly soothe, and not betray. — Moore. SINGING AT HOME. *< QING me the songs that to me were so dear, O Long, long ago; long, long ago." These songs of long ago sing themselves down through the years; carrying us back to the old home that has almost faded away in the distance ; unfolding out of the shadows of life the happy scenes of our childhood days, and bringing to us on the wings of song the loving voices of those dear ones — voices long ago silent in the grave. And as we listen, we seem to hear those voices, " Blending in diviner songs Than those of 'auld lang syne.' Immortal songs of praise, unknown In days of 'auld lang syne.' " 96 THE HOME LIFE. Think of the voices of earth lifted up and set in the white-robed choir! Oh, then let music come into every home ! Fill your house full of song. Nourish it and cherish it as one of Heaven's best gifts, one of the loveliest remembrances of the home of praise. Do you desire to drive away all the evil spirits of anger and jealousy and ill-feeling and selfishness that gather around every hearthstone ? Then let the children be taught the angels' art. Let them be encouraged to mingle their voices in songs so pure that they seem like remnants of melodies left by the seraphic choir that chanted on Bethlehem's plains " Glory to God in the Highest, and on earth peace, good will to men," when the Holy Child was born ; when Heaven touched earth ; when the glowing star stooped from the sky to kiss the Babe in the manger. Many people say " O, my children have no musical talent. It won't pay to give them instruction." There is a remuneration greater than money or fame. The joy and pleasure of music at home cannot be valued in dollars and cents. Your sons and daughters may never achieve renown as great musical artists, nor receive the applause of entranced audiences; but they may bring peace and rest to the home gathering. And when they go out into the world, to build homes for themselves, or to meet with the temptations that are before them, there will be this bond of song to bind them to the old home, and then will gather around them the strongest, holiest influences of Hie.— Joseph T. Wright. 'M HOME, SWEET HOME. ID pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home ! A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which, seek thro' the world, is ne'er met with elsewhere. Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home ! There's no place like home ; there's no place like home ! An exile from home splendor dazzles in vain, Oh ! give me my lowly, thatch'd cottage again ! The birds singing gayly, that come at my call, Give me them, — and the peace of mind, dearer than all. Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home ! There's no place like home ; there's no place like home ! THE HOME LIFE. 97 How sweet 'tis to sit 'neatli a fond father's smile, And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile ; Let others delight 'mid new pleasures to roam, But give me, oh ! give me, the pleasures of home. Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home ! But give me, oh ! give me, the pleasures of home ! To thee I'll return, overburdened with care, The heart's dearest solace will smile on me there ; No more from that cottage again will I roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home. Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home ! There's no place like home ; there's no place like home. —J. H. Payne. HOME SONGS. O H, sing once more those joy-provoking strains, Which, half forgotten, in my memory dwell ! They send the life-blood bounding through my veins, And circle round me like an airy spell. The songs of home are to the human heart Far dearer than the notes that song-birds pour, And of our inner nature seem a part. Then sing those dear familiar lays once more — Those cheerful lays of other days — Oh, sing those cheerful lays once more. THE DEAREST SPOT OF EARTH IS HOME. THE dearest spot of earth to me Is home, sweet home ! The fairy-land I long to see Is home, sweet home ! There, how charmed the sense of hearing! There, where love is so endearing! All the world is not so cheering As home, sweet home ! 98 THE HOME LIFE. The dearest spot of earth to me Is home, sweet home ! The fairy-land I long to see Is home, sweet home ! I've taught my heart the way to prize My home, sweet home ! I've learned to look with lover's eyes On home, sweet home ! There, where vows are truly plighted ! There, where hearts are so united ! All the world besides I've slighted For home, sweet home ! The dearest spot of earth to me Is home, sweet home ! The fairy-land I long to see Is home, sweet home ! W. T. WHghion. HOME. T IS whispered in the ear of God, Tis murmured through our tears, Tis linked with happy childhood days, , And blessed in riper years. That hallowed word is ne'er forgot, No matter where we roam ; The purest feelings of the heart, . Still cluster round our home. Dear resting-place, where weary thought May dream away its care; Love's gentle star unveils her light, And shines in beauty there. — Fanny Crosby. THE HOME LIFE. 90 H HOME DEFINED. OME'S not merely four square walls, Though with pictures hung and gilded ; Home is where affection calls, Filled with shrines the hearth hath builded ! Home ! Go watch the faithful dove, Sailing 'neath the heaven above us ; Home is where there's one to love ! Home is where there's one to love us ! Home's not merely roof and room ; It needs something to endear it ; Home is where the heart can bloom, Where there's some kind lip to cheer it ! What is home with none to meet, None to welcome, none to greet us ? Home is sweet, — and only sweet — When there's one we love to meet us ! -Charles Swain. HOME. 'N all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs — and God has given my share — I still had hopes my latest hours to crown, Amidst these humble bowers to lay me down ; To husband out life's taper at the close, And keep the flame from wasting, by repose. I still had hopes, for pride attends us still, Amidst the swains to show my book-learn'd skill ; Around my fire an evening group to draw, And tell of all I felt and all I saw ; And as a hare, whom hounds and horns pursue, Pants to the place from whence at first she flew ; I s r .ill had hopes, my long vexations past, Here to return — and die at home at last. — Oliver Goldsmith THE HOME LIFE. TWO PICTURES. N old farm-house with meadows wide, i And sweet with clover on each side ; A bright-eyed boy, who looks from out The door with woodbine wreathed about, And wishes his one thought all day : " O, if I could but fly away From this dull spot, the world to see, How happy, happy, happy, How happy I should be ! " Amid the city's constant din, A man who round the world has been, Who, 'mid the tumult and the throng, Is thinking, thinking all day long : "O, could I only tread once more The field-path to the farm-house door, The old, green meadow could I see, How happy, happy, happy, How happy I should be ! " — Marian Douglas. RELIGION AT HOME. A HOUSE may be full of persons who are very dear to each c ther, very kind to each other; full of precious things — affections, hopes, living interests ; but, if God is not there as the Ruler and Father of the home, the true ideal of the home will not be realized ; vacancy and need will still be at the heart of all. Good things will grow feebly and slowly, like flowers in winter, trying to peep out into the sunshine, with hardly strength enough to live, and powerless to resist the blast. Evil things will grow with strange persistency, notwithstanding protests of the affections and efforts of the will. Mysterious gulfs will open at times where it was thought strong foundations had been laid. Little things will produce great distress. Great things, when attained, will shrink into littleness. Flickerings of uncertainty and fear will run along the days. Joys will not satisfy. Sorrow will not surprise. In the very heart of the godless home there will be a sickness arising from need unsatisfied and hope deferred. THE HOME LIFE. Home without the Divine presence is at best a moral structure with- out any sure foundation — a "house built upon the sand." It is a haunted house — haunted with the ghosts of unrealized happiness and peace. It will be at best but " the shadow of some good thing to come," but only a " shadow," that gradually fades away as the years go on, never bringing the substance. In many houses there is going on what may be called a dialogue of souls — unspoken questions, the sighs of the spirit : " How is it that we cannot be as happy as we ought to be ? Why is there such a sorrow even in our affection, such a trembling in our joys, such fears and incompleteness in all we do ?" Ah ! What is the answer to such mute but eager questionings ? Who can speak the answer ? The One who alone hears the spirit in its cries for what Earth cannot give. He tells of another Fatherhood, under which parents must become as little children ; of another Brotherhood which makes the home circle of earth a picture, a foretaste of the home which our Elder Brother has prepared for those who are His. When the members of a godless home will look away from themselves, look above to " Our Father, which art in Heaven," to our " Elder Brother and Advocate with the Father," then shall come, sweet as music, into the very heart of that home, these words from the Ever- lasting Father: "Ye shall be my sons and daughters;" from the Eternal Son, " Behold, my mother, and sister, and brother ! " Then the home rests upon a foundation from which it cannot be shaken, for "it is founded upon a rock" — the Rock of Ages. It is a haunted house no more, the ghosts have been driven away. Mornings are welcome. Nights are restful. The aching sorrow has passed away now from the heart of that home. The long- sought secret is revealed. Soul whispers to soul, "Emmanuel, God with us." Home is home at last. HOME, THE SWEETEST TYPE OF HEAVEN. THE sweetest type of heaven is home. Home, in one form and another, is the great object of life. It stands at the end of every day's labor, and beckons us to its bosom ; and life would be cheerless and meaningless did we not discern across the river that divides it from the life beyond, glimpses of the pleasant mansions prepared for us. Heaven ! that land of quiet rest — toward which those, who, worn down and tired with the toils of earth, direct their frail barks over the troubled waters of life, and after a long and dangerous passage, find it — safe THE HOME LIFE. in the haven of eternal bliss. Heaven is the home that awaits us beyond the grave. There the friendships formed on earth, and which cruel death has severed, are never more to be broken ; and parted friends shall meet again, never more to be separated. It is an inspiring hope that, when we separate here on earth at the summons of Death's angel, and when a few more years have rolled over the heads of those remaining, if " faithful unto death," we shall meet again in heaven, our eternal home, there to dwell in the presence of our Heavenly Father, and go no more out forever. At the best estate, my friends, we are only pilgrims and strangers. Heaven is to be our eternal home. Death will never knock at the door of that mansion, and in all that land there will not be a single grave. Aged parents rejoice very much when, on Christmas Day or Thanksgiving Day, they have their children at home , but there is almost always a son or a daughter absent — absent from the country, perhaps absent from the world. But oh, how our Heavenly Father will rejoice in the long thanksgiving day of heaven, when He has all His children with Him in glory ! How glad brothers and sisters will be to meet after so long a separation ! Perhaps a score of years ago they parted at the door of the tomb. Now they meet again at the door of immortality. Once they looked through a glass darkly. Now, face to face, corruption, incorruption — mortality, immortality. Where are now all their sorrows and temptations and trials? Overwhelmed in the Red Sea of death, while they, dry-shod, marched into glory. Gates of jasper, cope-stone of amethyst, thrones of dominion do not so much affect my soul as the thought of home. Once there, let earthly sorrows howl like storms and roll like seas. Home! Let thrones rot and empires wither- Home! Let the world die in earthquake struggles and be buried amid processipn of planets and dirge of spheres. Home ! Let everlasting ages roll in irresistible sweep. Home! No sorrow, no crying, no tears, no. death ; but home ! Sweet home ! Beautiful home ! Glorious home ! Everlasting home ! Home with each other ! Home with angels ! Home with God ! Home, home ! Through the rich grace of Christ Jesus, may we all reach it. fh s M-M^oTaL y^im THE MORAL LIFE. N GOD'S BEVERAGE. OT in the haunts of the wicked, Not in the dens of the craven, Not in the hot-house of Satan Is God's best beverage given; Not in the vale of corruption — Not in the poisonous gases Out from the simmering still, to Laugh in the wine-bibber's glasses. Not in the brewery, seething — Not in its sickening fumes, Brewed for the craven death-angel Keeping the gates of the tombs; Not in the stifling odors Out from the stench of the mill Where Satan is superintendent, Grinding destruction at will. But down in the beautiful valley, The vale that we cherish so well, Where the red deer playfully wanders With its mate in the shadowy dell ; Way down in the rock-bound ravine, Where pebbles are carelessly strewed, Where fountains are all the day singing, Is Heaven's best beverage brewed. 5o6 THE MORAL LIFE. High up on the crest of the mountains, Where granite rocks glitter like gold, Where the storm-clouds gather relentless, And the crash of the thunder is told ; And out on the turbulent waters, Where the hurricane howls o'er the sea, Is brewed there the best of all beverage — The best for you, reader, and me. 'Tis brewed in the cataract sporting, As it leaps from its perilous height ; 'Tis seen in the gauze around Luna, As she lights up the heavens at night; 'Tis seen in the glittering ice-gem, When its brilliance, like jewels, doth seem, And, too, in the hail-shower dancing; Cloud-hid from the morning sun's beam. 'Tis seen in the rain-drops descending, As they weave the bright bow in the air, Whose woof is the sunbeams of Heaven, Each painting their bright colors there; It dances along 'neath the curtains All dark in the silence of night, And kisses the vines of the bowers, As a blessed life-water of light. On its brink are no poisonous bubbles, Its foam brings no murder or madness, No blood stains its crystallized glasses; No heart bends before it in sadness, No widows or orphans are weeping With tears of dark misery's gall ; Then, tell me, dear reader, why change it For the Demon's Drink — King Alcohol? — /, S. Watkins. For he that holds more wine than others can I rather count a hogshead than a man. — Thomas Randolph. THE MORAL LIFE. 107 THE STRONGEST DRINK. WATER is the strongest drink. It drives mills ; it is the drink of lions and horses ; and Samson never drank anything else. Let young men be teetotalers if only for economy's sake. The beer money will soon build a house. If what goes into the mash-tub went into the kneading-trough, families would be better fed and better taught. If what is spent in waste were only saved against a rainy day, poor-houses would never be built. The man who spends his money with the publican, and thinks the landlord's bow and " How do ye do, my good fellow?" mean true respect, is a perfect simpleton. We don't light fires for the herring's comfort, but to roast him. Men do not keep pot- houses for laborers' good; if they do, they certainly miss their aim. Why, then, should people drink "for the good of the house?" If I spend money for the good of the house, let it be my own house and not the landlord's. It is a bad well into which you must put water ; and the beer-house is a bad friend, because it takes your all and leaves you nothing but headaches. He who calls those his friends, who let him sit and drink by the hour together, is ignorant — very ignorant. Why, red lions, and tigers, and eagles, and vultures are all creatures of prey ; and why do so many put themselves within the power of their jaws and talons ? Such as drink and live riotously, and wonder why their faces are so blotchy and their pockets so bare, would leave off wondering if they had two grains of wisdom. They might as well ask an elm tree for pears as look to loose habits for health and wealth. Those who go to the public-house for happiness, climb a tree to find fish. — Spurgeon. APOSTROPHE ON WATER. POURING a glass of water and advancing toward his audience, and lifting it above his head, he said : "Look at that, ye thirsty sons of earth! Behold it! See its purity! How it glitters as if a mass of liquid gems ! It is a beverage that was brewed by the Almighty himself ! Not in simmering still or smoking fires, choked with poisonous gases, and surrounded by the stench of sickening odors and rank corruption, does our Father in Heaven prepare the precious essence of life, the pure cold water, but in the green glade, and grassy dell, where the deer wanders and the child loves to play, there God brews it; and down in the deepest valley, where the fountains murmur and the rills sing, and high upon the tall mountain tops, where the storm-clouds brood and the thunders crash, and away far out on the wide sea, where the io8 THE MORAL LIFE. hurricane howls music and the big waves roll the chorus, sweeping 1 the march of God, there he brews it — that beverage of health-giving water — and everywhere it is a thing of beauty, glimmering in the summer rain, shining in the ice-gem, till the trees all seemed turned into living jewels, spreading a golden veil over the setting sun, or a white gauze around the midnight moon, sporting in the cataract, sleeping in the glaciers, dancing in the hail- showers, folding its soft curtain softly about the windy world and weaving the many-colored iris, that is, Orpha's Zone of the sky, whose warp is the rain-drop of the earth, whose roof is the sunbeam of Heaven, are checkered over with celestial flowers by the mystic hand of reflection, still always it is beautiful, that blessed life water. No poison bubbles on the brink; its foam brings no sadness or murder. "■ — Gough. THE DESTROYER. INTEMPERANCE creates in man an ungovernable appetite. Men who have fallen have told us it is not a desire, not an appetite, not a passion; these ordinary words fail to express the thing. It is more like a raging storm that pervades the entire being ; it is a madness that paralyzes the brain, it is a corrosion that gnaws the stomach, it is a storm-fire that courses through the veins ; it transgresses every boundary, it fiercely casts aside every barrier, it regards no motive, it silences reason, it stifles conscience, it tramples upon prudence, it overleaps everything that you choose to put in its way, and eternal life and the claims of God are as feathers, which it blows out of its path. What does it do to man's body? It diseases it; it crazes his brain, it blasts his nerves, it consumes his liver, it destroys his stomach, it inflames his heart, it sends a fiery flood of conflagration through all the tissues ; it so saps the recuperative energies of man's body that oftentimes a little scratch upon a drunkard's skin is a greater injury than a bayonet-thrust through and through the body of a temperate man. It not only does this, but the ruin that it brings into the nervous system often culminates in delirium tremens. Have you ever seen a man under its influence? Have you heard him mutter, and jabber, and leer, and rave like an idiot? Have you heard him moan, cry, shriek, curse, and rave, as he tried to skulk under the bedclothes? Have you looked into his eyes, and seen the horrors of the damned there? Have you witnessed these things? Have you seen the scowl on his face, so that the whole atmosphere was filled with tempest ? Have you seen him heave on his bed, as though his body was undulating upon the rolling waves like a fire ? If. you have, then you know what it does to the body. THE MORAL LIFE. 109 It enthralls the will. A man's will ought to be king. The will of the drunkard is an abject slave. The noblest and the mightiest men have been unable to break off the chain when it is once riveted. I verily believe there have been no such wails of despair out of hell itself as have gone up from the lips and heart of the drunkard who knew he never could be recovered. What does it do to the heart ? If a man is made in the image of God's intellect, a woman is made in the image of God's heart. A tender woman is tenderest to her child. Is there anything that can unmother a woman, that can pluck the maternal heart out of her, and put in its place something that is powerful and fiendish? Is there any other agent on earth, or even in the world of the damned, that can so transform a mother's heart into something for which thought itself cannot find similitude? Satan himself cannot do it ; but rum can. It wrecks character. It is a double shipwreck; the drunkard not only loses his own respect, but he loses the respect of everybody else. His own character, with its real worthiness and with its reputation, is gone, and his worthiness in the estimation of other people is gone, too — both of them, slain, are buried in one grave ; and the grave-digger and the murderer, who are they? Rum. It wipes out the likeness of God from the soul, and makes a man a mixture of the brute and the demon, evolving the stupidity of the one and the philosophy of the other ; and the Bible tells us that no drunkard shall ever inherit the kingdom of God. — H. M. Scudder. THE CAUSE OF TEMPERANCE. OUR enterprise is in advance of the public sentiment, and those who carry it on are glorious iconoclasts, who are going to break down the drunken Dagon worshipped by their fathers. Count me over the chosen heroes of this earth, and I will show you men that stood alone — aye, alone while those they toiled, and labored, and agonized for, hurled at them contumely, scorn and contempt. They stood alone ; they looked into the future calmly and with faith ; they saw the golden beam inclining to the side of perfect justice ; and they fought on amidst the storm of persecution. In Great Britain they tell me when I go to see such a prison : " There is such a dungeon in which such a one was confined ;" "Here among the ruins of an old castle we will show you where such a one had his ears cut off, and where another was murdered." Then they will show me monuments towering up to the heavens : " There is a monument to such a one ; there is a monument to another." And what do I find ? That the one generation THE MORAL LIFE. persecuted and howled at these men, crying " Crucify them ! crucify them !" and dancing around the blazing fagots that consumed them ; and the next generation busied itself in gathering up the scattered ashes of the martyred heroes and depositing them in the golden urn of a nation's history. Oh, yes ! the men that fight for a great enterprise are the men that bear the brunt of the battle, and " He who seeth in secret " — seeth the desire of his children, their steady purpose, their firm self-denial — "will reward them openly," though they may die and see no sign of the triumphs of their enterprise. A PROGRESSIVE CAUSE. Our cause is a progressive one. I have read the first constitution of the first temperance society formed in the State of New York in 1809, and one of the by-laws stated, " Any member of this association who shall be convicted of intoxication shall be fined a quarter of a dollar, except such act of intoxication shall take place on the Fourth of July, or any other regularly appointed military muster." We laugh at that now ; but it was a serious matter in those days ; it was in advance of the public sentiment of the age. The very men who adopted that principle were persecuted ; they were hooted and pelted through the streets, the doors of their houses were blackened, their cattle mutilated. The fire of persecution scorched some men so that they left the work. Others worked on, and God blessed them. Some are living to-day ; and I should like to stand where they stand now, and see the mighty enterprise as it rises before them. They worked hard. They lifted the first turf — prepared the bed in which to lay the corner-stone. They laid it amid persecution and storm. They worked under the surface ; and men almost forgot that there were busy hands laying the solid foundation far down beneath. "LOVE, TRUTH, SYMPATHY, AND GOOD- WILL TO MEN." By-and-by they got the foundation above the surface, and then began another storm of persecution. Now we see the superstructure — pillar after pillar, tower after tower, column after column, with the capitals emblazoned with " Love, truth, sympathy, and good-will to men." Old men gaze upon it as it grows up before them. They will not live to see it completed ; but they see in faith the crowning cope-stone set upon it. Meek-eyed women weep as it grows in beauty ; children strew the pathway of the workmen with flowers. We do not see its -beauty yet — we do not see the magnificence of its superstructure yet — because it is in course of erection. Scaffolding, ropes, ladders, workmen ascending and descending, mar the beauty of the THE MORAL LIFE. building ; but by-and-by, when the hosts who have labored shall come up over a thousand battle-fields waving with bright grain never again to be crushed in the distillery — through vineyards, under trellised vines, with grapes hanging in all their purple glory, never again to be pressed into that which can debase and degrade mankind — when they shall come through orchards, under trees hanging thick with golden, pulpy fruit, never to be turned into that which can injure and debase — when they shall come up to the last distillery and destroy it ; to the last stream of liquid death and dry it up ; to the last weeping wife and wipe her tears gently away ; to the last child and lift him up to stand where God meant that child and man should stand ; to the last drunkard and nerve him to burst the burning fetters and make a glorious accompaniment to the song of freedom by the clanking of his broken chains — then, ah ! then will the cope-stone be set upon it, the scaffolding will fall with a crash, and the building will stand in its wondrous beauty before an astonished world. Loud shouts of rejoicing shall then be heard, and there will be joy in Heaven when the triumphs of a great enterprise usher in the day of the triumphs of the cross of Christ. — Gough. B SHUN THE BOWL. Y thy dread of sin and sorrow, By thy fear of shame and strife, By each dark, despairing morrow, Lengthening still a wretched life ; By the chains that, worse than iron, Burn the brain, and sear the soul, By the torments it environ, Dearest children, shun the bowl ! By the hope thou wouldst not wither, By the love that round thee clings, Never turn thy footsteps whither Wild the maniac drunkard sings ! Enter not the poisoned vapor, Where oaths and fumes together roll, Kneel and pray by lonely taper, Pray for strength to shun the bowl. By bleared eye, and voice whose quaking Fills the agony within, THE MORAL LIFE. By the palsied hand, which shaking Ever lifts the draft of sin, By the torment still increasing, Gnawing brain, and harrowing soul, Thirst unsated and unceasing, Dearest children, shun the bowl ! By each holy kiss, thy mother On thy infant forehead pressed, Love of father, sister, brother, All that purifies thy breast ; By the hope of Heaven within thee, Oh ! debase not mind and soul — Let not sin's own chalice win thee ; — Dearest children, shun the bowl. — Eliza H. Barker. ^ IS there any harm in a glass of wine?" Listen! A number of years I ago a young man went to Saint Louis. He was entertained at the palatial residence of one of the Railroad Kings of the West. The beautiful and accomplished daughter of his host offered him a glass of rich, sparkling wine. He tried to refuse, for he remembered his dying mother's words : " Son, promise me that you will never drink any wine." He faltered out, " No, I thank you," almost yielding to the charms of the fair cup-bearer, when the old, proud father said : "Nonsense, young man, there's no harm in a glass of wine," and he drank the wine, and to-day he is a drunkard. I have it from his own lips that, ten years after that fatal night when the poison entered his heart, he was again in Saint Louis. Early one morning he went to a saloon to get that which alone would relieve, while it added to, his burning thirst. As he stood at the bar, an old, ragged, dirty, besotted wretch came in, begging for a drink, imploring the barkeeper for God's sake to give him only a little to minister to his relief, and that drunken beggar was, ten years ago, the Railroad King who said, " There's no harm in a glass of wine." — Joseph T. Wright. HOW STRONG DRINK INJURES LABOR. STRONG drink injures labor by diminishing the demand for useful products ; for when there is no demand for an article, labor is not needed to manufacture it. It is equally true that the wages are regulated by the demand for labor. When the number of laborers exceeds the THE MORAL LIFE. 113 demand for their labor, wages will be low ; but when they are less than the P number needed, wages will be high. The way to mend hard times is to create a demand for useful articles, that will give the most labor, and extend an influence to the promotion of other productive industries. This we can do, if we spend for food, clothing, furniture, and other necessaries, the millions that are now worse than wasted for drink. This would not only give work to all our unemployed and those engaged in the liquor business, but labor would be greatly in demand in all the productive industries of the State. THE PORTION LABOR RECEIVES. The cost of labor to manufacture crude whiskey, is about three and fa-half per cent, on the value of the liquor at the place of manufacture- while for labor in the aggregate productions of the State, there is paid 17*97 per cent, of their value at the place of production; for boots and shoes, 28^ per cent.; for clothing, 21-57 P er cent.; for furniture and house fixtures, etc., 29-55 per cent.^ for hardware, 26-24 P er cent. ; for cotton goods, 19-98 per cent. ; for woollen goods, 15-86 per cent., and for worsted goods, 17-30 per cent. It will be a fair estimate to allow an average of 25 per cent, increase on the price of the products of industry, after leaving the manufactory until received by the consumers. What proportion does labor receive of the price paid by the consumers? By buying $100 worth of the aggregate manufactures of our State, $14.38 goes to labor in their production. For every $100 spent for boots and shoes, $22.85 g° es f° r labor; for clothing, $17.25 ; for furniture, house fixtures, etc., $22.76; for hardware, $20.99; for cotton goods, $15.94; for woollen goods, $12.98; for worsted goods, $13.83 — while $100 spent for liquors, to produce them, will give only $1.94 to labor. If we average a day's work to be worth $2, then $100 spent for boots and shoes will give more than 1 1 days' work ; for clothing, more than 8 days ; for furniture, etc., more than 11 days; for cotton goods, nearly 7^ days; for woollen goods, nearly 6y 2 days ; for hardware, about \o l /s days, and for worsted goods, nearly 6y 2 days — while $100 spent for liquors will give to labor less than a day's work. LIQUOR ROBS LABOR. It is very evident that the use of strong drink injures labor, and consequently our laboring people. The liquor business is ever at war with all the interests of labor, and the working classes of our own and every other State. It is certainly to the interest of our laboring classes, if they wish to improve their condition, to use all their influence, sdcial and political, to banish the drink traffic from our State and nation. i 4 THE MORAL LIFE. Every dollar spent for liquor robs labor of nearly a-balf day's work. The man who spends a dollar for drink, receives nothing of value, and labor receives less than 2 cents; while of a dollar spent for a pair of shoes for a child, 32 cents would go for labor, instead of less than 2 cents, as when the dollar is expended for liquor. In one case the child would have a pair of shoes, in the other the man would be lucky if he escaped a headache, or something worse. True labor-reform is the abolition of the drink traffic, which lives and fattens on the ruin of every useful and legitimate business. In considering the question of capital and labor, the drink question is the most important factor ; for all reforms looking towards the amelioration of the condition of our working people, will be of little or no avail so long as the drink traffic exists to swallow up their wages. For in the future, as it has been in the past, the shorter the hours of labor and the higher the wages received by a vast number of our laborers, the greater will be the harvest of the drink traffic. As long as men spend their wages for drink, so long shall we have hard times, scarcity of work, and low wages ; and labor will still be the " slave of capital." — Dr. Hargreaves. STRIKES. STRIKES are quite proper, only strike right; Strike to some purpose, but not for a fight ; Strike for your manhood, for honor, and fame; Strike right and left till you win a good name ; Strike for your freedom from all that is vile; Strike off companions who often beguile ; Strike with the hammer, the sledge, and the axe ; Strike off bad habits with burdensome tax ; Strike out unaided, depend on no other ; Strike without gloves, and your foolishness smother; Strike off the fetters of fashion and pride ; Strike where 'tis best, but let wisdom decide ; Strike a good blow while the iron is hot ; Strike, keep striking, till you hit the right spot. RUM THE FOE OF LABOR. THE most persistent, most overpowering enemy of the working class is intoxicating liquor. It is the anarchist of the centuries. It is a worse foe than monopoly. It annually swindles industry out of a large THE MORAL LIFE. 115 percentage of its earnings. It holds out its blasting solicitations to the mechanic or operative on his way to work, and at the noon-spell, and on his way home at eventide, on Saturday, when the wages are paid, it snatches a large part of the money that should go to the family, and sacrifices it among the saloon-keepers. The rum business is pouring its vitriolic and damnable liquids down the throats of hundreds of thousands of laborers, and while the ordinary strikes are ruinous both to employers and employes, I PROCLAIM A STRIKE universal against strong drink, which, if kept up, will be the relief of the working classes and the salvation of the nation. I will undertake to say that there is not a healthy laborer in the United States who, within the next ten years, if he will refuse all intoxicating beverage and be saving, may not become a capitalist on a small scale. Our country in a year spends one billion five hundred million and fifty thousand dollars for rum. Of course, the working classes do a great deal of this expenditure. When an army goes out to the battle the soldier who has water or coffee in his canteen marches easier and fights better than the soldier who has whiskey in his canteen. Rum helps a man to fight when he has only one contestant, and that at the street corner. But when he goes forth to maintain some great battle for God and his country, he wants no rum about him. When the Russians go to war a corporal passes along the line and smells the breath of every soldier. If there be in his breath a taint of intoxicating liquor, the man is sent back to the barracks. Why ? ALL OUR YOUNG MEN KNOW THIS. He cannot endure fatigue. All our young men know this. When they are preparing for a regatta, or for a ball club, or for an athletic wrestling, they abstain. Our working people will be wiser after a while, and the money they fling away on hurtful indulgences they will put into co-operative associations, and so become capitalists. My plea is to those working people who are in a discipleship to the whiskey-bottle, the beer-mug, and the wine-flask. And what I say to them will not be less appropriate to the business classes, and the literary classes, and the professional classes, and all classes, and the people of all ages. Take one square look at the suffering of the man whom strong drink has enthralled and remember that toward that goal multitudes are running. The disciple of alcoholism suffers the loss of self-respect. Just as soon as a man wakes up and finds that he is the captive of strong drink, he feels demeaned. I do not care how reckless he acts. He u6 THE MORAL LIFE. may say, "I don't care; " he does care. He cannot look a pure man in the eye unless it is with positive force of resolution. Three-fourths of his nature is destroyed; his self-respect is gone; he says things he would not otherwise say; he does things he would not otherwise do. When a man is nine-tenths gone with strong drink, the first thing he wants to do is to persuade you that he can stop any time he wants to. He can not. The Philistines have bound him hand and foot, and shorn his locks, and put out his eyes, and are making him grind in the mill of a great horror. He can not stop. I will prove it. He knows that his course is bringing ruin upon himself. He loves himself. If he could stop he would. He knows his course is bringing ruin upon his family. He loves them. He would stop if he could. He can not. Perhaps he could three months or a year ago, not now. Just ask him to stop for a month. He can not; he knows he can not, so he does not try. I had a friend who was for FIFTEEN YEARS GOING DOWN under this evil habit. He had large means. He had given thousands of dollars to Bible societies and reformatory institutions of all sorts. He was very genial, very generous, and very lovable, and whenever he talked about this evil habit he would say, " I can stop any time." But he kept going on, going on, down, down, down. His family would say, " I wish you would stop." "Why," he would reply, "I can stop any time if I want to." After awhile he had delirium tremens; he had it twice; and yet, after that, he said, "I could stop at any time if I wanted to." He is dead now. What killed him ? Rum ! Rum ! And yet among his last utterances was, " I can stop at any time." He did not stop it, because he could not stop it. Oh, there is a point in inebriation beyond which if a man goes he can not stop ! LOSS OF HEALTH. The older men in the congregation may remember that some years ago Dr. Sewell went through this country and electrified the people by his lectures, in which he showed the effects of alcoholism on the human stomach. He had seven or eight diagrams by which he showed the devastation of strong drink upon the physical system. There were thousands of people that turned back from that ulcerous sketch, swearing eternal abstinence from everything that could intoxicate. God only knows what the drunkard suffers. Pain files on every nerve, and travels every muscle, and gnaws every bone, and burns with every flame, and stings with every poison, and pulls at him with every torture. What reptiles crawl over his creeping limbs ! What fiends stand by his midnight THE MORAL LIFE. 117 pillow ! What groans tear his ear ! What horrors shiver through his soul ! Talk of the rack, talk of the Inquisition, talk of the funeral pyre, talk of the crushing Juggernaut — he feels them all at once. Oh, is there anything that will so destroy a man for this life and damn him for the life that is to come? I hate that strong drink. With all the concentrated energies of my soul I hate it. Do not tell me that a man can be happy when he knows that he is breaking his wife's heart and clothing his children with rags. Why, there are on the roads and streets of this land to-day little children, barefooted, unwashed, and unkempt — want on every patch of their faded dress and on every wrinkle of their prematurely-old countenances, who would have been in churches to-day, and as well clad as you are, but for the fact that rum destroyed their parents and drove them into the grave. O rum, thou foe of God, thou despoiler of homes, thou recruiting officer of the pit, I hate thee ! STOP STRONG DRINK. But not waiting for those mouths of hell to close, let me advise the working and the business classes, and all classes, to stop strong drink. While I declared some time ago that there was a point beyond which a man could not stop, I want to tell you that while a man cannot stop in his own strength, the Lord God by His grace can help him to stop at any time. I was in a room in New York where there were many men who had been reclaimed from drunkenness. I heard their testimony, and for the first time in my life there flashed out a truth I never understood. They said : " We were victims of strong drink. We tried to give it up, but always failed ; but somehow since we gave our hearts to Christ, He has taken care of us." I believe that the time will soon come when the grace of God will show its power not only to save man's soul, but his body, and reconstruct, purify, elevate, and redeem it. YOUR LAST CHANCE. I verily believe that, although you feel grappling at the roots of your tongues an almost omnipotent thirst, if you will give your heart to God, He will help you by His grace to conquer. Try it. It is your last chance. Oh, if you could only hear this morning Intemperance with drunkards' bones drumming on the head of the liquor-cask the Dead March of immortal souls, methinks the very glance of a wine-cup would make you shudder, and the color of the liquor would make you think of the blood of the soul, and the foam on the top of the cup would remind you of the froth on the maniac's lip ; and you would go home from this service and kneel down and pray God that, rather than your children should become captives of this evil habit, you would like to carry them out some bright spring THE MORAL LIFE. day to the cemete'ry, and put them away to the last sleep, until at the call of the south wind the flowers would come up all over the grave — sweet prophecies of the resurrection ! God has a balm for such a wound f but what flower of comfort ever grew on the blasted heath of a drunkard's sepulchre ? — Talmage. THE SALOON. IT is impossible to find language which will truly state how great a curse the Saloon is. It is an evil in itself, and that uniformly and continually, universally and necessarily. Not only does it not supply any legitimate want, but it creates illegitimate and unholy wants. It is a child of the devil, and an agent of hell. In these days it has become organized, despotic and Satanic to an unusual degree ; it has become an institution. It has resolved upon political power, and it is massing all its forces with that end in view. It finds politicians ready to bow down and worship at its feet, for the sake of the votes which it promises to secure and to deliver. It moves forward with gigantic stride, with aggressive purpose, and with marvellous wisdom, toward the attainment of these unholy ends. Not only is the end it seeks utterly bad, but the means it employs to secure its end are the worst which its black heart can devise and execute. " , THE TIME HAS COME WHEN MEN MUST SPEAK out brave and necessarily bitter, words against this gigantic evil. It stalks through the land, destroying all that is noblest in our civilization, and holiest in our religion. It has trampled on the dearest hopes of fondest parents ; it has broken the hearts of the truest and bravest of wives ; it has filled the land with mourning, the grave with victims, and hell with drunkards. The hands of the Saloon, which recently were lifted up, pleading for "Personal Liberty," so-called, were dripping with the blood of murdered souls. By all that is sacred in family life, by all that is holy in the Church, and by the justice of an Eternal God, we declare that this murderer shall die for his God-defying and soul-destroying crimes ! The Church of God lifts men up into the noblest manhood; the Saloon throws them down into the lowest degradation. The Church attempts to make men over into the image of God, the Saloon blots out the last trace of that image from their souls. The Saloon robs them of the glory of manhood, and of all that makes immortality desirable. The knowledge of the wretchedness which it brings to innocent wives and children, is enough to break the heart of a thoughtful man with its continuous aching. Seeing the work of destruction which it is constantly THE MORAL LIFE. ng producing, one is led to cry out in the bitterness of his spirit and in the agony of his entire being, "How long, O Lord, Holy and True!" The misery of the children of drunkards would move the eyes of angels to tears. The most important reform among workingmen is not fewer hours of labor, but fewer glasses of liquor. The recent Personal Liberty League had its birth in the Saloon. It is a monstrosity, perhaps we ought rather to say that it is the natural offspring of monstrous parents. Every one familiar with the history of this recent monstrosity can at once divine its unholy parentage ; it is not difficult to trace it back to the place and even the time of its birth. Senator Windom, whose strong words are not too strong, says : I DO NOT OVERSTATE it, when I say that the two hundred thousand saloons in this country have been instrumental in destroying more human lives, in the last five years, than the two millions of armed men did during the four years of the rebellion. Whiskey is a more deadly weapon than shot and shell, or any of the implements of our improved modern warfare." Surely, society has a right to protect itself against so terrific an evil ! Surely, the time has come when that protection should be sought and secured ! Surely, the day will dawn when the last saloon shall be removed from this long-suffering world ! The time has now come when all the friends of the Church of God, and of the human race, must be summoned to work along various lines, in order to lessen this terrible curse. THIS, WE EMPHATICALLY AFFIRM, IS THE MOST important question, economically, politically, and religiously, now before this republic. The party which will bow down at the feet of the Satanic tyrant, Alcohol, is a party for which the world has no use, God no respect, and the devil no dread. Politicians must take heed. This nation is aroused. It will not longer submit to the dictation of the Saloon. A brighter day is dawning. The procession is forming. It will march to the music of a redeemed humanity and a triumphant Christ. The train will go, whether these liquor-enslaved politicians are on board or not. The ultimate end at which we all should aim is the total extinction of the Saloon. Toward that end we must move with unfaltering step, with buoyant heart and with radiant face. God and eternal truth are on our side. It is certain that many of the greatest economic, social and religious problems of the present and the future are to be solved in America. The nation which slew and buried the monster, Slavery, after four years of THE MORAL LIFE. tears and blood, can slay and bury the twin monster — the Saloon. For this work, O Church of the Living God, now gird thyself in the might of thy conquering Lord ! The conflict is long and bitter. It was begun in Eden, it shall end in Eden restored. Jesus Christ is King. The seed of the woman shall crush the head of the serpent. — R. S. Mac Arthur. G THE DRUNKARD'S DAUGHTER. O, feel what I have felt, Go, bear what I have borne ; Sink 'neath a blow a father dealt, And the cold, proud world's scorn ; Thus struggle on from year to year, Thy sole relief — the scalding tear. Go, weep as I have wept, O'er a loved father's fall, See every cherished promise swept — Youth's sweetness turned to gall ; Hope's faded flowers strewed all the way That led me up to woman's day. Go, kneel as I have knelt ; Implore, beseech, and pray, Strive the besotted heart to melt, The downward course to stay; Be cast with bitter curse aside — Thy prayers burlesqued, thy tears defied. Go, stand where I have stood, And see the strong man bow ; With gnashing teeth, lips bathed in blood, And cold and livid brow ; Go, catch his wandering glance, and see There mirrored, his soul's misery. Go, hear what I have heard — The sobs of sad despair, As memory's feeling fount hath stirred, And its revealings there Have told him what he might have been. Had he the drunkard's fate foreseen. THE MORAL LIFE. Go to my mother's side, And her crushed spirit cheer; Thine own deep anguish hide, Wipe from her cheek the tear. Mark her dimmed eye, her furrowed brow, The gray that streaks her dark hair now ; Her toil-worn frame, her trembling limb, And trace the ruin back to him Whose plighted faith, in early youth, Promised eternal love and truth ; But who, foresworn, hath yielded up That promise to the deadly cup, And led her down from love and light, From all that made her pathway bright, And chained her there 'mid want and strife, That lowly thing — a drunkard's wife ! And stamped on childhood's brow so mild, That withering blight, a drunkard's child ! Go, hear, and see, and feel, and know, All that my soul hath felt and known, Then look upon the wine-cup's glow ; See if its brightness can atone ; Think if its flavor you will try, If all proclaimed, " 'Tis drink and die!" Tell me I hate the bowl;. Hate is a feeble word : I loath, abhor — my very soul With strong disgust is stirred Whene'er I see, or hear, or tell, Of the dark beverage of hell ! Every act of the man inscribes itself on the memories of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. To detract from other men, and turn their disadvantages to our own profit, is more contrary to nature, than death, poverty, or grief, or anything which can affect our bodies or circumstances. THE MORAL LIFE. DANGER OF DRINK. . T N the midst of the mining regions a wealthy contractor gave a grand ball 1 in his sumptuous parlors. The rooms sparkled with brightness, and resounded with music and laughter. In the midst of the revelry the host sent a servant below for some forgotten duty, bidding him carry a candle with him to light his way. Ten minutes afterward, finding the servant in the corridor, he asked him of his errand and finds it done. Where did he leave the candle ? Carelessly left it burning, sticking in a barrel of sand standing in the cellar. He will go down and blow it out. No, the host will go himself. An instant he is on the stair, and then calmness to the winds. Oh, awful danger ! Sand ! Blasting powder ! Ten barrels lying there side by side ! Any moment an awful explosion may hurl youth and beauty into awful death. An instant and he is in the farther cellar. There is the candle, beaming out from its socket in the dark, glistening sand of death. A current of air has burned it hurriedly, and a long, shining wick is hanging down, just ready to fall. Carefully, with hands extended, he creeps toward it, holding his very breath, lest it cast down the fatal spark. There it goes ! God be merciful ! No, it has caught again in the side of the dripping wax. Nearer yet, and then, unmindful of the flame, with tight clenched hands, he draws it out, and then reels senseless to the ground And when the cool air revives him and he finds again the upper air, his hair, black before, is white as driven snow, aged in a single hour. An awful danger! A merciful escape! — but not worthy of mention, young man, beside the danger of him who lights the faintest gleam of indulgence in the midst of this explosive life. Keep away, in God's name, keep away from the danger of habit and the man-traps of hell. You are too good to be a slave to the devil. Prove it,- and live to honor God and save eternally your better self. — Man-Traps of the City. I have seen some persons who have had great estates left them, to break their fast in plenty, dine in poverty, and sup in infamy. A SOUND faith is the best divinity, a good conscience the best law, and temperance the best physic. One month in the school of affliction will teach' more . than the great precepts of Aristotle in seven years, because you can never judge rightly of human affairs unless you have felt the blows and found out the deceits of fortune. THE MORAL LIFE. 123 GAMBLING RUINS AT LAST. AT last ! There lies the value of all in this world, and at last the stake is an awful one for him who tampers with honor and risks himself to sin. A young man, the messenger of a leading jewelry importer, stood upon the deck of a steamer in mid-ocean. He was bearing across the sea a jewel of great price, not to be risked but by personal conveyance. The sky overhead was blue in its summer depths and the ocean around was placid and still as the ship sped away toward the West. He was looking over the ship's rail at the hissing current along the iron side as the vessel sped along. From somewhere came a thought (who can tell whence thoughts come ?). He took from his breast the jewel, and looked at it in the sunlight as it burned like a star in its brightness. THEN HE LOOKED AT THE WATER SPEEDING away ; and then he laughed and walked away. A little, and he was back again in the same spot, the jewel in his hand. A sudden madness seemed to have taken possession of him, for he reached far out over the water and tossed the glistening jewel in the air, and caught it as it fell, there over the fathomless sea. And then he shuddered as he turned away and gasped to think — if he had lost it ! In a few hours he was back again. A strange fascination hung about the daring of his recklessness. Again the jewel shone in the sunlight, and he caught it. Again — and he caught it. Still again — and he caught it. A mad intoxication seemed to chain him there. Again — and he caught it; again — and he caught at it, clutched for it, reached for it — but it was gone ; his grasp had failed ; AND AS HE REALIZED his loss and its senseless folly, reason faded and a gibbering maniac came home the monument of a fool's reckless daring. It was a jewel of great price, but what, oh, my friend, beside the jewel you imperil — an immortal soul? It is the stake that at last is kept or lost. Only this single word would I add : You may gain all that the tables of earth may bear; you may amass treasure untold, and wealth uncounted, and still it may be but the price of a lost soul. For a gambler has but one cry at last, and it is that that echoes through the arches of eternal woe. And in that cry of anguish, if you turn from God, your voice must join, for through all the shadows of abysmal gloom there sounds the accents of that one sad wail, lost! lost! lost forever! — Man-Traps of the City. Every temptation is great or small according as the man I2 4 THE MORAL LIFE. THE STORY OF A JUDGE'S SON. A LAD Y in one of our Southern cities had her attention arrested one day by a ragged and half drunken boy of about seventeen, who was declaiming for the amusement of a crowd of drunken loafers, from the English and Latin classics, urged on to this exhibition of his powers by the promise of "two big drinks." An undefinable air of refinement, in spite of his profane and drunken conduct, attracted the lady's attention, and his pure pronunciation and admirable declamation caused her to stop and listen. While she was listening a dispute arose, a fight ensued, and the boy was arrested and taken to jail, where it was discovered that he had received internal and fatal injuries in the melde. The lady interested herself in him, found that he was the son of a rich judge in Mississippi, that he had run away from home a year ago, and now he was dying, a drunken vagabond in jail. We will let him tell the causes which brought him there in his own words. " Were your parents unkind to you that you left them ? " said his benefactress. "Unkind," he repeated with a sob. "Oh, I wish I could remember a single harsh or unkind word from them ! That would be a little excuse, you know. No, they were only too indulgent. I was a little wild then, and I 've heard father say, after I'd sowed my wild oats I'd come out all right." " I can't understand why you left good parents and home," said the lady. " Wait a minute, I'm coming to that. I'm almost ashamed to tell it, it sounds so silly. You see I had been reading a great many stories of adventure. I bought every new volume as it was issued. My parents did not disapprove of these books and did not question me in regard to them. They did not suspect how tired I was growing of my dull life, and how I longed to imitate some of my plucky young heroes. I thought, as soon as I was free, adventure would pile in upon me." " I interrupted him," says the lady. "How is it possible that you, whose education had been so carefully carried on, who can appreciate the beauties of classical literature, could be influenced by such trash?" "I don't know," he answered, " but I was. Perhaps I didn't appreciate what you call better things, but I learned them by rote because I liked the sound. They didn't seem to belong to my real life, these stories did. They were boys like myself who did these wonderful things and were so reckless and brave, and they lived in a world like ours." Thus this boy died ; carefully reared, lovingly nurtured. At seventeen years of age he died an outcast, a drunkard, a tramp in jail, and his last words were : " Warn, warn all young people whom you know to let these foolish books alone. They are very silly, they harm many, and they have ruined me. They take you one step on the bad road and the rest comes easy." THE MORAL LIFE. * 125 AMERICA'S MOST POPULAR SIN. AMERICANS are the profanest people in the world. A traveller in Russia was judged to be a clergyman because he was not heard to swear, all other Americans being - supposed to be addicted to this wicked practice. The air is filled with oaths. Turn where you will, you can hear men swear. Young and old, men and women, high and low, rich and poor, learned and illiterate, church members and non-church members, prostitute the name of God to vile and mean uses. LOUIS IX.'S PUNISHMENT FOR SWEARING. Louis IX., of France, punished any one who was convicted of swearing by searing his lips with a hot iron. If we had such a law in Philadelphia, how the hot iron business would flourish. When some one complained to the King that the punishment was too severe, he replied, " I would to God that by searing my own lips, I could banish out of my realm all abuse of oaths." Chrysostom's remedy was : " Every time, whenever thou shalt forget thyself to have let slip an oath, punish thyself for it by missing the next meal." With such a custom prevailing in our midst, how many boarding-houses would flourish ? Now, we have five reasons why the name of God should not be taken in vain : It is useless. Did curses ever start a heavy load? Did they ever unravel a tangled skein? Did they ever take the meanness out of a customer? Did they ever collect a bad debt? Did they ever cure a toothache ? Did they ever accomplish anything ? Verily, the swearer is the silliest of all dealers in sin. He sins gratis. He sells his soul for nothing. THE FOLLY OF CURSING. When Job's misfortunes were completed by being himself smitten with boils from head to foot, Mrs. Job, the worst boil he had, virtually said to him : " Why don't you swear ? Curse God, though you die in so doing." Yet profanity would not have removed one boil, would not have brought back one of the captured animals, nor restored any one of the dead children. It is cowardly to swear. There was once a man who swore dreadfully in the presence of others, but was rebuked by a gentleman, who told him that it was cowardly for him to do in the presence of others that which he did not dare do by himself. "Ah," said the man, "I am not afraid to swear at any time or in any place." " I'll give you ten dollars," said the gentleman, "if you will go in the village graveyard at twelve o'clock to-night and utter the same oaths you have just uttered here, when you are alone with God." 126 THE MORAL LIFE. "Agreed," said the man; "it's an easy way of earning ten dollars." "Well, you come to me to-morrow, and say that you have done it, and the money is yours." He was impatient for the midnight hour. When the time came he hurried to the graveyard. Darkness and silence were brooding like spirits o'er the still and pulseless world. Beneath him the many dead, above him pitch darkness. The words, " alone with God," came over him with mighty power; a deep sense of his monstrous folly and heinous wickedness fell upon him like the sudden pealing thunder of the midnight storm. His further endeavors were thwarted by the Invisible One. He could go no further. Instead of carrying out his purpose, acting rudely and saucily with God ; instead of blistering his mouth with hot and sulphurous oaths, he was humbled, and trembling, cried with a loud voice, " God be merciful to me a sinner." The next day he went to the gentleman and thanked him for what he had done; and said he had resolved never to swear another oath as long as he lived. TO SWEAR IS IMPOLITE. Cowper once wrote : " It chills my blood to hear the blest Supreme, Lightly appealed to on each trifling theme ; Maintain your rank ; vulgarity despise ; To swear is neither brave, polite, nor wise." Can he who leads every sentence with an oath or a curse, wear the name and garb of a gentleman ? This reminds me of that incident of Abraham Lincoln, who said to a person sent to him by one of the Senators, and who in conversation uttered an oath : " I thought the Senator had sent me a gentleman. I see I was mistaken. There is the door, and I bid you good-day." VULGARITY OF SWEARING. Profanity indicates low . breeding. It detracts from the grace of conversation. It is an evidence of a weak brain and limited ideas. I care not what kind of clothes a man wears; what culture he boasts; what refinement he prides in ; what family connections he has ; how much he may restrain himself in the presence of ladies, he who fears not to rush into the presence of a thrice holy and Almighty God, with oaths upon his lips, is no gentleman. No language can be more disgustful, more grate the ear or fret the heart, than to hear the God of Heaven summoned in attestation of tattle, or challenged to damn and destroy. Swearing is ivicked. It springs from a mere malignancy of spirit in man against God, because he has forbidden it. As far as the violation of THE MORAL LIFE. 127 the command of God is concerned, the swearer is equally guilty with the murderer, the unchaste person, the robber, and the liar. Whose is this name which men roll off the lips of blasphemy as though they were speaking of some low vagabond. God ! Yes, men swear by the name of God. It makes my hair rise, my flesh creep, my blood chill, my breath catch, my foot halt. God! In whose presence the highest and purest seraphim veil their faces, and cry in notes responsive to each other : " Holy I Holy! Holy! Lord God of Hosts!" God! God Almighty! Think! Swearer, think ! You are guilty of a sin that mounts to Heaven with daring, and is hurled back into your blasphemous teeth with withering condemnation. Every star in the heavens flashes rebuke into your face ; every quivering leaf, every lurid shaft of lightning, every shock of thunder, all the voices of the tempest, the harping angels, and the very scoffing devils rebuke you. Who will ever again malign the name of God? Is there a hand in this vast congregation to-night that will ever again be lifted to wound him ? If so, let that hand, blood-tipped, be lifted now. Which one of you will ever again use his name in imprecation? If any, let them speak. Not one! Not one ! THE DANGER OF SWEARING. Swearing is a dangerous sin. The third commandment is the only one in the decalogue to which is affixed the certainty of punishment : " For the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain." It was a capital offence under the Levitical law (Lev. xx: 10). The New Testament reiterates in paragraph after paragraph and chapter after chapter, that profane swearers are accursed now, and are to be forever miserable. No wonder that this iniquity has so often been visited with the immediate curse of God. Profane swearer, whether you think so or not, your oath is a prayer — an appeal to God. How frequently the awful imprecations damn and God damn roll from your profane tongue. Are you really desirous of an answer to your prayer? Be thankful that your prayer has not been answered. A COWARDLY HABIT. The oaths that you utter may die on the air, but God hears them, and they have an eternal echo. I beseech you, I conjure you, break off this useless, impolite, cowardly, wicked, and dangerous habit ere the brittle thread of life breaks, and you are plunged into eternal misery. Oh! let your oaths be turned into supplications! Repair immediately to the throne of grace, and beg for pardon and mercy. Before you lay down this book, turn to Jesus, who died for swearers as well as for his murderers. And then, oh then, though you may have sworn as many oaths as there are 128 THE MORAL LIFE. stars in the heavens, and sands upon the sea-shore innumerable — then you shall find, to your eternal joy, that there is love in His heart, and merit in His blood, sufficient to pardon your sins and save your soul forever. Swearer, can you ever again blaspheme such a God and Saviour as this? Does not your conscience cry, God forbid ? Even so. Amen. THE HORRORS OF CIGARETTE SMOKING. AS to cigarette smoking, properly practised and with due regard to moderation, and provided also that pure tobacco be used, I can not see how it is more injurious than cigars or pipes. But no speedier method for rendering existence painful is more efficacious than to smoke cigarettes and to inhale the fumes into the lungs. By this practice a very large absorbing surface is exposed to the action of the nicotine and other poisonous products which are evolved when tobacco is burned. As a consequence, the system is more thoroughly subjected to their influence ; and disease more certainly produced. The action of the brain is impaired thereby, the ability to think, and, in fact, all mental concentration are weakened. Neuralgia, especially about the face, throat diseases, nasal catarrh, serious affections of the eyes, dyspepsia, and, above all, interruption in the normal action of the heart, are among the consequences resulting from the inordinate use of tobacco and especially from the inhalation of cigarette smoke. This is not mere theory, for I have seen many cases of all these disorders in the course of my practice as a physician, and have known them to be directly traceable to the cause mentioned. Laws for the repression of cigarette smoking by young persons are difficult, if not impossible, of enforcement. It can be prevented only through the proper education of parents and guardians, and the children themselves. VILELY ADULTERATED. Investigation shows that the cigarettes sold in this country are, as a rule, vilely adulterated, and with substances even more injurious than tobacco. Something might be done, perhaps, by the passage of laws preventing the manufacture or sale of cigarettes. Surely, if the law can interfere to stop the production of oleomargarine on the ground of its being prejudicial to the health of the public, it might properly be invoked on the same plea for the manufacture of cigarettes. Some states do not allow alcohol in any form to be produced or sold within their limits, and yet I am inclined to believe that more injury can be inflicted on the human race by the excessive use of tobacco by young persons than by immoderate liquor THE MORAL LIFE. 129 drinking. The latter would probably kill more quickly and before the subject would have an opportunity of procreating the species, but the former would certainly destroy the health and vitality of those who might descend from him. In the city of Washington I saw a few days ago a wretched looking child, scarcely five years old, smoking a cigarette and blowing the smoke from his nostrils. His pale, pinched face was twitching convulsively, his little shoulders were bent, and his whole appearance was that of an old man. Should he live to become the father of a family, what kind of children is he likely to have ? — Dr. Hammond. OPIUM. IT is estimated that 400,000 women in America eat opium. The use of opium as a medicine can be traced back to Diagoras, who was nearly contemporary with Hippocrates ; but opium was probably used before his time. It is at present more frequently used than any other article of materia medica. The Hindoos and Mohammedans find in this narcotic the most pleasing substitute for alcoholic drinks which are interdicted by their religion. In Persia, Turkey, and among many nations of the East, opium is as common as tobacco is in the West. It is employed by many for its exhilarating effect and anodyne influence. While the pernicious influence of opium extends to all parts of the system, it is directed with peculiar force to the brain, and even in moderation excites sometimes to intoxication or delirium. In a short time this excitement subsides, a calmness of the corporeal actions and a delightful placidity of mind succeed, and the opium drunkard is forgetful of all sources of care, conscious of no feeling other than that of quiet enjoyment. At the end of about half an hour from the administration of the drug, consciousness is lost in sleep. Opium, like other " 111 habits gather by unseen degrees, As brooks make rivers, rivers run to seas." Used to excess, opium debilitates the system, darkens the counte- nance; then comes the slow, scarcely-perceptible respiration, the cold, clammy skin, insensibility to external impressions, all leading, slowly it may be, but surely, to a death of agony. Pastors and physicians alone know the appalling work of opium. Oh man, oh woman, stand back from this steal thly, deceitful, deathful habit! The momentary ecstasies do not pay for the eternal horrors. 130 THE MORAL LIFE. Morphia, the active principle of opium, a blessing from God for the relief of excruciating pain, was never intended for permanent use. Let physicians say so, and let us have a law forbidding druggists selling on old prescriptions. Druggists tell me that more women than men, and those of wealthy and intelligent families, rather than the poor and ignorant, go down under the power of morphia. It is estimated that there are at least ten thousand opium victims in Philadelphia. A leading druggist told me: " I can tell them as soon as I see them ; there is something about theii manner, something about the looks of their eyes that show that they are victims." Opium is coming on with mighty tread to curse this country. And it is time that the pulpit and the press, the authorized rebukers of wrong the creators of public sentiment, go to work to extirpate this evil. STRAY ARROWS FROM THE EDITOR'S QUIVER. DRINK a glass of whisky and it passes into your blood, through youi heart, into the lungs and finally into the brain. Every part of the body tries to refuse it admission, and so it hurries on, but leaves somewhat of itself behind, poisoning everything it touches, its baneful influence remains. When the alcohol reaches the heart it goads the heart to greater work, and so the heart beats faster. The normal condition of the heart is 100,000 strokes a day, but an abnormal condition produced by the use of alcohol, increases the heart's work to 130,000 strokes a day. This extra labor is very wearing upon the heart. The manifestation of this undue excitement of the heart is felt in the morning headache after last night's drunk. Alcohol kept the heart pumping all night when it should have been resting. The following table, prepared from a series of careful observations made by Mr. F. G. P. Nelson, of London, contrasts the " Expectations of Life" for temperate and intemperate persons: Temperate. Intemperate. Loss of Life. Iges. Years. Years. Years. 20 44-2 15-5 287 30 36-5 13-8 227 40 28-8 1 1-6 17-2 5o 21*2 10-9 10-3 60 I4-3 8-9 5*4 Is not whisky a good thing in its place ? Nothing better to preserve a dead man, but nothing worse to keep a living man. If you want to keep THE MORAL LIFE. 131 a. dead man put him into whisky, but if you want to kill a living man, put whisky into him. Whisky is good enough to preserves corpses, but don't let it turn you into a corpse. PUTTING AN ENEMY INTO YOUR MOUTH. Why spend your money for strong drink? There are men who are shrewd in all their dealings, but will allow themselves to be cheated by unhealthy adulterations, and put an enemy into their mouths that will rob them of their senses. The most important physiological effect of alcohol in the human system is that of a contracting or puckering up of the softer animal tissues. I took a piece of fresh beef and the alcohol whitened and hardened it. Brandy in six days consumed fresh meat. A raw oyster, which is very digestible, it shriveled and toughened as leather Such in a degree is the effect produced by the contact of alcohol with the stomach. The white of an egg is nearly pure albumen, and albumen forms a constituent part of the essential fluids necessary to digestion. Alcohol hardens the albumen, and hence interferes with the proper digestion of food, and thus we have the prevalency of disorders of the digestive organs among persons who drink. This is in itself a refutation of the claim so often made that alcohol is a tonic. Alcohol does not create a healthy condition of the body; the corpulency of beer and wine drinkers seldom continues to old age. First the legs, then the shoulders give way, and finally the whole body becomes loose and flabby. A GENERAL CORPULENCE OF THE BODY IS NOT A HEALTHY STATE, but the reverse. No animal in the state of nature exhibits any considerable deposit of fat. Animals are fattened only for the slaughter. Certain classes of men have the appearance of great bodily vigor, notwithstanding the habitual use of liquor, and undergo great muscular exertion, but the constitutions of such men break down before they are advanced in years ; diseases and injuries of the most trifling character are often very serious : the slightest scratch or bruise often causing a fatal attack of erysipelas, etc. Surgeons unwillingly perform operations on drinking men, because the chance of recovery is so small. John Quincy Adams, ex-President of the United States, says : " In my early youth I was addicted to the use of tobacco. More than thirty years have passed away since I renounced its use. I have often wished that every individual of the human race afflicted with this artificial passion, could prevail upon himself to try but for three months the experiment 132 THE MORAL LIFE. which I have made, feeling sure that it would turn every acre of tobacco land into a wheat field, and add five years of longevity to human life." James Parton, the American biographer, Who discontinued the use of tobacco after having been a slave to it for thirty years, says: " I have less headache, I enjoy exercise more, and step out much more vigorously. My room is cleaner, I think I am better tempered, as well as more cheerful and satisfied. T endure the inevitable ills of life with more fortitude, and look forward more hopefully to the coming years. // did not pay to smoke, but it decidedly pays to stop smoking." SOWING WILD OATS. Young man, I warn you against the man who lives fast, knows the town, is up to all the dodges of licentious villainy, rolls all the vile and sensual gossip under his tongue, who boasts of the "wild oats" he is sowing, and who takes a fiendish delight in undermining the principle and ridiculing the scruples of the uninitiated. Cut such a companion off and cast him from you. Forsake that saloon, give up that club, frequent no longer that convivial meeting which breaks up after the midnight hour, and the members of which, inflamed with strong drink and licentious stories and songs, go madly to seek the gratification of their fevered and raging lusts. " Come out from among them and be separate." It is better that you should go companionless to Heaven, than that with these sons of Belial you should be cast into hell. It is estimated that while fewer women drink than men, yet a larger proportion of those who do drink become habitual drunkards, and while men reform women seldom do. In New York City, in ten years, of 133,000 persons arrested for intoxication, 66,000 were women. Multitudes of women drink, and it is no unusual thing to see acknowledged ladies at balls, dinners and in fashionable gatherings so overpowered by an old- fashioned drunk that they can hardly sit up. " When lovely woman stoops to folly, And finds too late that nips betray, What charm can soothe her melancholy? What art can wash her guilt away?" We desire to hint briefly that a low-necked dress is not the proper dress for church, if, indeed, for anywhere. We have seen this sort of thing at a church wedding. St. Paul says, "It is a shame for a woman to pray unto God uncovered." He meant, we believe, with uncovered head; how much more would he have preached against a much greater impropriety. THE MORAL LIFE. 133 Cigarette smoking has become so prevalent among our boys, that its deadly bane has led some of our legislatures to pass acts " prohibiting the sale of cigarettes or tobacco in any of its forms to minors." Dr. Hammond says : " Cigarettes produce facial neuralgia, insomnia, nervous dyspepsia, sciatica and an indisposition to mental exertion." Cigarettes are beginning to overshadow all other branches of the tobacco business, and our most eminent physicians agree in condemning cigarette smoking as one of the most destructive evils- that ever befell our youth, and declare that its direct tendency is a deterioration of the race. Even females, who call themselves ladies, habitually use cigarettes. The New York Tribune asserts : "The extent to which drugs are used in cigarettes is appalling." Life insurance is a business, and is run, not on sentiment or religion, but on business principles. But life insurance men find that theyvcan not afford to insure beer-drinkers at the same rates as abstainers. Says Col. Green, President of the Connecticut Mutual Company : " In one of our largest cities, containing a great population of beer- drinkers, I had the occasion to note the deaths among a large group of persons whose habits, in their own eyes and in those of their physicians and friends, were temperate ; but they were habitual users of beer. When I began they were, on an average, something under middle age ; and they were of course ' selected lives. For two or three years nothing remarkable was to be noted. But presently death began to strike down the group, until it had dwindled to a fraction ; the mortality was astounding in extent, and still more remarkable in the manifest identity of cause and mode. " There was no mistaking; the history was almost invariable — robust, apparent health, full muscles, fair outside, increasing weight ; then a touch of cold, or a sniff of malaria, and instantly some acute disease, with almost invariably typhoid symptoms was in violent action, and ten days or less ended life. It was as if the system within was eaten to a shell, and at the touch of disease there was utter collapse, every fibre being poisoned and weak. This, in its main features, has been my observation of beer-drinking everywhere — peculiarly deceptive at first, thoroughly destructive at last." Treating is a trick of the devil. America is the only place where the foolish and expensive show of hospitality is recognized. In Europe you insult a man if you ask him to come to a public place and let you pay for what he drinks. Here, the custom is universal, and many a young man is established in intemperance because he feels himself bound by a law of reciprocal generosity to treat. Let your motto be : / will neither treat nor be treated. 134 THE MORAL LIFE. False swearing is a gross crime. The lying witness does much hurt. He corrupts the judge ; oppresses the innocent, suppresses the truth. He endangers the life, the liberty and all that is sacred to man. The false witness bearer is the most vile and infamous, the most pernicious and perilous instrument of injustice ; the most desperate enemy of man's right and safety that can be. I don't believe that the cultivation of a horse's speed is a sin. If the Lord made fast horses, it was to have them go fast. But the evil begins when the betting begins — when fast horses make fast men. Gambling is accursed of God. Upon the brow of every pool-seller I would write the unmistakable word " Swindler." I know of many men and women who bet on horses last summer, and I do not know of one who won. I am glad of it. I hope it may so discourage them that they may quit. If a man gain he is apt to go right on to hell. Don't debauch your conscience. Tell the truth about your goods, though you may be discharged the next moment. You can not afford to lie, cheat, deceive, and swindle. At the bar of conscience the commercial lie is as bad as any other lie, and at the day of judgment the business liar will go down to death under as deep a condemnation as any other. Tell the truth. Undoubtedly it is a hard thing for a man in business to tell the truth when it ought to be told. Tell the truth, no matter what is the custom of the trade — the established, acknowledged custom of the trade. To tell the truth at all times and under all circumstances requires as much heroism as was ever displayed upon the field of battle. Of all the valiant men in the world, let him be chief who dares to tell the truth ! Warburton says: " Lies . have no legs and cannot stand;" but they have wings and can fly like a vampire. Lies go by telegraph ; truth comes by mail one day late. Some one has said : "A big lie, like a big fish on dry land, will fret and fling, but will die of itself if left alone." The half-truth lies are the most dangerous of all lies. In Siam, a kingdom of Asia, he who is found guilty of telling a lie has his mouth sewed up. If we had such a law what a demand there would be for needles and thread ! Even a white lie is a base, degrading thing. A lie is a lie. "No man zvas ever lost in a straight road." If you will make a fool of yourself for the gratification of other people, with a "hip! hip! hurrah!" they will declare that you are the best THE MORAL LIFE. 135 fellow in the world, but as soon as your money is gone, depend upon it your friends (?) will be gone, too. The prodigal son was at last compelled to feed swine — most scurvy work— -and bow many men — men, did I say? Excuse the mistake — how many swells, who live off the earnings of their fathers, if they were thrown upon their own resources, would be fit for no better employment than herding swine ? TRUE STANDARD OF MORALITY. AM AN'S moral worth is not to be graduated by his negative virtues — the evil he merely refrains from doing— but by the amount of temptation he •overcomes. He is not to be judged by his defeats alone, but also by his victories. Many a man passes through life without a spot on his character, who, notwithstanding, never struggled so bravely as he who fell and was disgraced. The latter may have called to his aid more principle, overcome more evil, before he yielded, than the former, either from circumstances or his physical constitution, was ever called to do. It would be as unnatural, it would require as great an effort for the cold, phlegmatic and passionless being to be vehement, wild and headlong, as for the fiery and tempestuous man to be quiet and emotionless. Victory is nothing — it depends upon the nature of the conflict and the •odds evercome. Greater generalship, cooler bravery, and loftier effort may be shown in one defeat than in a hundred victories. We have no patience with those moralists of mere animal organization, who place the finest wrought spirits God ever let visit the earth, on their iron bedstead, and stretch and clip according to the simple rule- of long measure. A higher and juster standard is needed. A passionate and highly-strung nature can be no more understood by the dealer in stocks and real estate, or the dull plodder in the routine of his daily duties, than the highest paroxysm of the poet can be comprehended by his dog. — /. T. Headley. JELLY-BAG READERS. COLERIDGE divides all readers into four classes: "The hour-glasses readers, whose reading, like the sand, runs in and then out, leaving nothing behind ; the sponge-readers, who imbibe everything only to return it as they got it, or dirtier ; the jelly-bag readers, who let the pure pass and keep only the dregs and refuse ; and the fourth class, who, like the slaves in Golconda mines, cast aside all that is worthless, and keep only the diamonds 136 THE MORAL LIFE. and gems. The class of books and papers generally read are only the dregs and refuse, and this never gets strained out of the reader's lives until the day they die." CHARACTERISTICS OF GRUMBLERS. IF all the grumblers in the world were summoned together by some thundering calliope, what an army there would be! 4 Since the days of Xerxes, nothing could compare with such an host. You will find them everywhere as thick as the frogs of Egypt, no trade, calling, or profession is free from them. Let us describe them. Grumblers are usually a very lazy set. Having no disposition to work themselves, they spend their time in whining and complaining about their own affairs and those of their neighbors. They are usually a year behind the age, and, therefore, when they undertake an enterprise, they find themselves so far down the stream, that all the winds and tides of sympathy, so necessary to success, are against them. They are usually very independent, "caring nothing for nobody." Determined to go it "blind," they find it a "wide berth," and a "hard road to travel" wherever they go. They are easily scared. They always see double: a lion is in the way sure; no mistake about it. There is always "something about to happen." "Look out for breakers," is the one refrain of their every-day song. They have as capacious an appetite for favors as for food; and are therefore always on hand, and "just in time to accept the gift of a very particular friend." Their favorite motto is, " small favors thank- fully received, and larger ones in proportion." They are always very jealous of "character and influence in society," and generally "quite as good as anybody:" they should therefore be treated with great consideration. They are usually long-lived, as their disease is incurable ; they should be treated as the lepers are, kept by themselves where they can grumble at each other to their heart's content. ENERVATING INFLUENCE OF NOVELS. THE habit of novel-reading must inevitably enervate your manhood, and dwarf your mind, and give you a disrelish for the great and grand and true in the world of thought. If our youth would be men, and not sink in effeminacy, they must leave the region of sickly sentimentalism, rise above the childish pursuits of butterflies, and live in regions of lofty thought, and associate with the master-minds of Creation, by pondering over the productions of their splendid and affluent genius. This will enlarge the sphere of the thinking faculty, give it quickening impulses, and lead the mind upward to all that is glorious and divine in the world of intellect. — R. Roberts. THE MORAL LIFE. 137 A GLASS OF COLD WATER. WHERE is the liquor which God the Eternal brews for all his children? Not in the simmering- still, over smoky fires choked with poisonous gases, surrounded with the stench of sickening odors, and rank corruptions, doth your Father in Heaven prepare the precious essence of life — the pure cold water. But in the green glade and grassy dell, where the red deer wanders, and the child loves to play; there God brews -it. And down, low down in the lowest valleys, where the fountains murmur and the rills sing ; and high upon the tall mountain tops, where the naked granite glitters like gold in the sun ; where the storm-cloud broods, and the thunder-storms crash ; and away far out on the wide wild sea, where the hurricane howls mus*ic, and the big waves roar ; the chorus sweeping the march of God : there he brews it — that beverage of life and health-giving water. And everywhere it is a thing of beauty, gleaming in the dew-drop ; singing in the summer rain ; shining in the ice-gems till the leaves all seem to turn to living jewels; spreading a golden veil over the setting sun; or a white gauze around the midnight moon. Sporting in the cataract; sleeping in the glacier; dancing in the hail shower; folding its bright snow curtains softly about the wintry world; and waving the many-colored iris, that seraph's zone of the sky, whose warp is the rain-drop of earth, whose roof is the sunbeam of Heaven; all checkered over with celestial flowers, by the mystic hand of refraction. Still always it is beautiful, that life-giving water ; no poison bubbles on its brink; its foam brings not madness and murder; no blood stains its liquid glass ; pale widows and starving orphans weep no burning tears in its depth; no drunken, shrieking ghost from the grave curses it in the words of eternal despair; speak on, my friends, would you exchange for it demon's drink, alcohol! A wise man valueth content more than riches, and a virtuous mind rather than great preferment. A just man should account nothing more precious than his word, nothing more venerable than his faith, and nothing more sacred than his promise. Time, patience, and industry are three grand masters of the world ; they bring a man to the end of his desires, whereas an imprudent and turbulent murmur oftentimes turns him out of the ways of his proposed ends. 138 THE MORAL LIFE. SONG OF THE DECANTER. There was an old decanter, and its mouth was gaping wide ; the rosy wine had ebbed away and left its crys- tal side; and the wind went humming, humming; up and down the sides it flew, and through the reed-like hollow neck the wildest notes it blew. I placed it in the window, where the blast was blowing free, and fancied that its pale mouth sang the queerest strains to me. "They tell me — puny con- querors!— the Plague has slain his ten, and War his hundred thousands of the very best of men ; but I " — 'twas thus the bottle spoke — "but I have con- quered more than all your famous con- querors, so feared and famed of yore. Then come, ye youths and maidens, come drink from out my cup, the bev- erage that dulls the brain and burns the spirit up; that puts to shame the conquerors that slay their scores below; for this has del- uged millions with the lava tide of woe. Though, in the path of battle, darkest waves of blood may roll; yet while I killed the body, I have damned the very soul. The cholera, the sword, such ruin never wrought, as I, in mirth or malice, on the innocent have brought. And still I breathe upon them, and they shrink before my breath ; and year by year my thousands tread THE FEARFUL ROAD TO DEATH. THE MORAL LIFE. 139 CHARLES LAMB TO YOUNG MEN. THE waters have gone over me. But out of the black depths, could I be heard, I could cry out to all those who have but set a foot in the perilous flood. Could the youth to whom the flavor of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly discovered paradise, look into my desolation and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a passive will — to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, and yet feel it all the way emanating from himself, to see all godliness emptied out of him and yet not able to forget a time when it was otherwise ; to bear about him the piteous spectacle of his own ruin. Could he see my fevered eye — feverish with the last night's drinking and feverishly looking for to-night's repetition of the folly ; could he but feel the body of the death out of which I cry, hourly with feebler outcry, to be delivered — it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of its mantling temptation. AN ELOQUENT INDICTMENT. INTEMPERANCE cuts down youth in all its vigor, manhood in all its strength, and age in its weakness. It breaks the father's heart, bereaves the doting mother, extinguishes the natural affection, erases conjugal love, blots out filial attachments, blights parental hopes and brings mourning age in sorrow to the grave. It produces weakness, not strength ; sickness, not health; death, not life. It makes wives widows, children orphans, parents childless, and all at last beggars. It produces fevers, feeds rheumatism, nurses gout, welcomes epidemic, .invites disease, imparts pestilence, embraces consumption, cherishes dyspepsia, and encourages apoplexy and paralytic affections. It covers the land with idleness and poverty, disease and crime. It fills our jails, supplies our almshouses and furnishes subjects for our asylums. It engenders controversies, fosters quarrels and cherishes riot. It condemns law and spurns order. It crowds the penitentiary and furnishes victims for the scaffolds. It is the life-blood of the gambler, the food of the counterfeiter, the prop of the highwayman and the support of the midnight incendiary and assassin, the" friend and companion of the brothel. It countenances the liar, respects the thief, and esteems the blasphemer. It violates obligations, reverences fraud and honors infamy. It defames benevolence, hates love, scorns virtue and slanders innocence. 140 THE MORAL LIFE. It incites the father to butcher his innocent children, helps the husband to kill his wife, and aids the child to grind the parricidal ax. It burns up men, consumes women, detests life, curses God and despises Heaven. It suborns witnesses, nurses perjury, defiles the jury box, stains the judicial ermine. It bribes votes, corrupts elections, poisons our institutions and endangers our government. It degrades the citizen, lowers the legislator, and dishonors the statesman. It brings shame, not honor; terror, not safety; despair, not hope; misery, not happiness, and then, with the malevolence of a fiend, it calmly surveys its frightful desolation, and insatiate with havoc, it poisons felicity, kills peace, ruins morals, blights confidence, slays reputation, and wipes out national honors; then curses the world and laughs at the ruin it has inflicted on the human race. — Dr. Gunn. THERE'S DANGER IN THE GLASS. There's danger in the glass. Beware lest it enslaves. They who have drained it find, alas! too often early graves. It sparkles to allure, with its rich, ruby light! There is no antidote or cure. Only its course to fight. It changes man to brutes; makes women bow their heads; fills homes with anguish, want, dis- putes, and takes from children bread. Then dash the glass away, and from the serpent flee; drink pure cold wa t e r day by day, an d walk God's FOOTSTOOL FREE! — Tid-Bits. "We are Two Travellers, Roger and I, THE MORAL LIFE. 143 ALCOHOL AS A POISON. IT is quite clear that alcohol is a functional poison of the narcotic class. Its action on the brain shows the gradations of stimulation, overaction, inhibited action and actual narcosis. These effects, unless positively fatal, are transitory. But it is also clear that this not the whole of its injurious effect; since, if the functional disturbance be often repeated, the brain itself will come in the end to be damaged. But it may be supposed this damage is caused by the excess or repetition of the functional disturbance. Such an explanation will not, however, apply. Some organs, such as peripheral nerves, are damaged, in which no functional disturbance from the imme- diate action of alcohol can be traced. Hence we conclude that alcohol is also a tissue poison damaging the structure of the tissue elements. This effect is not seen after a single dose, even a fatal dose, at least so far as is known, but only after repeated action of the poison. When its action is perceptible it is quite comparable to that of the so-called irritant, especially metallic, poisons, such as lead, arsenic, antimony, etc., with phosphorous, and even mineral acids. IT IS NOW RECOGNIZED THAT THESE SUBSTANCES, IF ABSORBED, ACT on all or most tissues of the body which they reach in proportion to the degree of concentration in which they may be present, and to the suscepti- bility of the different parts. This is also true of alcohol. It is carried by the blood to all parts (having been detected in the brain and various organs), and acts most powerfully in the first instance on the parts which it reaches with the least amount of dilution ; that is, the stomach and liver. In the second place, it acts on the nervous tissues as being more vulnerable than the rest. Again, the influence of concentration in relation to the tissue damage is seen in the fact that alcohol in a dilute form injures the tissues much less than the same amount in a concentrated form, though the narcotic effect may be the same. TISSUE POISONS. Another law of tissue poisons is, that they all have, within certain limits, the same action, or at least there are certain modes of action common to all. These common modes of action belonging to all tissue poisons I will endeavor to state, and then see whether alcohol acts in the same way. The first effect of such poisons is seen on the more vulnerable or parenchymatous elements, namely, nerve, epithelium, muscle fibre. On these parts, their action is essentially necrotic, producing, if in a low degree, parenchymatous degeneration ; in a higher degree, actual necrosis, 144 THE MORAL LIFE. though if the injury be not too severe, repair is possible. This is true of arsenic, antimony, sulphuric acid; and, with some modification, of phos- phorus. I would submit that this is also true of alcohol, which produces degeneration, or ultimately necrosis, of mucous membrane of stomach, liver cells, nerve fibres, nerve cells, and muscle fibres. Another effect of all tissue poisons, if sufficiently concentrated, is to injure the blood vessels, causing exudation and cell migration ; that is, inflammation as generally understood. It is obvious that this is true of all irritant poisons. If chronic, this inflammation sometimes results in hyper- plasia of connective tissue. I submit that concentrated alcohol acts on the stomach, for instance, to which it is directly applied, in the same way, setting up acute inflammation. The action of alcohol, however, is never quite so intense as that of some metallic poisons, since it never produces suppuration, nor has it an actually corrosive action. Its continuous or chronic action is to produce connective tissue hyperplasia, fibroid changes or cancer. MODES OF ACTION. Besides these two modes of action, alcohol has one almost peculiar to itself: that of causing accumulation or infiltration of fat, in various parts of the body, especially where such accumulation naturally takes place, as in liver, omentum, subcutaneous tissue. Phosphorus is like alcohol in this respect, and so is, to some extent, arsenic. This change may be called "steatosis." It is explained, apparently with reason, as due to deficient oxidation, or impeded cell-respiration, the alcohol or phosphorus being oxidized in place of the fat, which should be burnt up in the cell. * * * To sum up. The action of alcohol on tissues or tissue elements is three-fold: (i) As a functional poison. (2) As a tissue poison or destructive. (3) As a checker of oxidation. And in these respects it may be paralleled by other substances called poisons, and by others which are generally considered innocuous. — Dr. Payne. "W WHAT A JUG DID. HY is my house so shabby and old, At every crevice letting in cold; And the kitchen walls all covered with mould?" Go ask your jug! THE MORAL LIFE. 145 Why are my eyes so swollen and red ? Whence is this dreadful pain in my head ? Where in the world is our nice feather-bed, And the wood that was piled in the shed ?" Go ask your jug! Why is my wife heart-broken and sad ? Why are my children never now glad ? Why did my business run down so bad ? Why at my thoughts am I well-nigh mad?" Go ask your jug! ' Oh, why do I pass the old church-door, Weary of heart and sadly foot-sore, Every moment sinking down lower, A pitiable outcast evermore?" Go ask your jug! DEGRADATION OF THE INEBRIATE. ROGUES have had the initial letter of their title burnt into the palms of their hands,, even for murder, Cain was branded only on the forehead, but, over the whole person of the debauchee or the inebriate, the signatures of infamy are written. How Nature brands him with stigma and opprobrium ! How she hangs labels over all of him to testify her disgust at his existence and to admonish others to beware of his example ! How she loosens all his joints, and sends tremors along his muscles, and bends forward his frame, as if to bring him upon all-fours, with kindred brutes, or to degrade him to the reptiles crawling ! How she disfigures his countenance as if intent upon obliterating all traces of her own image, so that she may swear she never made him ! How she pours rheum over his eyes, sends foul spirits to inhabit his breath, and shrieks, as with a trumpet, from every pore of his body, "Behold a beast!" w THE VAGABONDS. E are two travellers, Roger and I. Roger's my dog: — come here you scamp! Jump for the gentlemen — mind your eye ! Over the table — look out for the lamp! — 146 THE MORAL LIFE. The rogue is growing a little old ; Five years we've tramped through wind and weather, And slept out-doors when nights were cold, And ate and drank — and starved together. We've learned what comfort is, I tell you ! A bed on the floor, a bit of rosin, A fire to thaw our thumbs, (poor fellow ! The paw he holds up there's been frozen,) Plenty of catgut for my fiddle, (This out-door business is bad for strings,) Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I set up for kings ! No, thank ye, sir — I never drink ; Roger and I are exceedingly moral — Aren't we, Roger? — see him wink! — Well, something hot, then — we won't quarrel. He's thirsty, too — see him nod his head? What a pity, sir, that dogs can't talk! He understands every word that's said — And he knows good milk from water-and-chalk. The truth is, sir, now I reflect, I've been so sadly given to grog, I wonder I've not lost the respect (Here's to you, sir! ) even of my dog. But he sticks by, through thick and thin ; And this old coat, with its empty pockets, And rags that smell of tobacco and gin, He'll follow while he has eyes in his sockets. There isn't another creature living Would do it, and prove, through every disaster, So fond, so faithful, and so forgiving, To such a miserable, thankless master ! No, sir! — see him wag his tail and grin! By George! it makes my old eyes water! That is, there's something in this gin That chokes a fellow. But no matter! THE MORAL LIFE. 147 We'll have some music, if you're willing, And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, sir!) Shall march a little. — Start, you villain ! Stand straight ! 'Bout face ! Salute your officer ! Put up that paw ! Dress ! Take your rifle ! (Some dogs have arms, you see ! ) Now hold your Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle, To aid a poor old patriot soldier ! March ! Halt ! Now show how the rebel shakes, When he stands up to hear his sentence. Now tell us how many drams it takes To honor a jolly new acquaintance. Five yelps — that's five ; he's mighty knowing ! The night's before us, fill the glasses ! — Quick, sir! I'm ill — my brain is going! — Some brandy! — thank you! — there ! — it passes! Why not reform? That's easily said ; But I've gone through such wretched treatment, Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread, And scarce remembering what meat meant, That my poor stomach's past reform ; And there are times when, mad with thinking, I'd sell out Heaven for something warm To prop a horrible inward sinking. Is there a way to forget to think? At your age, sir, home, fortune, friends, A. dear girl's love — but I took to drink ; — The same old story; you know how it ends If you could have seen these classic features — You needn't laugh, sir; they were not then Such a burning libel on God's creatures : I was one of your handsome men ! If you had seen her, so fair and young, Whose head was happy on this breast ! . If you could have heard the songs I sung When the wine went round, you wouldn't have guessed f48 THE MORAL LIFE, That ever I, sir, should be straying From door to door, with fiddle and dog, Ragged and penniless, and playing To you to-night for a glass of grog ! She's married since — a parson's wife : 'Twas better for her that we should part — Better the soberest, prosiest life Than a blasted home and a broken heart. I have seen her? Once: I was weak and spent On the dusty road, a carriage stopped : But little she dreamed, as on she went, Who kissed the coin that her fingers dropped ! You've set me talking, sir; I'm sorry! It makes me wild to think of the change ! What do you care for a beggar's story ? Is it amusing? you find it strange? I had a mother so proud of me ! 'Twas well she died before — — Do you know If the happy spirit in Heaven can see The ruin and wretchedness here below ? Another glass, and strong, to deaden This pain ; then Roger and I will start. I wonder, has he such a lumpish, leaden, Aching thing, in place of a heart ? He is sad sometimes, and would weep if he could, No doubt, remembering things that were — A virtuous kennel, with plenty of food, And himself a sober, respectable cur. I'm better now; that glass was warming — You rascal ! limber your lazy feet ! We must be fiddling and performing For supper and bed, or starve in the street. Not a very gay life to lead, you think? But soon we shall go where lodgings are free, And the sleepers need neither victuals nor drink ; — - The sooner, the better for Roger and me ! — J. T. Trotvbridge. THE MORAL LIFE. 149 HOW TO BREAK THE CHAIN. AM AN once said to me : " I was a pretty hard case ; my wife used to be afraid of me, and my children used to run away from me when I came in the house ; it was but a word, and a blow, and then a kick. When I put my name on a temperance pledge the thought came across my mind, I wonder what my wife will say to this ? Then I thought if I went in and told her all of a hurry it might make her faint. Another time I would have gone home and knocked her down and kicked her up again. Now, I was going home, thinking how I could break it to my wife and not hurt her ! So I made up my mind I would break it to her easy. I got to the door; I saw her leaning over the embers of the fire ; she didn't look up ; I suppose she expected a blow or a curse as usual, and I said, ' Mary ! ' She didn't turn; I said, 'Mary!' 'Well, Dick, what is it?' I said, 'Mary!' 'Well, what is it?' 'Can not you guess, Mary?' AND SHE LOOKED AROUND AT ME, — HER FACE was so white! 'I say, Mary!' 'Well?' 'I have been to the meeting, and have put my name down on the pledge, and taken my oa'th I never will take another drop.' She was on her feet in a minute. She didn't faint away, poor soul ; and as I held her I didn't know but she was dead, and I began to cry. She opened her eyes, and got her arms around my neck, and pulled me down on my knees, — the first time I remember ever going on my knees since I was a boy,— and said, 'O God, bless my poor husband!' and I said, 'Amen.' And she said, 'Help him to keep that pledge,' and I said, 'Amen;' and she kept on praying, and I kept on hallooing, and you never heard a Methodist halloo like me, until I could not speak a word. It was the first time we ever knelt together, but it was not the last." HARD TO REFORM WITHOUT BECOMING A CHRISTIAN. A great many men have said to me : " I can reform without becoming a Christian." I am not one of those who will say to you that you can not reform unless you become a Christian, but I say this, within my experience, that nine out of ten who try it fail. A gentleman that I know married into an excellent family and got so abased that he could drink a quart of brandy a day; how he stood it no one knows; a man of strong constitution, splendid physique, but he drank his quart a day. He had a lovely wife and three boys, and one day he was in the house and he said to his wife : " Come, my dear, and sit on my knee." She came and sat, and then she said : " If my husband didn't drink I would be the happiest woman in Canada." "Well," he said, " my dear, I married you to make you happy, 150 THE MORAL LIFE. and I ought to do everything to make you happy ; and if that will make you happy I will never drink another drop as long as I live." That was seven years ago, and he has never tasted a drop from that day to this. He had cut it off just as clean as you would cut off a piece of cheese. That man had a mighty will, but I want tell you something else. Walking with him up Young Street one day, he said : " You see that red saloon. I have gone two blocks out of my way many a time to keep out of the way of that. When I come in sight of it, and begin to feel queer, I turn right down Front Street; but since I have got the grace of God in my heart I can go right by that place, and if I find the slightest inclination to enter, I can ejaculate the prayer, 'God help me,' and I go right along." The first was a risk ; the second was absolute security and safety. YOUR HOPE IS IN JESUS. I say to reformed men, your hope is in Jesus to keep yourselves unspotted. Touch not, taste not, handle not, meddle not with it. Men may say to me, " Have you this appetite?" I don't know. My daily prayer is, " God help me to avoid the test." Although it is thirty-five years since I signed the pledge, I will not put to my lips intoxicating wine at the communion table. I have not and I never will. I have known cases of fearful falling from the first swallow, because drunkenness is a disease. A good Christian man said to me : " Three weeks ago I had the most awful struggle against my appetite;" and a gentleman said to me, the other night, " God bless you, I am fighting an awful hard battle." I said : " Do you feel secure?" "Secure in Jesus." Oh, I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that is the strength of the movement to-day. — John B. Gough. D THE GAMBLER'S WIFE. ARK is the night. How dark! No light ! no fire ! Cold, on the hearth, the last faint sparks expire ! Shivering, she watches by the cradle side, For him who pledged her love last year a bride ! Hark ! 'Tis his footstep ! No ! — 'Tis past ! — 'tis gone ' Tick! — Tick! — How wearily the time crawls on ! Why should he leave me thus? — He once was kind : And I believed 'twould last! — How mad! — How blind ! THE MORAL LIFE. 151 Rest thee, babe! — Rest on! — 'Tis hunger's cry! Sleep! — For there is no food! — The font is dry! ■ Famine and cold their wearying' work have done. My heart must break! — And thou!— The clock strikes one! Hush ! 'tis the dice-box ! Yes ! he's there ! he's there ! For this — for this he leaves me to despair ! Leaves love ! leaves truth ! his wife ! his child ! for what ? The wanton's smile — the villain — -and the sot ! Yet I'll not curse him. No ! 'tis all in vain ! 'Tis long to wait, but sure he'll come again ! And I could starve and bless him but for you, My child ! — his child ! Oh, fiend ! — The clock strikes two . Hark ! How the sign-board creaks ! The blasts howl by. Moan! moan! A dirge swells through the cloudy sky! Ha! 'tis his knock! — he comes! — he comes once more ! 'Tis but the lattice flaps ! Thy hope is o'er. Can he desert me thus ! He knows I stay Night after night, in loneliness to pray For his return — and yet he sees no tear, No ! no ! It can not be ! He will be here ! Nestle more closely, dear -one, to my heart ! Thou'rt cold ! Thou'rt freezing! But we will not part ! Husband! I die! — -Father! it is not he! Oh, God ! protect my child ! — -The clock strikes three. They're gone, they're gone ! the glimmering spark hath fled ! The wife and child are numbered with the dead. On the cold earth, outstretched in solemn rest, The babe lay frozen on its mother's breast ; The gambler came at last — but all was o'er — Dread silence reign'd around— The clock struck four. — Dr. Coates. Nothing is truly infamous but what is wicked ; and therefore shame can never disturb an innocent and virtuous mind. 10 52 THE MORAL LIFE. GAMBLERS AND GAMBLING. GAMBLING is an ancient vice. All the authentic histories, all the reliable traditions, are in proof of its universality, and that, from time immemorial, it has been co-extensive with the abode and business of man. The Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Egyptians gambled. Under the Empire and under the Republic, the evil existed to such an extent among the Romans that legislation was a necessity. In the best days of the Greeks, in the Golden Age of Pericles, the evil prevailed throughout the Grecian Confederation. The present is like the past. From the emperor to the coolie, the Chinese are a nation of gamblers. This social vice is prevalent in Japan and India and Persia. IT IS RIFE AMONG THE TURKS. When sailing up the Persian Gulf, I saw a company of Moham- medan pilgrims en route to some sacred shrine, and they divided the twenty-four hours of the day between prayers and games. When they did not pray, they gambled. Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, and France have been compelled to bring the power of law against this ruinous evil. Prior to the unification of Germany, not a few of the petty states were supported from revenues derived from licensed gambling establishments. England is no exception. According to Veckman: "The first lottery was proposed in the years 1567 and 1568, and held at the west door of St. Paul's Cathedral, was drawn day and night from the nth of January, 1569, to the 6th of May, the same year. It contained 400,000 tickets, at ten shillings each. The prizes consisted partly of money and partly of silver plate and other articles. The net profit was to be employed in improving the English harbors, in 1 746 a loan of £3,000,000 WAS RAISED IN FOUR PER CENT. ANNUITIES, and a lottery of 50,000 tickets at £\o each, and in 1747, £1,000,000 was raised by the sale of 100,000 tickets, the prizes in which were funded in perpetual annuities at the rate of four per cent, per annum. During the same century the Government constantly availed itself of this means to raise money for various public works; of which the British Museum and Westminster Bridge are well-known examples." But by an act, in 1823, lotteries were rendered illegal. Nor are Americans strangers to this vice. In some of the States a revenue is derived from licensed gambling saloons. The Territory of Montana is a sad example. In Kentucky and Louisiana lotteries are under the protection of the Commonwealth; and now the Postmaster-General of the United States is forbidding the circulation of the printed advertisements of these lotteries through the mails. This THE MORAL LIFE. 153 social vice appeals to all classes for correction. It appeals to every employer, it appeals to every parent, it appeals with unwonted force to the wives and mothers of the Republic. What is gambling', and what are its evils ? Gambling is an abuse of innocent pastime. Some one has said that vice is the excess of virtue. That which is innocent in itself -becomes a crime by excessive use. All nations have games of recreation and pleasure. A nation without games is a nation of idiots. The people should have their pastimes. But it is a sad commentary upon the depravity of humanity that innocent pleasures are degraded into destroying evils. "GAMES AND GAMING." It may not be easy to define the sin of gambling. The word belongs to that family of words " games and gaming," and in its origin means sport, fun. For want of a better term we call it a social vice, because of the evils which flow therefrom to society. Gambling is the staking of property to win or to lose on mere hazard. It is not gain for gain. It ignores the law of equivalents. It is something for nothing. All industry, all trade, all legitimate business, is based on the law of something for something. What does the winner give in exchange for the money he takes ? Nothing. A man has a right to give his property, and he receives a reward for the same in the consciousness of a kindness done ; "but in gambling he does not intend to give his money. The winner does not intend to give an equivalent in return. Gambling is robbery by mutual consent. THE ENEMY OF HEALTHFUL AND MANLY LABOR. Gambling is the enemy of healthful and manly labor. It means money without work. Its chief maxim is : " Take care of yourself ; sacrifice others." Do you say the gambler works? So does the bank robber. How immense the skill, the patience, and the effort of him who robs a bank ! But it is a criminal work. It is an effort condemned by public opinion and just laws. Do you say the gambler displays skill? Yes, but his is not the honorable skill of the pilot, who guides his ship in a dangerous sea ; nor of the lawyer, who applies constitutional and statutory law in the intricacies of a case involving life or property or reputation ; it is not the skill of the artist in the production of works of art to refine public taste and adorn the face of society; it is not the skill of the merchant in the wise management ■of trade ; it is not the skill of the banker in the application of the 154 THE MORAL LIFE. principles of finance; it is not the skill of the statesman who applies political economy to the welfare of the people ; it is not the skill of the physician who studies to cure disease and to put a heart beneath the ribs of death ; but it is the skill that sets at defiance all the laws of honorable labor. It is the development of a cunning to lie and cheat and rob. I do not say that gambling is atheism, but I declare that it is contrary to the established laws of Nature. Chance is the god of the gambler. He constantly appeals to the very uncertain and variable law of chance. Some mathematicians have sought to ascertain and formulate the law of chance, and they assert : " If you throw a dice, it is thirty to one against your turning up a particular number, and one hundred to one against your repeating the same throw three times running, and so on in an augmenting ratio." You have no right to expose your property on such a tremendous margin of thirty to one and of one hundred to one. CERTAINTY OF AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE. There is certainty in agriculture, there is certainty in commerce, there is certainty in manufacture. God has ordained laws of honest industry, but these do not operate on such immense margins. Do you tell me there is hazard in everything? True, but not to the same extent as in this. Men may be deceived in bargains which they make, in their invest- ments, in their transactions, but in all these there is a reasonable certainty of return. The principles of gambling are sometimes acted upon where there is neither wager nor play. Some men gamble with capital instead of cards, and take the chances. They throw their immense financial strength in favor of depression or inflation, and hope thereby to win. RECKLESS SPECULATION. Some gamble with the capital of others in reckless speculation. Some gamble with false capital, which is a lie and a cheat. It is a mere fancy; it has no existence or representation. It is a name without fame. Some gamble with ballots instead of dice, and the action of legislatures is influenced thereby. It is a statement made before one of our courts that one railroad company, in the State of New York, paid $60,000 one year, and $205,000 another year, to obtain legislation; and it was obtained. It is a duty of legislators to enact laws for the benefit of the people without bribes or money corruption. But these large sums were paid to rob the Commonwealth. Some men are too saintly to touch a card or throw a dice, yet they will risk the property of widows and orphans in an amount or kind of business for which their own resources are unequal. THE MORAL LIFE. 155 I would rather take the chances of a professional gambler at the bar of God than the chances of one of these saintly scoundrels who gamble with the money of widows and orphans. Public prejudice has segregated one branch of business in New York and pronounced its withering condemna- tion on it. One street is held up as the resort of gamblers and robbers. I am not the defender of Wall Street, but I would as soon take my chances for Heaven from Wall Street as from Broadway, from a stock broker's office as from some banking houses, or the headquarters of certain railway magnates. There are members of the Stock Exchange as honorable and honest as are any members of the venerable Chamber of Commerce of our great metropolis. It is quite true there are two classes of persons who frequent Wall Street who are a disgrace to honorable men : those who seek to depress certain stocks or other securities by destroying confidence in particular individuals, or in the value of the properties themselves, and then take advantage of such depression TO ACCUMULATE A SUDDEN FORTUNE ; and those who seek the same end by the unnatural and unhealthy inflation of stocks and other properties, and thus come into possession of ill-gotten gains. Such men are not only gamblers, but they should be classed as criminals before the law. A citizen has the right to purchase stock out and out, but it is an appeal to chance, it is downright gambling, to put up a margin and then to seek either, by personal means, the depression or inflation of such stock, or to take the chances on their rise or fall. This is gambling ; it is an appeal to chance ; it is one hundred to one. Many a man has put up his only thousand dollars as a margin and lost, and then whined in the ear of Providence over the misfortune. INJURIOUS EXCITEMENT. Gambling is an injurious excitement without compensation and consolation. The gambler has hope, but it is not an anchor. It is an unmanageable sail that bears him upon the rocks. It is an excitement that consumes but never recreates. It doth not promote health or happi- ness. The loser has no compensation. When the merchant loses, from circumstances beyond his control, he has the consolation of .knowing that he did his duty. He has regret, but no remorse. He has the sympathy of others, but needs not their pity. God gives him consolation, but he needs no pardon. The young man who lost $150,000 at cards could not say: "I did my best and Providence sent me adversity." He has remorse, not regret. He may claim our pity, not our sympathy. When all that the merchant had is lost, his character is safe. When the gambler has lost his all, that includes his character. 156 THE MORAL LIFE. What a strange fascination there is in gambling! What a spell it throws over the imagination ! No serpent ever charmed a bird with greater power, no fowler ever set a snare from which it was so difficult to escape. Why ? Gambling is an appeal to the pride of skill, to the love of superiority, to the heroism of our nature, and, above all, to gain without work. We all have seen some man under this strange fascination. It is mightier than other forms of delusion. We have seen an honored father and husband under the fascination of a strange woman — beautiful, artful, enticing. He resolves not to yield; his conscience is against yielding; he recalls his happy home, the wife of his bosom and the children of his loins, but the strange woman leads him astray. We have seen some great, imperial spirit under the charm of intoxication. Resolutions are made, vows are recorded, efforts- are put forth ; IN A MOMENT OF HOLY REVENGE THE EVIL IS CONSIGNED TO the lowest hell, but the man has been charmed. We have seen the novel reader in a revery, wherein the imagination has been peopled with forms of fancy, in which the actualities of life are disregarded and nature is perverted. With these is the fascination of gambling. All the better nature of the man is at times aroused against it. He resolves and resolves again; he promises wife and children, the angels and his God, but he is under the influence of an entrancing power. Who does not recall with pity that young and brilliant lawyer, who had led to the bridal altar one of the fairest daughters of the land, whose happiness lay in the embrace of a future like an ocean of pearls and diamonds, but who became addicted to this entrancing vice? The habit had fastened upon him, its hooks of steel had entered his very soul. On a certain night he lost heavily. He then staked his splendid mansion, the patrimony from an honored father. The home was lost. In despair he left that hell of hells ; the night air touched his temples, but could not chill to the death this charm of charmers. He said there was one hope left, he would return. THE GAMBLERS LOOKED amazed at his reappearance. As his last stake — all that he had left in the world on which he hoped to recover all that he had lost — he staked his coach and horses. The game was played, again he lost. Leading the winner to the street, he said to the coachman, "Here is your master," and then, in a despair that knew no relief; a homeless, indigent wretch, he walked the streets of the silent, sleeping city, he looked at the stars of his childhood, but they brought him no relief; he lingered beneath the light of the street-lamp, which revealed only a countenance of despair; he pressed his temples and cursed the day of his birth. THE MORAL LIFE. 157 Gambling leads to the most heartless associations. It is proper to note the distinction between the professional and the non-professional gamblers.- The latter are persons engaged in legitimate business, who gamble for pastime or money, or both. All that I have said thus far against this vice I apply to the practice of these non-professionals. It is an abuse of innocent pastime, it tempts from lawful labor, it is homage paid to the shrine of chance, it ends in remorse. Non-professional gambling is the feeder of the professional. Every private house wherein persons play for money is a recruiting office of the gambling hell to fill the ranks of the professional gamblers. There is a direct path that leads from the one to the other. Ask that young man who lost so heavily at Saratoga last summer where he acquired the propensity for gambling, and he will tell you : " In the private residence of ," wherein wealth abounds and beauty smiles. Why not have your games for recreation without the hazard of a dollar? THE GAMBLER'S DRAMA. Why should parents complain when their sons are ruined ? Were I a dramatist I would write a drama of five acts. First : A young man in a private house, at cards, where beauty smiles and wealth allures. Second : In a hotel, where gentlemen meet, where the game is played for the refreshments of the hour, and where conscience is quieted by the soothing assurance that it is only pastime. Third : A gambling hell, where the professionals do congregate, where the attention to the game is intense, where self-consciousness reigns supreme, where fortunes are won and lost. Fourth : A den of thieves, from which decency and honor have departed, where dishonesty holds high carnival, where depredations on the property of honest citizens are, organized, where murder is planned. Fifth: A gallows, on which hangs the form of that once young and splendid man. It is the last game ; he loses all. WHERE GAMBLERS CONGREGATE. Let us now look at the professional gamblers. Let us go in fancy to the place where they do congregate. We do not expect to find angels there, except fallen ones ; nor saints, except those who have outlived their usefulness , nor church members, except hypocrites. What is the average morality of the gambling fraternity? Who are the men found in those resorts? There is the cynic, who sneers at virtue; the polished debauchee, a modern Chesterfield; the "swell," who is attractive by his flashing manners ; and the selfish man, bereft of all sensibility, who will take the last dollar, and then turn the loser out into the cold world. THE MORAL LIFE. Gambling- is not an isolated vice; it is attended with a whole retinue of evils. The sparkling wine-cup passes from lip to lip ; inebriety is certain to follow ; intoxication is a necessary inspiration ; the " strange woman " is. companion to gamblers — she whose steps take hold on death and hell There is a direct road from the gambling hell to the penitentiary. Nearly all the embezzlements of which banking clerks have been convicted may be traced to gambling. This social vice disqualifies for all the duties of life. It ruins the mechanic, the lawyer, the physician, the statesman. It is the desolation of home itself. And what are the remedies ? Let the Pulpit lift up its voice of warning. Let clergymen appreciate the terrible evil in all its bearings. Let them press home upon the conscience of the people the great moralities of religion. Let the Press keep the public informed of the dangers to which society is exposed, and especially of the dereliction of the police, whose business it is to suppress these places which entice the young men of our city. And let parents, by precept and example, from childhood to youth- hood, from youthhood to manhood, throw around their sons and daughters those gracious influences which will make home the supreme charm of human life.—/. H. Newman. EVIL BOOKS AND EVIL PICTURES. BUT I warn you against evil books and evil pictures. There is in every town an undercurrent which glides beneath our feet, unsuspected by the pure; out of which, notwithstanding, our sons scoop many a goblet. Books are hidden in trunks, concealed in dark holes ; pictures are stored in sly portfolios or trafficked from hand to hand; and in the handiwork of depraved art is seen other forms which ought to make a harlot blush. I should think a man would loathe himself, and wake up from owning such things as from a horrible nightmare. Those who circulate them are the incendiaries of morality; those who make them equal to the worst public criminals. A pure heart would shrink from these abominable things as from death. France, where religion long ago went out smothered in licentiousness, has flooded the world with a species of literature redolent of depravity. Upon the plea of exhibiting nature and man; novels are scooped out of the very lava of corrupt passions. They are true to nature, but to nature as it exists in knaves and courtesans. Under a plea of humanity, we have shown to us troops of harlots, to prove that they are not as bad as purists think; gangs of desperadoes to show that there is nothing in crime inconsistent with the noblest feelings. We have in THE MORAL LIFE. 159 French and English, novels of the infernal school humane murderers, lascivious saints, holy infidels, honest robbers. These artists never seem lost, except when straining after a conception of religion. Their devotion is such as might be expected from thieves in the purlieus of a thrice- deformed vice. Exhausted libertines are our professors of morality. They scrape the very sediment and muck of society to mould their creatures; and their volumes are monster galleries in which the inhabitants of old Sodom would have felt at home as connoisseurs and critics over loathsome women and utterly vile men, huddled together in motley groups, and over all their monstrous deeds — THEIR LIES, THEIR PLOTS, THEIR CRIMES, THEIR DREADFUL pleasures, their glorying conversation — is thrown the checkered light of a hot imagination, until they glow with an infernal lustre. Novels of the French school and of English imitators are the common sewers of society, into which drain the concentrated filth of the worst passions, of the worst creatures, of the worst cities. Such novels come to us impudently pretending to be reformers of morals and liberalizers of religion, they propose to instruct our laws, and teach a discreet humanity to justice. The Ten Plagues have visited our literature; water is turned to blood ; frogs and lice creep and hop over our most familiar things, — the couch, the cradle, and the bed trough ; locusts, murrain, and fire are smiting every green thing. I AM ASHAMED AND OUTRAGED WHEN I THINK THAT WRETCHES could be found to open these foreign seals and let out their plagues upon us ; that any Satanic pilgrim should voyage to France to dip from the dead sea of her abomination a baptism for our sons. It were a mercy, to this, to import serpents from Africa and pour them out on our prairies ; lions from Asia and free them in our forests; lizards and scorpions and black tarantulas from the Indies and put them in our gardens. Men could slay these, but these offspring reptiles of the French mind, who can kill these ? You might as well draw sword on a plague, or charge a malaria with the bayonet. This black-lettered literature circulates in this town, floats in our stores, nestles in our shops, is fingered and read nightly, and hatches in the young mind broods of salacious thoughts. While the parent strives to infuse Christian purity into his child's heart, he is anticipated by most accursed messengers of evil, and the heart hisses already like a nest of young and nimble vipers. — BcecJier. i6o THE MORAL LIFE. HABIT. THE story runs that, as Abdallah lingered over his morning repast, a little fly alighted on his goblet, took a sip, and was gone. It came again and again, increased its charms; became bolder and bolder; grew in size till it presented the likeness of a man ; consumed Abdallah's meat, so that he became thin and weak, while his guest grew great and strong. Then contention arose between them, and the youth smote the demon, so that he departed; and the youth rejoiced at his deliverance. But the demon came soon again, charmingly arrayed, and was restored to favor. On the morrow, the youth came not to his teacher. The mufti, searching, found him in his chamber, lying dead upon his divan. His visage was black and swollen, and on his throat was the pressure of a finger, broader than the palm of a mighty man. His treasures were gone. In the garden, the mufti discovered the footprints of a giant, one of which measured six cubits. Such is the Oriental portrayal of the growth and power of habit. THE SLAVERY OF SIN. THE idea of possession of the devil is by no means foreign to modern thought. By a reference to the Dictionary, one will find that the words which express the idea of sin imply also, in many cases, a slavery to a tyrannical power of evil. Take that word habit. It comes from the word meaning to have. Habit may be regarded as that which has a man, which holds him. A lady's riding-habit is the robe which envelops and holds her, and when a man has contracted a habit, he is encompassed and bound by it. A habit is different from a custom. The latter consists of something which a man does voluntarily ; a habit involves what he can not help doing. He who has formed a bad habit is in bondage to the power of evil. And many a man has contracted so many bad habits, is ruled by so many evil influences, that he might almost say, "My name is Legion!" THE MEANING OF ANGER. The word anger comes from one which means, to choke ; as if the enraged man with distorted visage was in the power of some fiend who had fastened a terrible grasp on his neck, and was strangling him. The angry man is overpowered by a malignant demon. To say that a man is passionate, means that he is not strong, but weak. Passion means suffering, as the older writers speak of the "passion" of Christ, and the old grammars said that a verb was a word denoting "action, THE MORAL LIFE. 161 passion or being." When a man is in a passion he is moved by an impulse beyond his control, as a ship over which control is lost may be helplessly driven by the winds and currents upon the rocks. A passionate man is one who no longer is master of himself, but has fallen under the power of demons who are driving him onward to his ruin. The passionate man is sometimes said to be mad ; that is, crazy. As the Gadarene demoniac was certainly bereft of his reason, so when a man falls under the power of the spirit of sinful fury, he is properly said to be demented, bereft of reason, no longer exercising wise thought. The passionate man is sometimes said to be a man of temper. But he really lacks temper. The temper of the steel is that which enables it to cut through the toughest material without losing its edge. So the good- tempered or well-tempered man is THE MAN WHO CAN FACE UNPLEASANT conditions, who can deal with irritating persons, who can" contemplate provoking actions without losing the calm edge of his mind. The temperate man is the man of well-tempered spirit, the man of calmness and self-control, who is firm against temptations, and retains the mastery of himself. The weak man loses his temper, and as a blade made of hoop-iron has its edge turned by the first tough object it has to cut, so the man who loses his temper, the intemperate man, is helplessly the sport of the powers of evil. In contemplation of sins, David prayed, " Let them not have dominion over me," and the Saviour said, " He that committeth sin is the servant of sin." Sin involves weakness, and the sinful man is properly represented as possessed by the power of evil. The idea of demoniacal possession is not found in the New Testament alone, but pervades the language of every-day life. To be rescued from the dominion of evil we must seek the help of Him who is stronger than the strong man — the mighty Redeemer, who can bind the power of evil and set us free from our slavery to sin. — Christian Inquirer. TOBACCO. IN 1499, Columbus, lying off Cuba, sent two men ashore, and they came back with the smoker's pedigree, to wit: "The naked savages twist leaves together, light one end at the fire, and smoke like devils." In the fifteenth century this bewitching weed crossed the Atlantic Ocean and captured Spain. Afterward it captured Portugal, then France. Walter Raleigh took it to London, and it captured Great Britain. It is enshrined in millions of hearts as the dearest thing on earth. 162 THE MORAL LIFE. Tobacco is one of the chief causes of drunkenness. It creates an unnatural thirst. " Show me a drunkard who does not use tobacco," said Horace Greely, "and I will show you a white blackbird." If smoking is not a nuisance, how do you interpret the conspicuous posters on every hand, "No smoking here?" and what means "The Smoking Car ? " "The fact is," says Thackeray, " the cigar is a rival to the ladies." Nicotine, one of the subtlest of poisons, determines the strength of tobacco. Brodie, Queen Victoria's physician, made several experiments with nicotine, applying it to the tongues of a mouse, a squirrel and a dog. Death was produced in every instance. Put one drop on the tongue of a cat, and, in spite of its "nine lives," IT WILL INSTANTLY WRITHE IN CONVULSIONS and die. Hold white paper over the smoke of a cigar, scrape the condensed smoke from the paper and put a small quantity on the tongue of a cat, and in a few minutes it will die of paralysis. A distinguished physician declared that he considered the use of tobacco the cause of seventy styles of diseases. Of all the causes of cancer in the mouth almost in every instance it was ascribed to tobacco. Medical journals report the poisoning of babes sleeping in a father's unventilated room which he thoughtlessly filled with tobacco smoke. Not a few physicians ascribe the invalidism of women to the poisoned atmosphere created by the smoking members of the household. JEFFERSON ON TOBACCO. Franklin said : " I never saw a well man, in the exercise of common sense who would say that tobacco did him good." Thomas Jefferson said in reference to the culture of tobacco : " It is a culture productive of infinite wretchedness." It is a great land-exhauster, a huge glutton, consuming all about it, like Homer's glutton of old cries, " More ! Give me more !" Horace Greely said: "It is a profane stench." Daniel Webster said: "If these men must smoke, let them take the horse-shed." Beecher writes : "There is probably no smoker, no tobacco' user in the world, who would advise a young man to commence this habit. Yet, against all advice, against nausea and disgust, against cleanliness, against every consideration of health and comfort, thousands every year bow the neck to this drug and consent to wear its repulsive yoke." An itinerary preacher, being refused entertainment by an old woman, quoted to her the passage : " Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares," when she promptly THE MORAL LIFE. 163 answered: "You needn't say that. No angel would come down here with a big quid of tobacco in his mouth." O for a breath from the heights of Heaven that shall drive out this foul odor from the Church and cleanse every Christian of this filthy habit ! GENIUS NO EXCUSE FOR WRONG-DOING. THE wretchedness of the domestic life of Thomas Carlyle sprang, not from his genius, but from the qualities of " a self-absorbed, egotistical, bad-tempered man, who had ruined his constitution by his persistent breaking of every law of health." Goethe, stripped of the glamour which enthusiastic admirers of his great powers have thrown over him, is "a Sybarite, whose god was himself, and who did not hesitate to sacrifice, to his supposed artistic culture, manly honors and womanly happiness;" yet there are those who declare that he was but exercising the prerogative of all men of genius, " who learn in suffering" (generally the suffering of others) "what they teach in song." For their genius Robert Burns and Richard Brinsley Sheridan the world excuses them everything, declaring that " The light which led astray Was light from Heaven," an impudent and blasphemous falsehood ; as if any light which led astray could come from Heaven. But if it is a pitiful thing when a man of genius has to entrench himself behind his works, as being so much better than himself ; in a woman of genius it is even worse. " Can any writings of the two greatest female novelists of the age, French and English, and one, the English ivoman, full of the most noble qualities, atone for the lack of that crown of stainless matronhood, which should have adorned either brow, making the life a consecration of the books, not the books an apology for the life? * * * We can not exaggerate the danger it is to the young to teach them that genius is an excuse for error ; that an author's books are the condonation of his life ; that what is moral turpitude in a small man is in a great man only a venial error; nay, perhaps, that if he had been a better man, he would not have been so great a genius. Satan would probably be to such confounders of right and wrong, the most transcendent genius. But we, believing that genius comes direct from Him 'with whom is no darkness at all,' exact from it, not a lower, but a higher standard than that of ordinary men." [64 THE MORAL LIFE. H THE GRUMBLER. HIS YOUTH. IS cap was too thick, and his coat was too thin ; He couldn't be quiet; he hated a din; He hated to write, and he hated to read ; He was certainly very much injured, indeed ! He must study and toil over work he detested ; His parents were strict, and he never was rested ; He knew he was wretched as wretched could be, There was no one so wretchedly wretched as he. HIS MANHOOD. His farm was too small, his taxes too big ; He was selfish and lazy, and cross as a pig ; His wife was too silly, his children too rude, And just because he was uncommonly good ! He hadn't got money enough to spare ; He had nothing at all fit to eat or to wear ; He knew he was wretched as wretched could be, There was no one so wretchedly wretched as he. HIS OLD AGE. He finds he has sorrows more deep than his fears ; He grumbles to think he has grumbled for years ; He grumbles to think he has grumbled away His home and his children, his wife's little day ; But alas! 'tis too late ! it is no use to say That his eyes are too dim and his hair is too gray; He knows he is wretched as wretched can be, There is no one so wretchedly wretched as he. — Western Plowman, YOUNG GIRLS AND THEIR TEMPTATIONS. I FEEL that my experience of the needs of working girls and the few hints how to meet them scarcely deserve the name of a paper, yet I am so deeply impressed with the importance of this new problem, which our grandmothers, and even our mothers, were not called upon to solve, that I am glad to do what I can. Any one who has looked upon the hundreds of THE MORAL LIFE. 165 young working girls as they pour into the streets after six o'clock each evening, or has watched the girls come out of any of our factories — girls mostly from fourteen to twenty-five years of age — cannot fail to he impressed by the expression of their faces, so tired and strained and nervous; such thin arms; so many stooping shoulders. Follow these girls to their homes and what do you find? Home for many means crowded rooms, noise and dimness and poorly-cooked food. They need rest and quiet after the long day of work ; they need a change of thought, refreshment for the mind as well as for the body. Where and how are they to get it ? These girls need two things : recreation and cultivation. They need two friends : the Heavenly Friend and an earthly friend. THEY NATURALLY WANT A GOOD TIME, just as every other girl wants a good time. They are obliged to work day after day, sick or well, in storm or heat. Headaches and backaches count for nothing with them. Every morning, while most of us are yet in bed, these girls have begun their work for the day. A mistake often made by philanthropists is to think that they can do for people what can only be done by the people and which the people wish to do for themselves. Human nature is the same in all classes. The working people do not wish to have amusements given them ; they wish to purchase them. They are as independent and far more sensitive than others. There is not one rule for the people who work with their hands and another for those who work with their brains. I think we should be careful not to think, or talk of, working people in a mass any more than we think or judge of rich people in the same way. People are pretty much alike and what moves one moves all. WE ARE ALL TEMPTED IN MUCH THE SAME WAY; all can be led in much the same way. As to cultivation, of course, these girls have only the evenings, but much can be done in the evenings to change the whole course of their lives. The fountains of thought and life may be cleansed, the ideas, feelings, and motives be made pure. The evening classes under the auspices of the Century Club, Women's Christian Association and others can not be too highly praised. Reading, writing, arithmetic, bookkeeping, languages, sewing, dressmaking, cooking, etc., are taught at a low price and hundreds of girls are taking advantage of these opportunities. The two new choral societies recently formed will add greatly to the pleasure and happiness of our working girls. Anything to fill the mind with good, pure, elevating thoughts. Anything to give the thousand-and-one little stimulations and assistances to all that is good 1 66 THE MORAL LIFE. and true within them and so make them turn with disgust from the vile society of the low music halls and places of that nature. Another excellent way of helping girls is by giving or lending them books. Not of necessity religious books, but good, pure, healthy novels, travels, biographies, etc. We all know the pleasure such books are to us and, believe me, they are far more to those whose lives are narrow and hard. Meeting a young girl at noon of a stormy day last winter, I said: "I thought of you this morning, you have such a long walk to your work and the storm was so severe at seven o'clock." "Oh, I did not mind it to-day," was the cheerful reply. "I was reading 'Ramona' (the book you lent me) last night and I was thinking of her walk through the mustard, fields, with those bright yellow blossoms high above her head, and somehow I forgot the cold and storm." Another girl said to me: " My work has not seemed so hard this week. I have been reading General Gordon's life and it is interesting." READ GOOD BOOKS. Our girls are sure to read something and why not read some- thing worth the eyesight and time? And they are so glad to get hold of interesting books. Of course, one has to proceed by degrees, but it is wonderful how fast the taste is formed for the best books. One girl who for years had read only dime novels and the lowest of story papers was led gradually from them to " Uncle Tom's Cabin," " Dr. Kane's Arctic Explorations," "Higginson's United States History" and Scott's novels, not forgetting " Kitto's Bible Illustrations." If we fill the mind with good thoughts they will crowd out the bad thoughts. It was into the empty house the evil spirits came. And these girls need religion — the assurance and hope of the love of their Lord and Saviour. Any one who has had much to do with working girls has been more or less deeply impressed with the loneliness of their position. Young girls in the higher walks of life are encircled by their families and have certain laws and rules of life impressed upon them. BUT MOST WORKING GIRLS KNOW nothing of all this. Being the breadwinners of the family— regarded as knowing more than most of the household, their opinion is sought on all questions, great and small, but no advice or counsel given. And they need both. Have you ever thought what a protection you could be to some young girl ? Bad men, whether rich or poor, avoid a girl who is known to have a friend in some good woman. Christian women, like their Lord, may be a hiding-place from the wind, a cover from the tempest. Oh ! it is a THE MORAL LIFE. 167 a priceless gift to a young girl, be she rich or poor, the true friendship of a good woman. And it is very easy to win the affection of these girls. The same rules are observed in winning the love of the poor as the rich. The Lord Jesus had the best blood in His veins, yet with His right hand He touched the throne of God, for He was very God of very God, and with His left He stooped to raise the lowest on earth, for He was very man. Can we not follow His example in forming one link in the chain of humanity? In these days, when we hear so much of the feeling of division between employer and employe, can we not do all in our power to bridge the chasm between them, with one hand clasping the one and yet holding fast to the other. — Mrs. E. Perot. THE DUTY OF SELF-RESPECT. I SHOULD like to add one brief word about yourselves. I earnestly recommend you now, at the beginning of your life, to hang round your necks the jewelled amulet of self-respect. I was myself a very young man when I first met with a passage in one who was certainly the king, as Carlyle called him, of English literature — the glorious Puritan, John Milton. In his " Reasons of Church Government," you will find a memorable passage, and if I have done you no other service to-day I do you a great service in recommending that passage to your notice — a passage which I have always regarded as one of the very finest in the whole range of English literature. It is the passage on the inner reverence of a man for his own person. IT IS TOO LONG TO QUOTE TO YOU, BUT ONE OF THE SENTENCES IS this, he says : " He that holds himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the dignity of God's image, which he feels to be upon him, and the sign of His redemption, which he knows to be visably marked upon his forehead, esteems himself both a fit person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and far better worth than to deject and defile by such a debasement and pollution as sin is, himself so highly ransomed and ennobled to a new friendship and. filial relation with God ; and he would dread more than the offence and reproach of others the reflection of his own severe and modest eye upon himself were it to see him doing, imaging what is base, were it even in the deepest secrecy." Depend upon it, self-respect is also the great secret of respect for others. " Every true and free-born spirit feels," as Milton again says, " that he is a born leader, and does not need either the gilt spur or the laying of the sword upon his shoulder to send him forth as a knight to rescue all that is innocent and oppressed." 168 THE MORAL LIFE. THE HABIT OF BORROWING. IN all crusades against evil it is essential to find out, as nearly as possible, its primary source. No wrong-doing ever springs up at once, full fledged, in society. It is usually the gradual growth of certain habits which, in their earlier stages, were not regarded as of much importance — were not checked as actual sins, and which have thus crept insidiously into character and life, to develop at last into something which is fully recognized and censured as iniquity. There is no more striking example of this than the many forms of dishonesty, which excite righteous indignation afresh at every reappearance. We are naturally and justly shocked at the absconding clerk, the defaulting cashier, the faithless trustee; but we rarely pause to consider how these unhappy men have come to such a pass. IT HAS BEEN NO SUDDEN PLUNGE from innocence to guilt, but a gradual loosening of the principles — a slow deterioration of the character that has at length made such crimes possible. While we may not be able to trace, step by step, this downward process in any given case, it is safe to say that many, if not most, of these overt acts of dishonesty had their root in a loose habit of borrowing. Now, in itself, borrowing can not be called a culpable act. It is often a great convenience. We need a knife, a book, an umbrella — perhaps a small sum of money, which we can not easily obtain at once ; a friend is near and willing to lend ; we borrow it, use it and return it promptly. So far no wrong has been committed, no harm is done. Our friend has been glad to oblige us, and we are grateful. If the same limits and conditions were always preserved, no further evil could ensue. But often these limits are gradually extended ; we borrow more and more freely, and become less careful and prompt in the return. Sometimes we seriously infringe another's rights, without any intention of wrong-doing, simply by delay in returning borrowed property. The courtesy and kindness that lends freely is often sadly imposed upon, and compelled to withhold its favors. WHEN JUSTIFIABLE. From this habit to that of borrowing sums of money on slight occasions is not a difficult transition. Of course, there are times when necessity justifies a man in asking a temporary loan, although an ancient writer well says: "If thou hast of thine own, borrow not, since thou hast no need of it ; and if thou hast nothing, borrow not, because thou wilt not have any means to pay." But it is not usually those who are in the direst THE MORAL LIFE. 169 poverty that are the most inveterate borrowers. It is much more frequently those who allow their desires for superfluities to outrun their ability to obtain them that resort to this dangerous and insidious practice. All such desires grow by what they feed on, and become more and more exacting, while the strict rectitude which can not brook the long continuance of a debt is gradually impaired. The victim of such a snare finds himself increasingly involved in its meshes ; it becomes ever easier to borrow, ever harder to repay. Of course, this can not continue forever. People, after repeated disappointments, decline to lend with so small a chance of return, and he then resorts to darker and more questionable methods of obtaining the means to gratify desires which have acquired such tyranny over him. Temptation comes, opportunities arise ; he thinks he can restore what he takes and avoid detection, and perhaps, before he realizes what he is doing, he has committed a crime. It is but the culmination of a long process, during which self-indulgence has been fastening its clutch upon him, and the principle of integrity has been loosening its hold. THE TRAINING OF YOUTH. IS it not then all-important, in the training of youth, that exactly the reverse process should be inaugurated and fostered ? Is there any education so essential as that which teaches the young to restrain their desires within the limits which their own honest industry can supply? Plato, in his laws, would not have any one allowed to draw water from his neighbor's well, until he had proved by hard digging that there was no water on his own ground. It might be well for all young persons to have a similar rule impressed upon them with regard to money. Even for a necessity as urgent as that of water, they should exhaust every effort to obtain it for themselves, by energy, industry, and frugality, before they apply to another, even for temporary help. BUT IF THEY ARE FORCED AT LENGTH to do so, let the burden of the debt weigh heavily until it is discharged. Let them feel that it is a sacrifice of personal independence, a giving up of freedom for a time, which they will hasten with all speed to regain. Our youth are brought up to value freedom as their greatest blessing. They learn it from the- lips of their teachers ; they breathe it in the atmosphere around them. Slavery would be to them a degradation to which even death would be preferable. Let them also be taught to dread and to shun the slavery of debt — to prize above riches or honor, or luxury or pleasure, that independence which owes no man anything but love and good-will i 7 o THE MORAL LIFE. Such a habit of thought and life would make the crimes of faithlessness and fraud impossible. Character thus purified and made wholesome at its source would continue to flow on in clear and unsullied streams for the moral health and vigor of society. THE SAVING HABIT. A LARGE proportion of the educated never save at all, and a still larger proportion do not begin the process until the last ten years of their working lives. There is not a charity in London whose secretaries can not tell frightful stories of the poverty in which educated professional men often pass old age, and of the utter destitution to which the death of the breadwinner reduces the most "respectable " and even prosperous families. The number of educated men in a hundred who begin to save early, may be counted on the fingers of one hand, and the number of bachelors who save at any time is scarcely larger. It seems to be part of the national temperament not to dread old age until it is close at hand, or rather, to keep on thinking that strength must last until it has disappeared. More than half of the savings of the saving class are made between forty-five and fifty-five, sometimes even later still ; while there are men in thousands who will confess that up to sixty they have never given the matter a thought. The fear of the future, which is the root of thrift, has never entered their minds. This being the state of affairs with the cultivated, it is unjust to blame the artisans, who are only following their example. ► The workmen, owing to their work, have more youth in their natures than the middle class, or rather — for the remark is not true of the women ■ — their men keep their boyishness of spirit very much longer. They can smile, for example, at horseplay till they are sixty, and professionals can not after thirty-five. It is the essential quality of boys to be hopeful as to the future, to think little or nothing of its risks, and to deem saving needless while the reservoir of health and strength is still full to overflowing. The workmen retain much of this quality, which is in part recklessness, but in part also cheerfulness and courage ; and so, in a very singular degree, do the classes employed upon the land, whom we think the worst off. They, no doubt, look to the rates, but some of their carelessness, often rather fine to see, is also mental. The laborer who told his master: "I'm a braver man than you, for I dare spend my last shilling, and you darsen't," revealed a truth of temperament which is at the bottom of much of the workingman's unthrift. We hope yet that the latter will one day see what insurance might do for the whole community. — The Spectator. THE SOCIAL LIFE. WOMAN. T HE woman's cause is man's: they rise or sink Tog-ether, dwarfed or godlike, bond or free : For she that out of Lethe scales with man The shining steps of Nature, shares with man His nights, his days, moves with him to one goal, Stays all the fair young planet in her hands — If she be small, slight-natured, miserable, How shall men grow? For woman is not undeveloped man, But diverse : could we make her as the man, Sweet love were slain : his dearest bond is this, Not like to like, 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 breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; 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 human-kind. May these things be ! — Tennyson. 173 174 THE SOCIAL LIFE. WOMAN'S MISSION OOKING for a mission — for a work to do — that is the attitude of many I 1-/ women to-day; of many pure, true, sweet souls. It is a thing much dealt with in the popular writings of the age ; notably, it may be said to form the subject of one of the most powerful, the most fascinating, and the most unsatisfactory books ever written. What is George Eliot's "Middle- march" but such a book? Fascinating, brilliant, powerful, and cruel and cold as the devil and death ! Was there ever a sweeter soul than poor Dorothea? Was there ever a more merciless sacrifice than that of her warm heart, noble mind, and active spirit — first, to a crabbed, cold-blooded pedant, who makes of her a mere mechanical implement of his dry, unprofit- able work ; and next, to an empty-headed Bohemian, not worthy to stoop down and unloose the latchet of her shoe ? AND WHAT DOES THIS IMMOLATION appear to suggest? This, if anything clearly: That woman seeks in vain, in society as now constituted, a mission worthy of herself. In other days, say in those when St. Theresa prayed and worked, there was a mission for Dorothea ; now there is none ; she is cheated and defrauded, she can expect no more than to be bound helpless upon the altar, and slain alive, and so sent out of the world with a broken heart and empty hands, having wrought nothing worthy of herself, because fast held and bound in the iron of our modern systems. Now, this is one-sided, and unreal from first to last; it is far from the truth ; there is work to do ; there are positions in which it may be done and conditions in which it may be carried on, as laudably, as gloriously, as of old. The moral of " Middlemarch " might be accepted, if the choice for Dorothea lay ever between men of the Casaubon and the Ladislaw types ; between faith without love, and brains without faith. But to refute the conclusion, one has but to recall certain precious and helpful visions, which, indeed, are not visions, but realities; visions which the malevolent romancer hides from us, but which you can see any day. CHRISTIAN HOMES. Look, then, at the Christian homes throughout the Christian lands, where holy virtues and graces flourish in an atmosphere of faith, little, if at all, disturbed by the storms which vex the outside world. There is the wherewithal to make other homes as sweet and fresh as these, and in such work many women who fear God and keep His commandments find their vocations amply fulfilled. THE SOCIAL LIFE. 175 Look again at those with whom, in their fortunes here on earth, God hath dealt strangely, denying them their heart's desire, yet not leaving their hearts empty nor their hands idle. Think of the single women, whose lives in God*s sight are glorious, who have found out ways of helping others ; who have learned that love and sacrifice are the greatest words of the language. Some, by their writings, helpful and wholesome ; others, by devotion to philanthropic pursuits — as teachers, nurses of the sick, visitors of the poor and prisoner, mothers to the orphan, helpers to the clergy, beautifiers of the age by their artistic skill, ministering angels in half broken-up households — all these come forward and show us that there is still a mission for any devout and earnest woman who seeks it in faith and patience. WORKING-WOMEN AND GIRLS. And let me -speak also of the working-women and girls of this city, of whom I have known such great numbers in my twenty-three years of ministry in this parish. Well do they fulfil their mission in their own place. I have seen them going to their hard tasks and returning thence; they have told me of their trials and perils, of what they had to face, of the strife to lead pure, chaste life on starvation wages. I have seen poor working-girls growing up like fair white lilies in places in this city, where it would seem impossible for them to escape ; and I thought that these, also, toiling for their parents, their reckless brothers, their child-sisters, were showing us wonderful things, and fulfilling a mission which God will crown some day as among the highest works of His Kingdom. UNWHOLESOME WRITINGS. Such visions as these do wonderfully clear the thoughts, and he who has beheld them knows well what value to put on speculative, unwholesome writings, which leave the impression that the woman of to-day has no career before her, and that her life is that of one walking in a nightmare of doubt and uncertainty, burned up with the fever of hopeless aspiration, and finding neither health in the atmosphere nor help from man or God. Christian women, daughters of the Church, be true to your homes, to vows you have taken, whatever they may be, whether to your Lord in His ordinances, or to a man under the sanction of religion ; be true to God, to husband, to children, to friend, to the practical duties of daily fife, and above, below, around, we shall feel the influence of your virtue and strength, and shall be refreshed in your ennobling company with the multitudinous blessings of peace. — Morgan Dix. 176 THE SOCIAL LIFE. THE ELEVATION OF WOMAN. HOW true and yet how strange it is that from time immemorial one-half of the human race has been proscribed ; that woman, so essential to its perpetuity, has been burdened with civil, and, I may say, religious disabilities, and degraded by social customs. This fact is the result of prejudice, which may be traced to many sources. There is no . other reasonable explanation of such an unfortunate condition of things. But as Christianity becomes potential in the world, this prejudice gives way; these legal, social, and religious disabilities are removed, and woman is rising to her true intellectual and moral position in the world. This marvellous revolution has been wrought by and through the Bible. WOMAN UNDER ROMAN LAW. The Jewish is the only ancient religion that was opposed to this proscription, and Christianity is the only modern religion that gives proper recognition to the rights of woman. The question therefore is, What has Christianity done for woman ? The assertion is boldly made by unbelievers that woman's high social position in this country is due to her freedom from religious restraint. Let us decide this question by an appeal to historic facts. Let us see what was the condition of woman under Roman law, under early Teutonic sway, and under the oldest and best religions of the East ; and then wherein has her condition been improved by Christianity. Let us take woman under Roman law. She had no voice in the government of the family. The father was the sole centre of authority. The husband had supreme power over his wife's property. He had over her the power of life and death. THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN. Roman marriage, in its consummation and in its dissolution, illustrated woman's sad condition. She married a master who had over her absolute control. Such was the social and legal condition of woman under the most magnificent civilization outside of Christendom, under a national life which created that jurisprudence which Justinian embodied in his Pandects, and which underlies, in its general principles, the civilization of the world. In a country where law was the boast of the people and the admiration of mankind, we might reasonably look for such a protection of the rights of woman as to reflect glory upon the age. But in vain do we search the legal records of the "Mistress of the World" for such a fact. Now what did Christianity do for woman through the modification of the Roman law ? As soon as the religion of our Lord gained control in THE SOCIAL LIFE. 177 that empire, it created a new conception of woman's true position. Recall the wonderful changes made under Constantine, in the fourth century, and under Justinian in the sixth. By those changes the husband's absolute power was broken, the tutelage of woman was abolished, and she had rights in property. This was the beginning of the personal independence of woman, which is the glory of modern law and custom, and which has culminated in our present legislation. To accomplish this Christianity had a desperate struggle. She had to contend against old customs and inveterate habits, but she triumphed. How splendid are these words of Justinian : " We enact, then, that all persons, so far as they can, should preserve chastity, which alone is able to present their souls with confidence before God." HELENA'S DEVOTION. There were three powerful causes which operated to elevate woman under Christianity. She became a recognized factor in the Church ; she was among the most heroic of the blessed confessors who died at the stake, or in the arena of the Coliseum for the love of Christ ; and the discipline in the early Church not only protected the sanctity of marriage, but recognized woman as the equal of man. How many illustrious names appear in history reflecting the exalted character of woman under the dispensation of the New Testament ! It was Priscilla, more than any other human being, who laid the foundations of the Christian Church in Rome ; and the magnificent basilica of St. Peter's, instead of being a monument to Julius II. and Leo X., or to Michael Angelo or Raphael, is the enduring monu- ment of the Christian woman, Priscilla. And who does not remember Phoebe, that Grecian Christian lady who was the despatch-bearer of the inspired Epistles by St. Paul_ to the churches of Greece ? And who does not recall St. Helena, the mother of Constantine the Great, and her eminent devotion to Christianity? IT IS TO THE ENDURING HONOR OF CONSTANTINE that when he came to the throne he restored his mother to public favor and power. Constantius, his father, had repudiated her for Theodora, but the restoration of St. Helena was the noble expression of filial love under the power of a new religion. And it should be remembered that it was St. Helena who made a journey to the Holy Land, and rescued the Cave of the Nativity, and over it placed the splendid basilica which remains to this day; that it was St. Helena who discovered the supposed tomb of Christ in Jerusalem, and over it reared what is now known, and will be known in all the ages to come, as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre ; and who does not x 7 S THE SOCIAL LIFE. recall Paula, that Roman princess who accompanied St. Jerome to Palestine and distributed her ample fortune in charities and devotions'? These are the jewels in the crown of our Lord. These are the proofs of what Christianity has done for woman. And what was the condition of woman under the old Teutonic tribes ? True, she was revered, she was esteemed a prophetess in times of national peril ; her virtue was estimated as priceless. Yet it is an historic fact that among the Teutonic tribes polygamy was not unknown ; that the husband could be an absolute tyrant ; that he could put out the eyes and break the limbs of an unhappy wife. The woman was purchased like any other piece of property. She was a maiden to her lord, sat at his feet during his meals, and was a slave to his whims. The husband had the right to sell, to punish, and to kill the wife of his bosom. THE GERMANS. Happily for the world, Christianity permeated those Teutonic tribes before they were altogether corrupted by contact with the low Roman and Grecian civilizations. The religion of our Lord preserved whatever was good and modified whatever was evil. It threw its muniments of power around woman's priceless virtue ; it preserved the reverence in which she had been held ; more than this, it substituted monogamy for polygamy ; it broke the absolute tyranny of the husband ; it rescued woman from the public shambles and made her the equal and happy companion of her husband. And nowhere to-day outside of England is home such a sublime fact as in Germany. There and here the German husband and father is seen with the wife and mother and their children on all festive occasions. Do you tell me that with them he spends his time in beer-gardens? But this is better than the custom in this country for the polished American to leave wife and children at home and spend his nights amid the conviviality and gambling of a club-house. OLD RELIGIONS OF THE EAST. And what is the condition of woman under the old religions of the East ? Let us go to Japan, China, and India. Let us take woman there in her best estate, under the great religious teachers whose names are so honored in this country by certain persons. The great Confucius considered a woman no better than a slave, and as difficult to manage. "Ten daughters do not equal one son," he said. Here are some of his maxims : " When young she must obey her father and elder brother ; when married she must obey her husband ; when a widow she must obey her son. She must not marry a second time. She must never issue orders to those out- THE SOCIAL LIFE. 179 side of her home. Her chief business is to prepare wine and food. She must not be known for good or evil beyond the threshold of her own apart- ments. She must not attend a funeral beyond the limits of her own State. She must not come to any conclusion on her own deliberation. There are five women who should not be taken in marriage : the daughter of a rebel, the daughter of a disorderly father, the daughter of parents whose grand- children are criminals, the daughter of a leper, and a daughter who has lost her father and elder brother." The great Buddha was not more favorable to women. He taught the monstrous notion of the transfiguration of souls, and the only hope for woman was that she might turn to be a man some time or other. Nor does the famous Brahmin do better for women. She is not permitted to read the holy Veda nor to offer prayer. She is soulless without man. The Shastas teach : " She must revere her husband as she would a god. If she speaks unkindly to him she must be divorced without delay, and when he is dead she must burn on his funeral pyre." Nor did Mohammed hold woman in higher esteem. The Arabs say: " Women are the whips of the devil. Trust neither a king, nor a horse, nor a woman." . When a son is born to a Moslem, his neighbors congratulate him, but when a daughter is born to him he goes to the bazaars to receive the condolence of his friends. MAXIMS OF CONFUCIUS. When a son is born, He sleeps on a bed, He is clothed in robes, He plays with gems, His cry is princely loud ; But when a daughter is born, She sleeps on the ground, She is clothed with a wrapper, She plays with a tile, She is incapable either of evil or good ; It is hers only to think of preparing wine and food, And not giving any occasion of grief to her parents. Now, by way of contrast, let us turn to the Bible. What is its idea of woman ? She is man's equal. Her creation is as honorable as that of man. She was made to be his companion. The Arabs have a legend that before Eve's creation man was a. perfect humanity, possessing strength, dignity and courage, grace, gentleness, and beauty, but that after the 180 THE SOCIAL LIFE. mysterious rib was extracted man lost the grace, the gentleness, and the beauty, so that man without a wife is only half a man. THE JEWISH WOMAN'S CONDITION. In the Ten Commandments the Lord demands equality : " Honor thy father and thy mother." All of the Mosaic laws were essentially protective of woman. As a legislator Moses had to contend against polygamy, both simultaneous and successive, against concubinage and easy divorce, which were only too common. Throughout the East this social disorder was universal. Hence the courage of his legislation. His laws of marriage were at once preventive and protective. The Jewish law followed the girl into her apprenticeship, when she was compelled to support an indigent father, and it provided for her release at a given time, and protected her in her betrothal. It provided for the preservation of her family inheritance and the rights of her widowhood. And all the divorce laws enacted by Moses were in the interest of woman. And what is the New Testament idea of marriage ? It is a bond for . life or death. Purity and fidelity are demanded of both parties, and its final dissolution is justified by only one cause. Christ recognized women among his followers. He made companions of them. He treated them with tenderness. He sent a woman on the most important mission ever committed to a human being — to proclaim His triumphal resurrection. He restored marriage to its original state of purity. He declared that marriage is a state rather than an act, an institution rather than a law. He said marriage is not a convenience, nor a business transaction, nor a personal contract merely. He said it was not a civil rite, but a religious institution. He declared that it was ordained by the Almighty, hence neither an accident, nor a human device, nor a civil arrangement: marriage's three-fold design. Marriage has a three-fold design — companionship, multiplication, and happiness. The relations of husband and wife are prescribed by inspiration. St. Paul has been violently assailed because of his supposed degradation of woman. But woman never had a truer or a nobler defender of her rights than he. In the fifth chapter of Ephesians he discourses upon the mutual and reciprocal duties of husband and wife. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave himself for it." " Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands, as unto the Lord." So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife, loveth himself, for no man ever hated his own flesh, but honoreth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church." There is an apparent harshness in the THE SOCIAL LIFE. difference of these commands ; yet the woman's task is easier than the man's, and, withal, carefully guarded. It is eminently proper that there should be one ruling will in a family, which, by Divine appointment, is man's. Of old it was said : " Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." But this submission is not a cringing servitude, a servile obedience to a lordly husband ; but a recognition of his headship of the family, a gentle acquiescence in his decisions, a calm and dignified respect paid him who bears the image of God and whose representative he is. In this the Bible goes on the supposition of what man should be, and notwhatheis; and were he as he should be, no pure and noble-minded woman would hesitate to render him this respect. But lest he should prove a tyrant she is to submit as unto the Lord ; that is, according to His law. LOVE IMPLIES TWO THINGS. Yet there is a limit to man's authority. He cannot compel her to do wrong. He may be profligate, but he cannot compel her to follow his example. He may be an infidel, but he cannot compel her to deny the Lord. He is bound to respect her rights of conscience and her feelings. He cannot compel her to neglect her filial duties, nor to disregard her own happiness. These are her reserved rights, not surrendered by the marriage contract. And what are the corresponding duties of the husband? "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it." This is all that woman's heart can wish. Love implies two things : to take delight in a person, and to render that person happy. And how much should a husband love his wife? "As Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it." The husband is to sacrifice himself for his wife if necessary. Such is the noble exhibition of the relative duties of husband and wife by St. Paul. MARRIAGE MORE THAN A MERE CONTRACT. Our Lord pronounced judgment upon the social and domestic vices of His age, and sought the elevation of woman by declaring the indissolu- bleness of the marriage tie except for one cause. He did not recognize incompatibility of temper, or insanity, or fickleness of choice, as justifiable causes of divorce. He knew the necessity of giving permanence to marriage. He knew that other causes might justify a separation, as where the husband is brutal, or intemperate, or fails to support his family ; but He does not give the right to remarry. And how essential and grand this truth ! If marriage is not permanent, what will be the effect upon the childhood of the Republic? If marriage is a mere contract, to be dissolved at the 1 82 THE SOCIAL LIFE. pleasure of the parties, then farewell t'o home ! It was Judge Story, that eminent jurist, who said: "Marriage appears to be something more than a mere contract. It is rather to be deemed an institution of society, founded upon the consent and contract of the parties ; and in this view it has some peculiarities in its nature, character, operation, and extent of obligation different from what belongs to ordinary contracts." The reason that would justify the dissolution of marriage at the will of the parties would also justify the violation of all other obligations. Here is the greatest danger to society. Two things are needed in this country — namely, the enactment of a national marriage law and of a national law of divorce. The laws on these questions should be not diverse and local, but uniform and universal. Give us these, and we will rescue home from the danger that now threatens it. Let us see to it that this subject is taken into consideration by the chief legislative body of this country, for while the States have claimed as reserved rights the rights to legislate on marriage and divorce, it appears to me that the questions are radical in the welfare of the Republic, and that they rightfully belong to national legislation. The American woman occupies nearly the position which Christianity seems to assign her. She is a leader in all the great moral reforms of the day. She is the equal of man in personal rights. Woman should be a Christian. All her influence should be on the side of Christ. The great struggle of Christianity has been to rescue her from her degradation, and it would be only gratitude on her part to accept the Lord as her personal Redeemer.—/. P. Newman. o BE A WOMAN. FT I've heard a gentle mother, As the twilight hours began, Pleading with a son, of duty, Urging him to be a man ; But unto her blue-eyed daughter, Though with love's words quite as ready, Points she out this other duty, — " Strive, my dear, to be a lady." What's a lady ? Is it something Made of hoops and silks and airs, Used to decorate the parlor, Like the fancy mats and chairs ? THE SOCIAL LIFE. 183 Is it one who wastes on novels Every feeling that is human ? If 'tis this to be a lady, 'Tis not this to be a woman. Mother, then, unto your daughter Speak of something higher far Than to be mere fashion's lady — Woman is the brightest star. If you in your strong affection Urge your son to be a true man, Urge your daughter not less strongly To arise and be a woman. Yes, a woman — brightest model Of that high and perfect beauty Where the mind and soul and body Blend to work out life's great duty. Be a woman ! naught is higher On the gilded list of fame ; On the catalogue of virtue. There's no brighter, holier name. Be a woman! on to duty! Raise the world from all that's low ; Place high in social heaven Virtue's fair and radiant bow ; Lend thy influence to each effort That shall raise our nature human ; Be not fashion's gilded lady,— r Be a brave, whole-souled, true woman ! — Edwards Brooks. HOW HOME IS DESTROYED. ii ^HE that liveth in pleasure" saith the Apostle, "is dead while she liveth." *-* Measured by this rule, what a graveyard is society ! How many, now heaped together, are its dead ! To live in pleasure, to enjoy the world, to put aside serious thought ; how many are the households in which these are the leading principles of action ! The mischief begins in the education of the children. The high and the humble are in fault alike. Take, for 1 84 THE SOCIAL LIFE. example, a mother, herself imperfectly educated, who lives, and moves, and has her being in the world ; her one idea will be to give her daughters a favorable introduction into society, and make them popular and successful. This is, in her view, the serious business of life. In a society thus dedicated to pleasure, offering low ideals, and planted with way-marks leading off from duty and from God, the young women, who from their high position and vast responsibilities, ought to do great things for us in their time, are prepared for the next step downward ; for the marriages so often made — mere mockeries of the sacred name. Girls so trained, and having imbibed the spirit of the age, will have their fixed ideas of the reason why it is well to be married ; and in numbers of instances the drift of their training is shown in the motives with which they enter into this estate. MARRYING FOR WEALTH. To marry for an establishment is the commonest of all things. But there are those who appear to have married chiefly in order to get a freedom to .enjoy the world which they could not have in their single condition. We have not yet come so far as to proclaim entire liberty to all the daughters of the land ; a girl is still under certain restraints ; she must observe certain proprieties ; she cannot do as she pleases. But, once a wife — O execrable profanation of the word! — she is independent and free; she may go where she likes, and do what she will ; no one can complain but her husband, and as for him, she will very soon teach him that she has no idea of being bound by his wish or command? Not to sacrifice herself to one individual did she marry, but rather to have the free run of every avenue leading to enjoyment in the world. We reach, in this subject of marriage, the most grave of all — the place of the worst sins. NO UNCOMMON THING. Nothing degrades women so effectively, or deteriorates them so hopelessly, as their errors on this subject. There is something appalling in the total irresponsibility of many married people. Young persons contract marriage with no apparent sense of the gravity of the act ; without reflecting that to live together after God's ordinance involves a test of the entire moral and religious nature, and trials which can be surmounted only by the charm and talisman of mutual respect, honor, and love. Some marry for money, some for position, some for more freedom ; we are taught now by the advanced thinkers that love is the last of all THE SOCIAL LIFE. 185 motives, hardly to be regarded to-day as a rational motive. Now, when self-interest, in some one of its Protean shapes, is at the bottom of this proceeding, the moment self-interest is crossed or disappointed, they kick against the restraint. It is no uncommon thing to hear it said some time after a marriage, perhaps within a year or two : " She cares nothing about her husband now ; they are hardly ever together. Poor thing ! She made a great mistake in marrying him, and she sees it now, and admits it." Yes ; but that is not all. She goes her way as calmly and coolly as if nothing extraordinary had occurred ; as if marriage, after all, was not a thing of any consequence; as if it had enjoined no duty and imposed no responsibility. And no one seems to think the less of her, nor to be at all shocked or distressed ; it is quite a matter of course now — a little, trifling blunder, nothing serious ; let the carnival proceed ; let us all be bright and cheerful as ever; let us gad-about in the sunshine, and lose no joy of life. NO ONE IS RESPONSIBLE. Irresponsibility : it is the blight of the day. Somebody has blundered; no one is responsible. Home is made up, where God's full blessing has been granted, of the father, the mother, and the children. But where now, in many a home, is the father ? Where is the mother ? And where are the children? We see all about us the wrecks of homes; the shadows and ghosts of homes , the parodies of homes. Slowly are dying out the home- life, the home-influence, the home-training, the home-religion. And what is this home, out of which its heads fly, anywhere and everywhere, to find a pleasure which it can not give, and in which the principal teachers of the children are hirelings ? I ask their pardon, sometimes, for calling them hirelings, or thinking of them as such, for I have seen, amid the ruin of such empty and deserted homes, humble and pious servants, who had the heart which the mother seemed to have lost; who actually, in God's sight, were more the mothers of the children than the vain, forgetful creatures that bore them ; and in honoring such servants I have looked with amazement and horror on that dereliction ; with amaze- ment that any mother can thus resign what to a true woman should be the sweetest of all duties ; with horror at a neglect which marks the ebb of the tide and involves the penalties which must ensue when the decadence shall be complete. — Morgan Dix. DIVORCE. IT has been said, and truly, that it is impossible to use too strong language on the subject of divorce. I am at a loss and in doubt. At a loss for terms adequate to state the kind and degree of the peril now menacing the 1 86 THE SOCIAL LIFE. social order and Christian civilization ; doubtful, whether it be not now too late to rouse men to a sense of the danger, and check the movement for the age. For evil, growing, may get such headway that to stop it requires more than human strength. The enemies appear to be without number, their onset all but irresistible ; and this is felt most painfully by those who, here and elsewhere, have ventured to confront this evil of the hour, this horrible shape which assails our honor and our purity, and strikes at the heart, the keystone of our civilization — the home. Moral poison is in the air we breathe ; it threatens the life of man, woman, and child ; it stifles, it chokes, it makes the whole head sick and the whole heart faint; it kills and dries up from the roots the love of chastity, virtue, and honor. HOW EASILY DIVORCES ARE OBTAINED. Divorce, with the privilege of marrying again; divorce which absolutely separates the married, destroys the home, and throws the road open to other alliances — that is the abomination with which we have -to deal to-day. Unquestionably that is the point aimed at; that a divorce for any cause shall carry with it the freedom to marry again; and that the causes for which divorce may be obtained shall be made so numerous that any married couple may easily be parted under the form and shadow of law. In the State of Maine a divorce, full and absolute, may now be granted, not merely for any one of the long list of specified causes, but, adds the statute, "by any Justice of the Supreme Court, whenever, in the exercise of sound discretion, he deems it reasonable and proper, conducive to domestic harmony, and consistent with the peace and morality of society!" Think of that! A divorce may be granted on any ground approved as reasonable by a judge ! And what will they do where judges, invested with such a power, shall be placed in office by the vote of a people unrestrained by the curb of religion and debased by the morals of a revived paganism ? UNIFORM LAW OF DIVORCE NEEDED. What we need is an uniform system of law regulating marriage and divorce throughout the United States; but how can we get it? or who can predict what it would be ? What is the theory underlying this steady movement for increased facilities for divorce ? This : that marriage is a civil contract, and no more. Now, such contracts are terminable at the pleasure of the parties. This is the idea of marriage, which has been sedulously taught for a long time past ; it is like a business partnership. Nothing is necessary in forming THE SOCIAL LIFE. 187 this social partnership, but ability and consent; and when the partners find it to their interest to dissolve the firm, they ought to be free to do so. Marriage is not a mere civil contract. It is a divine institution. It makes a man and a woman one flesh. It binds them together for life in an union never to be dissolved. It gives them one nature, one life, one aim, common interests ; they should be one in thought, mind, will, love ; in each other they should find their full and entire happiness. Nowhere is this so beautifully brought out as in St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians. The union of the husband and the wife is effected, not as human partnerships are made, but by Divine power. One flesh, each is to the other as his or her own self. A man must love his wife, because she is himself, and no man ever hated his own flesh. A WOMAN MUST BE SUBJECT TO HER HUSBAND in everything, for love's sake, and in love, and because she is to him as the Church is to Christ. Their union should be holy and without blemish. The household should reflect the glory of the Church, which is without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. There is no shame, no dishonor; marriage is honorable, holy, blessed of God, the joy of angels, the bond of peace, and of all virtues. Can such an union as this be dissolved, under any circumstances, so that the parties, or either of them, shall be free to form another ? If it is God who joins them together — then God only can answer the question before us, and the one thing to be asked is, What has God said about it? But God said : " They are no more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let no man put asunder." (St. Matt., 19 : 6.) And, again, God said: "Whosoever putteth azvay his wife and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband commit teth adultery." (St. Luke, 16 : 18.) The words are as clear as the lightning which cometh out of the East and shineth even unto the West. THE SOCIAL AND MORAL WRECK. Let the woman remember that it is the religion of Jesus Christ which has sanctified her person and exalted her sex; that every word of Christ touching her relations to man, as maid, as wife, as widow, is for her a word of life ; that there is not, and can not be, a work more urgent for her, or more essential to her safety and honor, than to see that those words of Christ are kept perpetually before the community, blazoned and illuminated, as the very talismans of social security. The social and moral wreck of the woman will be complete, when the conspiracy against Holy Matrimony has THE SOCIAL LIFE. come to a triumph. Then this will be the history: that she whom God lifted from the estate of concubine and slave, and crowned with honor and glory as a Christian wife, will, after having turned away from God to follow her own devices, sink back to be once more man's concubine and slave. The conditions may vary, to match the altered aspects of the world ; the thing will be the same ; the lapse will be into the old misery and bitterness ; and once more shall the fetters be riveted on her limbs, and once more shall the iron enter into her soul; and "there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." — Morgan Dix. FORCE OF CHARACTER. A VIRTUOUS woman is an evangel of goodness to the world. She is one of the pillars in the eternal kingdom of right. The world would go to ruin without the influence of woman's moral and religious character. But woman does not do enough. Her power is not equal to its need. The world is a grand Pandora's box of wickedness — a far-spread scene of selfish- ness and sensualism, in which woman herself acts a conspicuous part. There is to-day a loud call for a more active religion — a more powerful impulse in behalf of morality. To youthful women we must look for a leader in the cause of morality and religion. The girls of to-day are greatly instrumental in giving a beautiful complexion to the society of to-morrow. Why do not the women of to-day exercise that same moral sway over their male associates that our fathers tell us our mothers did over them ? Because they do not possess sufficient force of character. Their moral wills are not resolute. Their influence is not armed with executive power. They would not have a drunkard for a husband, but they will drink a glass of wine with a young man in our fashionable restaurants or hotels, on the way home from the theatre. They would not take the name of God in vain, but they love the society of men who swear like troopers out of their presence. They would not be dishonest, but they exaggerate and equivocate, and affect and pretend, so that many men seldom think of believing what young women tell them. They countenance the society of tricksters and deceivers, and allow a ten-dollar-a-week society swell to spend twice that amount on them for theatre tickets, carriages, flowers, etc., when they know, or ought to know, that these things are unpaid for, employers robbed, or appearances kept up by borrowing or sponging. They would not be irreligious, but they smile upon men who boast that for years they had not been inside of a church, and sneer at God and Divine things, and proclaim themselves " free thinkers." They would not be licentious, but have no stunning rebuke for men whose very touch is pollution, and admit them into their society. THE SOCIAL LIFE. 189 This is the virtue of too many women. We need women who will regard their moral convictions as solemn resolves to be true to God and duty, come what may. A young lady by her constant and consistent Christian example can exert an untold power for good, and in this way only can she make the young man believe that her religion is the thing for him. Associate with men of intelligence and sense ; with men whose language is chaste and good, whose sentiments are lofty and edifying, and whose deportment is such as correct morals dictate. She is truly beautiful who can gather the good around her for the blessing of her smiles, and strew men's pathways with moral light. Fair to God is she who teaches the sentiments of duty and honesty in every act of her life. THE WORKINGWOMAN'S CRY OF DESPAIR. THERE are in New York City 125,000 women who are bread-winners, who have no male protectors, no means of stipport other than their own efforts. There are 32,500 out of employment; 30,000 destitute, and every year 20,000 are dropping away to evil habits because they are destitute. Consider these serious facts. STARVATION WAGES. They are obliged to accept whatever wages are offered. There are trained sewing-women making waists at 2^ cents each. One woman is reported who was able to make 25 cents a day, working nineteen hours. You go out some day and buy a cloak, satin-lined and quilted. Well, it is perhaps made by a woman who makes 50 or 60 cents working sixteen hours a day. Similar statistics come from Buffalo. Women make trousers for from 12)4 to 25 cents, and shirts for from 6% to 12^ cents. They earn from $1.50 to $5 a week. Overalls are made for 62 cents a dozen; flannel shirts for $1 a dozen. A change in fashion, such as in feathers, may throw 4,000 women out of work. Of 2,000 women, 134 averaged $1; 356 averaged $2. CRUEL FATE. One winter day a young woman came to me for advice. A wealthy man was said to be responsible for her condition. She wished to lead an honest life, and she could earn from $12 to #14 a month. Her board cost her from #3 to #3.50 a week. I hardly knew what to advise her. I hardly i 9 o THE SOCIAL LIFE. know what her end will be. I knew no one who would take her with the spot on her character. She went out again to struggle, to fight the battle of life. If we have no sympathy with such women, I think that a statement such as this, made by a workingwoman, would help us to understand the temptations, would incline us to listen to their cry of despair : "I have worked eleven years. I have. learned five trades, both with the needle and the machine. I work fourteen hours a day, for my children have to be fed. I know all the trades well. Five years ago I made $1.50 a day. Then wages went down to 90 and 85 cents. For a year the best I could do has been 80 and 75 cents a day. " I am sixty-two years old. I can't learn new ways. I am strong. I can work fourteen hours a day, and I never asked help. I used to say when trouble came that it was the Lord's way; now I don't believe it." SOMETHING WRONG. It does not seem possible in this nineteenth century, with all its civilization, with all the churches in the land, that there could be any such woman in the midst of us. In our churches we have beautiful pictures, good music, all the advantages that wealth can give ; and we let the Master go on His solitary- way to the cross, for He goes to the cross every time a woman like this cries out in her grief. Something must be wrong in our methods of living, in our economics, or such things could not exist. You, daughters, in your purity, do not forget that outside the home circle, beyond the Church — for somehow they don't often come to the Church ; they seem outside the influence of the Church — women are working, slaving, until misery shuts down on them, and they feel they are forgotten by God. Women are crying out in despair for help. The " Song of the Shirt " might be sung every day in New York. Twenty thousand women are going down every year blasted for the sins of men, because we do not know how to reach them with the power of the Gospel. HOW TO REACH THEM. How can we reach them ? First let us educate every woman to understand the dignity of labor. How many are able now to do the first thing about the household ? How many fathers and mothers are there who say, " We have labored hard all our lives that our children shall not know what labor is ?" This is essentially THE SOCIAL LIFE. 191 wrong. Let the daughter of every rich man in the land be taught to labor, so that if thrown on the world she will be able to support herself without selling herself. Then educate women so that they may accept more opportunities of earning a livelihood. Why should so many be earning a bare subsistence, particularly by the needle, when trained nurses command almost any price, and are worth it? In the city it is almost impossible to get a trained housekeeper. There is nothing menial in the common work of the house. Women trained in such work come from other countries, are generally well paid, live well, have opportunities of seeing their friends, and are able to lay up something. Other women, from false pride or training, are unwilling to accept housework as a calling. But they ply the needle under a severe overseer, and for a pittance. BARGAIN COUNTERS. There is another thing which I find it hard to express. We ought so to govern ourselves as not to delight in getting big bargains. To get bargains some women will go from store to store in search of them, compelling merchants to reduce the expenses at the bargain counters. Often blood and life are lost in consequence by the women who serve at these counters. These employers are in a measure responsible, but there is one thing which every one may do — don't buy anything without paying a fair price for it. Whenever anything you want is worth a certain price, buy it ; but don't try to take the blood and life of women by getting it cheaper. These bargain counters are in many cases bargains with the devil, and they are, in part, the cause of 20,000 women every year selling their honor, because they can't get living wages at bargain-counter prices. More charity should be shown to workingwomen. They should have our encouragement and sympathy. In this the winter season, as their condition grows harder, let your hearts grow softer. SYMPATHY NEEDED. There are many women such as her who came to me for advice. Before you treat them with scorn, remember the words of Christ : "Let him that is without sin among you cast the first stone." Therefore, " Let him that is without responsibility among you hold himself without shame." Women have no suffrage, no power to enforce their rights. Oh, that cry of despair, let it reach your ears! Remember the 125,000 working- women, the 32,500 out of employment, the 30,000 destitute and the 20,000 192 THE SOCIAL LIFE. going to moral death. Study the laws of trade to alter their condition if possible, that starving women may once more see the light and believe that there is a just God, because there are good and just men and women in the world. — Dr. Eaton. THE SCIENCE OF SELF-SUPPORT. AS no boy ought to be brought up without learning some business at which he could earn a livelihood, so no girl ought to be brought up without learning the science of self-support. The difficulty is that many a family goes sailing on the high tides of success, and the husband and father depends on his own health and acumen for the welfare of his household, but one day he gets his feet wet, and in three days pneumonia has closed his life, and the daughters are turned out on a cold world to earn bread, and there is nothing practical that they can do. The friends come in and hold consultation. " Give music lessons," says an outsider. Yes, that is a useful calling. But there are enough music teachers now starving to death in all our towns and cities, to occupy all the piano stools and sofas and chairs and front-door steps of the city. Besides that, the daughter has been playing only for amusement, and is only at the foot of the ladder, to the top of which a great multitude of masters on piano and harp and flute and organ have climbed. " Put the bereft daughters as saleswomen in stores," says another adviser. But there they must compete with salesmen of long experience, or with men who have served an apprenticeship in commerce and who began as shop-boys at ten years of age. Some kind-hearted dry goods man, having known the father, now gone, says, " We are not in need of any more help just now, but send your daughters to my store, and I will do as well by them as possible. Very soon the question comes up, Why do not the female employes of that establishment get as much wages as the male employes? For the simple reason, in many cases, the females were suddenly flung by misfortune behind that counter, while the males have from the day they left the public school been learning the business. How is this evil to be cured ? Start clear back in the homestead and TEACH YOUR DAUGHTERS that life is an earnest thing, and that there is a possibility, if not a strong probability, that they will have to fight the battle of life alone. Let every father and mother say to their daughters, " Now, what would you do for a livelihood, if what I now own were swept away by financial disaster or old age, or death should end my career ?" THE SOCIAL LIFE. 193 " Well, I could make recitations in public and earn my living as a dramatist ; I could render King Lear or Macbeth till your hair would rise on end, or give you "Sheridan's Ride " or Dickens' " Pickwick." Yes, that is a beautiful art, but ever and anon, as now, there is an epidemic of dramati- zation that makes hundreds of households nervous with the cries and shrieks and groans of young tragediennes dying in the fifth act ; and the trouble is that while your friends would like to hear you and really think that you would surpass Ristori, you could not, in the way of living, in ten years earn ten cents. My advice to all girls and unmarried women, whether in affluent homes or in homes where most stringent economies are grinding, is to learn to do some kind of work that the world must have while the world stands. I am glad to see a marvellous change for the better, and that women have found out that there are hundreds of practical THINGS THAT A WOMAN CAN DO for a living if she begins soon enough, and that men have been compelled to admit it. You and I can remember when the majority of occupations were thought inappropriate for women ; but our Civil War came, and the hosts of men went forth from North and South ; and to conduct the busi- ness of our cities during the patriotic absence, women were demanded by the tens of thousands to take the vacant places, and multitudes of women, who had been hitherto supported by fathers and brothers and sons, were compelled from that time to take care of themselves. From that time a mighty change took place favorable to female employment. OCCUPATIONS APPROPRIATE FOR WOMEN. Among the occupations appropriate for woman, I place the following, into many of which she has already entered, and all the others she will enter: Stenography, and you may find her at nearly all the reportorial stands in our educational, political, and religious meetings. Savings banks, the work clean and honorable, and who so great a right to toil there, for a woman founded the first savings bank — Mrs. Priscilla Wakefield. Copyists, and there is hardly a professional man that does not need the service of her penmanship, and, as amanuensis, many of the greatest books of our day have been dictated for her writing. There they are as florists and confec- tioners and music-teachers and bookkeepers, for which they are specially qualified by patience and accuracy, and wood engraving, in which the Cooper Institute has turned out so many qualified ; and telegraphy, for which she is specially prepared, as thousands of telegraphic offices will testifv. i 9 4 THE SOCIAL LIFE. Photography, and in nearly all our establishments they may be found there at cheerful work. As workers in ivory and gutta-percha and gum-elastic and tortoise-shell and gilding, and in chemicals, in porcelain, in terra-cotta. As post-mistresses, and the President is giving them appoint- ments all over the land. As proof-readers, as translators, as modellers, as designers, as draughtswomen, as lithographers ; as teachers, for which they are especially endowed, the first teacher of every child by Divine arrangement, being a woman. AS PHYSICIANS, HAVING GRADUATED after a regular course. On the lecture platform, for you know the brilliant success of Mrs. Livermore and Mrs. Hallowell and Mrs. Lathrop and Miss Willard. As physiological lecturers to their own sex, for which service there is a demand appalling and terrific. As preachers of the Gospel, and all the protests of ecclesiastical courts can not hinder them, for they have a pathos and a power in their religious utterances that men can never reach. Witness all those who have heard their mother pray. Oh, young woman of America ! as many of you will have to fight your own battles alone, do not wait until you are flung of disaster, and your father is dead, and all the resources of your family have been scattered ; but now, while in a good house and environed by all prosperities, learn how to do some kind of WORK THAT THE WORLD MUST HAVE as long as the world stands. Turn your attention from the embroidery of fine slippers, of which there is a surplus, and make a useful shoe. Expend the time in which you adorn a cigar-case in learning how to make a good honest loaf of bread. Turn your attention from the making of flimsy nothings to the manufacturing of important somethings. Much of the time spent in young ladies' seminaries in studying what are called the "higher branches," might better be expended in teaching them something by which they could support themselves. If you are going to be teachers, or if you have so much assured wealth that you can always dwell in those high regions, trigonometry of course, metaphysics of course, Latin, and Greek, and German, and French, and Italian, of course, and a hundred other things of course ; but if you are not expecting to teach, and your wealth is not established beyond misfortune, after you have learned the ordinary branches, take hold of that kind of study that will pay in dollars and cents in case you are thrown on your own resources. Learn to do something better than anybody else. Buy Virginia Penny's book, entitled " The Employments of Women," and learn there are five hundred ways in which a woman may earn a living. illl-HallDWEEn, THE SOCIAL LIFE. 197 "No, no!" says some young woman, "I will not undertake anything so unromantic and commonplace as that." An excellent author writes that after he had, in a book, argued for efficiency in womanly work in order to success, and positive apprenticeship by way of preparation, a prominent chemist advertised that he would teach a class of women to become druggists and apothecaries if they would go through an apprenticeship as men do ; and a printer advertised that he would take a class of women to learn the printer's trade if they would go through an apprenticeship as men do ; and how many, according to the account of the author, do you suppose applied to become skilled in the drug business and printing business? Not one! " But," you ask, "what would my father and mother say if they saw I was doing such UNFASHIONABLE WORK?" Throw the whole responsibility upon the pastor of the Brooklyn Tabernacle, who is constantly hearing of young women in all these cities, who, unqualified by their previous luxurious surroundings for the awful struggle of life into which they have been suddenly hurled, seemed to have nothing left them but a choice between starvation and damnation. There they go along the street seven o'clock in the wintry mornings, through the slush and storm, to the place where they shall earn only half enough for subsistence, the daughters of once prosperous merchants, lawyers, clergy- men, artists, bankers, and capitalists, who brought up their children under the infernal delusion that it was not high-tone for women to learn a profitable calling. Young women ! take this affair in your own hand, and let there be an insurrection in all prosperous families of Brooklyn and New York and Christendom on the part of the daughters of this day, demanding knowledge in occupations and styles of business by which they may be their own defence and their own support if all fatherly and husbandly and brotherly hands forever fail them. I have seen TWO SAD SIGHTS, the one a woman in all the glory of her young life, stricken by disease, and in a week lifeless in a home in which she had been the pride. As her hands were folded over the still heart and her eyes closed for the last slumber, and she was taken out amid the lamentations of kindred and friends, I thought that was sadness immeasurable. But I have seen some- thing compared with which that scene was bright and songful. It was a young woman who had been all her days amid wealthy surroundings, turned out on a cold world without one lesson how to earn food and shelter 198 THE SOCIAL LIFE. and hurled into the awful whirlpool of city life, where strong ships have gone down, and for twenty years not one word has been heard from her. Vessels, last week, went out on the Atlantic Ocean looking for a shipwrecked craft that had been left alone and forsaken on the sea, to bring it into port. But who shall ever bring again into the harbor of peace and hope and Heaven that lost womanly-immortal, driven into that tempest, aflame in that conflagration, sinking into that abyss? O God, help! O Christ, rescue ! DO THAT WHICH IS NECESSARY. My sisters, give not your time to learning fancy work, but connect your skill with indispensables of life. The world will always want something to wear; and something to eat, and shelter and fuel, and knowledge and religion. And all these things will continue to be the necessaries, and if you fasten your energies upon occupations and profes- sions thus related, the world will be unable to do without you. Remember, that in proportion as you are skilful in anything, your rivalries become less. For unskilled toil, women by the millions. But you may rise to where there are only a thousand ; and still higher, till there are only a hundred ; and still higher, till there are only ten ; and still higher, in some particular department, till there is only a unit, and that yourself. For a while you may keep wages and a place through the kindly sympathy of an employer, but you will eventually get no more compensation than you can make yourself worth. Let me say to all women who have already entered upon the battle of life, that the time is coming when woman shall not only get as much salary and wages as men get, but for certain styles of employment women will have higher salary and more wages, for the reason that for some styles of work they have more adaptation. But this JUSTICE WILL COME TO WOMAN not through any sentiment of gallantry, not because woman is physically weaker than man, and, therefore, ought to have more consideration shown her, but because through her finer natural taste and more grace of manner, and quicker perception, and more delicate touch, and more educated adroitness, she will, in certain callings, be to her employer worth ten per cent, more, or twenty per cent, more than the other sex. She will not get it by asking for it, but by earning it, and it shall be hers by lawful conquest. Now, men of America, be fair and give the women a chance. Are you afraid that they will do some of your work, and hence harm your prosperities ? Remember that there are scores of thousands of men doing women's work. Do not be afraid ! God knows the end from the beginning, THE SOCIAL LIFE. 199 and He knows how many people this world can feed and shelter, and when it gets too full He will end the world, and, if need be, start another. God will halt the inventive faculty, which, by producing a machine that will do the work of ten or twenty or a hundred men and women, will leave that number of people without work. I hope that there will not be invented another sewing-machine, or reaping-machine, or corn-thresher, or any other new machine for the next five hundred years. We want no more wooden hands and iron hands and steel hands and electric hands substituted for men and women, who would otherwise do the work and get the pay and earn the livelihood. DO YOUR BEST AND TRUST GOD. But God will arrange all, and all we have to do is to do our best and trust Him for the rest. Let me cheer all women fighting the battle of life alone, with the fact of thousands of women who have won the day. Mary Lyon, founder of Mount Holyoke Seminary, fought the battle alone; Adelaide Newton, the tract distributer, alone ; Fidelia Fisk, the consecrated missionary, alone ; Dorothea Dix, the angel of the insane asylums, alone ; Caroline Herschel, the reinforcement of her brother, alone; Maria Takrzewska, the heroine of the Berlin hospital, alone ; Helen Chalmers, patron of the sewing-schools for the poor of Edinburgh, alone. And thousands and tens of thousands of women, of whose bravery and self- sacrifice and glory of character the world has made no record, but whose deeds are in the heavenly archives of martyrs who fought the battle alone, and though unrecognized for the short thirty or fifty or eighty years of earthly existence, shall through the ages of the higher world be pointed out with the admiring cry, " These are they who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." — Talmage. THE DANCE. 1AM, by natural temperament and religious theory, utterly opposed to the position of those who are horrified at every demonstration of mirth and playfulness in social life, and who seem to think that everything decent and immoral depends upon the style in which people carry their feet. On the other hand, I can see nothing but ruin, moral and physical, in the dissipa- tions of the ball-room. Dancing has been styled, " the graceful movement of the body adjusted by art, to the measures or tunes of instruments or of the voice." THE SOCIAL LIFE, All nations have danced. In other days there were festal dances and funeral dances, and " mediatorial " dances, and military dances, and Bac- chanalian dances. Queens and lords have swayed to and fro in their gardens, and the rough men of the backwoods in this way have roused up the echo of the forest. There seems to be something in lively and coherent sounds to evoke the movement of the hand and foot. Men passing along the street unconsciously keep step to the music of the band, and Christians in church unconsciously find themselves keeping time with their feet, while their soul is uplifted by some great harmony. Not only is this true in cultured life, but the red men of Oregon have their scalp dances, and green- corn dances, and war dances. It is, therefore, no abstract question that you ask me — is it right to dance? The ancient fathers, aroused by the indecent dances of those days, gave emphatic evidence against any participation in the dance. St. Chrysostom says, "The feet were not given for dancing, but to walk modestly; not to leap impudently like camels." ANCIENT DOGMAS. One of the dogmas of the ancient church reads : "A dance is the devil's possession, and he that entereth into a dance, entereth into his possession. The devil is the gate to the middle and to the end of the dance. As many passes as a man makes in dancing, so many passes doth he make to hell." Elsewhere, these old dogmas declare — "The woman that singeth in the dance is the princess of the devil ; and those that answer are his clerks, and the beholders are his friends, and the music is his bellows, and the fiddlers are the ministers of the devil; for, as when hogs are strayed, if the hogs'-herd call one, all assemble together, so the devil calleth one woman to sing in the dance, or to play on some instrument, and presently all the dancers gather together." DENUNCIATION OF DANCING. This wholesale and indiscriminate denunciation grew out of the utter dissoluteness of those ancient plays. So great at one time was the offence to all decency, that the Roman Senate decreed the expulsion of all dancers and dancing-masters from Rome. Yet we are not to discuss the customs of that day, but the customs of the present. We can not let the fathers decide the question for us. Our reason, enlightened by the Bible, shall be the standard. I am not ready to excommunicate all those who lift their feet beyond a certain height. I would not visit our youth with a rigor of criticism that would put out all their ardor of soul. I do not believe that all the inhabitants of Wales who THE SOCIAL LIFE. used to step to the sound of the rustic pibcorn, went down to ruin. I would give to all our youth the right to romp and play. God meant it, or he would not have surcharged our natures with such exuberance. If a mother join hands with her children, and while the eldest strikes the keys, fill all the house with the sounds of agile feet, I see no harm. If a few friends, gathered in home circle, conclude to cross and recross the room to the sound of the piano, I see no harm. I for a long time tried to see in it a harm, but I never could and I probably never will. God bless the young ! They will live many a day if they want to hear me say one word to damp their ardor or clip their wings, or to throw a cloud upon their lives by telling them that life is hard, and dark, and doleful. It is no such thing. LET THE YOUNG BE HAPPY. Let us not grudge the young their joy. As we go further on in life, let us go with the remembrance that we had our gleeful days. When old age frosts our locks and stiffens our limbs, let us not block up the way, but say, " We had our good times, now let others have theirs." But while we have a right to the enjoyments of life, we never will countenance sinful indulgences. I here set forth a group of what might be called the dissipations of the ball-room. They swing an awful scythe of death. Are we to stand idly by and let the work go on, lest in the rebuke we tread upon the long trail of some popular vanity ? The whirl- pool of the ball-room drags down the life, the beauty and the moral worth of the city. In this whirlwind of imported silks goes out the life of many of our best families. Bodies and souls innumerable are annually consumed in this conflagration of ribbons. THE ABETTOR OF PRIDE. This style of dissipation is the abettor of pride, the instigator of jealousy, the sacrificial altar of health, the defiler of the soul, the avenue of lust, and the curse of the town. The tread of this wild, intoxicating) heated, midnight dance, jars all the moral hearth-stones of the city. The physical ruin is evident. What will become of those who work all day and dance all night ? A few years will turn them out nervous, exhausted imbeciles. Those who have given up their midnights to spiced wines and hot suppers, and ride home through winter's cold, unwrapped from the elements, will at last be recorded suicides. There is but a short step from the ball-room to the grave-yard. There are consumptions and fierce neuralgias close on the track. Amid that glittering maze of ball-room splendors, diseases stand right and left THE SOCIAL LIFE. and balance and chain. A sepulchral breath floats up amid the perfume, and the froth of Death's lip bubbles up in the champagne. Many of our brightest homes are being sacrificed. There are families that have actually quit keeping house and gone to boarding, that they may give themselves more exclusively to the higher duties of the ball-room. Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, finding their highest enjoyment in the dance, bid farewell to books, to quiet culture, to all the amenities of home. The father will, after awhile, go down into low dissipations. The son will be tossed about in society, a nonentity. The daughter will elope with a French dancing-master. The mother, still trying to stay in the glitter, and by every art attempting to keep the color on her cheek and the wrinkles off her brow, attempting, without any success, all the arts of the belle — an old flirt, a poor, miserable butterfly without any wings. If any thing on earth is beautiful, it is an aged woman, her hair floating back over the wrinkled brow, not frosted, but white with blossoms of the tree of life, her voice tender with past memories and her face a benediction. ASHAMED OF BEING OLD. But if anything on earth is distressful to look at, it is an old woman ashamed of being old. What with paint and false hair, she is too much for my gravity. I laugh even in church when I see her coming in. One of the worst looking birds is a peacock after it has lost its feathers. I would not give one lock of my mother's hair for fifty thousand such caricatures of old age. The first time you find these faithful disciples of the ball-room diligently engaged and happy in the duties of the home circle, send me word, for I would go a great way to see such a phenomenon. These creatures have no home. One would think you might discover even amid the witcheries of the ball-room the sickening odors of the unswept, unevntilated, and unclean domestic apartments. These dissipations extinguish all love of usefulness. How could you expect any one to be interested in the alleviations of the world's misery, while there is a question to be decided about the size of a glove or the shade of a pongee? HARASSING ANXIETY ABOUT DRESS. This gilded sphere is utterly bedwarfing to intellect and soul. This constant study of little things; this harassing anxiety about dress; this talk of infinitesimals ; this shoe-pinched, half-frizzled, fringe-spattered group — that simper and look askance at the mirrors and wonder, with infinity of interest, "how that one geranium leaf does look;" this shrivelling up of man's moral dignity, until it is no more observable with the naked eye; this talking of a woman's heart, that God meant should be filled with all THE SOCIAL LIFE. 203 amenities and compressing it until all the fragrance, and simplicity, and artlessness are squeezed out of it ; this inquisition of a small shoe ; this agony of tight lacing ; this wrapping up of mind and heart in a ruffle ; this tumbling down of a soul that God meant for great uplif tings ! I prophesy the spiritual ruin of all participators in this rivalry. Have the white polished, glistening boards ever been the road to Heaven? Who at the flash of those chandeliers hath kindled a torch for eternity ? From the table spread at the close of that excited and besweated scene, who went home to say his prayers ? LIFE AS A MASQUERADE BALL. To many, alas ! this life is a masquerade ball. As at such entertain- ments, gentlemen and ladies appear in the dress of kings or queens, mountain bandits or clowns, and at the close of the dance throw off their disguises, so, in this dissipated life, all unclean passions move in mask. Across the floor they trip merrily. The lights sparkle along the wall, or drop from the ceiling — a cohort of fire ! The music charms. The diamonds glitter. The feet bound. Gemmed hands stretched out, clasp gemmed hands. Dancing feet respond to dancing feet. Gleaming brow bends low to gleaming brow. On with the dance ! Flash and rustle, and laughter, and immeasurable merry-making! But the languor of death comes over the limbs, and blurs the sight. Lights lower / Floor hollow with sepulchral echo. Music saddens into a wail. Lights lower ! The maskers can hardly now be seen. Flowers exchange their fragrance for a sickening odor, such as comes from garlands that have lain in vaults of cemeteries. Lights lower! Mists fill the room. Glasses rattle as though shaken by sullen thunder. Sighs seem caught among the curtains. Scarf falls from the shoulder of beauty, — a shroud! Lights loiver ! Over the slippery boards, in dance of death, glide jealousies, disappointments, lust, despair. Torn leaves and withered garlands only half hide the ulcered feet. The stench of smoking lamp-wicks almost quenched. Choking damps. Chilliness. Feet still. Hands folded. Eyes shut. Voices hushed. Lights out. — Talmage. FASHION— RIGHT AND WRONG. GOD is a lover of dress. He has put robes of beauty and glory upon all His works. Who can doubt that He will smile upon the evidence of correct taste manifested by His children ? No man can afford to disregard appearances. The shabby man loses every year a thousand times the cost of a good suit of clothes. Employers 13 204 THE SOCIAL LIFE. like their people to dress well. It is easier to borrow a hundred dollars in a good suit of clothes than ten cents in an old coat and shabby hat. " The apparel oft proclaims the man." Dress is the visible sign by which the stranger forms his opinion of us. Dress affects a man's manners and morals. A general negligence of dress very often proclaims a corresponding negligence of address. We can scarcely lose self-respect so long as we have respect to appearances. Still, many of the best coats are worn on the backs of pitiful-salaried, dapper dandies, broken-down merchants and men who avoid their tailor because of moral mortgages on their clothes. Polonius's advice is good : " Costly thy habit, as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy." No true woman will be indifferent to her appearance. Elegance fits woman. The love of beauty in dress belongs to her. She ought to take a pride in herself, and be solicitous to have all her belongings well chosen and in good taste. A sloven is abominable. Rudeness is sin. Female loveliness appears to best advantage when set off by simplicity of dress. A woman is best dressed who so conducts herself that those who have been in her company shall not recollect what she had on. I have no sympathy with the " dress reformers," who glory in their outlandish apparel, and who are more proud of being " out of fashion," than others of being in. To love dress is not to be a slave of fashion ; to give dress your first thought, your best time, or all your money, is the evidence of such slavery. The Bible says the body is more than raiment. But many people read the Bible Hebrew-wise, backward, and thus the general conviction now is that raiment is more than the body. TYRANNY OF FASHION. Fashion tyrannically rules the world. She pinches the feet with tight shoes, or squeezes the breath out of the body by tight lacing. To be " in the fashion," has made the most famous frauds of the day, and keeps hundreds of men struggling for their commercial existence. Fashion dwarfs the intellect. Virtue gives up the ghost at her smile. Fashion is the greatest of all liars. She has made society insincere. She has turned society into a great show-room. She has made the poor poorer, and the rich more avaricious. Fashion is Philadelphia's leading undertaker, and drives hundreds of hearses to Laurel Hill. ^THE SOCIAL LIFE. 205 Dress is a lower beauty for which the higher beauty should not be sacrificed. The holiest duty is to wear the richest dress on the soul. Woman, with her strong and rich powers, her bold and daring genius, was made for a higher purpose, a r nobler use, a grander destiny, than to waste herself on the finified fooleries of fashion. Care more for what you are than what you appear. Let an empty brain, hollow heart, and useless life throw you into an hysterical fit, quicker than an old-fashioned bonnet or AN ILL-FITTING DRESS. Let not fashion close your eyes to the appeal of Christ's Church, and your eyes to the outstretched hand of His poor. Let not fashion demand of you a style of dress insufficient to keep out the cold and rain, and that will imperil your health. " What ! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and ye are not your own?" Submit to no style which will compromise your modesty. Wear no costume which suggests impure thought to the, beholder. It is' the instinctive propensity in human nature to decorate, it is right to adorn yourself for your own eyes, for the eyes of your husband, if you are a true wife ; if you are a maiden, for the eyes of suitors and companions, but first of all strive to adorn yourself for God's eye. " Whose adorning let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." "BEHAVIOR AND NOT GOLD IS THE ORNAMENT OF A WOMAN." It is worthy of remark that Plato, the loftiest of all the Grecian sages, has a passage which strikingly resembles that of the Apostle. " Behavior and not gold is the ornament of a woman. To the worldly these things, ornaments and jewels, are advantageous to their catching more admirers; but for a woman who wishes to enjoy the favor of one man, good behavior is its proper ornament, and not dresses; and you should have the blush upon your countenance, which is the sign of modesty, instead of paint; and worth and sobriety instead of gold and emeralds." Paul to Titus says: "That they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things." Even the great truth of Jesus Christ is here represented as being susceptible of decoration on the part of those who profess it. Adorn the Gospel by useful lives. Say not that the doors of useful service are closed against you. On every hand there are hungry to feed, and naked to clothe, and many sick in the hospitals longing for the sound of woman's voice, and the touch of woman's hand. Fifty thousand ao6 THE SOCIAL LIFE. destitute children to be gathered from our streets into the Sunday-schools, and 100,000 adult heathen in our own city to be led to the Saviour. SILLY BUTTERFLIES. How much better to fill such a sphere to which God calls you than to flutter like silly butterflies round milliners, dressmakers and manicures. Live for Christ, and with the light and glory of a true womanhood, fill every day with usefulness as a June day fills the air with redolence of the roses. The busy Master might have, enthroned Himself in majestic repose, but His unwearied going about doing good was a withering rebuke to uselessness. He honored the useful in the fowls of the air, and in the lilies of the field, but the barren tree He smote with a curse. He closed the bright gates of His Kingdom in the face of the virgins who preferred indolence and sleep to duty, and the man who wrapped up his gifts in a napkin He sent away to the darkness. O, you were made for a better companionship than of those of whom it is said : " Their only labor is to kill time, And labor dire it is, and weary woe, They sit, they loll, turn o'er some idle rhyme, Or saunter forth with tottering step and slow." LIFE IS A GREAT GIFT OF GOD. Life is not a toy to be played with, a doll to be dressed, an ornament to exhibit, not a bubble to float in the air, nor an insect to dance on the wave, until some wind overtake it ; it is not to be a low or dreamy indul- gence, not a plague that wastes. Life is a great gift of God, a single opportunity with possibilities vast enough to fill time and eternity with the beatitudes of God, the joy of angels and praise of men. Goethe said : " To be useful, that is life." To be useful ! How noble, how vast, how sublime, how Christlike. Henceforth, let your life be such as the poet sings : " I live for those that love me, For those that know me true, For the Heaven that smiles above me, And waits my coming too. For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrongs that need resistance, For the future in the distance, For the good that I can do." THE SOCIAL LIFE. 207 TRIFLES. IN the formation and growth of your character it is of greatest importance that you look well to what some are wont to call trifles. The mighty avalanche is formed of stars of crystal, of flakes of snow, which a sunbeam's point might melt, or the breath of a summer zephyr bear away, but in its completeness there is a fearful mastery in it. So, little faults may become a monster to destroy, or a tyrant to enslave. And so, too, the smallest excellencies may round into a fabric of beauty, good enough to enshrine the image of God. Of bits of virtue mingled with tints of grace, of thoughts of purity and deeds of kindliness and love, quickened with impulse of reverence and duty, of silent purposes thrilled with self-denial and matured by quiet triumphs, it is thus, as the deep stream flows on, that human character is well laid, and girded for the noblest achievements and rewards of life. The importance of setting a keen vigilance in youth upon every fault, and of giving a prompt acceptance to every least virtue, cannot be overestimated. Now is the time to master what menaces, and to adopt and cultivate what promises. You can do either now with comparative ease ; but if you defer, your arm will prove too short after awhile to reach up to the good and beautiful on the one hand, and too weak on the other to rend the chain that binds you. When the avalanche is piled and has once set out on its thundering way, who can stay its sweep or avert its desolation ? There is a wonderful accumulation in good or ill, for good or ill, in the time to come. But it is not sufficient that faults be exposed and perils be pointed out, nor yet that the mastery and beauty of noble character be commended; you must resolve to meet and conquer the one, and own and attain the other. We never overcome the least evil, nor attain to the least virtue without the conscious exercise of the personal will. No matter what gifts you may possess, no matter what disposition to excellence you may inherit, no matter what advantages are placed in your hand, you will be successful in achieving a noble character only by making it a high purpose of the soul. — M. Rhodes. THE PHYSICAL EDUCATION OF WOMAN. 1AM well aware that in some instances great care is given to the proper development of the body, and a few schools include physical education in the course, but still the tendency to give too slight an emphasis to this very important part of female education and to crowd young womei? beyond 2o8 THE SOCIAL LIFE. physical endurance, that a prescribed course may be gone through within a given time, is an evil by far too general. What we have need to aim at more is symmetrical education. The body is just as much God's gift as the mind, and it is just as wicked to abuse one as the other: these are so related that the one can not be healthy and vigorous when the other is neglected and allowed to fall into weakness and pain. They are both governed by law ; and it is sad to see a young woman cultivate her mind at the expense of her body, and all the sadder when we remember that without health her mental acquisitions may avail but little. Some one has said : " Intellect in an enfeebled body is like gold in a spent swimmer's pocket — it only makes him sink the sooner." EDUCATION MUST ALWAYS BE FAULTY WHEN IT LACKS proportion. No man builds up the handsome front of his house first and alone, but, with a good foundation first, the four walls are all carried up together. There is much education that looks only to the ornamental front ; we want to raise aloft the glowing dome before there are any strong pillars on which it can rest; we reverse Nature's order, and cultivate the top of the tree without regard to roots and trunk and branch, and when we are done the whole is a withered thing without beauty and bloom. Mr. Smiles says: "Cultivate the physical exclusively, and you have an athlete or a savage ; the moral only, and you have an enthusiast or a maniac ; the intellectual only, and you have a diseased oddity — it may be a monster." It is only by wisely training all three together that we get the best type of manhood or womanhood. This is often forgotten — often by the teacher, as well as by the student — and the result is disastrous in all the relations of life. WOMEN ARE TO BE EDUCATED AS WOMEN. I believe women are to be educated as women, and not as men. I do not believe that women are inferior in mind to men — in some respects they are superior, but I do know that her body is not masculine, if her notions and ways sometimes are, and she can not endure the same amount of physical wear in mental effort with the other sex, nor is it necessary she should. It is a dear-won prize to secure equality with men, as it is called, and to outrival them in the school or college, if the poor girl has given away the bloom on her cheek to gratify her own and her mother's pride, or to satisfy the notion of some strong-minded one that has spoken more glibly than wisely. Let woman have every advantage, all the culture which her own peculiar organization can endure, let her become scholarly to the fullest THE SOCIAL LIFE. 209 possible extent, and weave her name if she can with the learning of the ages ; but let there be no effort to push the anemone forward into the oak, "nor turn the dove out to wrestle with storms and winds under the idea that she may just as well be an eagle as a dove." What is demanded is that physical education be no longer over- looked ; that it be not entirely left even to parents and pupils ; but that it be included in our systems of culture, and that it become just as definite a purpose, and just as arbitrary a condition of the course of study, as the mastery of English grammar or any other branch of knowledge. Never until then will the truth of that wholesome adage : "A sound mind in a sound body," be illustrated as it merits, and as it may be, in the young women of the land. IMPRUDENT HABITS OF LIFE. Young ladies, do not forget that perhaps, after all, you have most to do in this important matter. You can baffle and render ineffectual any rules that may be adopted for your physical advantage, and by imprudent habits of life, of custom and fashion, by a love of the follies of society, and a rash gratification of ambition and pride, you may join the large company of your own class who are hastening their own steps to an early grave. I charge it upon you to take care of your health, do every right thing to develop, to educate your physical being into grace and strength. I believe that the great want of many young women to-day, for happiness, for usefulness, and especially for health, is some suitable work. The idea that is growing, that our daughters are to be reared and educated to do nothing, actually to scorn work, is an evil that merits reprobation. Care is like rust on the polished blade, but prudent, useful work is to the human body what the sun and showers of spring are to the flowers. I say to you, young ladies, if you would develop your physical form into vigor and beauty, you can do it by becoming work in such a way as will put the blush upon all pretensions of art and elegance. — Life Thoughts. HEARTLESSNESS OF FASHION. THERE is a set of people whom I can not bear — the pinks of fashionable propriety — whose every word is precise, and whose every movement is unexceptionable ; but who, though versed in all the categories of polite behavior, have not a particle of soul or cordiality about them. We allow that their manners may be abundantly correct. There may be elegance in every gesture, and gracefulness in every position ; not a smile out of place, THE SOCIAL LIFE, and not a step that would not bear the measurement of the severest scrutiny. This is all very fine ; but what I want is the heart and gayety of social intercourse ; the frankness that spreads ease and animation around it, the eye that speaks affability to all, that chases timidity from every bosom, and tells every man in the company to be confident and happy. — Chalmers. WOMAN AND DRESS. ONE of the Fathers of the Church defined woman as " a clothes-wearing- animal — a clothes-loving creature." When we see how a man regards money and deals with it we see much of his character, and in the same way when we have found out how a girl or woman feels and acts about clothes we have got a key to her nature and history. " I bless Eve for eating that apple," said a young lady the other day, as she stood before the mirror. " Why ?" asked a companion. " Because there is * such a delight in trying on a dress that fits well." This young lady belonged to that class of women to whom clothes are the object of life. The first question this sort of woman asks about any public event is, " What did the ladies wear ?" ' and in any crisis in her own life her greatest anxiety is, " What shall I put on ?" She seems to be of the opinion that it is the clothes that make the woman, and not the woman the clothes. The tight- laced, befiounced, be-trained damsel proclaims to the world her utter unwomanliness. The nursery would soon make a havoc of her finery. Let us hope she would never carry it into a sick-room, and in the kitchen it would be a nuisance and a bad example. A doctor has been found at last who has a good word to say even for tight-lacing. He thinks that tight-lacing is a public benefit, because it kills off the foolish girls and leaves the wise ones to grow into women. — Five Talents of Woman. SELF-CULTURE. MAKE the best of yourself. Watch, and plant, and sow. Cultivate! Cultivate! Falter not, faint not! Press onward! Persevere! Perhaps you can not bear such lordly fruit, nor yet such rare, rich flowers as others ; but what of that? Bear the best you can. 'Tis all God asks. Your flowers may only be the daisies and buttercups of life — the little words, and smiles, and handshakes, and helpful looks, but we love these flowers full well. We may stop to look at a tulip's gorgeous colors THE SOCIAL LIFE, and admire the creamy whiteness of a noble lily, but it is to the little flowers we turn with tenderest thought. We watch for snowdrops with longing eyes, and scent the fragrance of the violet with a keen delight. So let your life grow sweet-scented with all pleasant thoughts and gentle words and kindly deeds. THE MODEL WOMAN. [KNOW a woman wondrous fair — A model woman she — Who never runs her neighbors down When she goes out to tea. She never gossips after church; Of dresses or of hats ; She never meets the sewing-school And joins them in their spats. She never beats a salesman down, Nor asks for pretty plaques ; She never asks the thousand things Which do his patience tax. These statements may seem very strange — At least they may to some. But just remember this, my friends — This woman's deaf and dumb. — A Wisely Anonymous Man. DEBT. OF what a hideous progeny of ill is debt the father ! What meanness, what invasions of self-respect, what cares, what double-dealing! How in due season it will carve the frank open face into wrinkles ; how like a knife it will stab the honest heart ; and then its transformations ! How it has been known to change a goodly face into a mask of brass ; how with the evil custom of debt has the true man become a callous trickster ! A freedom from debt and what nourishing sweetness may be found in cold water; what toothsomeness in a dry crust; what ambrosial nourishment in a hard eggl Be sure of it, he who dines out of debt, though his meal be a biscuit and an onion, dines in a banquet hall. And then, for raiment, what THE SOCIAL LIFE. warmth in a threadbare coat, if the tailor's receipt be in your pocket! What Tyrian purple in the faded waistcoast, the vest not owed for ; how glossy the well-worn hat, if it covers not the aching head of a debtor! Next the home sweets, the out-door recreation of the free man. The ringing of the door-bell, or a footfall on the staircase, though he lives on the third floor, sends no spasms through his anatomy ; at the rap on his door he can crow, " Come in," and his pulse still beats healthfully, his heart sinks not in his bowels. See him abroad! How he returns look for look with any passenger ; how he saunters; now meeting an acquaintance he stands and gossips, but then this man knows no debt; debt that casts a drug in the richest wine ; that makes the food of the gods unwholesome, indigestible; that sprinkles the banquets of a Lucullus with ashes, and drops soot in the soup of an emperor; DEBT, THAT, LIKE THE MOTH, MAKES valueless furs and velvets, inclosing the wearer in a festering prison (the shirt of Nessus was a shirt not paid for) ; debt that writes upon frescoed halls the handwriting of the attorney ; that puts a voice of terror in the knocker; that makes the heart quake at the haunted fireside; debt, the invisible demon that walks abroad with a man, now quickening his steps, now making him look on all sides like a hunted beast, and now bringing to his face the ashy hue of death as the unconscious passenger glances upon him! Poverty is a bitter draught, yet may, and sometimes can, with advantage, be gulped down. Though the drinker makes wry faces, there may, after all, be a wholesome goodness in the cup. But debt, however courteously it may be offered, is the cup of the siren ; and the wine, spiced and delicious, though it be, is poison. The man out of debt, though with a flaw in his jerkin, a crack in his shoe leather, and a hole in his hat, is still the son of liberty, free as the singing lark above him ; but the debtor, although clothed in the utmost bravery, what is he but a serf out upon a holiday — a slave to be reclaimed at any instant by his owner, the creditor? My son, if poor, see Hyson in the running spring; see thy mouth water at a last week's roll ; think a threadbare coat the only wear ; and acknowledge a whitewashed garret the fittest housing place for a gentleman ; do this, and flee debt. So shall thy heart be at rest, and the sheriff confounded. — Douglas J err old. A contented mind is worth more than all the treasures of the Indies ; and he that is master of himself in an innocent and homely retreat, enjoys the wealth and curiosities of the universe. THE SOCIAL LIFE. 213 SWEETNESS OF MANNERS. (* \ li J OMAN'S fineness," says Jeremy Taylor, "is sweetness of manners." V Y It is narrated of the great sculptor, Michael Angelo, that when at work he wore over his forehead, fastened to his artist's cap, a lighted candle, in order that no shadow of himself might fall on his work. It was a beautiful habit, and one that taught an eloquent lesson, for the shadows that fall on our work — how often they fall from ourselves! — Manners Makyth Man. SAYING RUDE THINGS. THE habit of saying rude things, of running people down, springs not so much from ill-nature as from that vanity that would rather lose a friend than a joke. On this point Dr. Johnson once remarked: "Sir, a man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one — no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down." It is said that the ancient kings of Egypt used to commence speeches to their subjects with this formula: "By the head of Pharaoh, ye are all swine!" We need not wonder that those who take this swine-theory view of their neighbors should be careless of setting their tastes and feelings at defiance. Contrast such puppyism with the conduct of David Ancillon, a famous Huguenot preacher, one of whose motives for studying his sermons with the greatest care was, "that it was showing too little esteem for the public to take no pains in preparation, and that a man who should appear on a ceremonial day in his night cap and dressing-gown could not commit a greater breach of civility." "Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries of life," for none of us can afford to surround ourselves with the host of enemies we are sure to make if we allow ill-nature to produce in us unmannerly habits. Surly natures often prevent us from entertaining angels unawares. — Manners Makyth Man. IF WE KNEW. [F we knew when walking thoughtless In the noisy, crowded way, That some pearl of wondrous whiteness Close beside our pathway lay, 2i 4 THE SOCIAL LIFE. We would pause where now we hasten, We would often look around, Lest our careless feet should trample Some rare jewel to the ground. If we knew what forms were fainting For the shade that we should fling ; If we knew what lips are parching For the water we could bring, We would haste with eager footsteps, We would work with willing hands, Bearing cups of cooling water,. Planting rows of shading palms. If we knew, when friends around us Closely press to say good-by, Which among the lips that kissed us First would 'neath the daisies lie, We would clasp our arms around them, Looking on them through our tears ; Tender words of love eternal We would whisper in their ears. If we knew what lives are darkened By some thoughtless word of ours, Which had ever lain among them Like the frost among the flowers ; Oh, with what sincere repentings, With what anguish of regret, While our eyes were overflowing, We would cry, " Forgive ! forget ! " If we knew ! Alas ! and do we Ever care or seek to know Whether bitter herbs or roses In our neighbor's garden grow ? God forgive us ! lest hereafter Our hearts break to hear Him say: " Careless child, I never knew you — From my presence flee away." THE SOCIAL LIFE. 215 TRUE POLITENESS. NOW, as to politeness, many have attempted its definition. I believe it is best to be known by description; definition not being able to comprise it. I would, however, venture to call it benevolence in trifles, or the preference of others to ourselves, in little daily, hourly occurrences in the commerce of life. A better place, a more commodious seat, priority in being helped at table ; what is it but sacrificing ourselves in such trifles to the convenience and pleasure of others? And this constitutes true polite- ness. It is a perpetual attention (by habit it grows easy and natural to us) to the little wants of those we are with, by which we either prevent or remove them. Bowing, ceremonies, formal compliments, stiff civilities will never be politeness ; that must be easy, natural, unstudied, manly, noble. And what will give this but a mind benevolent and perpetually attentive to exert that amiable disposition in trifles towards all you converse and live with. Benevolence in great matters takes a higher name, and is the Queen of Virtue. — Lord Chatham. BOOKS. IN the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. God be thanked for books! They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all who will faithfully use them the society, the spiritual presence, of the best and greatest of our race. No matter how poor I am — no matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling — if the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shakespeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the workings of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom — I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship, and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live. ORIGIN OF SCANDAL. SAID Mrs. A. To Mrs. J. In quite a confidential way, " It seems to me That Mrs. B. Takes too much something in her tea," 216 THE SOCIAL LIFE. And Mrs. J. To Mrs. K. That very night was heard to say- She grieved to touch Upon it much, But "Mrs. B. took — such and such!" Then Mrs. C. Went straight away And told a friend the self-same day, " 'Twas sad to think " — Here came a wink — "That Mrs. B. was fond of drink." The friend's disgust Was such she must Inform a lady " which she nussed," "That Mrs. B. At half-past three, Was that far gone she couldn't see." This lady we Have mentioned, she Gave needle-work to Mrs. B., And at such news Could scarcely choose But future needle-work refuse. Then Mrs. B., As you'll agree, Quite properly — she said, said she, That she would track The scandal back To those who made her look so black. Through Mrs. K. And Mrs. J. She got at last to Mrs. A., And asked her why, With cruel lie, She painted her so deep a dye. Said Mrs. A. In some dismay, " I no such thing could ever say : I said that you Much stouter grew On too much sugar — which you do." — The Argonaut. THE SOCIAL LIFE. THE BIZZY BODY. I DON'T mean the industrious man, intent, and constant in the way of duty, but he who, like a hen, tired ov setting-, cums clucking- oph from the nest in a grate hurry, and full ov sputter, az fat spilt on the fire, scratching a little here, and suddenly a little thare, chuck full ov small things, like a rich cheese, up and down the streets, wagging around every boddy, like a lorst dorg, in and out like a long-tailed mouse, az full ov bizzness az a pissmire, just before a hard shower, more questions tew ask than a prosekuting attorney, az fat with pertikulars, az an inditement for hog stealing, az knowing az a tin weathercock. This breed ov folks do a small bizzness on a big capital, they alwus know all the sekrets within ten miles, that aint worth keeping, they are a bundle ov faggot fakts, and kan tell which sow in the neighborhood haz got the most pigs, and what Squire Banson got for marrying hiz last couple. All ov this iz the result ov not knowing how tew use a few brains tew advantage, if they only knew a little less they would be fools, and a little more would enable them tew tend a fresh lettered sineboard, with credit to themselfs, and not confusion to the travellers. The bizzy body iz az full ov leizure az a yearling heifer, hiz time, nor noboddy else's aint worth nothing to him, he will button hole an auctioneer on the block, or a minister in the pulpit, and wouldn't hesitate tew stop a phuneral procession tew ask what the corpse died ov. They are az familiar with every boddy az a cockroach, but are no more use tew you, az a friend, than a sucked orange. Theze bizzy people are awl genders — maskuline, feminine and nuter, and sometimes are old maids, and them are az necessary in a community az dried herbs in the garret. One bizzy old maid, who enjoys her vittles, and dont keep a lot ov tame kats for stiddy employment, iz worth more than a daily paper, she iz better than the " Cook's Own Book," or a volume ov household receipts, and works harder and makes more trips a day than a railroad hoss on the Third avenue cars. The bizzy body iz generally az free from malice az a fly, he lights on you only for a roost, but iz always az unprofitable tew know, or tew hav ennything tew do with, az a jewelry peddlar. Thare are sum ov the bizzy folks who are like the hornets — never bizzy only with their stings. These are vipers, and are tew be feared, not trifled with, but my bizzy body haz no gaul in his liver, his whole karackter iz his face, and he iz az eazy to inventory az the baggage ov a travelling colporter. They are a cheerful, moderately virtuous, extremely patient, modestly impudent, ginger-pop set ov vagrants, who hav got more legges than brains, 218 THE SOCIAL LIFE. and whose really greatest sin iz not their waste ov facultys, but ov time. But time, tew one ov these fellows, flies az unconscious az it duz tew a tin watch in a toy shop window. They are welcomed, not bekause they are necessary, but bekause they aint feared, and are soon dropt, like peanut shells, on the floor. There iz no radikal cure for the bizzy body, no more than there iz for fleas in a long-haired dorg —if you git rid ov the fleas yu hav got the dorg left, and if yu git rid of the dorg yu hav got the fleas left, and so, whare are you? Bizzyness and bissness are two different things, altho they pronounce out loud similar. But after all i don't want tew git shut ov the bizzy-people, they are a noosance for a small amount, but sumboddy haz got tew be a noosance, and being aktive about nothing, and energetically lazy, iz no doubt a virtuous dodge, but iz 10 per cent better than counterfitting, or even the grand laceny bizzness. There iz one thing about them, they are seldom deceitful, they trade on a floating capital, and only deal in second hand articles, they haint got the tallent to invent, they seldom lie, bekause their bizzness don't require it, thare is stale truth enuff lieing around loose for their purpose. Don't trust them only with what yu want tew hav scattered, they will find a ready market for every thing that a prudent man would hesitate tew offer, and they always suppozed they are learned, for they mistake rumors, skandals, and gossip for wisdom. It iz a sad sight to see a whole life being swopped off for the glory ov telling what good people don't love tew hear, and what vicious ones only value for the malice it contains. I should rather be the keeper ov a rat pit, or ketch kats for a shilling a heid to feed an anaconda with. — Josh Billings. INTEMPERANCE IN TALKING. AMONG the many kinds of intemperance to which men are addicted, intemperate talking is not the rarest. Those who are its victims are seldom happy when not listening to the sound of their own voices. When others are speaking, and they are forced by the constraint of social laws to be silent, they are watching so eagerly for the time when their turn will come, that they only catch imperfectly the meaning of what is said around them; consequently, what they reply is often so irrelevant to the general conversation as to cause a smile of surprise. But they are seldom abashed, and having once secured the floor, they will keep it as long as their own THE SOCIAL LIFE. 219 breath and others' patience will hold out. It is curious to note the complicated efforts they will make to regain it whenever lost. Sometimes they will answer a question addressed to another, or hasten to correct some unimportant statement, or to supplement it with some experience of their own, or they will ask a question and proceed to answer it themselves, or in some other way continue to pursue the stream of talk which had for a time been diverted from them. - THE TWO ENDS OF CONVERSATION. It might seem that the only two ends of conversation were to hear and to be heard, and if neither of these were accomplished it would be at an end. Yet such people sacrifice them both. They certainly do not hear in any true sense of the word ; they are far too much absorbed in their own voices to listen with attention to those of others. Neither, after a short time, are they heard. They become so wearisome that the listeners, one after another, retire as speedily as politeness will allow, and are careful to avoid being caught in the same net in future. Thus they must meet with repeated disappointments, yet they persevere, and continue to afflict every one who is not forewarned, or who can not easily escape. THE CAREFUL THINKER AND LISTENER. It is not only the quantity but the inferior quality of such outpourings that make them so distasteful. Indeed, the one follows as a necessity from the other. The careful thinker and listener finds so much to moderate his preconceived ideas, so much to correct in them, sometimes so much reason to change them, that he is in no hurry to give voice to them in their present callow form. He often prefers to wait for more light, and when he does speak, it is modestly and, perhaps, rather in the tone of inquiry than of assertion. In fact, he finds it needful to have something to say that is worth the utterance, before he proceeds to take any large share in the conversation. But our loquacious friends have no such scruples. The less they think, the more they talk. Their stream of discourse, shallow as it is, pours forth continuously and noisily, while the deep waters of the thoughtful soul are comparatively still. Of course, they must constantly repeat themselves. No one, however gifted, can always have something fresh and new at command ; and these persons can seldom boast of special gifts. If they but knew how truly Homer speaks for all intelligent listeners, when he says : " I hate vain repetitions, fondly made, Of what has been already plainly said," they would at least, in this respect, endeavor to curb their loquacity. 14 THE SOCIAL LIFE. Perhaps, however, of all the evils which result from this weakness, none are more disastrous than those which ensue from the frequent utterance of what ought never to pass the lips. It is hard for the loquacious man to avoid the sin of gossip, or perchance, of slander. Not defining his thoughts or weighing his words, he falls unco'nsciously into a habit of loose criticism, which injures many a reputation and afflicts many an innocent life. If there be one supreme moment when silence is golden, it is when the faults and foibles of our neighbors rise up in our minds. Then, too, there are secrets which should never pass the lips, but which the loquacious man pours out freely to those who will listen. Plutarch tells us of a day when Rome would have been liberated from the tyranny of Nero, had it not been for the tongue of a single garrulous man, who divulged the secret. A secret, shared first by one friend and then by another, soon becomes common rumor. But, in truth, it is not real friendship which draws forth the secret which should be forever buried in the heart of him to whom it has been trusted. It is frequently only the love of talking and the idle desire to excite surprise or wonder in equally idle listeners. We all despise one who can be bribed to reveal what has been confided to him ; what shall we say of one who, without any other temptation than his own garrulity, falls into the same snare ? THE SPHERE OF SILENCE. Mr. Martineau, in speaking of the sphere of silence, says that there are things too low and also things too high to be made the subjects of common speech. The appetites and the interior impulses of man need provision, but do not bear much discussion ; while " men in deep reverence do not talk to one another, but remain with hushed mind side by side. Language occupies the mid-region between the wants that ground us on the earth and the affections that lift us to the skies." But the loquacious man respects neither of these extremes. Nothing to him is too private or too sacred to be the theme of his ready tongue and his voluble speech. Let him who is conscious of this weakness muse on its many evils, and remember that " in the multitude of words there wanteth not sin, but he that refraineth his lips is wise." FLATTERY AND CHURLISHNESS. A CHAMELEON once met a Porcupine, and complained that he had taken great pains to make friends with everybody; but, strange to say, he had entirely failed, and could not now be sure that he had a friend in the world. "And by what means," said the Porcupine, "have you sought ^\)