FIFE AT SOME;
OR,
THE FAMILY AND
BY
WILLIAM AIKAIAN, D.D.
The pilgrim's step in vain
Seeks Eden's sacred gronnd!
But in Home's holy joys again,
An Eden may be found.
BOWITING.
NEW YORK:
SAMUEL R. WELLS, PUBLISHER,
No. 389 BROADWAY.
1870.
X 1'.  i.
I I
ITS M EMBERS. 
!i,
Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1870, by
SAMUEL  I?. WELLS.
In the Clerk's Office of the District Coulrt of the United States for the
Southern District of ]ew  York.
E. O. JENKINS,
ST E R E O TYPE R  A N D  PR I N TE,R
90 N. WILLIAM ST., N. Y.
v o
-
", 
TO
WHOSE LIFE HAS GIVEN THE IDEAL OF THE PLEASANT
PICTURES I HAVE TRIED TO DRAW,
IN THE
FCLIOWING PAGES,
or
DAUGHTER AND SISTER, WIFE AND MOTHER,
IS
D EDI C A TED.
_ 
l
J 
I 
(~~>~~ffi>~;(<-~~~~~~~~
PREFACE.
T H E following pages substantially were
preached as a series of discourses to the
people of the writer's pastoral charge.  The favor
with which they'were received and the request
of the publisher have led him to believe that their
issue in a more permanent form might be desirable and useful.
At a time when the sacredness of the marriage
relation is so much called in question, and when
the bonds which hold the family together are in
danger of being lightly esteemed, any attempt to
exalt the family life may be hopeful of good.
The failure to reach the highest happiness of
married life, and the best results of family training are caused, we may believe, not so much by
willfulness as by ignorance or inexperience. If,
at the outset, a few cautions and suggestions,
(7) 
PREFACE.
founded on maturer thought and larger observation, were received, mistakes could be corrected
and errors avoided which too often occasion long
years of disappointment and sorrow. If this book
shall make such suggestions, its design will be
accomplished.
The Bible is incomparably the best manual for
the regulation of the family. In these chapters
much has been made of its teachings, and it will
be an unspeakable reward if the writer shall have
done anything to enhance its value in any home.
All that is hopeful for our country and the
world is from the family.  Christian homes are
the want of the world. Have them, and the future of the Church and therefore the well-being
of the race is secure. These pages are sent forth
with a very deep desire to bring, if possible, the
blessed light of the Gospel of the' Lord Jesus
Christ into the family circle. That light will fill
any home with a radiance of peace and joy.
NEw YORK, March 24, 1870.
8
I 
CONTENTS.
I.
TEE FAMILY RELATION.
The family an arrangement of God —The narrative of the Creation Convents,  associations,  phalanxes, contrary to divine appoint ments-The family necessary for the development of the race Christianity gives the highest ideal of the family —The Bible de scriptions of the family —Polygamy: the Bible argument against
it- The family for the preservation of the race - The family for the
development of character- Transformations- The family multi plies human happiness- The family the refuge place- The family
the educator of the race- Citizens made by the family- The family
must have a home- Family boarding —Its evils —Nuptial crime Children gifts of God —The beauty and blessedness of a family The family changes.                     _Page 13
II.
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
Thb Lord's announcement —The sacredness and purity of the mar, x  relat   C ion-CsiibzcA arain st n~.~ture- Paul's aJsertio' Is-Nature
a~u} t11 ^'rv-id a~ato of God reulles — A's or a woa1n's cha ra->>.cterlw-,->erl deeloped o,_l!y in tAe mnarrieL statoe —Old  maids
and oi2 bahelo  -- Marrig  n eb-ctranev on a noe world -- Mnity of
feeling to be cultivated- No secrets between husband and wife Gossip- Understanding one another — Forbearance with each other
(9) 
CONTENTS.
- Changes seen after marriage — New discoveries - The-beginnings
of estrangements- Demonstrations of affection to be given —The
Bible to be read together —Prayer with each other.       PPage 36
III.
HUSBANDS.
Christ's love for the Church —Presumption in the offer of marriage The cc nifleteness of a wife's surrender of herself-The greatness
of the assumed charge- The old home and loves abandoned —The
wife's claim on all of her husband's heart —The surrender of the
husband as absolute as the wife's surrender-Sympathy demanded
- The wife's exhaustive cares —Unreasonable requirements — Sel  fishness and thoughtlessness —Consultation with a wife-A
woman' s intuition — Affection to be shown - Demonstration of love
not to be confined to the days of courtship — The power of little at tentions- The lover a husband —Politeness to a wife- A wife
longs for expressions of love —The fire of love never to go out Husbands of Christian wives — The prayers of a Christian wife.
Page 65
IV.
WIVES.
"I did not promise to obey "-The old words of the Bible not obso lete- Obedience in the heart of the wife- Reverence the beginning
of love - Love sees much — The husband the head of the household
— Women do not admire the master-women —Authority felt, love
gone-Thle true wife glories in her reverence for her husband The husband before all others-Intimate friends to be left outside
— Grievances to be hidden in the wife's bosom —A husband's love
to be kept —Same care to keep as to win love —Love should grow
deeper as years grow on —The delicacy of early days - Personal at  tractiveness- Cultivation of the mind — Physical attractiveness -
The" market made" —Home to be made pleasant —Sunshine of
looks and words —Contentment and satisfaction —Little and deli  cate attentions to be shown —Care of a husband's interests  Defence of a husband to the last —Pious wives and irreligious
husbands- The power of a good wife.                      Page 89
I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IO 
CONTENTS.
V.
PARENTS.
Parental responsibility not realized -The signet -The two pictures
-Parental power to shape the soul -The Abrahamic commenda dation-The future of a child's life can be predicted-God's guid ance - Right appreciation of parental influence - Sympathy with
childhood -The by-gone days of childhood to be kept in mind -
Children's love to be kept - Confiding in a parent-Home to be
made  attractive - The meals joyous - Games  and  pastimes -
Birthdays and holidays to be kept -The heart to be cultivated as
well as the head -Demonstrations of affection not to be slighted Obedience to be secured so as to win love -Children to be trained
for usefulness and independence - Politeness in the family -
Christianity makes gentlemen - Prayer for help - Consecration to
God for children.                                       Pqge 118
VI.
CHILDREN.
The place in the Decalogue of the Fifth Commandment -Its promise
fulfilled-Children under the parental roof-A  parent's love Its devotion-Respect and honor to be shown-Confidence in
parents-Consultations with them about companions and read ing-Immoral Books-Beauty of  familiar intercourse between
parents and children-Filial devotion-Story from Heroditus The daughter and son show what the wife and husband will be Visiting parents - Writing to parents - Filial neglect - Heart sor rows caused by negligence and thoughtlessness-Care  of aged
parents - The wooden tro ugh - Regrets over the dead.    Paqe ] 51
VII.
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
The family a delicate mechanism -Brothers and sisters must be in
adjustment-Boys and girls not the same-The boy baby-The
girl baby - Tom-boys -Character developed by differences of
disposition - Holding affection - Sympathy with each other
-Confidence  and intimacy to be cultivated-A  sister's love
- The childhood days - Pictures painted for the by and by - Polite
I I
I 
CONTENTS.
attentions between brothers and sisters- The good sisters and
brothers make the good wives and husbands -Sisters should protect their brothers - Brothers should guard the reputation of their
sisters —The immoral to be cast out from the presence of a pure
g'irl - Girls do not know their power - Brothers to stand together
-- The old man and the rods - Brothers helping brothers - Family
quarrels -- The old love to be called up — Associations and intirnacies to be kept up between brothers.                      Page 17'7
VIii.
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
Two classes always in the world, employers and employed-They
cannot be separated - They depend on each other-Mental charac teristics mnke- employment necessary for some -- Labor honorable -
Allotments of life made by God - The employed to give all his time
and skill- -WTaste- Antagonisms between  capital and  labor Demagog-ues -Capital the friend and support of labor - Aspira tions for higher places - Fill well the lower places- Employers
should identify themselves with  the  employed-Pay  what is
honest and fair- Pay promptly and regularly- Cruelty -Interest
in the moral character of the employed - Interest in the future of
the employed- The mistress - Sympathy with her servants - In spire respect -Speak encouraging words-Patience and kindness Be Christian with your servants.                        Page 198
IX.
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE. ~
Religion twofold, heart and life-Demands "an outward manifesta tion" - The temple grows out of the closet - Family religion - It
must have an outward form - Family worship a necessity of the
family life -Reflex power of the family altar on the parent - The
family altar a help to family training —The being  and presence
of God made real by the family altar - God's word dcivioe there- -
The power of family prayer-Thoug'hts and resolutions of a child
- Excuses for the neglect of family worship- -Children often
wonder at the neglect-Remorse-An incident-Rules and sug gestions for family worship-Form and manner of observance Theinfant's prayer-Scenes of the future-The by-gone days —
Memories.                                               Paqe 226
I2 
2
CHAPTER I.
THE FAMILY RELATION.
God setteth the solitary in families.-PsALM lxviii. 6.
O bliss of blissful hours!
The boon of Heaven's decreeing,
While yet in Eden's bowers
Dwelt the First Husband and his sinless mate!
The one sweet plant which, piteous Heaven agreeing,
They bore with them through Eden's closing gate,
COLERIDGE.
THE Family is not an accident, but rather the
all-wise arrangement of the Great Creator,
by which the well-being of man is to be promoted.
All the divine appointments are such as have a
tendency to lift man to the highest possible point
as an iinttllectual and moral being, and the Family
Relation, perhaps above al others, is iptencied to
produce this result.
It is greatly worthy of our thought why the
(I 3)
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
fact of man's solitariness and need of a companion,
as well as the closeness of the union subsisting
between husband and wife, should have been so
carefully and so strikingly exhibited in the narrative of the creation.   The exigencies of man's
nature, at least, are here recognized -It is not
good that man should be alone. Perhaps also it
was for the very purpose that men should in
every age of the world be taught to set the highest possible value on the family, and to be alert
to gather the wide harvest of blessedness which
it produces.
The anchorite in his cell is a man not only at
war with his own nature, but he is offending
against the highest good of human society. So,
too, all the schemes which men have invented to
take the place of the family, by a substitution of
associations, leagues, phalanxes, always have been
unsuccessful. They have contained the elements
of their own dissolution, because they have sought
to abrogate the first great appointment of God.
The family was constituted by Him, and nothing
of human device can take its place or do its work.
MAen have tried again and again, they have banded
themselves together, and in a thousand ways
14 
THE FAMILY RELATION.
sought to reach what they vainly deemed better
results, but whether they were the monasteries
of St. Anthony, or the associations of Fourier,
their inventions have wrought out the same bad
product, and have shown that God knew and that
the Bible teaches what is best for man.
The Family is necessary for the development
of the race. There can be no true development
without it. The savage state knows little of the
family. In the lowest types of humanity, such as
the Bushmen of South Africa, it is almost unknown. Children are born, but as soon as they
are able to care for their own wants, they wander off and are lost among the rest of the tribe, as
a lamb is merged in the surrounding flock, and
all connection between parents and their offspring
is quickly lost. In tribes more elevated, but still
barbaric-our American Indians may be an example-the same fact is seen; the family, such as
it is in its true idea, is scarcely to be recognized.
Husbands and wives may live in the same hut,
and children may remain for a while near it, but
all that intercourse and association which make
the family is unknown. There is natural affecction,
often pure and deep, between individuals, but no
I5
.1 
LIFE AT HOME.
general bond of sympathy and love holding the
whole group together as a unity.
Civilization varies with the family and the fanmily with civilization. Its highest and most complete realization is found where the enlightenment
of Christianity prevails, where woman is exalted
to her true and lofty place as equal with the man,
where husband and wife are one in honor, in
influence, in affection, and where children are a
common bond of care and love. Here you have
the idea of a perfect family.
Here is one of those innumerable, but powerful,
because indirect and unannounced, proofs of the
supernatural character of the Bible. What book
of ancient times gives such pictures of the family
life-what book such precepts for family government? How wonderful it is, that these old books,
written many of them in those far back centuries
which antedate historic records, do give us such
advanced ideas! Here is a book which in this
regard was clearly made not for that time alone,
but for all time, not for society as it then was, but
for society in its highest state-for civilizatioi in
its very best form.  Paint forl- yourself your bright
est conception of what a family should be, have
I6 
THE FAMILY RELATION.
husband and wife living in pure and blissful cornpanionship; father and mother wise and loving,
yet sovereign; surround the fireside with perfect
children, children who are just what you would
have them, affectionate, obedient, joyous; let
brothers and sisters be linked together in unwavering and kindly sympathy, in love as strong and
glowing as your imagination can picture; then
look into the Bible. You shall find that very
family set before you, you shall see all the exhortations and injunctions of this Book looking
toward just sutch a home.
Proof from the Bible is sometimes asked against
the practice of polygamy. I reply that the whole
Bible is against it, from the first chapter, where
God said, "I will make a helpmeet for him," to
the last, where the " Bride the Lamb's wife" is
seen descending out of heaven from God.  And
every metaphor, without, as far as I know, an
exception, has in view simply and only one wife.
To add a plural would be to rob figure and ilustration of all their force and beauty, and in many
cases to make them only absurd.
The first creation was that of one wife.  Why,
when the earth was to be peopled, when, if ever,
I7
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
it would be expedient and necessary that there
should be a plurality of wives, why were not
more than one created, if the well-being of man
were best promoted by such an arrangement?
And what was the fact at the beginning, has
been continued as a fact ever since. The race
has been propagated in pairs, with a continuance
and precision which is wholly inexplicable on any
other theory than that of an original intention of
the Creator and Preserver of men. An equal
number of each sex has been born into the world
from century to century, through all the variations of time and circumstances, and has perpetually been declaring that one husband with one
wife meets and fills the idea of the nuptial relation.
Our Lord's words, "They twain shall be one
flesh"-A man shall leave father and mother, and
"shall cleave to his wife," point unerringly to the
same truth, and clearly do not countenance, even
by implication, a plurality. A man shall cleave
to his three wives! They four shall be one flesh!
You smile at the absurdity, while the grand and
beautiful truth which He taught has vanished
away.
This general drift of the Bible, an equatorial
I8
I 
TIlE FAMILY RELATION.
current that sweeps in one direction through it
all, is to my  mind a mightier argument than a
direct precept could have been. An announced
command might be limited and confined to the
time and the circumstances in which it was given,
and its force be evaded, as many ordinances
of the Bible are, by arguments built upon the
changes of the ages. Not so this, which through
all the forty centuries of the Bible, presents the
same conception of the family life, upon which
every figure and illustration is based.
That ideal of the family contemplates and can
contemplate only one husband and one wife. It
presents one father and one mother at its head,
and children who are fruit and pledge of their
one love. Think, if you can without a smile, of
a family gathering round the family altar, where
the father, as priest of the house, offers up their
worship, with a number of wives and mothers
around him, his wives and their mothers!  Is it a
very congruous or beautiful picture?  Is it a
lovely type of the church of Christ or of the family in heaven?
No, polygamy is born not out of the chastity
but out of the lusts of men. Only what is animal
I9 
LIFE AT HOME.
in mnan asks for it. No true man desires more
than one wife, and that wife ceases to be a woman
in the highest and holiest sense when another
woman sits equal with her as wife and mother.
All that is purest and best in us cries out, Let
there be one husband round whom one wife can
throw her arms and say, proudly and joyfully,
"He is mine, mine alone! I know that no other
is on the throne of his heart!" Let there be one
wife upon whom a husband may look, while he
holds her to his bosom with inexpressible affection and says, "She is beyond and above all others
dearer and better. I want none else, she is queen
of mv heart and life!"
A relatioi so clearly ordained, cannot but be
intended by the Creator to subserve important
purposes for humanity.  At the very outset we
can see that the family is intended for the preservation of the race. Looking at man merely as an
animal, how perfectly the family meets his necessities. It has been often remarked, and every one
has thought it, as he has looked upon the poor
feeble form of a young infant, its little thin fingers
grasping at vacancy, its head supported on the
nurse's hand, that of all living things born into
20 
THE FAMILY RELATION.
this world a human being is the most absolutely
helpless. It is as if the greatness of its destiny
were to be measured by the abjectness of its beginning. But this helpless thing is welcomed by
those whose hearts bound with an unknown thrill
at its first cry
" There are smiles and tears in the mother's eyes,
For her new-born babe beside her lies;
Oh heaven of bliss! when the heart o'erflows
With the rapture a mother only knows."
Who of you, that are parents, will ever forget
that feeble wail of your first-born? You had heard
the voice of infancy before; it had awakened feelings perhaps of petulancy and annoyance; but
why, now, is that sound like nothing that you ever
heard before, and why does it touch a chord whose
vibrations tremble through all your nature?  Ah!
it is the voice of your child! No other voice hath
ever had such a tone as that!
And this is but a type of all that follows in the
child's life. It comes into the family where henceforth it is to be guarded and preserved. Its life
becomes a solicitude and a care, its health becomes a means of family happiness, and all the
21
.1 
LIFE AT HOME.
great interests of father and mother are made to
depend on its well being. Its sickness throws a
pall of foreboding over the household, its death
a sorrow that is never removed.  What a perpetual inducement, then, the family creates for the
preservation of the race!
The family is the great means for the development of character. What a world does it present
for the affections to abide in!  Where on all the
earth beside are sympathies so warm, love so pure
and fervent as here? All that gives value or
beauty to human character finds in the family at
once an atmosphere in which to expand and develop the elements which shall bring it to the
highest perfection.
The family creates a perpetual power which
holds and moves evermore each individual of the
circle. The parental love, evoked every hour in
providing, watching, guiding, throws back its influence over the heart and life of father and
mother, and makes them what they never could
be without it; it is a power which tends all the
time to lift them to a higher and better place.
Who has not seen with half wonder the sudden
development of a young couple when once they_
22 
THE FAMILY RELATION.
have become father and mother?  A  few days
ago  yesterday it seems-and they were almost
children; the young wife was a girl with all the
joyous carelessness and heedless buoyancy of a
child; her older friends, at least those who had
not thought enough, shook their heads dubiously
and told one another that she was "fit for anything but to be married;" "she might better be at
home with her mother, or even at her school."
But the wife becomes a mother, and a marvellous
transformation comes to pass. There may be the
same vivacity and spirit, but all is calmer, deeper,
stronger. She has entered a new world, and is
endued with new powers.  A  wise providence
has taken the place of thoughtlessness, a firm selfreliance that of helpless dependence, an untiring
energy that of dreamy inactivity. The girl has
suddenly become a woman, challenging your respect with your admiration.
Nor is this unseen but all-potent force diminished as the years advance. In this charmed atmosphere of the family all the capabilities of the
parents' nature are brought out and enlarged;
characteristics of grace and beauty spring into
life, which elsewhere would have lain dormant
23
I 
LIFE AT IHOME.
and unknown. Here are influences which reach
out as with angel hands and sweep over the soul,
waking into melody chords which no other touch
could move. A father or a mother walks in a
World all unknown to those who have never had
a child, a world of thought and experiences and
powers which lies quite beyond their ken; and
the parent whose character is not developed into
rounder form and fairer symmetry because he is a
parent, shows that there is something wanting in
his own nature.
The family is God's appointed means of multiplying human happiness. When man fell he lost
his hold on eternal and temporal )bliss.  Eden
had in it enough to satisfy all his natural and
physical cravings, and with the lovely and beloved wife whom God had given him, there was
sympathy and sweet society sufficient to make
full his cup of earthly happiness.  With his fall
he lost paradise, and went out a driven and homeless wanderer in a world which was henceforth
to be an unfriendly world.  But the tender compasion of God taking much away from him,
spared him what could make bearable the loss of
Eden. The partner of his sin went out with him
24 
THE FAMILY RELATION.
to be the partner of his sorrow and its solace.
The only thing given him there which he could
retain was his wife, and she was a part of Paradise. Beautifully has Cowper caught the thought:
"Domestic happiness. their only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall.
In the "bosom of the famnily"-a familiar but
touching expression-a man finds what earth nowhere else can give. The brotherhood of man is
almost an empty name. Sin has broken it up and
left it well nigh an ideal thing. Selfishness, rather,
and consequent distance and coldness have become the type of human intercourse. I would
not deny the actuality of friendship which has no
origin in blood relationship. There is, and some
of us have known it in our life, a friendship which
is hallowed, which rises above the vicissitudes of
time and place and circumstances; "there is a
friend who sticketh closer than a brother;" but
this is rare, and it is our fortune to meet such a
friend only once or twice in all our life. For the
most part this world is full rather of suspicion,
doubt and disappointment. One who lives many
years, and indeed they need not be many, will
2
25
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
have his heart ache over bitter disappointments
which he has met in his reliance on friendships
which are merely earthly.
But there is a place where he comes, sick, it
may be, and sad of heart, and where he knows
that he shall not be disappointed. Careworn and
weary he enters his home after a day of bitterness; contact with men has made all seem like
Sahara's waste to him, but now a welcome greets
him which has in it the aroma of heaven. Here
is one who does not misunderstand; here is one
who will sympathize; here are more than one
who will think well of him and nothing but well;
here are eyes which will look lovingly, and voices
which will speak tenderly; here are hands that
will smooth his aching head, a bosom on which it
may lean; here are little ones that will clamber
on his knee and tell him that of all in this world
he is the dearest and wisest and best.
Many and many a man would not be brave
enough to meet life's trials and life's labor, but
would faint rather and die, would perhaps rush
out of life in very despair, were it not that from
the family come the calls of wife and children,
like the music of angels, or a warrior's clarion,
26 
THE FAMILY RELATION.
giving to him a new inspiration of energy and
hope. Oh! how many a cloud of care is caught
up and wafted out of sight by the gentle winds
which breathe from that sacred place; how many
a broad and steady gleam of sunshine gilds the
pathway and lights up the head of weary toilers
when their steps cross the threshold of home!
This is but a type of all the rest. That strange,
frightened feeling of abandonment which a lost
child has, the thrill of agony so peculiar that once
felt is remembered forever, is the symbol of what
would be for brothers and sisters were there no
home and no family life. Of all words, orphan
has the deepest wail of sadness in it, since it
speaks of family life and love gone out in death;
and no one knows the all-pervading blessedness
of the family until with choked voice he murmurs,
I have no home!
The Family is the educator of the race. Here
men and women are made. What they are in
the world, that they were in the family as children. The family is the place where the first
lessons of law are received, and where the whole
character in view of law has a direction given it.
The citizen is made in the family long before the
27
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
time of voting or activity has come. When Napoleon said, in answer to Madame De Stael's question about France's greatest need, "Mothers," he
asserted the all-potent influence of a true family
life. The grand, crying want of our own land
to-day is right family influence. For the lack of
it the land mourns. Had families been all or
even a part of what they ought to have been,
perhaps most of the evils which afflicted us and
imperiled our existence in the late Rebellion
would not have had a being, and the lawlessness
and crime which stalk abroad point back to childhood and to unblest homes.
The atmosphere of the family is what determines the constitution of the man. Each member
of the family is an element of that atmosphere;
father and mother and brother and sister compound it for weal or woe. In this country, while
we do not undervalue the power of the family,
we are in constant danger of losing its untold
benefits. Our American restlessness which drives
us from home over our broad country, our
changes which blot out of existence the old homestead, the rush which excites and the hurry which
hardens us, so that we have no time to attend to
28 
TIlE FAMILY RELATION.
the gentler amenities of life, all admonish us to
guard with special care our family influences.
Among our numerous and curious inventions,
we have of late brought into popularity what is
perhaps the least beautiful of them all - family
boarding. To avoid expense and be rid of
trouble, housekeeping is broken up, and father
and mother and children make their abode in the
hotel. Now I would not for a moment intimate
that the boarding-house is not as necessary as it
is a useful institution. Far from it. I intend to
assert that it cannot make a family home; it was
never intended so to do. Indeed, I might add,
the experience of unhappy hosts and of guests,
who have a right to be in a boarding-house, because they have no family and can have no home,
mournfully testifies that however the attempt
may be made to constitute it a home, the results
are not lovely. As a general thing, a boarding
family is a boarding nuisance.
The family must have a home, and the hotel or
the boarding-house can never give it. To have
a  I:me which is not all a name, you must have a
door which shall open to yours as to no other
hand, a threshold upon which you step as the
29
.1 
LIFE AT HOME.
drawbridge to your castle, a house over which
you may go with the unthought consciousness
that it is yours alone. Its halls must not be the
thoroughfare of a hundred passers, and your
rooms your only domain.
This hotel life has a disastrous effect on a family of children. It renders family training and
true government very difficult and almost impossible. If, to avoid the subtile and unfortunate
results of promiscuous intercourse, the little ones
are confined in their apartments, their physical as
well as mental health must suffer; if they are permitted to be abroad, they are subject to influences
entirely beyond parental control. If the child be
interesting or sprightly, he is petted and spoiled;
if he be dull or peculiar, he is soured and injured
by neglect; and in either case the little one bears
the unfortunate consequences of the evil circumstances by which he is inevitably surrounded.
If parents do not need a home, their children
do; and though it should be the smallest of all
homes, they should have one. The number of its
apartments and the style of its furniture are but
of small account in comparison with the thing
itself. If I were advising a young married couple,
3o 
THE FAMILY RELATION.
I would say: As soon as possible mnake yourselves a
home,' feel that married life is all incomplete
without that. If you cannot get it at once, fix it
as something to be striven after unfalteringly till
it is obtained. It is easier to enter upon the cares
and the work of house- (better say home-) keeping
at once, than when the indolent habits of boarding
have taken away your heart for it. While you
are alone, only husband and wife, it would be better if you had a home, and tenfold more so if God
should give you children.
That word, children, suggests a topic which
calls for plain and emphatic words. Within the
last few years a feeling has grown up the opposite
of that natural sentiment of the olden time which
regarded children as gifts to be desired from God.
By many the man is not now accounted "happy
that hath his quiver full of them." Rather they
are looked upon as evils to be endured, burdens
and cares which largely spoil life's enjoyments.
To be a mother, is by very many esteemed not
a great privilege, a boon to be asked for, but
rather a calamity to be dreaded, a doom by all
means, lawful and unlawful, to be avoided. There
are thousands of homes which are willfully and
3I
I
11 I 
LIFE AT HOME.
willingly unblest of children; and many and
many a young wife lives with shattered health
undermined by her own act, and many have sunk
and many others are going down to premature
graves because they seek to avoid what the Creator has made for every right-minded woman the
highest honor and chiefest good-children who
shall rise up and call her blessed. It is a growing
vice and a crying shame. It is as if that Psalm,
one of the " Songs of degrees," had become obsolete and false. Read it as it rang out from grateful lips in the olden time, as families went up singing on their way to Jerusalem: "Except the Lord
build the house, they labor in vain that build it;
except the Lord keep the city, the watchman
waketh in vain..... Lo, children are an heritage
of the Lord; and the fruit of the womb His reward. As arrows in the hand of a mnighty man,
so are children of the youth (i.e., born when parents are young). Happy is the man that hath
his quiver full of them, they shall not be ashamed,
but they shall speak with the enemy in the gate.'"
(Psalm cxxvii.)
If the secret history of many houses were told,
the gentle and soft-sounding words, "providence"
32
Id 
THE FAMILY RELATION.
and "bereavement," would be stricken out, and
the sterner ones, " child-murder" and "suicide,"
would be put in their place.
However some may think it, a family is not an
evil, God has not made it such. It is the most
beautiful thing that He has given on the earth.
A well ordered Christian family is the most precious thing that the world possesses. Children
arejewels, and the word is too poor and mean to
express the hundredth part of the thought. What
more lovely sight is there, what more full of deepest, tenderest interest than a numerous family,
one of those large families which you and I have
seen, of which perhaps we have been privileged
members? And what sight, I add, is more desolate and sad than that of a lonely couple growing
old in a lonely home, with neither son nor daughter to support their steps, with no hand to be laid
upon their grey heads, going to the grave with
the consciousness that their very name perishes
with them! Happy they, if they shall be able to
say that it was God's appointment, not their own.
The family has its cares and its sorrows, but
the cares are a discipline and the sorrows may be
sanctified.  Like any other good in this fallen
2* 
33
11 
LIFE AT HOME.
world, it carries with it anxieties and burdens
which will make traces on the brow and scars
upon the heart; but the joys and the comforts are
immeasurably above the cares. A Christian family!-who shall tell of its beauty and blessedness?
That home where the family altar is, and where
God abides, how sweet and hallowed! The family where an affectionate and honored father, a
lovely and beloved mother sit with children that
sing and laugh around them! Is there a scene in
all this wide world like that?  It is the nearest to
heaven of anything I know; indeed, the Bible
takes it as the very symbol of heaven and of the
church of Christ, and can give the saints no better name than The Family of God.
Has God given you a family? Look upon it as
a great and precious gift, a high and holy trust.
Value it somewhat in accordance with its priceless worth, as something which He has put in
your hand for the world and for Him. Say not
that you can do nothing for your country or your
God while you have a child to train or a family
under your influence. A well ordered family!
Living, you can point to no work like that; dying,
you can leave no such legacy behind you.
e
34 
THE FAMILY RELATION.
Remember, too, that earth's changes are evermore going on, and are altering the look of your
homes.   The little one, yesterday nestling in
your arms, to-day with satchel on his arm is
shouting home from school; to-morrow he will
have gone a bearded man from his old home.
And there are broken links in the chain of love,
there are vacant chairs, there are empty cradles.
Death will not cease his work. Be all and do
all that you can there in your home; make it
blessed as you may.
I know that as you read there may be sad
memories in your heart, and you have almost lost
the words as your dimmed eye has been looking
into the saddened past. "The old home! -my
family! -where are they?" So your bursting
heart has been saying. But be not all sad. It is
good to know that there is a world where the
broken links shall be gathered in one circle again,
and where the lost shall be regained.
35
I 
jj~ ~~ ~~~;~
CHAPTER II.
HUSBANDS AND WIVES: MUTUAL DUTIES.
Wherefore they are no more twain but one flesh.
-MATT. xix. 6.
The kindest and the happiest pair
Will find occasion to forbear;
And something, every day they live,
To pity and perhaps forgive.
COWPER.
T was not by mere accident that our Lord
gave His great announcement of the sacredness of the marriage relation.  Just at the moment when the Church of God was to emerge
upon a broader field-one not less broad than the
whole world over which it should spread-when
many rites and ceremonies of a dispensation now
grown obsolete were passing away-He, the Son
of God, took up the law of marriage as given at
the creation, and, with all His great authority,
(36) 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
announced its clear, emphatic and perpetual significance.
It is well at times, and especially when, as now,
there is much loose talk about the conjugal relation, to turn to the great foundation - truth as
given by the Creator and Revealer.
In the Scripture which I have made a motto
for this chapter, our Lord asserts the original
unity of husband and wife.  While they were
made different beings, and at different times, yet
the one was for the other in such a sense, that,
when the marriage was constituted, they ceased
to be separate individualities.  He asserts that
this law of being is to be unchanged. So intimate is the relation established, that it is as if
there were now but one common organism between them-" They twain are one flesh."
This remarkable language is repeated by the
apostle Paul, and for the purpose of exhibiting,
as clearly as possible, a fact upon a right appreciation of which so much of human happiness
depends. No words could convey the idea more
strongly, for this is the language of hyperbole.
The personalities of husband and wife are distinct, but the relation which subsists between
37
.1 
LIFE AT HOME.
them, mentally and spiritually, is so close that
it is as if there were no material separation.
Thought, feeling, desire, hope, all are consonant
and harmonious-they are one.
The marriage relation is as pure and sacred as
it is intimate. The Bible everywhere speaks of
it in the most exalted terms, and uses it to represent the highest and holiest themes. The union
between believers and their Lord is made to resemble it, and the intimate fellowship between
Him and His Church is compared to the communion of sympathy and love between a husband
and a wife.
As such is the uniform way in which the Bible
speaks of this relation, we have not to go far before we reach the idea that the married state is
the proper and normal condition of the man and
woman. Celibacy is against nature.
I am aware that the opinion of the apostle
Paul is often quoted as against the marriage
relation; yet I apprehend only from a mistake
as to his actual intention and meaning. To
prove that his language is not to be interpreted
as hostile to the general law and privilege of
marriage, it would be only necessary to quote
38 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
the very numerous and beautiful allusions of Paul
himself, and the high and sanctified estimate
which he puts upon it, even in these very epistles.  Paul himself, according to ancient tradition, which I do not vouch for, had been a married man, but was now a widower, and he preferred to remain such, that he might the more
effectually do the work to which he had been
called. Without a home, wandering from place
to place, constantly suffering privation and exposed to perils of every kind, it was, in his estimation, manifestly improper that he should, to
use his own peculiar language, "lead about a
wife" (I Cor. ix. 5).  What made him prefer an
unmarried state induced him to recommend it to
others.  For the present distress, I suppose it is good
for a mianz so to be (I Cor. vii. 26), are his words.
These early Christians were surrounded by enemies who were ready, at any time, to inflict the
most terrible calamities upon them; they were
liable to all the evils of poverty, exile and death
itself; and Paul's opinion was that he would be
most happy upon whom the care of a wife and
family did not rest. Yet even while he made
this remark, in answer to their inquiries, he is
39
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
very careful to tell them that it is merely his individual and private opinion and not an authoritative command. Elsewhere he enumerates the
"forbidding to marry" as one among the signs
which stamped the characters of wicked deceivers in the Church, saying, in energetic language, "Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that
in the latter times some shall depart from the
faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines
of devils, speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their
conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to
marry," etc. (I Tim. iv. I-3); and he expresses
his high appreciation of the elevated and honorable relation of husband and wife in the most emphatic terms. It is, indeed, one of the marked
peculiarities of the Bible that it everywhere so
exalts marriage. There is no book like it in this
regard; and, being an Eastern book, this is all
the more wonderful.
But nature and the great laws of social intercourse, as ordained by God, regulate this matter
with an authority and power higher than all the
reasonings or arrangements of man.   Mutual
affection, having a heavenly birth, and going out
from souls made for each other, will not be satis
40 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
fled till it has found its proper home and rest in
the married state.  "Here," says Jeremy Taylor,
"is the proper scene of piety and patience, of the
duty of parents and the charity of relatives;
here kindness is spread abroad, and love is united and made firm as a centre; marriage is the
nursery of heaven; the virgin sends prayers to
God, but she carries but one soul to Him; but
the state of marriage fills up the numbers of the
elect, and hath in it the labor of love and the delicacies of friendship, the blessing of society and
the union of hands and hearts; it hath in it less
of beauty but more of safety than single life; it
hath more care but less danger; it is more merry
and more sad; it is fuller of sorrows and fuller of
joys; it lies under more burdens, but is supported by all the strength of love and charity, and
those burdens are delightful." Here manhood
finds its proper development. Indeed, there is
no real development of the man without it.
"That man," says one of the old Jewish writers,
"whomsoever he be, that hath no wife, is the least
of a,nan," and with show of correctness. In the
original creation of man, as if to exhibit impres sively this truth, he was first made and left alone.
4I 
LIFE AT HOME.
Then, when the animate creation had been
searched for a companion and none was found,
the woman was made, because it was "not good
that the man should be alone." There were
necessities of his nature which could only be
met by a sympathetic soul, and that the soul
of not another man but of a woman and a
wife. A character, however excellent outside
this state, is always imperfect and needs some
elements which can only be developed there to
round it into completeness and symmetry. Of
this the thoughtful and considerate celibate himself is conscious.
I will not be deemed guilty of the absurdity
of here asserting that marriage does, of necessity,
create perfect characters. There are some men
whom not even the society of a wife and the holy
companionships of marriage can make much better than brutes; of such the question is-what
would they have been without these softening influences?
But the design and the true tendency of marriage is to call out the deeper and better elements
of man's nature, to tone down the harsher, to
mellow the harder, to introduce him into a world
42 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
of sympathies and emotions to which otherwise
he would be altogether a stranger.
As I have just said, marriage is not sufficient
in itself to make a man, so I would be as far from
seeming to assert that no strong and manly, no
sweet and beautiful characters are found outside
this relation. There are men and women who,
like some flowers, bloom in exquisite beauty in a
desert wild; they are like trees which you often
see growing in luxuriant strength out of a crevice
of a rock where there seems not earth enough to
support a shrub.  The words "Old maid," "Old
bachelor," have in them other sounds than that
of half reproach or scorn; they call up to many
of your minds forms and faces than which none
are dearer in all this world. I know them today.   The bloom of youth has possibly faded
from t heir cheeks, but there lingers round form
and face something dearer than that. She is unmarried, but the past has, for her, it may be, some
chastened memories of an early love which keeps
its vestal vigil sleeplessly over the grave where
its hopes went out; and it is too true to the
long-departed to permit another to take his place.
Perhaps the years of maiden life were spent in
43
.1 
LIFE AT HOME.
self-denying toil, which was too engrossing to
listen even to the call of love, and she grew old
too soon in the care of mother or sister and
brother. Now in these later years she looks back
calmly upon some half-cherished hopes, once attractive, of husband and child, but which long,
long ago she willingly gave up for present duty.
So to-day, in her loneness, who shall say that she
is not beautiful and dear?
So is she to the wide circle which she blesses.
To some she has been all that a mother could
have been; and though no nearer name than
"Aunt" or "Sister" has been hers, she has today a mother's claim and a mother's love. Disappointment has not soured but only chastened;
the midday or the afternoon of her life is all full
of kindly sympathies and gentle deeds. Though
unwedded, hers has been no fruitless life.
It is an almost daily wonder to me why some
women are married, and not a less marvel why
many that I see are not. But this I know, that
many and many a household would be desolate
indeed, and many and many a family circle would
lose its brightest ornament and its best power,
were maiden sister or maiden aunt removed, and
44 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
it may bless the Providence which has kept them
from making glad some husband's home.
Yonder isolated man, whom the world wonder
at for having never found a wife! who shall tell
you all the secret history of the by-gone time!
of hopes and loves that once were buoyant and
fond, but which death, or more bitter disappointment dashed to the ground; of sorrow which the
world has never known; of a fate accepted in
utter despair, though with outward calm! Such
there are. The expectation of wife, or home, has
been given up as one of the dreams of youth, but
only with groans and tears; now he walks among
men somewhat alone, with some eccentricities,
but with.a warm heart and kindly eye. If he has
no children of his own, there are enough of
others' children who climb his knee or seize his
hand as he walks. If he has no home,,there is
many a home made glad by his presence; if there
is no one heart to which he may cling in appropriating love, there are many hearts that go out
toward him, and many voices which invoke benedictions on his head.
1 might say more, but I could not say less of a
class that I love to think of as holding a place
45
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
made for them in God's providence, and filling
it with honor to themselves and with beneficence
for others.
The marriage-day is the entrance upon a new
world; the husband and wife, hand in hand, like
happy voyagers, have stepped on a shore which
henceforth is to be their future home. There is
no return; the boat which carried them has been
burned upon the beach, and for better or for
worse they are to abide in the new land.  Whether their future shall be happy or miserable
will depend wholly upon the way in which they
shall discharge the duties inseparable from the
relation in which they stand to one another.
One of the first of these duties is a cultivation
of unity of feeling. The theory of married life is
that the parties are one. "They twain shall be
one flesh." But too often it is a theory only, and
never a practical reality. They are brought, it is
true, on the nuptial day more closely, indeed inexorably together; they live in the most intimate
associations possible; but there may be, at the
same time, an entire absence of that unity of spirit
which constitutes the inner truth of marriage.
Each may be moving in an entirely different hem
46 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
isphere of thought and feeling, and a wide ocean
may keep them apart.
Between a husband and wife there can be no
separated interests. Property, reputation, happiness belong to them both without the possibility
that the one should be touched and the other not
feel. The circle which bounds the place where
they stand side by side, is too small for any
cloud or any patch of sunshine to throw shadow
or gleam upon one and not the other.
So important did this sentiment of unity between a husband and wife seem among Romans
of the earlier time, that, it is said, even gifts were
forbidden between them. They would not permit the' delicacy of the sentiment to be hazarded
by anything, even though it should come in the
way of a token of affection. It was as if it were
an absurdity for one to make a present to himself; his wife was himself.
While this was pushing the idea beyond its
proper bounds, yet it is certain that nothing
should be neglected which shall keep in full activity this feeling of unity. The moment the
thought is allowed that there is any diversity of
47
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
interest, that moment a foundation is laid of distrust and estrangement.
There should be no secrets between a husband
and wife. From the hour that they are such to
each other, there ceases to be any occasion for
secrecy. What is there which one shall conceal
from himself? and if not from himself, why from
his wife? What is there that a wife ought to
possess that she cannot make her husband a
sharer in? There is an inner sanctuary in which
they two alone abide; no other being in all the
world has right to enter there, and neither husband nor wife has right to bring another in!
The secret that is imparted to a wife under the
pledge that her husband shall not know it, is a
secret which she ought not to receive.  What a
husband promises nut to reveal to his wife is
usually what he should not know.  I speak in
general terms. There may be cases (seldom, I
think,) when a secret is of such a nature, and involves the interests of others in such a manner,
that it may rightly be kept from even one so
near. But what I insist on is this, that nothing
should be allowed to interrupt, for an hour, the
48 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
sense of absolute union-nothing to come in and
push apart the souls that intermingle here. A
thing concealed will do it.
This one idea, as you perceive, sweeps over a
large extent, and might give us subject for a
whole chapter in itself. It touches all the companionships, the habits, the associations, the
thoughts, the feelings that either may cherish.
If they are thus absolutely one, and the unity
is cherished, they can have no separate friends;
neither can have companions, associations, or habits that the other repudiates. I know that this
insisted on will narrow the circle in which wife
or husband moves; it will cause some to drop
away; it will prevent your hearing many a bit of
gossip; will make you lose more than one piece
of scandal; it may, possibly, prevent your having
any of those "intimate and confidential'friends"
which some like to talk of; but, be assured, it
will make your married life none the less happy
on that account.
To persons who understand this fully, there
will be a sense of oppression in having something
on the mind of which they cannot speak to husband  or wife, and rather than submit to this feel
3
49 
LIFE AT HOME.
ing they will forego the knowledge which is
offered them.  "She will be sure to tell her husband," "He will go home and let his wife know
it":-these may seem words of reproach, but
they are, in reality, an encomium on the transparent medium which is between those united
hearts.
I need scarcely say that where this unity is felt
aud understood there will be no such thing as
talking unfavorably of each other. For a wife to
permit to escape her lips, so that it reaches the
ear of a third person, a complaint against her
husband, to expose his faults or give utterance
to her grievances, is to do a foolish and usually a
wicked thing; for a husband openly to censure
his wife, to speak of her habits or her acts so that
others shall think less respectfully of her, is to
proclaim his own shame; they both tell the world
that, whatever they may be in name, they are no
longer one in heart. It is fortunate that the common sense of men hold this in scorn. If there
are causes of complaint or grounds of difficulty,
they are to be settled between themselves alone.
No third person can or ought to come in; to even
ask teic advice of a third person is to give evi
5o
I I 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
dence that the identity of the married life has
gone.
Another thing which lies at the foundation of
happiness in married life, is- Te duty of understandizig one another.  In this world, more than
half the quarrels which afflict men are caused by
ilisunderstandings.  It would seem, at first glance,
that where two stand so closely related to one
another, each must, of necessity, be fully cognizant of what the other is. Yet it is pitiable to see
how utterly a husband and a wife may be ignorant of the first elements of each other's characters, and how this ignorance makes their life one
perpetual misadaptation.   For even though intention be never so good, how can one adapt
himself or his acts to the feelings or the thoughts
which he misunderstands or falsely interprets?
One of the first duties, then, is for the parties to
knzow cac/t other, and this will not be difficult
where both have the one end-mutual happiness
in view. They should study each other's characters, or rather find them out by that subtle power
which love has when it seeks to promote the wellbeing of another. The true wife may not be able
to tell you, in wvords, all about her husband's pe
5I
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
culiarities; but she has a wonderfully quick way
of adapting herself to them, and she does it so
perfectly that he, possibly she herself, does not
think it an adaptation, only a natural act that
could hardly have been done differently. An
appreciative husband orders his words, hi. movements, his life, so that the quick sensibilities of a
sensitive wife are so delicately met that they
vibrate  only tunefully.   Every one has some
peculiarity of disposition or temperament. These
are what make individuality. The wise husband
and wife find them quickly out, and, like skillful
musicians, pitch the music of their life by them.
Let me not be told by some married one that
his wife is so nervous and fretful and discontented
that she cannot be made happy, or by some wife
that her husband is so morose and fault-finding
that nothing will please him. Good Sir Thomas
Browne says (Rel/z'io Medici): " Methinks there
is no man bad, and the worst best, that is while
they are kept within the circle of those qualities
wherein they are good; there is no man's mind
of such discordant and jarring a temper to which
a tunable disposition may not strike harmony."
The two grand requisites are: first the knowledge
52 
HIIUSBANDS AND WIVES.
of the key, and then this tunable disposition.
When these are present there will be no lack of
harmony in the house.
Another of these mutual duties is Forbearance
with each othezr. Happy are they to whom marriage brings no unwelcome revelations. There is
a veil of beauty and romance hanging over the
days of courtship and early marriage, like the
thin mists which make the landscape lovely in
autumn time. In these halcyon days each appears to the other in the most attractive form, not
only of character, but of outward garb. The instinct is to be seen not more with smiles than
with well arrranged hair or pleasing dress. The
unlovely traits of character are concealed, not by
art, but out of love. Love allows no opportunity in the brief and too quickly passing hours of
that dreamy time for anything but the'beautiful
to appear.
But sooner or later these days are over, and
the veil drops of itself away. Anticipated joys
have become realities; the interrupted moments
(lf courtship have given place to permanent possession and continued residence together. Now
begins the work of revealment, of which I have
53
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
spoken, and it is not strange if things are learned
that are neither beautiful nor lovely. Often these
discoveries are fatal. Because the husband is not
the exalted being that he once seemed, because
the wife has found him to be after all only a man,
and not a very noble one, with some habits that
she abhors, and much that she cannot admire;
because the husband does not find his wife that
sweet ethereal creature, all smiles and gentleness,
that he imagined, but very prosaic and sometimes
waspish, they turn away from each other in mutual disgust and disappointment. This is the end
of all their happiness. Henceforth married life is
a slavery, whose chains fret and gall; and death,
if it comes soon enough, is a welcome manumission.
There are few, perhaps none, who have not
made some such unwelcome discovery, and had
such sober experience when the Indian-summer
of the honey-moon has passed and chilly autumnal days have come. Now is the time when
the happiness of future life is at stake; if they
yield to the impressions, and sullenly determine
that while they may be chained indissolubly together, yet they can never have any thing in
54 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
common, then dreary indeed will be the coming
time, all the more dismal because of the hopes,
now dead, which ushered it in. But if they wisely
look at these discoveries, as not only inevitable,
but to be expected, and determine in a spirit of
love to make the best of them, all will be well,
and the years of married life will only draw their
hearts closer together. Some early dreams may
have been dissipated, but they will appear only
foolish dreams; a calmer and a deeper reality of
love has succeeded; husband and wife are better
now than even in the vague thoughts of other
days.
Let the newly married make up their minds
that they will find out much that they do not
know at first, and that it will not be all good to
see, but let them at the same time resolve to make
the best of all they learn of each other.' If your
husband is not all that you picture him, remember that you are not the angel you once appeared;
if your wife is more ungraceful in faded calico
than in lace-trimmed silk, and more tart in temper now than when you saw her for an hour or
two on her good behavior, do not forget that
you in your uncoated sleeves, unwashed face, and
55 
LIFE AT HOME.
possibly not sunny humor, are not the noble being she took you to be. You have both something to bear as well as to enjoy, and the bearing
will make the enjoying:
"Oh, we do all offendThere's not a day of wedded life, if we
Count at its close the little, bitter sum
Of thoughts, anid words, and looks unkind and frowardSilence that chides, and woundings of the eyeBut prostrate at each other's feet, we should
Each night forgiveness ask."
While the poet, one would hope, has given us
a sadly overdrawn picture, yet no stream flows
so smoothly but that somewhere on its surface a
ripple appears, and no married life but that here
and there a moment of discord disturbs its calm
serenity.
I have seen a story somewhere of Dr. Samuel
Johnson. A good-natured lady was expatiating
on the happiness of her married life, and said,
enthusiastically and exultantly: "Why, doctor,
we have lived together twenty years and have
never had a disagreement." The great bear looked
half scornfully down and simply said, "Madam,
how insipid!" While I would not, perhaps, wholly
56 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
endorse the doctor's opinion, yet I am satisfied
that two human beings who have not yet become
perfect, cannot be perpetually together without
sometimes thinking differently and willing in opposition to one another.  I know that there are
here and there a husband and wife who are conscious of no such opposition, who can look back
over, possibly, years of uninterrupted communings and undivided purposes, and who might
easily suppose that it is because they are always
the same in thought and purpose. But, I take it,
it is rather that, impelled by a mutual affection
and a keen-sighted wisdom, they have unconsciously learned to allow nothing for a moment
to stand between their hearts.
To accomplish this, a husband and wife must
Guard aogainst the beginning of estranigemeut. The
lasting alienations, the separations, the divorces
do not spring at once out of some great violations
of conjugal duty, but are the perfected fruit of
little estrangements. A word or a look, sometimes, like a small break in a dyke, becomes a
vast crevasse, through which pours a flood of unhappiness. Nay, it may be that a positive nothing, only a fancied neglect, becomes the far-reach           3
57
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
ing cause of untold misery. It is noticed and
felt, but pride forbids any explanation or any
questioning. Each feels the other's coldness, but
neither can come to the point of asking what is in
the way. Meanwhile the peaceful current of mutual agreement is broken up; the stream is turbid
and frets its banks. Each is unhappy, and, I may
say, each is conscious of wrong. In this state of
mind, a new offence is easily given, and more easily
taken, and the breach grows wider and wider.
The process may go on till wife or husband, perhaps both, begin to seek in the society of others
what they have lost in their own, and, at last, embarked on a troubled and rapid stream, in some
dark hour they are hurried into crime, and are
lost to each other forever.
"A something, light as air-a look,
A word unkind or wrongly taken Oh! love, that tempests never shook,
A breath, a touch like this has shaken.
And ruder winds will soon rush in,
To spread the breach that words begin;
And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said;
58 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
Till fast declining, one by one
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts, so lately mingled, seem
Like broken clouds-or like the stream
That smiling left the mountain's brow,
As though its waters ne'er could sever,
Yet ere it reached the plain below,
Breaks into floods and parts forever."
But where alienation does not go to such fearful lengths, how many and many an hour of bitter
unhappiness is passed, especially by a newlywedded pair, in misery, caused by some petty
thing which should not have interrupted their
happiness a moment. How many a hot tear has
flowed, how many a heartache has been suffered
in secret, when a single word, perhaps a look, an
arm thrown round the neck, a kiss given, might
in a moment have swept every cloud away and
brought back sunshine and joy to the home!
Let, then, the husband and wife beware of little
things.
But if these little offences, or even greater ones,
have been given or taken, no moment should be
allowed to pass before a reconciliation is effected.
Let both resolve, that, under no circumstances,
and for no reason, will they permit a cloud to in
59
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
tervene between them, or obscure the sunshine of
their wedded life.
Some will read this who understand me fully,
and have known too many days of misery not to
appreciate what I say. If you are conscious, and
as soon as you are conscious, that there is anything of alienation or estrangement, lose not an
hour before you seek a reunion of your hearts.
If conscience tells you that you have been in the
wrong, do not be too proud to acknowledge it;
if you are sure that you have been unkindly or
unjustly treated, do not stand on your dignity or
sense of justice, but be the first to seek a reconciliation. Let the magnanimity of love move
you. Do not wait till your husband or your wife
approaches you, but do you hasten to do love's
work. You will find, perhaps, another heart
reaching out after your's in the dark, and it will
not be long before you both are walking side by
side and hand clasped in hand.
A deeper tone, and a sweeter, would be given
usually to the married life, if husbands and wives
would be more demonstrative and be willing to
give expression to their affection. I do not mean,
now, in the often empty and vapid "my dear,"
6o 
HUSBANDS AND - WIVES.
or "my love," which make up a common mode
of address. The words are often full of sweet
meaning, but they come glibly, too, from those
who, if they had spoken out of their heart, would
have used very different terms. Perhaps these
would have been-" My torment," "my disgust;"
and sometimes they are the most frequent when
in secret the alienation is widest, a sort of vane
telling you that a northeast wind is blowing. I
mean that husbands and wives should be in the
habit of giving visible expression to their feelings.
A mother does not hesitate to embrace her child
or imprint kisses on his cheek; a father is not
ashamed to take his daughter on his knee even
though she be grown; and why should they,
whose union is nearer, never give outward form
to what glows within?
There are those who not only never before
others give any signs of affection, but who never
show it even in the sanctuary of their own inner
life. It should not be so. If you have love to
one another, show it; it is sacred and pure and
precious enough only to be gloried in.
Read the Bible and pray with each other.  To a
Christian husband and wife, I trust, little need be
6i
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
said upon this topic, and especially to those who
have a family about them. How a father and a
mother, who pretend to hope that they have any
religion at all, can consent to be without family
worship it is difficult to understand. To have a
family from God and yet never to acknowledge
God in the family; to receive hourly the untold
family blessings and have no family religion, is
something which would seem to lie simply outside
the circle of ordinary Christian thought. But if
there are no children given you, as two believers
in Christ, bound so intimately together, you
ought to have that union cemented daily by
God's word and the sacrifice of prayer and
praise; you should stand hand in hand beside
one altar, and not be offering only separate and
isolated  offerings.   A  wife's sweet voice in
prayer-and it is never sweeter than thenshould be to her husband's ear as familiar a sound
as is his to her.
But I refer in this remark to every husband
and wife, whether they are professors of religion
or not. Prayer is nothing to be ashamed of, and
you ought not to be startled if, while you are
kneeling before God, your  companion  should
62 
HUSBANDS AND WIVES.
come suddenly upon you. It will be beautiful
and sweet if, at such a time, you are conscious,
though, with closed eyes, that a dear form has
softly knelt by your side. But more than this,
b)e in the habit of praying together.
" Together should our prayers ascend;
Together should we humbly bend,
To praise the Almighty name."
Yes, you have too many mercies to praise Him
for; were there nothing else, the love which
makes your life radiant for each other may give
you inspiration; you have too many common
hopes and fears, forebodings and expectations; too
many common wants; you are too much to each
other never to go before your Heavenly Father
hand in hand.
I could relate stories of deep and tender interest to illustrate what I am writing of, and some
will read this whose eyes will, perhaps, grow dim
with tears of grateful recollection as they are reminded of by-gone scenes in their own history,
which are of all the sweetest and the tenderest.
Though you have never joined the church or
outwardly professed to be Christians, yet bring
the hallowed atmosphere of prayer and of God's
63
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
holy word over your married life. Kneel together, and, in turn, from night to night lift up
your hearts to God. Oh, you cannot tell what a
depth, what a purity, what a profound joyousness
it will give your love. And, I may add, it will
have in it the germ of blessings greater than you
now imagine.
64 
CHAPTER III.
HUSBANDS.
Husbands love your wives, even as Christ also loved the
church, and gave Himself for it.-EPHES. V. 25.
I wonder did you ever count
The value of one human fate:
Or scan the infinite amount
Of one heart's treasures, and the weight
Of Life's one venture, and the whole
Concentrate purpose of a soul:
And if you ever paused to think
That all this in your hands I laid
Without a fear: did you not shrink
From such a burden, half afraid,
Half wishing that you could divide
The risk or cast it all aside?
ADELAIDE PROCTOR.
HERE is something startling in the way in
which that passage in the Epistle of Paul
speaks of a husband's love. It is to be nothing
short of that divine love which the Lord of Glory
had to the Church which he died to redeem.
(651 
LIFE AT HOME.
What abysses of holy, self-sacrificing affection
are here! Into what a temple he enters who
takes the hand of a woman and leads her away
from all the world beside, to the inner shrine of
marriage!
In the absolute surrender of the wife to her
husband, and the completeness of the abandonment of her well-being to his hands, there is that
which makes the highest possible standard and
the clearest and most emphatic call for love.
When you look at it thoughtfully, there is an element of presumption in a man's asking a woman
to become his wife, or asking a daughter at the
hands of her parents. Consider it. Here is a
man asking a woman whose life and whose happiness are as valuable as his own, to give that life
and happiness into his keeping. He asks that she
shall give up all her former friends and associations, at least subordinate them wholly-and usually it is a total forsaking of them-to the friends
and associations to which he shall bring her; that
she shall leave the protection of her father and
mother and brothers; leave her old home, it may
be, the happy home of her childhood, and commit
herself to the keeping of a comparative stranger;
66 
HUSBANDS.
not only to put herself under his sole protection,
but to give herself wholly to him, trusting all that
has any value to his care.
Now, I say, when you look at it in this light,
he must be a bold and reckless man, or else one
impelled by the self-confidence of love who can
ask all this without a half consciousness of temerity.
The wife does literally leave all, and from her
marriage-day deliver over all into the hands of her
husband. She goes out from the paternal door, and
it is only the outward sign that she has exchanged father and brothers, her many natural protectors for one other. Marriage inevitably breaks up
the old friendships. However a wife may desire
to hold them and keep up the old loves, they do
naturally, and by a fatal necessity, die a~,ay; not,
perhaps, at once, but gradually and gently, like
the fading notes of a sweet song. The circle
will change its circumference as its centre has
changed; taking in its sweep new sympathies, it
will leave out the old.  Others are conscious of
this even before the bride herself. How often
an old and cherished friend, who seemed to hold
a place so near to her heart that neither time nor
67
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
space could ever separate them, has been filled
with sadness and surprise at the gulf which a day
of married life has put between them. I have
known an old school-mate look in undisguised
wonder at her friend, gazing to see what had
made the strange transformation and removed
her so utterly and so soon away from her side.
But the removal has been made. The separation
is final and complete; the old familiar intimacy
can never, I may add, ought never be renewed.
Nor is this surprising. It is only in accordance
with the great and unalterable law of marriage.
The wife has forsaken all, given herself wholly
to her husband, and her life and her thoughts
take their shape from the fact.
The husband then receives into his care the
well-being of one who has given up all for him,
a whole world of affectionate sympathies, of
tremulous emotions, of hopes, of fears, of desires
and aspirations; there clings one to him who
looks upward expecting all from his love.
The reception of such a trust brings with it
responsibilities and duties.
The fact is very evident that the wife leaves all
for her husband, and we are so ready to look
68 
HUSBANDS.
upon this as a well known and well understood
duty, that possibly it would create a surprise in
many minds were I to say that I know of no text
in the New Testament where the wife is commanded to leave those who are near to her for
her husband; the Scriptures which refer to the
matter are in all cases directed to the husband:
"For this cause shall a oaiz leave his father and
mother and be joined unto his wife." The direction and the explicitness of the command indicate
where the chief danger lay, and who in this relation needed the admonition most. The husband,
by the fact of his life being mnore abroad, and possibly by reason of other influences, is more exposed to temptation to unfaithfulness. The surrender on his part is as absolute and perfect as on
hers; he in the act of marriage at once and forever
forsakes all others for her. On his fidelity depends all her earthly happiness, nay, it exists at
all only as that fidelity stands without a shadow
over its calm brilliancy.  If such be the case,
then a husband should give occasion not for an
instant to a suspicion that another is attracting a
thought, least of all an affection. I do not now
speak of the wretch who could be false to his
69
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
marriage vow, but of that thoughtless trifling
with the deepest and best feelings of a woman's
nature, of which some husbands make so light.
She has a right to claim all her husband's heart,
and to have it appear to all the world that she
has it. Yet some men, while they do not intend
deliberately a wrong, show attentions of such a
marked character that they cannot but be observed as indicative of the fact that another has
come in and is at least sharing the domain of the
wife: then if a cloud is seen coming over the
wife's brow, he speaks perhaps of "foolish jealousy." But it is not foolish jealousy. A wife
ought to be able to lean against his bosom and
say with joyous confidence: "I am reigning here
alone," and the assurance shall be as a diadem on
the husband's brow.
One of the first duties of a husband is to sympath1ize with his wife. While the two are so closely
and intimately connected with each other, they
do not move within the same sphere; they have
surroundings very different. The wife has duties
and cares which are peculiarly hers, and they are
as engrossing and exhaustive as his. He has the
responsibilities, the anxieties, the perplexities of
70 
HUSBANDS.
business; she has the not less weighty charge of
the household. Many a man seems to regard
these household duties of the wife as not to be
compared for a moment with those which engross
his attention.  He expects, if business has perplexed or made him anxious, to have his wife's
sympathy when he comes home at night, but
never imagines that during the day any thing
could have occurred to trouble that wife. He
returns from his workshop or counting-room
soured, perhaps, by some bad bargain, annoyed
by a stupid workman or unreasonable employer,
morose from some ill-spoken word, and expects
to be received with smiles; it matters not how
surly may be his looks, his wife must be in dress,
in countenance, in word, all sweetness and amiability. He may have no pleasant word, may take
his place moodily at his table, but his wife's words
must be affectionate, and his wife's looks full only
of gladness. What, he thinks, has she to trouble
her? And this when the poor wife has through
a long and weary day been toiling with family
work and vexatious care till her head is aching
and foot and hand and heart are sore with the
worry. The tea is dispatched silently, very likely
7I 
LIFE AT HOME.
with sombre complaints over the trials he has had
during the day, or the badness of the times; and
then the evening paper is taken in hand and
pored over until the very advertisements are
devoured, or the reader's face is bowed upon the
crumpled page in sleep. Or, if he be not weary
enough for that, he seizes his hat and rushes for
the reading-room, or more probably for the lounging-place where such as he do congregate; there,
with a fragment of segar in his hand and desultory
talk from his lips, he lingers till the noise of the
closing shutters warns him to leave. He goes at
last home again, because he can go nowhere else.
Meanwhile the wife has with heavy heart and
tired step got the little ones into bed, and, as best
she could, has worn away the long hours of the
evening in silence  and  loneliness.   Should a
thought of his selfishness or injustice cross the
mind of the husband, he responds with ready selfcomplacency, " I require relaxation and must see
my friends." The night is witness of the same or
greater lack of sympathy. Perhaps the babe is
not well and is restless. But that is not his business. It matters not that the poor pale wife has
had the child in her arms through the long day
72 
HUSBANDS.
a day's work with a sick babe, one of the weariest
of mortal toils he must not be disturbed. I have
known such a husband provide a distant sleeping
apartment that he might not be disturbed, and lie
snoring in leaden unconsciousness while a frail
wife, with swollen eyes, and limbs that almost refused to obey an iron will, was walking to and
fro with his child.
In the morning he expects to find his breakfast
ready on the moment of his call, the coffee clear,
if his temper is not, and his wife smiling and pleasant, though he is dull or bearish. Perhaps he
never notices the pale face or swollen eyelid, the
result of last night's watching, part of it simply
to keep his slumbers undisturbed, lest his impatience should be added to his sick child's crying.
If he does notice them, it is only to wonder at the
"delicacy of our women"-" they can stand but
little"-" if she only had my work to do!"  Probably, however, he does not notice them.  He goes
soon to his business, without a word of sympathy
or interest, and leaves' her to another lonely day
and its thousand great and petty trials, as if he
had nothing whatever to do with them.
Now this is all wrong. No manly husband
4
73 
LIFE AT HIOME.
should be guilty of it. He has no right thus to
separate himself from the labors and responsibilities of his wife. If he does not actually relieve
them by his help, he can at least sympathize with
her and aid her by kind words and pleasant looks.
Many a sad wife would feel more than compensated for all the toils of a vexatious day by a word
which showed that her husband understood her
cares and felt with her in them. And I apprehend in many an instance the help would be
beyond mere words; the sympathetic husband
would not be deterred by the lazy and selfish excuse   " It is woman's work," but would uplift
part of the burden, and possibly take his turn in
watching, and give or provide relief from household drudgery.   At all events, a husband that
loves somewhat after the Bible rule, thoughtfully
considers and warmly sympathizes with his wife
in all her cares.
A true sympathy and conjugal intimacy will
lead to the performance of what I consider another duty of a husband:-'
Consultation with his wife. There are many
men who seem to consider their wives as capable
of understanding nothing but what relates to dress
74 
HUSBANDS.
or cooking, and they would smile at the folly of
talking with them on any matter which relates to
business. I am aware that there are women of
whom it would be folly to make confidants in
such things; women who are reckless and thoughtless enough to urge their husbands into all sorts
of extravagance, that their pride and vanity may
be gratified, regardless wholly of results, and who
would pettishly refuse to listen to any explanation of business affairs; yet I think even such
would be far fewer, if, from the first, husbands
were accustomed to confide to them their plans
and to seek their advice.  Almost the poorest
wife could be trained to interest in them, and
could be made a helper. If a wife be always
treated as not fit to know any thing of her husband's affairs, if her questions receive only cold
and half scornful replies, it is not to be wondered
at if she soon ceases to feel any interest, or have
any thoughts about them; and if, by and by, it
should be found in a practical way that she does
not seem to "know much of the value of money,"
or" how much it costs to get it," or even "where
it comes from," the reticent husband need not
wonder.
75 
LIFE AT HOME.
A man who understands this matter will avail
himself of his wife's help, even in his business
affairs. The intuitions of a woman are better and
readier than those of a man; her quick decisions
without reasons are frequently far superior to a
man's most careful deductions. He is a wise husband who makes use of his wife's shrewdness and
womanly sagacity, the fruits of this faculty. Many
and many a man would have been saved from
ruin had he consulted his wife and acted upon
her advice before he embarked in his enterprizes.
And how often would a husband find almost all
the bitterness taken out of his reverses, did he
bring his wife's powerful aid to help him through
them.
Let me say, then, to every husband: Make  a
confidant of your wife; show her that you respect
her abilities and are glad to avail yourself of
them.  You will find that she grows under the
culture of confidence. Be accustomed to tell her
of your schemes and purposes;  if disaster and
trouble threaten, do not conceal them, rather
frankly let her know them. No man appreciates
the value of his wife until he has tested her coinsel and sympathy. These you cannot afford to
76 
HUSBANDS.
be without. Consult your wife. You will honor
and love her the more, and you will find her respecting and clinging to you with a more intelligent affection.
Another duty of a husband is to show affection.
The duty of a man to love his wife is too palpable for the necessity of lingering upon it. The
injunction of God's holy word with its great illustration -" Husbands, love your wives as Christ
loved the Church"-and the very idea of marriage
are enough. Marriage without love is the most
dreadful of all bondages. For two persons who
do not love each other, to be bound in this intimate relation, where every thing has its significance only as explained by true affection, where
all, without it, degenerates at once into the lowest
and basest; to be called husband and wife with
none of the sweet intimacies of the soul, the pure
communings of heart, the all-yielding confidence
of marriage:-that is to drink, it seems to me,
life's bitterest cup; it is to have lost all, next to
religion, that life is worth living for.
But while all readily see the necessity of love
in marriage, the duty of izaizifesting it is not so
generally understood.  In my last chapter I spoke
77
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
of this as equally incumbent on husband and wife.
I wish now to speak of it as especially the duty
of the husband, for I am of the opinion that we
are in more danger of neglecting it than our
wives.  There are very few women who would
not respond to evidences of affection, who would
not return a caress of their husbands; but there
are many men who would not only not notice
them from their wives, but would soon, by their
indifference, make it certain that these tokens of
love would never be offered.
A husband may be affectionate-I confess that
I do not understand exactly how it can be, but I
suppose it may be so-without manifesting it by
any outward signs; but what I wish to insist on
is that the love ought to be shown out in act and
words. There are, I know, differences of temperament; and it would be folly to look for the same
expression of affection from every one. There is
a striking difference in the way in which children
will show attachment. Some persons are more
demonstrative than others, and with, perhaps, not
as much of true love, will appear to have vastly
more than others who make less show of it.  But
I am of the opinion that where it actually exists
78 
HUSBANDS.
at all, it will and must find some expression. For
myself I find it difficult to believe in the existence
of that which gives no sign of life.  "Nothing,"
says a living writer, speaking on another topic,
"can live which is not permitted to show signs
of life. Even a tree, a solid, massive oak, embracing the earth in roots equal to half its volume,
and drawing out of the rich soil its needed nutriment, will be stifled and yield up its life if it cannot put on leaves at the extremities and grow."
In the dawn of married life, and especially in the
days of courtship, when the lover was wooing his
bride, his affection had no difficulty in finding
modes to exhibit itself; indeed, it found them
naturally and without an effort. Its very power
consisted in the fact that it was not exhibited, but
exhibited itself; it was there; and like "ointment
in the hand," it betrayed itself. What was true
then, must be equally true. in the after times. Do
not tell me that the man is soberer, now that the
lover has been changed into the husband, and
that he cannot be expected to make the same
demonstrations of his love. Why not, I ask? Is
the wife any less dear now than she was then,
before she was his wife? If so, I have nothing
79 
LIFE AT HOME.
to say except to express my pity and sorrow for
hiln and for her. But if with lapse of months and
years she has grown upon his heart and fills it
nim,-re fully than in that earlier time, why shall not
that deeper affection find  utterance?  It will
wherever it exists; it will speak in words; it will
shine in looks; it will be mirrored in acts.
But when I speak of exhibitions of affection, I
do not mean that a husband shall be always using
terms of endearment.  Nor do I mean that a husband should be endeavoring to demonstrate his
affection in some notable way, as for instance by
a costly present or the like. No, these may be
given, and yet after all an aching heart may sigh
for something better.
When I say affection should be exhibited in
word and act, I mean those words and acts which
spring naturally from a loving heart It was not
terms of endearment or costly gifts which first
won the maiden's heart; no, in those early days
the one would have been resented and the other
refused; but it was tones of the voice, words of
interest, all the more dear because half-uncon
sciously spoken; expressions of thoughtful care
or solicitude, given you scarcely knew how; a,
80 
HUSBANDS.
little flower plucked-it is now faded, but dearer
after the lapse of years than gems;-a shawl gathered round the shoulders; a cushion adjusted so
that you could rest more comfortably; these
were the attractive things, and these are the
things, not all remembered now one by one, but
which together throw a sweet and hallowed radiance over the time. These are the things which
have evermore an untold charm about them.
By the common consent of men, almost any
husband would venture his life to save his wife's
life from flood or fire, but that would be only
some great occasion, probably never to occur in
most men's lives; but to show every day those
small anticipations of a wife's wishes and little
thoughtful attentions, is to give a greater as well
as perpetual proof of love.  The one is a hurricane which displays sudden, impulsive power;
the other is a sweet and all-surrounding atmosphere of life and love.
It is sadly too often the case that these little
but mighty things all gradually pass away with
the early days of married life. The husband
speaks in tones and in language which if uttered
in his courtship days would have soon cut them
4*
8I 
LIFE AT HOME.
ingloriously short; he is guilty of acts of impolite
ness or perpetrates neglects which then would
have made certain that the lover would never
there get a wife. He who once was all sweetness, whose tones were gentle and kind, whose
looks were sympathy, and acts affection, now that
a wife is bound indissolubly to him, becomes cold,
abrupt, and coarse. Or what, if possible, is worse,
he speaks and acts toward his wife as if she of all
women were the only one to whom he need not
be civil. He addresses her and acts toward her
in a way for which, if it were toward any other
woman who had a natural protector, he would
expect to be rigorously held to account. As she
is his wife, he can be brutish with impunity. To
such a level as this, no man of high or honorable
spirit will ever suffer himself to sink. 
A husband should be careful to maintain all
that he ever exhibited of thoughtful affection.
He should be polite to his wife. Because she is
your wife, is no reason why you should be attentive to all others and not to her; why you should
hastily rise and find a seat for another woman,
when you sit still and leave her to provide for
herself; or why you should feel at liberty to snub
82 
HUSBANDS.
her with some ill-natured or scornful remark.
You need not, because she is your wife, avoid
taking a quiet walk with her, or be ashamed for
the same reason to have her on your arm in the
street or the parlor. Rather, and all the more
because she is your wife, speak pleasant sympathetic words; show little attentions; give kind and
affectionate looks. You may not be able to provide magnificent gifts, jewels and brocades, but
you will give what is pricelessly beyond them.
Do not be ashamed to hold the hand of your wife,
its touch once sent a thrill through your bosom,
and you may hold it gently now with a deeper
meaning in it; do not blush to imprint a kiss upon
her brow, it may not be as fair as then, but the
soul within is fairer. Oh, if I could but persuade
some men to break through the thick ice of their
daily life, and show a little of the love which
ought to be in their hearts, I know that there
would be upturned faces filled with glad surprise;
there would be sad eyes suddenly filled with joyous tears, and white arms that would reach out
with an embrace which they have not known in
many a year.
Remember that it is not enough that you pro
83 
LIFE AT HOME.
vide for your family, that your wife is furnished
with money, and that you do not treat her unkindly, that you are faithful to her; she has affections that crave something more, and which if not
met from you will pine and be all desolate. You
may not feel the want, hurried as you are with
business care and outward employments, and
your nature does not ask it with such deep longings. Of her it has been beautifully said by
Longfellow:
"The world of affections is thy world -
Not that of man's ambition.  In that stillness,
Which most becomes a woman, calm and holy,
Thou sittest by the fireside of the heart.
Feeding its flame."
You may give your wife everything else, but if
you do not give your love in such shape that it
can be recognized, you have left her only poor.
Here is something for which your wife cannot
ask. She can tell you of other wants, that are
not to be thought of in comparison with this;
but she cannot tell you that she longs for tokens
of affection. You must recognize the longing
and answer the unuttered call of love.
sever permit the fire of love to go out, and never
cease to show that it is burning still.
84 
HUSBANDS.
If any husband that reads this has permitted
the flame to burn low on that altar, straightway
kindle it up again, and let its fragrant incense be
like that which never ceased to rise in Israel's
tabernacle. Do not let time or familiarity blunt
the fine edge of your affections, or carelessness
or habit lead you to neglect those little but allpowerful and sweet attentions which hallow and
make beautiful the intimacy of kindred souls.
There is a love, an abiding love that survives
the decay of beauty, which grows deeper and
stronger as the bloom fades from the cheek and
the silver streaks the hair, that sings
"Say, shall I love the fading beauty less,
Whose spring-tide radiance has been wholly mine?
No;  come what will, thy steadfast truth -'ll bless;
In youth, in age, thine own-forever thine."
There is a beauty in the young dawn of love,
when, in life's morning, two that were just now children are walking with interwined embrace; there
is a deeper beauty in the hallowed evidences of
affection which light up the home  of wvedded
life, where the man and the woman  of riper
years have seen days of joy and grief; but there
is a golden sunset beauty, almost like the pure
85 
LIFE AT HOME.
light of heaven, that lingers round the path of an
aged pair, clinging fondly to one another, when
the journey of life is almost over. If there is
anything more exquisite in its touching beauty
than the picture which Burns draws, I do not
know it
"John Anderson, my jo, John, ye were my first conceit;
And ye na think it strange, John, tho' I ca' ye trim and
neat;
Tho' some folk say ye're auld, John, I never think ye so,
But I think ye're ay the same to me, John Anderson, my jo.
"John Anderson, my jo, John, we've seen our bairns' bairns,
And yet my dear John Anderson, I'm happy in your arms;
And sae are ye in mine,-I'm sure ye'll ne'er say no, Though the days are gane that we have seen, John Ander       son, my jo.
" John Anderson, my jo, John, we clam the hill thegither,
And mony a canty day, John, we've had wi' ane anither;
Now we maun totter down, John, but hand in hand we'll
go, We'll sleep thegither at the foot, John Anderson, my jo."
There are many things more that might be said,
and details which might have been entered into,
but I have preferred to set up two or three landmarks in the husband's road of duty. All that I
have said I may sum up in this-Husbands love
86 
HUSBANDS.
your wives, sympathize with them, confide in
them, show that you love them. If any of you
are conscious that you have failed in these things,
that you have not done your duty to her who
put, years ago, her all in your hands, be man
enough at once to acknowledge it, at least to
yourself; once more let your caresses call back
the faded hours of your early love. They will
return with a calmer but deeper power. The
spring-time may have long passed away, but an
autumnal fullness shall linger still around your
home.
1 cannot close this chapter without expressing
what is on my heart about husbands who have
christian wives, while they theminselves are consciously not Christians.   You have sometimes
thought that what throws its richest beauty over
your wife's life is her piety. You respect and
honor it if you are a man. I hope that it is not
necessary for me to say much to any reader of
these pages about doing nothing to hinder his
wNife's religion. Of course, you would not do
that. For you to put temptations in her way,
ask her to go where a disciple of Christ should
not, to do things which will dishonor her pro
87
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
fession or break the power of her religious principles:-that would be to do a demon's work.
But do what you can to help her.  Go to church
wvith her, and take some interest in what she holds
so dear.
You may be very near your wife, and hold her
very fondly to your heart; but, alas, there is a
whole world of thoughts and sympathies, of
hopes and fears, to which you are all a stranger.
Have you never seen your wife pass from her
room with wet eyes and come to you silent but
with an inexpressible longing in her look? Have
you never heard, or thought you did, her voice
low in prayer, or caught the sound of sob and a
murmured "0O God! A/ly husband!  Make him
Thy child! Let us not be separated forever!"
You know well what it meant.
I pray you, let not your wife walk this way
alone any more. Give yourself to Jesus Christ.
Change those tearful intercessions into praises.
Let it not be long before you are able to kneel
by her side, and with her give thanks to God
that your love will not end with earth, but has
something in it of eternity and heaven.
88 
CHAPTER IV.
THE WIFE.
Wives submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto
the Lord.-EPHES. V. 22.
"By his side there moved a form of beauty,
Strewing sweet flowers along his path of life,
And looking utip with meek and love-blent duty;
I called her angel, but he called her wife."
A ERY  many people read the words of the
V Scripture which I have placed at the head
of this chapter, and others similar to them, with
a half-concealed incredulity or a positive rejection. The officiating minister on the marriageday is charged, half in jest and half in earnest,
not to require the bride to "obey," and the laughing wife avers that she did not promise to be obedient to her husband.   Everybody knows that
just now there is nothing she would not do if the
(89)
If  
LIFE AT HOME.
lover-hiusband bade it; yet the light talk shows a
general drift of thought.
The opinion seems to be that these commands
were for another age and a different state of society; that they do not belong to our higher
civilization.
But, after all, the Bible understands human
nature, and the old words have not become obsolete, nor have they ceased to be binding, and that
simply because they are founded on the highest
philosophy and the first principles of human
nature. Indeed, most generally this repudiation
of obedience is only a mere matter of imagination, and, though repudiated in word, the obedient spirit has a quiet and deep residence in the
wife's heart. If she be a loving and true wife,
it surely has. She would not be happy if it were
not there.
Reverence, or respect, lies at the foundation of
a wife's love for her husband; without it, there
can be no true love. No woman can love a man
whom she does not respect.  It is simply impossible. How often have I heard a young girl, in
her true and positive intuition, without thinking
that she was expressing any philosophical truth,
9o 
THE WIFE.
assert a deep one, as she has exclaimed —" I must
be able to look up to the man whom I am to love!"
or, "I cannot love him, for I do not respect him!"
The maiden has never analyzed the feeling, but
she has expressed the inner truth.
True affection between husband and wife has
its beginnings in this reverence; there may be
sentimental preferences, girlish caprices of attachment, but there is nothing that deserves to
be called love till she looks up to the man to
whom her heart goes out. I am inclined to believe that where love is deepest and truest and
most abiding, it is always preceded by such a
reverence, a sort of half fear which gives her a
tremulous anxiety when in his presence. It may
seem groundless to others; it is, perhaps, in reality, very absurd; she may be entirely superior
in every respect to the man whom she is beginning to love; but still the reverence, unaccountable as it is, exists, and her love takes its root
there.  It is a beautiful provision that true affection invests its object with often unpossessed
qualities.  Love finds what no other eye can,
and stands in awe of..lities which no one else
imagines.
9I 
LIFE AT HOME.
A husband's eye may be reading this. Here is
a point for you of immeasurable importance. If
your wife's love had its beginnings in her respect
for you, beware that no act of yours shall in the
after days do aught to diminish or destroy it!
Strive to be what she may only have imagined
you; be careful lest you break the hallowed
image which she has enshrined in her heart!
On this primal principle, thus lying deep in the
mind, I suppose it is that the Bible bases these
injunctions and commands of obedience from the
wife. They fall in at once with that which makes
up a part of her love. This obedience, this reverential subjection, this deferential subordination-it is difficult to get the exact equivalent
for the thought-is therefore a part of the wife's
duty. It is something absolutely essential to her
own happiness in the married life.
For the sake of order and law in the family,
there should be a recognized head, and that head
should be the natural one. I say natural one, for
who does not instinctively require that the husband should be the head? However much we
may sometimes talk of the rights of women, after
all, no one more than a woman herself is quick t9
92 
THE WIFE.
notice, or sure to reprobate, the incongruity of a
wife being the head of the house. The sight is
not lovely to a woman's eyes. There are few
things more unpleasing to women than a family
where the wife is supreme and the husband a
poor subordinate. She is not admired, and surely
the so-called husband evokes no encomiums when
he is the subject of their conversation.
When we speak of this obedience which makes
a part of the wife's duty, of course the idea of
abject, slavish subjection is not in our mind.
That has no place in the married life; it can
have none where right affection abides.  Whenever the hour comes that a husband asserts his
authority, or the wife begins to feel it, the hour
of a departing love has come.  No; as it was at
the early dawn of love, so it must be in its high
day; the obedient spirit goes hand in hand with
love, giving it purity, depth and power, but never
a constraint or a chain. The Holy Spirit has
Himself given us an illustration which vividly
and completely exhibits the true relations of obedience and love-" Husbands love your wives as
Christ loved the Church."   Then follows the
resultant command-the wife must reverence her
93 
LIFE AT HOME.
husband, must yield him an obedience similar to
that which the Church gives her Lord-an obedience of love and joy so pure and so free that it
is not thought obedience, but is only the willing
return of a perpetual affection. This every true
wife understands, knows, rejoices, yea glories in.
It is her happiness and her pride that she calls a
man husband whose power awakens and whose
worth compels such feelings. With a true and
womanly exultation she delights to do him
honor.
Having been met and wooed and won by the
man whom she respects, and therefore can love,
the wife gives herself to him, and, at the same
time, takes into her keeping his honor and his
happiness.  She forsakes all others for him.  It is
not necessary to linger on what is involved in
this-that no other man shall for a'moment take
her husband's place in her affections. This is too
well understood. Whenever another is admired
or loved in advance or aside from him, the purity
of the soul is gone, and all purity is not far from
sacrifice. The wife, and it is no hard duty, is to
exalt him as first and above all other men.
But it is to be feared that this matter of forsak
94 
THE WIFE.
ing all others for him is not so well understood in
all its wide relations.  While a dutiful wife sees
clearly enough that no other man is for an instant
to hold a place in her heart, she may not apprehend so clearly the fact that he is to be supreme
there, above associate or friend, above father or
mother, sister or brother. She has given them
all up for him, and she is to be content with the
surrender-must accept what it involves. Her
happiness and his greatly depend upon it.
She is to confide in him. Her secrets are his
secrets; she can have none but what of right
belong to him. This may not command the
acquiescence of many, yet I am satisfied that
they who have thought most deeply and felt
most truly on this matter will go with me.
There are wives whom all their acquaintances
know cannot be trusted to keep anything from
their husbands, and they are not made the recipients of a thousand things which it is delightful to tell; but they are not the less honored for
that, and they do not fall, in the general estimation, much short of being among  the model
wives.
But I would speak not so much of conceal
95 
LIFE AT HOME.
ments as of rez,elations- not of what the wife
should not keep from her husband, but rather of
what she should not tell of him. "The heart of
her husband doth safely trust in her," is a part
of that beautiful description of the "virtuous
woman whose price is far above rubies," in the
3 I st chapter of Proverbs; and few things are
more important than that he should feel safe in
confiding any and all things to her keeping. I
have, in another place, spoken at large of the importance of cultivating the feeling of unity between husband and wife, and I may here add
that the knowledge that he must guard his words
and hide his business from his wife goes very far
to interrupt and destroy this oneness of spirit.
There are some women who never are at rest
while they have anything to tell.  The most
sacred and inner things of life make no exception to this greed of imparting news: the favored
friends, those "very intimate  companions, intimate as sisters," are introduced familiarly into
the very sanctuary where, it would be supposed,
only husband and wife ever walked. These are
not, however, very beautiful illustrations of what
a wife ought to be.
96 
THE WIFE.
It cannot be far from the truth to say that
not even a sister or a mother ought to stand between a husband and a wife.  There are in some,
possibly in many a married life, things which
weigh upon a wife's heart, and which it would be
good if they could be told to these near friends.
There may be unkindness or neglect, or worse,
that a wife may suffer, and which it is hard to
bear alone. The temptation is strong to tell the
grievances to those who will give, at least, sympathy in return; and it is hard to resist the
temptation. But it must be resisted. When the
wife went out from father and mother she forsook them both for her husband, and she must
be content with the sacrifice.  There are few
husbands who do not sometimes give their wives
cause for complaint; but that cause ought to be
a very serious, even a desperate one, which shall
lead a wife to carry it to any one, however dear.
Perhaps difficulties and alienations are produced in this more frequently than in any other
way. Little, possibly great things arise in married life, interrupting its even flow, which, were
they kept within the precincts of the wife's
bosom, might be overcome or removed, but once
97
5 
LIFE AT HOME.
made known to others become fixed and immovable. The sympathy of a mother or intimate
friend may be good, but it has been purchased
at a terribly dear price if it be enlisted against a
husband. A wife ought to be startled with a
thrill of pain and apprehension when she hears a
word, even though it be responsive to her own,
that derogates from her husband's character.
Nothing will sever conjugal affection so rudely
and push a husband so far away, as the knowledge that his wife has been complaining of him
to another, it matters not who that other is.
WThatever the grievance may be, bury it in your
own bosom, even though it may make your cheek
pale and your form thin. I do not say, indeed,
that there may not, that there does not, sometimes come upon a wife from her husband what
ought to be told to others; that there may not
come a time when she must and can only seek
elsewhere the protection and care which she no
longer finds from her husband; or when she can
abide with him only at a sacrifice of life, or, what
is more, of honor. If that evil day has come,
surely she may go back to the home whence she
came out; she may return to those whom once,
98 
THE WIFE.
confiding in a now faithless husband, she left behind. But short of this, let her pause before she
confides the troubles of her married life to another. Unless she sees cause enough for separation or for divorce, let her conceal all within the
recesses of her own heart. Time and faithful
love may remove the trouble of to-day, and she
will smile with joy as she remembers that no
stranger eye has ever seen or known that it was
there.
But I pass from these things, which are painful
even in thought, to speak of some of those minor
duties of the wife, upon which, although minor,
depend the happiness and even comfort of married life.
The problem of married life, we may say, isHow to retain and strengthen love. A4 husband's
love must be kept.  When I say this, I am not necessarily implying that it is a thing which is
fugitive, or ready to flee away; I am only expressing a common truth of all affection. A
mother to keep, must cultivate the love of her
child; if she does not she will lose it. The conduct of many a woman leads you to be tolerably
certain that she considers her life's grand work
99
I I
. I 
LIFE AT HOME.
to have been all done when she has secured a
husband; that when once the irrevocable words
have been spoken and the indissoluble bond has
been established it is enough; henceforth her husband's love will take care of itself and needs no
further care of her's. From almost the marriageday she begins to neglect all those things by
which his heart was first won. It is a great and
often, very often, a fatal mistake.
It may be said, as comprehending all, a wife
should steadily, and with greater care after her
marriage, use all those womanly arts and ways
to keep, which her love employed at the first to
gain her husband's heart. Too sadly often this
is not done.
In those early days of courtship there was 
studious endeavor to appear to him in the most
pleasing aspect. Nor was there anything either
censurable or artful in this; it was the natural
even the beautiful outworking of an affectionate
soul. Love desires to appear lovely. Then there
was a concealment of all the unamiable traits of
character, an exhibition of as many beautiful ones
as possible; there was scrupulous care of person
and manner, of word and act. It was a natura
..
IOO 
THE WIFE.
care prompted at once by respect and perhaps
affection.  But when courtship is over and the
husband safely bound, the whole scene and act
changes. Often the poor entrapped man startles
at the unexpected discoveries that he makes. He
is like a traveller ascending a mountain; he has
just been rejoicing in genial breezes and tropical
flowers and fruits, but shivers now amid blasted
pines and rugged rocks. The wife feels that it is
no longer necessary to conceal, but that now she
is at liberty to exhibit the less beautiful traits of
her character, while she cares little to cultivate
and show the lovelier. So the bad comes out and
the good retires. It is not at all wonderful now
that the love, however strong and deep, which
first she secured, should become thin and blasted
in this new and wintry air, to which it is so rudely
exposed. The love of a true man is one of God's
greatest and best gifts.  A  husband's love is a
treasure, and it is worth preserving. Treasures
do not keep themselves.
I have just said that the same care should be
taken by the wife to retain her husband's heart
that was used when it was to be gained; but we
may justly go beyond that and assert that even
IOI 
LIFE AT HOME.
greater pains should be taken in these close intimacies of the married life, when romance has
given place to plain and sober reality. Her husband's attachment should grow deeper and deeper
as the months go on; the more he learns of his
wife, the more should he see to admire and to
love. If she be wise and true, such will be the
result.
Among the things that a wife should cultivate,
is the Delicacy and Modesty of her early days. To
a high toned mall, one of the sweetest attractions
is that undefined and indescribable grace which
floats like a cloud of beauty round a true woman:
that maidenly reserve, yet that transparent frankness; that soul purity which lives and shines in
every act and word, and yet does not know and
never thinks that it is purity; which can never
be put on; which is too ethereal for imitation;
which once lost can never be regained; which is
as far from prudishness as it is from immodesty;
which a bad man hates and cannot understand;
which to a good man makes woman like an angel.
This need not be lost in the unveiled freedom of
wedded intimacy.  The wife does indeed give all
to her husband; but in that high and holy aban
102 
THE WIFE.
donment, not one grace that made up the pure
beauty of her maiden life need be lost. No right
minded man would wish it otherwise; he sees
and feels its sweet power as fully as ever; nay, it
has a deeper hold upon him now, and shines with
a calmer, steadier radiance; its magnetic influence reaches out, attracting him to her side, and
all the more because the soul of whose beauty he
is thus ever catching glimpses, is his alone.
A wife should cultivate persoizal attractiveness.
By this I mean every thing which adds to her
value as a wife in her husband's eyes. If she
would have her husband love her more and more
as life advances, she must give him more and
more to love. It need hardly be said that she
should cultivate moral attractiveness, by her goodness of heart drawing his affections to her. But,
what is often not so well understood, she should
endeavor to make  herself mentally attractive.
How many a wife complains of the neglect of
her husband; that he does not seem to care to be
in her society an hour; that he is better pleased
to sit with almost any woman than with her;
that if he is compelled to be at home an evening
with no company but hers, he is silent or restless,
I03 
LIFE AT HOME.
and is glad to seek his bed; never once imagining
that she herself has any thing to do with these
phenomena. If a woman's mind, by her neglect
and indolence, has grown barren and dull, so that
it is without thoughts that are worthy to be
called thoughts; if she be incapable of conversing
upon any thing but matters of dress or scandal;
if she have no intelligent views of what is going on
in the world around her; if she cannot enter into
his thoughts or plans; if she present only one
long, dreary waste, a vast mental solitude, she
ought not greatly to wonder that her husband
does not love to walk there, that he is not deeply
enamored with her society, or that he sometimes
grows bright and cheery when talking with some
other woman.
Let the wife cultivate her mind. Marriage
ought not to finish learning, if it does school days.
She should devote some of her time to this direct
end-mental improvement. It is wonderful how
much reading, reading, not merely of "ladies'
books" and "family" newspapers, with their frequent nonsense and emptiness, but good, useful,
solid reading can be accomplished by a very busy
housewife and a faithful mother with many little
Io4 
THE WIFE.
ones around her. I would not have a wife a blue
stocking; they are not usually the wives in whom
men are very happy. I would not have her a politician, ever ready to tilt a lance with you on questions of statesmanship; but I would have her one
whose mind, fairly cultivated, is abreast with the
knowledge of the day, and is active enough to
meet responsively the approaches of another active and intelligent mind. Were I to descend to
particulars, I would say to every wife:-Have a
carefully-selected book always at hand, and be in
the habit of reading a little from day to day; you
need not neglect one duty or fall short of one requirement of your household, and yet at the end
of a year you will be astonished at how much you
have read; while, in the mental strength and
elasticity you have acquired, you will be repaid
an hundredfold. Look over the daily newspaper
(if you are wide awake, a few minutes will often
suffice) so as to know what is going on in the
world, and to be able to talk about it intelligently.
You will do just as well as, perhaps better than,
some male friend who has read it not half
so fruitfully, for your husband to compare his
thoughts with on the movements of the hour.
5*
Io5 
LIFE AT HOME.
Make such efforts at improvement, and you will
not long have reason to complain of lonely evenings at home.
Cultivate p,tysical attractiveness. I do not know
how better to express it. In the days of courtship, every one knows how instinctively careful
the maiden is of every thing that bears upon her
personal appearance. It is the natural and the
beautiful tribute which respect and reverence
pay to love. The power of these things is felt
without a thought given to the reason of them.
The smoothed or braided hair, the pure skin, the
well-arranged dress, were attended to with scrupulous exactness; there was a buoyant joyousness
in appearing well in the sight of the loved one.
There was a power in all this. The maiden instinct was not at fault.
But that power does not fade away when the
bridal robes are laid aside. It is just as great
now as then. Yet it is not always appreciated
so well after marriage as before it. Many a wife
laughingly says that "her market is made," and
under cover of the jest, which is not all a jest,
grows careless of her personal appearance because "it is only her husband" that sees her.  It
Io6
I 
THE WIFE.
is a mistake. Say what you will, a slovenly wife,
in a greasy wrapper, a soiled and rumpled collar,
and neglected hair, going slipshod round the
house, is not sweetly attractive, she does not call
out the same emotions that a different figure would
evoke. If a husband comes home to an untidy
wife, with the cheek which perhaps he would fain
kiss, overhung with elf-locks, it is not greatly surprising that he is not exceedingly demonstrative
in his greeting. There is power in these little
things, and a wise woman understands them.
She knows that there is a difference in the feeling
which a man has in meeting a wife in the garb I
have sketched, and in coming home to one whose
neatness silently but most eloquently tells her
husband how much she values his approbation
and how highly she respects his love.
Closely connected with this is the dity of makinig horme attractive. I mean now simply by keeping the house clean and neat. It need not be elegant, but it can be pleasant. Who of us does not
know the difference? You go into one house
and you see costly furniture, fair pictures, soft
carpets, heavy curtains, yet with them all there
is an air of slovenliness and disorder from which
107
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
you are glad to escape. You go into another;
every thing is very plain, even mean, but there is
a charm about it, an air of solid comfort or quiet
neatness which has a sort of smile of welcome.
This last is attainable in the humblest home.
There are few men, however terrible they may
be to notable housekeepers in upsetting and misplacing things, who do not love cleanliness and
order in their home. 1 verily believe that many
a man has been driven away from his home by
the demon of untidiness. There is something
which strikes a man with a chill of discouragement, to come at night to a home which is in perpetual disorder, to uncleanliness, to the noisy
bustle of" getting things to rights," and the namneless horrors of fruitless attempts at house-keeping.  I would say to every wife:-See that your
house, however plain it may be, is a' clean and
orderly one; greet your husband in neat garb and
welcome him at least to a well swept and settled
room; entertain him at a table, which, though it
may not have a sumptuous supper upon it, yet is
always covered with white cloth and plates that
will reflect back the smile of your welcome.
Should your house be one of elegance, remember
I08
I 
THE WIFE.
that poor house-keeping will deprive both furniture and pictures and plate of all their value to a
husband that loves his home. To sum it all up:throw around your home such an air of coziness
and comfort that neither club-room nor loungingplace shall have any chance in the comparison;
that your husband shall be compelled to think it
the cheeriest spot in all the world.
These outward things, however, are not all, or
even the most important in giving to a husband
an attractive home; there must be the perpetual
sunshine of pleasant looks andwords. The repeated
and vivid comparisons of the Wise Man in the book
of Proverbs about the contentious woman and
the continual dropping on a very rainy day, have
a terrible significance to some men. No one
loves to be met on his entrance at night-fall, with
sour looks and upbraiding speeches; n6r to bear
during a winter's evening the bombardment of
sharp or sarcastic words dropped like hot shot
between the paragraphs of his daily paper. Nor
should the wife who gives such things think it
marvellous if her husband often has occasion to
"meet a friend," or "attend a committee meeting," when supper-time has passed.
Io9
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
On the other hand, he must be a bad man upon
whom smiles and words of affectionate greeting
when he enters home have no tender and softening influence. I do not say that it is always possible for a wife after a weary day of annoyance,
fatigue and anxiety with household duties, to put
on an air of unmingled sweetness and cheerfulness. I know that some men expect that, and I
know that in expecting it they are unreasonable.
I hope that in the previous chapter, when
speaking of the husband's duties, I referred sufficiently to the point. Yet even though she cannot always seem perfectly cheerful and smiling,
she can avoid pouring out a stream of fretfulness
and fault-finding, the pent-up volume of her annoyances, upon him; she need not make his coming the occasion of opening the valve which
shrilly pierces the ear with its blast. A good
husband will, as I have said before, sympathize
with his wife's cares, and lighten them with appreciative words, but she should be careful not
to make them the only, or the main topic of her
conversation with him. If it is at all possible, she
should show contentment and satisfaction.  It is
hard for a man who has honestly labored to pro
II0 
THE WIFE.
vide for his family, and, with all the skill he pos seses, has endeavored to make them happy, to
find only repining and fault-finding as his reward;
and he must be a man of unbounded good nature,
or of iron will, who does not become discouraged
and give over efforts which clearly are so fruit less. If, on the contrary, a husband finds that his
well-intended attempts are noticed and appre ciated, that they call out kind expressions of ap probation and affectionate thanks, it will not be
long before he becomes enthusiastic in his plannings, even were there no other motive before
him than the sunny smile and the glad words of
surprise that he knows are sure to meet him at
his home.  Oh, there is power in a wife's smiles;
they are like the summer sunshine and the dew;
they glow and they distill gently, but they call
out whole harvests of teeming good.
Among these minor but mighty things, let me
mention little and delicate attentions.  Perhaps
you will know at once what I mean. There are
many wives who love their husbands with a de voted love, who would sacrifice their life without
hesitation to save his, who in times of sickness or
danger are all devotion, but who yet on ordinary
I I I 
LIFE AT HOME.
occasions never give an outward sign of tenderness or affection. It may be a sufficient explana
tion for some that it is not their nature; but it
seems to me that such a nature should be cultivated into one of a better kind. Our life is made
up both in its pleasures and its troubles of little
things, and the man or woman who does not recognize the fact, will make a great many failures,
and miss a great many joys. A glance of the eye,
a touch of the hand, has in it at times, a magnetic
power which not every one knows how to measure. Let a wife use that power. I know that
there are women who never find time to sit
quietly by their husband's side; who would consider it an immense waste to be there without a
bit of sewing in hand; who would consider it
very foolish to be kissed by their husbands, who
would absolutely smile at the absurdity of her
head upon his shoulder; these things belonged
possibly to some far back and girlish days, but
like other childish things have long since been
put away. But still there are those who know
differently; they ask and they give what is better
than jewels.
These little attentions-a hand laid on his
II2 
THE WIFE.
shoulder as some  wives know how, half thoughtlessly, an arm slipped quietly within his as she
stands by his side, will give a gentle thrill of satisfaction which cannot be expressed; they are
better than mere words, have a deeper tone in
them, and are more full of music. There need not
be perpetual fondling, especially before others, but
these little things, like bubbling fountains by the
way-side, are recognized as at once the effect and
the evidence of love which by reason of its own
fullness must have an outlet.
A wife should be careful of her husband's interests. She should know and enter sufficiently into
his business to understand what expenditures of
their means-I will not say his-are right and
proper. Too sadly often a husband has been
ruined by his wife's thoughtless extravagance,
which while he saw and feared it, he either could
not or would not check. She had neither taste
nor heart to know anything about business; she
did not and could not know what the money cost
of labor, how it was gotten, or how much of it
there was; she has gone into expenditures and
urged her husband into them, while his affection
for her and his pride in her have helped on the
II3
,.. ~ N 
LIFE AT HOME.
evil work, till disaster and even ruin have been the
result. Yet this wife, responsible as she is, had
she known her work, rather than do it, would
have cut off her right hand.
Let a wife practice the care and attention to
her husband's interests that daily show him that
she has these interests at heart, that she is neither
selfish nor thoughtless, and she will not feel the
want of anything her husband's means can give
her.
A wife should defend and hold to her husband,
even when all else and all others have failed him.
There is a sublimity in the self-sacrifice of a wife
that clings to the side of her husband, though he
lies, like a shipwrecked bark, on life's tempestswept strand. I have seen a wife watching with
unwearied care over an imbruted man whom rum
had made a beast; and when all others could no
longer abide him, when all others had given him
over in hopeless abandonment, still lingering
near, a guardian spirit hovering over a lost soul;
and I have thought it the exquisite, the supremest
proof of a wife's devotion. Here was faithfulness
that lived while all but the name of husband had
gone; honor which would not die even though
I I4
I 
THE WIFE.
all that could be honored had gone into corruption. It was woman-like; and I think it will
have its reward.
I wish to say a few words before I close this
chapter, to those wives who, while they are professors of religion themselves, have husbands who
are not. To such let me say, with all the emphasis that I am capable of using:-Exert your
Christian influence steadily and without compromise. Many a wife has made a fatal mistake
here. She has honestly been of the opinion that
she could have the best influence over her husband by yielding her religious feelings and habits
to his. So she has joined him, for example, in
visiting places of amusement, which otherwise
she would have avoided; she has sanctioned, if
not encouraged him in practices and associations
which, in her heart, she could not approve, and
this because she has feared to alienate his affections. The result has been that, instead of winning him, she has lost him. She has not brought
him to sympathize with her religious feelings, because she has never shown any; she has held
them out of sight, and they have had no power
over him, and could have none. She has lost
I I5
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
much of her own religion, which could hardly
live in such a stifling atmosphere, and she has
committed him to the full sweep of all the unhallowed forces exerted upon him. In many an
instance he has become estranged, perhaps unfaithful, from the subtile influence of a dead religion in his wife, and because that which alone
could have held him back was withdrawn.
Do not, christian wife, fall into this error. Do
not lay aside your religion because your husband
is not with you in it. Maintain scrupulously
your habits of reading the Bible and of secret
prayer; attend regularly and punctually upon
your church; be a consistent Christian in everything; do nothing which is not in strict accordance with your christian principles; show your
husband what a christian wife is. You will surely
meet a blessed reward. You may gain him for
Christ if you do; you, more than all others, may
keep him away from Christ if you do not.
Oh, the power of a good wife! God's best
earthly gift to man! What lines of care can she
smooth out of furrowed brows!  What sunshine
can she pour in upon clouded hours! What ramparts of defence can she put up in hours of temp
II6 
THE WIFE.
tation! What prayers are more mighty than
those that gush from her heart! You may walk,
if you will, an angel by his side, and, it may be,
heaven will be more complete because you did.
I I17
I 
CHAPTER V.
PARENTS.
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is
old he will not depart from it.-PROVERBS xxii. 6.
It is no little thing when a fresh soul
And a fresh heart, with their unmeasured scope
For good, not gravitating earthward yet,
But circling into diviner periods,
Are sent into this world.                LOWELL.
ITHIN  the limits which I have set for
myself, and in a single chapter, to attempt any detail of rules for family training,
would be useless. I shall intentionally pass by
some topics naturally presenting themselves to
one in contact with the subject, that I may linger
on others less obvious but of equal importance.
The responsibility of a parent is so often talked
about that we are in danger of losing, by reason
(iIS) 
PARENTS.
of the triteness of the word, the seriousness of
the fact. None of us have ever risen to a full
appreciation of it; none of us can reach it unless
we be able to explore all the hidden avenues by
which one soul approaches another, or look over
the eternal tract of a soul's history, and follow
the connected chain of causes which make it
what it is and what it will be. This, however,
we may say-to be a parent is to be the occasion
of the entrance of an intelligent being on an endless life, a life which shall, in one of two worlds,
be filled with unspeakable joys or immeasurable
sorrows; it is to stand at the origin of a life and
to start it on an eternal career; it is to be placed
at the beginning of this great existence with a
signet in your hand which you shall, in spite of
yourself, stamp upon an immortal soul, the impression to last through its whole history; it is
to have a new and intense meaning given to
every word and look and thought of yours, since
thought and look and word perpetuate themselves in the being whose destiny is linked with
yours forever.
It is said that, in a certain gallery of paintings,
are two pictures hanging side by side. The one
II9 
LIFE AT HOME.
is that of a boy at his mother's knee, with the
angel smile of happy childhood upon a face of
passing purity and sweetness; the other is that
of a prisoner in his cell, a man prematurely old,
with grizzly locks and beard, an eye fierce and
wicked, and from every feature the hardened
villain glaring out. You look upon the one and
are entranced with its heavenly beauty, and you
instinctively shrink from the sinister look of the
other. You are struck with the strange contrast,
but have a deeper interest awakened when you
are told that they are life portraits, and of the
same person; the angel-like child and the demonlike man are one! The difference is vast between them, but the gulf has very often been
passed in this sinful world. How shall the father,
as he stands meditatingly beside the cradle of
his boy, tell through what scenes of virtue or of
crime he shall go? How shall the mother tell
whether or not the sweet baby-girl in her arms
shall die, a lonely and forsaken outcast, in some
garret on a winter's night?
Such thoughts as these have a sort of truthful-~
ness in them, and yet they are not all true. The
coming history of a child is uncertain, only when
t20 
PARENTS.
contemplated as a future unrelated to present influences. The baby child may one day become
a murderer; the two pictures may be life-like,
but whether they shall be, will depend on what
has been done to shape the soul that beamed in
the infant face or scowled in the man's. Tell
what influences will, all along, be exerted upon
that child, beginning here in these cradle-days
and continued through childhood, and you shall
not be wholly uncertain what he will be; know
them, and you may cast the horoscope of his future, and still be neither astrologer nor prophet.
The Author of this universe has connected
causes and effects, and they are more or less constant and invariable. They exist as fully in the
moral world as in the physical, and they are, if
possible, more constant, invariable, and.more to
be relied upon in the former than in the latter.
If you thrust your arm into the fire, you expect
to be burned; if you throw a heavy body from
a height, you expect it to fall. The forces of heat
and gravitation prevail according to their regulating laws. So in the great world of right and
wrong, good influences tend to good results.
The result may, indeed, be prevented by creature
6
I21
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
will, which brings in an antagonistic power, but
the law is-good produces good.
I believe that God has made this especially
true in the sphere of parental influence. Here
the laws of cause and effect are found to be
marked and palpable. If there were no observation and experience to teach us, the words of the
Scripture are sufficient: "Train up a child in the
way he should go, and when he is old he will not
depart from it." The language is very plain and
emphatic. Here is cause and effect; right parental training will not only produce good results
in the life of the child, but these results will be
.permanent, the child shall not only walk in the
right way, but no future influences shall be strong
enough to turn him away from it.
There is a profound significance in the words
by which that remarkable interview between the
Jehovah Angel and Abraham, recorded in Genesis (xviii. I7-20), is introduced: "And the Lord,
said, Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which
I do? seeing that Abraham shall surely become
a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of
the earth shall be blessed in him? For I know
himn that he will command his children and his
I22 
PARENTS.
household after hiin, and they shall keep the way of
tke Lord to do justice and judgment; that the
Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he
hath spoken of him." The great and prosperous
future was known because the parental influence
was certain to be beneficent.  Oh, what a motive
and encouragement is here for parental faithfulness! What an indication of a parent's power!
Here he stands and shapes the future of his child;
he need not fear that this training of his shall be
either fruitless or evanescent; it shall last and it
shall be prevalent over all other powers.  What,
I may add, what a direful import do the words
have when you contemplate the life of a wicked
man!  Why  was it wicked?  What  were the
powers which brought about this baleful product? Why were the right influences absent?
Why was not the training given to hold him in
the path of right?
I have thought of this matter much and long,
and have observed as I have been able, and the
longer I live, and the more I see, the more I am
convinced of both the truth of this Scripture and
the responsibility of parents for the future characof their children. I believe in the perfect freedom
I23
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
of every human being, whether child or man; but
so well convinced am I of the prevalence of the
great laws of cause and effect in the family, that I
believe that we are not only warranted, but compelled to look, and we do instinctively look back
to parental influence, whenever we see either a
good or an evil life. Is it too much to say, that
however you may at first question it, you have
never known a bad man, the evil of whose life
you cannot more or less closely connect with
wrong or defective training in early life? If he
had been rightly trained he would have walked
in the way he should go; he would not have departed from it.
\When I look at the measureless power given
to the parent, when I look at all that depends on
his right action, I cannot believe that this matter
of child-training is uncertain; and when I look at
the Bible and attentively consider all that God
has written there about it, I am sure that it is
not. Let a parent take the word of God, study
it well, let him believe that its wisdom is greater
than his own, and so trust it; act as it tells him
to act; let him on bended knee and with docile
soul inquire what is God's will and his own duty;,
I24 
PARENTS.
let him ask wisdom and-it is one of the things
that we are authorized to be confident of-he
shall be guided, and he shall not be disappointed
at the results.
But, alas, the difficulty is we do not believe, as
we ought, God's word, our faith is too feeble, and
we are too indolent and too self-willed to follow
its teachings. Parents do not pray enough over
their child-training. It would not be wonderful
at all if some father and some mother should be
reading this, who have never yet uttered one
heartfelt and earnest prayer that God would help
them train their children. Do you wonder that
you are unsuccessful? I do not. When, with a
heart-sick feeling of your own ignorance and
weakness, you bow with tears before God, asking
His help and His blessing, you will do it better
than you do it now.
Here, then, upon these principles, I would base
my first remark: Let every parent endeavor to have
a full and clear appreciation of his position and injucince upon his child.  It will be in the future
what you, the father and the mother, make it.
You may seek to evade the responsibility by incredulity; you may believe these views to be all
I25
.,l 
LIFE AT HOME.
wrong, but it will still be true that God has put
you where you cannot but influence your children; and whether you act or do not act, you
shall mould their life. You are shut up to training them right. You cannot be negative here.
Not to train at all is to train badly and wickedly.
It is for you, with all these interests at stake, to
know how to do your work well. You will, at
all events, do a work upon your children; you
are doing it day by day. The simple question is,
what shall be its character? Shall it go to make
a good and useful man, or shall its product be a
harmful and wicked one? It is only a question
of results; they will follow what you are doing
now; you, on your responsibility, are to declare
what they shall be.
A true appreciation of parental power and
position will go far toward a right performance
of parental duty, and in presenting it I have presented what may be the key to much of family
training. There are some points, however, which
are, perhaps, not thought of by parents as much
as they should be; among them let me mention  Syimzpatzy with Childhood.  It is very easy for a
parent to err here; and, perhaps, all the more, be
126 
PARENTS.
cause the sense of responsibility is great. Under
it parents are liable to assume a distant and unsympathetic attitude toward their children, and
to give them, unconsciously, the idea that they
are out of the circle of a child's thoughts and
feelings. This is unfortunate, for it deprives a
parent of much of his power. You can do no
one much good if he thinks you do not understand him, nor enter into his feelings; and none
are so quick as children to detect and measure
the inner attitude of any one toward them. There
are some persons who, do what they will, strive
hard as they may, can never be favorites with
children; and there are others who, seemingly
without an effort, attract them to their side;
simply, I suppose, because the one has what the
other has not, a natural sympathy with childhood; and the quick intuition of the child feels it.
This sympathy is not, therefore, a mere matter of
will; some have it by nature and some are with
out it. But it can be cultivated.
Fathers, it seems to me, are more in danger of
coming short here than mothers. They are less
with their children, and this, were there no other
reason, tends to remove them somewhat away
I27
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
from the child's world, while the trains of daily
thought all favor the tendency. So it often happens that the father, returning from business cares,
does not readily walk in the paths that have been
trod all day by the little ones at home. Their
noise and their questions trouble him, and they.
easily understand that the hour which hastens
them off to bed is very welcome to him. Parents
should make this sympathy with their children a
direct o)bject of attainment. They should never
forget that they were once children themselves,
and it will be of immense service to remember
just how they felt and thzought when thzey were little
boys azndg~rs.  If these by-gone days were more
kept in mind, children would be saved hours of
fruitless longing and tears of bitter disappointment which ought never to oppress their hearts
or mark their cheeks.
There is something wrong when children do
not care to be where their parents are, or do not
feel free at their play when father or mother is
by, and it ought to awaken thoughtfulness when
a parent finds that his presence is to them no welcome thing. On the other hand, I know of few
more pleasant sights or sounds than the glad shout
I28 
PARENTS.
of welcome which greets a father as his children
catch a glimpse of his form in the distance, and
the merry race for the prize of his hand to hold
as he comes to his door. You need not be told
that here is one who is not far from the circle in
which his children move. It does not injure a
father now and then to take a turn with his boys
at marbles or at bat and ball, or for a mother to
give careful attention to the toilet of a doll; indeed, these are the things which keep up the
freshness of his own spirit and rob the years of
their power to make him old; and what is of
greater importance in the eyes of children, they
keep hanging on the boughs of advancing years
the full foliage of pleasant summer days; it does
not appear so sad a thing to grow old; at least
they know that manhood does not lose its hold
upon the child.  It is this recognized sympathy
which draws a child to his parent. This leads me
to another topic  Parents should bind their children lovingly to
thfiem. I know that this will seem a very trite remark. But I am, too, well aware that while every
father and mother wishes to secure the love of
their children, there are multitudes who entirely
6*
I29
I 
LIFE AT' HIOME.
fail in doing it. Their children when young prefer to be with them, rather because they are accustomed to their society than from any deepseated affection, but as soon as they are old
enough to seek other companionships and associations, those of father and mother are gladly forsaken. The parent has no hold on the child, and
filial love has a very shadowy existence, if it exist at all. After every allowance has been made
for the waywardness of children, one would not
be far astray were he to assert that when a parent
has failed to secure the warm love of his child, it
is usually the parent's own fault. Filial love is
natural; children are born to love their parents;
the germs of the tree are there, and if it never
grows, or only dies, when it is just above the
ground, it is because no culture has kept it alive.
Parents must cultivate the affectron of their
children with greater care than they cultivate
their minds. The love of your child is of no such
nature that it will stay by you if you do not try
to keep it. The heart of your child is to you of
more importance than his intellect, and it will not
add to your happiness, if while you have made
the one brilliant, you have turned the other away
130
.1 
PARENTS.
from you. Here in the deep-toned love of your
child is a jewel of priceless value to him and to
you; you can afford to give care and labor to
keep it safely.
With this end in view-Teach your children to
confide in you.  In whom should a child confide if
not in a mother or a father? They would seem the
natural resort in any time of perplexity. Yet who
does not know that the sons and daughters who
unbosom themselves to father and mother are exceptional children?  The most seek their confidants every where rather than at home. It is
worthy of consideration by every parent whether
this is necessary-whether any thing in their conduct toward their children has tended to produce
it. If from the first the sympathy, of which I
have spoken, has been cultivated, and through the
early years of childhood the boys or girls have
grown up with the idea that father and mother
understand all about them, and take the deepest
interest in their affairs, those concealments which
are so often sorrowful to the parent and dangerous to the child, would not be so frequent.
Children should be able to feel that they are
certain to find a sympathetic friend in father or
T31 
LIFE AT HOME.
mother. We should beware therefore of making
light of any thing that our children consider important. We should put ourselves while they
are young on the plane of their thoughts and feelings, be at pains to exhibit our interest, and so
encourage them to tell their little troubles to
us. Then in the after years, when they are called
to confront matters on which perhaps hang their
life's happiness, we shall not be strangers to
them; and we shall be able to help them with
counsel such as a parent alone can give. A doll's
dress torn, a kite stick broken may tell on a long
future.
Especially should a parent be lovingly watchful
of that delicate and critical time when the child
passes out of youth into manhood or womanhood.
All the old associations of childhood are with you
as an almost present reality; with your son and
daughter they are things of the past. You must
not too long think of them as children.  Gently,
gracefully, naturally as you can, lift them to the
level of your man and woman thought and feeling. Walk with them arm in arm, talk with
them as if you had forgotten that they were lately
children, consult them as if you had confidence
I32 
PARENTS.
in them and their judgment; let the silken cords
of parental authority which childhood felt, transform themselves into ornaments of grace and
beauty which you hang about their neck. So the
instinctive love of a boy and girl shall imperceptibly change to the intelligent and undying devotion of a man and woman. You may have lost
childhood with the inevitable flight of years, but
you have gained manhood forever.
It should be the aim and endeavor of every
parent to make homne as attractive as possible to their
children.   There is such a thing as throwing
round a home so many beautiful things-I mean
not beautiful in art to catch the eye, but beautiful
in thought and association, holding the heartthat children shall cling to it with an undying
love. The point which we have before us, is that
of binding our children to us; and I believe that
here, in making homes pleasant, is an instrumentality whose importance is not understood as it
ought to be. The complaint is often made by
parents, and with sadly too frequent truthfulness,
that as soon as their children become old enough
to mingle in society their home is forsaken, they
seem uneasy and restless when compelled to re
I33
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
main even for a single evening there, and almost
any other place seems to be preferred to that
where father and mother and brothers and sisters
are found. This complaint is made with a tone
of deep regret, but at the same time perhaps the
parents who make it have no suspicion that, after
all, the cause of what they deprecate is found in
themselves. No child, however sentimental, will
love a home simply because it has the name of
one. If we would have our children love it, we
must make it lovely-we must give them something to love in the home.
Now if the principle ideas which a child has of
his home are, that it is a place where he gets his
meals and where he sleeps; where, if he is little,
he is perpetually found fault with; where he must
keep quiet; where at night-fall he must sit stupidly waiting till bed-time; or, if he have grown
older, he can only deem it a dreary room in which
he must employ himself as best he may, while the
father sits at his paper or dozes in his chair, and
the mother is silently busy with her sewing or
her book; if such be the aspect of home, one
need not wonder that children learn to look elsewhere for pleasure, and seek to find amusement
I34 
PARENTS.
in other circles, or that home is forsaken as soon
as it is possible to leave it.
It is practicable to make a home so delightful
that children shall have no disposition to wander
from it or prefer any other place; it is possible to
make it so attractive that it shall not only firmly
hold its own loved ones, but shall draw others
into its cheerful circle. Let the house, all day
long, be the scene of pleasant looks, pleasant
words, kind and affectionate acts; let the table be
the happy meeting-place of a merry group, and
not a dull board where a silent, if not sullen company of animals come to feed; let the meal be the
time when a cheerful laugh is heard and good
things are said; let the sitting-room, at evening,
be the place where a smiling company settle
themselves to books or games till the round of
good-night kisses are in order; let there be some
music in the household, music not kept like silk
and satins to show to company, but music in
which father and mother and sister and brother
join; let young companions be welcomed and
made for the time a part of the group, so that
daughters shall not deem it necessary to seek the
obscurity of back parlors with intimate friends,
I35
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
or to drive father and mother to distant apartments; in a word, let the home be surrounded by
an air of cozy and cheerful good-will; then children need not be exhorted to love it, you will not
be able to tempt them away from it.
The ties which bind a child to home are created
not so much out of great as from little things;
some of them I have hinted at, and many more
will suggest themselves to a wise parent. There
should be a good many holidays in the home. I
believe in anniversaries, and I love, by observing
them, to connect time with events, and so give to
both a deeper interest. The birth-days of a family should be always noticed, and, in someway,
celebrated. The busy preparation of the whole
household to make some present to father or
mother or sister or brother on a birth-day or holiday; the many plannings, the working in by-corners and at odd times; the bundling of work out
of sight as the step of the favored one is heard;
the careful stowing of gifts away till the appointed time; and then, when the looked-for day
has come, the presentations, the confused and
merry voices, the filled eye, the choked voice, the
heart too full to speak in words, memory touched
I36 
PARENTS.
as with an angel's hand, love that can only look
its thanks-all these! who can tell their sweet and
mighty power? A home familiar to such scenes,
will it, can it be one that children shall not love?
No, no, from it, when the inexorable time comes
to go away, daughters shall pass with sobs of
sorrow, and sons with pressed lips and swimming
eyes, and while mother lives it will be home still,
home, though years have gone and other homes
have claimed them.
When you have made such a home for your
children, you have thrown around them a hallowed influence which time and distance and
temptation cannot sever-an influence for good
that shall be simply unmeasured
Few, comparatively, appreciate the immense
moral power of that which meets the eye of a
child in his home. Order and neatness, which
surround him like an atmosphere; forms of
beauty which attract him; are not simply pleasing in themselves, but are perpetually reaching
out, and, by touching the soul itself, forming the
disposition and the heart.
I have known a father select a picture, only a
lithograph, inexpensive, but chosen from among
I37 
LIFE AT HOME.
many because of the sweet face of a little girl
who looks up at you, with needle in her fingers,
from her work, while a gentle smile is lighting up
every feature; and place it in his dining-room
with the sole purpose that the ever-beaming
countenance should exert its influence over the
little ones of the household. Who can say that
no gathering cloud of anger or discontent has
been chased away by that sunny look 1 No one
can measure the quiet influence of things like
that.
In these days, when through the lithograph
and the chromo treasures of art are within the
reach of almost every one, it is not difficult to
adorn a very humble home with what will be an
ever-present and ever-exerted power for good.
Pictures and statuettes should be chosen, not
alone for their beauty, but chiefly for their influence oh the family; to deepen the purity, elevate
the character and strengthen the moral life of all
who look upon them. We should educate our
children morally through the random glances of
their eye.
The element of beauty is, one is almost tempted to believe, native to every child, and can be
I38 
PARENTS.
made a force in the soul. I am not able to name
the author of the following; I have found it as a
floating waif, but I adopt the language and'endorse its admirable teaching: "In the religious
nurture of children we should address ourselves,
far more than we do, to the sentiment of beauty
in their minds. We are eager to fill our homes
with beautiful and costly objects, but are slow to
fill our minds and theirs with beautiful thoughts.
\Ve are impatient to clothe ourselves and them
in the finest apparel, but are altogether too patient of repulsive habits and deforming dispositions.  We want to see, and make them see, that
beauty, taste and elegance are great things; and
that all meanness, ill-temper, fretfulness, falsehood and wrong are utterly ugly. We need to
see for ourselves and help them to feel the unspeakable attractiveness of moral beauty; the
loveliness of truth, the charm of a sweet forgiving spirit, and the splendor of self-sacrifice; that
every bad habit is a sin against taste and beauty,
as well as an offense against the Holy Ghost."
There is enough said about the education of
the intellect and of the morals, but possibly
enough is not said of the education of the heart.
I39
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
The one is as capable of cultivation as the
other. A child, naturally of an impassive, unaffectionate temperament, introduced into a family where love abounds and is manifested, where
the different members are accustomed to exhibit
it in the numberless and nameless acts which
make such a family beautiful, cannot, after a
while, but do the same things; the most frigid
nature must thaw under a sky so genial The
converse is just as true.  I have seen a child,
natively most tender and susceptible, a boy with
a heart all affection, and feelings like aeolian
strings, ready to vibrate at every breath, grow
up a cold-hearted, undemonstrative man; just because he had lived under an unfortunate and mistaken family influence, in which no effort had
been made to give play to the movements of his
deeper and gentler nature, and where all was calculated to suppress and stifle them. Without
vice, yet with many of the finer and tenderer
characteristics gone, one would well wonder how
such a little child could have become such a man.
I, looking back over all the training, have no difculty in accounting for it.
Perhaps some one will say-We do not wish
I40
I 
PARENTS.
our children, and especially our boys, to be of so
soft a nature that they shall feel deeply everything which touches their sensibilities; we wish
them to be men. In reply to such a parent,
argument would be of not much account. If an
affectionate disposition, the beautiful and nobler
sensibilities of the soul seem to him of no value,
but rather to be eradicated, nothing can be said.
But to a parent who sees a beauty and a priceless
value in a sympathetic heart, to whom manifested
love is very precious, to such a parent, I would
say:-Give care to your childreris' affections.
When  your little one would throw his arms
around your neck and imprint kisses on your
cheek, do not push him away for fear he will
rumple your smooth linen or disarrange your
hair. When, in your hurry, he would detain you,
or even call you back for a "good-bye kiss," or
bring you to his crib for one  more  "goodnight," do not consider it too much trouble, or
permit him to see that you think it so. Make
much of it, for believe me, in the end, it is much.
You may, by only welcoming these natural outgoings of childhood's heart, make a summer of
delight to you; like little birds, that will only fly
I41
If 
LIFE AT HOME.
away to return no more if you are rude, they
will come and nestle in your bosom, and sing you
many a song that shall be as the whisperings of
angels.
There is just here one mistake that I would
guard you against.  It is this:-The idea that
you can best secure the affection of your children
by allowing them to be disobedient. No error
could be more fatal. A parent never yet held
the love of his children by any such process;
and thousands have lost it forever. If you wish
your child to grow up with no love for you, and
little for any one else, let him have his own way.
If you excuse his faults, instead of condemning
them; if you shield him from punishment because you do not care to see him suffer, you will
not be disappointed. He will abundantly reward
you by and by, as he will thrust you behind his
back without a thought. If the future brings to
you some bitter experience of the utter heartlessness of your child; if your very heart dies to see
how little he cares for you, remember that it was
because you would be a wicked parent, and
would permit your child to be disobedient. I
will not stop to explain how obedience makes
I42 
PARENTS.
love and joy, I will only ask you to look at the
families where obedience is the law; you shall see
a household full of love, where the very footfall of father or mother makes every one astir
with gladness.
There is one other suggestion which I make for
the training of children; it may be stated comprehensively-Train your children for usefulness
andfor independence.  The topic is wide-reaching,
and I can but hint at a few points. In the material
world there are a great many things which are
made only for ornament, and they fulfill their end
when they have given pleasure to the eye. It is
not so in the social world. No man or woman is
simply ornamental.  Many, no doubt, think themselves so, but they are mistaken. If they are not
positively useful, they are excrescences. Every
child should be trained with the full purpose of
accomplishing something for the good of the
world. This observation has force, I apprehend,
more in respect to the girls of a family than the
boys. On every side you will see daughters
trained in such a way that if they are ever fit for
any thing, when they become women, it will be
because they learn it after they have gone out
I43
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
from their mother's home. A girl with little or
no musical ability is kept for years wasting, daily,
precious hours over an afflicted instrument to
make an indifferent performer, to whom polite
people listen with sufferance; she is made to daub
a few pieces of canvas with many a helping touch
from her teacher; with vast labor taught to murder some French phrases, and what, perhaps, will
give you a smile, is able to say that she has studied
Latin; in the meanwile, enlargement or furniture
of mind seems not to be thought of; history, science, literature are unknown, intelligent conversation is impossible, and household knowledge not
to be mentioned.
Such girls are apt to have mothers who make
themselves household drudges, waiting-mnaids for
their daughters; mothers who spend much of
their time in the kitchen or sitting-room with
work-basket in lap, while daughters are simpering
in the parlor or chatting gaily in the street. The
fault is not with the poor girls; you may not admire them, but you should not hastily blame
them. Many of them are really girls of native
good sense and force of character. When they become old enough, they will regret and mourn
I44 
PARENTS.
over the training they have had; and under very
many disadvantages will set about remedying its
defects; but at present you should put the responsibility and the blame where it belongs-on a
weak, and perhaps it would not be too harsh to
say, wicked mother. A mother has no right to
train a daughter so that she shall be wholly unfitted for any true life-work. Mothers, train your
daughters so that they shall be women, women
worth the name.
Much is often said by some people of the necessity of a certain kind of accomplishments, so
called, to make sons and daughters gentlemen
and ladies. The dancing master is sent for, and
the children are put through all the niceties of
that distinguished and dignified business-to give
them, forsooth, grace! to make them polite!  I
have heard of the process and seen the results,
and I cannot say that they were greatly pleasing.
I have seen pupils long under the instruction,
with hardly the first elements of grace or any
thing which could give them any true title to the
character of polite people. No, a true gentleman
or lady was never yet created by the dancingmaster; the origin is back of that. It must be
7
I45
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
born in the parent or in the child, or be the product of a new birth of soul. It is a very sad and
humiliating confession, that parents have to send
for a teacher of steps to show a child how to be
graceful and polite.
Grace and true gentility are the fruit of family
life.  Children will be abroad what they are at
home. If parents would have them truly polite
men and women abroad, let there be a reign of
true politeness in the family. If children see a
daily example of refined attentions between father
and mother, they will catch the spirit and the
form of them, they know not how; if habits at
the table, in the parlor, in the nursery are guarded
and formed aright, all will take care of itself, when
they are away from home.  I know, indeed, that
some people are born with a grace and courtliness
of manner which will manifest themselves in the
face of almost bad surroundings; but I know, too,
that vulgarity and indecorum at home never yet
gave birth to delicacy and refinement abroad.
The outside will declare the inner life. Let good
manners be the rule of the family, and you need
have no fear that your children will not be both
easy and decorous wherever they may be placed.
I46
I 
PARENTS.
And for this there is nothing so potent as true
family religion. Christianity makes gentlemen.
He who is in the habitual exercise of the benevolent, self-sacrificing, kind and gentle characteristics of a christian, will be a well-bred man. So
in the family, where the spirit of true religion has
a home, there will be a perpetual influence to refine, soften and elevate every member of it.
Childhood is not long; it is very short. How
very brief, indeed, it is! Some twelve years or
so cover it all. While you are scarcely aware,
your little babe has become a boy, and while you
have only become accustomed to thinking him a
child, he has passed out of childhood forever.
What parent has not had it come home to him
with a deep tinge of melancholy?
There is but one childhood for your little ones.
Oh, then, make it for them all that you can.
Make it completely good, redolently sweet in the
present, radiant in the past. It is a mournful
thing to give them an unhappy childhood. Sad,
sad, indeed, is it for one to look back on a childhood which has little in it that he cares to think
of. Fill it now with things which will be good by
and by to hold in memory. Perhaps all that your
I47
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
children will remember of you will be connected
with their childhood; perhaps ere it has gone,
mother and father will be away, living only in
recollection. Make that memory hallowed and
sweet.
Now is your time. Lose not your children's
childhood. Lose not your boys and girls. They
will not be such long. Make the most of them.
Then, if God shall permit you to look upon them,
men and women, they will cling to you as in the
bygone days, when they stood by your knee or
nestled in your arms. You will be mother and
father, they will be children still. If while they
are young, they die, it will be blessed for you to
think that the brief years that God left them with
you, you made as bright and as happy as you
could; if you leave them at God's call, they will
think of you fondly with smiles of love and gratitude shining through every tear of sorrow that
falls.
The right training of a family of children is a
work as difficult as it is monotonous; yet I am of
the opinion, that the chief thing is for a parent to
be clearly impressed with its greatness, and to be
really in earnest. An honest desire, common
148 
PARENTS.
sense, and above all a sincere looking to God, will
enable any parent to accomplish a work for their
children which will make them a glory and a
blessing. I say, a sincere looking to Gcd. I do
not know how others may feel, but it seems to me
that a parent who has never felt the need of a
higher wisdom than his own, and better help than
man's, has yet caught scarcely a glimpse of what
it is to be a parent. I know that he has never
yet understood what it is to train a child for
eternity.
Father! Mother! can it be that this child of
yours shall in the relentless future be what you
are now making it? Can it be that you are standing at the beginnings of an existence which shall
be greatly what you to - day are shaping and
you never pray! Never ask God to help you be
a good father, a good mother! Alas, alas, for you
and for your child!
You look upon your children with pride and
delight; you sometimes bend over them sleeping
till the miists hide them from your eyes; you long
with an unutterable desire that their future life
should be happy; you would give your own to
make it certain; you wish, sometimes you think
149 
LIFE AT HOME.
of it, you wish that they one day may be in
heaven. What, I ask you, are you doing to make
it sure?
You have them, (I know that some of you
without a hope in Christ do,) you have them bow
at your knee in prayer, but you yourselves never
truly pray for them! How can you, when your
own hearts are withheld from God? More than
you think, they look and they wonder at you.
Perhaps they will fail of heaven because you
never took them to Jesus.   How  could you,
when you have never gone yourself?
By all the love which your heart has for them,
I ask you as you lay this book aside, to seek some
secret place, and in an agony of supplication give
yourself to your Saviour. The consecration may
have in it eternal life for your children.
I5o 
CHAPTER VI.
CHILDREN.
Honor thy father and thy mother as the Lord thy God
hath commanded thee; that thy days may be prolonged and
that it may go well with thee, in the land which the Lord thy
God giveth thee.-DEuy. v. t6.
Pure as the unsullied streams that flow
From rocky founts through vales below;
Holy as angel's thoughts above,
Is that blest one-a mother's love.
ANON.
To you your father should be as a god.-SHAKSPEARE.
DO  not intend in this chapter to address
simply the very young, but rather all those
who have parents yet remaining to them. The
great and beautiful obligations of filial duty do
not end with childhood, they abide in increasing
power as long as a parent lives to bless or be
blessed.
(I  I)
--            1-4'
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
Instead of being diminished by the lapse of
years, they but grow and deepen in the consciousness of a right hearted child, as the years advance
and he becomes more capable of understanding
what is it to have a father or a mother.
Next to the great commands which have reference to God, there are none given with such emphasis and accompanied with such clear and positive promises as those of which the scripture
which heads this chapter is an example. The
commandment of which this is a repetition has
a peculiar place in the decalogue. It is the fifth
commandment not by accident but by design. It
is, so to speak, the transition command between
the first and the second tables of the law. The
first four precepts relate to our duty to God, the
last five to our duty to man; this stands midway
between them, to show that the duties which a
child owes to his parents are the next lower and
only lower to those which he owes to God;
while they rise above and stand before all that
he owes to other men.
The parent during all the first years of a
child's life stands to him in the place of God.
The parental law is all that he can understand,
I52 
CHILDREN.
and he is to obey it implicitly, as by-and-by he
shall be called upon to obey God's law. This
parental law is therefore rudimentary to the
divine, and is in the Ten Commandments made
a part of it. So it stands in this middle place
among them, lower than the obligations due to
God, the highest of those due to men. So important is it deemed to the well being of man
and so pleasing is it to God, that there are promises attached to it as to no other of the commandments.  The peculiarity of the promises, too, is
striking-they are promises of present and earthly good; long life and prosperity are the rewards
held out to the child that honors father and
mother.
One of the saddest evidences of the depravity
of the race is that the world is full of disobedient and ungrateful children. There are indeed
times when to the best, the duty of filial obedience needs to be enforced with this divine command, and when the promise with which it is accompanied is a needed encouragement and support. If all parents were perfect and always
dealt justly and kindly with their children, if they
were always wise, and never made a mistake, it
I53 
LIFE AT HOME.
would be easy for a dutiful child, who is old
enough to reason and act for himself, to yield
prompt and unhesitating obedience; but there
come occasions when against feeling, against conviction of expediency, with infinite self-denial,
one must honor and obey. At such a time it has
been found good, in a simple faith in this promise and a subordination of will to God's law to
be filially obedient.
Human history has proven that this promise is
to be relied upon. I may appeal to the observation and the experience of my readers; look
around you, mark the boys and girls, now men
and women, who when young were obedient and
affectionate children; you will see them the prosperous and the prospered. However you may
account for it, success seems to wait on the steps
of a son or a daughter who honored' father and
mother. On the other hand, if you can remember disobedient sons and daughters, who by unkindness or even neglect, dishonored father and
mother, you shall find, as you trace their history,
that sooner or later, as if by an inevitable sequence, a blight has fallen on them and they have
had an inheritance of disappointment and sorrow.
I54 
CHILDREN.
So clearly am I convinced of this law of God's
providence, that I look for disaster to come byand-by upon a son or a daughter who is recreant
to filial duty; and all the more if the child has
passed beyond the years of childhood and is still
unfilial. The incentive appeals therefore not
only to all the nobler and grateful instincts of
one's nature, but to the clearest self-interest; the
motive is not simply to please God, to pay a
great debt which we lovingly recognize, but that
we may have the smile of God upon our earthly
lot-that our days may be prolonged and that it
may go well with us in the land that the Lord
God giveth us.                               -
Let me, in what I have now to say to children,
first address my remarks to those who are stil under t/e parcntal roof. I need not linger long on
the familiar thought that a son or daughter should
be giving constantly honor and love to parents
on whom they are dependent.  It would seem
that a natural instinct of manliness would prompt
one to return at least these poor tributes. If any
son or daughter can consent to receive a home
and all the manifold good things which make the
gift a blessing, can sit at the table, sleep in the
I55 
LIFE AT HOME.
bed, enjoy the fireside provided by kind parents,
and still be undutiful and disobedient, I fear that
no words of mine will have any force with him;
a soul so thoroughly and intrinsically mean cannot
be reached by any ordinary talk.
There is, however, even with the best son or
daughter, a tendency to undervalue, at least at
times a failure to rise to a full and clear appreciation of all that a parent is to a child. It is profitable for every child thoughtfully and deliberately
to consider how much is due to a father and a
mother. Common blessings are not always recognized. We do not know how blessed a thing
this air is, nor how great a thing this sunshine
is, and the all-surrounding air and sunshine of
parental love are not understood. Take them
away and you will then know. How often a child
has only awakened to the value of a parent when
he has looked upon father or mother lying before
him in the silence of death!
Who shall tell adequately of the solicitude of
which you have been the object, since first you
opened your eyes upon this world? There were
months together when your abject helplessness
called out a wealth of love, and, in your infantile
I56
I 
CHILDREN.
unconsciousness, you could not know it. And
these were followed by years of watching and
care. How many a day of weariness and anxiety;
how many a night has been spent sleeplessly,
walking with softened tread, or bending, with
gushing tears, over the pillow where you lay
with flushed cheek, moaning in your pain; how
often have they gone into the busy street, forgetful of the crowd, because their hearts were full
of forebodings for you, or have hastened nervously back again, to see if the hour, which was
very long, had made any change in you. Nor
have these sick times alone been those which
have made you the objects of solicitude. Your
whole life has been one perpetual calling of it
forth. Your happiness has been the one end to
which they have made all other things to bend.
You can never understand it till you are parents
yourselves.
Still, though you cannot now understand it all,
yet frequently endeavor to appreciate what is so
worthy of your earnest consideration. Think of
it often, and you will see enough to call out your
deepest gratitude.
But I will pass from these inner and tender
I57 
LIFE AT HOME.
obligations to their outward manifestation. Let
me say, then, to every child  Show respect and
hzonor to your parents. I do not belong to the
company of croakers who are perpetually mourning that the days when they were young were
better than these degenerate times, and who find
no good about them, but only deadness and rottenness in society; yet one can scarcely doubt
that there is a general, wide-spread deficiency of
true respect, not only for age, but even for parents themselves. It is, perhaps, an especial vice
of this country, at least it is one that we are accused of by foreigners who have seen much of
American society.
There are few boys and girls now-a-days, indeed, you might say, there are none at all-they
are all either infants or men and women. The
boy, scarce entered on his teens, is, in his ownv
estimation, a full-grown man, capable of managing all his own affairs, and not standing in any
need of the advice of that person whom he respectfully calls "the governor," or  "the  old
gentleman." He keeps his own hours, chooses
his own company, possibly makes his own purchases, though he may condescendingly permit
I58 
CHILDREN.
his father to pay the bills. The girl, at the same
mature age, grows wiser than her mother; rather
deems it intrusive, certainly very annoying, to be
asked about her last new acquaintance, who he
is, or what is his character; thinks it all proper
to have her mother attend to the state of her
wardrobe and keep it in order, while she busies
herself with what she calls "practising" in the parlor; to have the same good person glowing over
her laces in the kitchen, or attending to the dinner which she will come down by and by to eat.
There  are too many such children.   Their
irreverence and unfilial conduct are exhibited
in a thousand ways. Let me exhort any child
who reads this, to resolve never to yield, even for
an instant, to this bad tendency of the times.
Whatever others may be, determine that no word
or look of yours shall ever give a suspicion that
your father and mother are not enshrined in a
sacred place in your soul. Never permit a word
or a look to cause even a shadow of a fear to
cross your parents' mind that you have anything
but the deepest respect for them.  I have incidently quoted one of the slang phrases by which
a father, I would not say mother, is referred to.
I59
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
No son and no daughter, with true filial honor in
their souls will be guilty of using any of themthey are simply the evidence of reverence and
honor gone. Do not be ashamed to say, under any
circumstances, "Father!" "Mother!" Never consent to use any other word.   If the company
about you seem to make the terms out of place,
it is no company for you. Where you cannot
speak freely, and show by all that you say, that
they are honored and loved, there you ought not
to remain. It is pitiable, and very shameful, for
a boy to hesitate to speak reverently of his
father, or be unwilling to show that he is influenced by his mother. The moment any one of
my young readers detects in himself the beginning of such a feeling, let him, with deepest indignation, rise against it and crush it out as a
viper too loathsome to live a moment.
The failure of respect and honor, of which I
am now speaking, as it is an indication, so also is
it the result of a wandering away from the right
path; and, where you discover it, you need not
be surprised by and by to see a future clouded
with deeper shades of crime.
Guard, then, the first beginnings of failing rev
I60 
CHILDREN.
erence; suffer nothing to lower the deep-toned
honor which you habitually give your parents.
But more than this:-Confide in your parents.
Nlake them, above all others, your confidants.
They are the best and most disinterested friends
you will ever have in this world. I do not deny
that it is entirely natural for you to think that they
do not and cannot, from the position of things,
know much, at least very much, about your affairs,
and that therefore you cannot talk confidentially
with them. Do not, however yield to any such
impression. Cultivate rather the habit of consultation with them. On things great and small
seek their advice. A daughter will never come
to shame, a son never to dishonorthat does so.
Especially consult them in relation to your
reading and your companions. Of the last, I will
not say much. If, especially, a daughter can consent to make and keep an acquaintance without
the knowledge of her parents, and contrary to
their wishes, she silently declares that her moral
principle is already shaken; she is not far from
utter ruin. But I wish to speak of books. Let
me say, with all the emphasis I am capable of
using, to my young friends-Never read a book
i6i
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
that you would not be willing your father or
mother should see. I hope that no daughter who
reads these pages would ever sully the purity of
her soul by even glancing at an immoral book.
I have too high a view of the beauty of your
maiden life to think it possible; but I know what
are the temptations which assail your brothers.
There are circulated secretly, and in numbers
greater than we often think, books which are emanations of the pit, reeking with licentiousness,
and written to feed the most dangerous passions.
Multitudes are all the while being ruined body
and soul by them. I warn you against them. If
you read them, you will never while you live be
rid of the taint they leave on your nature. If
they do not lead you to crime and loathsome disease and death, they will make agony for you in
the coming time. Their pictures will live in your
memory and grow vivid in your imagination;
their words will whisper like fiends in your ear
when you would give a world could you shut
them out from sight and hearing; they will thrust
themselves in upon your holiest hours; they will
dog your steps; they will crawl over your soul
with slimy trail, till in utter agony you cry out,
I62 
CHILDREN.
Who shall deliver me from this death? An hour
may make the reading, a life-time will make the
mourning over it.
If ever a companion puts a book in your hand
and charges you to be careful that father or
mother or sister does not see it, take the alarm.
Turn from him as if you saw the white sore of
leprosy upon his brow, as if you felt the breath
of small-pox on your cheek. Worse than leprosy
or small-pox is near you then!
Determine here and now-you do not know a
thousandth part of the meaning of it-that you
will never read a book of which mother does not
know, or with which you would start or blush
did she look over your shoulder while you read.
Confide, then, in your father and mother. There
is to me something very beautiful in the intimacy
of a father and a son, to see them walking side by
side, perhaps arm in arm, in familiar converse on
the street, the old man and the young in all the
confidence of a hallowed friendship! It gives a
satisfaction like a fair broad landscape at sunset.
I know stalwart sons who to-day consult their
mothers as in the days of yore, when they stood
little higher than her knee -they are not low
i63
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
in my esteem, and I deem those mothers very
happy in them.
There is an exquisite story of filial reverence in
Herodotus. Croesus, after displaying his wealth
and magnificence to Solon, asked him who of all
the men he had seen was the most happy? expecting of course that Solon would reply, Crcesus.
But the philosopher spoke briefly of another. I
will give the rest in the historian's own words:"When Solon had roused the attention of Croesus
by relating many and happy circumstances concerning Telus, Crcesus expecting at least to obtain
the second place, asked whom he had seen next
to him. Cleobis, said he, and Biton, for they being natives of Argos possessed a sufficient fortune and had withal such strength of body that
they were both alike victorious in the public
games; and moreover, the following story is related of them: When the Argives were celebrating a festival of Juno, it was necessary that their
mother should be drawn to the temple in a chariot; but the oxen did not come from the fields in
time; the young men therefore being pressed for
time, put themselves beneath the yoke and drew
the car in which their mother sat; and having
i64 
CHILDREN.
conveyed it forty-five stades, they reached the
temple. After they had done this in sight of the
assembled people, a most happy termination was
put to their lives; and in them the Deity clearly
showed that it is better for a man to die than to
live. For the men of Argos, who stood around,
commended the strength of the youths, and the
women blessed her as the mother of such sons;
but the mother herself, transported with joy, both
on account of the action and its renown, prayed
that the goddess would grant to Cleobis and Biton, her own sons, who had so highly honored
her, the greatest blessing man could receive.
After this prayer, when they had sacrificed and
partaken of the feast, the youths fell asleep in the
temple itself, and never woke more, but met with
such a termination of life. Upon this, the Argives,
in commemoration of their piety, caused their
statues to be made and dedicated at Delphi."
Nor need we confine these thoughts wholly to
sons. The beauty of intimacy between parent
and child is not theirs alone. When does a
daughter appear so attractive as when showing
her love to father or mother, as when employed
in some way lightening their cares or relieving
i65
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
their burdens? It would not be far from wrong
were I to say to a young man who is looking with
some degree of interest for a life-companion:Would you know what kind of a wife she will
make upon whom now you have your eye? Ask
what kind of a daughter she is now?  If she be
indolently selfish, leaving care and work to her
mother; especially if she be unloving or undutiful,
beware of her; she is not likely to make you
happy. If she be an affectionate and self-denying
daughter, if she is intimate and confidential with
her parents, you have in that the best promise of
happiness in the future. The eye of mother or
father, beaming with delight as it rests upon a
daughter's form, moving lightly in their presence,
is an unspoken recommendation of untold value.
But, whether the eye of friend or admirer is
observing her or not, a daughter should cultivate
this feeling of confidential intimacy with her parents; there is safety in it for her and unbounded
happiness for them.
"Some feelings are to mortals given,
With less in them of earth than heaven;
And if there be a human tear,
From passion's dross refined and clear,
I66 
CHILDREN.
A tear so limpid and so meek,
It would not stain an angel's cheek,
'Tis that which pious fathers shed
Upon a duteous daughter's head!"
Let me say a few words to children who have
gone out from their old homes, but who have parents
still. There is always a liability, when sons and
daughters have gone away from the home of
their childhood, and have formed homes of their
own, gradually to lose the old attachments and
cease to pay those attentions to their parents
which were so easy and natural in the olden time.
New associations, new thoughts, new cares, all
come in, filling the mind and heart, and, if special
pains be not taken, they crowd out the old loves.
This ought never to be. You should remember
that the change is with you and not with those
you left behind. You have every thing new,
much that is attractive in the present and bright
in the future; their hearts cling to the past, they
have most in memory.  When you went away,
you knew not, and will never know till you experience it, what it cost them to give you up, nor
what a vacancy you left behind. They have not,
if you have, any new loves to take the place of
I67
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
the old. Do not, then, heartlessly deprive them
of what you still can give of attention and love.
Visit your parents.  If you live in the same
place, let your step be, perhaps daily, a familiar
one in the old home; if you are miles, yea, many
miles away, make it your business to go to them.
In this matter do not regard time nor expense;
the one is well spent and the other will be fully,
yea, a hundredfold repaid. When some day the
word reaches you, flashed over the telegraph,
that father or mother has gone, you will not think
them much, those hours of travel which last bore
you to their side.
Write to your parents. I have known father and
mother wait with sick hearts through weary
months, longing that some word might reach
them from an absent son. They have watched
the mails till in despair they have ceased to expect any more, and while they may not have the
grief of a great bereavement, they have what is
almost as bad, the bitter consciousness that they
are not in mind enough even to call out a few
poor lines from one whose infancy and early years
they watched with sleepless love. Sons are often
guilty of this crime-I cannot call it less-from
sheer neglect or indolence. While an hour, per
I68 
CHILDREN.
haps a few moments, would suffice to write a letter which would give unspeakable satisfaction,
they let months and even years slip away in utter
indifference to all the pain they are causing. Oh,
how full is many a mother's heart of sorrow and
foreboding, when just a few words from an absent
son would fill it with joy and praise! Such indifference or neglect is shameful and wicked. One
need not wonder that sons guilty of it are not
prospered, that they wait in vain for those turns
of fortune which will send them home, as they
dream, to surprise the old neighborhood with
their wealth.  Their thoughtlessness has -been
productive only of disaster.
Keep up your intercourse with father or
mother; do not deem it sufficient to write when
something important is to be told; do not say,
"No news is good news." If it be but a few lines,
write them; write, if it be only to say -" I am
well," if it be only to send the salutation that says
they are "dear," or the farewell that tells them
that you are "affectionate" still.  The little messengers shall be like caskets of jewels, and the
tears that fall fondly over them will be treasures
for you. Say with a warm-hearted son
8
I69
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
"The hills may tower, the waves may rise,
And roll between my home and me;
Yet shall my quenchless memories
Turn with undying love to thee!"
In the passing of human life there frequently
comes a time when the mutual duties of child and
parent are reversed. Advancing years bring a
childhood to the one and the care of childhood to
the other. To the aged father and mother the
days of labor are over; the work of life has been
done.  Now attentive tenderness becomes the
duty of those who once received it all themselves,
while' those are dependent upon it, who once
gave it all. Now the parent is the child, and the
child is the parent.  The watchfulness and care
of many years ago is to be repeated over again;
only that the giver then, is the receiver now. To
a true-hearted child here is a return of love which
it is good to make. There is a deep satisfaction
in being able to repay by words and looks the
lavished love of the by-gone time.
If would be well if the return were always
given.  There is an old proverb, "One father can
support ten children; ten children cannot support one father."  It is one of those proverbs
I70 
CHILDREN.
which, because they are true enough to become
proverbs, make us ashamed of human nature.
The thought here subtilly conveyed, is, no doubt,
exaggerated, yet observation will too readily expose as true its foundatian. Though it is well
said by Trench, from whom  I quote it, "Seeing
that it is the order of God's providence in the
world that fathers should in all cases support
children, while it is the exception when children
are called upon to support parents, one can only
admire that wisdom which has made the instincts
of natural affection to run rather in the descending than in the ascending line;" yet it does not,
it seems to me, take much from the humiliation
which one feels as he is compelled to acknowledge
the fact, that the return of parental affection comes
so hard.
It is not, indeed, always easy, perhaps not, in
some cases, possible for a child to return to a
parent all the pious offices which once were
given him; yet what more beautiful, what more
lofty exhibition of filial tenderness and duty can
be given than by a son or daughter waiting on
an aged father or mother! It challenges your
admiration.
171
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
It is not, however, seen every day. To some
children-I can scarcely bring myself to speak
of it-an aged parent seems to be in the way.
I will not allude to the unspeakable meanness,
the cruel and ungrateful wickedness that wishes
them gone, that their property may come into
possession. But who can tell of the soul-sorrows,
and the secret but hot tears that flow down furrowed faces, making the evening of life full of
bitterness, caused by this ill-concealed feeling
that their presence is a burden? It is well that
the old eyes are dim and the old ears heavy, for
even now father and mother are made to fear
that they have lingered too long on life's stage,
and had better be gone.
I am aware that the care of an aged parent is
not as easy nor as pleasant as that of a child; but
who that has a spark of manhood or womanhood
would refuse it, though it be not'? No, no; when
your steps falter, if they ever do, call up the
olden time, the infant days; remember that there
is no love like what they gave you then. It is
only simple gratitude in you to return it now.
Never hesitate; never refuse to do all, whatever
it may be, that can make the evening's close
172 
CHILDREN.
sweet to them; never by word or look give occasion for them to think that it is anything but
good for you to wait upon them.
Remember that possibly you, too, mIny be old.
I have seen a little story somewhere. Let me tell
it to you. An aged father was living with a married son. The old man was far advanced in life;
his hand was unsteady, his eye dim, and he had
long ago lost the trim neatness of earlier days.
It was not pleasant for the family to see him at
the table, feeding himself in his trembling and
uncertain way; so a wooden bowl, which he could
not break, was provided for him, a spoon that he
could handle, and a seat by the fire-place, where
he could be no annoyance to any one. There, in
his loneness, the old man would take meekly his
meals, while children and grandchildren sat at
the table. One day it happened that the father
noticed his little son with a knife cutting diligently into a piece of wood, intently fashioning
something.   He carelessly asked, "What, my
boy, are you making?"  The little fellow, keep
ing still on with his work, with the unconscious
frankness of childhood, replied, "I'm making a
trough to feed papa out of when he gets old."
I73
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
It was enough. The child-word was a revelation.
But-we ought never to need that argument,
addressed, as it is, to our self-interest-the argument to be faithful because'we may need a
similar care; rather let it spring forth-the glad
tribute of filial love. Let the language of Pope
express our thought:
"Me, let the 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."
Ye privileged children! Ye who have yet a
father or a mother spared to you, I charge you
to have some true appreciation of a blessing
whose value you can never know till it has been
forever withdrawn. You will have, you can
have but one mother, one father. No one will
ever love you as they have loved. By and by
they will be gone. You will stand over them as
they lie still in death; memory will be very busy,
then, and very unsparing; yes, and very partial.
She will bring up, not so much the good andi
I74 
CHILDREN.
loving deeds of the past, but more than all else,
the unkind and the undutiful. Every look of disrespect, every unaffectionate word, every disobedient act, will come out of the dim past, and,
pointing to the dead, will charge home your
guilt. Then you would give a world if you
could only speak in that ear your prayer for forgiveness and a parent's blessing;-but it will be
too late.  "What would I not give," said Charles
Lamb, "to call my dear mother back to earth for
a single day, to ask her pardon, upon my knees,
for all those acts by which I grieved her gentle
spirit."
"'Tis only when the lips are cold,
We mourn with late regret,
'Mid myriad memories of old,
The days forever set;
And not an act, or look, or thought
Against thy meek control,
But, with a sad remembrance fraught,
Wakes anguish in my soul! "
Now, while these parents live, be all that you
can be to them. Give love for their love. It
will be a satisfaction simply unspeakable by and
by that you did. Some are old. They linger
I75 
LIFE AT HOME.
awhile below, often lonely, often sad, sometimes
wishing, in their sadness and loneliness, that they
were gone; they are looking forward to heaven
to restore what they have lost. By your loving
words and gentle acts rmake the lost seem little
as you may; let their nearness to heaven make
them sacred in your eyes:
"As one by one they enter in, and the stern portals close
once more,
The halo seems to linger round those kneeling closest to the
door."
Others live in their ripened maturity. Make ye
much of them. Honor, love them more and
more as your life glides on. May their last look
hare for you in it a smile and a benediction!
I76
I 
CHAPTER VII.
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
Love as brethren.-i PETER. iii. 8.
"But are they speaking, singing, yet, as in their days of glee?
Those voices, are they lovely still, still sweet on earth or sea?
Oh, some are hushed and some are changed, and never
shall one strain
Blend their fraternal cadences triumphantly again."
HEMANS.
HE  family is like a delicate piece of mechan     ism; every part of it has its place and function, and when all is in harmonious adjustment
it moves noiselessly and does its work well.
But if even a small nut be loose, especially if a
lever be out of time or a rod be bent, you hear
noise, feel the jar, the work is spoiled, and by and
by the whole machine is racked and comes to a
stand. Father and mother may be in harmony,
8*                     (I77) 
LIFE AT HOME.
and like the motive power keep all in action, but
the brothers and sisters of the household are parts
of the engine and will make or mar its work.
Have you never noticed how little a thing will
destroy, for a whole day, the quiet movement of a
family? One member of it has "got out of bed,"
as our mothers used to say, "on the wrong side,"
and either from some nervous derangement or
other physical cause, feels "out of sorts;" or because he has been crossed in something, or has the
discomfort of a troubled conscience, or from what
you can only call, pure badpzess, he contrives to
make himself generally disagreeable. He does
unpleasant things, says ugly ones, is selfish and
annoying. Such an one will spoil the moments
of family prayer, take away the appetite for
breakfast, and throw a silence and gloom over a
whole family circle, and yet have done nothing
very positively wicked. He has only been a little while out of gear. On the other hand, how
the smile and bright voice of a little child chases
away the gathered frowns and makes sunshine, as
it bursts into the room where things were just
now growing cloudy, perhaps stormy!
If each brother and sister would but under
I78
I 
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
stand their place in the adjustments of the family
life, and each be bringing the best of work and
play to increase its joys, homes would grow har moniously beautiful where often all is gloom and
deformity.   It is not wealth nor even competence that makes a home fair; no, not that, but
sunny looks, loving words and kindly acts.
I want to say some things to brothers and sisters, and in doing so shall take the opportunity
of speaking, in general, to young people on matters which touch their associations together.
Boys and girls are not the same. They are
born different and show it while they are infants.
The boy-baby is restless and uneasy in his mother's arms. He is never still except when asleep,
and even then tumbles from side to side in his
crib with sudden flings of arms and legs. When
he grows beyond babyhood he plays differently.
Without ever being told of it, he instinctively
turns sway from dolls; lays them aside in indifference, and freely donates them to whatever little
girl will have them. He demands balls and bats
and drums; he turns down chairs for horses, lays
hold on all the strings of the house for lines,
wants all the little sticks made into whips,
I79 
LIFE AT HOME.
mounts lounges and drives four in hand; he ask
for guns, and wants you tell him stories of bear
and lions and tigers, and is amused beyond meas
ure at their leaping upon and eating up cows an
oxen. The girl-baby is gentle, even from the
first, and looks quietly out of the blue eyes, or
laughingly out of the dark ones. She takes natu
rally to her dolls, and never wearies of dress
ing them and arranging the baby-house; she is
gentle in her plays, and would be frightened with
what would fill her brother with a paroxysm of
delight; she loves fairy tales and will not laugh
and ask some absurd question about the babes
in the wood, but rather cries over their sorrows
The sister will smoothe pussy and hold her lovingly in her lap, while the brother wants to see if
the cat can jump, and when she tries to get out
of his undesirable company, will detain her by
the leg or tail. And these same divergencies of
disposition and character perpetuate themselves
as the boy or girl grows older. There are exceptions, it is true; some boys have all the tastes
and gentleness of a feminine nature, and some
girls have much that is masculine. 1 do not regret seeing it in each. The gentle boy will not
I80 
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
make any the less noble man because there was
so much that was girl-like in his childhood, nor
will the girl that was, in her rudeness, often called
a boy, be any the less, but perhaps all the more
a true and lovely woman.
These innate differences of disposition in brothers and sisters must always be taken into the account, in the family. They demand mutual forbearance and sympathy. The sisters are not to
expect all gentleness and propriety in their brothers. They must make up their minds to be often
fretted and annoyed by shouts and noise, even if
they are not made to suffer now and then by
thoughtless mischief. Brothers must remember,
that what may be good and excellent fun for
them, may be only injury and wrong to a sister
whose nature is so contrary to theirs.
When, however, in a family these different
characteristics are properly understood and adjusted, they tend largely to the development of
character. They affect healthfully each other.
A sister ought to be a wiser and a better sister
for having had a brother, and he is a bad brother
who is not purer and better and nobler for having had a sister.
I8I
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
Brothers and sisters ought to hold each other's
affection. I know that love is natural between
them, but I know too, that the love is very often
lost as the years go on. You have seen it perhaps, more than once-brothers and sisters who
spent their childhood under the same roof, as
they grew to be men and women gradually having less and less to do with one another, and,
even if no positive quarrel has put them wholly
asunder, by-and-by almost losing track of each
other's history.   This is both wrong and sad.
The experiences of childhood and youth ought
to make it impossible. In these years the links
of a chain may be forged and welded that not
the rust of time, nor the fret and strain of life
shall break or even weaken.
Cultivate a cordial and loving symnpathy with cack
other, and permit nothing to drift you apart. As
no kind brother would wantonly break his sister's
doll or over-set her tea-table, and as no good sister would refuse to make a cover for her brother's ball or a bag to hold his marbles; so as they
growr older, let each endeavor to enter into the
pursuits and feelings of the other. The brother
will be in store or workshop or college, the sister
I82 
BROTHIERS AND SISTERS.
will be at home, each moving in different scenes
and associations, but let them day by day try to
pass, each the boundary of the other's domain and
in it be at home.
Confide in each other, and be intimate with each
other. I do not deem it a beautiful thing when a
sister is ready to make a confidant of almost any
one rather than her brother; nor for a brother to
be more intimate and confidential with almost any
one's sister rather than his own. There should
be such an interest shown each in the other that
they will be ready mutually to speak and consult
about things which would be confided t6 no one
else. In the unselfish intimacy of their life they
can help each other as can no one else.  A sister
may get the counsel and the help of a brother,
when she can, perhaps, properly seek it from no
other male friend; and a brother may avail himself of the womanly tact and instinct of a sister,
when no other lady friend can be called to his
assistance.
Sisters, do not turn off your younger brothers
as if they were always in your way, and any
service which they might ask of you were a
burden.   Perhaps the hour may come when,
I83 
LIFE AT HOME.
over a coffin that looks strangely longer than
you thought, and over a pale brow where often,
half unwillingly and perhaps with a petulent
push, you parted the hair; you bend with blinding tears and sobs that shake your very soul,
while remorseful memory is busy with the bygone hours. You will wish then, that when he
came and asked you to help him in his play, or to
lift him on your lap because he was tired, or take
him out because he wanted to see, you had laid
aside your book and made the little heart glad.
There is that in the very name of sister which
is precious. A sister's love! It goes back to infantile hours, it looks over days of childhood's innocence. Perhaps it speaks of the little crib
where brother and sister in the olden time lay
their two fair heads on the pillow side by side
and slept with hands in each other's, as only children sleep after a day's play; it tells of days
when they waded in brooks, when they built
houses, sat by little tables and drank tea out of
tiny cups, and then went to play-homes armin-inarm; of evenings when they knelt at mother's
knee and wanted each the last kiss for goodnight; of later days when they went side by
I84 
i',ROTIIERS AND SISTERS.
side to school, and told, round the table at evening, school experiences; or when they drew
each other over the smooth snow with many a
shout, or came home tired but merry with skates
hanging by long straps over the shoulder! Oh,
there are many scenes which you hardly notice
now, that will come up in all their vividness by
and by; and what I want is, that you should
make them now such that, in the time to come
when they are fixed in memory, and when neither line nor shadow can be changed, they shall
be only bright and beautiful.  Boys and girls,
you are painting now, and the canvas is not
frail, nor will the colors fade; by and by the pictures shall be hung up in memory's hall and you
cannot but gaze upon them. Paint them, then,
so that in that coming time they shall give you
only delight. Do the kind and loving deeds,
speak the pleasant words; they will come back
to soothe your heart when, some day, it is almost
bursting with grief.
The polite attentions of a brother and sister
touch me, when my attention would not be caught
by the same things from others. These attentions should always be given. A brother should
I85 
LIFE AT HOME.
never permit a sister to want an escort or be dependent on the attentions of any friend. A sister
should feel that she has, in her brother, one to
whom not only she may look, in time of danger
or trouble, for protection, but one whose care
over her makes her independent of every one
else.  I once heard a sister say, "I never asked
my brother to go anywhere with me and had him
refuse;" and I deemed it a crown on the head of
that brother, just as I knew it was said with a
glow of sisterly pride and exultation.
In children
"There is seen
The baby figures of the giant mass
Of things to come at large."
The boys and girls are what the men and
women will be by and by. The good sisters
make the good wives, and the good brothers
make the good husbands of the after time. If
you want to know with a fair certainty what
each will be in the unalterable relation and solemn responsibilities of married life, you can see
it all mirrored in the life that as child and youth
they led. The affectionate kindness, considerate
attention and  unselfish  devotion which  made
I86 
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
brother and sister dear to each other, and made
the home calm and beautiful, will not have exhausted themselves when the old home is left,
but on nearer and dearer ones will pour out their
treasures of grace and goodness.
Ye who woo! Ye who are sought! Beware
ye of the son or the brother who was coldhearted, selfish or neglectful! Beware ye of the
daughter or sister who, as such, failed to be loving and kind!
Sisters, guard and protect your brothers.  You
wonder that I say so to you. The guard and
the protection, you think, should surely rather
come from  them.   But there is a talismanic
power, which may emanate from a fragile and
gentle sister, mightier than brawny muscle or
iron will. A sister can throw over her brother
the purity of her maiden life, which shall surround him like a charmed atmosphere. Oh, if
some sisters had understood this, and had won
and held their brothers to their side; if they had
but shown them the beauty and the grace; had
made to pass not only before them, but to touch
and caress them lovingly, the sweetness and the
spotless innocence of a true woman's life, they
i87
.I 
LIFE AT HOME.
would have clad their brother in a panoply of
steel, and put in his hand a weapon whose very
gleam would have scared away the ugly demons
of vice and infamy.  But they did not do it; and
so he went out, and wanton and brazen-faced
temptation, not put to shame by the contrast of
love and purity at home, easily gained the victory
over him. Try, then, to live so lovingly and with
such power that, when vice allures your brother,
there shall come up such visions of purity and
affection, that, in the contrast, he shall turn in
disgust and loathing away.
Let brothers protect the reputation and tAe happiness of their sisters. Do not think me saying only
something stale and commonplace. It would be
commonplace if I meant only that a brother
should defend his sister's honor. If he would
not do that, let him lay aside the name of brother.
I mean much more than that. Let him make a
defence in her own bosom, by daily exhibiting
before her the ideal of a man, pure, honorable
and good. Then, when one stained and dishonorable comes near her, the ideal shall help
her intuition, and he shall have no power over
her.
I88
I':''
.. -. I. 
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
Let a brother also make a wall about his sister,
so that she shall be shielded from the contact
of all but the pure and good. You, as a young
man, may have been thrown into companionship
with one whom you know to be impure and
licentious, and he may seek the acquaintance of
your sister. Let him seek it in vain! Let the
harlots with whom he has been in fellowship suffice him; never let his presence pollute the air
which your sister breathes; never let his touch
defile your sister's hand!
Nor need I confine what I want to say to
brothers alone. Let sisters protect themselves.
"W hy did you not take my  brother's arm last
night?" asked a young lady of her friend, a very
intelligent girl of eighteen or nineteen." " Because," was the reply, "I knew him to be a licentious young man." "Nonsense," the sister said;
"if you refuse the attentions of all licentious men
you will have none." "Very well, then, 1 can
dispense with them altogether." There was a
volume of revelation in the brief conversation.
Young women are not always true as they
ought to be to themselves. Frequently a man is
known to be immoral; perhaps known to have
I89 
LIFE AT HOME.
been the betrayer of one who fatally put her
trust in his honor, and whom he ruined forever;
and yet that man is welcomed into the society of
the pure, as if there were no stain upon his soul
and no crime cursing the ground on which he
treads. The wretch who could deliberately plot,
and steadily accomplish, the destruction of a
young character and life, is not fit to walk even
this sin-defiled earth. Instead of allowing such
a being to associate in familiar friendship with
you, you should stand for your honor, defend the
sanctity of your life, keep untarnished your own
purity, by banishing him from your presence.
You should have enough of sisterhood in your
heart to avenge the immeasurable wrong he has
done your sister- woman. The patriot would
loathe the hand of a traitor, much more should
you disdain a worse than traitor's touch.
Let brothers and sisters, whatever else they do,
keep pure the air of home.   Ye brothers, see
that no serpent leaves its slimy trail, or even
crosses the grass upon which your sister walks.
Girls do not always know their power. It is
far greater than they think; and were they true
and brave enough to exert it, they might almost,
I9o 
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
in a generation, revolutionize society about them.
Exert your power for good upon the young men
who are privileged to enjoy your society. Gentle
and good, I need not exhort you to be. Be brave
and true. Try to exhibit the ideal of a womana pure and good woman-whose life is mighty as
well as beautiful in its maidenly dignity and attractive loveliness. Do not let it even seem that
dress and frivolity make your only thoughts; but
let the elevation of your character, and the usefulness of your life, lift up the man that walks by
your side. Some of you are in intimate associations, which, under exchanged promises, look
forward to a nearer and more enduring relation.
In these hours do nothing to lower, but everything to refine and ennoble each others' character.  Young girl, not a christian, beware how
you draw aside or weaken the piety of the young
man who seeks your society and your heart.
Every church privilege neglected, every inconsistent thing done at your solicitation, may be a
thorn planted in your pillow by and by. Rather
be yourself a christian and throw over the days
of courtship the hallowed power of prayer, of
holy thoughts and a devoted life; be
IgI 
LIFE AT HOME.
"A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort and command;
And yet a spirit still and bright
With something of an angel light."
I have been all along speaking to brothers and
sisters in their relation to each other; let me say
a few things to brothers alone.  It is too sadly
true that the injunction, "Love as brethren,"
would, in many cases, convey the idea of no very
admirable kind of love. Brothers quarrel and
annoy one another in early life, and then, by and
by, when once the forced associations of home
are broken up, have nothing more to do with one
another. Never permit this so to be.
While you are together, now, as boys, stand
together. I do not mean simply as against those
who would harm you. A brother who would
not, according to his ability, fight for his brother,
does not deserve the name of one. But I mean,
help each other in the home. Be ready to lend
a hand at a hard lesson or a difficult job; and
if some self-denial of yours can promote your
brother's comfort and enjoyment, be not too selfish to give it. And do not permit your boyish
habits of teasing to make you only a nuisance in
I92 
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
the house, while the house itself is in peace only
when the brothers, like mischievous animals, are
in separate rooms.
Stand, brothers, together in the whole future of
your life. You remember the ancient fable of
the old father and his sons with the bundle of
sticks. He called his children round him just
before his death, and taking a number of rods
closely bound together, handed them to his sons,
telling them to break them. They tried with
many a hard effort, but failed, and gave them
back. The father then untied the bundle, and,
passing out the rods one by one, commanded his
sons now to break them. This was very easily
done; rod after rod snapped under even a gentle
pressure.  The lesson was there:-As brothers,
they were to stand together, and have multiplied
strength as they stood.
Brothers, alas! too often step out from their
boyhood home and at once forget the old ties;
they seem more willing to lend a helping hand
to others, who have no such claim, than to brothers with whom their earliest days were spent.
There is a power in the mutual help made by this
standing side by side. I have now in mind three
0
I93 
LIFE AT HOME.
brothers, all men of large prosperity and extensive influence, and both prosperity and influence
almost wholly due to the help which each brother
lent the other. They went hand in hand in the
christian life, the oldest amid tears of gratitude
and joy, pointing the younger brother, in his agony,
to the Saviour of sinners. They have gone hand
in hand ever since. The elder was successful in
business and, with his advancement, he laid hold
on and lifted his brother with him. They two,
the one loaning and pledging all the property he
had, and the other, with larger pledges, all that
was needed, gave the third capital, which in a
few years produced a vast return, with independent wealth and widening influence. Each of the
three rejoices in his brother's success and good
name as if they were his own.
One of the great inventions which will make
the first half of this century forever memorable,
and which has enrolled its author as one of the
benefactors of the race, would probably never
have been perfected by the brain that wrought it
out, had not the arm of a brother held firmly up
the inventor in the days of experiment and unappreciated and unrewarded toil.
I94 
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
A friend once told me in the intimacy of friendship, that years before he had lent his brother the
most of all he was worth, and that he had lost it
all.  "But," he added, "I am not sorry; I would
do it again if I had it." A fine ideal of brotherhood was in the utterance.
WVho is there that you should stand by, if not
your brother?-the brother with whom you slept
and played in the by-gone time, whose very life
was a part of your mother's life and love! Never
permit a family quarrel to separate you. I know
well how brothers and sisters are sometimes sundered forever. Petty questions of property, even
a piece of old furniture, fit only for the junk shop,
has been enough to dash into fragments the associations of childhood and remove forever from
each other's side brothers and sisters, whom nothing but death should have divided. This could
never have come to pass, if from the first they
had loved and clung to one another. If there
ever, and there may easily, come a time when
some selfish interest of yours breaks in, and there
seems a danger that by it brother or sister may be
wounded or withdrawn from the circle, do you
push it aside! Call up all the love of the early
I95
I 
LIFE AT IIOME.
time and say, "Nothing, nothing shall turn my
brother's heart away." Oh, there is a joy which
swells the heart and brims the eye as you look
back over the years which have held brothers and
sisters to your side! There are few more beautiful greetings than the warm kisses and tight
hand-claspings of brothers and sisters. I have
had them in the home and across the desk, in a
busy counting-room after months of absence, and
they live more than pictures now in memory, realities that throw their light and heat over the
abyss of years.
Perhaps some of you, while you read, know all
I mean, and your hearts respond in joy that such
experiences have been yours. I give you my
congratulations. Some of you read this with
only a pang of remorseful regret, while accusations and excuses make tumult within your
hearts. I pity you. May God forgive you, if
you have been in fault.  If brother and sister
have not gone forever, try to gather up the
broken links and weld them together again with
tears and loving words.
Keep up your associations wzith each other.  When
you have gone from the old home, when it itself
I96 
BROTHERS AND SISTERS.
has passed away, visit each other's homes, and do
not consider either time or money wasted in the
journey.  Write to each other.  I know brothers
and sisters who have been, perhaps, a score of
years away from the old' home circle, and have
through them all, week by week, exchanged letters, usually having more than enough to say,
till the communication has grown into a habit,
and each would be unhappy were it broken up.
The weekly letter is welcomed and prized beyond any thing else that the mails contain.
Perhaps some boy or girl is reading this-Let
me counsel you, as sisters and brothers, to stand
together and to love each other. Boys, be kind
and gentle to your sisters; sisters, be patient and
forbearing with your brothers; brothers, go side
by side in life's work and battle. Now, while
you are boys together, be good and true to one
another, and in all the coming time let nothing
part you. A continent may be between you, but
let your affection span the rivers, float over the
mountains and plains, ethereal, but more lasting
than time and stronger than all the changes of
earth.
I97
I 
'~%~: A~
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EMPLOYER AND THE EMPLOYED.
Honor all men.-i1 PETER ii. 17.
Gathering from the pavement's crevice as a floweret of the soil,
The nobility of.labor-the long pedigree of toil.
LONGFELLOW.
INCE the world has stood men have been
divided into two classes-the employers and
the employed-those who have used the service
of others, and those who have rendered service.
I say two classes, and yet when you attempt to
draw a line between them, you will find it impossible, since the one passes perpetually over into
the domain of the other. Here you have a capitalist who has a thousand men in his service; but
he himself is employed by each one who deals
with him in his line of business, whether it be the
(198) 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
man who engages him to build a ship, or the purchaser who buys a yard of goods in his acrecovering establishment. The employer who has
just now paid wages to the servant in his household, goes to his counting-room and there receives his compensation for services which he
has rendered to another. Thus from the millionaire down to the humblest laborer this rendering service and receiving wages interlaces and
crosses, so that you can hardly tell off the respective companies.
While, however, human society remains what
it is, and while men differ in talent, disposition
and character, there always will be those who are
especially employed at more or less fixed and
regular compensation for services which they
give to others; and there will be another class
who use and pay for such services.  While it may
be impossible, theoretically and with accuracy,
to make the demarcation, yet the fact that there
is and always will be such a division, is sufficiently
clear to every one.
These too classes are so related that they are
and must be mutually dependent. The highest
and the lowest in social position are here so inti 
LIFE AT HOME.
mately connected that the happiness and wellbeing of each is in the hands of the other. The
millionaire may have his equanimity destroyed by
his cook, and the capitalist be ruined by the clerk
to whose salary he scarcely gives a thought.
"The head cannot" here "say to the foot, I have
no need of thee."
Still, though there be this inter-penetration of
interests and dependency, there is a head and
there is a foot in the social system. The providence of God, overruling the appointments of life,
has made it necessary that some must occupy the
subordinate places. Not simply the happiness of
society, but even its very existence depends on it.
If everybody were an employer, when would the
work be done? If every one were on the quarterdeck, the boiler fires would go out in the hold;
if every one were architect and master builder, it
would be long before the foundation trench would
be dug or the wall be reared; if every one were in
the parlor, there would be some hungry mouths
in the household.
The'mental characteristics of the largest class
of society make it simply.a necessity that they
should be employed by others. They neither
200 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
desire nor have they, by their own acknowledg
ment and consciousness, the ability to control
business for themselves. They would be neither
happy nor prosperous if they did. If the daylaborer, whom you see toiling under the eye and
according to the direction of a foreman, were
made his own master, to do work independently,
how long, think you, would it be before he would
starve? You could do him confessedly no greater
injury than to compel him to make plans and lay
out schemes of work for himself. I have known
men who have been employed as journeymen,
contentedly, happily and prosperously for thirty
or forty years in the same factory, who would
have been ruined over and over again had they
done business on their own account. They have
had offers of business which their own good sense
led them to decline; a rare self-appreciation gave
them a wise choice. They were made for the
places which they occupy, and they have filled
them well, to their own honor and profit; both of
which would have been sacrificed had they forced
themselves into higher positions.
It would be well for those who sometimes are
fretted and discontented at the different arrange          9*
201
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
ments of life, especially as they regard the distribution of wealth, to consider, that were the respective positions of the capitalist and the laborer to be reversed, and all the property to be
taken from the custody of the one and put into
the hands of the other, this state of things could
not continue.  In a very brief period the whole
case would change, and surprisingly soon the
wealth would be seen to have slipped out of
the hands of the last into those of the former
owner, and the old relation of things would be
re-established. By an arbitrary decree the employer might be made the employed, but as
soon as the natural law prevailed, each would
take his former place.  There must, therefore,
always be this mutual relation of which I am
speaking.
All this declares the true and honorable position of labor. It is a foolish and very false notion
that any labor, in itself right, can be at all degrading.  "By the sweat of thy face shalt thou
eat bread," was the allotment at the first, and
those beaded drops of honest toil are the true
jewels of manhood. Fashion adds to the folly
in this matter, and often inflicts an endless amount
202 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
of harm, by making one kind of labor respectable,
and another humiliating.
A girl will attempt to make her living by the
needle, and hurries herself to the grave in the endeavor, while as a domestic in some family greatly
needing such services as hers, she might have a
healthful home, free from care or privation; a
young man toils amid poverty and anxiety in a
clerkship, when a farm or a workshop beckons
him to independence and competency. No, we
should all settle this in our hearts-That man is
noble, and that woman dignified, who discharges
God-given duty well.
"Honor and shame from no condition rise;
Act well your part, there all the honor lies."
The corrupt official in his palace, luxuriating in
his plundered gains, is base beside the honest
street-sweeper who earns what he receives and
fills the working hours with righteous toil. The
man who, contented with his lot, meets the duty
of the hour, ennobles  whatever work he does,
and walks a king in his realm of duty.
He only looks upon life correctly who sees
God's hand in its appointments. This it is which
203
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
gives the teachings of the Bible the aspect which
they have:-" Servants, be obedient to them that
are your masters.... as unto Christ; not with
eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of
Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,
..... with good will doing service, as to the
Lord, and not to men. And ye masters do the
same things unto them." Phil. vi. 5-7, 9. The
Christian is to look upon the position which he
holds and the work he is set to do as given him
by Christ, his master, to do and hold fop Him.
At once, the service becomes no longer low or
menial, whatever it may be, but honorable, since
it is done for Him. An angel would probably
make very little account of what kind of work he
was sent to do, and would quite as joyfully and
readily sweep Wall Street, as sell stocks in one
of its decorated offices.
These precepts, given in this light, make clear
the way in which our work should be done for
those who employ us-not as under the eye of a
task-master, but only under the eye of The Infinite Master, to gain first, and above all others H is approbation. This thought will make
smooth many a rough place, and help us tid&
204 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
over those rocky ones which meet us so frequently in life. If all employers were kind and
uniformly considerate, if they were never unreasonable and never were mistaken, if they were
never perplexed and never had to alter a plan, and
if we always understood exactly what they wished
and always knew precisely how they wished it
done, and could do it on the moment, even
when something else were to be done at the
same time, then all the sailing would be plain.
But it is not so, and this makes necessary patience, forbearance and good-nature on the part
of the employed.   To this a Christian spirit,
which endeavors chiefly to please the Saviour,
will greatly help us.
The employed should cultivate Good nature.
That disposition which leads one to sing while
doing her work, which makes a man whistle at
his task, which helps him to be silent and not
answer back when unjustly faulted, to be calm
and neither sullen nor sulky, even when imposed
on, is better than thousands of gold, for it does
and purchases what gold cannot get or do.
The employed should give the whole of his tine
and his skill during the hours for which his ser
205
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
vice has been engaged. It is simply dishonest,
for one to idle away the time of his employer, or
to be neglectful or careless of the manner in
which his work is done. These hours and this
skill are not his but another's. Have you never
seen a man, and been interested as you have looked, stand leaning on the handle of his hammer
while he talked across the bench to another, who
sat on it with his plane in his hand, as if the
words they were speaking were too mighty to
be interrupted by the stroke or push of either?
Have you never seen a good worker, with
thoughts evidently on everything else but her
work, make terrific fits of the garments, or spoil
the carefully selected dinners that had been sent
home? Have you never known a waspish or
complaining letter to come back from the purchaser because his bill of goods had been so badly
made up, the articles which he wanted most left
out, and the footings-up all wrong; because the
clerk, in his lazy indifference, had failed to do
his duty? I have heard of just such things in my
time.
To attempt any detail of duty as it touches this
relation would carry us beyond the limits of a
20o6 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
single chapter. I propose rather, to give what
seem to me, one or two plain and far-reaching principles which underlie it. There should be an
identification of interest between the employer and
employed. One of the most perplexing and important questions of the present time, is the relation between capital and labor. There is a class
of men who make it their business to create and
propagate the belief that there is a natural and
necessary antagonism between the two interests.
It will be noticed, if I am not mistaken, that this
class is not usually composed of workingmen
themselves. They are ex-workmen. They hold
the high offices in the "Associations" or" Unions,"
and sometimes have salaries. for their services;
they have occasion to travel much on visitations
to other associations; they are very busy, so
that factories or shops do not have much of their
services. The can talk well about "the rights
of labor," and the oppression of the "rich who
live in marble palaces," and all that sort of thing.
Their chief stock in trade is the ignorance and
prejudices of others; I had about written, their
fellows, but they are not fellow-workmen at all;
rather they derive support in their idleness out 
LIFE AT HOME.
of the hard-working men, whose weaknesses they
cunningly play upon.
Such men do an immeasurable amount of mischief. Emphatically, "idle and busy bodies,"
they are perpetually sowing discontent and
making hardship where all ought to be harmony and prosperity.
There is no natural antagonism between capital and labor. The employer is not the inherent
enemy of the employed, and whoever he be
who teaches that he is, is either ignorant or -a
demagogue.   The very constitution of society,
as we have seen, makes necessary these two
classes; they are mutually and absolutely dependent on each other, and neither can do without the other. Can you say that two deadly
enemies are absolutely necessary to each other's
happiness? That two, who perpetually and by
necessity are trying to steal from each other, are
vitally important to each other's prosperity? No,
capital is the natural friend and support of labor;
labor is the support and friend of capital. They
are intended to build up each other's interests,
and when rightly adjusted they always do.
Whenever each acts with a fair consideration
2o8 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
of the other's interests, all settles itself into uniform prosperity and mutual helpfulness.  If the
christian, Bible rule were carried into business
relations, all the friction would soon be gone.
The identification of which I speak, should be
equal on both sides. The employed should consider the interests of his employer his own. The
advancement of the one is the success of the
other. Self-interest, were there no higher motive, points out the true course. The men who
rise to the higher places, are those who have
discharged their duty best in the lower. They
claim the better positions because they have
made themselves so necessary, that their services
cannot be dispensed with.  "Seest thou a man
diligent in his business? He shall stand before
kings," is the Scripture proverb, and its truth is
seen in all situations in life.
And here let me say to the employed:-Aspire
to higher places. I remember an incident related
to me by an acquaintance years ago, of Stephen
Girard, the millionaire of Philadelphia. The
old man met my friend; then a boy, sweeping
out the entry of the store early one morning,
and stopped to ask him some questions about his
209 
LIFE AT HOME.
work and himself. Looking kindly at him, probably interested in the boy's intelligence and replies, he asked: "Do you intend always to be a
hired man, my son?" " No," was the answer, " I
intend and hope some day to be in business for
myself!"  "I applaud that!" benignantly said the
old man, in his French way, laying his hand on
his shoulder.  It was kindly said, and gives a
pleasant  glimpse of a heart  which  was often
thought cold and rugged, while it made an impression for good which, as my friend told me, had
never been effaced. Take the wise lesson. Aspire
to the higher places, and leave those you now have
for other beginners. Aspire, but remember that
you shall win them only by present content, and
by doing faithfully what you now have in hand.
You reach them only because you have more than
jfil//Ld your present place. If, because you think
yourself too good or too big for it, you decline
its duties, you will simply demonstrate your unfitness for it; the shrinkage will appear, and you
will slip into a smaller and a smaller place. In
the long run, and for the most part, men are
found in the places they have fitted themselves
to fill. Aspire and look forward to independent
210
I — 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
positions; but only by rounding out and overloading present duties.
Emp/oycrs shoucld identify themselves with those
in their employ.  There are many who seem to
look upon the services of those engaged by them
precisely as they would look upon those of a
horse or an ox, except that the man may bring
more intellect or intelligence to the work than the
brute. They feel that their whole duty has been
discharged when the stipulated wages have been
paid; that when once the hired person has left
store or factory, all connection with him has
ceased, only to be renewed when the hour of
work has come again. This should not be, and
with a multitude of honorable employers it is
far different.
The man or woman that works for you has, it
may be, a wife and children at home; father and
mother and brothers and sisters may be there, and
so all the tremulous anxieties and tender sympathies, too, are there, which you can have in the
same relations. He has sensibilities growing out
of them that can be touched, and that will vibrate
joyously or sadly under your hand. It would
do you good and would do them good were you
211 
LIFE AT HOME.
sometimes to go into the homes of your employes.   You do not know  how cheery and
how strengthening it would be to them. Consider that your employes have feelings which
can be wounded. They are not, because they
are hired by you, made of cast iron, so that you
may say and do what you will and not hurt
them. No right minded man or woman will
ever say or do anything wantonly to injure the
feelings and inflict pain on any one, and especially on one who by his position cannot resent it.
"Honor all men" is the pregnant word of the
Bible, and it means - have correct and lofty
views of every one with whom you come in
contact. View the person, however humble, and
however dependent, as a brother man or sister
woman; with thoughts and feelings very much
like yours; one that can suffer and can be glad.
Remember that here you often hold the cords of
suffering or of gladness in your hand.
Pay what is honest and fair. It is neither honest
nor fair to endeavor to have services for less than
what you know they are worth. Dishonesty is
found not only with the cook or chamber-maid or
porter or clerk, but also in the parlor and the
212 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
back office; and many an employer, because he
gets such excellent help at so small a price,
deems himself shrewd and sharp, when he is
only mean and dishonest. Pay what you believe
the service ought to have.
Those who hire are often in serious error
here. We sometimes expect the best sort of
service for the poorest sort of wages. The great
law of economics prevails in the household as
elsewhere. If you want a good watch, a good
coat, a fine book, you expect to pay a corresponding price. Cheap things are usually such only in
name. Precisely so in labor. The more skill and
ability, the higher the price.
Yet frequently this unfailing law is entirely
ignored in the family. Honesty, integrity, skill,
strength, politeness, and refinement even are
sought but never found. The mistress is involved
in perpetual worry, fret and annoyance; complains
evermore of the incompetency of servants, but
never gets at the true reason. She is not willing,
or is not able to pay the wages which will insure
the thing she requires. If we be not able to pay
for the best goods, we must content ourselves
with those of inferior quality. If we cannot pay
~
2I3 
LIFE AT HOME.
for the highest style of culinary art, let us be
content, happy if we can get a joint well roasted.
There was a whole world of philosophy in the
reply of an old colored servant. His master was
blaming him for his neglects and the badness of
his work. When he had done, the old man looked
up and said, "Look'ere, massa, you musn't cxpect to get the Angel Gabriel on five dollars a
month."
Pay regularly and promptly what is due to your
employ6s. Read some Scriptures on this point:"The wages of him that is hired shall not abide
with thee all night until the morning." Lev. xix.
I3.  "Woe unto him that useth his neighbor's
service without wages, and giveth him not for
his work." Jer. xxii. 13.  "I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers and"- note
the company-" against those that oppress the
hireling in his wages." Mal. iii. 5.
What may seem to be a very small thing to
you, may, in reality, be a very great thing to one
whose whole living it makes. Indifference and
thoughtlessness in this thing frequently cause an
amount of pain which no man or woman should
2I4 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
be willing to inflict. Because the prompt payment of the daily wages may involve a momentary inconvenience, perhaps a mere breaking
through a prescribed routine, or even because
it may interrupt a conversation, with scarcely
thought enough to look the creditor in the face,
the debtor-just as truly a debtor as if the man
or woman were asking a million-cries out, "Call
again." He complacently turns to his paper or to
his talk, as if he had done no wrong. He has
committed a crime.  He has sent that man away
sad at heart to his home.  He has compelled him
to see his family deprived of necessities, perhaps
put to suffering; he has forced him to make excuses to his own creditors with shame of face; to
endure the feeling of wrong and helpless indignation, simply because, for some small reason, he has
chosen to deprive a brother man of his rightful
dues. All this is shamefully wrong; and, what is
solemnly to be considered by such persons is,
that God is offended by it, and they need not
wonder if He who cares for the poor shall deal
with them for it. They may deem it a small
thing; but it is not small in His sight, and shall
not escape His visitation.
215
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
Employers-and now I have reference particularly to those who have young men under their
charge-should take a deep interest in the moral
character of those in their employment. He who
has taken a young man under his charge should
take a broad view of the responsibility. He should
feel a kindly care over him, and endeavor, by his
influence, to strengthen and better his character.
It is to be feared that, in these days, employers
do not make sufficient account of Character. They
look for brightness, quickness and business ability, and are willing to pay for them, but put a
small money value on integrity, honor and religion; and, it would seem, in making an engagement, leave all these latter qualifications entirely
out of the account. So much is this so, that I
have known it said, with a feeling of profound
chagrin and disappointment, "These people seem
to care nothing, and it goes for nothing whether
a man is a good man or not." Perhaps the whole
business world feels the subtle power of this
thing. Men are trained to consider business tact,
shrewdness and energy the only things of consequence; that, if a man be successful, he has done
everything well.
2i6 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
If a different view should be taken, and, from
the first, young men were trained to see that integrity and honor were held, at least, in equal
place with  energy and quick-sightedness, we
might, in another generation, have a different
.class of men in our marts of trade and exchange.
On the other hand, however, no one should fall
into the mistake that his goodness and religion are
everything in business. He may be very honest
and very pious, but also very stupid and very incompetent. Let a wide-awake energy and keeneyed diligence go hand in hand with religion.
They will compel, by and by, a recognition. Integrity, with energy and patience, in the longrun wins.
Employers should take an interest in thc future
of their yoi;zig smen. I have known a young man
toil late and early, with diligent care and faithfulness, to promote the interests of his employers,
and after the best years of his early life were
spent, to be turned off without compunction, because it suited their inclination or convenience.
For an employer to do this is to act heartlessly and
guiltily. When a young man has given his early
IO
2I7 
LIFE AT HOME.
life to promote the interests of his employer, it is
but fair and honorable to give him a chance of advancement, and, if possible, a part in the business
which he has been, in a measure, promoting. Instances of this have come under my observation,
and they were alike honorable to both parties.
If a part in the business cannot be given, a rightminded employer will endeavor to help forward
the young man to independence. I have heard
stories of the opposite thing being done; of a
great trader deliberately breaking down the business of his own young men; but the meanness
of the transaction could be equalled only by the
wealth which made it possible.
Though the subject is important and inviting
in its wider reach, we may, perhaps, more appropriately consider it as it bears directly on the
family life. What I shall remark will be to the
ladies of the house. If I should be thought to
say more to the mistress than the maid, now, 1
shall be pardoned, since the former make the
larger part of my readers.
How much the comfort of the family depends
on those who live in the kitchen! One would suppose, were he to overhear the daily conversation
2I8 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
when friends gather, that the crying evil of the
day was bad servants. Hardly two ladies meet
without mutual condolence over hired help.
There are, doubtless, a multitude of bad servants. But are there no bad mistresses? There
is a very intimate connection between the character of each. I do not affirm, for I do not believe
it to be true, that a good mistress will always
have a good servant; but I am certain that she
will not always have bad ones, and will be much
less likely to have such, than a bad mistress. One
who is exacting, fault-finding, worrying or grinding, will not be blessed greatly in her cook or
chamber-maid.
No one should expect a servant to be in her
sphere what the mistress is not in hers. Inspire
respect, therefore. No pleasant service can be
given or received, if there be not mutual honor.
The mistress, to be respected, must be respectable. Here a thousand things, small in themselves, but great in their aggregate, come in.
The dress of the mistress of the house has, I
think, a bearing on her influence. Injunctions to
care and precision in the household work come
with greater emphasis from one who herself is
2I9 
LIFE AT HOME.
habitually neat in attire, than from one whose
slovenly looks are a perpetual example for untidiness everywhere.
The manners go a great way in moral power.
We should be polite, therefore, in all places and
to all persons.   A mistress should be polite to
her servants. To be rude and coarse to them,
is to show at once ill-breeding and unkindness.
Politeness has reference not only to superiors and
equals, but to inferiors in social position; and is
required equally by the one as the other.
Nothing more quickly destroys respect and
influence for good than an ungoverned temper
and hasty or irascible words.  When one flies in
a passion, and, on a trivial or even great occasion,
loses self-control, she has made pleasant relations
difficult, even when the storm has passed. Let
there be cultivated such habitual self- respect,
such personal habits, such manners and words as
become the true lady, and she cannot but call out
honor, respect and affection; she will do it naturally, as the sun calls up the vapors of the sea.
Speak encouraging words to your employes.
There are a great many persons who seem to
have a conscientious repugnance to saying any
220 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
thing except to find fault over work that is done.
The employed may labor to the best of their ability, and even do all excellently well, and yet be
utterly unable to tell whether they have given satisfaction or not. Now, few things are more absolutely discouraging than this. I have heard young
men speak of it most feelingly. I knew them to
be thoroughly competent, full of energy, and to
be doing their work in the best manner, and they
have said to me, "He never has said a word, no
matter what I did, to show that he was pleased;"
and they were glad to be free from one who
seemed so incapable of appreciating faithful service.  We ought to be as quick to commend as
to find fault. The commendation is more powerful than the condemnation.   A  good word
"You have done it capitally!"  "I like that!"
"How  quickly  and how well you  have got
through!"-under the sound, you will see the
face brighten, a smile of satisfaction spreading
over every feature, and your employed goes
away stronger for your service and happy in
heart. You have done a kind act, and one that
became you. Oh, there is a power in just a few
kind and cheery words! Ye who have formed
221 
LIFE AT HOME.
the habit of fault-finding only, learn the other
way of saying commendatory things; you will
find them go far and do much.
Be syminpatetic azd patient with those in your
employ. Remember that the girl in your family
is away from her immediate friends, that she is
very much alone; while you have as many congenial associates at hand as you need, she has
but few. She cannot go out to seek them just
when she pleases, and so is subject to the same
ennui as that which depresses your spirits, though
she cannot explain it as well.  She is liable to
sickness, and the smaller nervousnesses which
make us impatient and fretful.
We should remember, too, that the future
often is not very bright. Relatives are poor and
must be cared for, and so family anxiety is hers
as well as yours; a burden which weighs on the
spirits and makes one unconsciously gloomy and
ill-responsive. You must try to enter into all
this.
So you will be patient when you consider that
the servants in your household are subject to all
the like passions with the other members of it.
They have usually no better or more carefully
222 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
regulated tempers; they have not been better
educated nor have they had better surroundings,
that you should expect more from them. Rather
their training has often been under very unfavorable circumstances. You do not know how
much they have had to contend against to be
even what they are.
You do not sufficiently think how much they
have tried to do well even where they have
failed. Perhaps the fault which has excited you
was, indeed, only a misfortune, one of those occurrences over which you have often exclaimed,
"There, I tried to do that just right, and see
how miserably I have failed after all!" You do
not think how far ignorance and vicious training,
and superstition, which is born of both, have
formed their characters. Be patient with them,
even as you often have need of patience for yourself.
Be christian with your servants. There is a responsibility here which is not always felt. Who
can say, that the girl that comes into your family
has not been sent there for a great purpose by
God's Providence! and that purpose to be accomplished by the influence which shall ema
223
4. 
LIFE AT HOME.
nate from you as a Christian. Here is an immortal soul to be affected, and it is put close by your
side that it may be affected by you.  Is it not for
our shame and sorrow that they come as inmnates
to our families and go away from us as they
camrhe; that often no kind word is spoken to them
on the most important theme,-the eternal, and
not one well directed effort made to lead them
heavenward? They ought to be on our hearts.
If they go away unconverted, unsaved, who shall
say that ever again they shall be in as favorable
circumstances; who shall say what influences
of evil only shall surround them in some new
home? Possibly they were sent to you that you
might lead them to The Lamb of God. Have
this ever in mind.  Have them make, if they are
willing, part of the family circle of prayer; exhibit before them-that shall be a greater power
-the graces of a Christian character; by loving and tender words draw them to the Cross
of Jesus.
It is possible to have those who have lived
with us in these relations, bound to us by ties
more lasting than time. An intercourse, on the
the one side, faithful, true and affectionate; on
224 
EMPLOYERS AND EMPLOYED.
the other considerate, sympathetic and kind, may
bind them so closely to us that they shall seem as
members of the family, and they shall go away
from us sadly, with fond memories abiding forever in their hearts. They may look back even
from the scenes of another world with joy and
thanksgiving that they ever made a part of our
households.
Io0*
225 
(~>
CHAPTER IX.
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
Ye shall teach them your children, speaking of them when
thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way,
when thou liest down and when thou risest up.   And thou
shalt write them upon the door-posts of thine house, and upon
thy gates; that your days may be multiplied and the days of
your children.-DEUT. xi. 19, 20, 2 I.
Then kneeling down to HEAVEN's ETERNAL KING,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing,
That thus they all shall meet in future daysThere ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling time moves round in one eternal sphere.
BURNS.
ELIGION is a matter of the heart and be      longs to a man's unseen existence; it is also
a matter of the outward life and belongs to his
public walks. If man were simply a spiritual
(2zz6) 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
essence, all that relates to God and his own
thoughts and feelings might be confined to that
realm in which solitary and alone he lives-his
own soul. But he has a corporeal being, he
lives in a world of seen things, and is in immediate and perpetual contact with persons and
things as substantial as himself.   His religion,
then, like himself and because it belongs to his
whole nature, reaches out and touches all around
him. It cannot, it must not be confined to the
secresy of his own bosom.
Every one who takes a broad or accurate view
of man, must acknowledge that there ought to be
some public recognition of God by any one who
professes to believe in Him. This needs to be
stated only, not argued. He who never in any
form makes an acknowledgement of God, who
does not at times before men take the posture of
devotion, or show, by some seen act, that he recognizes the fact of God's existence and his own
relations to the Infinite One, can make no claim to
the title of a believer.
Since religion is more than a matter of the
heart, it demands an outward manifestation.
How long, think you, were every form of public
227 
LIFE AT HOME.
religious service to be withdrawn, would it be
before all religion would be gone from the earth?
Were every church to be not only closed but removed, so that not even crumbling walls or deserted precincts should speak of Him who was
once worshipped there; were there to be no assemblings for prayer and praise, no voice heard calling
on God; were religion, all over the earth, to be
shut up in each man's bosom, a generation would
scarcely have gone by before the very idea of God
had vanished from the apprehension of men.
The instincts of man, however, make such an
inward limitation of religion impossible.   The
heart within, confined and imprisoned, breaks
forth at the door of the lips in prayer and adoration; the man in his complex personality cries
out, I must show forth what is within; my soul
unseen Wiorships the Unseen God; but this eye
looks out upon His works, this body lives among
the visible things of His hands; there are other
men who with me live and have their being in
Him; before them and with them I must worship
God. No command is needed; public worship
of God goes hand in hand with the recognition
of God.
228 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
In this way it comes to pass that all thinking
persons acknowledge the importance of outward
religion-of public divine worship. To a christian
man it becomes a necessity. He must have his
closet, a secret place, in whose retirement he may
tell the story of his wants and his cares in the ear
of a compassionate and sympathizing Father; but
he must also have the goodly assemblings of his
brethren, in whose company he may sing the
songs of Zion, and with whom he may call upon
the name of Zion's Kin,,. He has a God whom
he acknowledges, and whose favor he seeks when
alone; that God he must honor and worship in
the presence of other men. He has a private religion; he has also a public religion. He cannot
be satisfied to worship Jehovah only where no eye
can see him; his heart craves in all humility and
sincerity that, abroad and with his fellow-men, he
may bring his tribute, lowly though it be, of gratitude and love. So out of the closet grows the
temple. The one is as necessary as the other.
The one is the place where a lone soul holds intercourse with an unseen God; the other where
the man with men looks upward to the Creator,
Preserver and Lord of them all.
229 
LIFE AT HOME.
Between these two there is a-sphere of thought
and of influence, more important, perhaps, than
either-The Family. It stands midway between
the secret and the public life of a man, and vitally
affects them both. Here a man spends a large
part of his life; from it he derives the chiefest
good of earth; here are his highest joys; here
are his profoundest sorrows; here are his hopes
and fears; here the fountain whence flow streams
which make pleasant or weary his way; here are
his loved ones; here those in whom and for whom
he lives; here those whom he is set to guard and
guide, whose destiny he shapes for the eternal
years.
Now  we may appropriately ask: -Shall this
family life, all precious in its surroundings, and
all potent in its power, be without Religion?
The man has a private religion, he has a public
religion, shall he have no family religion? There
is a shrine, unseen by mortal eye, where he bows
before God; there is a temple where, with fellowmen, he offers up his incense of prayer and praise;
shall there be no altar in the household at which
with wife and children he may worship? He acknowledges God in secret, he acknowledges Him
230 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
in public; shall he not acknowledge him in the
family?
If it be answered that form or outward observance is not necessary, that it is enough when a
man prays in secret and in public, I answer -all
the reasons impelling him, in either of those circumstances, should move him here. Is there,
can there be, such a thing as Family Religion, a
religion of the household? If there is, then there
must be for its very existence an outwardform
of some kind. It is in its very nature a visible
thing, precisely as is public or social religion.  If
God be acknowledged at all in the family, it must
be by an external service; any other acknowledgment is, in the nature of the case, impossible.
We are thus brought to the question:-How
shall this recognition of God, as the God of the
family, be made, and what shall this outward service be? The answer at once comes up, in two
words, full of hallowed significance and association-FAMILY WORSHIP.  There must be a time
when the family, as a family, come together, and
in their organic capacity worship God. If there
be no such time and no such worship, the family,
as a family, is without God.
23I
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
It ought not to be necessary to press this point
with argument. It would seem that a very little
sober and honest reflection would conduct one to
the duty of family worship. Nor ought it to seem
only a duty. Like prayer itself, it grows out of
the necessities of our nature. To one who rightly
feels the exigencies of his position, as the head of
a family, it commends itself as a privilege which
must not be forgone. What! exclaims such a
father, shall the heathen have their household
gods, and shall not Jehovah God be acknowledged in my family? Shall we possess all the
unspeakable blessings which revolve in our family circle, coming from the hand of the Infinite
Giver, and no voice of recognition here be heard?
Shall we have peace, and health; shall we have
smiles and joys; shall we lie down on angelwatched pillows; shall we wake with numbers
unbroken; shall we have care and love, boundlessly forbearing and compassionate through
Jesus Christ, and no note of thanksgiving go forth
from our lips? It cannot, it must not be! No,
no, while this dear bond holds us together, while
we are a family, while there is a fireside, while
we have a home, there shall be an altar of praise
232 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
and prayer, round which we will gather and on
which we will lay our offerings! It would wrong
our hearts were there no such offerings, and ours
would be a home desolate without the altar; its
sweetest and best hour would be gone, the hour
of our family prayer!
WVhat would a family who have learned the
blessedness of household worship do without
it?  There are common joys which make them
greet each other with smiles, while their hearts
overflow with gladness;- the family worship
gives them united expression, as songs of praise
are mingled there. Sorrows, too, enter there,
great sorrows, in whose presence they stand
wringing each other's hands, and leaning heavily
on each other's shoulders in agony;-the family
worship softens the grief as they tell it to their
Father God. The family has cares and anxieties
which are felt by all its members; they have
hopes and plans on which a great future hangs;
they talk them over in the family circle;-it would
be hard could they not bring them before God!
Tell us not, exclaims such a family, of the duty
of family prayer! When our hearts have grown
so wayward and ungrateful as to forget the God
233 
LIFE AT HOME.
of the family; when the sweet name of home has
lost its charm, when we have no joys, when our
hearts are stricken with no sorrows, when we
have no cares and no hopes, then we will think it
duty only;  now we will call it privilege-the
family Altar our family Blessing!
What a reflex power goes -forth from the altar
in the house!  See how it touches the father
who offers the incense upon it. There is an hour
when, as the priest of his house, he is to assemble
the family, and with them, and for them, present
the daily sacrifice of prayer and praise. He will
take God's most holy WVord in his hand and read
from its sacred pages; he will bow with them,
and, in the hearing of them all, draw near and
seek to enter even into the presence-chamber of
the Most High. Confession and thanks will be
uttered; help will be implored and consecration
will be made; the fragrant name of Jesus will be
on his lips. Now, who can be insensible to the
hallowed power of all this, as he looks forward to
the hour which will come in its inevitable succession? Who will not be moved by it, as he remembers it just passed? Who that has ever been
234 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
familiar with family worship has not felt it? You
have been tempted to be harsh or irascible; hasty
words have almost burst past the watch at the
door of your lips; your spirit has been disturbed,
and was just about to pour forth its troubled
waters; but you have remembered the silent
group and still hour of the family prayer, the
open, perhaps the condemning Scripture, the
prayer in the ear of God. Now the mild yet
searching light streams backward, a low voice
whispers gently, and, as you listen, you grow
calm again. The priest must not go thither with
angry brow and disordered robe!  So the family
worship has helped you before you have approached the altar.
Who shall measure the influence of Family
Worship on the household? Think, for example,
how it hemps the government and training of chidren.  Will you find another place where the
great lessons of life can be given at once so delicately and so forcibly?  Here is God's Word
adapted to your child's or your servant's case.
You can select it for its adaptation, and, if no
more, can have it make its own appeal or warning or reproof, falling on the ear of all, but touch
235
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
ing with unseen power the delinquent one. It
becomes the material of the prayer which follows, and the lesson is never afterward forgotten. Many a little and bigger heart has ached,
many a silent tear of repentant sorrow has fallen
unnoticed by all except God, while the low voice
of father or mother has confessed and asked forgiveness for family sins. A parent who has no
family worship is without the most potent of all
helps to family training.
Think, too, how these morning and evening
assemblings lift out of the stream those rocks
which disturb the placid waters of the household
life. Selfishness and petulance have time to rest
and think; it is hard to hold resentment, or be
uinkind to brother or sister who kneels at your
side. This hour dissipates many a murky cloud,
and through its rifts lets down sunshine on the
family group.
An imperceptible, unrecognized, yet pervasive
power is perpetually, like unseen magnetism,
streaming out from the family altar over the life
of your child. The simple coming together for
the service! Hiow shall the child, who, morning
and night since its first conscious recollection,
236 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
has been accustomed to kneel while a low voice
was speaking to The Unseen, ever shake off the
fact that there is a God with whom he has to do?
That idea has been inwoven with the whole texture of his being. Each morning and evening the
golden thread has been run, until the thought of
God, and his relations and obligations to Him,
have become a part of his very life.
The mere taking reverently up the word of
God, the slow turning of its leaves, become arguments which no comning years of doubt or unbelief shall dislodge. That it is God's book (especially if he has heard, as some of us have, the
opening words, "Let us read the word of God,"
from a father's lips) was the first thought of infancy, and it has grown clearer day by day. Now,
even after years have fled, its words are associated with that familiar voice to which he listened,
half dreamily in the olden time. Can he ever believe that it is not divine? Scepticism can do
much; but it must work ruthlessly if it tears out
that conviction.  With it will come the quivering fibres of a heart which vibrates at a father's
remembered voice, or a  mother's form  seen
through the mists of years at his side.
237 
LIFE AT HOME.
Who can measure the power of the prayers of
the family altar? I do not mean, now, prayer as
measured by the divine blessing which it obtains,
but that influence which a parent's words of
prayer have over the heart and life of a child.
It would not be strange if you, whose earliest
memories are connected with family worship,
could look back to thoughts and feelings awakened at those hours, which have been living and
dominant in your souls ever since.  But there
are a multitude more that you do not recognize
as coming thence, all of which had there their
birth. No man can tell what they have done for
him-'that ever-recurring approach to God, that
reiterated familiarity with divine things in those
solemn communings of the soul before God!
What trains of thought have been started, what
emotions have been awakened, what soul impulses have been given! The eternal'future shall
only make them known. Oh, how many a resolution has been fixed, how many a purpose formed, as the boy, half-seated, half-kneeling on the
floor, has listened to words of pleading with God
on his behalf! How often has the heart been
burdened with the heavy consciousness of unfor                                             Io
238 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
given sin; how often the bosom heaved with an
unuttered longing to be a better child; how many
a reaching forward of thought to that dread eternity beyond the grave; how many a wonder
whether, by and by, heaven would be, with father
and mother, the home of the soul; how many an
apprehension lest the second death should be its
doom!  From  such impressions, made  at the
family altar, the child has risen up with his whole
being moved, and with thoughts that shall lift his
soul upward forever.
Perhaps all that I have written of the value
and power of family prayer may be acknowledged by my reader, and yet he has never had
a family altar.  It is not necessary to follow all
the excuses which are given for its neglect. The
want of timie, is often pleaded. But fifteen minutes morning and night would be sufficient, perhaps, as a rule, for all that need be spent in the
service. Five minutes in singing, five in reading
the Bible, five in prayer, might fill the allotted
time. It had better be short, and the service such
that not the littlest of the household need be wearied. It is difficult to believe that these few moments could not be secured in almost any family.
239 
LIFE AT HOME.
That you have never had the altar of prayer in
your home can scarcely be an excuse for not setting up its stones. A neglected duty becomes
none the less a duty by further neglect. That
you have lost so much already is not a reason
that you should lose more hereafter.
That you have never been accustomed to pray before others, ought to be no reason that you should
not with your wife and children. Often has a
man's religious life begun in reality only when he
has first bowed in prayer with them. The perplexities and doubts and fears that oppress your heart
perhaps would all float away in that atmosphere
of household consecration, praise and prayer.
You may have no words now, but there is
the Lord's Prayer, that you could speak, and if
your heart were in the service, the prayers would
come welling of themselves from within. A will
would make a way for you here.
You do not know all that your children think
of the utter absence of prayer from your home.
Perhaps my reader is a professing Christian. If
you only knew your children's talk with one another, you would perhaps blush for very shame.
There may, too, come a time when you will bit
240 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
terly mourn that you did not break over every
obstacle, and, with your family, worship your
Father in Heaven.
"I shall never  forget,"  says  Dr.  Norman
MIcLeod, "the impression made  upon me  the
first year of my ministry, by a mechanic whom
I had visited, and on whom I had urged the
paramount duty of family prayer. One day he
entered my study, bursting into tears, as he said,
"You remember that girl, sir: she was my only
child.   She died suddenly this morning.   She
has gone, I hope, to God. But if so, she can tell
Him what now breaks my heart-that she never
heard a prayer in her father's house, or from her
father's lips! 0, that she were with me but for
one day again!"
A young husband and wife may be reading
this-Let me say to you what I have said in another place-Pray together. Have a fixed hour,
sit side by side while you read, kneel side by side
while you pray with audible voice. No difficulties of beginning will confront you by and by,
and the memory as well as the living power of
these early days of worship will be sweet and
blessed.
II
241
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
While I would not attempt to give extended
rules for family worship, the following general
suggestions may not be amiss.  Have a set time
for it. Select the hour which, all things considered, will be most convenient and free from interruption, and then rigidly adhere to it. Let it
be as fixed as the hours for the daily meals.
Have the whole household with you, the servants
if they can be induced to come, and are not detained by religious scruples; but certainly all the
children. Do not permit the youngest to be absent from the room. Let the mother hold the
baby in her arms; you will be surprised how
soon the little one, who is still at no other time,
will, if you teach him so, nestle quietly down at
the hour of family worship.
Sing, if you can, at your worship.  Sing often
the children's sacred songs, so that they may feel
that the service is theirs as well as yours.
Read the Bible in course.  While you will adopt
special portions for special exigencies in the
family life, in the long run, a more or less systematic reading of the Bible, book by book, is best.
It will bring the whole Book to the knowledge
of your household. Many parents choose to have
242 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
the Bible read, paragraph by paragraph, in turn
by all the family. This method does not commend itself to me as the best. It will prevent
the use of some important parts of scripture
lying in close connection with those which are
more proper for the closet than the family circle.
To me it seems too much like a reading lesson.
The change of readers takes attention from the
thought of the text, while the possible smiles and
blushes over mistakes, or the stammering of the
little ones and the poorer readers do not add to
the sacredness of the word. Perhaps it is best
that the father of the family, as the priest of the
house, should himself alone read, and by questions or remarks, seek to impress the truths.
Careful reading, in which the parent, having
made himself familiar with the meaning of the
Scriptures, by his manner, brings it out, will secure attention. To read well, one needs first of
all, to know the meaning of what he reads.
However, on a special method of conducting
this service we need not insist.  A wise parent
will select that which, in his circumstances, seems
best. Of these he should be the judge.
There is much in the maizier in which relig
243 
LIFE AT HOME.
ious exercises are conducted in the family. The
worship is none the less solemn because familiar.
All the surroundings should therefore be in keeping with the hour when the family comes into
the presence of the Great God. Let father and
mother sit side by side, let the children not be
scattered in lounging attitudes round the room
and at a distance, but placed near enough to
each other to make a group, so that the unity
of the worship shall appear as well as exist.
Parents are not as careful as they ought to be
of these outward things in a child's religious
education. The little one is taught to "say his
prayer"-but how? Perhaps with noise of conversation or play about him, he kneels after he
has clambered on his bed, and rattles over the set
words while he gazes round the room, ready with
the "Amen" to burst into a laugh with those that
laugh around. It is not at all wonderful that he
grows to consider the whole affair as very useless
and unmeaning.
Give your child different thoughts. You are
doing what the disciples asked the Lord to do,
when they said, "Teach us to pray." You are
teaching your child to pray, and to pray aright is,
244 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
as Coleridge said, "The greatest achievement of
the Christian's warfare on earth."* At this hour
of his childish prayer, your boy comes into communion with the Most High, and you should
breathe softly, while angels listen. They see a
deeper meaning in the act than you can recognize. That infant petition has in it what may
touch your heart, if you, will thirnk:
"Now  I lay me do(wn to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take."
Who can keep his soul but God? What a possibility is in that little word "if;" a possibility which
darts a thrill of anguish through your breast!
Into what arms could his soul nestle if not Christ's,
if it should go forth from that fair body to-night?
* "' Oh no, my dear sir,' said Coleridge, within two years
of his death,'it is to pray, to pray as God would have us;
this is what at times makes me turn cold to my soul. Believe
me, to pray with all your heart and strength-with reason and
the will, to believe that God will listen to your voice through
Christ, and verily do the thing He pleaseth thereupon, this
is the last, the greatest achievement of the Christian's warfare
on earth. Teach us to pray, O Lord!' And then he burst
into a flood of tears and begged me to pray for him."
245 
LIFE AT HOME.
\Will you not, then, hush the room and have father
and children stand silently by, as with clasped
hands and bowed head your child kneels reverently at your knee and solemnly lisps that prayer?
Perhaps your face will rest upon his head while
your fi:l heart joins in the petition.
It would be pleasant to believe that some who
have gone with me through these pages will
know the blessedness of family religion as symbolized in The Family Altar. I will try to paint
for you a picture of the coming time:-The years
have gone swiftly and you are changed, but the
Altar in the house has never fallen down during
them all. How hallowed and how dear the associations that cluster round it! You set it upit was many years ago-when with your youthful
bride you entered your new home. Your locks
have whitened as you have ministered at it.
The evening of your life has come. You look
back through the mists that gather as you gaze,
and how varied and how tender the scenes which
rise to your view!
Now you see the group as it was in the long
ago-the fair-haired children as they sat around,
246 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
the babe hushed in fond arms at your side, when
your voice had no trembling in it as you read and
sang and prayed. It seems but yesterday that
they all were there.
As you look, the circle has narrowed, the little
ones that listened have grown and gone, one by
one, out from home. They will come back no
more. Some of them passed away from earth in
the far-back days. They are children still. They
will always be children to you.
You remember the family worship that morning when your little dead lay in yonder room, and
the family, pale and weary with watching and
sorrow, came in hushed silence together. Perhaps you can tell even now the scripture, forever
associated with the hour, which through falling
tears you tried to read. You remember the
prayer as, with the sobs of mother and children in
your ear, your choked voice told the story of
grief to the unseen but present Christ, the long
pauses when sorrow would not let you speak,
and still the unutterable relief you found as, all
weak and stricken, you rested on God.
Other scenes come up! Perhaps you think of
the time when one of the children told you with
247
I 
LIFE AT HOME.
trembling words of a new-found hope inll Christ.
That, too, was a tearful but not a sad family worship. How good was it to come together then!
There was your child with the gleam of peace
and joy upon the face; and with heart too full for
words, you gave thanks to God.
Marriage days have gladdened and saddened
your home. You think of the time when you
knelt, knowing that it was the last that son or
daughter would be there, that before the next
hour of worship should come, they would have
gone forth forever. How you prayed that God
would go with them! You have thought and
prayed for them there ever since, as though they
were still a part of the circle. They are far away,
across the continent, over the seas, but very near
your heart and in your family prayer. So the
years have gone, and yet amid all the changes,
the spot where the altar stands has been the tenderest, the brightest, the dearest place in your
home.
With these scenes, perhaps, come up memories
of an older time, when you were young. The
gatherings of your own childhood will come back
no more. The family has been passing one by one
248 
THE ALTAR IN THE HOUSE.
away for many years. The father and the mother,
at whose side you sat, and on whose knee you
rested your curly head, thinking and dreaming
your child dreams as the word was read, have
gone, long, long ago; the brothers and the sisters
who sat around, they, too, are changed, and many
of them gone; they have been going ever since.
Of late you have begun to look forward to another family gathering and a better family worship. It will come one day.
II *
APP 2   1919
249
F II,