HOME LIFE.
Perhaps, if I give you a glimpse into the home of one of our pupils, you can more easily understand what we have to work against among these people. In a miserable old hovel, of one small room, lives a family of eleven, father, mother, five children, two pitiful little orphans, to whom the mother out of the kindness of her heart has given shelter, and a young man and a young woman as boarders. The mother toils hard each day to furnish bread for the little ones, and does what she can to keep her family respectable. The father is what is termed, "no 'count." He has no regular employment, but, when so inclined, will chop wood, and thus earn a few dimes. Their house is lighted by one small window, in which bunches of rags and papers supply the absence of glass. The room is heated by an old fire-place, which is crumbling to decay. The furniture consists of two straw beds covered with ragged quilts, a little pine table, and four broken chairs. I need not tell you of the moral atmosphere which exists in such a home. Yet this is only a type of the home we see too often when we are making our round of calls.