Make Home Attractive.
Some one has said that the three sweetest words in our language are, “Mother, Home and Heaven.” We may well pity that being so unfortunate as not to have enjoyed the blessings of a happy home, for in the battle of life we need to be armed with the counsels and prayers of a mother, and all holy and sweet home influences, if we are to successfully meet the snares and perils which will beset us. Home is the paradise in which this wonderful world is first revealed to our growing consciousness, and as from its safe shelter we look out upon life we form our estimate of it according to the impressions and teachings we there receive. If the home is brightened with the sunshine of love, its radiance is reflected in all around us, and the whole world appears to us only as one family,—full of kind thoughts, tender sympathies, gentle ministrations and noble deeds. If the home life is sour, gloomy and unhappy, then we see the whole world through the same atmosphere of misery and discontent; and it is to us only a dull, dismal prison, crowded with selfish souls, whose petty strifes and base actions cause perpetual turmoils and unhappiness.
Parents, depend upon it, you have no holier nor higher work to do than to make home attractive. In after years your endeavors will be repaid a hundred fold by the grateful affection, the happy memories, and the noble lives of your children, who, whatever their success elsewhere, will ever turn to the old homestead and its inmates as the Mecca of their earthly pilgrimage.
A Sunny Temper.
If it were possible for us to invoke the aid of some powerful genii, who, as we passed through life, could summon troops of loving friends around us, and make our pathway radiant with their smiles and blessings, we should think no labor too arduous, no sacrifice too great to procure such inestimable happiness. If such a beneficent fairy held court and dispensed such favors, though she dwelt in the uttermost parts of the earth, what caravans of eager pilgrims would throng to that favorite realm! We often forget that the priceless charm which will secure to us all these desirable gifts is within our reach. It is the charm of a sunny temper,—a talisman more potent than station, more precious than gold, more to be desired than fine rubies. It is an aroma, whose fragrance fills the air with the odors of Paradise. It is an amulet, at sight of which dark clouds of perplexity and hideous shapes of discord flee away. It wreathes the face with smiles, creates friends, promotes cheerfulness, awakens tenderness, and scatters happiness. It fills the heart with joy, it robs sorrow of its pain and makes of earth a very heaven below.
Value of Female Society to Man.
One of the most marked men of this century, Disraeli, who achieved distinction in many different lines of thought and action, toward the close of a career of extraordinary success, made the remarkable statement that “a female friend, amiable, clever and devoted, is a possession more valuable than parks and palaces, and without such a nurse, few men can succeed in life,—none be content.” The reason why multitudes of gifted and brilliant men fail in their career, is for want of the very traits of character which female society would impart. How many men are intellectual, well informed, and possess a complete practical knowledge of the pursuit they enter upon! but they are brusque, imperious, and overbearing; they lack the urbanity of demeanor, the consideration of others’ feelings, the gracefulness of expression, which are necessary to conciliate men and to draw them to themselves; and for the need of these qualities their progress is impeded, or they fail in their plans altogether. The female character possesses those qualities in which most men are deficient,—the delicate instincts, the acute perceptions, the ready judgment, the wonderful intuitions,—these all belong to her by native right, and are usually acquired by men through her influence.
Home Maxims.
The following maxims, if put in practice daily, would do much to promote harmony and good feeling in the home:
“Never make a remark at the expense of the other; it is meanness.”