If the young lady desires to retain the bloom and beauty of youth, let her not yield to the way of fashion and folly; let her love truth and virtue; and to the close of her life will she retain those feelings which now make life appear a garden of sweets ever fresh and green.
Home Harmonies
Can there be a more important theme to claim the attention of thinking parents than that of home harmonies, how to make the home life so pleasant and full of kindly courtesy that its members will look to it as the pleasantest spot on earth, and find their highest enjoyment in advancing the innocent pleasures of home? Is it not the duty of parents to make their homes as pleasant as they possibly can for their children and their mates? Should they not strive to have them resound with the fun and frolic of childhood, and enlivened with the cheerfulness of happy social life? For too many homes are like the frame of a harp that stands without strings. In form and outline they suggest music, but no melody arises from the empty spaces; and thus it happens that home is unattractive, dreary, and dull.
And do you, fathers and mothers, you who have sons and daughters growing up around you, do you ever think of your responsibility of keeping alive the home feeling in the hearts of your children? Remember that within your means the obligation rests upon you of making their homes the pleasantest spot on earth, to make the word home to them the synonym of happiness. Go to as great length as you consistently can to provide for them those amusements, which, if not provided there, entice them elsewhere. You had better spend your money thus than in ostentation and luxury, and far better than to amass a fortune for your children to spend in the future. The richest legacy you can leave your child is a life-long, inextinguishable, and fragrant recollection of home when time and death have forever dissolved the enchantment.
Give him that, and on the strength of that will he make his way in the world; but let his recollection of home be repulsive, and the fortune you may leave him will be a poor compensation for the loss of that tenderness of heart and purity of life, which not only a pleasant home, but the memory of one would have secured. Remember, also, that while they will feel grateful to you for the money you may leave them, and will think of you when gone, they will go to your green graves and bless your very ashes for that sanctuary of quiet comfort and refinement, to which you may, if you possess the means, transform your home. The memory of the beautiful and happy homes of childhood will in after years come to the weary mind like strains of low, sweet music, and in its silent influence for good will prove of infinite more value than houses, stocks, and money.
Too frequently the effect of prosperity is to render the heart cold and selfish; but the heart will never forget the hallowed influence of happy home memories. It will be an evening enjoyment to which the lapse of years will only add new sweetness. Such a home memory is a constant inspiration for good, and as constant a restraint from evil. A constant endeavor should be made to render every home cheerful. Innocent joy should reign in every heart. There should be found domestic amusements, fireside pleasures, quiet and simple they may be, but such as shall make home happy, and not leave it that irksome place that will oblige the youthful spirit to look elsewhere for joy.