There are a thousand unobtrusive ways in which we may add to the cheerfulness of home. The very modulations of the voice will often make a wonderful difference. How many shades of feeling are expressed by the voice! What a change comes over us by a change of tones! No delicately tuned harp-string can awaken more pleasures, no grating discord can pierce with more pain. It is practicable to make 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 eating-place of a merry group, and not simply a dull board where the members come to eat. Let the sitting-room at evening be the place where a merry company settle themselves to books and games, till the round of good-night kisses are in order. Let there be some music in the household, not kept to show to company, but music in which all can join. Let the young companions be welcomed and made for the time a part of the group. In a word, let the home be surrounded by an air of cozy and cheerful good-will. Then children will not be exhorted to love it; you will not be able to tempt them away from it.
To the man of business home should be an earthly paradise, to the embellishment of which his leisure time and thoughts might well be devoted. Life is certainly a pleasanter thing if the inevitable daily drudgery be relieved by a little lightness, brightness, and intelligent enjoyment. The craving for amusement is a natural one, and within proper bounds it ought to be gratified. And there is surely no better entertainment for the spare hours of an intelligent man than the embellishment of his home, so that it will be an agreeable place for himself and his family to dwell in, and for his friends to visit. He may be assured that his children as they grow up will become better men and women, and more useful members of society, if they live in a home which is itself a work of art, and in which they are surrounded by objects stimulative to the intellect, the imagination, and to all the better feelings of their natures.
This making home a work of art is not a piece of sentimentalism, but it is one which ought to address itself in the strongest manner to the minds of all practical people. There is nothing better worthy of adornment than the house we live in; and a home arranged and fitted up with taste will be better cared for, it will beget habits of greater neatness, it will inspire nobler thoughts, it will exert a pleasanter influence, not only on its inmates, but on the whole neighborhood, than one fitted with the costliest objects selected with indiscrimination, without plan, and merely for the purpose of ostentatious display.
It has been said that there is sure to be contentment in a home in the windows of which can be seen birds and flowers, and it may also be said that there will be the same conditions wherever there are pictures on the walls. A room without pictures is like a room without windows. Pictures are loop-holes of escape to the soul, leading to other scenes and other spheres. They are consolers of loneliness, they are books, they are histories and sermons which we can read without turning over the leaves. The sweet influence of flowers is no less than that of paintings. At all seasons of the year they are gladly welcomed. They are emblematic of both the joys and sorrows of life, and religion has associated them with the highest spiritual verities. Faded though they may sometimes be, they have the power to wake the chords of memory and make us children again. At the sick-bed and marriage feast, on altar and cathedral walls they have a meaning, and the humblest home looks brighter where they bloom.
Many a child goes astray, not because there is a want of prayers or virtue at home, but simply because home lacks sunshine. A child needs smiles as much as flowers sunbeams. Children look little beyond the present moment. If a thing pleases them they are apt to seek it, if it displeases they are prone to avoid it. Children are great imitators, and are never so happy as when trying to do what they see other people do. Their plays consist in copying actual affairs of the older ones, and these amusements often really prepare the children for the actual business of life, so that they may sooner become helpful to their parents. They should be watched and encouraged, therefore, in their plays to habits of thoughtfulness and self-reliance. It is to be hoped that games of skill, which shall try the wit and patience of both parents and children, will become the fashion of the times, until every home in the land shall be supplied with these accessories of pleasure, until every child shall have in his father's house, be it humble or costly, such appliances and helps for his entertainment that he shall find his amusements under his father's roof and in his father's presence.
Among home amusements the best is the good old habit of conversation, the talking over the events of the day in bright and quick play of wit and fancy, the story which brings the laugh, and the speaking the good, kind, and true things which all have in their hearts. Conversation is the sunshine of the mind, an intellectual orchestra where all the instruments should bear a part. Cultivate singing in the family. The songs and hymns your childhood sung, bring them all back to your memory; and teach them to the little ones. Mix them all together, to meet the varying moods as, in after life, they come over us so mysteriously. Is it not singular what trifles sometimes serve to wake the memories of youth? And what more often than snatches of olden songs not heard for many years, but which used to come from lips now closed forever? Thus the home songs not only serve to make the present home life happy and agreeable, but the very memory of it will serve as a shield of defense in times of trial and temptation. At times, amid the crushing mishaps of business, a song of the olden time breaks in upon the weary thoughts and guides the mind into another channel—light breaks from behind the cloud in the sky, and new courage is given us.
Parents do well to study the character of the younger ones. The majority of parents do not understand their children. They are kept under restraint, and are not properly developed; they live a life of fear rather than of love, which should not be. Home should be the bright sanctuary of our hearts, the repository of all our thoughts. Have confidence in each other, and the seeds properly sown will spring forth with fruits that will bud and blossom, but never die. What is comparable to a well regulated, happy home? It is our heaven below, where each thought will vibrate in perfect unison.
In the great majority of cases it will be found that the frequenters of saloons and places of low resort have not pleasant homes. It should be the duty of all to strive to make home so happy that each evening will furnish pleasant memories to lighten the load of another day. Make it so happy that you do not tire of it, but long for the hour when your day's toil is over, and you desire to reach it as the happiest and dearest place on earth. Parents should more earnestly consider the importance of home culture, home happiness, home love. The latter should be the ruling element, for all the household is moved by the surrounding influences, and when a spirit of love broods over the household, how kind, gentle, and considerate do all its members become!
There are some persons who apparently live more for the admiration of others than for their own household, and have a smile for all but those who should be the nearest and dearest. This is almost criminally wrong; they could take no surer course to make a complete wreck of their own happiness and the home happiness. Whatever vexatious troubles parents meet in their daily life, it is their duty no less than it should be their chief pleasure to strive, as far as possible, to throw around the home an atmosphere of joy and happiness, to make home the dearest spot on earth, so that when, with the passage of years, the children go from thence to new and untried scenes, the memory of home will bring to the heart a thrill of joyful recollections, and thus give them a new courage to take up the burden of life.
