The influences of home perpetuate themselves. The gentle graces of the mother live in the daughter long after her head is pillowed in the dust of death; and the fatherly kindness finds its echoes in the nobility and character of sons who come to wear his mantle and fill his place. While, on the other hand, from an unhappy, misgoverned, and ill-ordered home, go forth persons who shall make other homes miserable, and perpetuate the sorrows and sadness, the contentions and strifes, which have made their own early lives miserable. In every proper sense in which home can be considered, it is a powerful stimulant to noble actions and a high and pure morality. So valuable is this love of home that every man should cherish it as the apple of his eye. As he values his own moral worth, as he prizes his country, the peace and happiness of the world; yea, more, as he values the immortal interests of man, he should cherish and cultivate a strong and abiding love of home.
Home has voices of experience and hearts of genuine holy love, to instruct you in the way of life, and to save you from a sense of loneliness as you gradually discover the selfishness of mankind. Home has its trials, in which are imaged forth the stern struggles of your after years, that your character may gain strength and manifestation, for which purpose they are necessary; they open the portals of his heart, that the jewels otherwise concealed in its hidden depths may shine forth and shed their luster on the world. Home has its duties, to teach you how to act on your own responsibilities. Home gradually and greatly increases its burdens, so that you may acquire strength to endure without being overtasked. Home is a little world, in which the duties of the great world are daily rehearsed.
He who has no home has not the sweetest pleasures of life. He feels not the thousand endearments that cluster around that hallowed spot, to fill the void of his aching heart, and while away his leisure moments in the sweetest of life's enjoyments. Is misfortune your lot, you will find a friendly welcome from hearts beating true to your own. The chosen partner of your toil has a smile of approbation when others have deserted you, a hand of hope when all others refuse, and a heart to feel your sorrows as her own. No matter how humble that home may be, how destitute its stores, or how poorly its inmates may be clad, if true hearts dwell there, it is still a home.
Of all places on earth, home is the most delicate and sensitive. Its springs of action are subtle and secret. Its chords move with a breath. Its fires are kindled with a spark. Its flowers are bruised with the least rudeness. The influences of our homes strike so directly on our hearts that they make sharp impressions. In our intercourse with the world we are barricaded, and the arrows let fly at our hearts are warded off; but not so with us at home. Here our hearts wear no covering, no armor. Every arrow strikes them; every cold wind blows full upon them; every storm beats against them. What, in the world, we would pass by in sport, in our homes would wound us to the quick. Very little can we bear at home, for it is a sensitive place.
If we would have a true home, we must guard well our thoughts and actions. A single bitter word may disquiet the home for a whole day; but, like unexpected flowers which spring up along our path full of freshness, fragrance, and beauty, so do kind words and gentle acts and sweet disposition make glad the home where peace and blessing dwell. No matter how humble the abode, if it be thus garnished with grace and sweetened by kindness and smiles, the heart will turn lovingly towards it from all the tumults of the world, and home, "be it ever so humble," will be the dearest spot under the sun.
There is no happiness in life, there is no misery, like that growing out of the disposition which consecrates or desecrates a home. "He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace at home." Home should be made so truly home that the weary, tempted heart could turn towards it anywhere on the dusty highways of life, and receive light and strength. It should be the sacred refuge of our lives, whether rich or poor.
The affections and loves of home are graceful things, especially among the poor. The ties that bind the wealthy and proud to home may be forged on earth, but those which link the poor man to his humble hearth are of the true metal, and bear the stamp of heaven. These affections and loves constitute the poetry of human life, and so far as our present existence is concerned, with all the domestic relations, are worth more than all other social ties. They give the first throb to the heart, and unseal the deep fountains of its love. Homes are not made up of material things. It is not a fine house, rich furniture, a luxurious table, a flowery garden, and a superb carriage, that make a home. Vastly superior to this is a true home. Our ideal homes should be heart-homes, in which virtue lives and love-flowers bloom and peace-offerings are daily brought to its altars. It is made radiant within with every social virtue, and beautiful without by those simple adornments with which nature is every-where so prolific. The children born in such homes will leave them with regret, and come back to them in after life as pilgrims to a holy shrine. The towns on whose hills and in whose vales such homes are found will live forever in the hearts of its grateful children.
How easy it is to invest homes with true elegance, which resides not with the upholsterer or draper! It exists in the spirit presiding over the apartments of the dwelling. Contentment must be always most graceful; it sheds serenity over the scenes of its abode; it transforms a waste into a garden. The house lighted by those imitations of a nobler and brighter life may be wanting much which the discontented may desire, but to its inhabitants it will be a palace far outvying the Oriental in beauty.
There is music in the word Home. To the old it brings a bewitching strain from the harp of memory, to the middle-aged it brings up happy thoughts, while to the young it is a reminder of all that is near and dear to them. Our hearts turn with unchangeable love and longing to the dear old home which sheltered us in childhood. Kind friends may beckon us to newer scenes, and loving hearts may bind us fast to other pleasant homes; but we love to return to the home of our childhood. It may be old and rickety to the eyes of strangers; the windows may have been broken and patched long ago, and the floor worn through; but it is still the old home from out of which we looked at life with hearts full of hope, building castles which faded long ago. Here we watched life come and go; here we folded still, cold hands over hearts as still, that once beat full of love for us.
Even as the sunbeam is composed of millions of minute rays, the home-life must be constituted of little tendernesses, kind looks, sweet laughter, gentle words, loving counsels. It must not be like the torch blaze of natural excitement, which is easily quenched, but like the serene, chastened light, which burns as safely in the dry east wind as in the stillest atmosphere. Let each bear the other's burden the while; let each cultivate the mutual confidence which is a gift capable of increase and improvement, and soon it will be found that kindness will spring up on every side, displacing unsuitability, want of mutual knowledge, even as we have seen sweet violets and primroses dispelling the gloom of the gray sea-rocks.