Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1844-11-01
MISCELLANEOUS.
A Wife's Welcome.

tThe world well tried-the sweetest thing in life
Is the uncouded welcome of Il wife,
believe that, with all my heart. | have tasted
some ofthe sweets of life, and with as keen rel
ish for them any one, but | sing to the above
declaration, and do not care to know the man,
who calls it in question.
That ,vsicome has reclaimed many a wanderer
on ruins verge; has preserved many, who, but for
it, would have gone astray; given life and peace
to the heart of many a sou of toll and care, and
made the cottage of the poor an Eden.
The oUant of it has driven many man to the
bowl, the gaming table, the company of the disco
lutte, to hell. 1t has made many home prison,
many husband an enemy, many a father d ty
rant; many children fatherless, and many wives
widows, whose fathers yet live. And when | see
a man negecting lovely looking wife, and seek
ing his pleasure in the hauntS of sin, to know
whether most to pity or to blame him | wish to
know if the wife of his bosom always gave him
the unclouded welcome of smile, when he enter
ell his own door.
IL she did, but he cared not for tiff she spread
the wes Of her pure love to Irvine his heart, while
he broke away from the sweet enchantment; if
she made it sunshine always in the house and was
cheerful in adversely as well AS gay in the hours
of joy-f she strove to be angel at the gate to
keep him within the Eden that she loved while he
would yield to the song of the syren, and wan der
from the arms that embraced him, to sc EEK the en-
braces of others, even Of the abandoned then he
is a villain hated of God and justly despised of
men. And such are many Of those whom we see
on the road to ruin. The love of fond wife
would have saved them, but they rejected it and
deserve to perish.
But it-and it is a serious sf-she meets him re-
turning from his days care and toll, in the field
or the shop, or the office, the study, or the TO-
rum, or the Senate Git matters not where or what
his labors, he flies from them with Joy to find re-
pose aud peace in the paradise of his own home J
but if she whom he loves meets him without the
joyous welcome of glad heart and a sunlight eye
or with trown or look Of cold Indifference, or
the mere absence Ofdeght; if she meets him mo-
with The living, speaking, shining evidence tina
her heart leaps with g,adness when her lord ha,
come, it is not strange to me that his heart sinks
and he seeks for pleasures where he looks NOT fn
love. He can he happy without love abroad, bu
home though heaven full of angels, without low
is hell.
Love is thing of fral and delicate growth;
Soon checked, tostered, feeble and yet strong
1t will endure much, suffer long, and bear
What would weigh down an angels wing to earth
And yet mount heaven-ward, butnot the less
1t dieth Ola word, "a look, thoughts
And when it dies it dies without sign
To tell how fair it was in happier hours;
1t leaves behind reproaches and regrets,
And bitterness with affections well,
For which there was no healing"
There is truth as well as poetry in this, and o
the domestic circle, where poetry never had wol
shipper, has felt the sad power of this truth. {"
word, II look" has been the death blow of love tn;
shed bliss in that circle, and has driven "A fond hu
band forth to seek relief for wounded spirit
scenes that allure to destroy. Mrs. Ellis in he
wives of EngIand,' has most happily drawn I'll
portrait ola wife as she should he, "a being
come home to- 1t is not wit, beauty, nor wealt
nor religion, that makes wife n crown Of rejo
ing to the husband Nor all these combined
wife may have them all AMI love her husband no
give him an uncouded welcome never; make b
house no home.
80 man may bear with sufferiugs; his heart
Is strong thing and godlikc in the grasp