The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1856-12-31

streak through the dew drops on his hair
and yet it could not move him 50, as
to 60 to the side of the hill where his
mother was buried, and sit down there
while the past came back again, and
childhood and love walked before him
in the blessed resurrection Of o vision.
So hath it been ordained, that our early
affections come to us with SAVIOR that
not the strongest later feelings can
give. None know these things 30 we'll
as the emigrant and wanderer, for it
seemeth that 1t was the body which goes
away from home-the heart never emil
CRATES. Are there any reflections 80 So
lacing as the very rememberings of
home-the old farm house, the broad
door stone, the humble hearth, the
meadows where we scared up birds and
found early flowers, the trees that pelted
us with ehestnuts when we pelted them
with clubs, the orchard purpled in Spring
and redolent in Autumn? All thess
are in the remembrance of every man,
if it has been his lot to be born at all,
laughter)-that is, to be born in the
country. Do not such affections as these
bind man to his nat;Te land with cords
that only death can sever? He would
mention, then, the love of home and do
mestic attachments as the third clemens
of patriotism. sas
A birthplace may not be home.
We are not born of moment but. of
many years. First the body is born
but that is not man-then by and, by
the understanding-next the affections,
and last the moral feelings. Nor in this
regard is man thoroughly born until he
is twice born--so that he is being born
for twenty, for twenty-five and in some
instances for thirty years-some forty
and some apparently not then, Laugh
teri Home is the place of early
thought, of mystic imagination, Of poe
try and passion. The first buildings Of
desire, the tender paintings of love were
within the realms of home There were
those weary seasons and the abdominal
days of protuberant Thanksgiving, and
there, also, the shaded days of sickness,
and children weeping away all the little
tears they had and sorry they could shed
no more-and the brighter days of sly
courtship-the festive greetings of the
frmer teachings of religion, the solemn
Sabbath on which birds few and sang,
but children kept still or tried to. We
often speak of home as place of child.
hood, and nursery of the affections; but
IN truth, there is no scene thro' which
we pass in maturer age that has not it's
representative in the experiences Of
home-no affections, no passions, no
yearnings for good, no tastes or dim Wis.
ions of beauty but had their beginnings
there. A mother loves her cradle for
the child that is init, child his faith.
er's house for their sakes whe.a the
house contains-and SO, among other
reasons, we love our country for the
sake of those homes within it. A rude
and unfettered people, if they have
strong domestic affections, viii be In
tensely patriotic; for patriotism comes
not from the head, but from the heart
intelligence may give it breadth and d.
rection, but not intensity. Men who
dwell on sterile soils, and whose hus-
bandry is rather engineering, one would
suppose must hate the place that had SO
tasked them, but, contrary wise, such
men are found to have strong local at
tachments, and strong attachment to
their country. It would seem we love
a place by the extent We put ourselves
into it; and, in like manner, men whe
have suffered for their home, especially
if they have heroically suffered, are
found to have strong feelings of attach
ment to home and country. A people
of great fullness of nature, such as our
people, whose lives require toiling in
larger rphere than home can give, are
not less lovers of home because they are
fond of roaming throughout the world.
The Yankee, to a proverb, is roamsr,
as are the Scotch; but in neither case
is it because home is not dear, but be-
cause it is too strait for them. They
may, however, go to the ends of the earth,
trading in China, happening round the
poles, or preaching in mid Africa, their
native spots come up like enchantment,
and whatever is beautiful abroad is lik-
ened to something at home. This is
mysterious tie that thus connects the
soul with the starting point of our ex-
istence, through distant climes, and
makes us hope in all our wanderings to
return at length to the scenes of child.
hood, where the very tree seems to well
come back the wanderer and sing the
very song of leaves it sung in boyhood,
sending down with stately joy from its
far above boughs greetiDg-and the
heart sighs for its old loves, and whis-
pers to itself, "How sweet it would be,
if, when the final hour shall come, one
might dwell in the spot in which he was
born, and his flesh be gathered with his
ancestral dust until God should call, and
ancels muster the long line of reaurrec.