Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1858-11-27

ity is the only thing locked up today, and Par
| simony is expelled; Generosity comes instead,
and open handed Abundance. 1t is the grand
day of Family Joy and liberty, in which it is a
sin TO be sober and virtue to be merry.
But, as we must for yet awhile tarry here,we
will beguile our WEAKNESS by that which it is
the next thing to hOme-a discourse of home:
l. God be thanked for The HOUSE. The heart
cannot carry all it feels, and so it overhows ev-
ery day, and the house is the place where all Its
streams do collect The heart is like plant in
the tropics, which all the year round is bearing
flowers and ripening seed, and letting them fly.
| 1t is shaking off memories, and dropping assO-
Citations. The joys of last year are ripe seeds
that will come up in joy again next year Thus
the heart is planting seeds in every nook and
corner; and as a wind which serves to PROSTATE
plant is only a sower coming forth to sow its
seeds, planting some of them in rock erevices,
some by river courses, some among messy
stones, some under warm hedges, and some in
gardens and open fields, so is 1t with our expert
| ences of life, that sway and bow US either with
! joy or sorrow. They plant everything around
about us with heart seeds Thus HOUSE be-
comes sacred. Every room hath memory, and
thousand of them; every door and each win
/ DOW Is CluSIeIGU Will ASSOGldllOllS.
After years and years we 90 back to the house
of our infancy, and faces Chat long have looked
up without seeing the roots that grow over them)
/ look out upon US, and an invisible multitude
stand in gate and portal to welcome us, and
airy voices speak again the old words which
men do not hear except in childhood and in the
house.
One pities spirits that have no bodies. Poor
| things what a modification it must be to fit
about like a shadow, OF so unsubstantlal that
men can lCOk through you and not know that
you are there. 1t may be all well enough in
August to wish oneself cloud, riding in fleece
| high up in the cool air But when one has in
Autumn and Winter heard his own footsteps
awhile, grasped substantial hands and clasped
forms that he could feel, he feels natural pity
for poor misty spirits that cannot condense
enough to be palpable to the senses. But what
a poor, shivering, restless, rapping sprite is
without body, that is a living man without A
HOUSE. He cannot take root. 4 man at hO-
tel is like a grapevine in a fower-pot, movable,
carried round from place to place, docked at the
root and short at the top There is no where
that man can get real root-roOm, and spread
out his branches till they touch the morning and
the evening, but in his Ol1a house. If l could
should be glad to live in the house that my an
cestors had lived in from the days of the Flood!
That cannot be, for in ascending the line of an
cestry, find the people but not the houses;
and It is more than suspected that some of them
never owned one. My fathers house 1t is like
a picture rubbed out The frame and canvas
are there but strangers have possessed it
The room where ] was born, where nv moth
er rocked my cradle, and sang as angels do,
where she died, where all my boyish frolics be-
gan and life spread out its golden dTeam-they
are all overlaid by other histories. Weplanted
pleasant things in the old house, but the Assyr-
ians came in and settled down in them. The
educating power of house cannot be over-esti-
mated. 1t is doubtful whether civilization would
not totally change its character, if men should
cease to live in their own permanent houses
One has the advantage of a house and house.
hold-the other not family without house
is camp merely fortified for the night; but
family 10 a house of their own, are family in
permanent fortifcatiOn. 1t is well called
HOUSEHOLD as if 1t was 4 fort and citadel, into
which men may run all their life long and be
secure A nation of men on wheels would re-
main Calmucks forever A rolling stone gath
ers no moss.
II The TABLE I do not believe that we
think enough OF that purifying power which do
nestle affection has TO clothe and hide all the
animal necessities of our physical nature. 1t
has always seemed to me very strange thing
that man should be an ealing animal. l have
wondered that he was not made like misletoe,
mounted on some branch which does its eating
for it, and serves up to its daily wants'digested
sap. Or that he was not EpiphyteS, OF air
plant, that hooks on to the bark and swings in
the air, collecting food from wind and atmos-
phere. For Gmitating philosophers when they
would confuse knowledge) eatiug, per sc, is
mouth is but a mill. Therein go perpetual
grists for grinding. The eye hath certain no.
bleness, as it is the sun ofthe head, and shoots
forth beams of light. The ear takes in-but it
is only impalpable sounds. The nose is re-
eipient, but only Of such parts of things as are
too ETHEREAL for form and which exhale in odors.
But the mouth is a strange aperture into which
men cast untold substance, and it hath never
yet been filled Nor do l believe that any man
can quietly watch the steps of eating, grinding,
and swallowing, as a mere animal act, unclothed
from associations, without feeling more disgust
han he would at pigs banquet from the noisy
trough.
And yet, if there is one word that is univer-
sally significant of love, peace, refinement, So
cial amenity, friendship, pure sOcie.y, joy-itis
the TABLE. Suchpower hath the heart to clothe
the most unseemly things with its own sweet
iONcIS LlldI W Z nave ilOI Only
forgotten that eating is an animal act, but we
have eouue to associate everything that is sweet
and beautiful with it. We no longer think of
appetite, but of love 1t is not food, but socie.
ty, that we have. We cover the merest ami.
NAL necessities with such sympathies, tastes, |
Joys, conversations, and gayetes, that the table,
the symbol of appetite, has cleared itself from |
all grossness, and stands. in the language of the
world as the center of social joy-a feast be-
comes sacred hospitality; festival is a religious
observance.
III. Next in the house is the CHAMBER -
Naturally it is the lCaSte-TOOm; six or seven |
hours Of every day men are breathing corpses
the face discharges expressions the brain gives
up thinking life has gone; only the animal |
lies there, pulsating, breathing, snoring-help-
less as an infant-unnotieing as a statue; all
gone, all vacant empty, useless. Looked at
without educated associations there is no diff
ference between a man in bed and man in a
coffin.
And yet, such is the power of the heart to
redeem the animal life, and cIothe all rude and
1ncomely things with its own leaf bearing
branches, that there is nothing more exquisitely
refined and pure and beautiful than the cham
Der of The house in the house. Sleep-it has
sProuted up with all the flowers of poets -
The couch From the day that the bride sane
ifies it to the day that the aged mother is borne
rom it, it stands clothed with dignity and beau
~ Cursed be the tongue that dare speak evil
If the household bed By its side oscillates the
,radle, not far from it is the crib. In this sa-
red precinct, the mothers chamber, lies the
leart of the family Here the child learns its
prayer. Hither night by night angels troop
1t is the Holy of Holes.
". The KITCHEN. Let US not see in this
he mere mandatory of Gates and pottage.-
Let it stand it is, as the symbol of charitable
the room for the service of the
superior 10 the inferior. The law of God is,
hat they who are superior in endowment and