Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1864-12-02
Our House..

1herc Is placc calico Our House,
which everybody knows of. Tho sailor
talks Of it in his dreams at sea. The
wounded soldier, turning in his uneasy
hospital bed, brightens vt the word it is
like the dropping Of cool water il the
desert, like the touch Of cool 6ugers on a
burning brow.
Our house may be in any style Of
architecture, high or low. 1t may BE- the
brown old farmhouse with 1t. tall we'll
sweep, or the one story gambrel.roofsd
cottage, or the large, square. white house,
with green blinds, under the wind-swung
Gins of century, Or it may be the log
cabin Of the Wilderness, with its one
oom,-still there is u memory Of it be-
yond all eonjugations. Its stone and
brick and mortar are like 10 other; its
very claPboards are dear to us, powerful
to bring back the memory Of early days,
and all that is sacred in home love-
There is no one fact of our human ez.
lstenee that has stronger influence on Us
than the house we dwell in,-espacialiy
that in which our earlier and more im-
prcssi5le years are spent The building
arrangement OF a house influences the
health, the comfort, the nsrals. the relig.
ion. There have been houses built 80 de-
void oE all consideration for the occspsnts
SO rambling and hap-hazard il the dis
posal Of rooms, SO sunless and chsselsss,
and wholly without snugnsss or privacy,
as to make it seem impossible to live a
joyous, generous, rational religious, faMi-
By life in them.
There are, We shame to say, things call
ed houses, built and reated by people who
walk erect and have the general air and
manner of civilized and Christianzsd
men, which are SO inhuman in their build
ing that they can ouly be called snares
and traps for souls-paces where child
ren cannot well escape growing up filthy
and impurs,-places where to form .
home is impossible, and to live decent,
Christian life would require miraculous
strength.
A celebrated British philanthropist, who
had devoted much study to the dwellings
of the poor, gave it as his opinion that
temperance societies were a hopeless un-
dcrtaking in London, unless these dwell
ings underwent transformation. They
were SO squalld, so dark, SO comfo.tless,
SO constantly pressing upon the senses
foslncss, pain, and Inconvenience, that it
was only by being druggsd with gin and
opium that their miserable inhabitants
could find heart to drag on life from day
to day. lie had himself tried the expe.
rment Of reforming drunkard by taking
him from one of these dens and enabling
him to rent tenement in . block Of
model lodging-houses which had been
built under his supervision. The young
man had been desi gaer of igures for
prints; he was Of delicate frame, aud q
nervous, susceptible temperament.
Shut in one miserable room with his
wife and little children, without the posi-.
bilty of pure air, With the only filthy,
ic,id water TO drink, with the noise Of
other miserable families resounding thro'
tho thin partitions, what possibility was
there Of doing anything except by the
help Of stimulants, which for briet hour
lifted him above these miscries? Chang
ed at once to neat fat, where, for the
same rent as his former den, he has three
good rooms, with water for drinking,
aouse service and bathing, freely supplied,
and the blessed sunshine asd air coming
in through windows we'll arranged for
ventilation, he became in few weeks q
new man. In the charms of the little
spot he calls home, its quiet. its order,Lis
former talent came back to him, and be
found .treagth in pure air and water, and
those purer thoughts of which they are
emblsms, to abandon burning and stupe-
fyi stimulants.-Mrs. Sto,oe.