American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1864-11-16
OlRr EHonla.

There is place called +" Our House
which every body knows of. The
sailor talks of it in his dreams Mt sea.
The wounded soldier, turning in his
uneasy hospital bed, brightens at the
word--it is like the dropping of cold
water in the desert, like the touch of
cold fingers on burning brow. "Our
house, he says feebly, and the light
comes back into his dim eyes-for
all homely charities, all fond thoughts
all pnrities, all that man loves on
earth or hopes for in heaven, rise
with the word.
"Our house" may be in any style
of architecture, low or high. 1t may
be the brown old farm house, with
its tall well-sweep, or the 'one-story
gambrcl-roofed cottage, or the large,
square. white house, with green blinds,
under the wing-swung clms of cen
tury, or it may be the log cabin of
the wilderness, with its one room
still there is a spell in the memory of
it beyond all conjurations. Its stone
and brick and mortar are like no
other; its very clapboards are dear
to us, powerful to bring back the
memories Of early days, and all that
is sacred in home love.
There is no one fact of our human
existence that has stronger inhu-
ence upon us than the house we dwell
in--especially that in which our ear
lier and more impressiblc years arc
spont. The building and arrange
ments of house influence the health,
the morals, the religion. There have .
been houses built so devoid of all con
sidcratssn for the occupants, so ram
bling and hag-hazard in the disposal
Of rooms, so sunless and chcerlass,
and wholly without snugness'or priya-
cy, as to make it seem impossible to
live joyous, generous, rational, re-
ligious family life in them.
There are, we shame to say, in our
cities things called houses, built and
rented by people who walk erect and
have the. general air manner of civil
lied and Christianized men, which
are so inhuman in their building that
they can only be called snares and
raps for souls-placcs where children
cannot we'll escape growing up filthy
and impure places whore to form
a home j, impossible, and to live q
decent Christian life would require
miraculous strength.
A celebrated British philanthro-
pist, who had devoted much study to
dwellings of the poor, gives it rs
his opinion that temperance societies
were hopeless undertakings in Lon 3
don, unless these dwellings under
went transformation. They were
so squallid, so dark, so comfortless, so D,
constantly pressing upon the senses
foulness, brain and inconvenience,
that it was only by being drugged
with gin and opium that their misera-
bic inhabitants could find heart to
drag on life from day to day. He
had himself tried the experiment of
reforming drunkard by taking him
from one of these loathsome dens and
enabling him to rent q tenement in
block of model lodging houses which
had been built under his supervision.
The young man had been designer
of figures for prints; he was of deli
cate frame, and nervous, suscepti-
bic temperament.
Shut in one miserable room with
his wife and little children, without
the possibility of fresh, pure air, with
only filthy, fetid water to drink, with
the noise Of other miserable families
resounding through the thin partition
what possibility was there of doing
anything except by the help of slim
ulants, which for brief hour lifted
him above these miseries Changed
at once to neat fat, where, for the
same rent as his former den, he had
three good rooms, with water for
house service, and bathing
freely supplied and the blessed sum
shine and air coming in through win
dows well arranged for ventilatson,
he became in few weeks a new man.
In the charms of the little spot which
he could call home, it's quiet, its or
der, his former talent came back to
him, and he found strength in pure
air and water, and those pur''r tho'ts
of which they are emblem, to aban-
don burning and Supplying stimu-
lants.-" House and Home Papers,
in atlantic Monthly.