The Hancock Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Ohio) 1857-1870, 1865-05-12
Volume ll-Number 81.
Our House.

There Is q place called 'Our House.,
which everybody knows OIL The sal.
lor talks of 1t In his dreams at sea-
The wounded soldier, turning In his
uneasy hospital bed, brightens at the
word; IT is like the touch of cool fin.
gers on burning brow. Our house,
he says, feebly, and the light comes
back into his dim eyes; for allhomely
charities, all fond thoughts. all puri.
ties, all that man loves on earth or
hopes for 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 we'll sweep, or the one story,
gamhel rooted cottage, or the large,
square white house, with green blinds,
under the wind swung elms Of q cen.
tury, or it may be the log cabin ofthe
wilderness, with its one room, still
there is a spell IN the memory of IL
beyond all COMPUTATIONS. Its stone
and brick and mortar are like no 9th.
er; its very clap-boards are dear to
us, powerful to bring back the mem.
ories of early day, and all that is ss-
cred in home love.
There is no one fact OF our human
existence that has stronger infu-
ence, upon us than the house we
dwell in, especially that in which our
earlier and more impressive years are
spent. The building and arrange.
ment of house influence the health,
the comfort the morals, the religion.
There have been houses butt so de.
void of all consideration for the oc-
cupants, so rambling and hap-hazard
in the disposal of rooms, so useless
and chcerless, and wholly without
snugness or privacy, as to make it
seem, seem impossi9ls ie eeliySa5! 5!NiKG&niy 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 and manner Of
civilized and christianized men, which
are so inhuman in their building that
they can only he called snares and
traps for souls--places where chill.
dren cannot well escape growing up
filthy and impure--pIaccs where to
form q home is impossible, and to
live decent, Christian life would re.
quire miraculous strength
A celebrated British philanthro.
pist, who had devoted much study to
the dwellings of the poor, gave it his
opinion that temperance societies
were hopeless undertaking In Lon
don, unless these dwellings under.
went transformation. They were
so squalid, so dark,so comfOrtless, so
constantly pressing upon the senses
of foulness, pain, and Inconvenience,
that it was only by being drugged
with gin and Opium that their miser-
able inhabitants could find heart to
drag on life from day to-day. He
had himself the experiment Of reform
ing drunkard by taking him from
ono of these loathsome dens and en-
abling him to rent a tenament in
block of model lodging houses which
had been built under his supervision.
Tie young man had been designer
of figures for prints; he was of deli
cate frame, and nervous, suscepli
ble temperament. Shut in one mis-
cradle room with his wife and little
chidren, without the possibility of
pure air, with only filthy, fetid water
to drink, with the noise of other mis-
cradle families resounding through
the thin partitions, what possibility
was there of doing anything except
by the help of stimulants, which for
brief hour lifted him above these
miseries2 Changed at once TO q neat
| fiat, where, for the same rent as his
former den, he had three good rooms,
with water for drinking, house SER
vice, and bathing freely supplied, and
the blessed sunshine and air coming in
through windows well arranged for
ventilation, became in few weeks q
new man. In the charms OF the lit.
4 tie spot, his former talent came back
to him, and he found strength, in
pure air and water and those purer
thoughts of which they are emhlems.
/ to abandon buring and stupefy stun.
ulents.