Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1869-04-30
Home Influence"
BY DUP PORTER.

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is to guide the feet through the dark, slip
perry places in the journey of life. Ana
what is childhood without home,-a
home full of all that makes up the fullness
of that word. $50
It is not strange that so many life boats
are wrecked; that so many go down Almost
in sight of the lights that glimmers from
the headiands of the =" other shore, TOR
manv are launched at once from the stocks
of being; into the rough and troubled
waters with no quiet gentle stretch of
childhood folded in the sheltered shores of
mother-land, where, from the beacon lights
of home. Gods eternal 'watchfires cast out
a path of light to the islands of the blessed.
The ways of sin are full of those that
some shock has thrown out of their course,
and they are drifting without chart at
the mercy of, the storm, because the fires
on the home affairs are dead, and there are
no lights in the windows by which they
may lay their, course. They were washed
from the mornings of fbirth,t before the
sails were trimmed or the ballast taken in,
and the sea of life is specked with empty,
desolate shulls, that should have borne to
the harbor of peace, the priceless treasures
of long life voyage. We see sometimes,
as if in a vision, what life should be. God
knows we see often enough what it IS.
We see the wrecks around us and sail right
on without asking where the shoals are
that broke them up. yo,fes,.e g-,.f, g..
When the gates Of youth have closed
behind young man and he is about to 60
out alone to the battle of life, he should be
rich in all the lessons and the true love
that father and mother have to give, for
if they have been true to him, his whole
life thus far has been spent in gathering
from the rich field that their love has
opened. He has stood upon the mountain
tops of their experience, while they have
pointed out the way across the perilous
plains below. His pilgrim scrip is filled
with kindly words of counsel and much
good cheer, and when the parting hand
is given he feels in his parents hearts the
unspoken words, /" My son, if you fall,
even among thieves of temptation, and in
the paths of sin, and if in the darkness
you cannot find your way, arise and come
back to your fathers house. - aat
Can such young man fall? can he do
anything that is not noble and true and
manly? No, for whatever he may be he
can see the home lights and loved faces
pressed against the windows looking TO-
wards him. 49,
The daughter needs help all the way up
the hill of life, for though she be mother,
she is always daughter. How often
must the young girl 60 to strangers or go
alone, when an hour, a step may change
the destiny of life forever. How the
cries of the lost come up to us because
home was not home to the hearts hungry
warnings and the young souls deepest
needs. Homeless, might be written on
the record of every lost soul, as the cause
of the shame that curses it. ~
More than all, children need in their
tenderest years the sweet influences that
can only be found within the sacred walls
of .home. Without it never can they be
led into the development of true life, and
might have been'' must be the judgment
of the angels who watch over the broken
flowers. s8sig) - .s{Qo Eait33H +
3 How important, how mighty, how sacred
and holy is this home power, and yet how
careless and Indifferent fathers and mothers
stand as day after day waits before them,
with grand, glorious opportunities that
reach down to ages and generations yet
unborn, then turn away and are sealed up
forever. 60 .-,... ~ s. 49, g..f
The sins of the parents may be visited
upon the children, but the sting strikes
back again into the parents souls.
Children, as clay soft and yielding, are
put into the hands. of parents, and every
mark upon them shows the Impress of
their influence be it good or i'll yet how
few know their children, how few feel the
yearning tendrils5 reaching out that must
cling to something @.' -.i'
Mothers, day by day, pass by the open
fields Of their childrens souls and sow no
golden seed. "A fair page, pure, spotless,
from Gods own hand, waits before them
they write thereon no living words Of truth.
Insthe holy of holies they unconscious stand
with profaning feet, and their unhallowed
hands are laid upon the altar of God in the
form of child, for not. every woman who
has been annointed with mother-pain has
yet received the seal of her priesthood.
IF there are any dwarfed, stunted, mis-
shapen lives, it is because they did not re-
ceive the dew and the rain and the sun
shine of mothers love and fathers
affection in the time of their hungry need.
Home was not to them home, as home
should be to all that are called into being
here. Though the life be so degraded, so
revolving now, there was atime when ii
felt the upward reaching aspirations that
come to every soul, ard the struggles Of
the possibilities trying to break through
the dull, unsatisfying actual it was once
waiting, longing for light, for truth, and
then mothers hand and a fathers care,
within the garden walls of home, could
have changed the current of life and sent
il in the sunshine singing to the flowers
on its way, over to the shining pebbles, to
the sea Of Gods infinity Of love. Z.
Home should be made so true that the
weary heart can. turn to it anywhere on
the way of life and receive strength, as
t" the faithful turn their faces toward the
Mecca of their souls when prayer is Of
fered up. The fires on the home alter
should throw the light of morning in the
Swallowed places, and brighten the gates
of the city of our rest, so there need be
none lost, and none strangers in our
Fathers house of many mansions
#Erom "The Laws of Life " published at Dansville,
New-York, by Austin, jackson Co, at 81 year.
Those who read and practice its teachings lengthen
their lives, and will have healthy offspring. If able
we would send it to every home in the land. 4.
Religious Intelligence. Il
ga o. .Hl.as. TO ss.is.gsg sen ts.5-