Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-03-17

may express aHectlOn without being though1
silly. There is the place whore we may
forget our annoyances and exasperations
and troubles. Forlorn earth pilgriml nc
home? Then die. That is better. The
grave is brighter and grander and more
glorious tran this world with no tent from
marchings, with no harbor from the storm
with no place of rest from this scene o1
greed and gouge, and loss and gain. Goo
pity the man or the woman who has nc
home
| Further, remark, that home is polit
ical safeguard. The safety of the. State
must be built on the safety of the home
Why cannot France come toa placid repuc.
| lie? Ever and anon there is threat Of
national capsize. France as a nation mas
not the right kind of a Christian home. Ihe
Christian hearthstone is the only corner.
stone for republic. The virtues cultured
| in the family circle are an absolute neces-
sity for the State. If there be not enough
| moral principle to make the family abb sre,
| there will not be enough political principle
to make the State adhere. "No home''
means the Goths and Vandals, means the
Nomads of Asia, means the Numideans OF
Africa, changing from place to place, ac-
cording as the pasture happens to change.
Confounded be all those Babels of iniquty
which would overtower and destroy the
home. The same storm that upsets the
ship in which the family sails will sink the
frigate of the Constitution. Jails and peni-
tentiaries and armies and navies are not our
best defence. The door of the home is the
best fortress. Household utensils are the
best artillery, and the chimneys of our
dwelling houses are the grandest monu-
mentS of safety and triumph. No home
No republic.
Further, I remark, that home is school.
Old ground must be turned up with sub
soil plough, and it must be narrowed and
reharrowed, and then the crop will not be
as large as that of the new ground with less
culture. Now, youth and childhood are
new ground, and all the influences thrown
over their heart and life will come up in af-
ter life luxuriantly. Every time you have
given a smile of approbation-all the good
cheer of your life will come up again in the
geniality of your children. And every
ebullition of anger and every uncomfortable
display of indignation will be fuel to their
disposition twenty or thirty or forty years
from now-fuel for bad fire quarter of
century from this. You praise the intel
ligence of your child too much sometimes
when you think he is not aware of it, and
you will see the result of it before ten years
of age in his annoying affectations. You
praise his beauty, supposing he is not large
enough to understand what you say, and
you will find him standing on high chair
before flattering mirror. Words and
deeds and example are the seed of charac-
ter, and children are very apt to be the Sec
ond edition of their parents. Abraham be-
gat Isaac, so virtue is apt to go down in the
ancestral line but Herod begat Archelaus,
so iniquity is transmitted. What vast re-
sponsibility comes upon parents in view of
this subject!
O! make your home the brightest place
on earth, if you would charm your children
to the high path of virtue and rectitude and
religion. Do not always turn the blinds
the wrong way. Let light which puts gold
on the gentian and spots the pansy pour in
to your dwellings,. Do not expect the little
feet to keep step to a dead march. Do not
cover up your walls with such pictures as
Vests "Death on a Pale Horse" or Tinto-
retto's Massacre of the Innocents Rath-
er cover them, if you have pictIs@s. with
''The Hawking Party" and "The Mill by
the Mountain Stream" and ''The Fox
and s'The Harvest Scene" and THE Sat-
Get you no hint of cheerfulness from
grasshopper's leap, and lamb fisk, and
quail's whistle, and garrulous streamlet,
which from the rock at the mountain top
clear down to the meadow ferns under the
shadow Of the steep, comes looking for the
steepest place to leap off at, and talking
just to hear itself talk? If all the skies
hurtled with tempest, and everlasting storm
wandered over the sea. and every mountain
stream went raving mad, frothing at the
mouth with mud-foam, and there were
nothing but simooms blowing among the
hills, and there were neither lark's carol
nor humming- birds trill, nor waterfalls
dash, but only a bears bark, and panther's
scream, and WOLF howl, then you might well
gather into your homes only the shadows.
But when God has strewn the earth and the
heavens with beauty and with gladness, let
us take into our home circles all innocent
hilarity, all brightness and all good cheer.
A dark home makes bad boys and bad girls,
in preparation for bad men and bad women.
Above all, my friends, take into your
homes Christian principle. Can it be that
in any of the comfortable homes of my con-
gregation theyoice of prayer is never lifted?
What! No supplication at night for pro-
lection? What! No thanksgiving in the
morning for care? How, my brother, my
sister, will you answer God in the day Of
judgment, with 1eferencesto your children
1t is plain question, and therefore ask
it. In the tenth chapter of jeremiah God
says he will pour ont his fury upon the fam
lilies that call not upon his name. o, par
ents! when you are dead and gone and the
moss is covering the inscription of the
tombstone. will your children look back
and think of father and mother at family
prayer? Will they take the old family Bi
BILE and open it and see the mark of tears of
contrition and tears Of consoling promise
wept by eyes long before gone out into dark
ness? Oh, if you do not inculcate Chris
tian principle i'll the hearts of your children,
and you do not warn them against evil, and
you do not invite them to holiness and to
God, and they wander off into dissipation
and into infidelity, and at last make ship
wreck of their immortal souls, on their
death-bed and in their day of Judgment
they will curse you! Seated by the register
or the stove, what if on the wall should
come out the history of your children p
What a history-the mortal and immortal
life OF your loved ones! Every parent is
writing the history of his child. He is
writing it, composing it into song or turn
ing it into groan.
Ny mind runs back to one of the best of
early homes Prayer, like a roof, over it.
Peace, like an atmosphere, in it. Parents,
personifcation of faith in trial and comfort
in darkness. The two pillars of that earth
ly home long ago crumbled to dust. But
shall ever forget that early home? Yes,
when the flower forgets the sun that warns
it. Yes, when the mariner forgets the star
that guided him. Yes, when love has gone
out ON the hearts altar and memory has
emptied its urn into forgetfulness. Then,
the home of my childhood, will forget
thee; the family altar of fathers impor-
tunity and a mothers tenderness, the voices
of affection, the funerals of our dead father
and mother, with interlocked arms like in
tertwining branches of trees making a per-
petnal arbor of love and peace and kindness
then | will forget them-then and only
then. You know, my brother, that hum
died times you have been kept out of sin
by the memory of such scene as have
been describing. You have often had
raging temptations, but you know what has
held you with supernatural grasp. I tell
you man who has had such good home
as that never gets over it, and man who
has had bad early home never gets over
it.