Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1893-07-12
For the Herald and Tribune.
HOME.

My dear readers-How many
thoughts have you ever given to the
sublime grandeur and deep meaning of
the IL word, Home. Speaking of home
in q literal sense, it is a world to the
members of it, and in a spiritual sense
it is all in all to every one who antici-
pates the future home of the soul. 1t
is in a literal sense that | first wish to
speak of Home as the earthly abiding
place of man, woman and children.
Often in my travels among strangers
while mixing among all classes of peo-
pie from those that live in the fine pole
cabin to the millionaire in his fine
mansion, my mind would wonder far
away to the word Home of my child
hood, where there lived those that low
ed me and were loved in return, and
often those poetical lines would come
to my mind. Home, home, sweet
home. Be it ever so humble, theirs no
place like home. l have seen the fine
mansion with its beautiful and COY
parlor and grand piano, all the decora-
tive, arts that were necessary to make
a parlor attractive, and the lovely
yard and parks with broad fertile
acres surrounding those, yet it was not
my ideal home, for the husband was a
drunkard the wife a woman of the
world the children a doless and worth
set, the great prince of home failed to
occupy his proper space in that house.
Again l found another a little less fav-
ored as to worldly goods though he
did not indulge in drink at all, his
home was not so grand as the first, his
whole theme was the almighty dollar.
He skimped himself, wife and children
of all the comforts of life that makes
a house and land a home, he was a
tyrant, his wife a devil and his child
rem young demons. Again l have
seen in the log cabin, where it was a
struggle with the parents to keep the
wolf of poverty from the door, a more
home like disposition than some in
favorable circumstances, yet none of
those are my ideal home. Now dear
reader do not conclude that it is under
the roof of the millionaire that I would
look for a home in the true sense of
the term. Neither in the abode of the
man whose heart and god is the al
mighty dollar nor in povertps hovel.
But in the abode of the man who uses
his means that God has allowed him to
honestly acquire to beautify his home
and furnish it with the commodities
that is essential to the comforts of the
inmates of that home, who furnishes
good books and papers for the minds
OF his family to feast upon as we'll as
bread and meet for the body, who is
ready and willing to lend a helping
hand to those in distress and need,
who does not Cypress the poor and
make them poorer. But in whose
home love is not impoverished by
stinginess but sways the sceptre over
the hearts of father, mother and child
rem Peace pleasure and prosperity
abides in such a home and the occu-
pants OF it are jewels to society and
their in1unce reaches far beyond
the walls of that home, and when by
chance a travler stops at that home he
feels he has found a heaven of rest
and comfort and he sounds the praise
OF it in distant lands. Such a place is
my ideal home. 1t is there the wife
and children meet the father as he re-
turns after his days task is completed
with smiles on their faces and love
beaming from their eyes as they well
come him home, he forgets the cares
and tolls of his work as he enters upon
the threshold of social quietude and
his mind repOses in the sweet bliss of
conteptment. Home sweet home.
S. X. H.