The Bolivar bulletin. (Bolivar, Tenn.) 1888-1946, 1897-02-19

are at home you are everywhere,
whether you demonstrate it or not.
Again, i remark that home 10 ref
uge. Life is the United States army
on the national road to Mexico, q long
march with ever and anon % 6kirmish
and a battle. At eventide we pitch
our tent and stack our arms; we hang
up tho war cap and lay our head on
the knapsackI we sleep until the morn
ing bugle calls US to marching and ac-
ton. How pleasant it is to rehearse
the victories and surprises and the at
tacks of the day, seated by the still
campfire of the home circlel
Yea, life is a stormy sea. With
shivered masts and torn sails and hulk
aleak, we put int the harbor of home.
Blessed harborl there we go for re-
pairs in the dry dock of quiet life. The
candle in the window is to the toiling
man the lighthouse guiding him into
port. Children go forth to meet their
fathers as pilots at the Narrows take
the hand of ships. The doorsil of the
home Is the wharf where heavy life is
unladen.
There is the place where we may
talk of what we have done without be-
ing charged with self-adulation. There
is the place where we may lounge with
out being thought ungraceful. There
is the place where we may express af-
lection without being thought silly.
There is the place where we may for
get our annoyances and exasperations
and troubles. Forlorn earth-pilgriml
no home? Then die. That is better.
The grave is brighter and grander and
more glorious than this world, with
no tent from marchings, with no har-
Dor from the storm, with no place to
rest from this scene of greed and
gouge and loss and gain. God pity
the man or woman who has no homel
Further, Iremark, that home is po-
litical safeguard. The safety of the
state must be built on the safety of
the home. The Christian heartstone
is the only cornerstone for a repub-
lie. The virtues cultured in the fam
lily circle are an absolute necessity for
the state. If there be not enough
moral principle to make the family
adhere there will not be enough polit-
zeal principle to make the state ad-
here. No home" means the Cloths
and Vandals, means the nomads of
Asia, means the Numidians of Afri-
ca, changing from place to place &C.
cording as the pasture happens to
change. COMPOUNDED be all those Ba-
bells of iniquity which would overflow
er 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 defense. 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 monuments of safety and
triumph. No home, no republicl
Further, remark that home is
school. Old ground must be turned
up with subsoil plow, and it must be
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 afterlife luxuriantly. Every time
you have given smile of appreciation
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 dis
play of indignation will be fuel TO |
their disposition 20, or 30, or A. years
from now-fuel for bad fire a quar-
ter of century from this. You praise |
the intelligence of your child too much |
when you think he is not |
aware of it, and you will see the result |
Of it before ten years of age in his an
noying affectations. You praise his |
beauty, supposing he is not large
enough to understand what you say,
and you will find him standing on a |
nigh chair before a Aattering mirror. |
Words and deeds and example are the |
seed of a character, and children are
very apt to be the second edition of |
heir parents. Abraham begat Isaac,
20 virtue is apt to go down the ances-
,ral line; but Harold begat Archelaus,
10 iniquity is transmitted. What vast
comes upon parents in
view of this subject.
Oh, make your home the brigL4te
place on earth, if you would charm
vour children to the high path of virtue
md rectitude and religion. Do not al
4ays turn the blinds the wrong way.
Let the light which puts gold on the
,entian and spots the pansy pour into
your dwellings. Do not expect the
title feet to keep step to dead march.
Do not cover up your walls with such
pictures as Vests death on Pale
Horse" or Tintoretto's Massacre of
he Innocents." Rather cover them,
f you have pictures, with THE Hawk
H. |
Mountain Stream" and The Fox
Iunt," and 1.-THE Children Amid Flow
,rs," and 1.-THE Harvest Scene" and
The Saturday Night Marketing"
Get you no hint of cheerfulness from
leap, and lambs frisk,
md quail's whistle, and garrulous
treamlet, which, from the rock at the
clear down to the mead
wv ferns under the shadow of the
teep, comes looking for the steepest
lace to leap off at, and talking just to
lear itself talk? If all the skies
lurtled with tempest, and everlasting
torn wandered over the sea, and
very mountain stream went raving
mad, frothing at the mouth with mad
Dam, and there were nothing but ST.
Moons blowing among the hills, and
here were neither lark's carol nor
trill, nor waterfalls
ash, but only bears bark, and pan
hers scream, and VOLTS howl, then
GU might well gather into your
zones only the shadows. But when
rod has strewn the earth and the
eavens with beauty and with glad
ess, let us take into our home circles
Ii innocent hilarity, all brightness,
nd all good cheer. A dark home
makes bad boys and bad girls, in prep
ration for bad men and bad women.
Above all, my friends, take into your