Year: 1879

therS house was the anXlOuSly
awaited return of the annual thanks
giving when children and childrens
children, far and near, were expected
to assemble around the old family
board. For week in advance, the
heated oven is not permitted to cool,
but is in constant requsition in be-
half of the capacious larder, which
must lack nothing of pies, of cakes,
of meats, or puddings. The occa-
sions is religious one. The
thanksgiving sermon and the thanks
giving dinner, are both essential to
the proper repleLishing of the inner
man. But the sermon of an hour
and half in length seemed some
times rather long TO housewives, who
were more concerned for the heat
of the oven on their chicken pies,
left to bake, than for that of the fire
and birthstone with which the sim
ner was threatened who preferred a
shooting match to the divine SER
vice in obedience to the Governors
proclamation. Dinner over, recrca-
tions follow until evening, when the
children have their annual butter.
nut crack upon the old paternal
hearthstone, and all participate of
the provincial bevelage, sweet cider,
from the brown earthen mug, and
choice fruit from n pan before the
fire. Everybody is joyous. In
nocence seasons all hilarity, and the
festal day confirms anew the family
attachment to my fathers house,
with its many mansions within, and
it's frugal competence without. My
fathers house WAS he institution
of New England life, the thing
above every other thing that de-
termined the tone of New England
civilization and gave shape to her in
stitutiOns. One writer has said,
" Give me the organizing of the
homes of a people and l care not


who organizes the State" If the
homes and domestic life of people
he right, it is impossible for either
Church or State to be permanently
wrong, for the very manifest rea-
son that the homes of the people,
each by itself is a State in miniature,
and if all homes be SO organized as
to secure the highest moral and ma
terial well-being of its inmates,
that fact puts organic life into the
State which must mold it into con-
tormity with the highest good of all.
If a State be i'll anarchy, the cause
must be sought elsewhere than in
either the written constitution, or in
the living ministers of power. 1t
must be sought for in the domestic
life of the people, in their homes,
their amusements, their sentiments
and habits. Home is the State to
every child. Here he learns to know
the meaning and authority of law.
Home is the church to every child.
Here, or nowhere, ho gets correct
religious ideas and learns his obi
cations as moral and accountable
agent. Home is o field OF industry
and a school of frugality and virtue
to every child. Here, or nowhere, he
learns to be law-abiding, to be rev.
erent to God, to be frugal and vir-
tuous. If these things be in the
subjects of a governme mt and abound,
anarchy and misrule are impossible.
The early emisrants to this coun-
try, especially the English and the
Dutch, brought with them their
native love of home, and until with
in the last half century, the main
tendency of domestic economy was
to enrich the homes rather than the
pockets of the people. They came
here out of form of society where
the homes of families like the
thrones of governments were fix
ture. These from generation to
generation, were the dwelling places
of the sa me lineage, around which
clustered the memory, and in which
were perpetuated the legends, of
ancestors of former age. The
early exiles from England, from
Germany and from France, also came
here with II laudable ambition, which
eliminated in the realization of home
with the same fixed and immovable
foundations as those in which they
were born and reared in Father
Land" And when they had stuck
their stake, erected their house, and
cleared their small farm, that was
their homo for life, and the home OF
some one their children after them.
Hero was the seat of all family ties
and family attachments. To each OF
the children this was, forever, " My


Fathers House, in which centred
all that children hold most dear il


connection with the ties of consan'
guinity. The farmer raised cattle
and corn, poultry and butter, WOO
and flax, manufactured into cloth, tc
sell, but he seldom thought of selling


his home, any more than he thought


CT selling his wife OF children. He


made his home to live in, not 10 sell


To him the real ends of life were i'm


possible except with the condition o


permauence. Large plantations were