3. Home Circle
The home circle may be, ought to be, the most delightful place on earth, the center of the purest affections and most desirable associations, as well as of the most attractive and exalted beauties to be found this side of paradise. Nothing can excel in beauty and sublimity the quietude, peace, harmony, affection, and happiness of a well-ordered family, where virtue is nurtured and every good principle fostered and sustained.
The home circle is the nursery of affection. It is the Eden of young attachments, and here should be planted and tended all the germs of love, every seed that shall ever sprout in the heart; and how carefully should they be tended! how guarded against the frosts of jealousy, anger, envy, pride, vanity, and ambition! how rooted in the best soil of the heart, and nourished and cultivated by the soul's best husbandry!
Here is the heart's garden. Its sunshine and flowers are here. All its beautiful, all its lovely things are here. And here should be expended care, toil, effort, patience, and whatever may be necessary to make them still more lovely. It is around the memories of the home circle that cluster the happiest and sometimes the saddest of the recollections of youth. There is the thought of brother and sister, perhaps now gone forever; of childish sorrow and grief; of the mother's prayer and the father's blessing. Do you wonder that these memories, both bitter and sweet, linger in the chambers of the mind long after those of the busy years of maturity have faded away before the approach of age? With what assiduity ought all who have arrived at the years of maturity strive to make their homes pleasant—and especially is this true of parents—so that its members when they go from thence will carry with them thoughts that through all the weary years that are before them will afford a pleasant retreat for them when well-nigh wearied with the care which comes with increasing years.
We can not honor with too deep a reverence the home affections; we can not cultivate them with too great a care; we can not cherish them with too much solicitude. There is the center of our present happiness, the springs of our deepest and strongest tides of joy. When the home affections are duly cultivated all others follow or grow out of them as a natural consequence. If any would have fervent and noble affections, such as give power and glory to the human heart, such as sanctify the soul and make it supremely beautiful, such as an angel might covet without shame, let him cultivate all the feelings that originate, as from a radiant point, in the home circle.
The true flower of home love requires for its development the aid of every member of the home circle. The tears of sympathy as well as the sunshine of domestic affection bring it to its glorious maturity. Ofttimes there are families the members of which are, without doubt, dear to each other. If sickness or sudden trouble fall on one all are afflicted, and make haste to help and sympathize and comfort. But in their daily life and ordinary intercourse there is not only no expression of affection, none of the pleasant and fond behavior that has, perhaps, little dignity, but which more than makes up for that in its sweetness, but there is an absolute hardness of language and actions which is shocking to every sensitive and tender feeling. Between father and mother, brother and sister, ofttimes pass rough and hasty words, and sometimes angry words, even more frequently than words of endearment. To judge from their actions they do not appear to love each other, nor does it seem to have occurred to them that it is their duty, as it should be their best pleasure, to do and say all that they possibly can for each other's good and happiness.
It is in the home circle where we form many, if not the most, of our habits, both of action and speech. These habits we carry into the world. They cling to us. The vulgarities which we use at home we shall use abroad—the coarse sayings, the low jest, the vulgar speeches, the grammatical blunders. All the lingual imperfections which go to form a part of our home conversation will enter into our conversation at all times and in all places. The home circle should be held too sacred to be polluted with the vulgarities of languages, which could have originated nowhere but in low and groveling minds. It should be dedicated to love and truth, to all that is tender in feeling and noble and pure in thought, to holiest communion of soul with soul. In order that such a communion may be enjoyed it is requisite that language should there perform its most sacred office, even the office of transmitting unimpared the most tender and sacred affections that glow in the human heart.
If the dialects of angels could be used on earth its fittest place would be the home circle. The language of home should be such as would not stain the purest lips nor fall harshly on the most refined ear. It should abound in words of wisdom which are at once the glory of youth and the honor of age.
The home circle, what tender associations does it recall! How deeply interwoven are its golden filaments with all the fiber of our affectionate natures, forming the glittering of the heart's golden life! Here are father, mother, child, brother, sister, companions, all the heart loves, all that makes earth lovely, all that enriches the mind with faith and the soul with hope. What language is most fitting for home use, to bear the messages of home feeling, to be freighted with the diamond treasure of home hearts? Should it be any other than the most refined and pure? any other than that breathing the sacred charity of affection?
Home is the great seeding-place of every affection that ever grows in the heart. Hence all should tend well to it, watch, prune, and cultivate with all prudence and wisdom, with all fervency of spirit. Let the music of the heart swell its notes here in one perpetual anthem of good will. Let praise and prayer and fervent good wishes and words and works hallow its sacred shrine. Let offices of love go round like smiles at a feast of joy. Let the whole soul devote its energies to making happy its home, and its rewards will be great.
If there be any tie formed in life which ought to be securely guarded from any thing which can put it in peril it is that which unites the members of a family. If there be a spot upon earth from which discord and strife should be banished it is the fireside. There center the fondest hopes and the most tender affections.
The great lever by which the heart is moved is love; it is the basis of all true excellence, of all excellent thought. How pleasing the spectacle of that home circle which is governed by the spirit of love! Each one strives to avoid giving offense, and is studiously considerate of the others' happiness. Sweet, loving dispositions are cultivated by all, and each tries to surpass the other in his efforts for the common harmony. Each heart glows with love, and the benediction of heavenly peace seems to abide upon that dwelling with such power that no storm of passion is able to rise.
There is no pleasanter sight than that of a family of young folks who are quick to perform little acts of attention towards their elders. The placing of the big arm-chair for the mother, or kindly errands done for father, and scores of little deeds, show the tender sympathy of gentle, loving hearts. Parents should show their appreciation of these kindly acts. If they do not indicate that they are appreciated the habit is soon dropped.
Little children are imitative creatures, and quickly catch the spirit surrounding them. So, if the father shows kindly attention to the mother, bright eyes will see the act, and quick minds will make a note of it. By example much more than by precept can children be taught to speak kindly to each other, to acknowledge favors, to be gentle and unselfish, to be thoughtful and considerate of the comfort of the family.
The boys, with inward pride of the father's courteous demeanor, will be chivalrous and helpful to their sisters; and the girls, imitating the mother, will be patient and gentle, even when brothers are noisy and heedless.
In the homes where true courtesy prevails it seems to meet you on the threshold. You feel the kindly welcome on entering. No angry voices are heard up stairs, no sullen children are sent from the room, no peremptory orders are given to cover the delinquencies of housekeeping or servants. A delightful atmosphere pervades the house, unmistakable, yet indescribable. Such a house, filled by the spirit of love, is a home indeed, to all who enter within its consecrated walls.
Members of the home circle lose nothing by mutual politeness; on the contrary, by maintaining not only its forms, but by inward cultivation of its spirit, they become contributors to that domestic feeling which is in itself a foretaste of heaven. The good-night and the good-morning salutation, though they may seem but trifles, have a sweet and softening influence on all its members. The little kiss and artless good-night of the smaller ones, as they retire to rest, have in them a heavenly melody.
Children are the pride and ornament of the family circle. They create sport and amusement and dissipate all sense of loneliness from the household. When intelligent and well trained they afford a spectacle which even indifferent persons contemplate with satisfaction and delight. Still these pleasurable emotions are not unalloyed with solicitude. It is an agreeable but changeable picture of human happiness. Time in advancing carries them forward, and erelong they will feel like exclaiming, with the older and more sad and serious ones around them, that their youth exists only in remembrance.
There is probably not an unpolluted man or woman living who does not feel that the sweetest consolations and best rewards of life are found in the loves and delights of home. There are very few who do not feel themselves indebted to the influence that clustered around their cradles for whatever good there may be in their character and condition. The influence preceding from the home circle is either a blessing or a curse, either for good or for evil. It can not be neutral. In either case it is mighty, commencing with our birth, going with us through life, clinging to us in death, and reaching into the eternal world. It is that unitive power which arises out of the manifold relations and associations of domestic life. The specific influence of husband and wife, of parent and child, of brother and sister, of teacher and pupil, united and harmoniously blended, constitute the home influence. From this we may infer the character of home influence. It is great, silent, irresistible, and permanent. Like the calm, deep stream, it moves on in silent but overwhelming power. It strikes root deep into the human heart, and spreads its branches wide over our whole being. Like the lily that braves the tempest, and the "Alpine flower that leans its cheek on the bosom of eternal snow," it is exerted amid the wildest scenes of life, and breathes a softening spell in our bosom, even when a heartless world is freezing up the fountains of our sympathy and love. It is governing, restraining, attracting, and traditional. It holds the empire of the heart and rules the life. It restrains the wayward passions of the child and checks the man in his mad career of ruin.
But all pictures of earthly happiness are transient in duration. Where can you find an unbroken home circle? The time must soon come, if it has not already, when you must part from those who have surrounded the same parental board, who mingled with you in the gay-hearted joys of childhood and the opening promise of youth. New cares will attend you in new situations, and the relations you form and the business you pursue may call you far from the "play-place" of your youth. In the unseen future your brothers and sisters may be sundered from you, your lives may be spent apart, and in death you may be divided; and of you it may be said:
"They grew in beauty side by side,
They filled one home with glee;
Their graves are severed far and wide,
By mount and stream and sea."
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