HOME.

A Blessed Home.

Blessed is that home by which for a whole life-time they have been gathering, until every figure in the carpet, every panel of the door and every casement of the window has a chirography of its own, speaking out something about father or mother, or son or daughter, or friend who was with us awhile. What a sacred place it becomes when one can say: "In that room such a one was born; in that bed such a one died; in that chair I sat on the night I heard such a one had received a great public honor; by that stool my child knelt for her last evening prayer; here I sat to greet my son as he came back from the sea voyage; that was father's cane; that was mother's rocking chair!" What a joyful and pathetic congress of reminiscences !—TALMAGE.

What Makes a Home.

What makes a home? Four walls of polished stone
Or brick and mortar laid with nicest care?

Nay!

Prison walls are made without as fair.

Within look not within-corruption there
With ignorance and sin defiles the air.

What makes a home? 'Twere better far to roam
Unhoused than have a part in dainty halls,
Where rarest gems of art adorn the walls,
If there's no hearth-fire bright for poorest poor
Who linger in the night without the door.

What makes a home? 'Tis where the weary come
And lay their burdens down, assured of rest.
'Tis where we learn to know our dearest best;
Where little children play, blessing and blest—
Though walls of coarsest clay enwarp the nest.
FANNY S. REEDER.

Love at Home.

A small library of well-selected books in his home has saved many a youth from wandering into the baleful ways of the prodigal son. Where paternal strictness and severity would have bred nothing but dislike and a fixed resolve to abscond at the first opportunity, good books and pleasant surroundings have weaned many a youth from his first wild impulse to go to sea or cross the continent, and made him a docile, contented, obedient and happy lingerer by the parental fireside. In a family, however rich or poor, no other good is so cheap or so precious as thoughtful, watchful love.-Horace Gree

LEY.

The Memory of Home.

As the fish already surrounded in the long, wide net swim out to sea, thinking they can go as far as they please, and with gay toss of silvery scale they defy the sportsman on the beach, and after a while the fishermen begin to draw in the net, hand over hand and hand over hand, and it is a long while before the captured fins begin to feel the net, and then they dart this way and that, hoping to get out, but find themselves approaching the

shore, and are brought up to the very feet of the captors -so the memory of an early home sometimes seems to relax and let men out farther and farther from God, and farther and farther from shore-five years, ten years, twenty years, thirty years. But some day they find an irresistible mesh drawing them back, and they are compelled to retreat from their prodigality and wandering; and though they make desperate efforts to escape the impression, and try to dive deeper down in sin, after a while they are brought clear back and held upon the Rock of Ages.—TALMAGE.

The World of Home.

A church within a church, a republic within a republic, a world within a world, is spelled by four letters-Home! If things go right there, they go right everywhere; if things go wrong there, they go wrong everywhere. The door-sill of the dwelling house is the foundation of Church and State. A man never gets higher than his own garret nor lower than his own cellar. In other words, domestic life overarches and undergirds all other life. The highest House of Congress is the domestic circle; the rocking chair in the nursery is higher than a throne. George Washington commanded the forces of the United States, but Mary Washington commanded George. Chrysostom's mother made his pen for him. If a man. should start out and run seventy years in a straight line he could not get out from under the shadow of his own mantel-piece.-TALMAGE.