er since he was a baby, and
I've wept over him often and often, and _to-day_ I've shed tears enough
to bathe him from head to foot, but, oh! thank the Lord! _these_ are
such _happy_ tears!'

"Said one wife: 'Some days, these hard times, we have enough to eat, and
some days we don't; but _all_ the time I'm just as happy as I can be!

"'I wish you could see my children run, laughing, to the door when their
father comes home. Oh! he is _another_ man from what he was a year ago;
he is so happy at home with us now, and always so patient and kind!

"'Do tell us if there isn't something;--if it is ever so little--that we
women can do for the Home; we _never_ can forget what it has done for
us!'

"Such words, heard again and again with every variety of expression,
attests the sincerity of those who, in widely differing circumstances,
perhaps, have yet this common bond, that through this instrumentality,
they are rejoicing over a husband, a father, a son, 'which was dead, and
is alive--was lost, and is found.'

"Surely, such proof of the intrinsic worth of a work like this, is
beyond all expression--full of comfort and encouragement to persevere."

Again: "Through their instrumentality families long alienated and
separated have been happily brought together. This branch of the ladies'
work has been peculiarly blest; and their reward is rich in witnessing
not only homes made happier through their labors, but hearts so melted
by their personal kindness, and by the Gospel message which they carry,
that husbands and wives, convicted of the sinfulness of their neglect of
the great salvation, come forward to declare themselves soldiers of the
cross, and unite with the Christian church."

THE TESTIMONY OF INMATES.

As the value of this and similar institutions is best seen in what they
have done and are doing, we give two extracts from letters received from
men who have been reformed through the agency of the "Home" in
Philadelphia. In the first, the writer says:

"It has now been nearly two years since I left the Franklin Home. I had
been a drinking man ten years, and it got such a hold on me that I could
not resist taking it. I had tried a number of times to reform, and at
one time, was in the Dashaway's Home, in California, where they steep
everything in liquor, but when I came out I still had the desire to
drink, and only kept from it for nine months. I again commenced, and
kept sinking lower and lower, till I lost my f