their home and
love their mother can be safely trusted under almost any and all
circumstances, and their life will not be a blank, for they seek what
is good. Their hearts will be ennobled, and God will bless them.

[Illustration: HOME AMUSEMENTS.]

* * * * *

HOME POWER.

"The mill-streams that turn the clappers of the world arise in
solitary places."--HELPS.

"Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round!
Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws. They send us bound
To rules of reason."--GEORGE HERBERT.

1. SCHOOL OF CHARACTER.--Home is the first and most important school
of character. It is there that every human being receives his best
moral training, or his worst, for it is there that he imbibes those
principles of conduct which endure through manhood, and cease only
with life.

2. HOME MAKES THE MAN.--It is a common saying, "Manners make the
man;" and there is a second, that "Mind makes the man;" but truer than
either is a third, that "Home makes the man." For the home-training
includes not only manners and mind, but character. It is mainly in the
home that the heart is opened, the habits are formed, the intellect is
awakened, and character moulded for good or for evil.

3. GOVERN SOCIETY.--From that source, be it pure or impure, issue
the principles and maxims that govern society. Law itself is but the
reflex of homes. The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of
children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and
become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries,
and they who hold the leading-strings of children may even exercise a
greater power than those who wield the reins of government.

4. THE CHILD IS FATHER OF THE MAN.--The child's character is the
nucleus of the man's; all after-education is but superposition; the
form of the crystal remains the same. Thus the saying of the poet
holds true in a large degree, "The child is father of the man;" or
as Milton puts it, "The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the
day." Those impulses to conduct which last the longest and are rooted
the deepest, always have their origin near our birth. It is then that
the germs of virtues or vices, of feelings or sentiments, are first
implanted which determine the character of life.

5. NURSERIES.--Thus homes, which are nurseries of children who grow
up into men and women, will be good or bad according t