THE FARM AND THE HOME. 89 



view ; and lie who has eyes that can see, may read the grand and 

 feultliinc record of our globe. 



A gifted poet says, the study of nature's works 



" Can so inform 

 Tho mind that is within us, so impress 

 With quietness and beauty, and so feed 

 With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues. 

 Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 

 Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 

 Tho dreary intercourse of common life, 

 Can e'er prevail against us, or disturb 

 Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 

 Is full of blessings." 



If I have dwelt more full\- upon the home training of sons than 

 of daughters, it is not because of its greater importance, but 

 because my best thoughts would be entirely inadequate to teach a 

 mother's duty to her girl, for the relation between mother and 

 daughter is iiallowed ground. Angels might shrink here to tread. 

 Mothers, I appeal to you to make the home life of your families pleas- 

 ant. In 3'our household arrangements unite the useful with the beau- 

 tiful. Adorn the rooms with tasty conveniences, and works of art. 

 Let there be books, papers and periodicals. All these exert an ele- 

 vating and refining influence upon the tastes and disposition of 

 children, and add largely to the attractiveness of larm life. Learn 

 a lesson from nature when left to herself, and interweave nature's 

 poetry with the prose. Open the pleasantest room for famih' use. 

 These fun-loving, wide-awake boys ma}- soil the carpets and disturb 

 that orderly neatness so dear to woman's heart ; but is not the boy 

 of more value than carpets and furniture? These, if 3-ou wish, 

 money will replace ; but if the minds and souls of children be 

 polluted with sin, nought that monej- will buy can wash the stains 

 away. 



The author of " M3' Farm at Edgewood," says : 



"The farmer invites his best friends to his habitual living-room ; 

 let him see to it, then, that this be the sunniest and most cheerful 

 of his house. So his friends will come to love it, and he and his 

 children to love and cherish it ; so that it shall be the rallying point 

 of the household affections through all time. No sea so distant but 

 the memory- of a cheery, sunlit home-room, with its pictures on the 

 wall, and its flame upon the hearth, shall haunt the voyager's 

 thought ; and the flame upon the hearth, and the sunlit windows 



