MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 201 



Books and magazines are indispensable to the enjoyment of home. 

 If education and enjoyment by means of sight and hearing fill so large 

 a place, the thoughts still more demand the best things to feed upon. 

 No one can live without books, papers and magazines, nor is there 

 need in these days, when the writings of the best authors can be pur- 

 chased for a few cents, and papers and magazines are published in such 

 profusion, at such small cost. "Every good book or piece of book," 

 it is said, "is full of admiration and awe," and it always leads you to 

 reverence or love something with your whole heart. 



A bright, active social life may be established with a little etfort 

 that will make country life as enjoyable and much more healthful and, 

 profiable than that of the city. Social enjoyments are necessary to 

 human happiness, and "happiness is our being's end and aims," says 

 the poet. A social nature carries sunshine with it wherever it goes. 

 Cheerfulness and a quick and ready sympathy are valuable traits ot 

 human nature. We cannot live to ourselves ; we are so linked together 

 that each needs the other. We are more dependent on each other 

 for the comforts and pleasures of life than we realize. 



Like warp and woof, all destinies 



Are woven fast, 

 Linked in sympathy like the keys 



Of an organ vast. 

 Pluck but one thread and the web ye mar, 



Break but one of a thousand keys 

 And the paining jar 



Through all will run. 



These are some of the helps toward making an ideal home. 



Scatter diligently in susceptible minds 

 1'he germs of the good and the beautiful ; 

 They will develop there to trees, bud, bloom, 

 And bear the golden fruits of Paradise, 



But besides all that the home may contain, there are external in- 

 fluences surrounding country homes that those in town and city with 

 all their attractions do not possess ; influences which sweeten and 

 purify the life, the beauties of nature. The study of the works of God 

 and the cultivation of a love of nature in children has formerly been 

 made of less importance than a knowledge of words. But more and 

 more we are coming to realize that the greater the love of nature and 

 a knowledge of God through the study of His works, the more is the 

 heart filled with a love of their Creator. The glory of the flower and 

 the grass, the whispering of the trees and the ripple of the water, con- 

 tain strength and hope, if in the leisure hours the anxieties and cares of 



