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THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



temper must be manifold, and the temptation to angry- 

 words continual ; and those tones and looks and smiles 

 which render home, however homely, still always cheer- 

 ful, must be rare. The lessons learned at school are 

 defeated for want of scope for their exercise at home, if 

 not also, as is not unfrequently the case, by want of 

 sanitary arrangements in the school buildings. And 

 after all that can be done by public institutions, whether 

 schools for the young, almshouses for the aged, asylums 

 for orphans, and hospitals for the sick, it must be re- 

 membered that the family and its home — these are of 

 divine appointment ; and it is here that the sick may 

 best be nursed, here the young best trained, and the old 

 best tended ; and here also, if there were but room, the 

 orphan best trained and cared for. * * * j^gt even 

 church and school-building ought to take precedency of 

 sanitary reform, in the estimation of the devout and the 

 benevolent. It is well to increase the number of places 

 of education, and of places of worship. But he does 

 both at once, who makes even a single cottage meet for a 

 Christian home. For the chief part of a child's real 

 training con;<ists in the home habits to which he is ac- 

 customed." To this admirable summary of the important 

 benefits to be derived from attention to the homes of 

 the labourers, nothing more need be added. 



But if the machinery by which the education of the 

 home, and the influence of the hearth can be aided, 

 be provided by the employer, he has thereby a right 

 and title to demand that the employed shall use it 

 consistently and persistently — that the education of the 

 home shall be of the best, and the influence of the 

 hearth be of the holiest kind. To this end the 

 employed must become convinced of the neces- 

 sity of self-culture and self-control, that he may be 

 able to cultivate the good in those under him and around 

 him, and demand of them a like self-control. There must 

 be no paltering with things in a double sense : he must 

 work hard to win the truth, and to keep by it — to let it 

 be seen that it influences his inmost thought, as well as 

 that it is demonstrated in his outward practice — that he 

 shall dare to think truth, as well as to speak it. All this 

 he must do before he can aspire to be the teacher of his 

 children, a true and real husband to his wife, and a kind 

 warm-hearted help and comfort to his neighbours ; ever 

 remembering that he is responsible to that Providence 

 who provides him with his daily bread, and that if he 

 prays to be delivered from evil, he must not and dare 

 not lead himself into temptation. While gladly follow- 

 ing the good example shown him by his employers, he 

 must shun the weakness and scorn the meanness 

 of following the bad where it is shown him simply 

 because it is. By himself he must stand and fall. He 

 must be ambitious to have the independence of the oak 

 which buffets the storm as well as hails with glad- 

 ness the sunshine, rather than the cowering closeness of 

 the ivy which clings to it. Lot him, aye, 



" Be up and lioinp; 

 With a heart for any fate : 

 Still achieving, still pursuin(t, 

 Learn to labour, and to wait." 



Nor must he mislead himself, or be misled by others, into 

 the belief that the little he has in his power will do little 

 good, and carry with it little influence. He must learn 

 to appreciate the " mighty power of mites," and to hail 

 with welcome his own " day of small things." Small 

 things ! The river, that rolls its waters to the sea, rises in 

 the far mountain glen, or in sequestered dales, fed by the 

 dews of Heaven which sparkle on the blade of grass 

 and in the daisy's cup, or by the rain-drop which 

 plashes on the rock or trembles on the leaf. The rain 

 which falls in the fields of the rich man, freshens the 

 poor man's plot ; each " blade of grass catches its own 

 drop of dew." Is it a small thing to give the kind 

 look and speak the kinder word, which shall lighten up 

 the faces, and soothe the hearts, of wives or children, and 

 render the cottage, small and lowly though it be, 

 the home of happiness ? However lowly the lot of any 

 one he has influence given him which he is bound to use, 

 little as it may be, and which if he uses it, he will find 

 to be exerted for good. It is not the abundance 

 of what a man has, but how he uses it, that is 

 the important thing. And if it is true — as we 

 take it to be, in money-giving charitable matters — 

 that the "liberal soul maketh fat," and that 

 he " that watereth shall be watered himself," shall it 

 not be as true, and life-inspiring in its truth, when ap- 

 plied to the charity that thinketh no ill, and of the kind- 

 nesses which knit men's hearts to each other, uniting 

 them in the bond of holy love, and of a pure because a 

 brotherly affection ? No man has a right to expect an 

 increase of his powers of influence, unless he shows that 

 he fully exerts those which he has already got. Before 

 a man has a right or a capability to command, he must 

 learn to obey. Let not the employed, whose eye this 

 paper may catch, think that these matters are unimport- 

 ant ; they are all important. In our last paper, while 

 glancing at the duties of the employers in the matter of 

 the " education of example," we made bold to be plain 

 in showing the way in which these duties should be per- 

 formed, and how these duties must be performed, before 

 the social condition of the agricultural labourer could be 

 raised. Not less plainly will we now state that no re- 

 form will be worth the working for, and worth the wishing 

 for, even by the employers, unless they shall be backed in 

 their efforts by the self- reform of the employed ; that the 

 "good time" you the employed often sing about— 

 too often, alas ! in very bad places — will as little come 

 to you as it will come to your employers, unless this 

 best reform of all reforms, and which (though you may 

 not think it now, but may someday, when you look at 

 the matter truthfully) brings with it reforms of all other 

 kinds needful here, is manfully carried out — not in the 

 pride of your own power, but in the distrust of your own 

 weakness ; aided, however, as it must be, with the 

 strength of a living faith and the power of a firm re- 

 solve. Listen, and learn ! " Working men themselves 

 should feel the importance of cultivating the home vir- 

 tues Were they to make their wives their companions, 

 and not their drudges — were they to feel that children 



