378 BOAED OF AGRICULTURE. 



and the permanence of our moral and Christian virtues must 

 depend ; for, in the circle of life, the influence of the early- 

 home is ever a safeguard and a refuge, — an incitement and 

 a power. 



Welcome, — for a fine nature is always going back to its 

 youth, won toward the innocence and simple life of those 

 early days ; thus assuring us that they are an eternal pos- 

 session as well as a formative influence. 



How suggestive the experience of the Shepherd King, 

 when, shut in a hold near his birthplace by the Philistines, 

 and held in weary inactivity, he yearns for the water of the 

 well by the gate, where he had watered his flocks, and he 

 himself had drank, in the sight of the Hebrew maidens. 



Who has not felt the same? — longed, in a weary mom.ent 

 of heavy labor or anxious foreboding, for the quiet of his 

 childhood's home ; for the old quests for the arbutus, 

 spring's earliest harbinger ; for the shady nooks ; for the 

 rippling water-falls ; for the many, many happy reminis- 

 cences that clothe with regretful pleasure these thoughts 

 that hold us in willing bondage. 



Do not call this ' ' sentiment " ; it is a part of the forma- 

 tive work in our minds, enlarging the heart, strengthening 

 the character, and holding the nervous forces in control for 

 the daily toil. Neither be afraid of sentiment about the 

 home or in the home. Sentiment is nothing but thought 

 blended with feeling, thought made sympathetic and kind. 

 There can be be no true home without these. Here, surely, 

 the head and heart should go together, — every work blended 

 with love. 



No mother counts the labor "^ot7" that is done for the 

 child. Instead, the loving heart of the mother counts it all 

 joy that she may do for love's sweet sake, the numberless 

 acts of maternal care that make up the brightness of her 

 day. 



Therefore, with no undue sentiment, I desire to direct 

 your thought to the rural home, and our duty to make it a 

 power for good to us and to our children, holding them by 

 all best thoughts to it, by making it what it should be, — 

 loving, beautiful, bright and happy, — an inspiration to noble 

 thought, a love of all things beautiful, and a pure life. 



