The Home of Taste. 
threshold—ennui cannot find its way there, petulance is smiled out of 
countenance, and temper is rebuked by the placidity and suggestiveness of 
the surroundings. “ If the Lord build not the house, they labour in vain 
that build it.” 
The mind, like a sensitive plate in a camera, receives impressions which 
become permanent pictures in the memory, and these pictures refresh or 
depress us according to their tone and tinting. In meditative moments we 
turn them over as the leaves of a book, and our hearts leap with joy as the 
pictures of happy times and generous deeds are revealed. But they sink 
despondent under a weight of regrets as the great blanks that represent 
wasted opportunities, or the more demonstrative mementoes of vice and folly, 
break into the field and pass drearily in review. Hours well spent, like fruits 
well grown upon the bough, give gladness for the present and afford enjoyment 
for the future as memory recalls them, and that inward gratulation follows 
which only the satisfied conscience can allow. Memory rides above the will, 
and to forget is a pleasant or a painful impossibility according to the 
complexion of the reminiscence that flashes upon the inward eye. So for the 
sake of the future when the calm days approach, and remembrances hold us 
more strongly than the events of the passing hour, it is well that we should 
shape our pleasures, in common with our more serious occupations, in 
accordance with the demands of reason and virtue. The perfection of dulness 
and indifference may be surest attained by devotion to sordid pursuits and 
selfish aims: it is the outgoing of the affections in honest sympathies and 
kindly acts that will most certainly tend to a spirit of joyfulness. True mirth 
is of a quieter aspect than the world allows ; and there is an inward cheerful¬ 
ness that makes no noise and appears not to sense, that will ever be welcomed 
as a foretaste of the blissful condition of the happy dead to the heart that 
faith has sanctified. For the sake of all around us, who may be blessed or 
banned by our example and works, no less than for our own sakes, that happy 
pictures may be painted on the memory to beautify the sunset of our lives, we 
must shape our course in all things so that “ Hope may never lose her youth,” 
and that every individual endeavour shall be as seed sown in the field of the 
heart to bring forth “ the peaceable fruits of righteousness.” 
“ Thrice blessed whose lives are faithful prayers, 
Whose loves in higher love endure ; 
What souls possess themselves so pure, 
Or is there blessedness like theirs ? ” 
