126 
COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 
walk to the entrance porch overshadowed with trees ; with 
roses and grapes and other vines struggling to climb up over 
the doors and windows, around the corners and even away up 
over the roof. We open the door and enter; we find on all 
sides evidences of neatness and refinement. We enter the liv¬ 
ing room, adorned with books, music and engravings, where the 
family assemble, after the day’s work, to read, to sing, to play 
together. From here the sounds of music and laughter go up, 
let us hope, also, the accents of prayer. Here father and moth¬ 
er, brother and sister, friend and neighbor meet in friendly and 
social intercourse. Here is the scene of the highest social en¬ 
joyment. Y r oung people raised in such a home will love it and 
cling to it, they will leave it with regret and return to it with 
pleasure. Here will cluster their holiest affections, and should 
your son be urged forth into the world, by ambition or enter¬ 
prise, or genius, should he become a miner in Australia, or a 
whale fisher in the Arctic Seas ; should he become a merchant 
prince in a great city, or a statesman of national renown, his 
greatest gratification in success will be the pleasure he knows 
his success will give to the family at home. To that home he 
will often return ; to that home will he send his children on a 
pious pilgrimage. That home while he lives, he loves, and he 
blesses it with his dying breath. Such homes are in the power 
of you all; and in such homes should the coming generation be 
reared. 
