LETTER VI. THE INSTITUTION OF HOME. Home of our childhood! How affection clings, O. W. HOLMES, For there are two heavens, sweet, Both made of love-one inconceivable Even by the other, so divine it is; The other far on this side of the stars By men called HOME, when some blest pair have met, As we are now. LEIGH HUNT. HE French have no word into which the English word home may be legitimately translated; yet it is sufficiently evident that many of the French people have the thing without the name, while a large portion of the American people have the name without the thing. There are comparatively few who have an ade It is quate idea of what home is, as an institution. recognised as a house, containing a convenient number of chairs and tables, with a sufficiency of chamber furniture and eatables, a place to eat and sleep in, simply. It is not unjust to say that half of the young married people of America have no higher conception of home than this. What they call their homes are simply boarding-houses, where, for purposes of economy and convenience, they board themselves. In my idea, home rises to the dignity of an institution of life, and, like everything legitimately to be called an institution of life, is both an outgrowth of life, and a contributor to its development. Like all institutions, it has its external form and internal power and significance. Like the church, it has its edifice and appointments not only, but its membership, its bonds of spiritual fellowship, and its germinal ideas, developing themselves into influences that bear flowers and fruits to charm and feed the soul. It is into the meaning of the word HOME that I would introduce you first, my friends, and then into the home itself. Marriage is the legiti mate basis of a genuine home. A husband is its priest and a wife its priestess; and it is for you, young husband and young wife, to establish this institution, maintain it, beautify it in its outward form, fill it with all good influences, develope its capacities, make it the ex pression of your best ideas of intimate social life, and to use it as an instrument of genial power in moulding such outside life as may come into contact with it. Its outward form and its internal arrangements should, so far as your means will permit, be the outgrowth of your finest ideas and the expression of your best tastes, combined with the practical ingenuities which may be rendered necessary by a wholesome economy. It is not the elm before the door of home that the sailor pines for when tossing on the distant sea. It is not the house that sheltered his childhood, the well that gave him drink, nor the humble bed where he used to lie and dream. These may be the objects that come to his vision as he paces the lonely deck, but the heart within him longs for the sweet influences that came through all these things, or were associated with them; for the heart clings to the institution which developed it to that beautiful tree of which it is the fruit. Wherever, therefore, the heart wanders, it carries the thought of home with it. Wherever, by the rivers of Babylon, the heart feels its loss and loneliness, it hangs its harp upon the willows and weeps. It prefers home to its chief joy. It will never forget it. For there swelled its first throb. There were developed its first affections. There a mother's eyes looked into it; there a mother's voice spoke to it; there a mother's prayers blessed it. There the love of parents and brothers and sisters gave it precious entertainment. There bubbled up from unseen fountains life's first effervescing hopes. There life took form, and color, and consistence. From that centre went out all its young ambitions. Towards that focus return its concentring memories. There it took form, and fitted itself to loving natures and pleasant natural scenes; and it will carry that impress wherever it may go, unless it become perverted by sin or make to itself another home, sanctified by a new and more precious affection. It is in the little communities which we call American homes that the hope of 'America rests. It is here that subordination to wholesome restraint and respect for law are inculcated. It is here, if anywhere, that the affections receive their culture, that amiable dispositions are developed, that the amenities of life are learned, that the mind and the body are established in healthful habits, that mutual respect for mutual rights is engendered, and here that all those faculties and qualities are nurtured which enter into the structure of wor. thy character. In the homes of America are born the children of America, and from them go out into American life American men and women. They go out with the stamp of these homes upon them, and only as these homes are what they should be, will they be what they should be. It is with this in view that I offer a few suggestions touching the establishment of this institution by you. Just as soon as it is possible for you to do so, buy a house, the ground it stands on, and as much land around it as your business, convenience, or taste may require. A home can never be all that it should be to you and yours, unless you own it. This is doubtless impossible to a great multitude who will read this letter, but let not such be discouraged. A beautiful home life may be developed, even by a tenant at will; though the security and fixedness of proprietorship are greatly tributary to home's permanent influences. If the home is owned, see that its exterior represent you faithfully. What you cannot afford in architecture, you can supply in vines and flowers. The interior should receive the impress of all the order, neatness, taste, and ingenuity that are in you. sweetest human love. Your home is the temple of your immortals are born. It is here that characters are shaped into manhood and womanhood-the highest earthly estate. It is here that you are to work out the problem of your lives. It is a place of dignity. Therefore give it honor; make it beautiful; make it worthy! All this, however, only relates to the location-the hell of your home. The ordering of its internal life is |