1. HER INFLUENCE.--It is true to nature, although it be expressed in
a figurative form, that a mother is both the morning and the evening
star of life. The light of her eye is always the first to rise, and
often the last to set upon man's day of trial. She wields a power more
decisive far than syllogisms in argument or courts of last appeal in
authority.

2. HER LOVE.--Mother! ecstatic sound so twined round our hearts that
they must cease to throb ere we forget it; 'tis our first love; 'tis
part of religion. Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle that
our infant eyes and arms are first uplifted to it; we cling to it in
manhood; we almost worship it in old age.

3. HER TENDERNESS.--Alas! how little do we appreciate a mother's
tenderness while living. How heedless are we in youth of all her
anxieties and kindness! But when she is dead and gone, when the
cares and coldness of the world come withering to our hearts, when we
experience for ourselves how hard it is to find true sympathy, how few
to love us, how few will befriend us in misfortune, then it is that we
think of the mother we have lost.

4. HER CONTROLLING POWER.--The mother can take man's whole nature
under her control. She becomes what she has been called "The Divinity
of Infancy." Her smile is its sunshine, her word its mildest law,
until sin and the world have steeled the heart.

[Illustration: A PRAYERFUL AND DEVOTED MOTHER.]

5. THE LAST TIE.--The young man who has forsaken the advice and
influence of his mother has broken the last cable and severed the last
tie that binds him to an honorable and upright life. He has forsaken
his best friend, and every hope for his future welfare may be
abandoned, for he is lost forever, if he is faithless to mother, he
will have but little respect for wife and children.

6. HOME TIES.--The young man or young woman who love their home and
love their mother can be safely trusted under almost any and all
circumstances, and their life will not be a blank, for they seek what
is good. Their hearts will be ennobled, and God will bless them.

[Illustration: HOME AMUSEMENTS.]


       *       *       *       *       *

HOME POWER.


"The mill-streams that turn the clappers of the world arise in
solitary places."--HELPS.

  "Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round!
  Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters
  Deliver us to laws. They send us bound
  To rules of reason."--GEORGE HERBERT.


1. SCHOOL OF CHARACTER.--Home is the first and most important school
of character. It is there that every human being receives his best
moral training, or his worst, for it is there that he imbibes those
principles of conduct which endure through manhood, and cease only
with life.

2. HOME MAKES THE MAN.--It is a common saying, "Manners make the
man;" and there is a second, that "Mind makes the man;" but truer than
either is a third, that "Home makes the man." For the home-training
includes not only manners and mind, but character. It is mainly in the
home that the heart is opened, the habits are formed, the intellect is
awakened, and character moulded for good or for evil.

3. GOVERN SOCIETY.--From that source, be it pure or impure, issue
the principles and maxims that govern society. Law itself is but the
reflex of homes. The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of
children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and
become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries,
and they who hold the leading-strings of children may even exercise a
greater power than those who wield the reins of government.

4. THE CHILD IS FATHER OF THE MAN.--The child's character is the
nucleus of the man's; all after-education is but superposition; the
form of the crystal remains the same. Thus the saying of the poet
holds true in a large degree, "The child is father of the man;" or
as Milton puts it, "The childhood shows the man, as morning shows the
day." Those impulses to conduct which last the longest and are rooted
the deepest, always have their origin near our birth. It is then that
the germs of virtues or vices, of feelings or sentiments, are first
implanted which determine the character of life.

5. NURSERIES.--Thus homes, which are nurseries of children who grow
up into men and women, will be good or bad according to the power that
governs them. Where the spirit of love and duty pervades the home,
where head and heart bear rule wisely there, where the daily life
is honest and virtuous, where the government is sensible, kind, and
loving, then may we expect from such a home an issue of healthy,
useful, and happy beings, capable as they gain the requisite strength,
of following the footsteps of their parents, of walking uprightly,
governing themselves wisely, and contributing to the welfare of those
about them.