A CHEERFUL HOME.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 4, Issue 243, 15 September 1883, Page 2

A CHEERFUL HOME.

' A single bitter word may disquiet an entire family for a whole day. One surly glance casts a gloom over the household, [ While a smile, like a gleam of sunshine, I may light up the darkest and weariest hours. Like unexpected flowers which spring up along our path, full of freshness, fragrance, and beauty, so the kind words, and gentle acts, and sweet dispo* sitions make glad the borne where Christ's peace and blessing dwell. No matter how humble the abode, if it be thus garnishad with grace, and sweetened with kindness and smiles, the heart will turn longingly toward it from all the tumults of the world ; and home, if it be ever so homely will be the dearest spot beneath the circuit of the sun. And the influences of home perpetuate themselves. The gentle grace of the mother iives m her daughters long after her head is pillowed m the dust of death, and fatherly kindness finds its echo m the nobility and courtesy 'of sons who come to wear his mantle and , to fill his place; while, on the other hand, (from an unhappy, misgoverned, and disordered home go forth persons who shall make other homes miserable, and perpetuate the sourness and sadness, the contentions, the strifes, and the railings, which i have made their own early lives so wretched and distorted. Toward the cheerful home the children gather "as clouds, and as doves to their windows ; " while from the home which is the abode of discontent, and strife, and troubles they fly forth as vultures to rend their prey. The class of men that di -turb and disorder and distress the world are not those bora and nurtured amid the hallowed influences of Christian homes ; but with those whose early life has been a scene of trouble and vexation, who have I started wrong m pilgrimage, and whose course is one of disaster to themselves and of trouble' to those around them.