HOME HAPPINESS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15748, 24 October 1914, Page 3 (Supplement)

HOME HAPPINESS.

INFLUENCE ON YOUNG LIVES.

"A Bachelor of Experience" writes in a vety interesting manner of the influence a good home may have on the future career of children :—

" We ail have onr own prescriptions for happiness which we are sometimes rather inclined to force down the throats of other people.

"So there is no general rule for home happiness which means, perhaps, the hap. piness of half a dozen people. One discordant note will spoil the harmony of the home. In the hands of one selfish person lies the power to make half a dozen people miserable, and the best we can do for our familv happiness is to see to it that wo are not that one selfish person. " Because wo like a thing ourselves, it is the most natural thing in the world to think that our brothers and sisters will be equally delighted by that which pleases us.

" But it is not fair to the familr, if we have a taste for treacle puddinc, to insist that the whole family shall eat treacle pudding three times a week. " It may seem foolish to talk of so light a business as one of your treacle puddings in the same breath as we tali of home happiness, but 1 think you will agree with me that many a family comes to grief on lesser matters than treacle pudding. " When you prevent your little Billy from throwing stones at the neighbour's cat and give her soft words and apologies for the unlucky stone which had gone through her husband's pet cucumber frame, you are doing what every European nation has to do when there has been some regrettable incident on its frontiers.

ii f VOU don ' kee P ? our temper, and soothe down that of your neighbour, war is declared, and the ' harmonv of family life is interfered with. The little boy next door may wjut on your little boy as he goes to school, and punch his head, and so the oeace of your neighbourhood is disturbed. , " "In the family the balance of justice must be held with a very firm and even hand, and, to do you credit, it is marvellous to see how generally fair and honest is the government of that little nation which lives within the four walls and the fence of the back garden. Many a nation, in the administration of its affairs, might model itself with advantago on the average British home.

"Perhaps it never occurs to you when you teach your' boy that he is not to grab for the cake, not to be cruel to the cat, and not to hurt weak things, that you are laying the foundations of home happiness all over the world.

1 ou may not foresee that one of these days it may fall to your boy's lot to govern over, let us say, a few" thousands of negroes or Indians, who will look to him at all times of difficulty and distress for fair play and justice. _ "It is then that your teachings are going to bear their good fruit, for every true man, when he finds himself in a tight place, or a responsible position, steers his course mostly by what he learned from his mother.

1 call to mind a little friend of mine who for many years was a missionary in on© of the most savage and uncivilised parts of Africa. He came to his post long before there was government, civilisation, or railways. He had no possessions much beyond his Bible and his remembrance of the home he had left behind him.

' For years this little man, unsupported ' and alone, was Lord Chief Justice over a patch of country as large as England. He had no powers save his simple knowledge of the right, his honesty of purpose, and "* his faith. " On the strength of these, the negroes for miles around learned to trust him, and would submit to him their family quarrels and their disputes. In this fashion the little light of home happiness has been carried all over the world.

" it is a lesson which we have never finished learning—this lesson of give and take, of fair play and of mercy, which begins by making the happiness of the home, and ends by making the happiness of the world, and it is at your feet."