It is a good thing and a wise to be able, with a few books and a little needlework, to give any room, however strange and desolate, a look of home-to be able to pursue our usual employments anywhere at a moment's notice and a blessing beyond wealth, beyond beauty, or even beyond talent, is that cheerful temperament, which can rejoice in the sunshine, yet be merry in the shade, which can delight in the birds singing in spring, yet solace itself with the heart's own music when winter is at hand. M'Chellan.

THE SEQUESTERED HOME. Nature I'll court in her sequester'd haunts, By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell,

Where the poised lark his evening ditty chaunts,

And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell.

There study shall with solitude recline;
And friendship pledge me to his fellow-

swains ;

And toil and temperance sedately twine
The slender cord that fluttering life sus-

tains;

And fearless honesty shall guard the door;

And taste unspoil'd the frugal table spread; And industry supply the humble store;

And sleep unbribed his dews refreshing shed;

White-mantled innocence, ethereal sprite, Shall chase far off the goblins of the night; And Independence o'er the day preside, Propitious power! my patron and my pride. Smollett.

THE FAMILY A DIVINE INSTITUTE.

The domestic constitution is a divine institute. God formed it himself. "He taketh the solitary and setteth him in families;" and, like all the rest of His works, it is well and wisely done. It is, as a system of government, quite unique: neither below the heavens, nor above them, is there anything precisely like it. In some respects it resembles the civil government of a state in others, the ecclesiastical rule of a church; and it is there that the church and the state may be said to meet. This meeting, however, is only on a very small scale, and under very peculiar circumstances. When directed as it should be, every family has a sacred character, inasmuch as the head of it acts the part of both the prophet and the priest of the household, by instructing them in the knowledge and leading them in the worship of God; while at the same time he discharges the duties of a king, by supporting a system of order, subordination, and discipline. Conformably with its nature is its design: beyond the benefit of the individuals which compose it, and which is its first and immediate object, it is intended to promote the welfare of the national community to which it belongs, and of which it is a part: hence every nation has stamped a great value on the family compact, and guarded it with the most powerful sanctions. Well-instructed, well-ordered, and well-governed families are the springs which, from their retirements, send forth the tributary streams that make up by their confluence the majestic flow of national greatness and prosperity nor can any state be prosperous, where family order and subordination are generally neglected; nor otherwise than prosperous, whatever be its political forms, where these are generally maintained.

Rev. John Angell James.

THE GOOD ANGEL OF THE HOUSE.

Joy for the happiness of home! where peace, content, affection

Shine, a triple sun to bathe in bliss that little world.

There the good angel of the house, the

mother, wife, and mistress, With gentle care and thoughtful love is ministering life;

There in firm wisdom ruleth well the father, husband, master,

Heaping it with prosperities, as guardian, guide, and judge;

There the sons obey, diligently heeding duties;

There the cheerful daughters plan their charities for all;

There with no eye-service, but in honest faith and truth,

The family domestics work, and worship with their betters;

While all the neighbours round about, and

scores of friends far off,

Point to that house and praise it well, the happy home of Christians.

O beautiful in essence is that angel in the house,

The gentle charitable wife, its pure pre

THE STILL SWEET HOME.

Still and sweet was the home that stood
In the flowering depths of a Grecian wood,
With the soft green light o'er its low roof
spread,

As if from the glow of an emerald shed, Pouring from lime-leaves that mingled on high,

Asleep in the silence of noon's clear sky.
Citrons amidst their dark foliage glow'd,
Making a gleam round the lone abode;
Laurels o'erhung it, whose faintest shiver
Scatter'd out rays like a glancing river;
Stars of the jasmine its pillars crown'd;
Vine-stalks its lattice and walls had bound;
And brightly before it a fountain's play
Flung showers thro' a thicket of glossy bay,
To a cypress which rose in that flashing
rain,

Like one tall shaft of some fallen fane.

Mrs. Hemans.

A CHARM TO KEEP OUR HOUSE WARM. Oh, sweet to sit around the board that Providence hath bless'd,

And sweet to draw the curtain round our warm and shelter'd nest;

To see the faces at whose smile the household hearth grows bright,

And to feel that 'mid the darkness in our dwelling there is light!

If we have done what love might do, and wish that it were more,

To keep the grim wolf yet awhile without the poor man's door,

And if our day hath not gone down without its kind relief

To some of those its sad day woke to misery and grief,

We need not fear the frost and cold; we have

found out a charm,

To keep our house, and home, and heart, and all our being warm!

Dora Greenwell.

I THE GOLDEN MEAN PREFER.

Pleasures abroad the sport of nature yields;
Her living fountains and her smiling fields:
And then, at home, what pleasure 'tis to see
A little, cleanly, cheerful family!
Which, if a chaste wife crown, no less in her
Than fortune I the golden mean prefer.
Too noble nor too wise she should not be ;
No, nor too rich, too fair, too fond of me.
Cowley.

PEACE AT HOME.

It is just as possible to keep a calm house as a clean house, a cheerful and an orderly house as a furnished house, if the heads set themselves to do so. Where is the difficulty of consulting each other's weakness, as well as each other's wants; each other's tempers, as well as each other's health; each other's comfort, as well as each other's character? Oh, it is by leaving the peace at home to chance, instead of pursuing it by system, that so many houses are unhappy. It deserves notice, also, that almost any one can be courteous, and forbearing, and patient, in a neighbour's house. If anything go wrong, or be out of time, or disagreeable there, it is made the best of, not the worst; even efforts are made to excuse it, and to show that it is not felt; or, if felt, it is attributed to accident, not design; and this is not only easy, but natural, in the house of a friend. I will not, therefore, believe that what is so natural in the house of another is impossible at home; but maintain, without fear, that all the courtesies of social life may be upheld in domestic societies. A husband, as willing to be pleased at home, and as anxious to please as in his neighbour's house, and a wife as intent on making things comfortable every day to her family as on set days to her guests, could not fail to make their own home happy.

Let us not evade the point of these remarks by recurring to the maxim about allowances for temper. It is worse than folly to refer to our temper, unless we could prove that we ever gained anything good by giving way to it. Fits of ill-humour punish us quite as much, if not more, than those they are vented upon; and it actually requires more effort, and inflicts more pain, to indulge in them than would be requisite to avoid them.

Phillips.

THE ENGLISH FIRESIDE.

The pleasures and gratifications which flow from the fireside may be considered as almost peculiar to these islands. In warmer climates the aid of fire is demanded for little else than culinary purposes; whilst in the northern regions of continental Europe the gloomy and unsocial stove forms, in general, the only medium through which the rigours of their intense winter are mitigated. To the enlivening blaze, and the clean-swept

hearth, and to all the numerous comforts which in this country so usually wait upon their junction, they are perfect strangers.

Delightful and interesting as is the aspect of nature, under the warmth, splendour, and genial influence of a summer sun, it is, we confess, not without a preference that we look forward to those seasons when the falling leaf or drifting snow draws closer the family circle, and ushers in that social and intellectual intercourse which constitutes the dearest charm, and, next to religion, the highest privilege, of human existence.

When all without is wrapped in darkness, and the freezing blast howls, eager for entrance, round your dwelling, with what enjoyment do its inmates crowd to the cheerful hearth, and, as the flame glows brighter on their cheeks, listen, with a sensation of selfgratulating security, to the storm that shakes their solid roof. It is here that the power of contrast is experienced in all its force, not only in reference to the exposure, fatigues, and hazards which may have been actually incurred ere the daylight closed; but imagination is at work to paint the lot of those less fortunate than ourselves, and who, still exposed to all the horrors of the storm, feel the bitterness of their destiny augmented by intrusive recollections of domestic ease and fireside enjoyments.

We owe the following lines to the learned and accomplished biographer of the poet Kirke White, Southey, who, describing in his Madoc the adventurous vessel of his hero driving before the storm, beautifully says:—

"Tis pleasant, by the cheerful hearth, to hear
Of tempests, and the dangers of the deep,
And pause at times, and feel that we are safe;
Then listen to the perilous tale again,
And, with an eager and suspended soul,
Woo terror to delight us; but-to hear
The roaring of the raging elements,

To know all human skill, all human strength,
Avail not; to look round, and only see
The mountain wave incumbent, with its weight
Of bursting waters, o'er the reeling bark,-
O God, this is indeed a dreadful thing!
And he who hath endured the horror, once,
Of such an hour, doth never hear the storm
Howl round his home, but he remembers it,
And thinks upon the suffering mariner!"

Anon.

Build thou that home upon a mountain-top. Where all the free winds shall have space to blow.

Open its casements to the East and West,
To North and South, to Greece and Palestine.
Let all sweet flowers bloom in its green
retreats;

Let every wild-bird find sweet welcome there;
And everything that shares the breathing joy
Of universal air and earth, be free

Of thy well-order'd empire; and inlay
With precious gems, with diamond and
white pearl,

And blood-red ruby and green emerald,
The sumptuous pavement, till it shines afar
Like the Apocalyptic shrine, whose walls
Of massive light from Earth and Sun received
All varying lustres, and diffused their beams.
Fresco its inner walls with all that Art
E'er pictured of the Beautiful, but still
Let Nature freely come to see that Art
Hath rightly drawn her perfect loveliness.
Fill the grand halls with statues of old time.
Let Gods and Demi-Gods and Heroes range
With Goddesses and Graces. Let the Saints
And Seers and Sages, and the valiant throng
Of modern Heroes, and the ever young
And ever tuneful Poets of all climes,
And Hierophants of all religions, have
Their place among them, some in silver
carved,

Some in the Parian marble, some in gold;
Each symbolizing that interior truth

Or outward use he lived, taught, acted, sung,
Or sought to live, or act, or sing, that men,
Fired by that pure ideal, might become
Gods, and the Earth a new-born Paradise.
Gather all books within its libraries.
Bid Greece awake through all her words of
fire,

And Athens wear her violet crown again,
And the seven cities plead for Homer dead.
Let Marathon and Salamis come forth,
Leuctra and Thermopyla, with all

The hosts who flung their free lives on the pile

Of patriotic virtue, or who cast

The gage of battle to unnumber'd foes,
And then redeem'd it, giving to the earth
Their dust, their lives to the great mother-
land,

Their spirits to the Hero-halls above.
Chant thou thy epic, Homer; tell the tale
Of Troy to modern hearts of living men.
Bid India from her Sanscrit speak; let all
The Vedas wide unroll their parchment gates.
Gather the wisdom of the Pyramids,
The secrets that Egyptian hierophants
Practised in crypts and caverns, which they
veil'd

In many a rite and symbol-none forget.
Let every Nation's mind unfold its thought,
And every Sage depict the starry scheme;
And every Hero teil how once he died;
And every Poet sing, while Nature smiles
To find her buried eras bloom anew.
Forget not thine own time; give ample place
To wisdom shower'd from heaven, renewing
earth.

Let Dante sing from out his Middle Age;
And Machiavelli with his subtle skill
Unveil the craft of tyrants; nor forget
The richly-flower'd muse of Camoens;
Or love-lays, born of Europe's loyal heart,
Chanted by Troubadours in sweet Provence.
Let manly Chaucer tread his pilgrim round;
And Spenser preach of heavenly chastity;
Let Herbert almost like an angel sing;
And Shakespeare in one panoramic scene
Reveal life's actual drama, clothing all
His varied forms with living flesh and blood,
Giving to each a true authentic heart,
Whose arteries and veins run warm with love.
Let the blind Psalmist of the Commonwealth,
Who look'd with inward sight where burns

the sun

Of spirit-light o'er Eden of old time,
In classic English utter all his thought.
Let Byron pour from out his burning mind
The seething torrents of unresting soul,
The passion dreams of a wild fever'd heart,
A world of rebel Genii, sin-accursed,
Yet aching, hungering for divinity.
Let Keats, the child Adonis, stand beside
The waking figure of his Grecian urn,
Interpreting the meaning of all tears
Shed by the Graces in enamour'd dreams,
Or smiles that drop from out the Sun-god's
eyes

When morn is on the mountains, and the

stars

Close their white buds and grow invisible.

Force not the overflowing cup too long

On him whom thou dost honour, lest he grow

Surcharged in brain, and curse instead of bless.

Be modest in thy opulence, and know

This fact, that thou mayst learn a truth from

all.

Take what thy brother offers thee; perchance
The simplest nature may have woke to see
At early morn an Angel in the sun,
And brought from him great message to thy
soul.

In all thou doest, first of all be true
To thine own consciousness, to man, to God,
James. Harris.

INTERCHANGE OF PARENTAL AND

FILIAL DUTIES.

An interchange of the parental and filial duties is friendly to the happiness and virtue of all concerned. It gives a peculiar scnsibility to the heart of man, infusing a spirit of generosity and a sense of honour, which have a most benign influence on public good, as well as on private manners. Beattie.

CARES DISPELLED BY HOME DELIGHTS.

When eve, of day and darkness born,
Paled like the spectre of the morn,
And from the hearth the blazing ple
Shed round the pictured wall its smile,
Whose silent dwellers there would scem
More lifelike in the sportive beam;
How sweetly then the cares of day
From weary bosoms pass'd away,
While music's witching accents rung,
And a fair seraph sweetly sung
Those strains that prompt the bosom's sigh,
Those magic airs that cannot die,
Eternal as the rocks that stand
The bulwarks of our native land,
Immortal as the feelings given
Unto the human heart by Heaven!

John Malcolm.

Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established: and by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.

Proverbs of Solomon.