d them in spirit again, and remembrance swells
with many a proof of recollected love; sweet ideals of all that lived under
the parental roof spring up within us, and pass before us in visions of
delight; the home of the past becomes the home of the present. The things
of that home are spiritualized and changed into the thoughts of home; we
enjoy them again; and we live our life over again with those we loved the
most.

"Why in age
Do we revert so fondly to the walks
Of childhood, but that there the soul discerns
The dear memorial footsteps, unimpaired,
Of her own native vigor; thence can hear
Reverberations, and a choral song
Commingling with the incense that ascends,
Undaunted, towards the imperishable heavens,
From her own lonely altar?"

The memories of home are both pleasing and painful. When we leave the
parental home for some distant land, how many pleasing recollections sweep
over our spirits then. Even when tossed to and fro upon the angry wave,
far from our native land.

"There comes a fond memory
Of home o'er the deep."

The memory of departed worth is a kind of compensation for the loss we
sustain. The pious mother's recollection of her sainted husband or child
becomes the soother of her grief, and casts a pleasing light along her
pathway, and awakens a new joy in her widowed heart. Pious memories, when
they reflect the hope of reunion in heaven, are like the radiant sky
studded with brilliant stars, each shining through the clouds which move
along the verge of the horizon. They sweep as gently over the troubled
heart as the summer zephyr over the blushing rose, touching all the chords
of holy feeling, making them vibrate sadly sweet, in blended tones, too
sweet to last.

"Here a deeper and serener charm
To all is given,
And blessed memories of the faithful dead
O'er wood and vale, and meadow-stream have shed
The holy hues of heaven."

How indelibly does memory paint the image of a departed child upon the
mother's heart! No flight of years; no distance from the grave in which he
slumbers, can erase the image. It will be ever fresh, and, with awakening
power, mingle with her tears and glow in her fondest hopes. Though time and
distance and vicissitudes may calm her troubled heart, and cause her to
settle down into tranquility of feeling; but these can never destroy the
tenacity and vividness of her memory. Even then those objects to w