barrier, and lavish
their whole hearts on each other; but, in spite of these generous
qualities, their common desires and their bitter suffering, some
falsehood, some pride, some shyness, some suspicion, some chill,
intangible phantom, is set fatally between them. In every community
there are piteous tragedies of this sort, little dreamed of by those
outside, but which the bleeding hearts concerned in them feel as a
deadly drain, hastening them towards the grave.

Fourthly, Besides the parents and children who are open enemies, who
are utter indifferentists, or who, while loving each other, are kept
apart by some obstacle, there is another class, who, as free and
cordial friends, happily realize in their relation all that is to be
desired. In these examples there are ample wisdom, considerateness,
tender sympathy, and guardian strength, on the one side; ready
docility, attentiveness, obedience, reverence, and fondness, on the
other; with an exuberance of indescribable comfort and peace on both
sides. What a treasure, what an inestimable boon, what a divine
trust, what an inexhaustible delight, is such an affection between a
parent and a child! What a paradise any country would be, if such an
experience were welling up, a pure fountain of life, in every home
throughout its borders!

Few inquiries can have greater interest or importance than the
inquiry, why there is not more generally between parents and children
that warm, ingenuous, abiding affection which produces a full and
joyous friendship. A clear perception and statement of the
difficulties in the way of it may suggest the means of removing them.
And, in the outset, is it not obvious that the home affections
flourish so scantily because scanty attention is paid to the
cultivation of them? It is forever the fallacy and folly of man to
think least of that which lies nearest to him, and is the most
indissolubly bound up with his being as a cause of happiness or of
misery. He thinks most eagerly on those comparatively exceptional and
remote things, which, in consequence of their greatness or their
rarity, are the strangest and the most impressive to him. He ought to
pay the keenest heed to that which is the most important in its
influence on his life, not to that which is the most startling to his
fancy. Now, it is unquestionably true, that while there is nothing
which contributes so much to enrich or to impoverish us, to bless or
to curse us, as our domestic rela