er and anon there is a threat of national
capsize. France as a nation has not the right kind of a Christian
home. The Christian hearthstone is the only corner-stone for a
republic. The virtues cultured in the family circle are an absolute
necessity for the State. If there be not enough moral principle to
make the family adhere, there will not be enough political principle
to make the State adhere. "No home" means the Goths and Vandals, means
the Nomads of Asia, means the Numideans of Africa, changing from place
to place, according as the pasture happens to change. Confounded be
all those Babels of iniquity which would overtower and destroy the
home. The same storm that upsets the ship in which the family sails
will sink the frigate of the constitution. Jails and penitentiaries
and armies and navies are not our best defence. The door of the home
is the best fortress. Household utensils are the best artillery, and
the chimneys of our dwelling houses are the grandest monuments of
safety and triumph. No home; no republic.

AS A SCHOOL.

Further, I remark, that home is a school. Old ground must be turned up
with subsoil plough, and it must be harrowed and re-harrowed, and then
the crop will not be as large as that of the new ground with less
culture. Now youth and childhood are new ground, and all the
influences thrown over their heart and life will come up in after life
luxuriantly. Every time you have given a smile of approbation, all the
good cheer of your life will come up again in the geniality of your
children. And every ebullition of anger and every uncontrollable
display of indignation will be fuel to their disposition twenty, or
thirty, or forty years from now--fuel for a bad fire a quarter of a
century from this.

You praise the intelligence of your child too much sometimes when you
think he is not aware of it, and you will see the result of it before
ten years of age in his annoying affectations. You praise his beauty,
supposing he is not large enough to understand what you say, and you
will find him standing on a high chair before a flattering mirror.
Words and deeds and example are the seed of character, and children
are very apt to be the second edition of their parents. Abraham begat
Isaac, so virtue is apt to go down in the ancestral line; but Herod
begat Archelaus, so iniquity is transmitted. What vast responsibility
comes upon parents in view of this subject!

Oh, make your home the brightest place o