r of it, and resolve
never to invite a foreigner again. But if you had given him a little
of your heart, a little home warmth and feeling,--if you had shown
him your baby, and let him romp with your four-year-old, and eat a
genuine dinner with you,--would he have been false to that? Not so
likely. He wanted something real and human,--you gave him a bad
dress rehearsal, and dress rehearsals always provoke criticism.

Besides hospitality, there is, in a true home, a mission of charity.
It is a just law which regulates the possession of great or beautiful
works of art in the Old World, that they shall in some sense be
considered the property of all who can appreciate. Fine grounds have
hours when the public may be admitted; pictures and statues may be
shown to visitors: and this is a noble charity. In the same manner the
fortunate individuals who have achieved the greatest of all human
works of art should employ it as a sacred charity. How many, morally
wearied, wandering, disabled, are healed and comforted by the warmth
of a true home! When a mother has sent her son to the temptations of a
distant city, what news is so glad to her heart as that he has found
some quiet family where he visits often and is made to feel at HOME?
How many young men have good women saved from temptation and shipwreck
by drawing them often to the sheltered corner by the fireside! The
poor artist; the wandering genius who has lost his way in this world,
and stumbles like a child among hard realities; the many men and women
who, while they have houses, have no homes, see from afar, in their
distant, bleak life journey, the light of a true home fire, and, if
made welcome there, warm their stiffened limbs, and go forth stronger
to their pilgrimage. Let those who have accomplished this beautiful
and perfect work of divine art be liberal of its influence. Let them
not seek to bolt the doors and draw the curtains; for they know not,
and will never know till the future life, of the good they may do by
the ministration of this great charity of home.

We have heard much lately of the restricted sphere of woman. We have
been told how many spirits among women are of a wider, stronger, more
heroic mould than befits the mere routine of housekeeping. It may be
true that there are many women far too great, too wise, too high, for
mere housekeeping. But where is the woman in any way too great, or too
high, or too wise, to spend herself in creating a home? What