is shifting, changing, selfish world, creates the secure
Eden of a home.

A true home should be called the noblest work of art possible to human
creatures, inasmuch as it is the very image chosen to represent the
last and highest rest of the soul, the consummation of man's
blessedness.

Not without reason does the oldest Christian church require of those
entering on marriage the most solemn review of all the past life, the
confession and repentance of every sin of thought, word, and deed, and
the reception of the holy sacrament; for thus the man and woman who
approach the august duty of creating a home are reminded of the
sanctity and beauty of what they undertake.

In this art of homemaking I have set down in my mind certain first
principles, like the axioms of Euclid, and the first is,--

_No home is possible without love._

All business marriages and marriages of convenience, all mere culinary
marriages and marriages of mere animal passion, make the creation of a
true home impossible in the outset. Love is the jeweled foundation of
this New Jerusalem descending from God out of heaven, and takes as
many bright forms as the amethyst, topaz, and sapphire of that
mysterious vision. In this range of creative art all things are
possible to him that loveth, but without love nothing is possible.

We hear of most convenient marriages in foreign lands, which may
better be described as commercial partnerships. The money on each side
is counted; there is enough between the parties to carry on the firm,
each having the appropriate sum allotted to each. No love is
pretended, but there is great politeness. All is so legally and
thoroughly arranged that there seems to be nothing left for future
quarrels to fasten on. Monsieur and Madame have each their apartments,
their carriages, their servants, their income, their friends, their
pursuits,--understand the solemn vows of marriage to mean simply that
they are to treat each other with urbanity in those few situations
where the path of life must necessarily bring them together.

We are sorry that such an idea of marriage should be gaining
foothold in America. It has its root in an ignoble view of life,--an
utter and pagan darkness as to all that man and woman are called
to do in that highest relation where they act as one. It is a mean
and low contrivance on both sides, by which all the grand work of
home-building, all the noble pains and heroic toils of home
education--that e