than
self, and I know you all share the feeling. I want to feel that God is
here, and to live as if we saw him and were all under his actual
guidance and care, and to realize that he sees and approves our way in
life."

Thus was "our house" opened, and thus was it kept--a home sanctified
to humanity and to God.

The years rolled away, not without changes, but peace and plenty still
reign in the modest home whose owners are looked up to by all the
town's people--rich as well as poor--as friends and benefactors; for
all men alike need human sympathy and comfort.

The young carpenter of twenty-five years ago, is now a prosperous
builder in the great city near his home. He could afford to erect and
occupy a house worth four times what the cottage cost. But he loves
the place, and cannot tear himself from it. He has added more than one
L to it, and he has refurnished it, and brought into it many articles
of taste and luxury.

When asked why he does not build a house more in accordance with his
means, he replies:--

"No house could be built which would be like 'our house.' I can never
forget the night we and our mothers dedicated it to God in prayer and
simple trust; and ever since that night I have felt as if we were
dwelling in the secret of his tabernacle, under the shadow of the
Almighty. We might have a larger and more fashionable house, but it
would bring a weight of care on its mistress, and steal the time she
has made sacred to others. No other house could have the memories this
one has; no other house be hallowed as this house has been by the
prayers of the holy and the blessings of the poor."

And so the family still live on and are happy in "our house." Still
the pastor's weary wife is relieved of church company, for, from force
of habit, all ministers and others on errands of good, draw up their
horses before the well-filled stable, and ring, for themselves, at
this open door. Still the poor are fed from that store-closet under
the back stairway; still the wanderer--though he be a wanderer in a
double sense--rests his weary head in that shed-chamber.

The squire wonders at the builder, because he lives in such a modest
way compared with his means, and says, "If I were he, I'd be ashamed
of that cottage which was all well enough when he was a young
journeyman."

The builder wonders what the squire does with all that great house,
and why, when half a dozen rooms are empty there, he doesn't allow
himself