has invested the social compact.  Besides, he fails to meet those conditions upon which the vigorous development of individual life and character depends.  Indolence is no friend either to physical, mental or moral development.  The body becomes imbecile, the spirit supine and sentimental, the morals vitiated, and the mind sinks into complete puerility.  Activity is a law of all life, and the condition of its healthy development and maturity.  Without it we resort to jejune amusement, and from amusement we are hurried on to dissipation, to the card table and dram shop; and from dissipation we sink to degradation, infamy and wretchedness.  Idleness is thus the fruitful mother of vice and misery.  Our lives cannot exist in a state of neutrality between active good and active evil.  It is, therefore, the duty of the Christian home to prepare her young members for some useful calling in life, not only as a means of subsistence, but also as a safeguard against the evils of idleness.

CHAPTER XXII.

THE HOME-PARLOR.

  “The foolish floatiness of vanity, and solemn trumperies of pride,—­
  Harmful copings with the better, and empty-headed apings of the worse;
  Vapid pleasures, the weariness of gaiety, the strife and bustle of
    the world;
  The hollowness of courtesies, and substance of deceits, idleness and
    pastime—­
  All these and many more alike, thick conveying fancies,
  Flit in throngs about my theme, as honey-bees at even to their hives!”

The Christian home includes the parlor.  This department we must give but a brief and passing notice.  Yet it is as important and responsible as the nursery.  In it we have a view of the relations of home to society beyond it.  The parlor is set apart for social communion with the world.  Much of momentous interest is involved in this relation.  The choice of companions, the forming of attachments and matrimonial alliances, the establishment of social position and influence in life beyond the family,—­these are all involved in the home-parlor.

If we would, therefore, escape the shackles and contamination of corrupt society, we must hold the parlor sacred and give to it the air and bearing of at least a moral aristocracy.  Home is the first form of society.  The law of love rules and reigns there.  It is enthroned in the heart, and casts light around our existence.  In that society we live above the trammels of artificial life.  In its parlor the members merge with society beyond its sacred precincts.  Hence it is the most beautiful room; the best furniture is there; smiles adorn it; friends meet there; fashion meets there in her silks and jewels, with her circumstance and custom, her sympathies, antipathies and divers kinds of conversation; form and profession reign there; flatteries and hypocrisies intrude themselves there; pledges are given there; attachments and vows are made there; the mind and heart are impressed and moulded