PREFACE.

If it were possible to trace back to their beginnings, in each individual, those good or evil impulses that have become ruling affections, in most cases the origin would not be found until we had reached the home of childhood.  Here it is that impressions are made, which become lasting as existence itself.  But the influence of home is not alone salutary or baneful in early years.  Wherever a home exists, there will be found the nursery of all that is excellent in social or civil life, or of all that is deformed.  Every man and woman we meet in society, exhibit, in unmistakable characters, the quality of their homes.  The wife, the husband, the children, the guest, bear with them daily a portion of the spirit pervading the little circle from which they have come forth.  If the sun shines there, a light will be on their countenances; but shadows, if clouds are in the sky of home.  If there be disorder, defect of principle, discord among the members, neglect of duty, and absence of kind offices, the sphere of those who constitute that home can hardly be salutary.  They will add little to the common stock of good in the social life around them.  We need not say how different will be the influence of those whose home-circle is pervaded by higher, purer, and truer principles.

A word to the wise is, we are told, sufficient.  He, therefore, who speaks a true word in the ear of the wise, has planted a seed that will surely spring up and yield good fruit.  May we hope that all into whose hands this little book is destined to come are wise, and that the few suggestive words spoken therein, as “hints to make home happy,” will fall into good ground.  If this be so, “The Home Mission” will not be fruitless.  Though no annual reports of what it has accomplished are made, its silent and unobtrusive work, we trust, will be none the less effectual.

THE HOME MISSION.

A VISION OF CONSOLATION.

The tempest of grief which, for a time, had raged so wildly in the heart of Mrs. Freeland, exhausted by its own violence, sobbed itself away, and the stricken mother passed into the land of dreams.

To the afflicted, sleep comes with a double blessing—­rest is given to the wearied body and to the grieving spirit.  Often, very often, the Angel of Consolation bends to the dreaming ear, and whispers words of hope and comfort that from no living lips had yet found utterance.

And it was so now with the sleeping mother.  A few hours only had passed since she stood looking down, for the last time, on the fair face of her youngest born.  Over his bright, blue eyes, into whose heavenly depths she had so loved to gaze, the pale lids had closed for ever.  Still lingered around his lips the smile left there by the angels, as, with a kiss of love, they received his parting spirit.  In the curling masses of his rich, golden hair, the shadows nestled away, as of old, while his tiny fingers held a few white blossoms, as with a living grasp.  Was it death or sleep?  So like a sleeping child the sweet boy lay, that it seemed every moment as if his lips would unclose, his eyes open to the light, and his voice come to the listening ear with its tones of music.