HOME.

    Where burns the lov’d hearth brightest,
      Cheering the social breast? 
    Where beats the fond heart lightest,
      Its humble hopes possess’d? 
    Where is the smile of sadness,
      Of meek-eyed patience born,
    Worth more than those of gladness,
      Which mirth’s bright cheek adorn? 
    Pleasure is marked by fleetness,
      To those who ever roam;
    While grief itself has sweetness
      At home! dear home!

    There blend the ties that strengthen
      Our hearts in hours of grief;
    The silver links that lengthen
      Joy’s visits when most brief;
    There eyes, in all their splendor,
      Are vocal to the heart,
    And glances, gay or tender,
      Fresh eloquence impart;
    Then, dost thou sigh for pleasure? 
      O! do not widely roam,
    But seek that hidden treasure
      At home! dear home!

    Does pure religion charm thee
      Far more than aught below? 
    Would’st thou that she should arm thee
      Against the hour of woe? 
    Think not she dwelleth only
      In temples built for prayer;
    For home itself is lonely,
      Unless her smiles be there;
    The devotee may falter,
      The bigot blindly roam,
    If worshipless her altar
      At home! dear home!

    Love over it presideth,
      With meek and watchful awe,
    Its daily service guideth,
      And shows its perfect law? 
    If there thy faith shall fail thee,
      If there no shrine be found,
    What can thy prayers avail thee
      With kneeling crowds around? 
    Go! leave thy gift unoffered
      Beneath religion’s dome,
    And be thy first fruits proffered
      At home! dear home!

FIRESIDE INFLUENCE.

Is it not true that parents are the lawgivers of their children?  Does not a mother’s counsel—­does not a father’s example—­cling to the memory, and haunt us through life?  Do we not often find ourselves subject to habitual trains of thought? and, if we seek to discover the origin of these, are we not insensibly led back, by some beaten and familiar track, to the paternal threshold?  Do we not often discover some home-chiseled grooves in our minds, into which the intellectual machinery seems to slide, as by a sort of necessity?  Is it not, in short, a proverbial truth, that the controlling lessons of life are given beneath the parental roof?  We know, indeed, that wayward passions spring up in early life, and, urging us to set authority at defiance, seek to obtain the mastery of the heart.  But, though struggling for liberty and license, the child is shaped and molded by the parent.  The stream that bursts from the fountain, and seems to rush forward headlong and self-willed, still turns hither and thither, according to the shape of its mother-earth over which