SECTION I.

HOME IN THE SPHERE OF NATURE.

"My home! the spirit of its love is breathing
In every wind that plays across my track,
From its white walls the very tendrils wreathing
Seem with soft links to draw the wanderer back.
There am I loved--there prayed for!--there my mother
Sits by the hearth with meekly thoughtful eye,
There my young sisters watch to greet their brother;
Soon their glad footsteps down the path will fly!
And what is home? and where, but with the loving?"


Home! That name touches every fibre of the soul, and strikes every chord of
the human heart as with angelic fingers. Nothing but death can break its
spell. What tender associations are linked with home! What pleasing images
and deep emotions it awakens! It calls up the fondest memories of life, and
opens in our nature the purest, deepest, richest gush of consecrated
thought and feeling.

"Home! 'tis a blessed name! And they who rove,
Careless or scornful of its pleasant bonds,
Nor gather round them those linked soul to soul
By nature's fondest ties,...
But dream they're happy!"

But what _is_ home,--home in the sphere of nature? It is not simply an