endeavour never to allude to them again. America is my
birth-place and my home. Home has two significations, a
restricted one and an enlarged one; in its restricted
sense, it is the place of our abode, it includes our
social circle, our parents, children, and friends, and
contains the living and the dead; the past and the present
generations of our race. By a very natural process, the
scene of our affections soon becomes identified with
them, and a portion of our regard is transferred from
animate to inanimate objects. The streams on which we
sported, the mountains on which we clambered, the fields
in which we wandered, the school where we were instructed,
the church where we worshipped, the very bell whose
pensive melancholy music recalled our wandering steps in
youth, awaken in after-years many a tender thought, many
a pleasing recollection, and appeal to the heart with
the force and eloquence of love. The country again contains
all these things, the sphere is widened, new objects are
included, and this extension of the circle is love of
country. It is thus that the nation is said in an enlarged
sense, to be our home also.

"This love of country is both natural and laudable: so
natural, that to exclude a man from his country, is the
greatest punishment that country can inflict upon him;
and so laudable, that when it becomes a principle of
action, it forms the hero and the patriot. How impressive,
how beautiful, how dignified was the answer of the
Shunamite woman to Elisha, who in his gratitude to her
for her hospitality and kindness, made her a tender of