Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/414

Rh obtained in our old north, the appellation of a sacred room. The fire of the domestic hearth burns in no country brighter, or is tended by purer hands than in the home of the United States. It is a pleasure to me to be able to say this with knowledge and conviction. Nor have I in any country seen the home so generally beautiful in its exterior, so guarded as the apple of the human eye. Neither have I ever seen people who know better how to follow the hint which the Creator gave, when he, having created Adam, placed him, not in a city, but in a garden. Even the American cities seem to have uneasy consciences when they begin to cluster themselves into closely-built masses of houses, and one might say that the houses there hastened to get apart from each other, and though they stand in rows forming streets and markets, they soon make open spaces, and surround themselves with a green sward, and trees and flowers. And the larger this verdant, shady, flowery plot, the more cheerful seems the American home. This is what it enjoys, but it likes to enjoy it in company, and wishes others to be as well off as itself. Order, comfort, embellishment, and an actual luxury of trees and flowers distinguish the home of the New World. And this home is the earliest world of the child, of the new man.

It is to the home, it is to the heart of the home, to the guardian of the sacred fire upon its hearth, that I look for the entrance of the new man upon the theatre of the world, for the obtaining of victory in the combat, which is going on between the two powers of the world. The important thing is to obtain many and brave champions for the good cause: to win the heart, and to give the will a right and strong bias towards the good, that is the chief thing.

I have set my hope upon the weak, upon them who in their weakness are strong. I am certain that it depends upon them. And if they hesitate, or if they are not equal