Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/271

Rh which conveyed the first colony of free men and women from the Old to the New World, and who founded a new community on the soil of North America. “The May-flower” was the symbol of the Old World's youngest anticipations. The community of the United States became the May-flower of the human race. It will not tolerate that any worm should feed in its dewy chalice, that any Nidhögg should gnaw at its root. And it is right.

But I have too long detained the attention of your Majesty by this side of the history of the United States, and I fear that in so doing my letter has extended itself to an undue length. I cannot, however, close this account to your Majesty of the life in the New World without saying a few words respecting the homes there.

During the whole period of my residence in this hemisphere, I have lived and been entertained in American homes, and it is in these homes and by familiar intercourse with their members that I have contemplated and reflected upon the social life of the New World; it is in them that I have loved and thought, reposed and enjoyed myself; it is the home of America which I have to thank pre-eminently for what I have here learned and experienced; it is the home of America which has conferred more upon me than the whole treasure of California—a new life both for heart and soul.

The home on the soil of the New World is that which the home was for our old North, and still is to this day—a sacred room. The American home, however, will be also a beautiful room. It loves to surround itself with green plots, with lovely trees and flowers. It is the same in the cities. More beautifully adorned homes are not to be met with in the world. Within the home, the fear of God, morality and domestic love are met with. It is the American home which strengthens the American States and makes them steadfast in the fear of God, and a moral