toiled and moiled to make that home which to the husband looks so bright. What contriving, what experiment, what puzzle, what economy, what patience with her children, what drilling of domestics, what tact, what courage, what virtue,-only woman's, -to make of these chaotic and contending materials the harmony he finds. To her, evening comes as a solace and relief. She feels its calm, the luxury of its repose. With her, too, care sleeps till the morrow, and the evening meal and the evening converse shall have no shade. Ye who selfishly carry your day-burden with you over the threshold of home, dragging remorselessly into its presence that which has no place there, ye in whom the quick glance of the husband detects the tokens of inward disturbance, let me beg you to remember that what is best for each to share with the other of the day's care may well be adjourned a little, while you may not adjourn the expressions of gladness and love which mean most at the first moment of meeting, and, like all first impressions, are apt to have permanent influence. The cloud that lowers over the meeting may spread into darkness and storm ere night be come. Drop your day-burdens at the moment of your meeting; let, at least, a brief self-forgetfulness overtake those who really love each other, in presence of God's best earthly gift, and the heart's truest earthly treasure, Home! Not only the first meeting after the day is over should be a matter of thought and of care, but the whole subject of evening should receive serious attention from those who are as heads to the home. Situated as most of us are, the evening affords us all of home-life we have. It is the only time when the circle can be complete, the only opportunity for that interchange of thought and influence so invaluable to the character. It must not be suffered to waste under our indolence or indulgence. It must not be left to chance for its improvement, or squandered in a cigar, a newspaper, or the mending of old clothes. It must not be a fret and a worry till the children are in bed, and then a fret and a worry till you are there too. To the evening, and specially the winter's evening, belong mainly the influences of domestic life. few short hours are all the uninterrupted time we have at our disposal to know our own or be known of them. The impression that home leaves upon the child comes mainly from its evenings. The visions which memory delights in conjuring are the old scenes about the evening fire or the evening lamp. Mother and father as they were then are the mother and father we know, and the lessons we then received are the best and most permanent in life. Its If it were not for the evening, what would homelife be to-day? Is it not the little all that there is - > left of it? Are there not some of us who for months scarcely see our children by daylight, and did we not all see, a year or two ago, that a father did not know his own child, an infant of six months, whom his wife had caused to be left in a basket at the door? Ought we not to bless God that, overworked in a world to whose exactings we consecrate ourselves, there comes in mercy the evening, as a silver clasp binding together the day and the night? Ought we not to have a care that it be kept bright and pure, sullied by no ill-doing or neglect? Not so holy and beautiful is the evening without, when moon and stars in all their quiet glory glisten in the sky, as evening within, where human hearts beat true, and the hours are sacred to the developing of the best home good. This can only be through care and effort. Only on conditions does God grant any success or joy. Home is not given, but made. When the man has once entered the home, there he should remain, as a general thing, until the duties of the morrow call him away. I say, as a general thing, for one has duties as a citizen and a neighbor which should not be omitted, and there are opportunities of instruction, amusement, not to be wholly foregone. Shut up exclusively to home, men and women become narrow and selfish in their views and aims and sympathies; themselves and their children suffer. The evening at home, however, is to be the rule, and the evening abroad the exception. Is it not a fact, that the evening at home is the rare thing in some men's lives? There was something more than satire in that anecdote of the man who complained that, now he was married, he had nowhere to spend his evenings. Before a woman is your wife, you know very well, and she knows, where you spend your evenings. After that, you may know, but she does not. The first suspicion many a woman has of the waning of the honeymoon is in the absence of her husband in the evening, and the fact in many homes is, that the husband and father has no place in the evening circle, and no influence there. A hasty supper swallowed — not eaten — in silence or complaint, the coat and hat are resumed. The door is opened, closed, and the husband gone, without a sign to show that home has any place in his affections. She who at first remonstrated has long since ceased even to sigh, and takes with a patient resignation that which she finds is inevitably her lot. Even the children evince no disappointment, and the door shuts out a man who goes to the street, the club, the secret meeting, oblivious of the obligations he voluntarily assumed when he became a husband and a parent, whose care for home is, that it have food, fuel, and shelter, and his demand of it, that it do not trouble - a man him. Is there not many such a husband and many such a home? I know wives are not always angels. I know that even our own children are not always cherubs. I know home does not always smile and welcome, it is not always neat and cheery; but do you never, if you are a man, abandon or complain of it until you have tried to the uttermost your skill upon it. It is a mean and cowardly thing in a man to turn his back upon a home in which he has never been known as an earnest and sympathetic coadjutor and friend. So far as it is possible, I should say that the evening should not only be spent at home by the various members of the family, but that they should spend it together. Simply to be at home does not answer the home requirement. To be thoughtlessly or selfishly absorbed in one's own special pursuit, absent or apart from the home circle, is not discharging the duty. To be in the house is not to be in the home. Some men always do a certain class of writing at home, shut up by themselves, or, if with the family, compelling it to silence and restraint. Go to their places of business, and you cannot see why this need be. Very few men have their time so wholly absorbed as to be compelled to rob home in this way. There are intervals of leisure in the busiest day. Men are far from busy the whole time they are at their places of busi |