away from doubtful pleasures and foolish expense, through his wife's influence? Some poor, cowardly souls think so, and utter senseless cries against her who, as a guardian angel, stands between these and their victim. I think the wife was given to man to supply him with certain things wanting in his own nature, and in yielding to her judgment, her opinion, her desire where these are on the side of truth and justice he only follows out the leading of a Divine will. But though the husband hide it or deny it, let the good wife be of good cheer. One thing, however, let her understand, worrying, fretting, fault-finding, direct and frequent harangues, ill-tempered slurs, any thing that looks like passion, suspicion, or jealousy, will do no good. These are things a man cannot bear, and have driven many into the thing they were intended to prevent. She lacks judgment and prudence who shall ever indulge in these. Let her know that the strongest influences are those which are silent and indirect, that it is impossible for her to be in the right, gently, patiently, consistently, without its being felt. It may not be acknowledged to-day, or to-morrow, or ever; it may not do all that she hoped it would do. Counteracting influences may be too strong for that, but it is felt among the deepest and the last things of life, even when he jeers and scoffs and strikes. Women little know how much the des tiny of man rests with them. Alas that there should be so many foolish and selfish and weak and indolent, angels of darkness rather than angels of light! Next in a home, too little believed in and too little exercised, is a sister's influence. I am glad to say that I believe in that as a fact, not as a thing of fiction, or as obsolete. I do not think sisters have much cause for believing in it, or much encouragement for exercising it, nor am I much surprised at their saying that there is no use in their trying to do any thing for their brothers. Perhaps none of the relations of the home has been more generally and deliberately neglected than this, till the brother and sister life in the home flow on side by side in two separate and welldefined channels, instead of in one full, confluent stream. There is not true harmony in a home until the mutual dependence and influence of the two is recognized. I know that sisters have great influence over their brothers, though the abominable pride of our growing boys prevents their suspecting it. It is true they laugh at them, they won't listen to what they say, half the time won't speak to them when some other girl is about whom they admire; but if the sister have any genuine character, and the boy a genuine heart, she may rest secure of her power. She, too, must remember that any thing like compulsion especially if exercised in the presence of other - boys or girls-will be fatal to her influence. Sisters may, by the silent, imperceptible influence of daily character and life, imbue brothers with the noblest impulses and aims. Let them be content with that, rousing no suspicions by evident attempts or by expressed purpose, turning into a rebel him who would otherwise willingly be led. I fear there are too few sisters capable of exerting this high influence, too few conscious of their power and their responsibility. In too many homes brothers are influenced for evil by their sisters. They have not the high, womanly principle that belongs to their sex, the keen, quick, delicate sense of truth and right and justice, the pure, unselfish, broad, and generous love that belongs to their nature, the untainted and virgin modesty which God gives, but the artificial sanctions and restraints of custom, which confound and dim. Prime movers in deep and lasting mischief are sisters sometimes, from whose sentiments and conduct brothers take their cue. The propriety which a young man sees his sister disregard, the flippant sentiment he hears her utter or approve, the doubtful fashion which he sees her adopt, all go to make the home atmosphere in which he daily grows. Not by deliberate example does she lead him astray, but by what he perceives to be the tendency of her word and While I know brothers, coming into the world act. in the unqualified integrity and grace of manhood, made by their sisters, while I know those who have been influenced to their salvation by them, there are those who have been encouraged, if not led on, by their sisters to their ruin, young men who are saying, "If only my sisters had showed and made me love virtue, if only they had dropped their senseless love of pleasure and of self, and given me the model of pure womanhood, how different might have been my fate." Now let the young woman forget that such as he finds his sisters to be, such does he believe all young women are, and what a libel to her sex, what a life-long injury to her brother, may one heartless and selfish sister be! and If I have dwelt somewhat at length upon the feminine influences of the home, it is because home is the peculiar sphere of woman. With the world at large she has little to do. Her influence begins, centres, and ends in her home. Of the influence of sister upon sister, of the daughter and the son upon their parents, of the brother upon the brother and the sister, of the husband upon the wife, much might be said, and should be said, in order to any thing like a complete view of home influences; but I must content myself with one or two brief remarks upon the influence of the father. If it be true that the child inherits more largely from the mother nature than the father, if it be true that there are certain qualities essential to true manhood which the mother cannot understand or evoke, and if the whole matter of early culture and influence in the plastic days of childhood is left in her hands, must it not follow that the race is, little by little, but inevitably, losing the prestige of perfect manliness? To the true developing of the man certain womanly influences are essential, but only in their just proportion. The absence of that which is manly must necessarily seriously affect the condition and prospects of the race. Not only, then, is the father who leaves the things of home wholly to the mother doing an immediate wrong to his child, but a remote injury to posterity, a thing we care too little about. We ought to do something for the race, at least we should do nothing against it. Every father should understand that every home has its guiding principle, shaping and determining it, which it derives from him. The mother influence is, as we say, passive, and too often overlaid by that which is more immediately attractive. More obvious and superficial in itself, the father's guiding principle becomes the law of the house, and leaves upon it an impress indelible and deep. Take a man of large and liberal sentiments and sympathies, of clear moral vision and real charity, all whose views are broad |