alas! there are many homes like the one from which we have drawn aside the curtain for a moment, there are also many homes in our land where the sunshine of love falls daily with a brightness no clouds can wholly obscure; where only the attractive, not the repellent, forces exist. Such a home was that over which Mrs. Florence presided. No, we will not say "presided;" that is too formal and stately a word. In such a home she was the sweet attractive centre, towards which all hearts were drawn. Unselfish love was the bond of union.

Mrs. Florence had been blest with a wise and good mother. How much is told in that! With good principles, well-regulated affections, and right views of life, she entered the marriage state, chosen by one who looked past the attractive exterior to the qualities that lay hidden in the very groundwork of character. When beautiful children blessed this union, children in whom all infantine loveliness centred, the father and mother did not forget in their pride and joy, that germs of evil lay hidden in the hearts of their now pure offspring, surely to be developed. True love, therefore, prompted a most watchful care and a wise discrimination. Not so much in the firm repression of evil in its first scarcely seen development was this manifested, as in the

cultivation of opposite affections. The effort was to direct all the young minds' active powers into good forms, giving them a vigorous growth, and leaving the evil inclinations, like sickly plants, to die out, or only retain a feeble hold upon life. When evil came into a more than usually strong manifestation, genuine love for her children kept the mother's spirit calm and her judgment cool. She thought not of her own ease or pleasure, but of the good of her beloved ones - the young immortals given her to educate for a higher life.

And so in this home, over which an angel woman presided, grew no weeds in rank luxuriance, to bear fruits of discord and disunion. But let us come a little nearer.

A day of severe trial was drawing to a close, and the thoughts of Mr. Florence were turning homewards. Many such days of trial, accompanied by exhausting mental labor, were his allotment in life, and but for the sweet repose and loving ministra tions of home, his spirit would have become soured or grown moody and fretful. There had been much on this day to disturb and depress him, and thought still dwelt earnestly on the trouble and disappoint ments through which he had passed as his steps bent homeward. Still thrown backward were his

thoughts, and still the shadow was on his spirits, when he stood with his hand on his own door.

Nor had the day passed in sunshine with Mrs. Florence. A bad-tempered domestic, when firmly remonstrated with for her neglect of duty, had grown insolent, and left the house. In consequence, though weak in body from a recent indisposition, Mrs. Florence had double work to perform, in order to meet the wants of her family. When evening shadows began to fall, a cloud was on her spirits. There had been a slight pain through one temple for some hours, and this, added to weakness, disturbed thought, and exhaustion, unstrung her nerves completely. She felt strangely irritable, and it was with difficulty she could at times repress an impatient word towards her children, who seemed bent on doing just such things as were particularly annoying.

Thus it was when Mr. Florence turned his steps homeward. As he opened the door, there came to his ears soft music from lightly falling fingers, and a low, sweet voice stole into his heart like the voice of a consoling spirit. What a lifting up of shadows there was! What a streaming in of sunshine upon his darkened spirit!

Depressed, wearied, and exhausted as she was, a

loving thought of her husband soon to come home quickened the heart of Mrs. Florence with a new life.

"He must find a better welcome than this," said she to herself; and so she made a hurried toilet, spoke a few timely words in the right spirit to her chilaren, restoring thereby that harmony among them which had been slightly disturbed, and then drew them to the parlor with the promise of music, that always acted like a spell upon their spirits. And thus it was when the husband and father came home-the mother at the piano, with her children around her, singing to them an old, familiar song of home.

When Mr. Florence closed the door behind him on that evening, he shut out the world; and when he joined his family, he came in sunshine instead of shadows. How little thought Mrs. Florence that the light which pervaded the room on his entrance was only the sunshine from her own unselfish spirit thrown back upon her with added brightness! Yet it was even so. The loving kiss on her forehead, how it warmed even to her heart! And how full of consoling tenderness was the voice that said,

"Is not our home a type of Eden?"

Was she not rewarded for her self-constraining

O

effort, thoug made in weariness and pain? O, yes; a thousand thousand fold. Not once did the shalows return to either heart that evening. How dif ferent it might have been, both with parents and children, it takes no effort of the imagination to see. It is with gloomy spirits as with clouds- the whole atmosphere grows darker when they meet.

"This has been one of my trial days," said Mrs. Florence to her husband, after the children were in bed, and they sat alone. Her voice, as she spoke, fell to a more subdued tone, and a slight shade of care threw a dim veil over her countenance.

Mr. Florence leaned towards her sympathizingly, and she told him, though not in a complaining or desponding voice, of the trials through which she had passed. He answered with encouraging words, and made suggestions in which her thoughts rested. How deeply he was touched, as it became apparent that, to welcome him to a cheerful home, she had repressed ner excited feelings, and even in pain and weariness compelled herself to awaken a melody in the air to greet him at his coming! bands drawn closer that evening?

Were not heart

Yes, yes!

And so with them the seasons passed. If trials came, as come they will to all, they bore the burden cheerfully; if clouds obscured the light around