The Home Mission
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The Step-mother
Bear and Forbear
The Social Serpent
The Gentle Warning
Kate's Experiment
My Fortune's Made!
The Good Match
The Brother's Temptation
The Home of Taste
The Two Systems
The Evening Prayer
A Peevish Day, and its Consequences
SISTERS
BROTHERS
HOME
A Gleam of Sunshine on the Path of a Money-lender
Engaged at Sixteen
The Daughter
The Love Secret
Passing Away
PREFACE
If it were possible to trace back to their beginnings, in each individual, those good or evil impulses which have become ruling affections — in most cases the origin would not be found until we had reached the home of childhood. Here it is that impressions are made, which become as enduring as existence itself.
But the influence of home is not beneficial or baneful in early years alone. Wherever a home exists, there will be found the nursery of all that is excellent in social or civil life — or of all that is deformed. Every man and woman we meet in society, exhibit, in unmistakable characters — the quality of their homes. The wife, the husband, the children — bear with them daily a portion of the spirit pervading the little circle from which they have come forth.
If the sun shines there — a light will be on their countenances; but shadows — if clouds are in the sky of home. If there is disorder, defect of principle, discord among the members, neglect of duty, and absence of kind services — then the sphere of those who constitute that home can hardly be beneficial. They will add little to the common stock of good in the social life around them. We need not say how different will be the influence of those whose home-circle is pervaded by higher, purer, and truer principles.
A word to the wise is, we are told, sufficient. He, therefore, who speaks a true word in the ear of the wise — has planted a seed that will surely spring up and yield good fruit. May we hope that all into whose hands this little book is destined to come are wise, and that the few suggestive words spoken therein, as "hints to make home happy," will fall into good ground. If this is so, "The Home Mission" will not be fruitless. Though no annual reports of what it has accomplished are made, its silent and unobtrusive work, we trust, will be none the less effectual.
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