HOME.

'Tis sweet to hear the honest watchdog's bark

Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home;

'Tis sweet to know that there is an eye will mark

Our coming, and look brighter when we come.--Byron.

An elegant sufficiency, content,

Retirement, rural, quiet, friendship, books,

Ease and alternate labor, useful life,

Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven.--Thomson.

'Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

--J.H. Payne, in the Opera of "Clari."

No word in the English language approaches in sweetness

the sound of this group of letters. Out of this grand syllable rush

memories and emotions always chaste, and always noble. The murderer in

his cell, his heart black with crime, hears this word, and his crimes

have not yet been committed; his heart is yet pure and free; in his mind

he kneels at his mother's side and lisps his prayers to God that he, by

a life of dignity and honor, may gladden that mother's heart; and then

he weeps, and for a while is not a murderer. The Judge upon his bench

deals out the dreaded justice to the scourged, and has no look of

gentleness. But breathe this word into his ear, his thoughts fly to his

fireside; his heart relents; he is no longer Justice, but weak and

tender Mercy.

What makes that small, unopened missive so precious to that great rough

man? Why, 'tis from Home--from Home, that spot to which his heart is

tied with unseen cords and tendrils tighter than the muscles which hold

it in his swelling chest. Perhaps he left his Home caring little for it

at the time. Perhaps harsh necessity drove him from its tender roof to

lie beneath