Sweet Home; or, Friendship's Golden Altar/Preface
Preface.
There is no place like home! It may be a rude, rough home, at the foot of some stern, snow-clad mountain; but wherever we wander, we look back to it with the utmost interest. The object of this book is to awaken the memories of home—to remind us of the old scenes and old times, and kindle on old hearthstones the old fires. It will assist us in living over past days, and we shall murmur,—
"Give me my old seat, mother,
With my head upon thy knee;
Ive passed through many a changing scene
Since thus I sat by thee:
O, let me look into thine eyes;
Their meek, soft, loving light
Falls like a gleam of holiness
Upon my heart to-night."
It is well often to go home, that the free innocence of childhood may be reflected from the hallowed scenes of early days upon our souls, which have been checkered with the joys and sorrows of life. But home lives only in memory with some; its only existence is in the past. The cottage where we were born has been swept away, and a statelier edifice rises on the spot; the dear friends of our youth are dead, and their bones lie in the old churchyard, and we seldom go back to that old spot. This hook is designed to be the memorial of the home which has faded away, and the homestead which is now demolished or acquired by another; to call up old faces, and hang them like portraits on the walls of our active, busy lives; to sketch like the landscape the well with the old oaken bucket, the brook along which we often wandered, the meadow with its furrows, and the distant mountain with its misty drapery.
Some one draws a picture of a laborer returning at night to his home: "He has borne the heat and burden of the day, the descending sun has released him of his toil, and he is hastening home to enjoy repose. Half way down the lane, by the side of which stands his cottage, his children run to meet him. One he carries, and one he leads. The companion of his humble life is ready to furnish him with his plain repast. See his toil-worn countenance assume an air of cheerfulness! His hardships are forgotten; fatigue vanishes; he eats, and is satisfied. The evening fair, he walks with uncovered head around his garden—enters again, and retires to rest; and 'the rest of the laboring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much.'" So we send this volume to be a companion for the evening hour, like the voices of his children, to cheer the weary laboring at night, believing all its readers will find it pure in morals, elevating in its tone, cheerful and hopeful in its disposition, and reverent in all its views of God—a transcript of home, sweet home.