p. 49Paradise, as Realized in the Home of the True Man

The Catholic Church attracts those who love the simplicity of natural manners, by the harmonies of a restored creation.... The Catholic Religion is not presented to us as separated from nature, but in conjunction with it forming a grand whole, fostering all the domestic affections with manhood, gentleness, liberality, and all the virtues which conduce to the happiness of HOME, banishing not more the luxuries which militate directly against the social state in general, than the false notions of spirituality which would interfere with the free action of the natural relations. For, as a recent author says, the beauty, peace, unity, and truth of life repose on that religious equilibrium which protects the flesh against the pride of the spirit, and the spirit against the invasions of the flesh.... In truth, nothing is so natural as Catholicity—nothing so full of heart—nothing so favorable, therefore, to all the sweets of Home. Virgins and boys, mid-age and wrinkled elders, soft infancy that nothing can but cry, all are in the secret of its charm.

Kenelm Henry Digby.

Let it not be thought that we dwell at too great a length upon this notion of Home, and all the duties and charities inseparably connected with home-life. When one looks abroad upon the nations which once constituted Christendom, and examines seriously the causes of social and political prosperity or decay, this great fact stands forth as evidently as a bright beacon-light in the darkness over a dangerous reef: The strength or weakness, the vitality or decadence of nations, is to be measured by the purity of their home-life, by their sacred regard for Home, its authority, and its sanctities.

Take any one people among whom Home,—from that of the sovereign or chief magistrate to the lowliest and poorest citizen,—is protected by law, manners, and a wholesome public opinion, against everything calculated to loosen or to weaken the sacredness of the marriage tie, the rights of parental authority as sanctioned by the Christian law and immemorial custom, or the duties of filial love and reverence,—and you will find the nation distinguished for private worth, political honesty, and an enlightened love of freedom.

Abuses there may and will be in the administration of the best human institutions; but where the homes of a nation are sincerely and thoroughly Christian, public corruption must find a certain and most effective remedy in a public opinion fed by the purity and honesty of private life.

The labor bestowed on describing the Home as it ought to be, and as it still is in many Christian lands, is surely a labor well bestowed, and the pains taken to make the description of home-life so enchanting, that all may feel its charm, must assuredly be blessed of God, the Author of our nature and the unwearied promoter of its highest welfare.

Guard inviolable the Sanctity and Privacy of the Home

In the magnificent new countries in America, Asia, and—it may be—Africa, which Providence throws open to the thrifty and over-crowded populations of Europe, it is free to every man worthy of the name, to build up a home of his own. It was, and is still, the boast of the freeman living under the common law of England and these United States, that his home was his castle, all his own in its length and breadth, and as high as the heavens. It must be the fault of a degenerate race, neglectful of never-to-be-abdicated rights, if the inviolability of their homes and the hallowed privacy of family life, are surrendered into the hands of the policeman or given up to the lawless curiosity of the public press.

At any rate, no one may deny that it is free to every willing and true-hearted man to create for himself a home as happy, as honored, as lasting as those visited in the present or past ages by God’s richest blessings.

Every such home should be one founded on God-given love. “No man or woman,” says a Catholic writer, “has ever felt true love without feeling a desire to become better, and to thank God for His having given therein a foretaste of the joys of heaven.”¹1Études sur les idées et sur leur union au sein du Catholicisme.

“Where faith (says Digby) has stamped its character on the maiden’s heart, where man is reminded of the graces of her whom he delights to serve, woman’s divine air and her countenance, her words and her sweet smile, can so separate him from all evil influences, that no obstacles upon the road to truth will be able to detain his feet from pressing forward to embrace it; and then hand in hand he is led to his second home, where love and truth made one with it, will remain with him thenceforth forever.”

This is the only sure foundation of the Home,—a true mutual love hallowed by the blessing of Him who made the human heart, and tempered by the fear of His dread majesty. Of the divinely appointed means of sanctioning this mutual love, of preserving and increasing it through life and beyond the grave, we have to speak elsewhere.

The True Home, is the True Love which brightens it

As, however, we do not here understand by the word “home,” merely the walls which inclose parents and children, with the roof which covers them, but all the charities and all the sanctities, which can make of the poorest laborer’s fireside a heaven on earth, and without which the luxurious mansion of the wealthy man or the splendid palace of the prince, is only a gorgeous sepulcher filled with the skeletons and ghosts of dead hopes,—it is both fitting and necessary that we should dwell somewhat more in detail on these home affections and associations.

To the lowliest-born, as he looks back across the wide gulf of years to his native spot and the roof under which he passed his infancy and boyhood, there may arise memories of a wealth of love so surpassing, of virtues and qualities so ennobling,—that his soul swells with unspeakable gratitude and a holy pride at the very thought, while it evermore spurs him to emulate the work of his parents, and to sanctify his own home by the same deeds of piety and goodness. And how often does it happen, that the man born in the lap of luxury or reared amid the splendors and pleasures of a court,—finds his soul stirred by no sweet memories of early love, by no recollections of Godlike goodness and virtue in parents, relatives, or early acquaintance! How many hearts have starved and pined for want of the love lavished on the child of the cottager or the mechanic! How many souls, nobly born and nobly gifted, have been degraded, poisoned, ruined in childhood and youth by the profligacy of parents, or the systematic corruption of the tutors or companions assigned to them!

We know it by experience and observation,—there may be an imperial wealth of love, of tenderness, of purity, piety, and self-sacrificing heroism, beneath the humble roof of the poor journeyman mason or of the hod-carrier who waits upon him, while the children of a Louis XIV., or a Frederick the Great, may never know what fatherly affection or motherly tenderness means.

The Poor Man’s Home may be Rich in Love; the King’s, Poor

Happy the man, in no matter what station born, who, in calling to mind the home of his childhood and the sweet and venerable images of father and of mother,—only recalls in both a united stream of love and devotion, which bore him along through infancy, boyhood, and youth, as if he were lifted on the bosom of an unchanging flood of joy and peace and harmony! He cannot think of his mother without feeling his heart melt within him at the remembrance of one, who was in his eyes more than an angel,—a visible embodiment of God’s own exhaustless goodness and unwearied patience; a vision of gentleness, devotion, unvarying sweetness, a love that never slumbered or changed save only to increase. And beside her cherished image stands in his soul that other one, of his father,—the second sun of his life, feeding with its warmth and brightness the steady glow of maternal love. He can only recollect the strong man, sustaining, inspiring, cheering the wife of his bosom; aiding her, cooperating with her in the performance of every duty that made their home bright or their name dear to the neighbors; carrying herself and her children in his strong arms and on his loving heart, when the road of life was too rough or too dangerous; and singing in his heart all the while a song more divine than ever sounded at springtide through forest or grove!

This, however, is only a very feeble and unsatisfactory description of the manifold blessings and most blissful influences arising from the perfect mutual love and united life-work of father and mother in the Home. Where such a close union reigns, what is not the happiness of the children! what harmony among servants and dependants! what edification to the neighbors! These expressions do not at all convey the full truth as it is in our mind, and as we have beheld it in reality.

God designed that the creative power of this love in the Home should resemble that of His own unspeakable charity in the everlasting kingdom, that of the sunlight here below.

This Love makes Home a Heaven

It does indeed make the Home the image of Heaven. For there the infinite love which binds together in one most blissful being, life, and society, the Three Divine Persons, is the same which forms the bond of eternal affection, joy, and happiness of the glorious society of angels and men, united in fellowship with their Creator and Father. Even while in the flesh, Ignatius of Loyola was vouchsafed what would seem a glimpse of the beatific reality which is to be in the life to come the reward of faith practiced in this. He was given to see or to understand so clearly the ineffable way in which the Three Persons are one, the Son, proceeding eternally from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son,—that in his case the veil had been withdrawn. This extraordinary favor would appear to have been granted in return for the absolute generosity with which the high-minded soldier had torn his heart away from the pursuit of all earthly honor and glory, from the deepest and purest natural affections, to become in the hand of God a passive and docile instrument for the mighty work reserved to him. It was but a glimpse vouchsafed him into these eternal depths, in which he beheld the three infinite Persons like a threefold flow of being and light and love springing evermore from the one original fountain, and returning thither in its irresistible tide of charity, only to seem to overflow itself, and flood all the blessed society of men and angels with its splendors and its ardors.

How a Glimpse of the Eternal Love created Apostles

Thenceforth the soul of Ignatius, like a piece of cold metal once plunged in a vast kindred mass in fusion, remained for ever penetrated, inflamed, illumined, and transformed by the glorious vision. He could not rest till he had collected around him a chosen band of men like himself, communicated to them the light and burning love which overflowed in his own soul, and sent them forth, like Francis Xavier and Peter Favre, to kindle the flame of God’s love to the uttermost ends of the earth. Thenceforth, also, his soul could scarcely bear its separation from the blessed company above, and from the undisturbed contemplation of that Divine Reality, one little glimpse of which had set his heart on fire. Prayer and meditation became almost his only food, and so sweet was the love which filled his whole being, that he wept unceasingly. Threatened with the loss of sight, and weakened otherwise in body by the vision, which departed not from his soul by day or night, he was bidden by his physicians and his spiritual director, to abstain from protracted contemplation or frequent thought of divine things; but as he walked about his little garden in Rome, the sight of a single flower would recall the hand that made it, and that uncreated Beauty whose sight from afar and through the mist had ravished his soul, and filled him with yearnings that nothing here below could appease.

And so this great parent of so wide-spread a religious family of priests and apostles, would draw each one of his children to his own glowing heart and send him forth all aflame with the unappeasable desire of daring, doing, and accomplishing what was most heroic for the glory and service of that Adorable Majesty.

Hallowed Creative Love of a True Husband

So it is in a family where the husband’s soul has been touched, purified, and kindled into holy love by the fire from above; he will communicate his fervor to the wife of his bosom; the two hearts, aglow with the same divine flame of charity, will daily become more and more one in thought, in feeling, in purpose, in life. How can they help making their children and their servants like to themselves? How can neighbors, friends, relatives deal with them in frequent intercourse without experiencing the effects of the supernatural ardor that surrounds them like an atmosphere?

Beautiful Examples of Conjugal Love and Home-Bliss

We cannot pass away from this consideration without affording the reader, in illustration of the practical truth set forth here, a glimpse into the private correspondence of a man of the world, who united in his own life the rare blessedness of possessing a model wife and an ideal home,—and the twofold honor of belonging to a family most deservedly dear to Catholic Ireland, while becoming himself in America a model patriot and statesman. The letter from which the following extract is taken was written in August, 1842, eight years after his union with the wife of his choice, and after a literary enterprise, which he had undertaken from the loftiest motives of patriotism and religion, had brought on himself, his companion, and his six little children, utter pecuniary ruin. His young wife, from motives of economy had, with his consent, retired for a few months to the home of her noble father several hundred miles away, and daily received from the busy lawyer such letters as this, replete with the fervent piety and unfailing fortitude of the Christian:

“How much quiet and heartfelt happiness we shall yet enjoy together with the divine blessing! We shall trust everything in His hands. I was never so struck as I was to-day with the beautiful passage in the Gospel for this Sunday. O ye of little faith! Be not solicitous,... saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these things do the heathens seek. For your Father knoweth that you have need of all these things. Seek ye therefore first the Kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added unto you. How much of strength and consolation is found in these words! and who that has faith could make these earthly wants a subject of anxiety or solicitude? How full of affection and tenderness is this reproach of our Saviour, complaining that we should doubt the kindness and care of our Father who is in heaven!... Our Father knows our need! Let us do our duty,—seek the reign of his justice over us,—and leave the rest with Him.”

“I have been filled with this disposition to-day, more than I have ever been before, thanks to the divine goodness.... I was reading yesterday in the Life of St. Francis Xavier, when he beautifully refers to this truth, writing amid sufferings and dangers which no mere mortal strength could endure among the half-barbarous populations of India. ‘Believe me, my beloved brethren,’ he says, addressing his brethren in Rome, ‘it is in general easy to understand the evangelical maxim, that he who will lose his life shall find it. But when the moment of action has come, and when the sacrifice of life for God is to be really made, oh! then, clear as at other times the meaning is, it becomes deeply obscure;... so deep, indeed, that he alone can comprehend it, to whom God, in his mercy, interprets it. Then it is we know how weak and frail we are.’ May God grant that we shall always comprehend this maxim.”

“It is enough, almost, to fill such a cowardly, self-indulgent sinner as I am, with despair to contemplate the zeal and intense devotion of this great apostle. Indeed, I should despair, if God did not pity and sustain me with hope that I may yet strive more earnestly and effectually than I have done hitherto in his service. To speak to any one but you of what passes thus in my mind, would appear, perhaps, an unseemly exposure of what had better be kept within one’s own breast. But, partner of my heart and soul, partner, I hope and believe, of my life for ever, I communicate with you as unreservedly as I would with my own spirit. And I know that I derive advantage from so doing.”

“I have thought much to-day of the great anxiety with which I regard all worldly matters, and I have resolved, with the blessing of God, never to let the issue of any worldly affair, or the opinion of the world, disturb me. I will labor with the same zeal, perhaps with a better zeal, for success in all things; but without solicitude for the result, or any regard for the troubles and difficulties attendant upon the prosecution of my labors.”

“What a blessing it would be, if I could obtain this spirit from God! The Gospel of this day and some account of St. Francis Xavier that I read last evening have filled me with these thoughts; and I beseech you, pray, my beloved angel, that they may not be lost on me.”

“The account of St. Francis Xavier which I read, was contained in a powerful article for the last Edinburgh Review on the Jesuits. I shall send you a couple of Tribunes (Mr. Greeley’s paper) containing extracts from the article. When you read them, you will feel as I did how conspicuous is the presence of Christ with His Church in the lives of men of such extraordinary sanctity. My sloth and cowardice appear more criminal than ever when I think of what sufferings and labors St. Francis Xavier had to contend with; and how utterly idle I have been, how often I have procrastinated, how often I have turned aside from the performance of my ordinary worldly duties through a dread of the labor which they would require. May God grant I may keep the resolution I have now formed to think nothing of labor that is a duty, or that charity requires!”

“For you also, my own love, and for our dear children, I implore the same divine grace.”

In very truth the trials which beset the life of this true-hearted man, gave, until his dying day, perpetual opportunity of practicing the heroic devotion to duty, the perfect and most loving conformity to the Divine Will, that characterized the great Apostle of India. To the latter, indeed, had been given in the midst of his overwhelming labors, so sweet a sense of the divine presence, so inflamed a love of the Master he served,—that by day, as he passed through the streets on his apostolic errand, the people would behold his face all aglow with the interior fire, while from his lips would burst forth the rapturous ejaculation: “O Most Holy Trinity! O Most Holy Trinity!”—as if he were already a glorified spirit gazing on the Unveiled Essence on high! At night, when the crushing and varied labors of the day were over, Francis was wont to withdraw to the silence of some neighboring chapel to give vent to the torrent of praise which he could not restrain, or, frequently, to seek the solitude and cool air of the cemetery, and there kneeling, and throwing open the folds of his poor cassock, he would bare his breast to the night air, as if to cool somewhat the fire which consumed his heart, exclaiming the while, “Oh! not so much sweetness, not so much sweetness, dear Lord!”

With the good and upright magistrate whom we have been mentioning, God’s wise providence dealt otherwise. He, too, was a man of prayer; and, when tried to the utmost,—as his faithful companion often related,—he would kneel for hours in his bedchamber before an oratory, his arms extended upwards as if on a cross, the tears streaming down his cheeks, and his silent heart-cries ascending to heaven in praise and supplication.

A few days before the date of the letter quoted above, and when his heart was bitterly assailed by undeserved calamity, he wrote to his wife as follows:

“I have just risen from my knees, where I have prayed with tears, my loved wife, to the Almighty God, and to his Blessed Virgin Mother, for us both and for our dear children, imploring His grace and guidance in doubts and difficulties, and that he would bring us speedily together in peace, and union, and health, and happiness, and His love. I besought the Blessed Virgin to take us as her children and present our hearts before Him, and beg of Him to purify them and strengthen them in all good purposes, to obtain His aid in our troubles, and that we may receive willingly, with filial affection and submissiveness, whatever trials He may call upon us to undergo.”

The Flame which Feeds a True Husband’s Love

This, then, was the flame in which his heart and that of his companion ever sought to be more and more chastened. Nine months after their union he could write to her, on receiving a letter from her:

“Never since you left me was I so delighted, so happy as at that moment. The contents of the letter, the fond, affectionate heart and soul that breathed in every line were in no wise calculated to lessen my rapture. They stimulated it, rather, they added to and strengthened it. And oh! how I longed for the moment when I could tell you of all the love that burns in my soul for you! and how worthy you are of more, more, far more than any human heart can offer for your acceptance. Yes, my little angel, your purity, your goodness, your unstained love are worth more than all the realms of earth, than all which Time—the past, the present, and the future of this life,—can offer to the enjoyment of man. I feel humbly grateful to the Almighty Hand that has conferred on me a treasure so pure and priceless!”

And farther on in the same letter:

“My beloved, good mother, how I wish I were near her now, if my presence could be a comfort to her! There is a bond of attachment between me and my good dear mother so tender, affectionate and reverential, that while there is life in me nothing can weaken or disturb it. You can understand, my own gentle, affectionate girl, how I must have felt and how I still feel at having left a mother to whom I am so firmly attached, and at a time when she claimed my help and protection.... We had all come away from our friends and native land, and had toiled together amid many privations.... They believed my presence to be essential to them, and to leave them so circumstanced was a trial indeed. But may God give me the means of showing them that I was not insensible to their claims....”

“How much more intimate, easy, and natural do I find the communion between our minds to be, than even between myself and my nearest relative, parent, or sister. I cannot write as fast as the ideas come to me when I am writing to you. I let flow my whole mind at once, and without reserve, when you are the beloved object I address. I need not stop to select words or phrases. I want only to place my whole heart before you, and let you read it. How blessed and sacred indeed is the union between us! Never did I at any moment conceive of such a holy, limitless confidence, such a perfect blending into one of our hearts and our very being, as I have felt to exist between us since our marriage. May God continue this blessing to us! and I feel that He will....”

These fervent protestations of conjugal love and of the deep admiration on which that love was founded, are heard through his correspondence, year after year, till his death, like the ascending tones of a litany. Every year and week and day seemed to reveal to the pure soul of the husband some undiscovered perfection in the wife, which heightened his veneration for her as well as his gratitude to Heaven for the bestowal of such worth on himself.

“Dearly as I loved you,” he wrote toward the close of the first decade of his married life,—“much as I esteemed you, good and excellent as I believed you to be before we were united for ever, yet I did not then know half your purity and excellence. I often think how little I knew, before I could call you mine, of the gentleness, the pure confiding affection, the devotedness, the fortitude, the energy, the childlike innocence, the clear intuitive perception of truth and right, of what is the highest virtue and the highest wisdom, of the firmness in pursuing the course of duty, all of which constitute the character of a true and genuine woman.”

“I had always formed the highest estimate of the female character, and had always had—I thank God for it—some of the best examples before me; but in no other relation of life, save that of husband, can a man see and understand, intimately and without disguise or reserve, all the various attributes and virtues of a woman’s heart and soul. And, even in that dear and holy relation, how often does man’s sterner and more material nature render him slow to discern, appreciate, or sympathize with the above precious gifts and dispositions, that only require the breath of love, with words and deeds and a heart of answering tenderness, in order to be revealed to him in all their exquisite delicacy and loveliness.”

“You are, thank God, my own love, the model of all this excellence; and it is from the contemplation and intimate knowledge of your character, that I have formed the conception of what woman was designed by her beneficent Creator to be.”

Ay,—there is the indispensable condition toward calling forth the full and magnificent luxuriance of a true womanly nature,—“—a heart of answering tenderness.” This tenderness is to the development of her womanly and wifely qualities, what rain and dew and sunlight and a congenial soil are to the growth of the tree or the flowering plant.

Nevertheless, while surrounding her and her children with all the comforts and refinements within reach of their modest income, he believed it to be conducive to her spiritual growth to encourage her oftentimes to sacrifice her most innocent pleasures and gratifications in favor of the poor, of some great religious purpose, or even for the great gain of being in this more Christlike.

“I would dearly like”—he wrote—“that I could make this world a fairy-land to you, in which no thought or wish of yours should remain ungratified. It pains me much, at times, to be forced to disappoint your expectations and to deny you pleasures that wealth enables so many others in your position to enjoy. And yet I cannot help thinking that I should do you a grievous wrong, were I to suppose that you would not be more happy in performing the duties of a sensible, discreet, affectionate, and domestic wife and mother, than when engaged in all the gayeties and exciting pleasures and amusements which mere money can purchase. The temper of your soul would lead you to prefer your home-duties, even though at the cost of sacrifices and deprivations that were very painful. I know this, my darling; I have had, time and again, the evidence of it in your daily life, and my heart has duly appreciated it.”

The True Foundations of the Home

And thus, in these passages taken from the inmost life of a true man, and destined never to meet any other eye than that of his worshiped companion,—we have laid before us the deep, sacred, and safe foundations of the Christian Home,—of the Home as we need it, as God designed it and still wills it, and as it ever existed, hallowed and respected through so many past ages,—the Home of our fathers.

One or two more gems from the conjugal crowns of this truly Christian pair,—and we shall hasten to close this chapter. On the twenty-eighth anniversary of their union, during the autumn of the first year of our great civil war, the husband thus wrote to his absent wife:

“Lake Mahopac, September 29, 1861.”

“Up here in my quiet little third-story room, and all over the house wherever I have been; and in the field, on the road, on the lake,—looking abroad and around me, and above me and below;—looking far away over the woods and the hills, and the misty mountains, or down at the little rivulet or the grass-plot beneath me;—wherever I turned or whatever I saw, whether speaking or silent, or alone or surrounded by others, I thought only of you and saw only you.... on this the twenty-seventh anniversary of the day when God blessed our union and made us one forever.”

“I sighed with regret that I could not be with you; and at every step and turn, at every light and shadow of the landscape, the longing of my heart was on my lips: ‘How I wish my darling wife was here! How happy it would be if she were with me!’ And I sometimes said to E——, ‘How often your dear mother has looked at these scenes with me! and how we used to enjoy them! How I wish she were here to enjoy them now!’”

“The day was cool and lovely, and the breeze on the lake invigorating; so we rowed and walked about a good deal; and I talked to the children of our anniversary, thinking of all the past and the present, and of all our darling ones who are with you, and of dear F——,²2The eldest son, then an officer of the Federal Army in Missouri. and of the sweet beloved ones who are gone before us. I told E——it was St. Michael’s Day;—that the great Archangel was the patron Saint of our marriage. ‘Yes,’—said she,—‘he is the patron Saint of the soldier, the Archangel of battles, the patron of those who have to fight and battle in the world!’—‘Well then,’—said I,—‘he has had fitting clients, and our Saint was well chosen. For we had to battle with the world from the start, and he has been, I know, our good Archangel, our loving, watchful, and efficient patron, fighting for us against the Powers of Darkness, against the world and all evil, and gaining for us many a victory when we knew not how it was done!’ And so I believe it to be, my own dear little wife, who have trodden with me so many perilous paths with such a light cheerful look and all the childlike trust and hope of inexperienced innocence.”

“I can see you still,—a little girl, almost a child in your unsuspecting ignorance of an evil world,—with a bright glow on your cheek, walking or tripping lightly beside the tall and strong man whom you trusted, over a wooded path through brushwood and thorns, your face so young and bright and cheerful,—almost like an angel’s,—a slight expression of sudden pain sometimes clouding it as a thorn sharper than the rest unexpectedly tore your flesh.”

“And, after a long experience—after much travel, much joy and brightness, much weariness and not unfrequent experience of sorrow,—the little girl is seen to have become the wise and holy woman, patient, courageous, and cheerful still; and, while counseling and encouraging her companion,—the strong man,—now almost fainting on the road,—she seems in his eyes more than ever an angel.”

“With thoughts like these I have been filled all day, and I have taken up this note-paper to give expression to some of them. How deep and how great is my debt of gratitude to our Heavenly Father!”

Surely our readers will be grateful to have one short glimpse of this noble husband’s twin soul, and so to hear from out its depths the echoes of these God-given harmonies of wedded love:

“A few thoughts on my wedding anniversary, September 29, 1866.”

“At Glen-Ellen.”

“Here, in this lovely spot, this beautiful valley, the twin-vale of my cherished native place,—let me call you around me, my loved ones, to look back with me through the long vista that leads to my wedding-day.”

“Oh! how can I describe to you that home in which I learned all that is good in my heart! I must close its door,—lest my strength should fail me: those who then loved and cherished me with such a watchful and tender care, have now gone from my sight. Do they this day know my gratitude?”

“Our wedding-day! the day we celebrate! It had a fickle, changeful sky; the dark clouds and rays of fair promise intermingled in its skies like the light and shade of coming years that lay before us in the unknown future.”

“The morning of that day was cold and chilly as the world’s charity. At its noonday the snow and sleet became rain, and fell in showers, like the tears we have both since dropped in the cup of chastening sorrows. With its evening came bright sunshine,—omen of the glowing love-light that floods every nook and corner within our blessed home.”

“Such was our wedding-day. And such has been our life.”

“Since then, the day has oft returned. It has come in weal, and it has come in woe—in woe, oh! how deep! And now this blessed day comes in light;—not in light unclouded, but in the noonday sky of other years when the driving snow and sleet softened into rainbow showers.”

“My darling husband! Chosen companion of my life! Beloved of my heart above all others, and, next to God, the source of the ever-flowing fountain of joy in my soul,—let me on this day renew to you my vows of love made in the presence of that dear home-circle, when my parents gave me to your care. Let me here promise to be to you a faithful wife and heart-companion ‘till death do us part.’”

“How well you have kept your promise of that day, my beloved husband!”

“Cold and bitter blasts have swept over us since then; and how lovingly you have shielded me from their fury!”

“The icy chill of a heart in agony, has been melted into tears by your consoling tenderness and devotion. And when has not sunshine been made more bright by your presence, my darling?”

“My children! Oh! what visions of happiness rise before me at this call! My children far and near! Angels of my earthly paradise! Precious offerings of my life’s labor for Heaven’s acceptance! Jewels, set by God, in my marriage crown! You are our honor, our glory, our pride, and the warmth of our hearts!”

“Come, this day, nearer, closer to my arms. Let me take you, each and all, and lay you at the feet of our Lord, and ask Him to bless you for your devoted love of us, your parents. Thank Him, my children, that you still have this sweet sanctuary, your parents’ hearts, in which to rest you with a never-failing security.”

“I would gladly celebrate this day by showering gifts upon you all, my husband and my children.... Out of the deep fountains of a wife and mother’s heart take for yourselves oceans of love!”

The Close and Crown

Little did parents and children imagine, while enjoying the deep bliss of this anniversary, that, when another came around, the husband and father would be no longer there,—the model-man to all of them, in the mirror of whose life they had ever seen reflected the noblest virtues of the Christian and the citizen. To him might be applied in the fullest sense what a great and holy writer of the fifth century applied to an illustrious layman of his time:

“I have leisurely inspected the daily actions of this distinguished man, and found them worthy of being described. What is the chief praise?—He maintains a house in uncorrupted purity; his servants are useful,... tractable, polite, obedient, and contented. His table feeds the strange guest no less than the client. Great is his humanity; but greater still his sobriety. His mind is serious; he maintains public faith. With all this, the reading of the sacred scriptures is frequent, so that he feeds his mind even at his bodily repasts. In a new form of life he unites the gentleman and the monk.... Toward his household he is neither harsh in his manner of speech, nor disdainful of counsel, nor persevering and exact in detecting offenses. He rules those subject to him not with a domineering authority, but with such gentle equity, that one might think, that instead of governing his own family, he was only administering the estate of another. Truly, all men of our order (clergymen) might derive a most useful lesson from his example; for, without offense to them, I must say it—I am a warmer admirer of a priestlike layman than of an unpriestly cleric.”³3Plus ego admiror sacerdotalem virum quam sacerdotem.—Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistolarum, l. iv. 9.

How a True Man should Choose his Companion, and Cultivate her Heart

Need it be said here, that it does not fall to the lot of every man, even of very good men, to possess such a wife? The obvious answer must occur to every serious-minded reader: The Church of God,—that is, God Himself through the Church, prescribes to parents the utmost care and prudence in selecting companions for their children about to be married; while to the children she recommends recourse to prayer, the reception of the Sacraments, the avoidance of sin, a desire to fulfill the will of God by making a right choice,—and, in choosing, a preference for the gifts of mind and heart and true piety over the mere attractions of face and form. Where the desire to please God and to obtain such life-companionship as is best fitted to one’s spiritual welfare and solid happiness, as well as the advancement of His service, is the leading thought of young man or maiden preparing for matrimony,—there is little danger but that God will direct them aright.

We must not, however, anticipate on what has to be treated fully in its proper place. Suffice it to say at present, that even when parents have solely consulted the Divine Will and the best interests of their son in choosing for him or in directing his choice,—or even when he has been given a woman endowed with all the natural and supernatural graces that make her a treasure beyond price,—much, very much still remains for the young husband to do if he would call forth all the wealth of his treasure, and apply it to the best uses.

A rich womanly nature demands to be known, to be appreciated, to be developed by the deep love, the ingenious tenderness, the unfailing devotion, the delicate and respectful attentions,—ever growing in assiduity with each successive year,—of her young husband.

You have chosen, from out the varied wealth of the garden and the forest, the loveliest and rarest flower that attracted your eye; will you have it brighten and perfume your home to the utmost? Then study its nature, its habits, what soil it likes best, what companions suit it (for plants and flowers also have their preferences), what degree of moisture, of heat, of shade, or of sunshine. Gardeners will tell you that wild flowers from the meadow, the woods, or the mountains, will seem to change their nature under the care of an intelligent and loving hand, and in a few seasons become so beautiful that they seem to have been transformed by culture. Not that only; but the flowers most beautiful by nature are so much improved by the art of the gardener, that their charms are not only increased tenfold, but varied continually so as to create ever new surprise and delight. And who does not know that the horticulturist’s skill can enhance to a wonderful extent the qualities of the most delicious fruits of our fields or our gardens?

This is “to Dress and to Keep” the Home-Garden

To you, O man of the world, your home-garden, your paradise,—the source of your purest and dearest felicity on this side of the grave, is the mind and heart and soul of your wife, your companion, the mother of your children. Her soul, her life, is given you “to dress and to keep;” and on your appreciating her nature and her worth, on your knowing how to call forth by your love, your care, your devotion to her service, by the sunlight of your examples much more even than by your mere love and tenderness,—must depend whether or not you shall have a home-garden, a paradise,—or a hell upon earth.

There is no delicacy, no purity of thought and word and act,—no feeling of respect or reverence so exalted,—no chivalrous devotion to the honor, the unblemished name, the generous and holy purposes of a true woman,—to be compared with the all-embracing sentiment of God-given love in the sinless soul of a man, united, through God’s blessing, with the maiden chosen in accordance with God’s will. Catholics, who are thoroughly acquainted with the sacred character of the matrimonial union, who know what untold graces are set apart for their whole after-life by the sacramental blessing, enter upon married life with mingled joy and fear,—because they are made aware both of their responsibilities and of the mighty aids divinely given them, to make of their whole career one long day of rejoicing, because it must be one long day of generous devotion to duty.

The husband’s first duty, under God’s service, is to his wife. He must give himself to her as she has left all to follow him. His must be,—from his bridal hour to his dying day,—one long, uninterrupted, most loving and unstinted service to her. He must, every day that he rises, set her image higher in his heart; reverence her more, seek to have others know her worth better, and show her greater honor.

It is the death of conjugal love, where respect diminishes in the heart instead of daily increasing, and where that delicacy and courtesy in word and manner which we call outward respect, is dispensed with on pretext of nearness and intimacy and unreserve.

Make it, therefore, the law of your life, that as the years of your wedded life pass by, they shall find, beside the ever-blooming flower of love in the center of your home-garden the flower of undying reverence. One cannot live without the other. And to the wife we must say: If you would have your husband’s love and respect to know no fading,—make it a sacred duty to God, every day of your life, to invent new methods of showing your companion that your love is ever young and fresh as the flowers that bloom on high in the City of God.

Let men of culture and position, who owe to those beneath them,—much more than to those of their own level,—the light of good example, read and ponder carefully every word in the following exquisite lines from a woman:

A priestly voice is daily and hourly wont to guide the young amid the first trials and bitternesses of wedded life, as well as amid the storms which attend on its noon and its setting. The reader knows also how precious and safe a refuge fathers and mothers alike find in that guidance, when worldly wisdom and worldly friendship are of no avail. It was, nevertheless, best that these lessons should be given from the experience of persons of worldly station. We have listened to the most intimate secrets of a true manly heart, still in death for many a year: the accents seem to come from the depths of the sanctuary. And this last wayside flower of poetry we have culled, as we seemed to pass from the altar and the awe of the cemetery, will also have its pregnant reminder.

Yes,—loved,—nay, infinitely dear,—as are the ties of the home of childhood, when a woman turns her back upon it and puts her hand in her husband’s hand to walk the earth alone with him, it is as if a deluge had swept over her past, and her spirit, in going back in thought to the fireside of father and mother, found nothing but a ruin, with her loved ones all dead to her. In her grief for the separation, she turns to the Ark of her husband’s home and heart like the dove sent forth by the great patriarch; has she not a right that her husband shall open his “heart wide and fold within, the wet wings” and drooping spirit of her to whom he is now all in all?

There are so many who fail, on the very threshold of their new existence, to understand the yearning of their companions for the home-life they have lost, and to make up by unselfish and unbounded tenderness for this great loss!

We crave pardon for dwelling thus at length on the necessity,—so all-important, so indispensable,—of this union of hearts between husband and wife. Without it there is no home, no home-life, no true family. We have insisted upon it, because without it there can be no life-work done to any good or meritorious purpose by the wedded pair, become thus most miserable yoke-fellows. God only grant them to say, each to the other:

Most blessed are those who can thus look back to the parental home, and dwell with rapture on the memory of such a union between the father and mother who reared them! Still are they not to forget, that this great gift of hallowed conjugal love was only bestowed for the dear and sweet work of making home a paradise not only for their children, but for their own parents, if privileged to possess them and shelter them there, for their servants, and for their friends.

Work together with United Hearts

Home should be a paradise for the children. Would that all who are above the cravings and anxieties of poverty, would understand this! Whatever excuse the poor, the over-worked parents of a large and growing family may plead for the neglect of their little ones, or the discomforts and disorder of their squalid fire-side, none such can be claimed by the man who has not to fear for the morrow, or to tremble for the next week’s rent.

It is where wealth, independence, comfort, have been dispensed to parents by a kind Providence, that the obligation is increased a thousand-fold for father and mother “to dress and to keep” their garden.

The duty falls on the father first. He is the head of the family; he is the provider, and the protector. The wife and mother governs within, and dispenses love, kindness, care,—the bread of the soul and the bread of the body, to every member of the household. She watches over the fire on the hearth, and sees to it that there is warmth, sunlight, and cheerfulness for all; she also it is who keeps alive the fire of religious faith and neighborly charity on her domestic altar and in every soul intrusted to her. The husband only stands by her side twice a day, morning and evening, when they are both the united ministers of the family sacrifice of prayer and praise. Throughout the remaining hours of day and night the wife and mother feeds the sacred fire and the lamp of piety.

Happy the wife who is ever sustained, encouraged, and cheered by her husband in every labor that has for its object the formation of true children of God in all her dear ones, as well as the promotion of every scheme and industry for making home-life delightful!

It is wonderful how the poorest natural ability in a wife can be called forth and developed by a husband who is careful to study her and to encourage her every effort for the improvement of others as well as for her own. How much more marvelous are the results when the wife’s great natural gifts are further increased by the stimulus of a husband’s praise and generous appreciation! What will she not accomplish to make her dear companion happy! And what a sweet reward she finds in that happiness for her own labors in favor of children, servants, and the poor of Christ! Thus it is that her work,—their joint work, rather,—is still the better for their love, and that their love is ever the sweeter for their work,—and that all outside their blessed home “commend both for the sake of each,” and are themselves by such examples stimulated to become in their turn “true workers and true lovers.”

Appeal to all to aid in creating Blissful Homes

Shall we proceed? O you to whom God has given in this world’s wealth and independence, the ready means of creating and adorning such homes as these, will you not show your gratitude toward the Giver of all good and your solicitude for the dearest interests of your own children, by a willing and zealous cooperation in this divine work of making your household a shining example to all? Is the social body in our young and magnificently endowed America, by allowing premature corruption and decay to fasten upon its leading classes, to resemble the most lordly tree of our forest, which begins to die at the top and propagates sterility and death downward to its lowest branches and its very roots?

Shall you not rather,—you who are the crown and ornament of the whole body,—open your minds to the conviction, that it is through you that life and healthful energy and well-being and moral beauty, are to flow and to spread from above downward and around to every class and home? Let the laboring poor, the ill-requited, weary toilers of city and country-side,—who are, like the hidden roots of a mighty tree, the obscure feeders of the entire social body,—let them be cared for, loved, cherished, encouraged and aided in their hard toil by all above them,—and the love they will feel in return for the love shown them, will be like the plentiful vital sap pumped up from the genial earth by every root and fiber, and sent coursing in warm healthful currents through trunk and branch, to the topmost spray of the goodly tree.

Be it our care,—clergymen, legislators, magistrates, men and women who wield the mighty pen, merchants, manufacturers,—all to whom others beneath and around them look up for light, guidance, and support, to see to it that every industrious toiler dependent on us and within reach of our influence and our aid,—shall HAVE A HOME of his own! And teach him by your own example how to make his home bright, religious, refined, happy!

Oh! let us be up and doing betimes! For the social world, in our day, so far resembles the troublous and changeful era of St. Gregory the Great, that to the established and time-honored distinctions of rank, to the prosperous, wealthy, and influential classes of society,—and to every individual man among them,—this prophetic warning of the great Pope may apply:

“We are uppermost to-day, and laugh at the struggles of those who seek to rise to our level: let us tremble lest they should soon rise on our ruin! For no one is less secure of his own position, than the man who only knows how to laugh at the misery of his less fortunate rival.”⁴4Timendum est ne, etiam nobis cadentibus, surgat qui a nobis stantibus irridetur; quamvis stare jam non noverit qui non stantem noverit irridere.—Lib. xxv., Moralium.