The Hearth-Stone: Thoughts Upon Home-Life in Our Cities. Samuel Osgood

of God, who has given for man’s use the earth and its fulness, the gospel of Him who fed the hungry and healed the sick, teach us to look with tender interest upon the poor, and try to redeem them from a lot as full of temptation as of suffering. Of public and private almsgiving, I will not speak now, important in their places as these are. There is a need far greater than these can alleviate, and I cannot dwell upon them here, pertinent as it would be to urge the worth of those benevolent schemes that aim to provide comfortable homes for the poor, and commodious baths and wash-houses in their neighborhoods. These charities appeal to enlightened self-interest, as well as humanity, and, if we will not ask in kindness who is my neighbor, we shall ask in fear, either of pestilent disease or aggressive violence. The springs of human energy are to be moved as never before, and the wretched are to be made to help themselves as never before; or our civilization, certainly European civilization, will stand on the brink of an abyss fearful as at the dissolution of the old Roman Empire. Poverty has, in some cases, made an alliance that gives omens of a conspiracy worse than Catiline’s, and, with cunning quickened by want, sharpens its knife upon the stone which has fallen to its lot instead of bread—bent upon living by destruction, if it is not taught to live by producing. It is an indisputable fact that in many countries the majority are so ignorant and inefficient, that the whole annual product of the land is not sufficient to provide for their decent wants. The theorists of France, who have been losing their wits in the airy heights of pantheistic socialism, hoping to find a way to plenty, other than the old way of labor and frugality, may well remember the answer of the admirable political economist, Chevalier, and look for plenty rather in making property more desirable than less so, and giving the whole people the desire and the opportunity of profitable labor. The material product of France at the highest estimate, he declares, does not exceed ten thousand millions of francs, and thus at this estimate, an equal division would give each person 78 centimes, or about 14½ cents per day, for food, lodging, clothing, education, enjoyment. Thus, he adds, even upon the supposition of an absolute distribution of products, France is not in a condition to give the majority of her children a tolerable subsistence. Of course millions of citizens now come far short of this miserable pittance. What is the inference? Certainly the productive industry of the nation must be increased, that there may be plenty in the home. Let more wealth be produced, and each man be put in a position to get a due share of it, and the misery is alleviated, and plenty in the household stops the spirit of reckless revolution, and gives the spirit of peace, and motive and time for the higher aims of life.

      What shall increase the national wealth and distribute it with due justice in the homes of the people? Communism? Not so; for destroying the very idea of property is not the way to increase the aggregate of property. Who will work, if his gains are not secured to him and his children? Who will plant the grain or the vine, if the field or the vineyard is to be an open pasture, which any idler may waste? The way to enlarge and distribute wealth is rather to strengthen the foundations of property, and give all motive to earn their share of it by labor, temperance, and economy.

      Here we believe that every nation is bound to apply the force of law to reach the root of the difficulty. I am not proposing to discuss the various projects set on foot to insure the more equable distribution of property—such as the homestead laws of some of our own States, or the measures in train to redeem the peasants of Ireland from their slavish penury. Very certain it is, that we need to watch jealously the distribution of the public lands, to keep them from the grasp of avarice and intrigue, and to hold out the utmost inducements to actual settlers to till and own the soil. It is interesting to find that upon this one point, the most sanguine of the Land Reformers have much countenance from the most judicious conservatives, and the wary sagacity of Webster himself saw no peril in securing a part of the national domain to every persevering cultivator. It is also interesting to observe that, whilst the ultraist advocates of a protective tariff have signally lowered their tone, some of the most earnest advocates of free trade, as the only philosophical theory, are favoring such judicious protective duties as shall tend to bring the producer and consumer near together, check the wastefulness of needless transportation, and thus prepare the way for the final triumph of free trade by the action of associative industry. All such expedients however good in themselves, are of no avail apart from a broad and energetic policy that meets the difficulty in the face. We mean the education of the entire people in schools open to all the children of the nation. Thus we reach the home—thus we open the eyes and quicken the energies of the people—thus we enlarge the products of intelligent labor, and guard against the worst evils of human inequality. Thus we open the way for a better social science and organization, and favor the associated enterprise, which is the best safeguard against communism. The educated, industrious population will take their own lot into their own hands, and by practising a truer philosophy of accommodation, they will apply in their home economy something of that wise policy which has been left too exclusively to the use of the favored few. The architecture of the house, and the arrangements of the neighborhood, will show the influence. Whilst gardens, filled with rare exotics, and stately mansions adorned with the graces of art, may still be the prerogative of affluence; we shall see the comfortable and tasteful houses of the unpretending classes ranged about pleasant and salubrious squares, with all the appliances of health and order, usually deemed beyond their means. For my own part, I know no more cheering aspect of our country and our age, than that which is furnished by some of those villages, which have been built up in the vicinity of our great cities by associations of mechanics, securing to each man an independent home. The fact that a set of men, educated in our free schools, and with no means but the fruit of their own honest toil, provide such homes for themselves, must give a benevolent observer more genuine satisfaction, and more encouraging hope, than any of the proudest triumphs of capital, whether a palace in the city or a palace upon the water. It is not out of place here to say, that the highest honor will belong to him among our architects, who most skilfully plans a model house for the many of us who have moderate or slender means—a house that shall for the least outlay best secure the retirement, the refinement, and the health that make a true home. Honor to the science that has busied itself with this problem, and to the capital which has tried to carry the solution into practice thus far!

      A true system of popular education in connection with our laws regarding inheritance, is raising up a generation which will not long be ignorant of the power of intelligence, industry, and friendly accommodation, in developing a social policy beyond the reach of the fanatical theorists of the old world, who have impoverished the nations in their promise of plenty, and shed blood in rivers in the name of fraternity. The great mass of the people, it is to be hoped, will continue to have that home feeling, which is as mighty in conservation as in defence. We shall remain as we are in the best sense of the term—the most conservative nation on the face of the earth. That race of Ishmaelites, the homeless, the desperate, the Bedouins of civilization, whose hand is against every man’s, whose delight is in commotion, whose life is in destruction, whose hope is in the despair of others, will disappear, kept down in their true place, or what is better, transformed into intelligent, industrious citizens, lovers of the state, the church, and the home.

      Thus do we commend the worth of industry and the education upon which it rests, in diffusing the household blessings that we enjoy. But we build upon a sandy foundation without a positive religious basis. Upon that the household rests for its primary dependence, and they that sustain and practise Christian principles are benefactors alike of the dwelling and the church. Not merely among the wretched and ignorant does the gospel utter its rebukes, and urge its duties in reference to this point. It is in quarters far different that the great wrong has been done, and a great work is demanded. Errors of principle as errors of life, have power from the station that renders them conspicuous, or the refinement that clothes them with grace. Of errors of life in those who give to dissipation the prestige of eloquence, and throw the grace of splendor around vices that strike at the foundations of domestic purity, I will not now undertake to treat. A passing word, however, upon certain modes of thinking and talking, which sow the seeds of those vices in quarters the most opposite. The pantheistic theories that confound all moral distinctions by confounding the distinction between God and nature, and make of passion a devotion, by calling all enthusiasm inspiration, have had their origin chiefly among secluded dreamers, bent, perhaps, upon amusing leisure by reckless speculation. Idly as the summer winds that float the thistle-down on their breath, have they vented their speculations, until amazed that