Where national character ceases to be upheld, a nation may be regarded as next to lost. Where it ceases to esteem and to practise the virtues of truthfulness, honesty, integrity, and justice, it does not deserve to live. And when the time arrives in any country when wealth has so corrupted, or pleasure so depraved, or faction so infatuated the people, that honour, order, obedience, virtue, and loyalty have seemingly become things of the past; then, amidst the darkness, when honest men--if, haply, there be such left--are groping about and feeling for each other's hands, their only remaining hope will be in the restoration and elevation of Individual Character; for by that alone can a nation be saved; and if character be irrecoverably lost, then indeed there will be nothing left worth saving. CHAPTER II.--HOME POWER. "So build we up the being that we are, Thus deeply drinking in the soul of things, We shall be wise perforce." WORDSWORTH. "The millstreams that turn the clappers of the world arise in solitary places."--HELPS. "In the course of a conversation with Madame Campan, Napoleon Buonaparte remarked: 'The old systems of instruction seem to be worth nothing; what is yet wanting in order that the people should be properly educated?' 'MOTHERS,' replied Madame Campan. The reply struck the Emperor. 'Yes!' said he 'here is a system of education in one word. Be it your care, then, to train up mothers who shall know how to educate their children.'"--AIME MARTIN. "Lord! with what care hast Thou begirt us round! Parents first season us. Then schoolmasters Deliver us to laws. They send us bound To rules of reason."--GEORGE HERBERT. HOME is the first and most important school of character. It is there that every human being receives his best moral training, or his worst; for it is there that he imbibes those principles of conduct which endure through manhood, and cease only with life. It is a common saying that "Manners make the man;" and there is a second, that "Mind makes the man;" but truer than either is a third, that "Home makes the man." For the home-training includes not only manners and mind, but character. It is mainly in the home that the heart is opened, the habits are formed, the intellect is awakened, and character moulded for good or for evil. From that source, be it pure or impure, issue the principles and maxims that govern society. Law itself is but the reflex of homes. The tiniest bits of opinion sown in the minds of children in private life afterwards issue forth to the world, and become its public opinion; for nations are gathered out of nurseries, and they who hold the leading-strings of children may even exercise a greater power than those who wield the reins of government. [111]