I want to draw from these words two thoughts that may do the readers of this paper some good. An English home is famous all over the world for its happiness and comfort. It is a little bit of heaven left upon earth. But even an English home is not for ever. The family nest is sure to be taken down, and its inmates are sure to be scattered. Bear with me for a few short minutes, while I try to set before you the best, truest, and happiest home. I. The first thought that I will offer you is this:--I will show you _what the world is_. It is a beautiful world in many respects, I freely admit. Its seas and rivers, its sunrises and sunsets, its mountains and valleys, its harvests and its forests, its fruits and its flowers, its days and its nights, all, all are beautiful in their way. Cold and unfeeling must that heart be which never finds a day in the year when it can admire anything in nature! But beautiful as the world is, there are many things in it to remind us that it is not home. It is an inn, a tent, a tabernacle, a lodging, a training school. But it is not home. (_a_) It is a _changing_ world. All around us is continually moving, altering, and passing away. Families, properties, landlords, tenants, farmers, labourers, tradesmen, all are continually on the move. To find the same name in the same dwelling for three generations running is so uncommon, that it is the exception and not the rule. A world so full of change cannot be called home. (_b_) It is a _trying and disappointing_ world. Who ever lives to be fifty years old and does not find to his cost that it is so? Trials in married life and trials in single life,--trials in children and trials in brothers and sisters,--trials in money matters and trials in health,--how many they are! Their name is legion. And not the tenth part of them perhaps ever comes to light. Few indeed are the families which have not "a skeleton in the closet." A world so full of trial and disappointment cannot be called home. (_c_) It is a _dying_ world. Death is continually about us and near us, and meets us at every turn. Few are the family gatherings, when Christmas comes round, in which there are not some empty chairs and vacant places. Few are the men and women, past thirty, who could not number a long list of names, deeply cut for ever in their hearts, but names of beloved ones now dead and gone. Where are our fathers and mothers? Where are our ministers and teachers? Where are our brothers and sisters? Where are our husbands and wives? Where are our neighbours and friends? Where are the old grey-headed worshippers, whose reverent faces we remember so well, when we first went to God's house? Where are the boys and girls we played with when we went to school? How many must reply, "Dead, dead, dead! The daisies are growing over their graves, and we are left alone." Surely a world so full of death can never be called a home.