There is a place called "Our House," which everybody knows of. The sailor talks of it in his dreams at sea. The wounded soldier, turning in his uneasy hospital-bed, brightens at the word,--it is like the dropping of cool water in the desert, like the touch of cool fingers on a burning brow. "Our house," he says feebly, and the light comes back into his dim eyes,--for all homely charities, all fond thoughts, all purities, all that man loves on earth or hopes for in heaven, rise with the word. "Our house" may be in any style of architecture, low or high. It may be the brown old farm-house, with its tall well-sweep, or the one-story gambrel-roofed cottage, or the large, square, white house, with green blinds, under the wind-swung elms of a century, or it may be the log-cabin of the wilderness, with its one room,--still there is a spell in the memory of it beyond all conjurations. Its stone and brick and mortar are like no other; its very clapboards and shingles are dear to us, powerful to bring back the memories of early days, and all that is sacred in home-love. * * * * * "Papa is getting quite sentimental," whispered Jennie, loud enough for me to hear. I shook my head at her impressively, and went on undaunted. * * * * * There is no one fact of our human existence that has a stronger influence upon us than the house we dwell in,--especially that in which our earlier and more impressible years are spent. The building and arrangement of a house influence the health, the comfort, the morals, the religion. There have been houses built so devoid of all consideration for the occupants, so rambling and hap-hazard in the disposal of rooms, so sunless and cheerless and wholly without snugness or privacy, as to make it seem impossible to live a joyous, generous, rational, religious family-life in them. There are, we shame to say, in our cities _things_ called houses, built and rented by people who walk erect and have the general air and manner of civilized and Christianized men, which are so inhuman in their building that they can only be called snares and traps for souls,--places where children cannot well escape growing up filthy and impure,--places where to form a home is impossible, and to live a decent, Christian life would require miraculous strength.