I am satisfied that in the average home there is too little reading. History, biography, travel, with a fair share of religious books, can be read in course at home, in the odd half hours, and the mind become richly stored with facts. Is there any thing in the domestic life which ought to interfere with this constant culture of the mind? Not at all. The domestic life is highly favorable to mental discipline. The very beginning of real intellectual improvement in many a mind has been in the new home of persons just married. The reading aloud of an interesting work, the one to the other, is a delightful entertainment, and gives a new charm to life. Every effort must be employed to keep the mind from becoming sluggish and barren. We need information, the thoughts of the good and great and richly endowed, to make our own lives richer. It would be a wise arrangement if every man and woman, on establishing their home, would set apart some time for intellectual improvement by the reading of good books. I am acquainted with a young lady, who, on entering her plain little house, found that her husband and herself were so interrupted by visits and other claims on their time in the evening, that they resolved to rise an hour earlier in the morning, and devote the time to reading and study. They were thus free from interruption, and had ample opportunity, before the regular duties of the day began, to store their minds with useful knowledge. I think it probable that they will carry this excellent custom with them through life. Much of my time is spent in high-ways, and along the narrow by-ways of life. My homes are many. But when my good fortune brings me at night to occupy a room far from my own home, where a good book or two are to be found, I can say with Milton, in his _Areopagitica_: "A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond;" and with Wordsworth, in his "Personal Talk": "Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good; Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow." I like a home where you can see the books. A choice book-case with glass doors, and the doors locked, ought to be expelled from the home. Let the books be where they can be seen and easily reached. Let them not be confined to one room, but so distributed that nearly every room shall have at least a few in sight. A few books here and there about the house, and even in the bed-rooms, are worth more than a costly piece of furniture. When we see books in our homes, and they are where we can handle them without effort, we are apt to take them up, and get snatches of good reading. FORBEARANCE.