Household Words and Catherine Beecher- PART TWO - Page 2

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Mar 31, 2000

"There are families, also, who make it a definite object to keep up family attachments after the children are scattered abroad, and in some cases secure the means for doing this by saving money which would otherwise have been spent for superfluities of food or dress.

"Some families have adopted, for this end, a practice which, if widely imitated, would be productive of much enjoyment. The method is this: On the first day of each month, some member of the family, at each extreme point of dispersion, takes a folio sheet, and fills a part of a page. This is sealed and mailed to the next family, who read it, add another contribution, and then mail it to the next. Thus the family circular, once a month, goes from each extreme to all the members of a widely-dispersed family, and each member becomes a sharer in the joys, sorrows, plans, and pursuits of all the rest.

"At the same time, frequent family meetings are sought; and the expense thus incurred is cheerfully met by retrenchments in other directions. The sacrifice of some unnecessary physical indulgence will often purchase many social and domestic enjoyments, a thousand times more elevating and delightful than the retrenched luxury. There is no social duty which the Supreme Lawgiver more strenuously urges than hospitality and kindness to strangers, who are classed with the widow and the fatherless as the special objects of Divine tenderness.

There are some reasons why this duty peculiarly demands attention from the American people. Reverses of fortune, in this land, are so frequent and unexpected, and the habits of the people are so migratory, that there are many in every part of the country who, having seen all their temporal plans and hopes crushed, are now pining among strangers, bereft of wonted comforts, without friends, and without the sympathy and society so needful to wounded spirits.

"Such, too frequently, sojourn long and lonely, with no comforter but Him who "knoweth the heart of a stranger."

"Whenever, therefore, new-comers enter a community, inquiry should immediately be made as to whether they have friends or associates, to render sympathy and kind attentions; and, when there is any need for it, the ministries of kind neighborliness should immediately be offered. And it should be remembered that the first days of a stranger's journey are the most dreary, and that civility and kindness are doubled in value by being offered at an early period.

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