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“Domestic happiness! thou only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall!”

You, my dear brother, are a husband and father, and can appreciate my meaning, when I speak of the richness, the tenderness, the depth, of connubial and paternal love; how it lights up this dark world with smiles,–how it stimulates us to manly exertion,–how it lightens the burdens of human life, and enables us cheerfully to sustain its ills, while it almost restores to us Eden itself. To understand what is meant by the term domestic happiness, it is necessary for you and me only to look at the circles around our own firesides, and listen to the musical accents of the loved ones who dwell there, as they pronounce the words husband, father, mother, brother, sister, and exchange with them kind looks and the affectionate embrace. What earthly joys can be compared with those of home? What would tempt us to part with them? All the gold in California and Australia would be spurned in contempt, if offered in exchange. What should we say, and what should we do, were any power on earth to interfere with our fireside delights, and attempt to wrest them from us?

Suppose Providence had cast our lot under a despotic government, which we will suppose to be for the most part kind and paternal, but having this peculiarity,–every now and then, finding its finances embarrassed, it should be in the habit of selling some of its subjects to a foreign power to strengthen its exchequer, and should arbitrarily select its victims from this family and that;–how should you feel were the doomed family your own? What would have been your emotions this morning, had some one come to your room and told you that that bright-eyed boy, “Willie,” who last night sat upon your knee and amused you with his innocent prattle, showed you his toys, examined your pockets, played with your hair and features, and finally clasped his little arms around your neck and impressed the “good-night” kiss upon your lips, had been seized by an officer, and sold from your sight forever to you know not whom, and to be carried you know not whither? Nay, more;–suppose that while he was yet speaking, there came also another with the tidings that the same fate had befallen your first-born,–your daughter, just budding into womanhood,–the affectionate, joyous, light-hearted “Kate,” whose voice to your ear is sweeter than the music of flowing waters, whose feet are swifter than those of the light gazelle, as with open arms she bounds to meet you on your return from a temporary absence, to welcome you home with a tear of joy in her eye and a kiss upon her lips,–that she too had been by the officials of the government clandestinely abducted from your dwelling, and sold, literally sold, for a valuation put upon her person in dollars and cents, to a hopeless captivity, to spend her days in unrequited toil, or, not unlikely, in ministering to the caprices and brutal passions of a stranger?

And while he was yet speaking, and as your wife, half frantic with grief and terror, was entwining her arms around you, and you were striving to ease your bursting heart, to crown the whole, suppose another official and his posse had entered your apartment, and by force of arms had torn her from your embrace, and with thongs upon her hands, and a bandage over her mouth, hurried her away to greet your sight no more? What a scene! There go in one direction the children of your body, “bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh,” to an unknown but fearful destiny! In another is ruthlessly borne the object dearer to you than all the world beside,–one whom you had solemnly sworn to love, cherish, and protect until death,–the light of your dwelling,–the mother of your children,–the mutual sharer of all your joys and sorrows,–the richest and most precious treasure heaven ever gave you!–there she goes in an agony of wo, to toil under a burning sun, compelled to call another man her husband, or, it may be, to grace her master’s seraglio! Merciful God! what meaneth this? What horde of barbarians from the dark corners of the earth have found their way hither to lay waste all that is beautiful and lovely! What fiend from the pit has been let loose to enter this little Paradise to destroy and bear away all the good that was left of the primitive Eden!