LESSON ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SIXTH.

Field of Waterloo.

It struck my imagination much, while standing on the last field fought by Bonaparte, that the battle of Waterloo should have been fought upon a Sunday. What a different scene for the Scotch Greys and English Infantry, from that, which at that very hour, was exhibited by their relatives; when over England and Scotland each church-bell had drawn together its worshippers! while many a mother's heart was sending upward a prayer for her son's preservation, perhaps that son was gasping in agony.

Yet, even at such a period, the lessons of his ear ly days might give him consolation; and the maternal prayer might prepare the heart to support maternal anguish. It is religion alone, which is of universal application, both as stimulant and lenitive, as it is the varied heritage of man to labor or endure. But we know that many thousands rushed into this fight, even of those who had been instructed in our own religious principles, without leisure for one serious thought; and that some officers were killed in their ball dresses. They made the leap into the gulf, which divides two worlds, the present from the immutable state, without one parting prayer, or one note of preparation!

As I looked over this field, now green with growing corn, I could observe spots, where the most desperate carnage had been marked out by the verdure of the wheat. The bodies had been heaped together, and scarcely more than covered. And so enriched is the soil, that in these spots, the grain never ripens; it grows rank and green to the end of the harvest. This touching memorial, which endures when the thousand groans have expired, and when the stain of human blood has faded from the ground, still seems to cry to heaven that there is awful guilt somewhere,

and a terrific reckoning for those who have caused destruction, which the earth will not conceal. These hillocks of superabundant vegetation, as the wind rustled through the corn, seemed the most affecting monuments which nature could devise, and gave a melancholy animation to this plain of death.

When we attempt to measure the mass of suffering which was here inflicted, and to number the individuals that have fallen, considering that each, who suffered, was our fellow man, we are overwhelmed with the agonizing calculation, and retire from the field, which has been the scene of our reflections, with the simple concentrated feeling;—these armies once lived, breathed, and felt like us, and the time is at hand, when we shall be like them.

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LESSON ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-SEVENTH.
The Murdered Traveller.

When Spring to woods and wastes around,
Brought bloom and joy again;

The murdered traveller's bones were found,
Far down a narrow glen.

The fragrant birch, above him, hung

Her tassels in the sky;

And many a vernal blossom sprung,

And nodded careless by.

The red-bird warbled, as he wrought
His hanging nest o'erhead,
And fearless near the fatal spot,
Her voung the partridge led

But there was weeping far away,
And gentle eyes, for him,

With watching many an anxious day,
Grew sorrowful and dim.

They little knew, who loved him so,
The fearful death he met,
When shouting o'er the desert snow,
Unarmed and hard beset.

Nor how when round the frosty pole
The northern dawn was red,
The mountain wolf and wild-cat stole
To banquet on the dead.

Nor how, when strangers found his bones,
They dressed the hasty bier,

And marked his grave with nameless stones,
Unmoistened by a tear.

But long they looked, and feared, and wept,
Within his distant home;

And dreamed, and started as they slept,
For joy that he was come.

So long they looked-but never spied
His welcome step again,

Nor knew the fearful death he died
Far down that narrow glen.

LESSON ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHTH.

Father and Son.

Among the cases of suffering by the wreck, in 1686, of the vessel in which the Siamese embassy to Portu gal was embarked; few have stronger claims to pity than that of the captain. He was a man of rank,

sprung from one of the first families in Portugal; he was rich and honorable, and had long commanded a ship in which he rendered great service to the king his master, and had given many marks of his valor and fidelity.

The captain had carried his only son out to India along with him; he was a youth, possessed of every amiable quality; well instructed for his years; gentle, docile, and most fondly attached to his father. The captain watched with the most intense anxiety over his safety; on the wreck of the ship, and during the march to the Cape, he caused him to be carried by his slaves.

At length all the slaves having perished, or being so weak that they could not drag themselves along, this poor youth was obliged to trust to his own strength; but became so reduced and feeble, that having laid him down to rest on a rock, he was unable to rise again. His limbs were stiff and swollen, and he lay stretched at length, unable to bend a joint.

The sight struck like a dagger to his father's heart; he tried repeatedly to recover him, and by assisting him to advance a few steps, supposed that the numbness might be removed, but his limbs refused to serve him, he was only dragged along, and those whose aid his father implored, seeing they could do no more, frankly declared, that if they carried him they must themselves perish.

The unfortunate captain was driven to despair. Lifting his son on his shoulders, he tried to carry him; he could make but a single step, when he fell to the ground with his son, who seemed more distressed with his father's grief, than with his own sufferings. The heroic boy besought him to leave him to die; the sight, he said, of his father's tears and affliction were infinitely more severe than the bodily pain he endured. These words, far from inducing the captain to depart, melted him more and more, until he at last

resolved to die with his son. The youth, astonished at his father's determination, and satisfied that his persuasions were unavailing, entreated the Portuguese in the most impressive manner, to carry away his father.

Two priests who were of the party, endeavored to represent to the captain the sinfulness of persisting in his resolution; but the Portuguese were obliged finally to carry him away by force, after having removed his son a little apart. So cruel, however, was the separation, that the captain never recovered it. The violence of his grief was unabating; and he actually died of a broken heart, one or two days after reaching the Cape