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father the same instructions which I am now leaving with you. And the God who gave me ears to hear, and a heart to receive, what my father enjoined on me, will, I hope, give you grace to love and follow the same instructions.

SELECT SENTENCES AND PARAGRAPHS.

LESSON III.

The source of happiness.

REASON'S whole pleasure, all the joys of sense,
Lie in three words, health, peace, and competence.
But health consists with temperance alone,
And peace, O Virtue! peace is all thy own.

An approving mind.

What stronger breast-plate than a heart untainted?
Thrice is he arm'd that hath his quarrel just;
And he but naked, though lock'd up in steel,
Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

Sleep.

Tir'd nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep!
He, like the world, his ready visits pays
Where fortune smiles; the wretched he forsakes;
Swift on his downy pinions, flies from grief,
And lights on lids unsullied with a tear.

The benefit of afflictions.

These are counsellors,

That feelingly persuade me what I am.
Sweet are the uses of adversity;

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

The value of time.

Youth is not rich in time; it may be poor :
Part with it as with money, sparing; pay
No moment but in purchase of its worth;

And what its worth ?-ask death-beds, they can tell.

Contentment.

While through this fleeting life's short, various day,
An humble pilgrim here I plod my way,
May no ambitious dreams delude my mind;
Impatience hence be far-and far be pride;
Whate'er my lot, on Heaven's kind care reclin'd,
Be Piety my comfort-Faith my guide.

The tender affections.

Who, that bears

A human boscm, hath not often felt,

How dear are all those ties which bind our race
In gentleness together; and how sweet

Their force; let Fortune's wayward hand, the while,
Be kind or cruel?

Local attachment.

Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms;
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And, as a child, whom scaring sounds molest,
Clings close, and closer, to the mother's breast;
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.

Homage at the altar of Truth.

Before thy mystic altar, heavenly Truth,
I kneel in manhood, as I knelt in youth:
Thus let me kneel, till this dull form decay,
And life's last shade be brightened by thy ray:
Then shall my soul, now lost in clouds below,
Soar without bound, without consuming glow.

The succession of human beings.

Like leaves on trees the life of man is found,
Now green in youth, now with'ring on the ground;
Another race the following spring supplies,

They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay;

So flourish these, when those have past away.

Time never returns.

Mark how it snows! how fast the valley fills,

And the sweet groves the hoary garment wear; Yet the warm sun-beams, bounding from the hills, Shall melt the veil away, and the young green appear.

But when old age has on your temples shed

Her silver frost, there's no returning sun:

Swift flies our summer, swift our autumn 's fled,

When youth and love and spring and golden joys are gone.

A temple.

How reverend is the face of this tall pile,
Whose ancient pillars rear their marble heads,
To bear aloft its arch'd and pond'rous roof,
By its own weight made steadfast and immovcable,
Looking tranquillity! It strikes an awe
And terror on my aching sight: the tombs
And monumental caves of death look cold,
And shoot a chilness to my trembling heart.

A battle.

Now, shield with shield, with helmet helmet clos'd,
To armor armor, lance to lance oppos'd,

Host against host the shadowy squadrons drew;
The sounding darts, in iron tempests, flew.
Victors and vanquish'd join promiscuous cries,
And thrilling shouts and dying groans arise;
With streaming blood the slipp'ry fields are dy'd,
And slaughter'd heroes swell the dreadful tide.

Family devotion.

Lo, kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father and the husband prays:
Hope springs exulting on triumphant wing
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society yet still more dear;

While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.

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release of all those Amongst that numearly victim to ad

A CERTAIN emperor of China, on his accession to the throne of his ancestors, commanded a general who were confined in prison for debt. ber was an old man, who had fallen an versity, and whose days of imprisonment, reckoned by the notches which he had cut on the door of his gloomy cell, expressed the annual circuit of more than fifty suns.

With trembling limbs and faltering steps, he departed from his mansion of sorrow: his eyes were dazzled with the splendor of the light; and the face of nature presented to his view a perfect paradise. The jail in which he had been imprisoned, stood at some distance from Pekin, and to that city he directed his course, impatient to enjoy the caresses of his wife, his children, and his friends.

A

Having with difficulty found his way to the street in which his decent mansion had formerly stood, his heart became more and more elated at every step he advanced. With joy he proceeded, looking eagerly around; but he observed few of the objects with which he had been formerly con versant. magnificent edifice was erected on the site of the house which he had inhabited; the dwellings of his neighbors had assumed a new form; and he beheld not a single face of which he had the least remembrance.

An aged beggar who with trembling knees stood at the gate of a portico, from which he had been thrust by the insolent domestic who guarded it, struck his attention. He stopped, therefore, to give him a small pittance out of the bounty with which he had been supplied by the emperor, and received, in return, the sad tidings, that his wife had fallen a lingering sacrifice to penury and sorrow; that his children were gone to seek their fortunes in distant or unknown climes; and that the grave contained his nearest and most valuable friends.

Overwhelmed with anguish, he hastened to the palace of his sovereign, into whose presence his hoary locks and mournful visage soon obtained admission; and casting himself at the feet of the emperor, “Great Prince," he cried, "send me back to that prison from which mistaken mercy has delivered me! I have survived my family and friends, and even in the midst of this populous city I find myself in a dreary solitude. The cell of my dungeon pro

tected me from the gazers at my wretchedness; and whilst secluded from society, I was the less sensible of the loss of its enjoyments. I am now tortured with the view of pleasure in which I cannot participate; and die with thirst, though streams of delight surround me."

LESSON V.

The Contrast: or Peace and War.-ATHENÆUM.

PEACE.

LOVELY art thou, O Peace! and lovely are thy children, and lovely are the prints of thy footsteps in the green valleys.

Blue wreaths of smoke ascend through the trees, and betray the half-hidden cottage: the eye contemplates wellthatched ricks, and barns bursting with plenty the peasant laughs at the approach of winter.

White houses peep through the trees; cattle stand cooling in the pool; the casement of the farm-house is covered with jessamine and honey suckle; the stately green-house exhales the perfume of summer climates.

Children climb the green mound of the rampart, and ivy holds together the half demolished buttress.

The old men sit at their doors; the gossip leans over her counter; the children shout and frolic in the streets.

The housewife's stores of bleached linen, whiter than snow, are laid up with fragrant herbs; they are the pride of the matron, the toil of many a winter's night.

The wares of the merchant are spread abroad in the shops, or stored in the high-piled ware houses; the labor of each profits all; the inhabitant of the north drinks the fragrant herb of China; the peasant's child wears the webs of Hindostan.

The lame, the blind, and the aged, repose in hospitals; the rich, softened by prosperity, pity the poor; the poor, disciplined into order, respect the rich.

Justice is dispensed to all. Law sits steady on her throne. and the sword is her servant.

WAR.

They have rushed through like a hurricane; like an army of locusts they have devoured the earth; the war has fallen like a water spout, and deluged the land with blood.

*Pron, huz'-wif's.

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