can effect nothing, that eminence is the result of accident, and that every one must be content to remain just what he may happen to be.

2. Thus multitudes, who come forward as teachers and guides, suffer themselves to be satisfied with the most indifferent attainments, and a miserable mediocrity, without so much as inquiring how they might rise higher, much less making any attempt to rise. For any other art they would have served an apprenticeship, and would be ashamed to practise it in public before they had learned it.

3. If any one would sing, he attends a master, ar.d is drilled in the very elementary principles, and only after the most laborious process, dares to exercise his voice in public. This he does, though he has scarce any thing to learn but the mechanical execution of what lies, in sensible forms, before his eyes. But the extempore speaker, who is to invent as well as to utter, to carry on an operation of the mind as well as to produce sound, enters upon the work without preparatory discipline, and then wonders that he fails!

4. If he were learning to play on the flute for public exhibition, what hours and days would he spend in giving facility to his fingers, and attaining the power of sweetest and most impressive execution! If he were devoting himself to the organ, what months and years would he labor, that he might know its compass, and be master of its keys, and be able to draw out, at will, all its various combinations of harmonious sound, and its full richness and delicacy of expression!

5. And yet he will fancy that the grandest, the most various, the most expressive of all instruments, which the infinite Creator has fashioned, by the union of an intellectual soul with the powers of speech, may be played upon without study or practice; he comes to it a mere uninstructed tyro, and thinks to manage all its stops, and command the whole compass of its varied and comprehensive power. He finds himself a bungler in the attempt, is mortified at his failure, and settles in his mind forever that the attempt is vain.

6. Success in every art, whatever may be the natural talent,

is always the reward of industry and pains. But the instances are many, of men of the finest natural genius, whose beginning has promised much, but who have degenerated wretchedly as they advanced, because they trusted to their gifts, and made no effort to improve.

7. That there have never been other men of equal endowments with Cicero and Demosthenes, none would venture to suppose; but who have so devoted themselves to this art, or become equal in excellence? If those great men had been content, like others, to continue as they began, and had never made their persevering efforts for improvement, what could their countries have benefited from their genius, or the world have known of their fame? They would have been lost in the undistinguished crowd that sank to oblivion around them.

8. Of how many more will the same remark prove true! What encouragement is thus given to the industrious! With such encouragement, how inexcusable is the negligence which suffers the most interesting and important truths to seem heavy and dull, and fall ineffectual to the ground, through mere sluggishness in the delivery!

9. How unworthy of one who performs the high function of a religious instructor; upon whom depend, in a great measure, the religious knowledge, and devotional sentiment, and final character, of many fellow-beings; to imagine that he can worthily discharge this great concern by occasionally talking for an hour, he knows not how, and in a manner he has taken no pains to render correct, impressive, or attractive! and which, simply through that want of command over himself which study would give, is immethodical, verbose, inaccurate, feeble, trifling! It has been said of the good preacher,

"That truths divine come mended from his tongue."

10. Alas! they come ruined and worthless from such a man as this! They lose that holy energy by which they are to convert the soul and purify man for heaven, and sink in interest and efficacy below the level of those principles which govern the ordinary affairs of this lower world.

LESSON CXLIV.

CATO'S SPEECH OVER HIS DEAD SON.

ADDISON.

1. THANKS to the gods! my boy has done his duty.
Welcome, my son! Here set him down, my friends,
Full in my sight; that I may view at leisure
The bloody corse, and count those glorious wounds.
How beautiful is death when earned by virtue!
Who would not be that youth? what pity is it
That we can die but once to save our country!
Why sits this sadness on your brow, my friends?
I should have blushed, if Cato's house had stood
Secure, and flourished in a civil war.

2. Porcius, behold thy brother! and remember
Thy life is not thy own, when Rome demands it!
When Rome demands. - but Rome is now no more!
The Roman empire 's fallen! (Oh! cursed ambition!)
Fallen into Cæsar's hands! Our great forefathers
Had left him nought to conquer but his country.

3. Porcius, come hither to me! Ah! my son,
Despairing of success,

Let me advise thee to withdraw, betimes,

To our parental seat, the Sabine field,

Where the great Censor toiled with his own hands, And all our frugal ancestors were blessed

In humble virtues and a rural life.

There live retired; content thyself to be
Obscurely good.

When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway,
The post of honor is a private station!

4. Farewell, my friends! If there be any of you
Who dares not trust the victor's clemency,
Know, there are ships prepared by my command
Their sails already op'ning to the winds,
That shall convey you to the wished-for port.

5. The conqueror draws near; once more farewell!
If e'er we meet hereafter, we shall meet

In happier climes, and on a safer shore,
Where Cæsar never shall approach us more!
There, the brave youth with love of virtue fired,
Who greatly in his country's cause expired,
Shall know he conquered! The firm patriot there,
Who made the welfare of mankind his care,
Though still by faction, vice, and fortune crossed,
Shall find the generous labor was not lost.

LESSON CXLV. 45

IMPROVEMENT OF TIME.a

BONHOTE.

1. To make a proper use of that short and uncertain portion of time allotted us for our mortal pilgrimage, is a proof of wisdom; to use it with economy, and dispose of it with care, discovers prudence and discretion. Let, therefore, no

part of your time escape without making it subservient to the wise purposes for which it was given; it is the most inestimable of treasures.

2. You will find a constant employment of your time conducive to health and happiness, and not only a sure guard against the encroachments of vice, but the best recipe for contentment. Seek employment; languor and ennui shall be unknown; avoid idleness; banish sloth; vigor and cheerilness will be your enlivening companions; admit not guilt › your hearts, and terror shall not interrupt your slumbers. 'ollow the footsteps of virtue; walk steadily in her paths; he will conduct you through pleasant and flowery paths to he temple of peace; she will guard you from the wily snares f vice, and heal the wounds of sorrow and disappointment which time may inflict.

a The sentiment of the following piece should be indelibly impressed on the mind of every youth.

3. By being constantly and usefully employed, the destroyer of mortal happiness will have but few opportunities of making his attacks; and by regularly filling up your precious moments, you will be less exposed to dangers. Venture not, then, to waste an hour, lest the next should not be yours to squander. Hazard not a single day in guilty or improper pursuits, lest the day which follows should be ordained to bring you an awful summons to the tomb; a summons to which youth and age are equally liable.

4. Reading improves the mind; and you cannot better employ a portion of your leisure time than in the pursuit of knowledge. By observing a regular habit of reading, a love of it will soon be acquired. It will prove an unceasing amusement, and a pleasant resource in the hours of sorrow and discontent; an unfailing antidote against languor and indolence. Much caution is, however, necessary in the choice of books; it is among them as among human characters many would prove dangerous and pernicious advisers; they tend to mislead the imagination, and give rise to a thousand erroneous opinions and ridiculous expectations.

5. I would not, however, wish to deprive you of the pleasures of society or of rational amusement; but let your companions be select; let them be such as you can love for their good qualities, and whose virtues you are desirous to emulate ; let your amusements be such as will tend, not to corrupt and vitiate, but to correct and amend the heart.

6. Finally, I would earnestly request you never to neglect employing a portion of your time in addressing your heavenly Father, in paying him that tribute of prayer and praise which is so justly his due as "the Author of every good and perfect gift," as our Creator, Preserver, and Redeemer, "in whom we live, and move, and have our being," and without whose blessing none of our undertakings will prosper.

7. Thus, by employing the time given you in the service of virtue, you will pass your days with comfort to yourself and those around you, and by persevering to the end, shall at length obtain "a crown of glory which fadeth not away."