But thou shall flourish in immortal youth, The wrecks of matter, and the crush of worlds. LESSON CLXV. CONSOLATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 1. IF Death forever doom us to the elod, 2. Illustrious beacons ! spirits of the just! Shall ye, whose names, undimmed by ages, shine Forever slumber,-never meet again, for divine, Too poor for sorrow, too sublime for pain? To radiant dwellings of immortal fire, Where pain can never come, and pleasure never tire. There, as the choral melodies career Sublimely rolling through the seraph-sphere, In angel-forms, you all again unite, And bathe in streams of everlasting light! 3. When friends have vanished to their viewless home, How oft-renewing Memory paints each hour, When Friendship triumphed, and the heart had power! Yes, hallowed are these visions of the brain, When Heaven unvails, and loved ones smile again ! 4. O say! how will the skeptic brave the hour Of Death's divine, inexorable power, When all this fairy world shall glide away, Like midnight dreams before the morning day? LESSON CLXVI. EXPLANATORY NOTES.-1. CHRISTIAN STATES are those, in which Christianity is recognized as the true religion. 2. INTOLERANCE is the restraining by the authority of government or otherwise, the enjoyment of religious principles. In the United States, it is not admitted that government or individuals have any right to interfere in religious matters, no farther than to protect all in the enjoyment of their religion. EUROPE AND AMERICA CONTRASTED. WEBSTER. [From a Speech delivered in the House of Representatives, April 14, 1826. 1. In many respects, the European and American nations are alike. They are alike Christian States,' civilized States, and commercial States. They have access to the same common fountains of intelligence; they all draw from those sources which belong to the whole civilized world. In knowledge and letters,—in the arts of peace and war, they differ in degrees; but they bear, nevertheless, a general resemblance. 2. On the other hand, in matters of government and social institutions, the nations on this continent are founded upon principles which never did prevail, in considerable extent, either at any other time, or in any other place. There has never been presented to the mind of man a more interesting subject of contemplation, than the establishment of so many nations in America, partaking in the civilization and in the arts of the old world, but having left behind them those cumbrous institutions which had their origin in a dark and military age. 3. Whatsoever European experience has developed, favorable to the freedom and the happiness of man; whatsoever European genius has invented for his improvement or gratification; whatsoever of refinement or polish the culture of European society presents for his adoption and enjoyment,-all this is offered to man in America, with the additional advantages of the full power of erecting forms of government on free and simple principles, without overturning institutions suited to times long passed, but too strongly supported, either by interests or prejudices, to be shaken without convulsions. 4. This unprecedented state of things presents the happiest of all occasions for an attempt to establish national intercourse upon improved principles,-upon principles tending to peace, and the mutual prosperity of nations. In this respect, America, the whole of America, has a new career before her. If we look back on the history of Europe, we see how great a portion of the last two centuries her states have been at war for interests connected mainly with her feudal monarchies; wars for particular dynasties; wars to support or defeat particular successions; wars to enlarge or curtail the dominion of particular crowns; wars to support or dissolve family alliances; wars, in fine, to enforce or to resist religious intolerance.2 5. What long and bloody chapters do these not fill, in the history of European politics! Who does not see, and who does not rejoice to see, that America has a glorious chance of es caping, at least, these causes of contention? Who does not see, and who does not rejoice to see, that, on this continent, under other forms of government, we have before us the noble hope of being able, by the mere influence of civil and religious liberty, to dry up these outpouring fountains of blood, and to extinguish these consuming fires of war. 6. The general opinion of the age favors such hopes and such prospects. There is a growing disposition to treat the intercourse of nations more like the useful intercourse of friends; philosophy, just views of national advantage, good sense, and the dictates of a common religion, and an increasing conviction that war is not the interest of the human race, -all concur to increase the interest created by this new accession to the list of nations. LESSON CLXVII. EXPLANATORY NOTES.-1. ARNOLD WINKELRIED, a Swiss patriot, in the battle of Sempach, July 9, 1386, by the sacrifice of his life, enabled his countrymen to defeat the Austrian troops. In order to break the Austrian ranks, he rushed on them, grasped several lances, and, heedless of the thrusts, bore them to the ground. His countrymen rushed through the opening thus made, and won the victory. 2. SIR HENRY VANE, one of the early governors of Massachusetts, on his return to England, rendered himself conspicuous for his public acts, and on one occasion for his advocacy for a Republican government, on which account he was falsely accused of treason, condemned, and beheaded, June 14, 1662. 3. LORD RUSSELL, an English nobleman of acknowledged probity, sincerity, and private worth, was unjustly condemned for treason, and beheaded, July 21, 1683. BEAUTY OF THE SCENE ENHANCES THE BEAUTY OF THE DEED. R. W. EMERSON. 1. THE high and divine beauty which can be loved without effeminacy, is that which is found in combination with the human will, and never separate. Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue. Every natural action is graceful. Every heroic act is also decent, and causes the place and the bystanders to shine. We are taught by great actions that the universe is the property of every individual in it. 2. Every rational creature has all nature for his dowry and estate. It is his, if he will. He may divest himself of it; he may creep into a corner, and abdicate his kingdom, as most men do; but he is entitled to the world by his constitution. In proportion to the energy of his thought and will, he takes up the world into himself. "All those things, for which men plow, build, or sail, obey virtue," said an ancient historian. "The winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators." So are the sun, and moon, and all the stars of heaven. 3. When a noble act is done,-perchance in a scene of great natural beauty;-when Leonidas and his three hundred martyrs consume one day in dying, and the sun and moon come each and look at them once in the steep defile of Thermopylæ; when Arnold Winkelried', in the high Alps, under the shadow of the avalanche, gathers in his side a sheaf of Austrian spears to break the line for his comrades; are not these heroes entitled to add the beauty of the scene, to the beauty of the deed? 4. When the bark of Columbus nears the shore of America, —before it, the beach lined with savages fleeing out of all their huts of cane,-the sea behind, and the purple mountains of the Indian Archipelago around, can we separate the man from the living picture? Does not the New World clothe his form with her palm-groves and savannahs as fit drapery ? 5. Ever does natural beauty steal in like air, and envelop great actions. When Sir Henry Vane was dragged up the Tower-hill, sitting on a sled, to suffer death, as the champion of the English laws, one of the multitude cried out, "You never sat on so glorious a seat." Charles II., to intimidate the citizens of London, caused the patriot, Lord Russell3, to be drawn in an open coach, through the principal streets of the city, on his way to the scaffold. "But," to use the simple narrative of his biographer, "the multitude imagined they saw liberty and virtue sitting by his side." |