whose blessing, "even length of days and life for evermore,” will consecrate and reward your obedience to His perfect laws.

10. "So live, that, when thy summons comes to join

The innumerable caravan that moves

To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,

Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave

Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to peaceful dreams."

S. S. RANDALL.

LESSON CXXXII.

THE RUINS OF POMPEII.

1. THE ancient city of POMPEII, in the province of Campania, in Italy, together with that of HERCULANEUM, was buried by a shower of ashes, thrown up from the crater of Mount Vesuvius, in the famous eruption of 79. The ruins of Pompeii were accidentally discovered in the year 1748, and they have been, to a great extent, disclosed by the extensive excavations which have been made. Streets and houses, in almost a perfect state, have been brought to view. A forum, two theaters, temples, fountains, and other structures, richly ornamented, have been discovered, and from them have been taken statues, manuscripts, paintings, and various utensils, which contribute extensively to enlarge our notions of the ancients, and develop many classical obscurities.

2. Numerous skeletons have been discovered, though it is probable that many of the inhabitants escaped. In one cellar the skeletons of twenty-seven females were found, with costly ornaments for the neck and arms scattered around. In another apartment, the skeletons of a master and slave, were discovered, the former holding a key in one hand, and a bag of coins and precious stones in the other, while near them were valuable silver and bronze vessels.

3. In other times and in other places, one single edifice, a temple, a theater, a tomb, that had escaped the wreck of ages, would have enchanted us, nay, an arch, the remnant of a wall, even one solitary column, was beheld with veneration; but to discover a single ancient house, the abode of a Roman in his privacy, the scene of his domestic hours, was an object of fond, but hopeless longing. Here, not a temple, not a theater, nor a column, nor a house, but a whole city rises before us, untouched, unaltered, the very same as it was eighteen hundred years ago, when inhabited by Romans.

4. We range through the same streets, tread the very same pavement, behold the same walls, enter the same doors, and repose in the same apartments. We are surrounded by the same objects, and out of the same windows we contemplate While you are wandering through the abanmay, without any great effort of imagination, expect to meet some of the former inhabitants, or, perhaps, the master of the house himself, and almost feel like intruders who dread the appearance of any of the family.

the same scenery. doned rooms, you

5. In the streets you are afraid of turning a corner, lest you should jostle a passenger; and, on entering a house, the least sound startles, as if the proprietor was coming out of the back apartments. The traveler may long indulge the illusion; for not a voice is heard, not even the sound of a foot to disturb the loneliness of the place, or to interrupt his reflections

LESSON CXXXIII.

NOTE. The following is an extract from a poem which obtained tlə Chancellor's medal, at a commencement of the University at Cambridge, England.

DESTRUCTION OF FOMPEII.

1. SAD City, gayly dawned thy latest day,
And poured its radiance on a scene as gay.
Then mirth and music through Pompeii rung;
Then verdant wreaths on all her portals hung;

MACAULAY.

Her sons with solemn rite and jocund lay,
Hailed the glad splendors of that festal day.
With fillets bound the hoary priests advance,
And rosy virgins braid the choral dance.
The rugged warrior here unbends awhile
His iron front, and deigns a transient smile;
There, frantic with delight, the ruddy boy

Scarce treads on earth, and bounds and laughs with joy.

2. From every crowded altar perfumes rise
In billowy clouds of fragrance to the skies.
The milk-white monarch of the herd they lead,
With gilded horns, at yonder shrine to bleed;
And while the victim crops the broidered plain,
And frisks, and gambols toward the destined fane,
They little deem that, like himself, they stray
To death, unconscious, o'er a flowery way;
Heedless, like him, the impending stroke await,
And sport and wanton on the brink of fate.

3. What 'vails it that, where yonder hights aspire,
With ashes piled, and scathed with rills of fire,
Gigantic phantoms dimly seem to glide,*
In misty files, along the mountain's side,

To view with threatening scowl your fated lands,
And toward your city point their shadowy hands?
In vain through many a night ye view from far
The meteor flag of elemental war

Unroll its blazing folds from yonder hight,
In fearful sign of earth's intestine fight.

4. In vain Vesuvius groaned with wrath suppressed,
And muttered thunder in his burning breast.
Long since the Eagle from that flaming peak,

* It is related that gigantic figures appeared on the summit of Vesuvius, previous to the destruction of POMPEII. This was caused doubtless by the fantastic forms which the smoke assumed, assisted by a lively imagi nation.

Hath soared with screams a safer nest to seek.
Awed by the infernal beacon's fitful glare,
The howling wolf hath left his wonted lair.
Man only mocks the peril. Man alone

Defies the sulphurous flame, the warning groan.
While instinct, humbler guardian, wakes and saves,
Proud reason sleeps, nor knows the doom it braves.

. But see, the opening theater invites
The fated myriads to its gay delights.
In, in they swarm, tumultuous as the roar
Of foaming breakers on a rocky shore.

The enraptured throng in breathless transport views
The gorgeous Temple of the Tragic Muse.
Far, far around the ravished eye surveys
The sculptured forms of gods and heroes blaze.
Above, the echoing roofs the peal prolong
Of lofty converse, or melodious song;
While, as the tones of passion sink or swell,
Admiring thousands own the moral spell,
Melt with the melting strains of fancied woe,
With terror sicken, or with transport glow.

6. O! for a voice like that which pealed of old
Through Salem's cedar courts and shrines of gold,*
And, in wild accents round the trembling dome,
Proclaimed the havoc of avenging Rome;
While every palmy arch and sculptured tower,
Shook with the footsteps of the parting power.
Such voice might check your tears, which idly stream
For the vain phantoms of the poet's dream,-
Might bid those terrors rise, those sorrows flow,
For other perils, and for nearer woe.

7. The hour is come. Even now the sulphurous cloud Involves the city in its funeral shroud,

And, far along Campania's azure sky,

*Consult the 24th Chapter of Matthew.

Expands its dark and boundless canopy.

The Sun, though throned on heaven's meridian hight,.
Burns red and rayless through that sickly night.
Each bosom felt at once the shuddering thrill,
At once the music stopped.—The song was still.
None in that cloud's portentous shade might trace
The fearful changes of another's face.

But, through that horrid stillness, each could hear
His neighbor's throbbing heart beat high with fear.

8. A moment's pause succeeds. Then wildly rise
Grief's sobbing plaints and terror's frantic cries.
The gates recoil; and, toward the narrow pass,
In wild confusion, rolls the living mass.
Death!-when thy shadowy scepter waves away
From his sad couch the prisoner of decay,

Though friendship view the close with glistening eye,
And love's fond lips imbibe the parting sigh,
By torture racked, by kindness soothed in vain,
The soul still clings to being and to pain.
But when have wilder terrors clothed thy brow,
Or keener torments edged thy dart than now,-
When with thy regal horrors vainly strove
The law of Nature and the power of Love?

9. On mothers babes in vain for

mercy

call;

Beneath the feet of brothers, brothers fall.
Behold the dying wretch in vain upraise
Toward yonder well-known face the accusing gaze.
Vain is the imploring glance, the frenzied cry,
All, all is fear;-to succor, is to die.
Saw ye how wild, how red, how broad a light
Burst on the darkness of that mid-day night,
As fierce Vesuvius scattered o'er the vale
Her drifted flames and sheets of burning hail,
Shook death's wan lightnings from his blazing cone,
And gilded heaven with meteors not its own?