upon him," the seraph gains not attention by his gaze of fire, and the insect loses it not through feebleness of vision. Archangel and angel, man and beast, fowls of the air, and fish of the sea, all draw equally the regard of Him who, counting nothing great but Himself, the Creator, can pass over, as small, no fraction of the creation.

8. It is thus virtually the attribute of God, that He should care for every thing and sustain every thing; so that we should never behold a blade of grass springing up from the earth, nor hear a bird warble its wild music, without a warm memory that it is through Him, as a God of providence, that the fields are enameled in due season, that every animated tribe receives its sustenance, and that the successive generations of mankind arise, flourish, and possess the earth.

9. Never should we think of joy or sorrow, of things prosperous or adverse, of health or sickness, life or death, without devoutly believing that the times of every man are in the Almighty's hands, that nothing happens, but through the ordinance or permission of God; and that the very same Providence which guides the marchings of the stars, and regulates the convulsions of empires, is tending at the couch of the afflicted, curtaining the sleep, and watching the toil, of earth's remotest families..

LESSON CXXXVI.

ELEGANT EXTRACTS.

THE VARIED CHANGES OF CREATION.

LOOK nature through, 'tis revolution all;

YOUNG.

All change, no death; day follows night, and night,
The dying day; stars rise and set, and set and rise:
Earth takes the example. See the Summer gay,
With her green chaplet and ambrosial flowers,
Droops into pallid Autumn: Winter gray,
Horrid with frost and turbulent with storm,

Blows Autumn and his golden fruits away,

Then melts into the Spring: soft Spring, with breath
Favonian, from warm chambers of the south,
Recalls the first. All, to reflourish, fades;
As in a wheel, all sinks to re-ascend;
Emblems of man, who passes, not expires.

RESULTS OF PROCRASTINATION.

LONGFELLOW.

ALAS! it is not till time, with reckless hand, has torn out half the leaves from the book of human life, to light the fires of passion with, from day to day, that man begins to see, that the leaves which remain are few in number, and to remember that upon the earlier pages of that book, was written a story of happy innocence, which he would fain read over again. Then comes listless irresolution, and the inevitable inaction of despair; or else the firm resolve to record upon the leaves that still remain, a more noble history than the child's story, with which the book began.

DIVINE COMPASSION.

I WAS a stricken deer that left the herd
Long since with many an arrow deep infixed
My panting side was charged, when I withdrew
To seek a tranquil death in distant shades.
There was I found by One who had Himself
Been hurt by archers; in His side he bore,
And in His hands and feet, the cruel scars.
With gentle force soliciting the darts,

COWPER.

He drew them forth, and healed, and bade me live.

NATURE'S LOVELINESS.

CHALMERS.

WHETHER We look on soft and flowery landscapes, lighted up from heaven by sweetest sunshine, or toward that evening sky, behind the hues and inimitable touches of whose loveliness, one could almost dream that there floated isles of Paradise, whereon the spirits of the blest were rejoicing, or with

out poetic revery, did we but confine our prospect to those realities, by which earth is peopled, and take account of those unnumbered graces, which, in verdant meads, or waving foliage, or embosomed lake, or all the other varieties of rural freshness and fertility, lie strewn upon its surface,—it may most readily be thought, that surely He, at whose creative touch all this loveliness has arisen, must Himself be placid as the scene, or gentle as the zephyr that He causes to blow over it.

VICE.

VICE is a monster of so frightful mien,
As, to be hated, needs but to be seen;
But, seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

VALUE OF THE SOUL.

KNOWEST thou the value of a soul immortal?
Behold this midnight glory,-worlds on worlds!
Amazing pomp! redouble this amaze!

POPE.

Ten thousand add, and twice ten thousand more;
Then weigh the whole;-one soul outweighs them all,
And calls the astonishing magnificence

Of unintelligent creation-poor.

MERCY.

:

SHAKSPEARE

THE quality of mercy is not strained;
It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven.
Upon the place beneath it is twice bless'd;
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes;
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;

It is enthroned in the hearts of kings;

It is an attribute to God himself:

And earthly power doth then show likest God's,
When mercy seasons justice.

THE POOR CARED FOR.

MELVILLE.

THERE is not the poor man, whom the rising sun wakens to the going forth to toil for his daily bread, who may not as distinctly assure himself of his carrying with him to his wearisome task the ever-watchful guardianship of the Almighty Maker of the heavens and the earth, as though he were the leader of armies, or the ruler of nations.

Long-Suffering.

LOPE DE VEGA.

LORD, what am I, that with unceasing care Thou did'st seek after me,—that Thou didst wait, Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate,

And pass the gloomy nights of winter there?
O strange delusion!-that I did not greet

Thy blessed approach! and O, to Heaven how lost,
If my ingratitude's unkindly frost

Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon Thy feet!

How oft my guardian angel gently cried :"Soul, from thy casement look without and see How He persists to knock and wait for thee !" And O, how often to that voice of sorrow :"To-morrow we will open!" I replied;

And when the morrow came, I answered still :- "To-morrow!"

IMPROVEMENT.

CAMPBELL.

COME, bright Improvement, on the car of Time,
And rule the spacious world from clime to clime,
Thy handmaid, Art, shall every wild explore,
Trace every wave, and culture
every shore.

LESSON CXXXVII.

THE PRINTING PRESS.

CUMMING.

1. THE influence for good or for evil, which men leave behind them in the immediate circles of their friends and acquaintance, extends from generation to generation; but there are other ways in which men may speak as loudly as if they had a voice which could be heard from the rivers to the ends of the earth. I speak not of the lettered tomb-stone, which is the voice of many of the dead speaking, after they are gone; nor of monuments erected to commemorate illustrious worth; nor of legacies and bequests to the cause of religion, which make the name of the donor to be mentioned with reverence and respect after he is departed; but I speak of the almost undying influence which genius can exert by reason of that great discovery of modern times,-THE PRINTING PRESS.

2. By means of printing, man may speak to all kindreds, and tribes, and tongues, and make his voice be heard, with simultaneous power, beyond the Atlantic waves, upon the shores of the Caspian Sea, and amid the population of Europe. Nay, he may speak to the accumulating generations after his death, with all the freshness and force of personal eloquence. Printing gives to man a sort of ubiquity and eternity of being; it enables him to outwit death, and enshrine himself amid a kind of earthly immortality. It enables him to speak while yet dead, His words that breathe, and thoughts that burn, are embodied and embalmed; and with him thousands hold profitable or hurtful communion till time is no more.

3. If, then, we are loudly called upon to be careful what we speak, and what we do, we are doubly warned to beware what we throw into the press, and invest with a power to endure, and a strength to pass every sea, and to visit every people. Every day, as it dawns, is adding to the powers, resources and expansibilities of man. And, if every day does not also add a larger amount of moral and religious principle to regulate this