6. The yeoman, living like a good neighbor near the fields he cultivates, glories in the fruitfulness of the valleys, and counts, with honest exultation, the flocks and herds that graze in safety on the hills. The thorn has given way to the rosebush; the cultivated vine clambers over rocks where the brood of serpents used to nestle; while industry smiles at the changes she has wrought, and inhales the bland air which now has health on its wings.

) 7. Man is still in harmony with nature, which he has subdued, cultivated, and adorned. For him the rivers that flow to remotest climes, mingle their waters; for him the lakes gain new outlets to the ocean; for him the arch spans the flood, and science spreads iron pathways to the recent wilderness; for him the hills yield up the shining marble and the enduring granite; for him the forests of the interior come down in immense rafts; for him the marts of the city gather the produce of every clime, and libraries collect the works of genius of every language and every age.

8. The passions of society are chastened into purity; manners are made benevolent by civilization; and the virtue of the country is the guardian of its peace. An active, daily press, vigilant from party interests, free even to dissoluteness, watches the progress of society, and communicates every fact that can interest humanity; the genius of letters begins to unfold his powers in the warm sunshine of public favor. And, while idle curiosity may take its walk in shady avenues by the ocean side, commerce pushes its wharves into the sea, blocks up the wide rivers with its fleets, and, sending its ships, the pride of naval architecture, to every clime, defies every wind, outrides every tempest, and invades every zone.

LESSON CLXII.

NOTE. To read or speak the following poetry intelligibly, will be found no less difficult than to analyze it grammatically. The utterance requires a distinct and marked emphasis in order fully to express the sentiment. It should be studied with care and attention, previous to reading or speaking it, in order clearly to comprehend the sentiment.

PHILOSOPHY.

1. EFFUSIVE source of evidence and truth!
A luster shedding o'er the ennobled mind,
Stronger than summer-noon,-pure as that
Whose mild vibrations soothe the parted soul,
New to the dawning of celestial day!

THOMSON,

Hence, through her nourished powers, enlarged by thee, She springs aloft, with elevated pride,

Above the tangling mass of low desires,

That bind the fluttering crowd; and, angel-winged,
The hights of science and of virtue gains,
Where all is calm and clear,-with Nature round,
Or in the starry regions, or the abyss,
To Reason's and to Fancy's eye displayed ;—
The first, up-tracing, from the dreary void,
The chain of causes and effects, to Him,
The world-producing Essence, who alone
Possesses being; while the last receives
The whole magnificence of heaven and Earth,
And every beauty, delicate or bold,

Obvious, or more remote, with livelier sense,
Diffusive painted on the rapid mind.

2. Without thee, what were unenlightened man?
A savage roaming through the woods and wilds,
quest of prey; and with th' unfashioned fur,
Rough-clad; devoid of every finer art

In

And elegance of life. Nor happiness
Domestic, mixed of tenderness and care,
Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss,
Nor guardian law, were his; nor various skill
To turn the furrow, or to guide the tool
Mechanic; nor the heaven-conducted prow
Of navigation bold, that fearless braves
The burning Line, or dares the wint'ry Pole;-
Nothing, save rapine, indolence, and guile.

And woes on woes, a still-revolving train,
Whose horrid circle had made human life
Than non-existence worse; but taught by thee,
Ours are the plans of policy and peace;
To live like brothers, and conjunctive all

Embellish life.

While thus laborious crowds

Ply the tough oar, Philosophy directs
The ruling helm; or, like the liberal breath
Of potent Heaven, invisible, the sail

Swells out, and bears the inferior world along.

3. Nor to this evanescent speck of earth
Poorly confined, the radiant tracts on high
Are her exalted range; intent to gaze
Creation through; and, from that full complex
Of never-ending wonders, to conceive

4.

Of the Sole Being right, who spoke the word,-
And Nature moved complete, With inward view,
Thence on th' ideal kingdom swift she turns
Her eye; and instant, at her powerful glance,
Th' obedient phantoms vanish or appear;
Compound, divide, and into order shift,
Each to his rank, from plain perception up
To the fair forms of Fancy's fleeting train;-
To reason then, deducing truth from truth,
And notion quite abstract, where first begins
The world of spirits, action all, and life
Unfettered, and unmixed.

But here the cloud,

So wills Eternal Providence, sits deep.
Enough for us to know that this dark state,
In wayward passions lost, and vain pursuits,
This infancy of Being can not prove
The final issue of the works of God,
By boundless love and perfect wisdom formed,
And ever rising with the rising mind.

LESSON CLXIII.

PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.

SAMUEL YOUNG.

1. No fact is more strongly corroborated by the annals of the past, or more fully confirmed by observation and experience, than that the human race is richly endowed with the capacity for improvement. The records of antiquity, long antecedent to the Christian era, exhibit, in several nations of the old world, a very considerable advance in mental cultivation, as well as in useful and ornamental arts of life. And, although the progress of man was exceedingly desultory and slow, yet, the lapse of centuries finally manifested the splendid results of human advancement in the brilliancy of Greek and Roman literature.

2. The meager chronicles of ancient times are mostly filled with wars, battles, conquests, and revolutions. Few of the names of the numerous benefactors of the human race, by whose teachings, examples, inventions, and improvements, from age to age, the ferocity of savage life was partially softened, and the arts of peace gradually multiplied, have been transmitted to our times.

3. The blank pages of ancient history are the quiet epochs of peace. The bloody struggles of infuriated man, were chronicled by the annalist, and commemorated by the poet; while all the ameliorating influences were either overlooked, or deemed unworthy of record.

4. Periods of tranquillity, however, were of short and precarious duration, and were frequently interrupted by the advent of ferocious conquerors, the shock of contending armies, or the irruption of predatory hordes. How many times the feeble glimmerings of incipient knowledge were extinguished in human blood; how many Alexandrian libraries were destroyed by savage warriors; how often the pall of night was cast over the rising sun of science, and the human race thrown back into the depths of barbarism, during the primeval ages, it is impossible to estimate.

5. Carnage and devastation were the principal occupations of mankind; and prisoners of war, even down to Roman times, were liable to be butchered, or to be converted into slaves. Amidst the din of almost incessant conflicts, the rage for bloodshed, plunder, and desolation, and the consequent utter insecurity of life, liberty, and property, it is not strange that the progress of man, during more than three thousand years, should have been so tottering and feeble.

6. The mistress of the world, when there were no more valuable conquests to make, dazzled by her giddy hight, and corrupted by plunder and by power, began to feel the operation of those laws, under which the aggregated possessions of all the great conquerors of preceding times, had crumbled into ruins. Her decadence would have been accomplished by her own weight. But time was not given for the full operation of the internal causes of dissolution; and the catastrophe was accelerated by frequent inundations of barbarians.

7. It is probable that at no period since the creation of man, had every vestige of science, every monument of art, and every trace of civilization, been more completely obscured and demolished, than after the fall of the Roman Empire. To render the eclipse total, wave after wave of unmitigated barbarism rolled over the face of Europe for several centuries; so that, even the tradition of former improvements must have been nearly extinguished.

8. So intense was the obscuration, that it would seem to have been utterly impossible that the human race should ever emerge from the gloom; and, had not the germ of intellectual resurrection been deeply and firmly implanted in the breast of man, the condition of the European world would have been hopeless.

9. But an indomitable propensity to think, to compare, to reason, to obviate physical impediments, and to explore truth through its material and mental labyrinths,-to ameliorate his condition,-is a distinctive trait in the very nature of man. This vital principle may lie dormant for ages, but is never extinct. Its energy may be enfeebled by savage life, crushed by