writes, watching each movement of his pen, whether it shall pass by their names with neglect, or inscribe them on the deathless pages of renown. Even the drop of ink that hangs trembling on his pen, which he may either dash upon the floor, or waste in idle scrawlings, that very drop, which to him is not worth the twentieth part of a farthing, may be of incalculable value to some departed worthy, may elevate half a score in one moment to immortality, who would have given worlds, had they possessed them, to insure the glorious meed. 5. Why, let me ask, are so many illustrious men daily tearing themselves away from the embraces of their families, slighting the smiles of beauty, despising the allurements of fortune, and exposing themselves to the miseries of war? Why are kings desolating empires, and depopulating whole countries? In short, what induces all great men, of all ages and countries, to commit so many victories and misdeeds, and inflict so many miseries upon mankind and themselves, but the mere hope that some historian will kindly take them into notice, and admit them into a corner of his volume? For, the mighty object of all their toils, their hardships, and privations, is nothing but immortal fame. TRUE FAME. JAY. 1. How many are there who thirst for military glory; and what sacrifices would they not make to obtain it! We have long been spectators of the great tragedy which has been acted on the theater of Europe, and our imaginations have become inflamed. We have beheld mighty hosts encountering each other, desperate battles fought, and victories won. We think of the triumphant march, the blood-stained banner, the captured artillery, and all the pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war, till many of us would willingly face danger and death itself, to acquire a renown equal to that of some favorite hero. 2. Yet the laurel of the conqueror grows only in a soil which is moistened with blood. It is stained with the tears of the widow, and it thrives in the midst of desolation. Nor is it durable. Amid all the annals of destruction, how few are the names which we remember and pronounce ! 3. But is there glory which is pure and enduring, and which deserves to be sought? Yes; the love of fame is a noble passion, given us not to be extinguished, but to be used aright. There is a glory which a wise man will covet, which a good man will aspire to, which will follow him from this world to the next; and there, in the presence of an assembled universe of angels, and of just men made perfect, place a crown upon his brow, that fadeth not away. LESSON CLXXVI. MANIFEST PRESENCE OF THE DEITY. ROBERT MONTGOMERY. 1. THOU UNCREATE, Unseen, Undefined, Source of all life, and Fountain of the mind; Around, above, beneath, where Thou art not! 2. Before the glad stars hymned to new-born Earth, Thy Spirit moved upon the pregnant deep, Unchained the waveless waters from their sleep, 3. Ere matter formed at Thy creative tone, Thou saidst, and lo! a universe was born, And light flashed from Thee, for its birth-day morn! 4. A thunder storm!-the eloquence of heaven! 5. Oh! now to be alone on some still hight, Where heaven's black curtains hang before the sight, And watch the swollen clouds their bosoms clash, While fleet and far the lightning-daggers flash, Like rocks in battle, on the ocean's bed, While the dashed billows foam around their head! To mark the caverns of the sky disclose The furnace flames that in their depths repose, In dizzy chase along the rattling skies!— How stirs the spirit while the thunders roll, And some vast PRESENCE rocks from pole to pole ! 6. List! now the cradled winds have hushed their roar, And infant waves curl pouting to the shore, While drenched Earth seems to wake up fresh and clear, And mark, 'tween storm and calm, the lovely change! 7. First comes the sun, unvailing half his face, Like a coy virgin, with reluctant grace, While dark clouds, skirted with his slanting ray, Till pearly shapes, like molten billows lic, Next breezes swell forth with harmonious charm, High as the lightning's rage, or thunder's roar; All living, breathing,-full of DEITY! In every wave, and wind, and fruit, and flower, 9. Who hung yon planet in its airy shrine, And dashed the sunbeam from its burning mine? And thunder rattle from the skyey deep? Through hill and vale, who twined the healthful stream? Made rain to nurture, and the fruit to teem? Who charmed the clod into a breathing shrine, And filled it with a living flame divine? One Great Enchanter helmed the harmonious whole, LESSON CLXXVII. EXPLANATORY NOTES.-1. BRI A'RE US, among the ancients, was a fabled giant, with a hundred hands and fifty heads. 2. GALILEO, an illustrious astronomer, was born at Florence, in 1564. At the age of twenty-four, he was appointed mathematical professor at Pisa. But his opposition to old theories of philosophy, created him enemies, which led him to resign the chair. He became a strenuous advocate of the Copernican system of Astronomy, which taught that the sun was the center, and that the planets, among which was the earth, revolved round it. He was twice compelled by a tribunal, before which he was arraigned, to abjure the system; in the last instance, after repeating the abjuration, he is said to have stamped on the earth, and said, in a low voice, "It does move, nevertheless." 3. FIRE-CROSS is something used in Scotland as a signal to take arms. INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL POWER. E. L. MAGOON. 1. TRUE power is intellectual. Its honor and reward lie in the capacity of uttering the bright coinage of immortal thought. Providence has appointed our existence in an age and country, most favorable for the illustration of this point. In ruder ages, physical strength obtained mastership in life. In the subsequent era of chivalry, the prowess of military chieftains monopolized the brightest smiles and the richest honors. But, under the higher civilization of modern times, beautiful THOUGHT is the favorite sovereign, who from the printed page or speaking lip, sways, with omnipotent energy, a scepter that is omnipresent. 2. Look at the regal power of mind. If it can not “create a soul under the ribs of death," it will chisel frosty marble into the lineaments and gracefulness of more than kingly maj. esty. Disdaining to employ agents weak and fragile to execute its purpose, creative mind has produced a Titan progeny, whose strength is greater than BRIAREUS' with his hundred. hands. Vivified with a soul ethereal and lightning winged, these servants, whose toil is neither uncompensated nor unjust, open the quarry and drive the loom; or, when linked to the car and ship, they unexhausted go, "Trailing o'er the earth, And bounding 'cross the sea." 3. There are intellects, at this moment, extant and luxuriating in the solitudes of profound meditation, or active in public toil, whose conceptions, long since dispatched on their mission, of conquest, are rushing in a thousand directions with infinitely more speed and energy than the eagles of imperial Rome. As |