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within us; like virtue and like moral law, it is a companion of the soul. The power which leads to the production of beautiful forms, or to the perception of them in the works which God has made, is an attribute of Humanity.

12. But I am asked if I despise learning? Shall one who has spent much of his life in Schools and Universities, plead the equality of uneducated nature? Is there no difference between the man of refinement and the savage? "I am a man," said Black Hawk nobly to the Chief of the first Republic in the world; "I am a man," said the barbarous chieftain, “and you are another."

13. I speak for the universal diffusion of human powers, not of human attainments; for the capacity for progress, not for the perfection of undisciplined instincts. The fellowship which we should cherish with the race, receives the Camanche warrior and the Caffre within the pale of equality. Their functions may not have been exercised, but they exist. Immure a person in a dungeon; as he comes to the light of day, his vision seems incapable of performing its office. Does that destroy your conviction in the relation between the eye and light?

14. The rioter over his cups resolves to eat and drink and be merry; he forgets his spiritual nature in his obedience to the senses; but does that destroy the relation between conscience and eternity? "What ransom shall we give?" exclaimed the senators of Rome to the savage Attila." "Give," said the barbarian, "all your gold and jewels, your costly furniture and treasures, and set free every slave." "Ah," replied the degenerate Romans, "what then will be left to us?" "I leave you your souls," replied the unlettered invader from the steppes of Asia, who had learned in the wilderness to value the immortal mind, and to despise the servile herd, that esteemed only their fortunes, and had no true respect for themselves.

15. You can not discover a tribe of men, but you, also, find the charities of life, and the proofs of spiritual existence. Behold the ignorant Algonquin deposit a bow and quiver by the side of the departed warrior; and recognize his faith in immortality. See the Camanche chieftain, in the heart of our con

tinent, inflict on himself severest penance; and reverence his confession of the needed atonement for sin. The Barbarian who roams our western prairies, has like passions and like endowments with ourselves. He bears within him the instinct of Deity; the consciousness of a spiritual nature; the love of beauty; the rule of morality.

16. And shall we reverence the dark-skinned Caffre? Shall we respect the brutal Hottentot? You may read the right answer written on every heart. It bids me not despise the sable hunter that gathers a livelihood in the forests of Southern Africa. All are men. When we know the Hottentot better, we shall despise him less.

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1. AMONG the vast numbers of men capable of rising to eminence in art, science, or literature, and of making a deep impression on the world, how few confer any lasting benefit upon their generation, by their works, inventions, or discoveries! And it seems to me that the want of perseverance—in other words, indolence and irresolution-is the principal cause of their failure. Go to the primary school, and, among a hundred boys, you will usually find fifty exhibiting nearly equal natural abilities, and making equal progress in learning.

2. In the academy and the college you will find as large a proportion, between whose talents and scholarship you will see scarcely any difference. Year after year, they will move forward shoulder to shoulder, and come to the end of their literary course so nearly abreast, that it requires a nice application of the merit guage to give them a difference of rank on the scale of honorary appointments; and the most sagacious application of the doctrine of probabilities will not enable any one to predict with confidence which of them will be distinguished above his fellows in future life.

3. But let the history of those boys and young men, whether from the primary school, the academy, or the college, be consulted at the end of their lives, and you will scarcely find a dozen, out of a hundred, who have risen to high distinction in their business or profession, or made valuable discoveries, or left a deep impression upon the world. The others may have done much good; but why have they not done as much as their dozen comrades, who, during the years of their elementary education, were not able to outstrip them?

4. We must allow something for feeble health, and other unforeseen difficulties, hedging up the path of a few. But in respect to the great body of these men, difference in application and perseverance will alone explain their difference of success. The twelve had acquired, during their early days, an ardent love of knowledge, and a deep sense of their responsibilities to God and the world, and the result was, a strong determination to make use of the vantage ground which they had attained, for pushing their conquests still farther into the dominions of art and science.

5. Having prepared themselves by an elementary acquaintance with the circle of knowledge, they selected some particular department, to which taste or duty invited, and concentrated their energies upon its thorough examination; being convinced that he who attempts to master all subjects, though he may become respectable in all, can be accurate and successfnl in none. Having chosen their field, they went about its exploration as a business for life.

6. The morning's dawn and the evening's darkness found them still at their work. Those seasons which most men devote to relaxation, witnessed in them little more than a change of objects, whereby their exhausted energies were recruited. Time they regarded as a treasure too rich to have any of it wasted; and, therefore, all its shreds and patches were carefully used. The difficulties which they encountered in their researches served only to awaken new effort, and every new conquest gave them an earnest of future victories.

7. Feeble health may have retarded their progress; poverty's

skeleton hand may often have been laid with a crushing weight upon their heads; the world may have passed them by in cold neglect, or cast upon them a contemptuous frown, while the discerning and liberal few may not have found them out. But the unconquerable spirit within them stood erect in spite of all these obstructions.

8. The delight which every step of their progress afforded by opening new wonders before them, the increased power which each acquisition gave them to advance to other victories, the desire of leaving their names permanently inscribed upon the history of man, and, perhaps, also, those higher motives to diligence derived from a sense of responsibility to Heaven, all these motives were continually sounding in their ears the onward cry. And onward they went, triumphing over one difficulty after another, until the world at last confessed their superiority, sought from them the lessons of wisdom, and lavished upon them its honors.

9. But their former companions lingered in the race. They were wanting in the untiring industry and indomitable spirit of perseverance which these twelve men exhibited, and, therefore, they have not stood forth as the master spirits of their times, nor secured the homage of the world; and the wave of oblivion has rolled over their memories. But having equal talents in the commencement of their course with their more energetic companions, their failure and the world's loss must be imputed to their indolence and irresolution.

10. The heart sickens when it sees how many and how powerful are the causes in operation to pervert, and crush, and waste man's intellect, and to keep those powers groveling in the dust which should be rising and soaring among the stars. But it is cheering to know that there are some, and, in this country, many who are striving to rescue the noblest thing on earth, the human soul, from its thralldom and degradation.

11. They stand, indeed, in the world's Thermopyla,' and struggle against a fearful odds. But they shall not fall there, like the band of Leonidas. Nay, they shall see the deluge of ignorance and sin which has so long been dashing over the

fairest portion of the globe beaten back; and the dry land of knowledge and virtue shall appear, and the flowers of hope and happiness shall spring up, and the rich fruits of science and religion shall fill the garners of every land.

12. A beautiful bow of promise already spans the horizon; for, when Christianity prevails in all lands and fully controls all hearts, then those powerful causes of intellectual waste and perversion which I have pointed out, shall pass away. Intemperance in every form, and cruel war, and fierce party collisions, and inordinate selfishness, and factitious and unnatural desires thall all be sacrificed upon the altar of benevolence; and man shall shake off his indolence, and ample means and motives shall be placed before the whole human family for intellectual and moral culture.

13. Then shall such progress be made in science, literature, and art as will throw into the shade all former bright spots in human history; then will the world learn, for the first time, how deep has been her degradation, how incalculably valuable are the rights of which, for thousands of years, she has been deprived, and how truly frightful has been the waste of mind since the beginning!

14. O how cheering to the lover of science to look forward to those halcyon days which Christianity tells us shall assuredly come! Imagination need not fear that her most vivid colors can outdo the original; for, if the little benevolence and the little knowledge which have been in the world hitherto, have accomplished so much, what imagination can sketch the picture when the hearts of earth's vast population shall all be swayed by benevolence, and their minds all disciplined and expanded by science?

LESSON III.

GENIUS.

G. W. BETHUNE.

1. GENUS must be cultivated by exercise. The mind is like the body. Nothing impairs its strength so much as idleness; nothing increases it so much as well directed labor. The mus

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