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his cheek was fast deepening into purple. I know not whether, at first, his sister perceived the change in his appearance; she took her seat at his side, pressed his pale lips to her own, and then, as usual, let her melancholy eye rest fixedly upon his countenance.

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Suddenly his looks brightened for a moment, and he spoke his sister's name. She replied with a passionate caress, and looked up to my face as if to implore encouragement. I knew that her hopes were but a mockery. A moment more, and a convulsive quiver passed over the lips of the dying boy-a slight shudder ran through his frame and all was still. The girl knew, as if intuitively, that her brother was dead. She sat in tearless silence—but I saw that the waters of bitterness were gathering fearfully at their fountain. At last she raised her hands with a sudden effort, and pressing them upon her forehead, wept with the uncontrollable agony of despair.

On the next day the corpse of the dead boy was committed to the waves. The little girl knew that it must be so, but she strove to drive the thought away, as if it had been an unreal and terrible vision. When the appointed hour was at hand, she came and begged me, with a tone that seemed less like a human voice than the low cadence of a disembodied and melancholy spirit, to go and look upon her brother and see if he was indeed dead.

I could not resist her entreaties, but went with her to gaze upon the sleeping dust, to which all the tendrils of her life seemed bound. She paused by the bed-side, and I almost deemed that her very existence would pass off in that long, fixed gaze. She moved

not--she spoke not-till the form she loved was taken away to be let down into the ocean. Then indeed she arose, and followed her lifeless brother, with a calmness that might have been from heaven. The body sunk slowly and solemnly beneath the waves; a few long, bright ringlets streamed out upon the waters, a single white and beautiful glimpse came up through the glancing billows, and all that had once been joy and beauty, vanished forever.

During the short residue of our voyage, the bereaved sister seemed fading away, and beautiful as a cloud in a summer zenith. Her heart had lost its communion with nature, and she would look down into the sea, and murmur incoherently of its cold and solitary depths, and call her brother's name, and then weep herself into calmness.

Soon afterward I left her with her friends. I know not whether she is still a blossom of the earth, or whether she has long since gone to be nurtured in a holier realm. But I love the memory of that beautiful and stricken one. Her loveliness, her innocence, and her deep and holy feelings, still come back to me in their glory and quietude, like a rainbow, or a summer cloud, that has showered and passed off for

ever.

7

LESSON XXIV.

ADVANTAGES OF TEMPERANCE.

TEMPERANCE promotes clearness and vigor of intellect. If the functions of the brain be not in a healthy and vigorous state, equally unhealthy and inefficient must be those of the mind. History will bear us out in asserting, that the highest and most successful intellectual efforts have ever been associated with the practice of those general principles of temperance in diet for which we plead. It is the mighty minds that have grappled most successfully with the demonstrations of mathematical, intellectual, and moral science, that stand highest on the scale of mental acumen and power; and it is such minds that have found strict temperance in diet essential to their success. Let us advert to the history of a few of the master spirits of the human race.

Foremost on the list stands Sir Isaac Newton. The treatise of his, that cost him the mightiest intellectual effort of all his works, was composed while the body was sustained by bread and water alone. And in spite of the wear and tear of such protracted and prodigious mental labor as his, that same temperance sustained him to his eighty-fifth year.

The celebrated John Locke, with a feeble constitution, outlived the term of threescore years and ten by his temperance. "To this temperate mode of life, too, he was probably indebted for the increase of those intellectual powers, which gave birth to his incompa

rable work on the human understanding, his treatises on government and education, as well as his other writings, which do so much honor to his memory."

Another intellectual philosopher, who saw fourscore years, was the venerable Kant. "By this commendable and healthy practice," early rising, says his biographer, "daily exercise on foot, temperance in eating and drinking, constant employment, and cheerful company, he protracted his life to this advanced period;" and we may add, acquired the power for his immense labors of mind.

Few men have more fully established their claims to intellectual superiority of a very high grade, than President Edwards. But it was temperance alone that could carry him through such powerful mental efforts. "Though constitutionally tender, by the rules of temperance, he enjoyed good health, and was enabled to pursue his studies thirteen hours a day."

The same means enabled Martin Luther, though his days were stormy in the extreme, to make the moral world bend at his will, and to leave for his posterity so many profound literary productions. "It often happened," says his biographer, "that, for several days and nights, he locked himself up in his study, and took no other nourishment than bread and water, that he might the more uninterruptedly pursue his labors.”

The records of English jurisprudence contain scarcely a name more distinguished than that of Sir Matthew Hale. And it is the testimony of history, that "his decided piety and rigid temperance laid him open to the attacks of ridicule; but he could not be moved. " In eating and drinking, he observed not only great

plainness and moderation, but lived so philosophically, that he always ended his meal with an appetite.

Perhaps no man accomplishes more for the world than he who writes such a commentary on the Scriptures as that of Matthew Henry. And it is, indeed, an immense literary labor. But the biographer's account of that writer's habits, shows that temperance and diligence were the secret of his success.

Few men have accomplished more than John Wesley. And it is gratifying to learn that it was "extraordinary temperance which gave him the power to do so much, and to live so long."

In reading the works of Milton, we are not so much delighted with the play of imagination, as with the rich and profound, though sometimes exceedingly anomalous views, which he opens before us. The fact is, he was a man of powers and attainments so great as justly to be classed among the leading intellects of his generation. Nor were such powers and attainments disjoined from temperance.

Europe, as well as America, has been filled with the fame of Franklin; and no less wide spread is the history of his temperance. Early in life he adopted a vegetable diet; and thus he not only gained time for study, but "I made the greater progress," says he, "from that greater clearness of head and quickness of apprehension which generally attend temperance in eating and drinking." The habit of being contented with a little, and disregarding the gratifications of the palate, remained with him through life, and was highly useful.

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