That rises like a column from the vale,
Whence, by our shepherds, it is called THE PILLAR.
Upon its aery summit, crowned with heath,
The loiterer, not unnoticed by his comrades,
Lay stretched at ease; but, passing by the place
On their return, they found that he was gone.
From this no ill was feared ; but one of them,
Entering by chance, at eventide, the house
Which at that time was James's home, there learned
That nobody had seen him all that day :
The morning came, and still he was unheard of:
The neighbors were alarmed, and to the brook
Some hastened, some towards the lake : ere noon,
They found him at the foot of that same rock-
Dead, and with mangled limbs. The third day after,
I buried him, poor youth, and there he lies !
Leonard. And that, then, is his grave ? Before his

death You

say that he saw many happy years ? Priest.

Ay, that he did Leonard. And all went well with him Priest. If he had one, the youth had twenty homes Leonard. And you believe, then, that his mind was

easyPriest. Yes, long before he died, he found that time Is a true friend to sorrow; and, unless His thoughts were turned on Leonard's luckless fortune, He talked about him with a cheerful love.

Leonard, He could not come to an unhallowed end !

Priest. Nay, God forbid ! You recollect I mentioned A habit which disquietude and grief Had brought upon him? and we all conjectured That, as the day was warm, he had lain down Upon the grass,-and, waiting for his comrades, He there had fallen asleep; that in his sleep He to the margin of the precipice Had walked, and from the summit had fallen headlong,

And so, no doubt, he perished : at the time,
We guess that in his hands he must have had
His shepherd's staff ; for midway in the cliff
It had been caught ; and there for many years
It hung—and mouldered there.

The priest here ended
The stranger would have thanked him, but he felt
A gushing from his heart, that took away
The

power of speech. Both left the spot in silence;
And Leonard, when they reached the church-yard gate,
As the priest lifted up the latch, turned round, -
And, looking at the grave, he said, “My brother!"
The vicar did not hear the words : and now,
Pointing towards the cottage, he entreated
That Leonard would partake his homely fare:
The other thanked him with a fervent voice ;
But added, that, the evening being calm,
He would pursue his journey. So they parted.
It was not long ere Leonard reached a grove
That overhung the road; he there stopped short,
And, sitting down beneath the trees, reviewed
All that the priest had said : his early years
Were with him in his heart: his cherished hopes,
And thoughts which had been his an hour before,
All pressed on him with such a weight, that now,
This vale, where he had been so happy, seemed
A place in which he could not bear to live :
So he relinquished all his purposes..
He travelled on to Egremont: and thence,
That night, he wrote a letter to the priest,
Reminding him of what had passed between them;
And adding, with a hope to be forgiven,
That it was from the weakness of his heart
He had not dared to tell him who he was.

This done, he went on shipboard, and is now A seaman, a gray-headed mariner.

LESSON LXXII.

Waste of Mind.-AMERICAN QUARTERLY REGISTER.

If we go back to any of the nations of antiquity-to those which surpassed all their contemporaries as much as did Egypt and Babylon—what notion does history warrant us in forming of the intellectual state of the mass of the people? We think of them as growing up on the soil very much as do the vegetables around them; with no fostering care put forth to encourage and guide them; with no streams of knowledge winding their way to every hamlet, gratifying an eager curiosity, and furnishing nutriment for growing minds; with no eye to look out on the widely-.. extended and varied scenes of the world ; and no public, spirit to feel an interest in the concerns of their fellow men. They grew up on the spot, obtained a hard-earned subsistence for a few years, never roused from their stupidity, but to repel an invasion, to ravage a state, or to build a city—and they died on the spot, their life no benefit to the world of men around them, and their death no loss.

We often read of the splendid achievements of ancient armies. But what idea are we warranted in forming of the multitudes of human beings congregated in these armies? They were brave, but their bravery was insensibility. They were powerful, but their power was mere brute force, having not many more marks of intelligence in it than were in the power of their battering engines. They accomplished the will of a more thinking leader, but their obedience was an almost instinctive recognition of a master. Think of the five millions whom Xerxes is said to have led into Greece,-five millions of human beings, made to think and act, and to take on themselves an individual responsibility, and at last to render an account for their thoughts and actions ! But how many minds do you suppose there were in this moving nation,

in which you could have found traces of intelligence much beyond common animal instinct and mere contrivance to exist? The proud and unhappy monarch looked over this vast assemblage, and, with a sickening and gloomy sensibility, wept to think that all the individuals of it would be dead in less than a hundred years. But what if they did die? What effect could their death have upon the world? They had done nothing for it. They were capable of doing nothing for it. Excepting that the physical strength of the empire would be somewhat diminished, the world would be no more affected by their death, than by the felling of so many trees in the forests of Scythia. They might have gone with the armies of locusts, and perished on the shores of the Levant, the existence and the movements of the one, as well as the other, having been known to the world only by the desolations that marked their progress.

LESSON LXXIII.

To the Holy Spirit.—HERRICK.

In the hour of my distress,
When temptations me oppress,
And when I my sins confess,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When I lie within my bed,
Sick in heart and sick in head,
And with doubts discomforted,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the house doth sigh and weep,
And the world is drowned in sleep,
Yet mine eyes the watch do keep, .

Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the tapers now burn blue,
And the comforters are few,.
And that number more than true,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the priest his last hath prayed,
And I nod to what is said,
'Cause my speech is now decayed,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

When the judgment is revealed,
And that opened which was sealed,
When to thee I have appealed,

Sweet Spirit, comfort me!

LESSON LXXIV.

Thoughts at Midnight.-COLERIDGE.

Dear babe, that sleepest cradled by my side, Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm, Fill up the interspersed vacancies And momentary pauses of the thought ! My babe so beautiful ! it thrills

my

heart With tender gladness, thus to look at thee, And think that thou shalt learn far other love, And in far other scenes ! For I was reared In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim, And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars. But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds, Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores, And mountain'crags; so shalt thou see and hear The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible