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1. THE PREACHER WHO FAILED IN PRACTICE. - Congreve.

I've read, or heard, a learned person once,
Concerned to find his only son a dunce,
Composed a book in favor of the lad,
Whose memory, it seems, was very

bad.

This work contained a world of wholesome rules
To help the frailty of forgetful fools.
The careful parent laid the treatise by,
Till time should make it proper to apply.
Simon at length the looked-for age attains
To read and profit by his father's pains;
And now the sire prepares the book to impart,
Which was ycleped, "Of Memory the Art."
But, ah! how oft is human care in vain!
For now he could not find his book again :
The place where he had laid it he 'd forgot,
Nor could himself remember what he wrote.

EI

2. THE SILENT TEACHER OF HUMANITY. - Fratzel.

As evening clothed the world again in shadows,
A sultan walked with proud and stately pace,
And, midst his groves of palm, and vines, and aloes,
Looked suddenly a dervis in the face,

Who calmly sat, in earnest contemplation

And lost in thought, upon the mossy ground;

It seemed to be his only occupation

To turn a human skull around and round.

The sultan at this meeting was surprised,

And coldly asked, with an expressive mien,

As if the humble thinker he despised,

What in the empty bōne was to be seen.

“I found, my liege, when day was scarcely breaking,
Replied the priest," the skull you here behold;
But, howsoe'er my brains I've since been raking,
Cannot succeed its problem to unfold.

What, spite of all my thoughts and calculation,
I cannot fathom, sire, is simply this:
Did a proud sultan own this decoration,
Or a poor dervis only call it his?"

3. JUSTICE AND THE OYSTER. - Pope.

Once (says an author, where, I need not say),
Two travellers found an oyster in their way;
Both fierce, both hungry, the dispute grew strong,
While, scale in hand, dame Justice passed along;

Before her each with clamor pleads the laws,
Explains the matter and would win the cause.
Dame Justice, weighing long the doubtful right,
Takes, opens, swallows it, before their sight;
The cause of strife, removed so rarely well,
There take, says Justice, take you each a shell.
We thrive at Westminster on fools like you;
'T was a fat oyster, live in peace; adieu

1. BASIS OF OUR POLITICAL SYSTEM. · Geo. Washington.

THE basis of our political system is, the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government; but, the constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly ob'ligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government. All obstructions to the execution of the laws, — all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe, the regular deliberations, and action of the constituted authorities,-are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force, to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans, digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.

2. A REPUBLIC THE STRONGEST GOVERNMENT. - Jefferson.

I know, indeed, that some honest men fear that a republican government cannot be strong, that this government is not strong enough. But would the honest patriot, in the full tide of suc cessful experiment, abandon a government which has so far kept us free and firm, on the theoretic and visionary fear that this government the world's best hope-may, by possibility, want energy to preserve itself? I trust not; I believe this, on the contrary, the strongest government on earth; I believe it the only one where every man, at the call of the law, would fly to

the standard of the law, and would meet invasions of the public order as his own personal concern. Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? or have we found angels, in the forms of kings, to govern him? Let history answer this question.

3. THE TRUE BOND OF UNION. Andrew Jackson.

But the constitution cannot be maintained, nor the Union preserved, in opposition to the public feeling, by the mere exertion of the coercive powers confided to the general government. The foundations must be laid in the affections of the people; in the security it gives to life, liberty, character, and property, in every quarter of the country; and in the fraternal attachment which the citizens of the several states bear to one anotner, as members of one political family, mutually contributing to promote the happiness of one another.

4. RELIGIOUS AND MENTAL CULTURE.- President Wayland.

A man who cannot read, let us always remember, is a being not contemplated by the genius of the American constitution. Where the right of suffrage is extended to all, he is certainly a dangerous member of the community who has not qualified himself to exercise it. We must go further; for you must be aware that the tenure by which our liberties are held can never be secure, unless moral keep pace with intellectual cultivation. If we would see the foundations laid broadly and deeply on which the fabric of this country's liberties shall rest to the remotest generations,- if we would see her carry forward the work of political reformation, and rise the bright and morning star of freedom over a benighted world, let us elevate the intellectual and moral character of every class of our citizens, and especially let us imbue them thoroughly with the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

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The great argument of despots against free governments is, that large bodies of men are incapable of self-rule, and that the inevitable and rapid tendency of such a government as ours is to faction, strife, anarchy, and dissolution. Let it be our effort to give to the expecting world a great practical and splendid refutation of this charge. If we cannot do this, the world may despair, To what other nation can we look to do it? We claim no

natural superiority to other nations. But circumstances have conspired to give us an advantage, in making this great political experiment, which no other modern nation enjoys. If, therefore, our experiment shall fail, the world may well despair. Warned as we are by the taunts of European monarchists, and by the mournful example of all the ancient republics, are we willing to split on the same rock on which we have seen them shipwrecked? Shall we forfeit all the bright honors that we have hitherto won by our example, and now admit by our conduct that, although free government may subsist for a while, under the pressure of extrinsic and momentary causes, yet that it cannot bear a long season of peace and prosperity, but that as soon as thus left to itself it speedily hastens to faction, demoralization, anarchy, and ruin ?

5. MORAL FORCE OF EXAMPLE. — Judge McLean.

The great principles of our republican institutions cannot be propagated by the sword. This can be done by moral force, and not physical. If we desire the political regeneration of oppressed nations, we must show them the simplicity, the grandeur, and the freedom, of our own government. We must recommend it to the intelligence and virtue of other nations by its elevated and enlightened action, its purity, its justice, and the protection it affords to all its citizens, and the liberty they enjoy. And if, in this respect, we shall be faithful to the high bequests of our fathers, to ourselves, and to posterity, we shall do more to liberalize other governments, and emancipate their subjects, than could be accomplished by millions of bayonets. This moral power is what tyrants have most cause to dread. It addresses itself to the thoughts and the judgment of men. No physical force can arrest its progress. Its approaches are unseen, but its consequences are deeply felt. It enters garrisons most strongly fortified, and operates in the palaces of kings and emperors. We should cherish this power, as essential to the preservation of our government, and as the most efficient means of ameliorating the political condition of our race. And this can only be done by a reverence for the laws, and by the exercise of an elevated patriotism.

7. THE FABRIC OF OUR GOVERNMENT. -Webster.

Of all the presumptions indulged by presumptuous man, that is one of the rashest which looks for repeated and favorable opportunities for the deliberate establishment of a united government over distinct and widely-extended communities. Such a thing has happened once in human affairs, and but once; the

event stands out as a prominent exception to all ordinary history, and unless we suppose ourselves running into an age of miracles, we may not expect its repetition. Washington, therefore, could regard, and did regard, nothing as of paramount political interest, but the integrity of the Union itself. With a united government, well administered, he saw we had nothing to fear, and without it nothing to hope. The sentiment is just, and its momentous truth should solemnly impress the whole country.

If disastrous war sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle, even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with state rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, gentlemen! if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Colosse'um and the Par thenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of Constitutional American Liberty.

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CXXXVI. THE HARBOR OF SAN FRANCISCO.

1. Nor even the magnificent harbor of Constantinople, in which security, depth and expanse, are combined, can rival the peerless land-locked Bay of San Francisco. How shall we describe it? You are sailing along the high coast of California, when suddenly a gap is seen, as if the rocks had been rent asunder: you leave open ocean, and enter the strait. The mountains tower so high on either hand that it seems but a stone's throw from your vessel to the shore, though in reality it is a mile. Slowly advancing, an hour's sail brings you to where the strait grows still narrower; and lo! before you, rising from the very middle of the waters, a steep rock towers aloft like a giant warder of the strait.

2. Were that rock but fortified, not all the fleets in the world