All night, as if stars were deserting their posts, The heavens were bright with the swift-coming hosts! While the sentinel mountains, in garments of green, With glory-decked foreheads, like monarchs were seen. 5 O Eden, fair Eden! where now is thy bloom? And where are the pure ones that wept o'er thy doom? Their plumes never lighten our shadowy skies, Their voices no more on earth's breezes arise. But joy for the faith that is strong in its powers,— 10 A fairer and better land yet shall be ours; When Sin shall be vanquished, and Death yield his prey, Then, nobler than Adam,-more charming than Eve,- 15 While the saints who adored Him arise from the tomb, At the triumph-strain, telling "His Kingdom is come!" LESSON CLXVII.-THE PRESENT AGE.-DANIEL WEBSTER. We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so various and so important, that they might crowd and distinguish centuries, are, in our times, compressed within the compass of a single life. When has it happened 5 that history has had so much to record, in the same term of years, as since the 17th of June, 1775? Our own revolution, which, under other circumstances, might itself have been expected to occasion a war of half a century, has been achieved; twenty-four sovereign and indepen10 dent states erected; and a general government established over them, so safe, so wise, so free, so practical, that we might well wonder its establishment should have been accomplished so soon, were it not far the greater wonder, that it should have been established at all. -15 Two or three millions of people have been augmented to twelve; and the great forests of the west prostrated beneath the arm of successful industry; and the dwellers on the banks of the Ohio, and the Mississippi, become the fellow-citizens and neighbors of those who cultivate the 20 hilis of New England. We have a commerce that leaves no sea unexplored; navies, which take no law from superior force; revenues, adequate to all the exigencies of government, almost without taxation; and peace with all nations, founded on equal rights and mutual respect. Europe, within the same period, has been agitated by a mighty revolution, which, while it has been felt in the 5 individual condition and happiness of almost every man, has shaken to the centre her political fabric, and dashed against one another thrones which had stood tranquil for ages. On this, our continent, our own example has been followed; and colonies have sprung up to be nations. 10 Unaccustomed sounds of liberty and free government, have reached us from beyond the track of the sun; and, at this? moment, the dominion of European power, in this continent, from the place where we stand, to the south pole, is annihilated forever. In the meantime, both in Europe and America, such has been the general progress of knowledge; such the improvements in legislation, in commerce, in the arts, in letters, and, above all, in liberal ideas, and the general spirit of the age, that the whole world seems changed. LESSON CLXVIII.-MELANCHOLY FATE OF THE INDIANS. There is, indeed, in the fate of these unfortunate beings, much to awaken our sympathy, and much to disturb the sobriety of our judgment; much which may be urged to excuse their own atrocities; much in their characters, 5 which betrays us into an involuntary admiration. What can be more melancholy than their history? By a law of their nature, they seem destined to a slow, but sure extinction. Everywhere, at the approach of the white man, they fade away. We hear the rustling of their footsteps, like 10 that of the withered leaves of autumn; and they are gone forever. They pass mournfully by us, and they return no more. Two centuries ago, the smoke of their wigwams, and the fires of their councils, rose in every valley, from Hud15 son's Bay to the farthest Florida, from the ocean to the Mississippi and the lakes. The shouts of victory and the war-dance, rung through the mountains and the glades. The thick arrows and deadly tomahawk, whistled through the forests; and the hunter's trace, and the dark encamp20 ment, startled the wild beasts in their lairs. The young The warriors stood forth in their glory. listened to the songs of other days. The mothers played with their infants, and gazed on the scene with warm hopes of the future. The aged sat down; but they wept not. They should soon be at rest in fairer regions, where 5 the Great Spirit dwelt, in a home prepared for the brave, beyond the western skies. Braver men never lived; truer men never drew the bow. They had courage, and fortitude, and sagacity, and perseverance, beyond most of the human race. They shrunk from no dangers; and they 10 feared no hardships. If they had the vices of savage life, they had the virtues also. They were true to their country, their friends, and their homes. If they forgave not injury, neither did they forget kindness. If their vengeance was terrible, their 15 fidelity and generosity were unconquerable also. Their love, like their hate, stopped not on this side of the grave. But where are they? Where are the villages, and warriors, and youth? The sachems, and the tribes? The hunters, and their families? They have perished. They 20 are consumed. The wasting pestilence has not alone done the mighty work. No,-nor famine, nor war. There has been a mightier power, a moral canker, which hath eaten into their heart-cores,-a plague, which the touch of the white man communicated, a poison, which betrayed 25 them into a lingering ruin. The winds of the Atlantic fan not a single region, which they may now call their own. The Already the last feeble remnants of the race are preparing for their journey beyond the Mississippi. I see them 30 leave their miserable homes, the aged, the helpless, the women, and the warriors, "few and faint, yet fearless still." The ashes are cold on their native hearths. smoke no longer curls round their lowly cabins. They move on with a slow, unsteady step. The white man is 35 upon their heels, for terror or despatch; but they heed him not. They turn to take a last look of their deserted villages. They cast a last glance upon the graves of their fathers. They shed no tears; they utter no cries; they heave no groans. 40 There is something in their hearts which passes speech. There is something in their looks, not of vengeance or submission, but of hard necessity, which stifles both; which chokes all utterance; which has no aim or method. It is courage, absorbed in despair. They linger but for a moment. Their look is onward. They have passed the fatal stream. It shall never be re-passed by them,-no never. Yet there lies not between us and them an im passable gulf. They know, and feel, that there is for 5 them still one remove farther, not distant, nor unseen. is to the general burial-ground of their race. It LESSON CLXIX.-EDMUND BURKE.-A. H. EVERETT. A sagacious critic has advanced the opinion, that the merit of Burke was almost wholly literary; but, I confess I see little ground for this assertion, if literary excellence is here understood in any other sense, than as an imme5 diate result of the highest intellectual and moral endowments. Such compositions, as the writings of Burke, suppose, no dount, the fine taste, the command of language, and the finished education, which are all supposed by every description of literary success. But, in the present 10 state of society, these qualities are far from being uncom mon; and are possessed by thousands, who make no pretensions to the eminence of Burke, in the same degree, in which they were by him. Such a writer as Cumberland, for example, who stands infinitely below Burke, on the 15 scale of intellect, may yet be regarded as his equal or superior, in purely literary accomplishments, taken in this exclusive sense. The style of Burke is undoubtedly one of the most splendid forms, in which the English language has ever 20 been exhibited. It displays the happy and difficult union of all the richness and magnificence that good taste admits, with a perfectly easy construction. In Burke, we see the manly movement of a well-bred gentleman; in Johnson, an equally profound and vigorous thinker, the measured 25 march of a grenadier. We forgive the great moralist hi❤ stiff and cumbrous phrases, in return for the rich stores of thought and poetry which they conceal; but we admire in Burke, as in a fine antique statue, the grace with which the large flowing robe adapts itself to the majestic dignity 30 of the person. But, with all his literary excellence, the peculiar merits of this great man were, perhaps, the faculty of profound and philosophical thought, and the moral courage which led him to disregard personal inconvenience, in the expression 35 of his sentiments. Deep thought is the informing soul. that everywhere sustains and inspires the imposing grandeur of his eloquence. Even in the Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, the only work of pure literature which he attempted, that is, the only one which was not an im5 mediate expression of his views on public affairs, there is still the same richness of thought, the same basis of "divine philosophy," to support the harmonious superstructure of the language. And the moral courage, which formed so remarkable a feature in his character, contributed not 10 less essentially to his literary success. It seems to be a law of nature, that the highest degree of eloquence demands the union of the noblest qualities of character, as well as intellect. To think, is the highest exercise of the mind; to say what you think, 15 the boldest effort of moral courage; and both these things are required, for a really powerful writer. Eloquence, without thoughts, is a mere parade of words; and no man can express, with spirit and vigor, any thoughts but his own. This was the secret of the eloquence of Rousseau, 20 which is not without a certain analogy, in its forms, to that of Burke. The principal of the Jesuits' college one day inquired of him, by what art he had been able to write so well; "I said what I thought," replied the unceremonious Genevan; conveying, in these few words, the bitterest 25 satire on the system of the Jesuits, and the best explanation of his own. LESSON CLXX.-NATIONAL SELF-RESPECT.-BEMAN. Far be it from me to cherish, in any shape, a spirit of national prejudice, or to excite, in others, a disgusting national vanity. But, when I reflect upon the part which this country is probably to act in the renovation of the 5 world, I rejoice that I am à citizen of this great republic. This western continent has, at different periods, been the subject of every species of transatlantic abuse. In former days, some of the naturalists of Europe told us, that everything here was constructed upon a small scale. The 10 frowns of nature were represented, as investing the whole hemisphere we inhabit. It has been asserted, that the eternal storms, which are said to beat upon the brows of our mountains, and to roll the tide of desolation at their bases, the hurricanes which sweep our vales, and the 15 volcanic fires which issue from a thousand flaming craters, the thunderbolts which perpetually descend from |