Or on some sterile plain and stern, QUESTIONS.-1. What things are mentioned as being forged? 2. What is said of the colter? 3. What, of the iron cable? 4. What, of the sword? LESSON CXI. BEN E FACTION, gift; favor. IN HER ENT, natural. PER FECTION, excellence. VIG'IL$, watchfulness. CON SO LA' TION, comfort. MOCK' ER Y, derision; ridicule. UN BRĪB' ED, not influenced by gifts. CA PAC'I TIE$, abilities CHOICE EXTRACTS. I. SWIFTNESS OF TIME. IDLER. LET him that desires to see others happy, make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his benefaction. And let him who proposes his own happiness, reflect, that while he forms his purpose, the day rolls on, and "the night cometh when no man can work.” II. THE SHIP OF STATE. LONGFELLOW. Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! III. THE TRUE HERO. HORACE BUSHNELL. The true hero is the great, wise man of duty,-he whose soul is armed by truth and supported by the smile of God,he who meets life's perils with a cautious but tranquil spirit, gathers strength by facing its storms, and dies, if he is called to die, as a Christian victor at the post of duty. And, if we must have heroes, and wars wherein to make them, there is none so brilliant as a war with wrong,—no hero so fit to to be sung as he who hath gained the bloodless victory of truth and mercy. IV. HEART ESSENTIAL TO GENIUS. We are not always equal to our fate, W. G. SIMMS. Nor true to our conditions. Doubt and fear With expectation, sinks beneath the time. Apt was the answer of the high-souled queen : V. EDUCATION. ADDISON. I consider a human soul without education, like marble in the quarry, which shows none of its inherent beauties until the skill of the polisher fetches out the colors, makes the surface shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud, spot, and vein that runs through the body of it. Education, after the same manner, when it works upon a noble mind, draws out every latent virtue and perfection, which, without such helps, are never able to make their appearance. VI. THE VANITY OF WEALTH. DR. JOHNSON. No more thus brooding o'er yon heap, Can gold remove the mortal hour'? VII. CONSOLATION OF THE GOSPEL. A. ALEXANDER. OH, PRECIOUS GOSPEL! Will any merciless hand endeavor to tear away from our hearts, this last, this sweetest consolation'? Would you darken the only avenue through which one ray of hope can enter'? Would you tear from the aged and infirm poor the only prop on which their souls can repose in peace'? Would you deprive the dying of their only source of consolation'? Would you rob the world of its richest treasure'? Would you let loose the flood-gates of every vice, and bring back upon the earth the horrors of superstition, or the atrocities of atheism'? Then endeavor to subvert the gospel'; throw around you the firebrands of infidelity'; laugh at religion, and make a mockery of futurity'; but be assured that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment`. VIII. THE LIGHT OF IIOPE. O. W. B. PEABODY. 1. Oh, who that has gazed, in the stillness of even, Has seen not afar, in the bosom of heaven, And mourned that the path to a region so fair Should be shrouded with sadness and fears;- 2. And who that has gazed, has not longed for an hour, And Hope, like the rainbow, unfold, through the shower And, oh! if that rainbow of promise may shine IX. PAMPERING THE BODY AND STARVING THE SOUL. EDWARD EVERETT. 1. What'! feed a child's body, and let his soul hunger'? pamper his limbs, and starve his faculties'? Plant the earth, cover a thousand hills with your droves of cattle,. pursue the fish to their hiding-places in the sea, and spread out your wheat-fields across the plain, in order to supply the wants of that body which will soon be as cold and as senseless as the poorest clod, and let the pure spiritual essence within you, with all its glorious capacities for improvement, languish and pine' ? 2. What'! build factories, turn in rivers upon the waterwheels, unchain the imprisoned spirits of steam, to weave a garment for the body, and let the soul remain unadorned and naked'? What! send out your vessels to the furthest ocean, and make battle with the monsters of the deep, in |