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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

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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.

LESSON XXV.

as ours.

OUR OWN COUNTRY.

THERE is no such scenery on earth, I verily believe, There is but one Niagara in its broad circumference. And then its glorious rivers, from the tumbling cataracts of high Northern latitudes, to the calm and beautiful Alabama-the majestic Mississippi—the golden waters of Missouri - the placid, soft Ohio.

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And then, too, its lakes-the vast inland seas, where fleets can ride-its forests, alive with songsters of almost every note, and every feather, of trees of every cast and hue, and, if seen in the frosts of Autumn, beyond the power of pencil to paint, mocking the skill of man- rivaling the rich sunset on the bosom of the western clouds, and making a very paradise of earth! And then its boundless prairies-its savannahs. its vast havens, on which beat the waves of the ocean with their sullen roar, and its still solitudes, where man feels as if he really were alone with the Indian - the wild, unapproached, and almost unapproachable Indian, in his savage dignity, painted and decked for war, fiery red, with his armor on "snorting for battle,”—and then again its noisy cities, where men crowd, and rush, as if the spot of earth on which they were was their only spot-cities now vieing in business with the older cities of Europe, but yet in the gristle-in their swaddling clothes, as it were-by and by to become the Londons of the Western World! What a variety of view is this! How

rich in speculation, in thought! How admirably calculated to warm the imagination, and to give feeling and imagery!

Talk not then of Europe as the only land worth a journey over. Its past we may reverence and admire. There is sublimity in it. But the future of our country-who dare set its metes and bounds? Who will trace it out? Sublime, is but a feeble word for the destiny that awaits it!

What nation presents such a spectacle as ours, of a confederated government; so complicated, so full of checks and balances, over such a vast extent of territory-with so many varied interests, and yet moving so harmoniously! I go within the walls of the capitol at Washington, and there, under the star-spangled banners that wave amid its domes, I find the representatives of three territories, and of twenty-six nations— nations in many senses, they may be called-that have within them all the germ and sinew to raise a greater people than many of the proud principalities of Europe; all speaking one language, all acting with one heart, and all burning with the same enthusiasm — the love and glory of our common country-even though parties do exist, and bitter domestic quarrels now and then arise.

I take my map, and I mark from whence they come. What a breadth of latitude, and of longitude, too, in the fairest portion of North America! What a variety of climate, and what a variety of production! What a stretch of sea coast, on two oceans, with harbors enough for all the commerce of the world! What an immense national domain, surveyed and unsurveyed,

of extinguished and unextinguished Indian titles, within the States and Territories, and without, estimated, in the aggregate, to be more than one billion acres, and to be worth the immense sum of more than one billion dollars-seven hundred and fifty million acres of which are without the bounds of the States and Territories, and are yet to make new States, and to be admitted into the Union!

Our annual revenue, now, from the sales, is over three millions of dollars. Our national debt, too, is nearly or quite extinguished—and yet within fifty-eight years, starting with a population of about three millions, we have fought the War of Independence; again not ingloriously struggled with the greatest naval power in the world, fresh with laurels won on sea and land, and now we have a population of over seventeen millions of souls. One cannot feel the grandeur of our Republic, unless he surveys it in detail.

It is difficult to be very prosaic in describing such a country as ours. Think, if a prophet, but thirty years ago, had predicted only the half that has happened, lucky would he have been to escape the asylum for lunatics. Jefferson mourned over a journey from Monticello to Philadelphia, as a fearful undertaking. Mount Vernon and Bunker-Hill were as far apart, in the days of Washington, as the jumping off rock in Eastport, (Maine,) and Augusta, (Georgia,) now are. The Mississippi boatman, who was thirty or forty days in going over a distance he now goes in six can now hardly believe that he is the man he was. The steamboat and the steam-horse, are the miracle-workers of

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