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The air seemed like a furnace. "Ah!" said the owner of the cattle, "we must now scorch for it. My poor wool-ox must die at once! Bad luck, bad luck to us! The sun has come back much nearer than he was before. But we hope he will happen to go away again soon, and then happen to come back further off the next time."

The sun was now pouring down his heat so intensely, that they were glad to go into the house for sheltera miserable looking place indeed. Hafed could not but compare it with his own beautiful cottage. They invited Hafed to eat. On sitting down at table, he noticed that each one had a different kind of food, and, that no two could eat out of the same dish. He was told that it so happened, that the food which one could eat, was poison to another, and what was agreeable to one, was nauseating to another. Hafed rose from the table in anguish of spirit. He remembered the world where he had lived, and all that was past. He had desired to live in a world where there was no God where all was governed by chance, so far as there was any thing that looked like government. Here he was, and here he must live.

He threw himself on a bed, and recalled the pastthe beautiful world in which he had once lived; his ingratitude-his murmurings against the wisdom and the goodness of God. He wept like infancy. He would have prayed, and even began a prayer; but then he recollected that there was no God here-nothing to direct events-nothing but chance. He shed many and bitter tears of repentance. At last he wept himself asleep. When Hafed again awoke, he was

sitting under his palm tree in his own beautiful garden. It was morning. At the appointed moment, the glorious sun rose up in the east; the fields were all green and fresh; the trees were all right end upwards, and covered with blossoms; the beautiful deer were bounding, in their gladness, over the lawn; and the songsters in the trees, which, in plumage and sweetness, might have vied with those that sang in Eden, were uttering their morning song.

Hafed arose, recalled that ugly dream, and then wept for joy. Was he again in a world where chance does not reign? He looked up, and then turned to the God of heaven and earth-the God of laws and of order. He gave glory to him, and confessed that his ways, to us unsearchable, are full of wisdom. He was a new man. Tears, indeed, fell at the graves of his family; but he now lived to do good to men, and to make others happy. He called a young and worthy couple, distant relatives, to fill his house. His home again smiled, and peace and contentment came back, and were his abiding guests.

LESSON LIII.

THE CHEROKEEE'S LAMENT.

O, SOFT falls the dew, in the twilight descending,
And tall grows the shadowy hill on the plain;
And night o'er the far distant forest is bending,

Like the storm-spirit, dark, o'er the tremulous main; But midnight enshrouds my lone heart in its dwelling, A tumult of wo in my bosom is swelling,

And a tear, unbefitting the warrior, is telling

That Hope has abandoned the brave Cherokee !

Can a tree that is torn from its root by the fountain,
The pride of the valley, green-spreading and fair,
Can it flourish, removed to the rock of the mountain,
Unwarmed by the sun, and unwatered by care?
Though Vesper be kind her sweet dews in bestowing,
No life-giving brook in its shadow is flowing,
And when the chill winds of the desert are blowing,
So droops the transplanted and lone Cherokee!

Loved graves of my sires! have I left you forever?
How melted my heart, when I bade you adieu !
Shall joy light the face of the Indian ?—ah, never!
While memory sad has the power to renew;
As flies the fleet deer when the blood-hound is started,
So fled winged Hope from the poor broken-hearted;
O, could she have turned, ere for ever departed,
And beckoned with smiles to her sad Cherokee!

Great Spirit of Good, whose abode is the heaven,
Whose wampum of peace is the bow in the sky,
Wilt thou give to the wants of the clamorous raven,
Yet turn a deaf ear to my piteous cry?

O'er the ruins of home, o'er my heart's desolation,
No more shalt thou hear my unblest lamentation;
For death's dark encounter I make preparation,
He hears the last groan of the wild Cherokee!

LESSON LIV.

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A GHOST STORY.

I HAD heard, in my youth, as I presume most of my readers have done, the usual quantity of marvellous tales of ghosts, and witches, and spirits; nestled closer towards the others in the room, when the fearful tale was telling hardly dared to go to bed after it was finished and when there, covered my head closely with the bed-clothes, for fear some awful spectacle would blast my eye-sight, and lay shivering and trembling for very terror, until sleep furnished the welcome relief. These tales had a wonderful effect upon my imagination, and made me very timid when alone, especially at night.

I have had the usual experience, too, of fancying apparitions from the moonbeams falling upon the wall, my clothes hanging upon the chair, or any other thing which a little light and a great deal of imagination could readily convert into the semblance of a spirit.

But as I always had a proneness to investigate every thing, these appearances, upon examination, of course were satisfactorily accounted for; but many times I have made the examination when absolutely shivering with fear. Several such false alarms rather tende to restore my courage, and to convince me that spiritual apparitions were not quite as common as I had supposed.

When I was about fifteen years of age, I was low in health, and my nervous system was greatly deranged, requiring some care and change of scene to restore the tone of my physical frame. My father sent me to reside with an aged clergyman of a small parish in a quiet and secluded town in Connecticut.

I occupied a small and neat bed-room, the bed in which was hung with curtains of dark calico; and the whole room and furniture had a somewhat sombre and antique air, in perfect keeping with the house, the place, and the owner.

One night I awoke, and found myself lying on my back; and saw, sitting upon the side of the bed and just at the parting of the curtains, m a line between my eyes and the window, a very aged man. The spectacle struck me with some surprise at first, but no dread. I could see distinctly the bed-curtains, the furniture of the room, the old bureau of dark wood with its filigree-work, brass handles, my own clothes hanging on a chair, the window, and the stars shining through it, and that figure sitting upon the side of my bed. Every thing was well known and familiar, except the figure.

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