LESSON XIII.

WESTERN EMIGRATION.

WITH all that's ours, together let us rise,
Seek brighter plains, and more indulgent skies;
Where fair Ohio rolls his amber tide,
And nature blossoms in her virgin pride,
Where all that Beauty's hand can form to please
Shall crown the toils of war with rural ease.
The shady coverts and the sunny hills,
The gentle lapse of ever-murmuring rills,
The soft repose amid the noontide bowers,
The evening walk among the blushing flowers,
The fragrant groves, that yield a sweet perfume,
And vernal glories in perpetual bloom

Await you there; and heaven shall bless the toil :
Your own the produce, and your own the soil.
There cities rise, and spiry towns increase,
With gilded domes and every art of peace.
There Cultivation shall extend his power,
Rear the green blade, and nurse the tender flower;
Make the fair villa in full splendors smile,

And robe with verdure all the genial soil.

There shall rich Commerce court the favoring gales,
And wondering wilds admire the passing sails,
Where the bold ships the stormy Huron brave,
Where wild Ontario rolls the whitening wave,
Where fair Ohio his pure current pours,
And Mississippi laves the extended shores.

And thou Supreme! whose hand sustains this ball,
Before whose nod the nations rise and fall,
Propitious smile, and shed diviner charms

On this blest land, the queen of arts and arms;
Make the great empire rise on wisdom's plan,
The seat of bliss, and last retreat of man.

LESSON XIV.

WIER'S CAVE IN VIRGINIA.

THIS cavern derives its name from Barnet Wier, who discovered it in the year 1804. It is situated near Madison's Cave, so celebrated, though the latter cannot be compared with the former.

There were three of us, besides our guide, with lighted torches, and our loins girded, now ready to descend into the cave.

left hands and entered.

We took our torches in our

The mouth was so small that

we could descend only by creeping, one after another. A descent of almost twenty yards brought us into the first room.

The cave was exceedingly cold, dark, and silent, like the chambers of death. In this manner we proceeded, now descending thirty or forty feet-now ascending as high-now creeping on our hands and knees, and now walking in large rooms- the habitations of solitude. The mountain seems to be composed almost wholly of limestone, and by this means the cave is lined throughout with the most beautiful in

crustations and stalactites of carbonated lime, which are formed by the continual dripping of the water through the roof.

These stalactites are of various and elegant shapes and colors, often bearing a striking resemblance to animated nature. At one place we saw over our heads, what appeared to be a waterfall, of the most beautiful kind. Nor could the imagination be easily persuaded that it was not a reality; you could see the water boiling and dashing down, see its white spray and foam — but it was all solid limestone.

Thus we passed onward in this world of solitudenow stopping to admire the beauties of a single stalactite - now wondering at the magnificence of a large room-now creeping through narrow passages, hardly wide enough to admit the body of a man, and now walking in superb gallaries, until we largest room called WASHINGTON HALL. tainly the most elegant room I ever saw. It is about two hundred and seventy-five feet in length, about thirty-five in width, and between thirty and forty feet high.

came to the

This is cer

The roof and sides are very beautifully adorned by the tinsels which Nature has bestowed in the greatest profusion, and which sparkle like the diamond, while surveyed by the light of torches. The floor is flat, and smooth, and solid.

I was foremost of our little party in entering this room, and was not a little startled as I approached the centre, to see a figure, as it were, rising up before me out of the solid rock. It was not far from seven feet high, and corresponded in every respect to the common

F

idea of a ghost. It was very white, and resembled a tall man clothed in a shroud. I went up to it sideways, though I could not really expect to meet a ghost in a place like this. On examination, I found it was a very beautiful piece of the carbonate of lime, very transparent, and very much in the shape of a man. This is called Washington's Statue.

In one room we found an excellent spring of water, which boiled up as if to slake our thirst, then sunk into the mountain, and was seen no more. In another room was a noble pillar, called the Tower of Babel. It is composed entirely of the stalactites of lime, or, as the appearance would seem to suggest, of petrified water. It is about thirty feet in diameter, and a little more than ninety feet in circumference, and not far from thirty feet high. There are probably millions of stalactites in this one pillar.

Thus we wandered on in this world within a world, till we had visited twelve very beautiful rooms, and as many creeping places, and had now arrived at the end -a distance from our entrance of between twenty-four and twenty-five hundred feet; or, what is about its equal, half a mile from the mouth. mile from the mouth. We here found ourselves exceedingly fatigued; but our torches forbade us to tarry, and we once more turned our linger ing steps towards the common world.

When we arrived again at Washington Hall, one of our company three times discharged a pistol, whose report was truly deafening; and as the sound reverberated and echoed through one room after another till it died away in distance, it seemed like the moanings of spirits. We continued our wandering steps till we

arrived once more at daylight, having been nearly three hours in the cavern.

To compare the Natural Bridge and Cave together as objects of curiosity, is exceedingly difficult. In looking at the Bridge we are filled with awe; at the cavern with delight. At the Bridge we have several views that are awful; at the Cave hundreds that are pleasing. At the Bridge you stand, and gaze in astonishment; at the Cave awfulness is lost in beauty, and grandeur is dressed in a thousand captivating forms. At the Bridge you feel yourself to be looking into another world; at the Cave you find yourself already arrived there. The one presents to us a God who is very "wonderful in working; " the other exhibits the same power, but with it is blended loveliness in a thousand forms. In each is vastness. Greatness constitutes the whole of one; but the other is elegant, as well as great.

LESSON XV.

UNWRITTEN MUSIC.

THERE is unwritten music. The world is full of it. I hear it every hour that I wake, and my waking sense is surpassed sometimes by my sleeping-though that is a mystery. There is no sound of simple nature that It is all God's work, and so harmony.

is not music.

You may mingle and divide and strengthen the pas