man, no matter what his abilities, is invariably pushed aside in the race of life by the man of determined will. It is he who resolves to succeed, and who at every fresh rebuff begins resolutely again, that reaches the goal. The shores of Fortune are covered with the stranded wrecks of men of brilliant ability, who wanted faith, courage and decision, and therefore perished in sight of more resolute but less capable adventurers, who succeeded in making the port. The fact is, as Sydney Smith has well said, that "in order to do anything in this world that is worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank, thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can. It will not do to be all the time calculating and adjusting nice chances: it did all very well before the Flood, when a man could consult his friends upon an intended publication for a hundred and fifty years, and then live to see its success for six or seven centuries afterwards. But at present a man waits, and doubts, and hesitates, and consults his brother and his uncle, and his first cousins, and his particular friends, till one day he finds that he is sixty-five years of age, that he has lost so much time in consulting first cousins and particular friends, that he has no more time left in which to follow their advice." Obstacles and perplexities every man must meet, and he must either promptly conquer them, or they will conquer him. It has been truly said that the great moral victories and defeats of the world often turn on minutes. Crises come, the seizing of which is triumph, the neglect of which is ruin. This is particularly true on the field of battle. It was at such moments that the genius of Napoleon shone forth with the highest lustre. His mind acted like the lightning, and never with more promptness and precision than in moments of the greatest confusion and danger. What confounded others only stimulated him. He used to say that one of the principal requisites of a general is an accurate calculation of time; for if your adversary can bring a powerful force to attack a certain post ten minutes sooner than you can bring up a sufficient supporting force, you are beaten, even though all the rest of your plans be the most perfect that can be devised. Of course there are occasions when caution and delay are necessary, when to act without long and anxious deliberation would be madness. All wisdom is a system of balances. It is well enough to be careful and wary up to a certain point; but beyond that a hesitating policy is as ruinous as downright rashness. Thousands of men owe their failures in life simply to procrastination. They seem to act on the advice, "never do to-day what, by any possibility, can be put off till to-morrow." They never know their own minds, but debate with themselves during the whole journey which side of the road to take, and meanwhile they keep winding from the one to the other. Dr. John Brown, in speaking of that form of decision called "presence of mind," well observes: "It is a curious condition of mind that this requires. It is like sleeping with your pistol under your pillow, and the pistol on full cock; a moment lost, and all may be lost. There is the very nick of time. Men, when they have done some signal feat of presence of mind, if asked how they did it, do not very well know, they "just did it." It is hardly possible to conceive of a more unhappy man than one afflicted with the infirmity of indecision. It has been remarked that there are persons who lack decision to such a degree that they seem never to have "A man made up their minds which leg to stand upon. without decision," says John Foster, "can never be said to belong to himself: he belongs to whatever can make capture of him; and one thing after another vindicates its right to him, by arresting him as he tries to go on." Not only is decision necessary, but promptitude also, without which decision loses half its value. Again: besides promptitude, tenacity of decision is necessary to him who would make his mark in the world, or achieve rare success. When a certain commissarygeneral complained to the Duke of Wellington that Sir Thomas Picton had declared that he would hang him if the rations for that general's division were not forthcoming at a certain hour, the Duke replied, "Ah! did he go so far as that? Did he say he'd hang you?" "Yes, my lord."-"Well, if General Picton said so, I have no doubt he will keep his word; you'd better get up the rations in time." When a man of iron will is thus known to be so tenacious in his adherence to his resolution, that, once declared, it is like a decree of fate, there is no limit to the good or the bad results which he may accomplish. COMPOSITION. Write in three different ways: (a) Let no one despair because he has often broken his resolution. (b) The intellect is but the half of man; the will is the driving-wheel, the spring of motive power. (c) It is he who resolves to succeed, an 1 who at every fresh rebuff begins resolutely again, that reaches the goal. Write the fifth paragraph entirely in your own words, changing all nouns, verbs, adjectives, and conjunctions, where possible. NO MORE. Felicia Dorothea Hemans was born in 1793, died in 1835. Her poems have been very extensively read. Appealing as they do to the affections of our nature, depicting domestic love, lofty patriotism, serene hope and holy resignation,- they will always be turned to with pleasure by that vast body of readers who seek in poetry the perfect expression of their own hopes and longings, their own sorrow or happiness. They are pure, noble, and most Christian in sentiment, and graceful and elegant in expression. Many of the shorter lyrics are English gems. O more! a harp-string's deep and breaking tone, N° A last, low summer breeze, a far-off swell, A dying echo of rich music gone, Breathe through those words, - those murmurs of farewell, No more! To dwell in peace, with home affections bound, To know the sweetness of a mother's voice, To feel the spirit of her love around, And in the blessings of her eye rejoice No more! A dirge-like sound! to greet the early friend Through woods that shadow'd our first years No more! to rove, With all our native music in the air; Words of despair! yet earth's, all earth's the woe That sound in Heaven - oh! image then the flow To watch, in dying hope, affection's wane, To waste the untold riches of the heart No more! No more! Through long, long years to seek, to strive, to yearn and never quench that thirst; For human love, No more! On things that fail us, reed by reed, to lean; Words of triumphant music bear we on, No more! The weight of life, the chain, the ungenial air, No more! Questions: What things no longer breathe through the murmurs of farewell? What home and family pleasures are no more? In the third stanza what is mentioned as being "no more"? Give the fourth stanza in your own words. How shall we find ourselves in heaven, as given in the fifth stanza? What is meant by "fragile idols, by delusion nursed" "Treasures fled"? STUDY. THE HE favorite idea of a genius, among us, is of one who never studies, or who studies, nobody can tell when, - at midnight, or at odd times and intervals - and now |