LESSON LXXXIV..

THE ADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION,

PHILLIPS.

1. No doubt you have all personally considered-no doubt you have all personally experienced, that of all the blessings which it has pleased Providence to allow us to cultivate, there is not one which breathes a purer fragrance, or bears a heavenlier aspect, than education. It is a companion which no misfortunes can depress, no clime destroy, no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave: at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, in society an ornament: it chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once a grace and government to genius.

2. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave! a reason ing savage, vacillating between the dignity of an intelligence derived from God, and the degradation of passions participated with brutes; and in the accident of their alternate ascendency shuddering at the terrors of an hereafter, or embracing the horrid hope of annihilation. What is this wondrous world of

his residence?

"A mighty maze, and all without a plan;"

a dark and desolate and dreary cavern, without wealth, or ornament or order. But light up within it the torch of knowledge, and how wondrous the transition! The seasons change, the atmosphere breathes, the landscape lives, earth unfolds its fruits, ocean rolls in its magnificence, the heavens display their constellated canopy, and the grand animated spectacle of nature rises revealed before him, its varieties regulated, and its mysteries resolved!

3. The phenomena which bewilder, the prejudices which de base, the superstitions which enslave, vanish before education. Like the holy symbol whiel blazed upon the cloud before the

hesitating Constantipe, if man follow but its precepts, purely, it will not only lead him to the victories of this world, but open the very portals of Omnipotence for his admission. Cast your eye over the monumental map of ancient grandeur, once studded with the stars of empire and the splendors of philosophy.

4. What erected the little state of Athens into a powerful commonwealth, placing in her hand the scepter of legislation, and wreathing round her brow the imperishable chaplet of literary fame? what extended Rome, the haunt of banditti, into universal empire? what animated Sparta with that high, unbending, adamantine courage, which conquered nature herself, and has fixed her in the sight of future ages, a model of public virtue, and a proverb of national independence? What but those wise public institutions which strengthened their minds with early application, informed their infancy with the principles of action, and sent them into the world, too vigilant to be deceived by its calms, and too vigorous to be shaken by its whirlwinds?

LESSON LXXXV.

LOOK ALOFT.

J. LAWRENCE, JR.

1. In the tempest of life, when the wave and the gale
Are around and above, if thy footing should fail,
If thine eye should grow dim, and thy caution depart,
“Look aloft!” and be firm, and be fearless of heart.

2. If the friend who embraced in prosperity's glow, With a smile for each joy and a tear for each woe, Should betray thee when sorrows like clouds are arrayed "Look aloft!" to the friendship which never shall fade.

3. Should the visions which hope spreads in light to thine eye, Like the tints of the rainbow, but brighten to fly, Then turn, and through tears of repentant regret, "Look aloft!" to the sun that is never to set.

4. Should they who are dearest, the son of thy heart,
The wife of thy bosom, in sorrow depart,

"Look aloft" from the darkness and dust of the tomb,
To that soil where affection is ever in bloom.

5. And oh! when death comes in his terrors, to cast
His fears on the future, his pall on the past,"

In that moment of darkness, with hope in thy heart,
And a smile in thine eye, "look aloft" and depart.

LESSON LXXXVI.

THE GOOD WIFE.

GEORGE W. BURNap.

1. THE good wife! How much of this world's happiness and prosperity, is contained in the compass of these two short words! Her influence is immense. The power of a wife for good, or for evil, is altogether irresistible. Home must be the seat of happiness, or it must be forever unknown.

2. A good wife is, to a man, wisdom, and courage, and strength, and hope, and endurance. A bad one is confusion, weakness, discomfiture, despair. No condition is hopeless, when the wife possesses firmness, decision, energy, economy. There is no outward prosperity which can counteract indolence, folly, and extravagance at home. No spirit can long resist bad domestic influences.

3. Man is strong; but his heart is not adamant. He delights in enterprise and action; but, to sustain him, he needs a tranquil mind, and a whole heart. He expends his whole

moral force, in the conflicts of the world.

His feelings are daily lacerated, to the utmost point of endurance, by perpetual collision, irritation, and disappointment.

4. To recover his equanimity and composure, home must be to him a place of repose, of peace, of cheerfulness, of comfort; and his soul renews its strength, and again goes forth, with fresh vigor, to encounter the labors and troubles of the world. But if at home he finds no rest, and there is met by a bad temper, sullenness, or gloom; or is assailed by discontent, complaint, and reproaches, the heart breaks, the spirits are crushed, hope vanishes, and the man sinks into total despair.

5. Let woman know, then, that she ministers at the very fountain of life and happiness. It is her hand that lades out, with overflowing cup, its soul-refreshing waters, or casts in the branch of bitterness, which makes them poison and death. Her ardent spirit breathes the breath of life into all enterprise. Her patience and constancy are mainly instrumental, in carrying forward, to completion, the best human designs. Her more delicate moral sensibility is the unseen power which is ever at work to purify and refine society. And the nearest glimpse of heaven that mortals ever get on earth, is that domestic circle, which her hands have trained to intelligence, virtue, and love, which her gentle influence pervades, and of which her radiant presence is the center and the sun.

LESSON LXXXVII.

ENDEARING THOUGHTS.

ANONYMOUS.

1. I WOULD be with thee-near thee- -ever near thee,
Watching thee ever as the angels are;

Still seeking with my spirit's power to cheer thee,
And thou to see me as some brilliant star,

Knowing me not, but oftentimes perceiving

That when thou gazest I still brighter grow,
Beaming and trembling, like some bosom heaving
With all it knows, yet would not have thee know.
2. I would be with thee-fond yet silent ever,

Nor break the spell on which my soul is bound;
Mirrored within thee, as within a river—

A flower within thy breast, and thou the ground!
That when I died and unto earth returned,

Our nature never more might parted be;
Within thy being all mine own inurned,
Life, bloom, and beauty, all absorbed in thee!

LESSON LXXXVIII.

THE LOVE OF HOME.

WEBSTER.

1. It is only shallow-minded pretenders who either make distinguished origin a matter of personal merit, or obscure origin a matter of personal reproach. Taunt and scoffing at the humble condition of early life affect nobody in America but those who are foolish enough to indulge in them, and they are generally sufficiently punished by public rebuke. A man who is not ashamed of himself need not be ashamed of his early condition.

2. It did not happen to me to be born in a log-cabin, but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log-cabin, raised among the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early, that when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada.