walked, and rode with equal grace. Her taste for music was just, and she both sung and played upon the lute with uncommon skill. Towards the end of her life she began to grow fat, and her long confinement, and the coldness of the houses in which she was imprisoned, brought on a rheumatism, which often deprived her of the use of her limbs. No man, says Brantome, ever beheld her person without admiration, or will read her history without sorrow. LESSON XLI. A Fragment.-Brainard. Yon cloud is bright, and beautiful-it floats The stars seem hung like pearls, it looks as pure Its glories are but fog, and its white form Is plighted to some coming thunder-gust; The rain, the wind, the lightning, have their source In such bright meetings. Gaze not at the clouds However beautiful. Gaze at the sky, The clear, blue, tranquil, fixed, and glorious sky. LESSON XLII. Mahomet and Jesus, as Prophets, compared.-SHERLOCK. The gospel had no competitor till the great and successful impostor Mahomet arose. He indeed pretends a commission to all the world, and found means sufficiently to publish his pretences. He asserts his authority upon the strength of revelation, and endeavors to transfer the advantages of the gospel evidence to himself, having that pattern before him to copy after. But with respect to this instance, I persuade myself it can -Grace, elegance, propriety, beauty, favor, mercy, -Lute, stringed instrument of music, composition, like clay. Skill, adroitness, dexterity, excellence. Rheumatism, roo'må-tizm, painful distemper. History, account of her life, narrative of her life. Floats, moves calmly, sails. Whence the origin of the figure ? .Horizon, the line that terminates the view. .Pearls, round brilliant gems. -Shroud, a winding-sheet, a cover, rope that supports the mast. Cymar, sè-mår', a scarf, a slight covering. -Folds, plaits or doubles in a garment, wraps up. -Glories, splendors, brightness, famé, happiness of heaven. Plighted, pledged, promised. -Gust, love, sense of tasting, a sudden blast of wind. What are some of the effects of lightning? Sky. By what other names is the sky called? What different thoughts do clouds and the sky sug gest? Is this piece of poetry beautiful, or sublime? Mahomet, Ma'hom-êt. Who was he? App. .Competitor, rival; from compete. Impostor, deceiver, one who cheats by a fictitious character. Commission, trust, charge, mandate; from commit. Pretences, false assumptions, acts of showing what is not real. Revelation. Why is the Bible called a Revelation? be no very distracting study to determine our choice. Go to your natural religion; lay before her Mahomet and his disciples arrayed in armor, and in blood, riding in triumph over the spoils of thousands, and tens of thousands, who fell by his victorious sword; show her the cities, which he set in flames, the countries, which he ravaged and destroyed, and the miserable distress of all the inhabitants of the earth. When she has viewed him in this scene, carry her into his retirements -show her the prophet's chamber, his concubines and wives; let her see his adultery, and allege revelation and his divine commission to justify his lust and oppression. When she is tired with this prospect, then show her the blessed Jesus, humble and meek, doing good to all the sons of men, patiently instructing both the ignorant and the perverse. Let her see him in his most retired privacies! let her follow him to the mount, and hear his devotions and supplications to God. Carry her to his table to view his pure fare, and hear his heavenly discourse. Let her see him injured, but not provoked. Let her attend him to the tribunal, and consider the patience with which he endured the scoffs and reproaches of his enemies. Lead her to his cross, and let her view him in the agony of death, and hear his last prayer for his persecutors-"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!" When natural religion has viewed both, ask which is the prophet of God? But her answer, we have already had; when she saw part of this scene through the eyes of the centurion, who attended at the cross: by him she spoke and said, "Truly this man was the son of God." LESSON XLIII. The Effect of Abolishing Christianity.-THOMPSON. Christianity rescued us from heathenism, and if we extinguish the light of Christianity, I see not how we can avoid the inference, that to the darkness of heathenism we must return. This is the final and unavoidable result. 199 Determine, dé-ter' min, conclude, resolve concerning a thing. Natural religion, what is known of God from his Arrayed, clothed, accoutred, ornamented. Spoils, ruins, plunder, booty. Ravaged, laid waste, plundered, ransacked. Divine, dé-viné, proceeding from God. -Prospect, sight, place which affords an extended view Privacies, retreats, concealments; from private. .Supplications, from supplicate. Discourse, speech, instruction, address. Before whose tribunal was Christ brought? Father, &c. See Luke 23; 34. When natural religion. What figure of speech is used here? Prophet, one sent from God, one who foretells future events. Centurion, Roman officer commanding a hundred men. Mat. 27: 54. She spake. To what does she refer? How could natural religion be said to speak through the Centurion ? What is a comparison? See App. Rescued, delivered, made way for our escape, freed. .Heathenism, paganism, all systems of religion not founded on the Bible. .Inference, conclusion drawn from previous arguments, result. Darkness. Why is heathenism called darkness ? There might remain among a few of the more enlightened, some occasional glimpses of religious truth, as we find to have been the case in the Pagan world. But the degradation of the great mass of the people to that ignorance, and idolatry, and superstition, out of which the Gospel had emancipated them, would be certain and complete. This retrograde movement might be retarded by the advantage which we have derived from that system, whose influence we should continue to feel long after we had ceased to acknowledge the divinity of its source. But these advantages would, by degrees, lose their efficacy, even as mere matters of speculation, and give place to the workings of fancy, and credulity, and corruption. A radiance might still glow upon the high places of the earth after the sun of revelation had gone down; and the brighter and the longer it had shone, the more gradual would be the decay of that light and warmth which it had left behind it. But everywhere there would be the sad tokens of a departed glory and of a coming night. Twilight might be protracted through the course of many generations, and still our unhappy race might be able to read, though dimly, many of the wonders of the eternal godhead, and to wind a dubious way through the perils of the wilderness. But it would be twilight still; shade would thicken after shade; every preceding age would come wrapped in a deeper and a deeper gloom;-till at last, that flood of glory which the Gospel is now pouring upon the world, would be lost and buried in impenetrable darkness. LESSON XLIV. Influence of Hope.-CAMPBELL. Unfading hope! when life's last embers burn, |