He, too, was struck, and day by day
Was withered on the stalk away.

8. O God! it is a fearful thing
To see the human soul take wing,
In
any shape, in any mood;-
I've seen it rushing forth in blood;
I've seen the sick and ghastly bed
Of sin delirious with its dread ;-
But these were horrors,-this was woe
Unmixed with such,-but sure and slow.

9. He faded, and so calm and meek,
So softly wan, so sweetly weak,
So tearless, yet so tender,-kind,
And grieved for those he left behind;
With all the while a cheek, whose bloom
Was as a mockery of the tomb,
Whose tints as gently sunk away
As a departing rainbow's ray;
An eye of most transparent light,
That almost made the dungeon bright.

10. And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting nature's feebleness;-
I listened, but I could not hear,—
I called, for I was wild with fear;-
I called, and thought I heard a sound,-
I burst my chain with one strong bound,
And rushed to him.-I found him not,
I only stirred in this black spot,
I only lived, I only drew

The accursed breath of dungeon dew,
The last, the sole,--the dearest link,
Between me and the eternal brink,
Which bound me to my failing race,
Was broken in this fatal place.

BYRON.

LESSON CXLVII. 1

THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.-CONTINUED.

1. WHAT next befell me then and there, I know not well,-I never knew,— First came the loss of light and air,

And then of darkness too.

There were no stars,-no earth,—no time,—
No check,-no change,-no good,-no crime,
But silence, and a stirless breath

Which neither was of life nor death.

2. A light broke in upon my brain,— It was the carol of a bird;

It ceased, and then it came again,

The sweetest song ear ever heard ;
And mine was thankful till my eyes
Ran over with the glad surprise;
But then by dull degrees came back
My senses to their wonted track;
I saw the dungeon walls and floor
Close slowly round me as before;
I saw the glimmer of the sun,
Creeping as it before had done;

But through the crevice where it came
That bird was perched as fond and tame,
And tamer than upon the tree,—

A lovely bird with azure wings,

And song

that said a thousand things,

And seemed to say them all for me!

3. I sometimes deemed that it might be
My brother's soul come down to me;
But then at last away it flew,-
And then 'twas mortal,-well I knew,
For he would never thus have flown,
And left me twice so doubly lone.

4. A kind of change came in my fate;
My keepers grew compassionate.

I know not what had made them so,
They were inured to sights of woe;
But so it was;-my broken chain
With links unfastened did remain;
And it was liberty to stride
Along my cell, from side to side,
Avoiding only, as I trod,

My brothers' graves without a sod.

5. I made a footing in the wall,-
It was not therefrom to escape,
For I had buried one and all

Who loved me in a human shape,
And the whole earth would henceforth be
A wider prison unto me;

But I was curious to ascend
To my barr'd windows, and to bend
Once more, upon the mountains high
The quiet of a loving eye.

6. I saw them, and they were the same,
They were not changed like me in frame;
I saw their thousand years of snow
On high, their wide, long lake below;
And then there was a little isle,
Which in my very face did smile,
The only one in view.

7. The fish swam by the castle wall,
And they seemed joyous, each and all;
The eagle rode the rising blast,-
Methought he never flew so fast
As then to me he seemed to fly;
And then new tears came in my eye,
And I felt troubled, -and would fain
I had not left my recent chain;
And when I did descend again,

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The darkness of my dim abode,
Fell on me as a heavy load;
It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o'er one we sought to save.

8. At last men came to set us free,

I asked not why, and recked not where:
It was at length the same to me,
Fettered or fetterless to be;

I learned to love despair.

And thus, when they appeared at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had
grown
A hermitage,--and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home!

9. With spiders I had friendship made,
And watched them in their sullen trade.-
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill,—yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learned to dwell;
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are:--Even I
Regained my freedom with a sigh.

LESSON CXLVIII.

INSUFFICIENCY OF NATURAL RELIGION.

COLLYER.

1. Ir natural religion is a sufficient revelation, and no other is necessary, it has been written with a sunbeam upon all lands, -it has been inscribed from the beginning of the creation upon the face of the glorious orb of day. But what is the re

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sult? What has natural religion effected, in any, in every age ?-in any, in every country? "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth his handiwork;" but "the world by wisdom knew not God;" they shiped and served the creature more than the Creator;" they fell down to the hosts of heaven; or "changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things."

2. Now call for Natural Religion, and she shall answer you from the depths of the forest and the summits of the mountains; from the sea, and from the shore; from the crowded city, and the uncultivated desert; from the hut of the savage, and the dome of the monarch;-everywhere her altars are planted, and her worship maintained. Her influence and her footsteps may be traced on the face of the whole earth, in barbarous rites, revolting superstitions, and disgusting obscenities; in all the forms of idolatry, from the feathered gods of the islands of the south-sea, to the misshapen logs of Africa, up to the three hundred and thirty-three thousand deities of philosophic India.

3. Would you see her in her own person? Bid her come forth,-she appears "in garments rolled in blood;" "the battle of the warrior with confused noise," rages around her; her children drop into the fires, kindled to her honor; human victims are slaughtered on the altars raised to her praise, or crushed beneath the ponderous car, upon which she sits enthroned. Around her, dying cries and agonizing shrieks mingle with loud acclamations and frantic songs; her look withers the country, and depopulates the city.

4. This is natural religion, and not as she came from the hands of God, the witness of his eternal power and Godhead, but as she is deformed by the passions of men, and debased by their corruptions; not as "the image of the invisible Creator," but as the idol of the fallen and depraved creature. Yet this is natural religion, stained with gore, and foul with crimes, not depicted by fancy, but demonstrated by fact,-by facts drawn from all climes and from all generations.