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the mighty mass is to be inspired; that its parts are to communicate and sympathize; its bright progress to be adorned with becoming refinements; its strong sense uttered; its character reflected; its feelings interpreted to its own children, to other regions, and to after-ages.

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LESSON II.

DIRECTION. In reading the following poetry, regard must be had to the proper modulation of the voice. The sentiment so clearly denotes the necessary variation, that no other direction is required.

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That round my pathway roar,
Do ye not know some spot

CHARLES MACKAY.

Where mortals weep no more?-
Some lone and pleasant dell,

Some valley in the west,
Where, free from toil and pain,
The weary soul may rest?

The loud wind dwindled to a whisper low,
And sighed for pity as it answered,-"No."

2. Tell me, thōu mighty deep,

Whōse billows round me play,
Know'st thou some favored spot,

Some island far away,

Where weary man may

find

The bliss, for which he sighs,

Where sorrow never lives,

And friendship never dies?

The loud waves, rolling in perpetual flow,
Stopped for a while, and sighed to answer,-"No."

8. And thou, serenest moon,

That, with such lovely face,

Dost look upon the earth,

Asleep in night's embrace;

4.

Tell me, in all thy round,

Hast thou not seen some spot,
Where miserable man

Might find a happier lot?

Behind a cloud the moon withdrew in woe,
And a voice, sweet, but sad, responded, "No."

Tell me, my secret soul,

O tell me, Hope and Faith,

Is there no resting-place

From sorrow, sin, and death ?

Is there no happy spot,

Where mortals may be blessed,
Where grief may find a balm,

And weariness, a rest?

Faith, Hope, and Love, best boons to mortals given,
Waved their bright wings, and whispered,-" YES, IN
HEAVEN!"

LESSON III.

X

EXPLANATORY NOTES.-1. LEONIDAS, a celebrated king of Sparta, was offered the sovereignty of all Greece by XERXES, the Persian king, who had invaded Greece with an army of Five Millions, if he would not oppose him. This proposal he indignantly spurned, and at a narrow pass, called Thermopyla, with only Three Hundred Spartans, he opposed successfully the army of Xerxes for Three successive days. At last a traitorous Grecian made known to the Persians a secret way, by which they gained the rear of Leonidas, who with his brave band, thus surrounded, fell after a severe contest, only one escaping. In this battle Xerxes lost Twenty Thousand men.

2. JOHN HOWARD was a philanthropist, who became celebrated for his sympathy in behalf of unfortunate prisoners. He traveled through the principal countries of Europe, visiting the jails, and administering to those suffering beings. Thus, "he trod an open, but unfrequented, path to immortality

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3. GLADIATORS were men disciplined to fight with swords, in the arena at Rome, for the entertainment of the people.

4. The GENII were fabled to be intermediate beings between men and angels. Some were considered good, some evil.

MORAL SUBLIMITY.

WAYLAND. 1. PHILOSOPHERS have speculated much concerning a process of sensation, which has commonly been denominated the emotion of sublimity. But, although they alone have written about this emotion, they are far from being the only men who have felt it. The untutored peasant, when he has seen the autumnal tempest collecting between the hills, and, as it advanced, enveloping in misty obscurity village and hamlet, forest and meadow, has tasted the sublime in all its reality; and, while the thunder has rolled, and the lightning flashed around him, has exulted in the view of nature, moving forth in her majesty.

2.

"There's grandeur in the thunder's roar,

Loud pealing from on high;

In the vivid lightning's flash,

When storms sweep through the sky;
There's grandeur in the swelling waves,
The mountains of the sea,

That crush the pride of man,

When winds blow wild and free."

3. The untaught sailor-boy, listlessly hearkening to the idle ripple of the moonlight wave, when on a sudden he has thought upon the unfathomable abyss beneath him, the wide waste of waters around him, and the infinite expanse above him, has enjoyed, to the full, the emotion of sublimity, while his inmost soul has trembled at the vastness of its own conceptions. But why need I multiply illustrations from nature? Who does not recollect the emotion he has felt while surveying aught, in the material world, of terror or of vastness?

4. And this sensation is not produced by grandeur in material objects alone. It is also excited on most of those occasions, in which we see man, tasking to the uttermost the energies of his intellectual or moral nature. Through the long lapse of centuries, who, without emotion, has read of LEONIDAS' and his three hundred, throwing themselves as a barrier before the myriads of XERXES,' and contending unto death for the liberties of Greece?

5. But we need not turn to classic story, to find all that is great in human action; we find it in our own times, and in the history of our own country. Who is there of us that, even in the nursery, has not felt his spirit stir within him, when, with childlike wonder, he has listened to the story of WASHINGTON? And although the terms of the narrative were scarcely intelligible, yet the young soul kindled at the thought of one man's working out the delivery of a nation. And as our understanding, strengthened by age, was at last able to grasp the detail of this transaction, we saw that our infantile conceptions had fallen far short of its grandeur..

6. Oh! if an American citizen ever exults in the contemplation of all that is sublime in human enterprise, it is when, bringing to mind the men who first conceived the idea of this nation's independence, he beholds them estimating the power of her oppressor, the resources of her citizens, deciding, in their collected might, that this nation should be free, and, through the long years of trial that ensued, never blenching from their purpose, but freely redeeming the pledge they had given, to consecrate to it "THEIR LIVES, THEIR FORTUNES, AND THEIR SACRED HONOR."

7. "Patriots have toiled, and, in their country's cause, Bled nobly, and their deeds, as they deserve,

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Receive proud recompense. We give in charge

Their names to the sweet lyre. The historic Muse,

Proud of her treasure, marches with it down

To latest times; and Sculpture, in her turn,

Gives bond, in stone and ever-during brass,
To guard them and immortalize her trust.”

8. It is not in the field of patriotism alone that deeds have been achieved, to which history has awarded the palm of moral sublimity. There have lived men, in whom the name of PATRIOT has been merged in that of PHILANTHROPIST, who, looking with an eye of compassion over the face of the earth, have felt for the miseries of our race, and have put forth their calm might, to wipe off one blot from the marred and stained escutcheon of human nature,-to strike off one form of suffering from the catalogue of human woe. Such a man was HOWARD.

Surveying our world like a spirit of the blessed, he beheld the misery of the captive, he heard the groaning of the prisoner. His determination was fixed. He resolved, single-handed and alone, to gauge and to measure one form of unpitied, unheeded wretchedness; and, bringing it out to the sunshine of public observation, to work its utter extermination.

9. And he well knew what this undertaking would cost him. He knew what he had to hazard from the infections of dungeons, to endure from the fatigues of inhospitable travel. He knew that he was devoting himself to the altar of philanthropy, and he willingly devoted himself. He had marked out his destiny, and he hasted forward to its accomplishment, with an intensity, "which the nature of the human mind for- . bade to be more, and the character of the individual forbade to be less." And hence, the name of HoWARD will be associated with all that is sublime in mercy, until the final consummation of all things.

1. ONLY moral greatness is truly sublime. The gladiator3 may discipline his sinews, and almost compete in strength even with his maddened adversary. And there are modern as well as ancient names, which awaken pity, if not contempt, for their owners, on account of the fearful perversion of their splendid talents. But when we read or hear of HOWARD," the illustrious philanthropist, the soul-debased as it may be-bends with instinctive homage, and feels as if a ray from his beatified spirit illumed and purified its purposes.

2. While NAPOLEON, like the fabled genii,* traversed the affrighted earth, marked his footsteps with human blood, our Own WASHINGTON rose like another luminary upon the dark and troubled scene of American politics, and with no marvelous intellectual ability,-but in the tranquil might of moral majesty, he pursued the narrow path of duty, and blenched neither to the power of enemies, nor to the influence of affection. He had no noon-day brightness, no declining splendor. His whole course was light and glory; and he left a heavenly and perennial brilliancy on the national horizon.

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