LESSON XXXII.

The true Source of Reform.-CHAPIN.

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THE great element of Reform is not born of human wis dom; it does not draw its life from human organizations I find it only in CHRISTIANITY. Thy kingdom come!" There is a sublime and pregnant burden in this Prayer. It is the aspiration of every soul that goes forth in the spirit of Reform. For what is the significance of this Prayer? It is a petition that all holy influences would penetrate and subdue and dwell in the heart of man, until he shall think, and speak, and do good, from the very necessity of his being. So would the institutions of error and wrong crumble and pass away. So would sin die out from the earth. And the human soul, living in harmony with the Divine Will, this earth would become like Heaven.

It is too late for the Reformers to sneer at Christianity -it is foolishness for them to reject it. In it are enshrined our faith in human progress—our confidence in Reform. It is indissolubly connected with all that is hopeful, spiritual, capable in man. That men have misunderstood it and perverted it, is true. But it is also true that the noblest efforts for human melioration have come out of it-have been based upon it. Is it not so? Come, ye remembered ones, who sleep the sleep of the Just, who took your conduct from the line of Christian Philosophy-come from your tombs, and answer!

Come Howard, from the gloom of the prison and the taint of the lazar-house, and show us what Philanthropy can do when imbued with the spirit of Jesus. Come Eliot, from the thick forest where the red-man listens to the Word of Life-come Penn, from thy sweet counsel and weaponless victory; and show us what Christian Zeal and Christian Love can accomplish with the rudest barbarians or the fiercest hearts. Come Raikes, from thy labours with the ignorant and the poor, and show us with what an eye this Faith regards the lowest and least of our race, and how diligently it labours, not for the body, not for the rank, but for the plastic soul that is to course the ages of immortality,

And ye, who are a great number-ye nameless ones— who have done good in your narrower spheres, content to forego renown on earth, and seeking your Reward in the Record on High, come and tell us how kindly a spirit, how lofty a purpose, or how strong a courage, the Religion ye professed can breathe into the poor the humble, and the weak.

Go forth, then, Spirit of Christianity, to thy great work of REFORM! The Past bears witness to thee in the blood of thy martyrs, and the ashes of thy saints and heroes.The Present is hopeful because of thee. The Future shall acknowledge thy omnipotence.

LESSON XXXIII.

A Psalm of Life.-H. W. Longfellow.

TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream;
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real-life is earnest,

But the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art-to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and time is fleeting,

And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating

Funeral marches to the

grave.

In this world's broad field of battle

In the bivouac of life,

Be not like dumb, driven cattle;
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant;
Let the dead Past bury its dead;
Act-act in the living Present!

Heart within, and God o'er head!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime;
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sand of time!—
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er Life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

LESSON XXXIV.

Employment of Winter Evenings by the Young.-Prentice.

DURING the winter season, most of the young of our land, particularly those of the country, have the evening at their own disposal, to devote to amusement, recreation, or whatever pursuit they choose. We speak now of those who are employed in some active or necessary pursuit during the day, and to whom evening brings their only leisure; for the youth who has not some such employment, or who does not seek it, is not the one to be benefited by any thing that may be said on the improvement of his leisure hours. We therefore address our remarks to the industrious youth of our country, who are trained to useful and laudable purposes. Such young men will hail the long evenings of this season with delight, and bless the glad hours which they may devote uninterruptedly to the cultivation of their minds.

Few young men are at all aware of the amount of valuable knowledge of which they might become the masters

and possessors, by a careful and judicious improvement of the leisure afforded by the evenings of a single winter; and, when we add to this, the acquisition of ten or fifteen winters, the aggregate amount of what a youth of common capacity might attain would make him a learned man in any section of the Union. Many who rendered themselves eminent and useful in their day-the Franklins, the Shermans, the Rittenhouses, and the Bowditches of our own country-the Watts, the Fergusons, and the Simpsons of England-names conspicuous in the list of benefactors of their species-made themselves what they were by a diligent use of less leisure time than falls to the lot of four-fifths of the young men of the United States.

The greatest men of every age have in general been selftaught and self-made. They have risen from obscurity, and struggled with adverse circumstances. A diligent use of their time, a habit of studying and labouring while others slept or played,-a steady perseverance, and an indomitable energy, gave them their attainments and their eminence. Cicero, by far the most learned man of all antiquity, as well as the greatest orator of Rome, lets us at once into the secret of all his vast and varied learning, when he tells us that the time which others gave to feasts, and dice, and sports, he devoted to patient study.

It matters not what may be a young man's intended pursuit in life; he cannot choose any, for which reading and study during his leisure hours, will not the better qualify him. If he is to be a farmer, let him read books and treatises on agriculture; if he is to be a mechanic, let him study the mathematics and the works on mechanism and architecture; if he is to be a merchant, let him become familiar with the principles of political economy, the statistics of trade, and the history of commerce; and, finally, if he is to be an American citizen, one of the millions to whom is to be intrusted the rich heritage of civil and religious liberty bequeathed to us by our fathers, let him study well the history, the constitution, and the institutions of the United States, and let him contemplate frequently the lives and character of those who wrought out and framed our liberties.

Nor is the knowledge to be thus acquired the only inducement for a young man to devote the hours of his lei

sure to reading and study. The pleasure to be found in such pursuits is as much superior to that transient and giddy excitement attendant merely on the gayer amusements, as it is purer, more elegant, and more refined. The young man, too, who accustoms his mind to find pleasure and gratification in reading and study, can never want for society; for he creates around him a society of which he can never be deprived-a society which will never weary of his presence, which has nothing cold, or artificial, or false— a society composed of the very elect of the earth—the master minds of all ages and all countries. With them he can retire into his library, to spend a leisure hour, whenever opportunity occurs, certain of finding them ever ready to delight and instruct.

LESSON XXXV.

Books.-ROBERT SOUTHEY.

My days among the dead are past;
Around me I behold,

Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:

My never failing friends are they,
With whom I converse, day by day.

With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And, when I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.

My thoughts are with the dead;—with them,
I live in long past years;

Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears;
And, from their lessons, seck and find

Instruction with an humble mind.