ignorant that once we lived. But the same unalterable Being will still preside over the universe, through all its changes, and from His remembrance we shall never be blotted. He is our Father and our God forever. He takes us from earth that He may lead us to Heaven,— that He may refine our nature from all its principles of corruption, share with us His own immortality, admit us to His everlasting habitation, and crown us with His eternity.

LESSON CIII.

1 COL OS SE UM, the amphitheater of Vespasian in Rome, the largest in the world.

OLYMPUS, or Olympia, a town in Greece, celebrated for the Olympic

games that took place there once in four years, and continuing five days. SIB' YL, (in Pagan antiquity,) a woman supposed to be endowed with a spirit of prophecy, and who wrote books of prophecies, in verse, supposed to contain the fate of the Roman Empire.

4 MIL' TON. See note, page 107.

'SHAK' SPEARE. See note, page 106.

INSPIRATION OF LIVING GENIUS.

MRS. E. OAKES SMITH.

making many books, there is no end,"* exclaims

in the coming ages, at the expense of ideas. That individuals think less, and achieve less, now that books are multiplied to such an extraordinary degree, must be manifest to the dullest observer. Men expend their lives in reading what has been said by others, and thus neglect their own resources. They pore over obsolete ideas; they garner the treasury of familiar expression; and in the meanwhile opportunity escapes, time rolls onward, and they themselves add nothing to the munificence of thought.

* Eccl., 12th chap., 12th verse.

2. Were it otherwise, were books less abundant, did libraries teem less with the culture of the ages, men would be compelled to delve into the mine of their own genius, and each age would present us with its poets, its heroes, and philosophers. We should have, not book-worms, but the inspirations of living genius,-not imitators and plagiarists, such as abound in our time, but revelations, and utterances to electrify the nations. We have a host of scholars, and only now and then a man of original experience. We reproduce the old in diluted forms; whereas, were we deprived of these models, we might do something in our own right.

3. Our literature is full of artists, but poor in genius. It is easy to reconstruct-difficult to originate. For ages the Colosseum' has been the great quarry whence modern Rome has been built, and yet it stands magnificent and inspiring in its devastation and decay. The age that conceived the Colosseum, will no more appear. We reproduce the ancients, but only in poorer forms, and upon a inore limited scale.

4. Once nations poured themselves upon the arena of Greece to compete at the games of Olympus.2 The crash of chariot-wheels thundered along the way, where the racer bent his forces intent upon the goal, and horsemen vaulted from back to back, as his flying steeds, four abreast, filled the air with animation. In our day we revive the Olympic reminiscence in the lecture-room of the Lyceum, and the bombast of the stump-orator. The gladiator is the modern pugilist, and for the charioteer and daring horseman is the tent-covered arena of the modern circus.

5. We are less heroic altogether. We make life a fact, not an inspiration. What will come of it? Where will it end? Is there no great idea to be revealed, which shall

refresh and enlarge our humanity'? Assuredly there is. Let us wait and listen. Poets and artists have too many aids; and therefore they copy each other, instead of going forth to look into the heart of Nature. The wise man or woman will write out inspirations, and cast them like the leaves of the Sibyl. If the world needs them, they will be gathered; if not, they should feel no pang, as they eddy, like dry leaves, at the will of the inconstant blast.

6. There is no absolute necessity that any one should win fame there is no fame worth the winning except that illustrative of the religious faith of the people; no ideas are perpetual but those of the religious. Take out of the world Milton, Shakspeare, and the Bible, and chaos would come again; leave us the Bible, Milton, and Shakspeare, and we have little need of libraries.

5

7. Science will take care of itself; facts are perpetual. Those that are needful to us, will be kept alive; and others, which are incomplete links to the perfect chain, may as well die. There is no doubt a lazy pleasure in sitting in one's library, and reading the thoughts which inspired the hearts of heroes and sages in the past ages; but the thought that may be made vital and effective in the present, is better to the true, earnest man or woman.

8. Let the good thing but be said, and it matters not by whom it is uttered. If the author be truly large and original, the world will not forget him. Nature is chary of her gems: she hides the diamond in the deepest caves; but once brought forth to the light, its rays are choicely garnered, and its record kept as persistently as the crown of a king's head. The harp and the lute may fade away adown sweet-scented valleys and vine-clad hills; but the trumpet awakens the wilderness to action, and lends a voice to the everlasting hills.

LESSON CIV.

1JOHN' SON, SAMUEL, the celebrated English lexicographer, was born at Licthfield, England, 1709; and died 1784. He was educated at Oxford, and became one of the most prominent characters in English literary history. A large portion of his writings appeared in the "Gentleman's Magazine,' ‚” “The Rambler,” and “The Idler." His Life by Boswell contains a curious collection of sayings, that are held to convey a more favorable impression of his real strength, both in thought and language, than any thing in the works which he wrote or published.

GENIUS AND ORIGINALITY.

REV. DR. G. W. EATON.

MY philosophy teaches me that what is called genius, is

an extraordinary development of a single faculty, or set of faculties; and is in many, perhaps in most cases, an evidence of disease or distortion in mental constitution; and, therefore, something neither to be envied nor desired. GENIUS! - who wants more genius than he possesses in a mind of immortal and ever-growing capacities? Let him stir up his powers, and set them energetically to work. It is this that marks a man as original and peculiar among his fellow-men.

2. It is not that he possesses faculties which others have not, and tendencies which do not belong to common humanity; but he has waked up his immortal energies, and they live, and intensely act within him; and his whole intellectual and moral nature stands out in bold and glowing relief. He may be called original and eccentric, and "a genius," and be looked upon as something out of the ordinary course of nature; but all his originality and eccentricity may be owing to the fact that he does his own thinking.

3. He forms his own opinions, and therefore they must be cast, whatever the material may be, in the peculiar:

mold of his own mind, and partake of all the peculiarities of that mold. If there was more deep and original thinking, there would be a greater number of real geniuses, of original and eccentric characters; or rather eccentricity would be seen to be a natural movement. It is this process which makes "originals." We all might be original and peculiar, if we would take the pains to improve to the utmost the powers our Creator has given us.

If

4. Trust not, then, to an imaginary phantom to breathe inspiration into your sluggish spirits, nor wait for the auspicious moment, when some pitying Muse, invoked from a distant sphere, shall descend and infuse life into your torpid faculties, and kindle up the "glow of composition." you have an exercise in composition to prepare, act upon the advice of the sage Dr. Johnson,'-"Sit down doggedly to the work." I know of no certain way to bring on the "glow of composition," (which is indeed a most desirable state,) but by the intense friction of great truths with our faculties.

5. This will soon kindle up an internal fire that will send a warmth and glow through the entire system. It is this friction which causes the strange transitions in the mind, of which we have spoken. When we first address ourselves to the examination of a difficult subject, all may be dark as midnight, and we have no power to do any thing with it. But by holding it steadily before the mind, pressing the faculties up to it, and keeping up the friction, by and by a sort of electric power is generated, which emits blazing illuminations, dispelling the darkness, and elances a lightning energy, splitting into ribbons the gnarled and refractory subject.

6. Now the toil is over. Henceforth all is enthusiastic play. The mind moves with freedom and majesty. "The