9. Bowl rang to bowl, steel clang'd to steel,
And rose a deafening cry,

That made the torches flare around,
And shook the flags on high:
"Ho! cravens! do ye fear him?
Slaves! traitors! have ye flown?
Ho! cowards! have ye left me
To meet him here alone?

10. "But I defy him! Let him come!"
Down rang the massy cup,

While from its sheath the ready blade.
Came flashing half-way up;

And, with the black and heavy plumes
Scarce trembling on his head,
There, in his dark, carved oaken chair,
Old Rudiger sat,-dead!

LESSON CC.

THE BIBLE-ITS DEEP AND LASTING POWER.

T. PARKER.

1. For the deep and lasting power of the Bible there must be an adequate cause. That nothing comes of nothing is true all the world over. It is no light thing to hold, with an electric chain, a thousand hearts, though but an hour, beating and bounding with such fiery speed. What is it then to hold the Christian world, and that for centuries? Are men fed with chaff and husks?

2. The authors we reckon great, whose word is in the newspaper, and the market-place, whose articulate breath now sways the nation's mind,—will soon pass away, giving place to other great men of a season, who in their turn shall follow them to eminence and then to oblivion. Some thousand "famous writers" come up in this century, to be forgotten in the next. But the silver cord of the Bible is not loosed, nor its golden bowl broken, as Time chronicles its tens of centuries passed by.

3. Has the human race gone mad? Time sits as a refiner of metal; the dross is piled in forgotten heaps, but the pure gold is reserved for use, passes into the ages, and is current a thousand years hence as well as to-day. It is only real merit that can long pass for such. Tinsel will rust in the storms of life. False weights are soon detected there.

4. It is only a heart that can speak, deep and true, to a heart; a mind to a mind; a soul to a soul; wisdom to the wise, and religion to the pious. There must then be in the Bible, mind, conscience, heart and soul, wisdom and religion. Were it otherwise, how could millions find in it their lawgiver, friend, and prophet? Some of the greatest of human institutions seem built on the Bible; such things will not stand on heaps of chaff but on mountains of rocks.

LESSON CCI.

"HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX."

R. BROWNING.

1. I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;

I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate bolts un-
drew;

"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

2. Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride for stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit,—
Nor galloped less steadily Roland, a whit.

3. 'Twas moonset at starting; but, while we drew near Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear; At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see; At Düffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be; And from Mechlin church-steeple we heard the halfchime,

So Joris broke silence with "Yet there is time!"

4. At Erschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper, Roland, at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray.

5. And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye's black intelligence,-ever that glance
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!

And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upward in galloping on.

6. By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!
Your Ross galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,
We'll remember at Aix"-for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

7. So we were left galloping, Joris and I,

Past Loos and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,

Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,

And "gallop," gasped Joris, " for Aix is in sight!"

8. How they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roan Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;

And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets' rim.

9. Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,

Called my Roland his pet name, my horse without peer,
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or

good,

Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood. 10. And all I remember is friends flocking round

As I sate with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground,
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which, (the burgesses voted by common consent,)
Was no more than his due who brought good news from

Ghent.

LESSON CCII.

DUTY OF LITERARY MEN TO THEIR COUNTRY,

T. S. GRIMKE.

1. WE cannot honor our country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy of purpose or a faithfulness of zeal too steadfast and ardent. And what is our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her countless sails and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages and her harvest home, with her frontiers of the lake and the ocean. It is not the West, with her forest-seas and her inland isles, with her luxuriant expanses clothed in the verdant corn, with her beautiful Ohio and her majestic Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in the golden robes of the rice-fields. What are these but the sister families of one greater, better, holier family, our country?

2. I come not here to speak the dialect, or to give the counsels of the patriot-statesman. But I come, a patriot-scholar, to vindicate the rights and to plead the interests of the American Literature. And be assured that we cannot, as patriotscholars, think too highly of that country, or sacrifice too much for her. And let us never forget-let us rather remember, with a religious awe-that the union of these States is indispensable to our literature, as it is to our national independence and civil liberties, to our prosperity, happiness, and improvement.

3. If, indeed, we desire to behold a literature like that, which has sculptured with such energy of expression, which has painted so faithfully and vividly, the crimes, the vices, the follies of ancient and modern Europe; if we desire that our land should furnish for the orator and the novelist, for the painter and the poet, age after age, the wild and romantic scenery of war; the glittering march of armies, and the revelry of the camps; the shrieks and blasphemies and all the horrors of the battle-field; the desolation of the harvest, and the burning cottage; the storm, the sack, and the ruin of