we prepared to exhibit our lives and our history as the record of our stewardship? On the contrary, do we not rather cling to the trust and vaunt the confidence wherewith we have been honored, without inquiring whether the value of the deposit is not daily diminishing in our hands?

It is not enough for us to say, that we are exempt from the wretchedness of the masses, and from the corruptions of the courts of other lands. With our institutions and resources, these should have been incommunicable evils,—evils, which it would have been alike unmeritorious to avoid, and unpardonable to permit. It is no justification for us to adduce the vast, the unexampled increase of our population. The question is not, how many millions we have, but what are their character, conduct, and attributes. We can claim neither reward nor approval for the exuberance of our natural resources, or the magnificence of our civil power. The true inquiry is, in what manner that power has been used, how have those resources been expended? They were convertible into universal elevation and happiness,--have they been so converted? Neither a righteous posterity nor a righteous Heaven will adjudicate upon our innocence or guilt, on the same principles, or according to the same standards, as those by which other nations shall be judged.

In the mines of Siberia, at Olmutz, at Spielberg,in all the dungeons of the Old World, where the strong champions of freedom are now pining in captivity beneath the remorseless power of the tyrant,-the morning sun does not send a glimmering ray into their cells, nor does night draw a thicker veil of darkness between them and the world, but the lone prisoner lifts his iron-laden arms to Heaven in prayer, that we, the depositaries of freedom and of human hopes, may be faithful to our sacred trust;--while, on the other hand, the pensioned advocates of despotism

stand, with listening ear, to catch the first sound of lawless violence that is wafted from our shores, to note the first breach of faith or act of perfidy amongst us, and to convert them into arguments against liberty and the rights of man. There is not a shout sent up by an insane mob, on this side of the Atlantic, but it is echoed by a thousand presses and by ten thousand tongues, along every mountain and valley on the other. There is not a conflagration kindled here by the ruthless hand of violence, but its flame glares over all Europe, from horizon to zenith. On each occurrence of a flagitious scene, whether it be an act of turbulence and devastation, or a deed of perfidy, or breach of faith, monarchs point them out as fruits of the growth and omens of the fate of republics, and claim for themselves and their heirs a further extension of the lease of despotism.

The experience of the ages that are past, the hopes of the ages that are yet to come, unite their voices in an appeal to us,--they implore us to think more of the character of our people than of its numbers; to look upon our vast national resources, not as tempters to ostentation and pride, but as means to be converted by the refining alchemy of education, into mental and spiritual treasures; they supplicate us to seek for whatever complacency or self-satisfaction we are disposed to indulge, not in the extent of our territory, or in the products of our soil, but in the expansion and perpetuation of the means of human happiness; they beseech us to exchange the luxuries of sense for the joys of charity, and thus give to the world the example of a nation, whose wisdom increases with its prosperity, and whose virtues are equal to its power. For these ends, they enjoin upon us a more earnest, a more universal, a more religious devotion of our exe:tions and resources, to the culture of the youthful mind and heart of the nation. Their gathered voices assert the eternal

truth, that, IN A REPUBLIC, IGNORANCE IS A CRIME;

AND THAT PRIVATE IMMORALITY IS NOT LESS AN OPPROBRIUM TO THE STATE THAN IT IS GUILT IN THE PERPETRATOR.

The following is one of the thous and poems that have been inspired, not by the juice of the grape, but by that mighty movement to check intemperance, which is almost without a parallel in the history of human improvement. The piece is of that quiet cast, which fits it for the younger class of pupils. We owe it to Miss H. F. GOULD, before mentioned.

Was it for this they reared the vine,
Fostered every leaf and shoot,
Loved to see its tendrils twine,

And cherished it from branch to root?
Was it for this, that, from the blast

It was screened and taught to run,

That its fruit might ripen fast,

O'er the trellis, to the sun?
Was it for this they rudely tore
Every cluster from the stem;
Thus to crush us till we pour
Out our very blood for them?-

Well, though we are tortured thus,
Still our essence shall endure,
Vengeance they shall find, with us
May be slow, but will be sure.
Many a stately form shall yield,
When our power is felt within;

Many a foolish tongue reveal

What the recent draught has been;

Many a thoughtless, yielding youth,
With his promise all in bloom,
Go from paths of peace and truth
To an early, shameful tomb.

We the purse will oft unclasp,
All its golden treasure take,
And, the husband in our grasp,

Leave the wife with heart to break.
While his babes are pinched with cold,
We will bind him to the bowl,
Till his features we behold
Glowing like a living coal.

When we've drowned all peace and health,
Strength and hopes within the bowl,
More we'll ask than life or wealth;

We'll require the very soul !
Ye, who from our blood are free,
Take the charge we give you now;
Taste not, till wait and see
ye
If the grapes forget their vow.

LESSON XXXIII.

SENTIMENT AND SIMPLICITY.

In speaking the following specimen of cross purposes, the pupil must, by change of voice and manner, contrast the affected sentimentality of the poet with the unpoetical replies of the simple rustic. The origin of the piece is unknown.

"Child!" said the bard, " dost thou wander now
To gather fresh flowers for thy sunny brow!
Or twin'st thou a garland pure and fair
To fix in thy sleeping brother's hair?
That when he awakes he may smile to see
The nodding roses all plucked by thee:

Tell me, thou child!"

"No," said the child with accent clear,
"I comes jist now wi' ma feyther's beer?"

"Thy father's bier!-Has he left thee, child,
To the world's cold blasts and its tempests wild?
Has he left thee beside a deserted hearth
With no one to guard thee on all the earth?

Has he sunk in his pride 'neath the hand of fate,
And left thee, thou lone one, desolate ?

Tell me, thou child!"
"No!" said that child with the sunny brow,
He's been all the mornin' after the plough!"

66

"Hear'st thou the breezes from yonder hill,
As they speak with lone voices subdued and still,
Telling, as onwards in perfume they sweep,
Of the hidden flowers in the valley which sleep;
Hear'st thou their voices at even-tide

As thou sinkest to sleep by the river's side?
Tell me, thou child!"

"No," said the child, "I ne'er hears them speak,
But I hears them blowin' most nights in the week.”

LESSON XXXIV.

CHILDISH SPECULATIONS.-EDITOR.

The following piece should be spoken by a very small boy. The piece is only an enlargement of an idea in one of M'JILTON'S

I wonder what the sky is made of,
Glowing in such princely blue :
Is it solid substance painted?
Then who had the job to do?
Sure it was a mighty painter
Must have used his pencil there!

poems.