men to our fathers. Brothers, you are welcome; we are glad to see you! 4. Brothers, our faces are pale, and your faces are dark; but our hearts are alike. The Great Spirit has made his children of different colors, but he loves them all. 5. Brothers, you dwell between the Mississippi and the Missouri. They are mighty rivers. They have one branch far east in the Alleghanies, and another far west in the Rocky Mountains; but they flow together at last into one great stream, and run down into the sea. In like manner, the red man dwells in the west, and the white man in the east, by the great water. But they are all one band, one family. It has many branches, and one Head. 6. Brothers, as you entered our council house, you beheld the image of our great father, Washington.* It is a cold stone; it cannot speak. But he was the friend of the red man, and bade his children live in friendship with their red brethren. He is gone to the world of spirits, but his words have made a very deep print in our hearts, like the step of a strong buffalo on the soft clay of the prairie. 7. Brother, I perceive your little son between your knees. May the Great Spirit preserve his life, my brother. He grows up before you, like the tender sapling by the side of the mighty oak. May they flourish for a long time together; and when the mighty oak is fallen on the ground, may the young tree fill its place in the forest, and spread out its branches over the tribe. 8. Brothers, I make you a short talk, and again bid you welcome to our council hall. 1 VEN/ISON (ven'zn). The flesh of edi- |2 PRAI'RIẸ (prā'rẹ). An extensive ble beasts of the chase, but usually tract of land, mostly level, bare of restricted to the flesh of deer. trees, and covered with grass. * There is a statue of Washington, by Chantrey, in the State House, in Boston. [Rev. Frederick W. Robertson, pastor of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, England, was born in London, February 3, 1816, and died August 15, 1853. He was a clergyman of the Church of England. His writings are distinguished for their poetical beauty of expression, their vividness, and their stirring appeals to the religious element in man.] 1. TIME is the solemn inheritance to which every man is born heir, who has a life-rent of this world, -a little section cut out of eternity, and given us to do our work in; an eternity before, an eternity behind: and the small stream between, floating swiftly from the one into the vast bosom of the other. The man who has felt, with all his soul, the significance of time, will not be long in learning any lesson that this world has to teach him. Have you ever felt it? Have you ever realized how your own little streamlet is gliding away and bearing you along with it towards that awful other world of which all things here are but thin shadows, down into that eternity towards which the confused wreck of all earthly things is bound? 2. Let us realize, that, until that sensation of time, and the infinite meaning which is wrapped up in it, has taken possession of our souls, there is no chance of our ever feeling strongly that it is worse than madness to sleep that time away. Every day in this world has its work; and every day, as it rises out of eternity, keeps putting to each of us the question afresh, What will you do before to day has sunk into eternity and nothingness again? 3. And now what have we to say with respect to this strange, solemn thing-TIME? That men do with it through life just what the apostles did for one precious and irreparable hour of it in the garden of Gethsemane they go to sleep! Have you ever seen those marble statues, in some public square or garden, which art has so finished into a perennial fountain that through the lips or through the hands the clear water flows in a perpetual stream on and on forever, and the marble stands there,passive, cold, making no effort to arrest the gliding water? 4. It is so that time flows through the hands of men — swift, never pausing till it has run itself out; and there is the man petrified3 into a marble sleep, not feeling what it is which is passing away forever! It is so, just so, that the destiny of nine men out of ten accomplishes itself, slipping away from them aimless, useless, till it is too late. And we are asked, with all the solemn thoughts which crowd around our approaching eternity, What has been our life, and what do we intend it shall be? 5. Yesterday, last week, last year, they are gone! Yesterday was such a day as never was before, and never can be again. Out of darkness and eternity it was born, a new, fresh day; into darkness and eternity it sank again forever. It had a voice, calling to us of its own,-its own work, its own duties. What were we doing yesterday? Idling, whiling away the time, in light and luxurious literature; not as life's relaxation, but as life's business? Thrilling our hearts with the excitement of life, contriving how to spend the day most pleasantly? Was that our day? 6. All this is but the sleep of the three apostles. And new let us remember this: There is a day coming when the sleep will be broken rudely,— with a shock; there is a day in our future lives when our time will be counted, not by years, nor by months, nor yet by hours, but by min utes, the day when unmistakable symptoms shall announce that the messenger of death has come to take us. 4 7. That startling moment will come, which it is vain to attempt to realize now, when it will be felt that it is all over at last- that our chance and our trial are past. The moment that we have tried to think of, shrunk from, put away from us, here it is going too, like all other mo ments that have gone before it; and then with eyes unsealed at last, we shall look back on the life which is gone by. 1 SEN-SA'TION. Impression made up- 13 PET'RI-FIED. Changed to a stone or on the mind by something acting a stony substance. on the bodily organs; feeling. 4 SYMPTOM. Sign; token. 2 IR-REP'A-RA-BLE. That cannot be 5 UN-SEALED'. Without a seal, or havrepaired or recovered. ing the seal broken; open. LIV. - THE COMBAT. SIR WALTER SCOTT. [This piece is taken from the Lady of the Lake. King James V., of Scotland, under the assumed name of Fitz James, while alone in the wilds of the Highlands had come into the presence of Roderick Dhu, the chief of a rebellious clan, and had been hospitably entertained by him over night. In the morning, after Fitz James had been guided by Roderick Dhu beyond the hostile district, the following scene occurs.] 1. THE Chief in silence strode before, And reached that torrent's sounding shore, 2. "Bold Saxon! to his promise just, Hath led thee safe, through watch and ward, 5 Armed, like thyself, with single brand: And thou must keep thee with thy sword.” 3. The Saxon paused: -"I ne'er delayed The Saxon cause rests on thy steel; 4. "Then, by my word," the Saxon said, "The riddle is already read. Seek yonder brake beneath the cliff, * Red Murdock, a treacherous guide, had been killed by Fitz James, the preceding day. |