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ceeded far when he was interrupted by a loud noise, accompanied by rapping at the little window at the back of the pulpit.

10. Turning round to ascertain the cause, he beheld our friend Jack pecking away at the window, flapping his wings against it, and screaming at the top of his voice, "Here am I! here am I!"—a fact which no one could gainsay, or resist laughing at.

11. The worthy parson finding his own gravity and that of his congregation so entirely upset by what had occurred, brought his sermon to a speedy conclusion, and dismissed the congregation. Sentence of death was recorded against the offender, but, upon the petition of a number of the parishioners, it was commuted to banishmen for life from the precincts of the church. Such is the story of friend Jack.

III. MR. DICKENS' TWO RAVENS.

1. At different times in the course of my life I have been the proud possessor of two ravens, each of which had peculiarities worthy of record.

2. The first was in the bloom of his youth when he was discovered in a modest retirement in England by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had, from the first, good gifts, which he improved by study and attention in the most exemplary manner.

3. He slept in a stable-generally on horseback-and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off, unmolested, with the dog's dinner from before his face.

4. He was rapidly rising in acquirements and virtues, when in an evil hour his stable was newly painted. He observed the workmen closely, saw that they were careful of the paint, and immediately burned to possess it. On their going to dinner he ate up all they had left behind, consisting of a pound or two of white-lead; and this youthful indiscretion terminated in death.

5. While I was yet inconsolable for his loss another friend of mine, in Yorkshire, discovered at a village public-house an older and more gifted raven, which he prevailed upon the landlord to part with for a consideration, and sent up to me.

6. The first act of this sage was to administer on the effects of his predecessor, by disinterring all the cheese and halfpence he had buried in the garden—a work of immense labor and research, to which he devoted all the energies of his mind.

7. When he had achieved this task he applied himself to the acquisition of stable-language, in which he soon became such an adept that he would perch outside my window, and drive imaginary horses with great skill all day.

8. Once I met him unexpectedly, about half a mile off, walking down the middle of the public street, attended by a pretty large

crowd, and spontaneously exhibiting the whole of his accomplishments. His gravity under these trying circumstances I never can forget, nor the extraordinary gallantry with which, refusing to be brought home, he defended himself behind a pump, until overpowered by numbers.

9. It may have been that he was too bright a genius to live long, or it may have been that he took some pernicious substance into his bill, and thence into his maw; which is not improbable, seeing that he prepared the greater part of the garden-wall for new-pointing by digging out the mortar, broke countless squares of glass by scraping away the putty all round the frames, and tore up and swallowed, in splinters, the greater part of a wooden staircase of six steps and a landing.

10. But, after some years he too was taken ill, and died before the kitchen-fire. He kept his eye to the last upon the meat as it roasted, and suddenly turned over on his back, with a sepulchral cry of "Cuckoo!" Since then I have been ravenless.

IV. THE PUZZLED SWINE.

1. A western farmer was much annoyed by an unruly swine that repeatedly broke into his corn-field. How the animal gained entrance was a mystery. Search was instituted; neither break nor hole was found in the fence; but, nevertheless, night after night the pig continued to be a trespasser.

2. The owner resolved to watch. Posting himself at night in a fence-corner, he saw the animal enter one end of a huge hollow log which lay partly outside and partly within the field, and emerge at the other end which lay within the enclosure.

3. "I have you now, my cunning fellow," exclaimed the farmer, after ejecting the trespasser. The log happened to be very crooked; and the farmer proceeded to turn it, so that both ends opened outside of the field.

4. The next day the animal was seen to enter at the accustomed place, and shortly emerge again. Ludicrous was his astonishment at finding himself on the same side whence he had started. He looked first this way and then that, as if to study out the mystery, grunted his dissatisfaction, and finally returned to the original starting-place. After a deliberate survey of matters, to make sure that all was right, he again entered the log.

5. Emerging again on the wrong side of the fence, the puzzled swine evinced more surprise than before, and turning about retraced the log in an opposite direction. This effort was also in vain. With an angry expression of dissatisfaction, he turned short round, and started off in a brisk run; and no coaxing or driving could ever after induce him to visit that part of the field.

GOODRICH'S FIFTH READER.

373

appertained to him, showed him to be no match for Guy de Montfort and so it proved.

4. They met, and Sir Guy's lance at the first tilt penetrated the corselet of the brave young knight and entered his heart. As he rolled upon the ground, his casque flew off, and a shower of sunny curls fell over his fair young face and neck.

5. Soon the strange news went thrilling from heart to heart that the youthful knight who had kissed the dust beneath the sharp steel of De Montfort, was a maiden! and none other than the beautiful, high-spirited Agnes St. Bertrand, whose father Sir Guy had killed, but a few months before, in a combat to which he had been the challenger.

6. By order of the king the tournament was suspended, and gallant knights and ladies gay went back to their homes in soberer mood than when they came forth.

7. Alone in his castle, with the grim faces of his ancestors looking down upon him from the wall, Sir Guy paced to and fro with hurried steps. The Angel of Mercy was nearer to him than she had been for years, and her whispers were distinctly heard. Glory and fame were forgotten by the knight, for self was forgotten.

To

8. The question -a strange question for him "What good?” arose in his mind. He had killed St. Bertrand,—but why? add another leaf to his laurels as a brave knight. But was this leaf worth its cost-the broken heart of the fairest and loveliest

maiden in the land? nay, more- -the life-drops from that broken

heart?

9. For the first time the flush of triumph was chilled by a remembrance of what the triumph had cost him. Then came a shudder as he thought of the long succession of his victims. - of the lonely widow who drooped in her desolate castle-of the wild pang that snapped the heart-string of the young bride when she saw the battle-ax go crashing into her husband's brain-of the beautiful betrothed, once so happy in her love, but now a shrieking maniacand last, of her whose freshly-bleeding form ended the mournful procession, of Agnes St. Bertrand!

10. As these sad images came up before the knight his pace grew more rapid, and his brows, upon which large beads of sweat were standing, were clasped between his hands with a gesture of agony. Remorse had entered his soul.

11. "And what for all this?" he murmured. "What for all this? Am I braver or better or happier for all this bloody work? Surely all is vanity."

12. Through the long night he paced the hall of his castle; but with daydawn he rode forth alone. The sun arose and set; the seasons came and went; years passed; but the knight returned not.

LESSON CCXXXVIII.

EN'ER-GY, power to accomplish effects. | RE-CLUSE', a hermit who lives in retireMYR'I-AD, ten thousand, any immense number.

PULSE, the sceds of pod-bearing plants, as beans or peas.

ment.

SE-CLU'SION, state of separation frem society.

UT'TER-ANCE, expression in words.

PRONUNCIATION.- Na'ked 33, beau'ti-ful 18, en'er-gies 9, bless ́ed 33, noʻblest 32c, wil'der-ness le.

THE KNIGHT, THE HERMIT, AND THE MAN.

PART SECOND -THE HERMIT.

1. FAR from the busy scenes of life dwelt a pious recluse, who in prayer, fasting, and various forms of penance, sought to find repose for his troubled conscience. His food was pulse, and his drink the pure water that went sparkling in the sunlight past his hermitage in the wilderness.

2. Now and then a traveler who had lost his way, or an eager hunter in search of game, met this lonely man in his deep seclusion. To such he spoke eloquently of the vanities of life, and of the wisdom of those who, renouncing these vanities, devote themselves to God; and they left him, believing the hermit to be a wise and happy man.

3. But they erred. Neither prayer nor penance filled the aching void that was in his bosom. If he was happy, it was a happiness for which none need have felt an envious wish; if he was wise, his wisdom partook more of the selfishness of this world than of the holy benevolence of the next.

4. The days came and went; the seasons changed; years passed; and still the hermit's prayers went up at morning, and the setting sun looked upon his kneeling form. His body was bent, though not with age; his long hair whitened, but not with the snows of many winters. Yet all availed not. The solitary one found not in prayer and penance that peace which passeth all understanding.

5. One night he dreamed in his cell that the Angel of Mercy came to him, and said: "It is in vain,—all in vain! Art thou not a man, to whom power has been given to do good to thy fellow-man? Is the bird on the tree, the beast in his lair, the worm that crawls upon the earth, thy fellow? Not by prayer, not by meditation, not by penance, is man purified; not for these are his iniquities

washed out.

6. "Well done, good and faithful servant.' These are the divine words thou hast not yet learned. Thou callest thyself God's servant; but where is thy work? I see it not. Where are the hungry thou hast fed?. the naked thou hast clothed?. the sick and the

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prisoner who have been visited by thee? They are not here in the wilderness!"

7. The angel departed, and the hermit awoke. It was midnight. From the bending heavens beamed down myriads of beautiful stars. The dark and solemn woods were still as death, and there was no sound on the air save the clear music of the singing rill as it went on happily with its work, even in the darkness.

8. "Where is my work?" murmured the hermit as he stood with his hot brow uncovered in the cool air. "The stars are moving in their courses; the trees are spreading forth their branches and rising to heaven; and the stream flows on to the ocean; but I, superior to all these-I, gifted with a will, an understanding, and active energies-am doing no work! Well done, good and faithful servant!' Those blessed words can not be said of me."

9. Morning came, and the hermit saw the bee at its labor, the bird building its nest, and the worm spinning its silken thread. "And is there," said he, "no work for me, the noblest of all created things?"

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10. The hermit knelt in prayer, but found no utterance. Where was his work? He had none to bring but evil work. He had harmed his fellow-men,- but where was the good he had done? Prayers and penitential deeds wiped away no tear from the fed not the hungry-clothed not the naked. 11. "De Montfort, it is in vain! there must be charity as well as piety!" Thus murmured the hermit, as he arose from his prostrate attitude. When night came the hermit's cell, far away in the deep, untrodden forest, was tenantless.

LESSON CCXXXIX.

CHARGER, & war horse.
CLOISTER, a monastery, or place of se-
clusion for religious persons.
DEV-O-TEE', a person superstitiously de-
voted to religion.

IN-FECT'ED, tainted with disease.

KNIGHT-ER RANT, a knight who wanders about the world in search of adventure.

MAILED, clad in armor.

MIN'IS-TER, to afford help and relief.
PLAGUE, a fatal contagious disease.

PRONUNCIATION.-Hund'reds 11, ere 33, in'no-cent 2d, stranger 34.

THE KNIGHT, THE HERMIT, AND THE MAN.

PART THIRD THE MAN.

1. A FEARFUL plague raged in a great city. In the narrow streets where the poor were crowded together the hot breath of the pestilence withered up hundreds in a day. Those not struck down fled and left the suffering and the dying to their fate.

Terror ex

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