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III. THE BIBLE.

Its varied adaptations contrasted.

1. Coeval with the infancy of time, it still remains, and widens in the circle of its intelligence. Simple as the language of a child, it charms the most fastidious taste'. Mournful as the voice of grief, it reaches to the highest pitch of exultation'. Intelligible to the unlearned peasant, it supplies the critic and the sage with food for earnest thought'.

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2. Silent and secret as the reproofs of conscience, it echoes beneath the vaulted dome of the cathedral, and shakes the trembling multitude. The last companion of the dying and destitute, it seals the bridal vow, crowns the majesty of kings. Closed in the heedless grasp of the luxurious and the slōthful, it unfolds its awful record over the yawning grave. Bright and joyous as the morning star to the benighted traveler, it rolls like the waters of the deluge over the path of him who willfully mistakes his way.-MRS. ELLIS.

IV. HOMER AND VIRGIL COMPARED.

1. Homer was the greater genius',-Virgil the better artist'; in the one, we most admire the man', in the other, the work'. Homer hurries us on with a commanding impetuosity; Virgil leads us with an attractive majesty'. Homer scatters with a generous profusion; Virgil bestows with a careful magnificence'. Homer, like the Nile', pours out his riches with a sudden overflow'; Virgil, like a river in its banks', with a constant stream`.

2. Homer is in his province when he is describing a battle or a multitude, a hero or a god; Virgil is never better pleased than when he is in his elysium, or copying out an entertaining picture: Homer's persons are most of them godlike and terrible; Virgil has scarce admitted into his poem any who are not beautiful, and has taken particular care to throw the most winning charms around his hero.-ADDISON.

V. COWPER AND THOMSON COMPARED.

In one mood of mind we love Cowper best; in another,

Thomson. Cowper sets nature before your eyes-Thomson before your imagination. There is a delightful distinctness in all the pictures of the bard of Olney-a glorious gloom or glimmer in most of those of the bard of Ednam'. Cowper paints trees-Thomson, woods. Thomson paints, in a few wondrous lines, rivers from source to sea, like the mighty Barampooter-Cowper, in many no very wondrous lines, brightens up one bend of a stream, or awakens our fancy to the murmur of some single waterfall.-PROFESSOR WILSON (Christopher North).

VI. CATILINE AND HIS CONSPIRATORS COMPARED WITH THE LOYAL ROMAN CITIZENS.

1. But, waving all other circumstances, let us balance the real situation of the opposing parties: from that we can form a true notion of how very low our enemies are reduced. Here, regard to virtue' opposes insensibility to shame'; here purity' opposes pollution'; integrity', injustice'; virtue', villainy'; resolution', rage'; dignity', defilement'; regularity', riot'.

2. On one side are ranged equity', temperance', courage', prudence', and every virtue'; on the other', iniquity', luxury', cowardice', rashness', with every vice'. Lastly, the struggle lies between wealth' and want'; the dignity', and the degeneracy' of reason; the force', and the frenzy of the soul; between well-grounded hope', and widely-extended despair. In such a strife, in such a struggle as this', even though the zeal of men were wanting', must not the immortal gods give such shining virtues the superiority over so great and such complicated vices'?-CICERO.

VII. RHETORIC AND LOGIC.

1. Language images forth the soul of man in all its states and conditions, and is the expression of his whole being.

RHETORIC employs the whole power of language, in its various forms, to image forth the soul of the orator, the

a CowPER, born in 1731, long resided at Olney, in Buckinghamshire, in England. THOMSON, one of the most popular of English poets, was born at Ednam, in Roxburghshire, in the year 1700.

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poet, or the elegant prose writer, for the combined purpose of conviction and persuasion.

2. LOGIC is contented with one principal form of language, namely, the Proposition, in its various uses. It formally lays down its premises, and with the rigor of a mathematical demonstration proceeds to the conclusion, to which it compels the cold assent of reason. Rhetoric looks at the form of a sentence that would satisfy Logic, and, rejecting it as tame and inexpressive, demands what is vivid and striking.

3. Logic calmly makes a statement, and says, “My will is that you should come." Rhetoric uses the language of demand, and says "Come!" Logic reasons, and coolly says, "Men are ungrateful." Rhetoric feels, and in the warmth of passion exclaims, “O the ingratitude of men!" Logic meekly says, "I wish to know who thou art." Rhetoric calls out in trumpet tones, "Who art thou!"

LESSON LI.

THE SUNSET LAND.

[Abridged from a volume entitled "The Sunset Land," by REV. JOHN TODD, of Pittsfield, Mass. In this Lesson California is all the more forcibly described by comparing it, antithetically, with its opposite in so many respects-New England. For the reading of antithetic clauses, see Rule VI., Notes, etc.; and also verse 9 on page 143.]

1. How different, in all respects, is California from our New England! Here, in New England', the winds hurry, and scurry, and change, often many times a day': there they unchangingly blow in one direction for six months, and then the opposite for six months. Here the earth rests in winter: there they have no winter, and her rest is in the summer.

2. Here we have storm, and heat, and cold: there they have no storms, nor rain in summer, and only rain in winter. Here our trees shed their leaves: there they wear their varnished covering the year round', while some of them, like the bronzed madrōna, shed their bark annually, and keep on their bright green, waxen leaves.

3. Here the woodpecker goes to the old tree and knocks, and wakes up the worm, and then pecks in and gets him:

there the woodpecker bores a thousand holes in the great pine-tree, into each of which he thrusts an acorn; and in the acorn the miller deposits her egg, and the woodpecker calls and takes it after it has become a good-sized worm. Here the owl lives in the hollow tree: there he burrows in the ground with the strange gray ground-squirrel, or in the hole of the rattlesnake, or in that of the prairie dog.

4. Here the elder is a bush: there I have seen it a tree whose trunk is a foot in diameter. Here the lemon-verbena is a flower-pot plant: there it is a bush nine feet high. Here the mustard-seed yields a small plant: there it is a tree, often seventeen feet high. Here we have a few grapevines in a grapery: there you will find five thousand acres in a single vineyard.

5. Here you will see a single oleander beautifying a single parlor: there you will find a hundred clumps in full blossom in a single yard, amid what looks like showers of roses. Here we make the Ethiopian calla bloom in the conservatory: there it blossoms in every grave-yard, and at the head of almost every grave.

6. Here we have the thick green turf on our soil: there they have no turf;-and not a dandelion, daughter of the turf, grows in all California. Here the sun paints the grass green: there he turns it brown. Here you see the farmer carefully housing his hay, and little patch of wheat: there he cuts no hay except to supply the cities, and reaps and threshes his wheat in the fields, and throws the bags down to lie all summer, sure that neither rain nor dew will hurt it. Here every thing is small: there the trees, and all the vegetable world, are so large that you are tempted to doubt the evidence of your senses.

7. In the summer, the valleys of California are so turned up to the sun, that every thing matures and ripens quickly and early. They gather their crops by the middle of May. Then the grass has dried up, all seeded, but still making rich pasture for the cattle, and there is no part of the year when the flocks fatten so fast as when they eat what we should call the dried-up grass in the fields,-good for nothing here, but full of seed and nourishment there.

8. From May to November there is neither rain nor dew in California; and as there are no clouds, so there is no thunder. The ground on the surface parches, and cracks, and wrinkles; and the earth rests till the fall rains. The beautiful green of field and meadow, of landscape, hill, and dale, which makes New England so lovely, is all gone. You must wait till the next winter, when we are covered with snow, to see their creation all fresh and green. February is their month of beauty and of glory, as June is ours.

9. In the great central valley of California the fig yields her three crops a year;-and there the pomegranate and the almond, the nectarine, the peach, the cherry, the apple, the pear, and, above all, the grape, have their home; and all grow with a rapidity, and bear with a profusion, that is almost beyond belief.

10. In the vast and lofty mountains of this "Sunset Land,” -in its bewitching valleys,—in its peculiarities of climate, -in the gorgeous drapery of its trees and flowers,—in the sleeping gold and silver yet unfound,-in the fertility of soil, and great wealth yet to come from it,-in its relations to the Orient, I see a future for this part of our land, great in results, wide in their reach, fearful for good or for evil to the human family, but all—all under the orderings of a God infinite in wisdom as in power.

LESSON LII.

EARTH AND HEAVEN.

Anonymous.

[We have an example, in this Lesson, of antithesis extended to contrasted views of subjects that are separately explained at some length, so that the antithesis is not fully seen until the whole has been read. The more immediate antithetic clauses are, "There is grief," "There is bliss';" and the two, however widely apart, are to be read as if they were in immediate juxtaposition.]

I. EARTH.

1. THERE is grief', there is grief', there is wringing of And weeping, and calling for aid; Thands', For sorrow hath summon'd her group, and it stands Round the couch where the sufferer is laid.

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