5 -Thou bird, that seek'st thy food upon that bough, Is busy after food, and happy, tòo ; -They're gone! Bòth, pléased, away together flèw. And see we thus sent up, rock, sånd, and wood, And one, still, sightless level make the earth, The rill is túneless to his ear who feels He makes a turmoil of a quiet world: 30 With kindred fiends, that hunt him to despair. Sóul! fearful is thy power, which thus transforms All things into its likeness: heaves in storms 35 The strong, proud séa, or lays it down to rèst, Like the hushed infant on its mother's breast,Which gives each outward circumstance its húe, And shapes all others' acts and thoughts anew, That so, they joy, or love, or háte impart, 40 As joy, love, háte, holds rule within the heart. 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 LESSON XXV.-HYMN OF NATURE.-W. B. 0. PEABODY [To be marked for Inflections.] God of the earth's extended plains! Where man might commune with the sky: The tall cliff challenges the storm That lowers upon the vale below, God of the dark and heavy deep! The waves lie sleeping on the sands, Hath summon'd up their thundering bands God of the forest's solemn shade! When, side by side, their ranks they form God of the light and viewless air! Where summer breezes sweetly flow, The fierce and wintry tempests blow: How gloriously above us springs 5 10 15 God of the rolling orbs above! Thy name is written clearly bright, Or evening's golden shower of light. And every spark that walks alone, Her incense fires shall cease to burn; The beauty of the world below. LESSON XXVI.-UNIVERSAL DECAY.-GREENWOOD. [Marked for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections.*] We receive such repeated intimations of decay || in the world through which we are passing;-decline and change and loss, follow decline | and change | and loss I in such rapid succession, that we can almost catch the 5 sound of universal wàsting, and hear the work of desolátion going on busily around us. "The mountain | falling | cometh to nòught, and the rock | is removed out of his place. The waters | wear the stones, the things which grow out of the dust of the earth | are washed away, and 10 the hope of man | is destroyed." Conscious of our own instability, we look about for something to rèst on; but we look in vàin. The heavens and the earth | had a beginning, and they will have an end. The face of the world is changing, dáily and hourly. All animated 15 things grow old and die. The rocks | crumble, the trees fall, the leaves | fáde, and the grass withers. The clouds are flying, and the waters | are flowing awày from us. The firmest works of màn, too, are gradually giving 20 way, the ivy | clings to the mouldering tower, the brier * The learner having been conducted through the application of the rules for Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections, separately, will now be prepared to study and apply them in conjunction. hangs out from the shattered window, and the wall-flower springs from the disjointed stones. The founders | of these perishable works i have shared the same fáte | long agò. If we look back to the days of our ancestors, to the 5 mèn as well as the dwellings of former times, they become immediately associated in our imaginations, and only make the feeling of instability stronger and deeper than before. In the spacious domes, which once held our fáthers, the serpent | hisses, and the wild bird | scrèams. 10 The halls, which once were crowded with all that tàste and science and lábor | could procure,-which resounded with melody, and were lighted up with beauty, are buried by their own rùins, mocked | by their own desolation. The voice of merriment, and of wailing, the steps of the 15 busy and the idle | have ceased in the deserted courts, and the weeds choke the entrances, and the long grass || waves upon the hearth-stone. The works of art, the forming hand, the tombs, the very àshes they contained, are all gòne. 20 While we thus walk among the ruins of the pást, a sad feeling of insecurity | comes over us; and that feeling is by no means diminished when we arrive at home. If we turn to our friends, we can hardly speak to them I before they bid us farewell. We see them for a few mó25 ments and in a few moments more, their countenances are changed, and they are sent away. It matters not how near and dear they are. The ties which bind us together || are never too close to be pàrted, or too strong to be bròken. Tears were never known to move the king of 30 tèrrors; neither is it enough that we are compelled to surrender óne, or twó, or màny of those we love; for though the price is so great, we buy no favor with it, and our hold on those who remain is as slight as èver. The shadows all elude our grasp, and follow one an35 other down the valley. We gain no confidence, then, no feeling of security, by turning to our contémporaries and kindred. We know that the forms, which are breathing around us, are as shortlived and fleeting as those were, which have been dúst for centuries. The sensation of 40 vànity, uncèrtainty, and rúin, is equally stròng, whether we muse on what has long been pròstrate, or gaze on what is falling nów, or will fall ' so soon. If every thing which comes under our notice has endured for so short a time, and in so short a time | will be no more, we cannot say that we receive the least assúrance by thinking on ourselves. When a few more friends have left, a few more hopes | deceived, and a few 5 more changes | mócked us, "we shall be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb: the clods of the valley shall be sweet unto us, and every man shall fóllow us, as there are innumerable before us." All power I will have forsaken the strongest, and the loftiest will 10 be laid low, and every eye will be clòsed, and every voice 1 húshed, and every heart will have ceased its beating. And when we have gone ourselves, even our memories will not stay behind us lóng. A few of the near and dear || will bear our likeness in their bosoms, till they too have ar15 rived at the end of their journey, and entered the dark dwelling of unconsciousness. In the thoughts of others || we shall live only till the last sound of the bell, which informs them of our depárture, has ceased to vibrate in their ears. A stone, perhaps, may tell some wanderer 20 where we lie, when we came here, and when we went awày; but even that will soon refuse to bear us rècord: "time's effacing fingers" | will be busy on its surface, and at length will wear it smooth; and then the stone itself will sink, or crùmble, and the wanderer of 25 another age will pass, without a single call ' upon his sympathy, over our unheeded gràves. LESSON XXVII.-ETERNITY OF GOD.-GREENWOOD. [Marked for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections.] There is one Being to whom we can look | with a perfect conviction of finding that security, which nothing about us can give, and which nothing about us! can take away. To this Being | we can lift up our souls, 5 and on Him we may rèst them, exclaiming in the language of the monarch of Israel, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlásting to everlàsting Thou art GòD.” "Of old hast Thou laid the foun10 dations of the earth, and the heavens | are the work of Thy hands. They shall pérish, but Thou shalt endure; yea, all of them shall war old like a garment, as a vèsture shalt Thou change them, and they shall be |