The mellow pomp of the rainbow woods

Was stirred by the sound of the rising floods;
And I knew by the cloud, by the wild wind's strain,
That Winter drew near, with his storms, again!

3. I stood by the ocean; its waters rolled

In their changeful beauty of +sapphire and gold;
And Day looked down with his radiant smiles,
Where the blue waves danced round a thousand isles;
The ships went forth on the trackless seas,

Their white wings played in the joyous breeze;
Their prows rushed on 'mid the parted foam,
While the wanderer was wrapped in a dream of home.

4. The mountain arose, with its lofty brow,

+

While its shadow lay sleeping in vales below;
The mist, like a garland of glory, lay
Where its proud hight soared in the air away;
The eagle was there, on his tireless wing,
And his shriek went up as an offering:
And he seemed in his sunward flight to raise
A chant of thanksgiving, a hymn of praise!

5. I looked on the arch of the midnight skies,
With its blue and unsearchable mysteries;
The moon, 'mid an eloquent multitude
Of unnumbered stars, her career pursued;
A charm of sleep on the city fell;

All sounds lay hushed in that brooding spell;
By babbling brooks were the buds at rest;
And the wild bird dreamed on his downy nest.

6. I stood where the deepening tempest passed;
The strong trees groaned in the sounding blast;
The murmuring deep with its wrecks rolled on;
The clouds o'ershadowed the mighty sun;
The low reeds bent by the streamlet's side,
And the hills to the thunder-peal replied;
The lightning burst forth on its fearful way,
While the heavens were lit in its red array!

7. And hath MAN the power, with his pride and skill,
To arouse all nature with storms at will?

Hath he power to color the summer cloud?
To allay the tempest, when hills are bowed?
Can he waken the spring with her festal wreath?
Can the sun grow dim by its lightest breath?
Will he come again, when death's vale is trod?
Who then shall dare murmur, "There is no God!"

W. G. CLARK.

LESSON CLXXXIV.

THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS.

1. MAN, the noblest work of God in this lower world, walks abroad through its labyrinths of grandeur and beauty, amid countless manifestations of creative power and providential wisdom. He acknowledges, in all that he beholds, the might that called them into being; the skill which perfected the harmony of the parts, and the benevolence which consecrated all to the glory of God and the welfare of his fellow creatures. He stands entranced on the peak of +Etna, or +Teneriffe, or +Montserrat, and looks down upon the far distant ocean, silent to his ear, and tranquil to his eye, amid the rushing of tempestuous winds, and the fierce conflict of stormy billows. He sits enraptured on the mountain summit, and beholds, as far as the eye can reach, a forest robe, flowing in all the varieties of graceful undulations, over declivity after declivity, as though the fabulous river of the skies were pouring its azure waves over all the landscape.

+

2. He hangs over the precipice, and gazes with awful delight on the savage glen, rent open as it were, by the earthquake, and black with lightning-shattered rocks; its only music the echoing thunder, the scream of the lonely eagle, and the tumultuous waters of the mountain torrent. He reclines, in pensive mood, on the hill-top, and sees around and beneath him, all the luxuriant beauties of field and meadow, of olive yard and vineyard, of wandering stream and grove-encircled lake. He descends to the plain, and amid waving harvests, verdant avenues, and luxuriant orchards, sees between garden and grass-plat, the farm-house, embosomed in +copse-wood or "tall ancestral trees." He walks through the valley, fenced in by barrier cliffs, to contemplate, with mild enthusiasm, its scenes of pastoral beauty; the cottage and its blossomed arbor, the shepherd and his flock, the clumps of oaks or the solitary willow. He enters the caverns buried far beneath the surface, and is struck with amazement at the grandeur and magnificence of a subterranean palace, hewn out as it were, by the power of the + Genii, and decorated by the taste of Armida, or of the Queen of the Fairies.

3. Such is the natural world; and such, for the most part, has it ever been, since men began to subdue the wilderness, to scatter the ornaments of civilization amid the rural scenery of nature, and to plant the lily on the margin of the deep, the village on the hillside, and martial +battlements in the defiles of the mountains.

+

Such has been the natural world, whether beheld by the eye of savage or barbarian, of the civilized or the refined. Such has it been, for the most part, whether contemplated by the harpers of Greece, the bards of Northern Europe, or the voluptuous minstrels of the Troubadour age. Such it was, when its beauties, like scattered stars, beamed on the page of classic lore; and such, when its "sunshine of picture" poured a flood of meridian splendor on modern literature. Such is the natural world to the ancient and the modern, the pagan and the christian.

4. Admirable as the natural world is for its sublimity and beauty, who would compare it, even for an instant, with the sublimity and beauty of the moral world? Is not the soul, with its glorious destiny and its capacities for eternal happiness, more awful and majestic than the boundless Pacific or the interminable Andes? Is not the mind, with its thoughts that wander through eternity, and its wealth of intellectual power, an object of more intense interest, than forest, or cataract, or precipice? And the heart, so eloquent in the depth, purity, and pathos of its affections, can the richest scenery of hill and dale, can the melody of breeze, and brook, and bird, rival it in loveliness?

5. The same God is the author of the invisible and visible world. The moral grandeur and beauty of the world of man, are equally the productions of his wisdom and goodness, with the fair, the sublime, the wonderful in the physical creation. What, indeed, are these, but the outward manifestations of his might, skill, and benevolence? What are they but a glorious volume, forever speaking to the eye and ear of man, in the language of sight and sound, the praises of its author? And what are those but images, faint and imperfect as they are, of his own incomprehensible attributes? What are they, the soul, the mind, the heart of an immortal being, but the temple of the holy Spirit; the dwellingplace of him whom the Heaven of Heavens can not contain, who inhabiteth eternity? How then can we compare, even for a moment, the world of nature with the world of man?

GRIMKE.

LESSON CLXXXV.

ADVANTAGES OF A WELL CULTIVATED MIND.

1. How much soever a person may be engaged in pleasures, or + encumbered with business, he will certainly have some moments to spare for thought and reflection. No one, who has observed how heavily the vacuities of time hang upon minds unfurnished

with images, and unaccustomed to think, will be at a loss to make a just estimate of the advantages of possessing a copious stock of ideas, of which the combination may take a multiplicity of forms, and be varied to infinity.

2. Mental occupations are a pleasing relief from bodily exertions, and from that perpetual hurry and wearisome attention, which, in most of the employments of life, must be given to objects which are no otherwise interesting than as they are necessary. The mind, in an hour of leisure, obtaining a short vacation from the perplexing cares of this world, finds, in its own contemplations, a source of amusement, of solace, and of pleasure. The tiresome attention that must be given to an infinite number of things, (which, singly and separately taken, are of little moment, but, collectively considered, form an important taggregate,) requires to be sometimes relaxed by thoughts and reflections of a more general and extensive nature, and directed to objects, of which the examination may open a more spacious field of exercise to the mind, give scope to its exertions, expand its ideas, present new combinations, and exhibit to the intellectual cye, images, new, various, sublime, or beautiful.

The young

3. The time of action will not always continue. ought always to have this consideration present to their mind, that they must grow old, unless prematurely cut off by sickness or accident. They ought to contemplate the certain approach of age and decrepitude, and consider that all temporal happiness is of uncertain acquisition, mixed with a variety of alloy, and in whatever degree attained, only of short and precarious duration. Every day brings some disappointment, some diminution of pleasure, or some prostration of hope; and every moment brings us nearer to that period, when the present scenes shall recede from view, and future prospects can not be formed.

4. This consideration displays, in a very interesting point of view, the beneficial effects of furnishing the mind with a stock of ideas that may amuse it in leisure, accompany it in solitude, dispel the gloom of melancholy, lighten the pressure of misfortune, dissipate the vexation arising from baffled projects, of disappointed hopes, and relieve the tedium of that season of life, when new acquisitions can no more be made, and the mind can no longer flatter and delude us with its illusory hopes and promises.

+

5. When life begins, like a distant landscape, gradually to disappear, the mind can receive no solace, but from its own ideas and reflections. Philosophy and literature, a knowledge of the works of God and of the laws which govern the material and intellectual world, will then furnish us with an inexhaustible source of the most agreeable amusements, which, if blended with the sustaining

power of our divine religion, will render old age as happy, as youth was joyous.

6. The man of letters, when compared with one that is illiterate, exhibits nearly the same contrast as that which exists between a blind man, and one that can see; and, if we consider how much literature enlarges the mind, and how much it multiplies, adjusts, + rectifies, and arranges the ideas, it may well be reckoned equivalent to an additional sense. It affords pleasures which wealth can not procure, and which poverty can not entirely take away. A well cultivated mind places its possessor beyond the reach of those trifling vexations and disquietudes, which continually harass and perplex those who have no resources within themselves; and, in some measure, elevates him above the smiles and frowns of fortune.

BIGLAND.

LESSON CLXXXVI.

THE WILL.

Characters.-SWIPES, a brewer; CURRIE, a saddler; FRANK MILLINGTON, and 'SQUIRE DRAWL.

Swipes. A sober occasion, this, brother Currie. Who would have thought the old lady was so near her end?

Currie. Ah! we must all die, brother Swipes; and those who live longest, out live the most.

Had

Swipes. True, true; but since we must die and leave our earthly possessions, it is well that the law takes such good care of us. the old lady her senses when she departed?

Cur. Perfectly, perfectly. 'Squire Drawl told me she read every word of the will aloud, and never signed her name better.

Swipes. Had you any hint from the 'Squire, what disposition sho made of her property?

Cur. Not a whisper; the 'Squire is as close as an under-ground tomb: but one of the witnesses hinted to me, that she had cut off her graceless nephew, Frank, without a shilling.

Swipes. Has she, good soul, has she? You know I come in, then, in right of my wife.

Cur. And I in my own right; and this is no doubt the reason why we have been called to hear the reading of the will. 'Squire Drawl knows how things should be done, though he is as air-tight as one of your beer-barrels. But here comes the young reprobate. He must be present, as a matter of course, you know. [Enter FRANK MILLINGTON.] Your servant, young gentleman. So your benefactress has left you, at last.

Swipes. It is a painful thing to part with old and good friends. Mr. Millington.