tions in which thy youthful hours are passed, renounce not, for all that life can offer thee in exchange, these solitary joys. The world which is before thee,-the world which thine imagination paints in such brightness, has no pleasures to bestow which can compare with these: and all that its boasted wisdom can produce has nothing so acceptable in the sight of heaven, as this pure offering of thy infant

soul.

In these days," the Lord himself is thy Shepherd, and thou dost not want. Amid the green pastures, and by the still waters" of youth, he now makes "thy soul to repose." But the years draw nigh, when life shall call thee to its trials; the evil days are on the wing, when "thou shalt say thou hast no pleasure in them;" and, as thy steps advance, "the valley of the shadow of death opens," through which thou must pass at last. It is then thou shalt know what it is to "remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth." In these days of trial or of awe, "his spirit shall be with thee," and thou shalt fear no ill; and, amid every evil which surrounds thee, "he shall restore thy soul. His goodness and mercy shall follow thee all the days of thy life;" and when, at last, "the silver cord is loosed," thy spirit shall return to the God who gave it, and thou shalt dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

LESSON XXX.

On the Swiftness of Time.-DR. JOHNSON.

THE natural advantages, which arise from the position of the earth which we inhabit, with respect to the other pla nets, afford much employment to mathematical speculation. by which it has been discovered, that no other conformation of the system could have given such commodious distributions of light and heat, or imparted fertility and pleasure to so great a part of a revolving sphere.

It may be, perhaps, observed by the moralist, with equal reason, that our globe seems particularly fitted for the residence of a being, placed here only for a short time, whose task is to advance himself to a higher and happier state of existence, by unremitted vigilance of caution and activity of virtue.

The duties required of man are such as human nature does not willingly perform, and such as those are inclined to delay, who yet intend, some time, to fulfil them. It was, therefore, necessary, that this universal reluctance should be counteracted, and the drowsiness of hesitation wakened into resolve; that the danger of procrastination should be always in view, and the fallacies of security be hourly detected.

To this end all the appearances of nature uniformly con spire. Whatever we see, on every side, reminds us of the lapse of time and the flux of life. The day and night succeed each other; the rotation of seasons diversifies the year; the sun rises, attains the meridian, declines and sets; and the moon, every night, changes its form.

The day has been considered as an image of the year, and a year as the representation of life. The morning answers to the spring, and the spring to childhood and youth. The noon corresponds to the summer, and the summer to the strength of manhood. The evening is an emblem of autumn, and autumn of declining life. The night, with its silence and darkness, shows the winter, in which all the powers of vegetation are benumbed; and the winter points out the time when life shall cease, with its hopes and pleasures.

He that is carried forward, however swiftly, by a motion equable and easy, perceives not the change of place but by the variation of objects. If the wheel of life, which rolls thus silently along, passed on through undistinguishable uniformity, we should never mark its approaches to the end of the course. If one hour were like another; if the passage of the sun did not show that the day is wasting; if the change of seasons did not impress upon us the flight of the year,-quantities of duration, equal to days and years, would glide unobserved. If the parts of time were not variously coloured, we should never discern their departure or succession; but should live, thoughtless of the past, and careless of the fu ture, without will, and, perhaps, without power, to compute the periods of life, or to compare the time which is already lost with that which may probably remain.

But the course of time is so visibly marked, that it is even observed by the passage, and by nations who have raised their minds very little above animal instinct: there are human beings, whose language does not supply them with words by which they can number five, but I have read of none that have not names for day and night, for summer and winter.

Yet it is certain, that these admonitions of nature, how ever forcible, however importunate, are too often vain; and that many, who mark with such accuracy the course of time, appear to have little sensibility of the decline of life. Every man has something to do, which he neglects; every man has faults to conquer, which he delays to combat.*

So little do we accustom ourselves to consider the effects of time, that things necessary and certain often surprise us like unexpected contingencies. We leave the beauty in her bloom, and, after an absence of twenty years, wonder, at our return, to find her faded. We meet those whom we left children, and can scarcely persuade ourselves to treat them as men. The traveller visits, in age, those countries through which he rambled in his youth, and hopes for merriment at the old place. The man of business, wearied with unsatisfactory prosperity, retires to the town of his nativity, and expects to play away his last years with the comps ions of his childhood, and recover youth in the fields where he once was young.

From this inattention, so general and so mischievous, let it be every man's study to exempt himself. Let him that desires to see others happy, make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember, that every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his benefaction; and let him, who proposes his own happiness, reflect, that, while he forms his purpose, the day rolls on, and "the night cometh, when no man can work."

LESSON XXXI.

Lines written by one who had long been resident in India, on his return to his native country.-ANONYMOUS.

I CAME, but they had passed away-
The fair in form, the pure in mind;—

And, like a stricken deer, I stray

Where all are strange, and none are kind,-

Kind to the worn, the wearied soul,

That pants, that struggles, for repose.

O that my steps had reached the goal
Where earthly sighs and sorrows close'

* Pron. cum'-bat.

Years have passed o'er me, like a dream That leaves no trace on memory's page : I look around me, and I seem

Some relic of a former age. Alone, as in a stranger clime,

Where stranger voices mock my ear,
I mark the lagging course of time,
Without a wish,—a hope,--a fear!

Yet I had hopes-and they have fled;
And fears and they were all too true;
My wishes too-but they are dead;
And what have I with life to do?
'Tis but to wear a weary load

I may not, dare not, cast away;
To sigh for one small, still abode,
Where I may sleep as sweet as they,—

As they, the loveliest of their race, Whose grassy tombs my sorrows steep, Whose worth my soul delights to trace, Whose very loss 'tis sweet to weep,To weep beneath the silent moon,

With none to chide, to hear, to see: Life can bestow no greater boon

On one, whom death disdains to free.

I leave the world, that knows me not,
To hold communion with the dead;
And fancy consecrates the spot

Where fancy's softest dreams are shed.
I see each shade-all silvery white-
I hear each spirit's melting sigh;
I turn to clasp those forms of light,—
And the pale morning chills my eye.

But soon the last dim morn shall rise,— The lamp of life barns feebly now,-When stranger hands shall close my eyes, And smooth my cold and dewy brow. Unknown I lived; so let me die;

Nor stone, nor monumental cross, Tell where his nameless ashes lie,

Who sighed for gold, and found it dross.

LESSON XXXII.

"He shall fly away as a dream."-ANONYMOUS.

I DREAMED:—I saw a rosy child,

With flaxen ringlets, in a garden playing; Now stooping here, and then afar off straying, As flower or butterfly his feet beguiled.

'Twas changed; one summer's day I stepped aside,
To let him pass; his face had manhood's seeming,
And that full eye of blue was fondly beaming
On a fair maiden, whom he called his bride.

Once more; 'twas evening, and the cheerful fire
I saw a group of youthful forms surrounding,
The room with harmless pleasantry resounding,
And, in the midst, I marked the smiling sire.

The heavens were clouded-and I heard the tone
Of a slow-moving bell: the white-haired man had gone.

LESSON XXXIII.

The Journey of a Day,-A Picture of Human Life.DR. JOHNSON.

OBIDAH, the son of Abensina, left the caravansary early in the morning, and pursued his journey through the plains of Hindostan. He was fresh and vigorous with rest; he was animated with hope; he was incited by desire: he walked swiftly forward over the valleys, and saw the hills gradually rising before him.

As he passed along, his ears were delighted with the morning song of the bird of paradise; he was fanned by the last flutters of the sinking breeze, and sprinkled with dew by groves of spices: he sometimes contemplated the towering height of the oak, monarch of the hills; and sometimes caught the gentle fragrance of the primrose, eldest daughter of the spring all his senses were gratified, and all care was banished from his heart.