7. But it displays in a most astonishing manner the grandeur of him who launched it into existence, and lighted it up, "by the breath of his mouth"; and it exhibits to all intelligences, a demonstration of his "eternal power and godhead." So that, although there were no bodies existing in the universe but those of the planetary system, they would afford an evidence of a power to which no limits can be assigned; a power which is infinite, universal, and uncontrollable.

LESSON CXXXII.

Ocean.

1. ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean,- roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ;
Man marks the earth with ruin, his control
Stops with the shore ; upon the
watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

2. His steps are not upon thy paths,
thy fields
Are not a spoil for him, thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth; there let him lay.

3. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

RELIGION,

4. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee,
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts; not so thou,
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, -
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow,
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

5. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed, in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime,-
The image of Eternity, the throne
Of the invisible; even from out thy slime

6. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers, they to me
Were a delight; and, if the freshening sea
Made them a terror, -'t was a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane,

-as I do here.

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

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LESSON CXXXIII. Religion in the People necessary to good Government.

1. Or all the dispositions and habits, which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity.

2. Let it be simply asked, where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths, which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice? And let us with caution indulge the supposition, that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect, that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.

3. It is substantially true, that virtue or, morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free gov ernment. Who, that is a sincere friend to it, can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?

4. Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened. Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all; religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous, and too novel, example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.

5. Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost by a steady adherence to it Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanen felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its

vices?

1.

LESSON CXXXIV. Power of the Soul.

LIFE in itself, it life to all things gives.
For whatsoe'er it looks on that thing lives, -

POWER OF THE SOUL.

Becomes an acting being, ill or good;
And, grateful to its Giver, tenders food

For the Soul's health, or, suffering change unblest,

Pours poison down to rankle in the breast.

As is the man, e'en so it bears its part,

And answers, thought to thought, and heart to heart.

277

You see,

2. Yes, man reduplicates himself.

In yonder lake, reflected rock and tree.
Each leaf at rest, or quivering in the air,
Now rests, now stirs, as if a breeze were there
Sweeping the crystal depths. How perfect all!
And see those slender top-boughs rise and fall;
The double strips of silvery sand unite
Above, below, each grain distinct and bright.

Thou bird, that seek'st thy food upon that bough,
Peck not alone; that bird below, as thou,
Is busy after food, and happy, too.
-They're gone! Both, pleased, away together flew.

3. And see we thus sent up, rock, sand, and wood,
Life, joy, and motion from the sleepy flood?
The world, O man, is like that flood to thee:
Turn where thou wilt, thyself in all things see
Reflected back. As drives the blinding sand
Round Egypt's piles, where'er thou tak'st thy stand,
If that thy heart be barren, there will sweep
The drifting waste, like waves along the deep,
Fill up the vale, and choke the laughing streams
That ran by grass and brake, with dancing beams,
Sear the fresh woods, and from thy heavy eye
Veil the wide-shifting glories of the sky,
And one, still, sightless level make the earth,
Like thy dull, lonely, joyless Soul, — a dearth.

4. The rill is tuneless to his ear who feels

No harmony within; the south wind steals
As silent as unseen amongst the leaves.
Who has no inward beauty, none perceives,
Though all around is beautiful. Nay more,
In nature's calmest hour he hears the roar

Of winds and flinging waves, puts out the light,
When high and angry passions meet in fight;

And, his own spirit into tumult hurled,
He makes a turmoil of a quiet world.
The fiends of his own bosom people air
With kindred fiends, that hunt him to despair.
Hates he his fellow-men? Why, then, he deems
"T is hate for hate; -as he, so each one seems.

5. Soul! fearful is thy power, which thus transforms
All things into its likeness; heaves in storms
The strong, proud sea, or lays it down to rest,
Like the hushed infant on its mother's breast,
Which gives each outward circumstance its hue,
And shapes all others' acts and thoughts anew,
That so, they joy, or love, or hate impart,
As joy, love, hate, holds rule within the heart.

LESSON CXXXV. The Voyage of Life.

1. "LIFE," says Seneca, "is a voyage, in the progress of which, we are perpetually changing our scenes. We first leave childhood behind us, then youth, then the years of ripened manhood, then the better and more pleasing part of old age." The perusal of this passage having excited in me a train of reflections on the state of man, the incessant fluctuations of his wishes, the gradual change of his disposition to all external objects, and the thoughtlessness with which he floats along the stream of time, I sank into a slumber amidst my meditations, and, on a sudden, found my ears filled with the tumult of labor, the shouts of alacrity, the shrieks of alarm, the whistle of winds, and the dash of

waters.

2. My astonishment for a time repressed my curiosity; but, soon recovering myself so far as to inquire whither we were going, and what was the cause of such clamor and confusion, I was told that we were launching out into the ocean of life; that we had already passed the straits of infancy, in which multitudes had perished, some by the weakness and fragility of their vessels, and more by the folly, perverseness, or negligence, of those who undertook to steer