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selves, you will have a proper regard paid you by those to whom, if you are not respectable, you will be contemptible. But if we have already forgotten the reason that urged us, with unexampled unanimity, to exert ourselves two years ago-if our zeal for the public good is worn out before the homespun clothes, which it caused us to have made—if our resolutions are so faint, as by our present conduct to condemn our own late successful example-if we are not affected by any reverence for the memory of our ancestors, who transmitted to us that freedom in which they had been blessed -if we are not animated by any regard for posterity, to whom, by the most sacred obligations, we are bound to deliver down the invaluable inheritance-then, indeed, any minister-or any tool of a minister-or any creature of a tool of a minister-or any lower instrument of administration, if lower there be, is a personage whom it may be dangerous to offend.

THE MAJESTY OF LAW.

Extract from an Address delivered before the Law Academy of Philadelphia, at the opening of the Session of 1826-7. By JOSEPH HOPKINSON, LL.D. Vice Provost of the Academy.

How imposing is the majesty of law! how calm her dignity; how vast her power; how firm and tranquil her reign! It is not by arms and fleets, by devastation and blood, by oppression and terror, she maintains her sway, and executes her decrees;-sustained by Justice, Reason, and the great interests of man she but speaks and is obeyed.

Even those who may not approve, hesitate not to support her; and the individual on whom her judgment falls, knows that submission is not only a duty he must perform, but that the enjoyment and security of all that is dear to him depend upon it.

A mind accustomed to acknowledge no power but physical force, no obedience but personal fear, must view with astonishment a feeble individual, sitting with no parade of strength; surrounded by no visible agents of power; issuing his decrees with oracular authority; while the great and the rich, the first and the meanest, await alike to perform his will.

Still more wonderful is it to behold the co-ordinate officers of the same government, yielding their pretensions to his higher influence. The executive, the usual depository and instrument of power; the legislature, the very representative of the people, give a respectful acquiescence to the judgments of the tribunals of the law, pronounced by the minister and expounder of the law. It is enough for him to say, "It is the opinion of the court,' and the remotest corner of our republic feels and obeys the mandate. What a sublime spectacle! this is indeed the empire of the law; and safe and happy are those who dwell within it.

THE END OF THE WORLD.-Tzschirner.

THERE has been a time when our planet could not sustain beings of our species; and once again the time will come, when it will cease to be the dwelling-place of mankind, and will either assume a new form, or disappear from the rank of stars.

The earth bears in its bosom destroying powers; and bodies float around and near it, which threaten its dissolution. Therefore, thou wilt not subsist forever, thou cradle of our race; thou land of blessing and cursing; thou grave full of joy and life; thou paradise full of pain and death; thou scene for thousands of years of our wisdom and folly, our virtues and vices. No, thou canst not last forever! Thou thyself also, like everything that thou bearest, must obey thy law, the law of mutability and destruction.

Possibly thou mayst continue thy course for thousands of years longer with strength and gladness, attended by thy moon and led by thy shining sun. Possibly thou mayst still for thousands of years maintain the succession of days and nights, summer and winter, in invariable order, and see the generations of man come and go.

Finite art thou, and transitory-as thy children are finite and transitory. For that which is created is not eternal and imperishable, as the Creator is eternal and immutable. For thee also a limit is fixed. Even thy long day will decline. He that formed thee will change thee: he that created thee will destroy thee; even thy strength shall decay; even thy

structure shall fall into ruins; even thy law and thy order shall be no more.

On all sides, wherever we turn our eyes, we are met by images of decay. History is a large silent field, covered with ruins and graves. What we bear in the memory is past and gone. What we built we see totter; and in the humiliating feeling of diminished and wasting energy of life, the sad idea of approaching dissolution often occurs. But we are never more forcibly affected by the feeling of the vanity of worldly things, than when we transport ourselves in imagination to the day of the falling world, and hover, as it were, over the ruins of our destroyed planet.

The earth has now filled the measure of its years, and its time is come; the conflict of the elements begins, and in the mighty struggle all the works of men perish, and the last of our race are buried under the ruins of falling palaces and cottages; and not only the works of men, but the works of nature also come to an end; the barriers of beach and shore are broken through; the mountains, thousands of years old, bend their heads; all life stiffens; the beautiful structure of plants and animals is resolved into rough matter; the powers of destruction rule, wild and lawless. And now the conflict is ended; now the earth is again waste and void, and darkness is on the face of the deep.

THE SAME SUBJECT.

We must turn from the vanity of worldly things to Him that is Eternal and Imperishable; and never is he present to our souls in a more lively manner, than when we look up to him from the midst of images of destruction.

Yes, the sense of the vanity of everything temporal and earthly, which springs from the thought of the perishing world, leads us to God, the Eternal and Imperishable; and, whilst our contemplation is directed from the world which passeth away to the everlasting Creator, it is as if we were borne by a higher power over a waving sea and an unsteady ground, to a safe rock. For the Eternal and Immutable is our Lord and Father, and has poured into our being a ray

of his light, which is never extinguished-the power to know and love him.

When we are conscious of this power, and look up to Him in whose sight a thousand years are as yesterday, we feel the full signification of the important words, 'The world passeth away, and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.'

With the sense of the vanity of worldly things there springs likewise, from the thought of the end of the world, a sense of our dependence on God. Everything, indeed, our origin and our end, what we know and what we attempt, reminds us of our limits, and thereby brings us to a feeling of our dependence on a superior power.

But nothing can awaken this feeling more forcibly, than the thought of Him, who, as he of old laid the foundations of the earth and stretched out the heavens, will again fold the heavens together as a garment, and will shake the strong places of the earth. God spake once, Let there be light, and there was light.' Once again he will say, Let there be darkness, and darkness shall prevail; for he speaks the word, and it is done; he commandeth, and it standeth fast.'

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This sublime thought of the Almighty Lord of the universe occurs to us, when we consider either the beginning or the end of the things of this world; and then he appears before us, great, majestic, and awe-inspiring, the Lord of lords, and King of kings, in his might and splendour.

THE RESPECT DUE TO ALL MEN.-Fawcett.

LET those, whose riches have purchased for them the page of knowledge, regard with respect the native powers of them to whose eyes it has never been unrolled. The day labourer, and the professor of science, belong naturally to the same order of intelligences. Circumstances and situation have made all the difference between them. The understanding of one has been free to walk whither it would: that of the other has been shut up, and deprived of the liberty of ranging the fields of knowledge. Society has condemned it to the dungeon of ignorance, and then despises it for being in the dark.

There have been multitudes that would have added to the sum, or have embellished the form of human knowledge, if their youth had been taught the rudiments, and their life allowed them leisure to prosecute the pursuit of it. The attention, that would have been crowned with splendid successes in the inquiry after truth, has all been expended in the search after bread. The curiosity, that would have pene-trated to the secrets of nature, explored the recesses of mind, and compassed the records of time, has been choaked by the cares of want. The fancy, that would have glowed with a heat divine, and made a brilliant addition to the blazing thoughts and burning words of the poetical world, has been chilled and frozen by the cold winds of poverty.

Many an one, who cannot read what others wrote, had the knowledge of elegant letters been given him, would himself have written, what ages might read with delight. He that ploughs the ground, had he studied the heavens, might have understood the stars as well as he understands the soil. Many a sage has lain hid in the savage, and many a slave was made to be an emperor.

Blood, says the pride of life, is more honourable than money. Indigent nobility looks down upon untitled opulence. This sentiment, pushed a little farther, leads to the point I am pursuing. Mind is the noblest part of the man; and of mind, virtue is the noblest distinction.

Honest man, in the ear of wisdom, is a grander name, is a more high-sounding title, than peer of the realm, or prince of the blood. According to the eternal rules of celestial precedency, in the immortal heraldry of nature and of heaven, virtue takes place of all things. It is the nobility of angels! It is the majesty of God!

SPEECH OF CATILINE IN THE ROMAN SENATE, ON HEARING HIS SEN TENCE OF BANISHMENT.--Croly.

BANISHED from Rome! what's banished, but set free From daily contact of the things I loathe?

'Tried and convicted traitor!'-Who says this?

Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my

head?

Banished? I thank you for 't. It breaks my chain!

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