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No vernal blooms their torpid rocks array,
But winter, lingering, chills the lap of May;
No zephyr fondly sues the mountain's breast,
But meteors glare, and stormy glooms invest.

8. Yet still, even here, content can spread a charm,
Redress the clime, and all its rage disarm.

Though poor the peasant's hut, his feasts though small
He sees his little lot the lot of all;

Sees no contiguous palace rear its head,

To shame the meanness of his humble shed;
No costly lord the sumptuous banquet deal,
To make him loathe his vegetable meal;
But calm, and bred in ignorance and toil,
Each wish contracting, fits him to the soil.

9. Cheerful at morn, he wakes from short repose,
Breathes the keen air, and carols as he goes;
With patient angle 'trolls the finny deep;

Or drives his venturous ploughshare to the steep;
Or seeks the den where snow-tracks mark the way,
And drags the struggling savage into day.
At night returning every labor sped,
He sits him down the monarch of a shed;
Smiles by his cheerful fire, and round surveys
His children's looks that brighten at the blaze;
While his loved partner, boastful of her hoard,
Displays her cleanly platter on the board;
And, haply, too, some pilgrim, thither led,
With many a tale repays the nightly bed.

10. Thus every good his native wilds impart,
Imprints the patriot passion on his heart;
And ev'n those hills, that round his mansion rise,
Enhance the bliss his scanty fund supplies:
Dear is that shed to which his soul conforms,
And dear that hill which lifts him to the storms;
And as a child, when scaring sounds molest,
Clings close and closer to the mother's breast,
So the loud torrent, and the whirlwind's roar,
But bind him to his native mountains more.
25 *

LESSON CXXVIII.

The Pleasures of Knowledge.

1. It may be easily demonstrated that there is an advantage in learning, both for the usefulness and the pleasure of it. There is something positively agreeable to all men-to all, at least, whose nature is not most grovelling and base— in gaining knowledge for its own sake. When you see any thing for the first time, you at once derive some gratification from the sight being new; your attention is awakened, and you desire to know more about it.

2. If it is a piece of workmanship, as an instrument, a machine of any kind, you wish to know how it is made; how it works; of what use it is. If it is an animal, you desire to know where it comes from; how it lives; what are its dispositions, and, generally, its nature and habits. You feel this desire, too, without at all considering that the machine or the animal may ever be of the least use to yourself practically; for, in all probability, you may never see them again.

3. But you have a curiosity to know all about them, because they are new and unknown. You accordingly make inquiries; you feel a gratification in getting answers to your questions; that is, in receiving information, and in knowing more; in being better informed than you were before. If you happen again to see the same instrument or animal, in some respects like, but differing in other particulars, you find it pleasing to compare them together, and to note in what they agree, and in what they differ.

4. Now, all this kind of gratification is of a pure and disinterested nature, and has no reference to any of the common purposes of life; yet it is a pleasure—an enjoyment. You are nothing the richer for it; you do not gratify your palate, or any other bodily appetite; and yet it is so pleasing that you would give something out of your pocket to obtain it, and would forego some bodily enjoyment for its sake.

5. The pleasure derived from science is exactly of the like nature, or rather it is the very same. For what has been just spoken of is in fact science, which, in its most comprehensive sense, only means knowledge, and in its ordinary sense means knowledge reduced to a system; that is,

arranged in a regular order, so as to be conveniently taught, easily remembered, and readily applied.

6. The practical uses of any science or branch of knowledge are undoubtedly of the highest importance; and there is hardly any man who may not gain some positive advantage in his worldly wealth and comforts, by increasing his stock of information. But there is also a pleasure in seeing the uses to which knowledge may be applied, wholly independent of the share we ourselves may have in those practical benefits.

7. It is pleasing to examine the nature of a new instrument, or the habits of an unknown animal, without considering whether or not they may ever be of use to ourselves or to any body. It is another gratification to extend our inquiries, and find that the instrument or animal is useful to man, even although we have no chance ourselves of ever benefiting by the information; as, to find that the natives of some distant country employ the animal in travelling;nay, though he have no desire of benefiting by the knowledge; as, for example, to find that the instrument is useful in performing some dangerous surgical operation.

8. The mere gratification of curiosity; the knowing more to-day than we knew yesterday; the understanding clearly what before seemed obscure and puzzling; the contemplation of general truths; and the comparing together of different things,—is an agreeable occupation of the mind; and, beside the present enjoyment, elevates the faculties above low pursuits, purifies and refines the passions, and helps our reason to assuage their violence.

Questions. Is the pleasure we experience in acquiring knowledge a gratification of the mind or the body? Which of these sources of enjoyment do we possess in common with the animals? Which affords the purest happiness? Do we consult our own interest, when we forego sensual enjoyment, as that experienced in eating and drinking, if we thereby add to the clearness and vigor of the mind? Is the mind immortal? Is it supposed to be made capable of endless improvement?

LESSON CXXIX.
Human Knowledge.

1. WHAT is human knowledge? It is the improvement of the spiritual principle in man.

cultivation and We are com

posed of two elements-the one a little dust, caught up from the earth, to which we shall soon return; the other, a spark of that divine intelligence, in which and through which we bear the image of the great Creator.

2. By knowledge, the wings of the intellect are spread; -by ignorance, they are closed and palsied; and the physical passions are left to gain the ascendancy. Knowledge opens all the senses to the wonders of creation; ignorance seals them up, and leaves the animal propensities unbalanced by reflection, enthusiasm, and taste.

the

3. To the ignorant man, the glorious pomp of day, sparkling mysteries of night, the majestic ocean, the rushing storm, the plenty-bearing river, the salubrious breeze, the fertile field, the docile animal tribes,-the broad, the various, the unexhausted domain of nature,—are a mere outward pageant, poorly understood in their character and harmony, and prized only so far as they minister to the supply of sensual wants.

4. How different the scene to the man whose mind is stored with knowledge! For him the mystery is unfolded, the veils lifted up, as, one after another, he turns the leaves of that great volume of creation, which is filled in every page with the characters of wisdom, power, and love; with lessons of truth the most exalted; with images of unspeakable loveliness and wonder; arguments of Providence; food for meditation; themes of praise.

5. One noble science sends him to the barren hills, and teaches him to survey their broken precipices. Where ignorance beholds nothing but a rough, inorganic mass, instruction discerns the intelligible record of the primal convulsions of the world; the secrets of ages before man was; the landmarks of the elemental struggles and throes of what is now the terraqueous globe. Buried monsters, of which the races are now extinct, are dragged out of deep strata, dug out of eternal rocks, and brought almost to life, to bear witness to the power that created them.

6. Before the admiring student of nature has realized all the wonders of the elder world, thus as it were re-created by science, another delightful instructress, with her microscope in her hand, bids him sit down and learn at last to know the universe in which he lives; and contemplate the limbs, the motions, the circulations of races of animals, disporting in their tempestuous ocean-a drop of water.

7. Then, while his whole soul is penetrated with admiration of the power which has filled with life, and motion, and sense, these all but non-existent atoms, oh, then let the divinest of the muses, let Astronomy approach, and take him by the hand; let her

"Come but keep her wonted state,
With even step, and musing gait,
And looks commercing with the skies,
Her rapt soul sitting in her eyes."

8. Let her lead him to the mount of vision; let her turn her heaven-piercing tube to the sparkling vault; through that, let him observe the serene star of evening, and see it transformed into a cloud-encompassed orb, a world of rugged mountains and stormy deeps; or behold the pale beams of Saturn, lost to the untaught observer amidst myriads of brighter stars, and see them expand into the broad disk of a noble planet, the seven attendant worlds,-the wondrous rings, a mighty system in itself, borne, at the rate of twentytwo thousand miles an hour, on its broad pathway through the heavens; and then let him reflect that our great solar system, of which Saturn and his stupendous retinue is but a small part, fills itself, in the general structure of the universe, but the space of one fixed star; and that the power, which filled the drop of water with millions of living beings, is present and active, throughout this illimitable creation! Yes, yes,

"The undevout astronomer is mad."

LESSON CXXX.

Character of Washington.

1. THE person of Washington was commanding, graceful, and fitly proportioned; his stature six feet, his chest broad and full, his limbs long and somewhat slender, but well shaped and muscular. His features were regular and symmetrical, his eyes of a light blue color, and his whole countenance, in its quiet state, was grave, placid, and benignant. When alone, or not engaged in conversation, he appeared sedate and thoughtful; but, when his attention. was excited, his eye kindled quickly, and his face beamed animation and intelligence.

2. He was not fluent in speech, but what he said was ap

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