Who on her ruin'd throne is seen With hectic cheek, and withering eye, In desolated majesty, He mourn'd, -till Memory's flowrets sigh'd, FILIAL DUTY. "HONOR thy father and thy mother," is the first commandment, with promise. The honor which children are required to give to their parents includes in it, love, reverence, obedience, and relief, if needed. From them, they have received their very existence, and consequently all the pleasures and enjoyments of life. The occasion which demands from children the greatest tokens of respect and tenderness in their behaviour to their parents, is when they labor under infirmities of body or mind, and in the time of extreme old age. "Me let the tender office long engage To rock the cradle of declining age, With lenient arts extend a parent's breath, Make languor smile, and smooth the bed of death; Explore the thought, explain the asking eye, And keep awhile a parent from the sky." Shall we our servitude retain, Because our sires have borne the chain? A general nod approved the cause, "When I had health and strength, like you The toils of servitude I knew. Now grateful man rewards my pains, And gives me all these wide domains. At will I crop the year's increase; My latter life is rest and peace. I grant, to man we lend our pains, He sows, he reaps the harvest's gain; We share the toil and share the pain." MORAL. Since every creature is decreed To aid each other's mutual need; To act the part by heaven assign'd. FRIENDSHIP. "Friendship's the wine of life; but friendship new Is neither strong nor sweet." Without friendship, life has no charm. The only things which can render friendship sure and lasting, are virtue, purity of manners, an elevated soul, and perfect integrity of heart. Lovers of virtue should have none but men of virtue for their friends; and on this point, the proof ought principally to turn; because where there is no virtue, there is no security that our honor, confidence and friendship will not be betrayed and abused. The necessary appendages of friendship are confidence and benevolence. THE VOYAGE OF THE PHILOSOPHERS. AN EASTERN ALLEGORY. THE celebrated Hiram, king of Tyre, was not only a patron of the arts, but a promoter of learning also. He founded seminaries, encouraged talent, and favored men of letters. In a simple state of society, the disputes of men arise out of questions of conduct; but, as they grow more learned and refined, they quarrel about matters of speculation. After the rights of property and the rules of duty are well ascertained, there is little opportunity for the exhibition of superior sagacity, except in the discussion of misty points of doctrine. Those, therefore, who are ambitious of display, leaving vulgar questions of right and wrong in action, to less ambitious minds, soar aloft into the diviner regions of doubt and abstraction. Thus it happened in Phoenicia. The principles of morality, embracing the social and religious duties, having been settled so that "the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein," the philosophers began to wrangle about subtle points of belief. Sundry questions were started relating to the destiny of the soul after death. The general notion of the future happiness of the virtuous and the misery of the wicked, was too easily comprehended, and too gen |