word from his great discovery of galvanism. The story, as told, is as follows:-The physician had been preparing some frog-soup for his sick wife, and some of these animals were lying stripped of their skins. An assistant had accidentally touched the crural nerve of one of the animals with the point of a scalpel, in the neighborhood of a conductor of an electrical machine, when the limbs were immediately thrown into convulsions. Galvani supposed that the cause of this was, as he called it, "animal electricity;" but Volta and others corrected the error, and showed that it was due to chemical electricity, or Galvanism. POLIT CHOICE EXTRACTS. I. PERSONAL RELIGION. WEBSTER. TICAL eminence and professional fame fade away and die with all things earthly. Nothing of character is really permanent but virtue and personal worth. These remain. Whatever of excellence is wrought into the soul itself, belongs to both worlds. Real goodness does not attach itself merely to this life; it points to another world. Political or professional reputation can not last forever; but a conscience void of offense toward God and man is an inheritance for eternity. 2. Religion, therefore, is a necessary and indispensable element in any great human character. There is no living without it. Religion is the tie that connects man with his Creator, and holds him to His throne. If that tie be all sundered, all broken, he floats away, a worthless atom in the universe, its proper attractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, and its whole future nothing but darkness, desolation, and death. A man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the Scriptures describe, in such terse but terrific language, as living "without God in the world." Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the circle of all his duties, and out of the circle of all his happiness, and away, far, far away, from the purposes of his creation. II. THE BEAM OF DEVOTION. GEORGE P. MORRIS. 1. I NEVER could find a good reason Why sorrow unbidden should stay, Our cares would wake no more emotion, That leave scarce a ripple behind. 2. The world has a spirit of beauty, Which looks upon all for the best, To Providence leaves all the rest: Which lights us through life to its close, III. PROGRESS. Two principles govern the moral and intellectual world. One is perpetual progress, the other the necessary limitations to that progress. If the former alone prevailed, there would be nothing steadfast and durable on earth, and the whole of social life would be the sport of winds and waves. If the latter had exclusive sway, or even if it obtained a mischievous preponderancy, every thing would petrify or rot. The best ages of the world are always those in which the two principles are the most equally balanced. In such ages, every enlightened man ought to adopt both principles into his whole mind and conduct, and with one hand develop what he can, with the other restrain and uphold what he ought. IV. LOVE DUE TO THE CREATOR. G. GRIFFIN. 1. AND ask ye why He claims our love'? That watch in yonder darkening heaven! As when His angels first arrayed thee, Why man should love the Mind that made thee! 2. There's not a flower that decks the vale, There's not a beam that lights the mountain, There's not a hue that paints the rose, But in its use or beauty shows True love to us, and love undying. V. INFLUENCE OF GOLD. ADDISON. A MAN who is furnished with arguments from the mint, will convince his antagonist much sooner than one who draws them from reason and philosophy. Gold is a won derful clearer of the understanding. It dissipates every doubt and scruple in an instant; accommodates itself to the meanest capacities; silences the loud and clamorous, and brings over the most obstinate and inflexible. Philip of Macedon' was a man of most invincible reason in this way. He refuted by it all the wisdom of Athens, confounded their statesmen, struck their orators dumb, and, at length, argued them out of all their liberties. VI. INGRATITUDE. SHAKSPEARE. 1. BLOW, blow, thou winter wind, Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude: Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. 2. Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky, Thy sting is not so sharp As friend remembered not. VII. THE BIBLE. WAYLAND. THAT the truths of the Bible have the power of awakening an intense moral feeling in man, under every variety of character, learned or ignorant, civilized or savage, that they make bad men good, and send a pulse of healthful feeling through all the domestic, civil, and social relations, that they teach men to love right, to hate wrong, and to seek each other's welfare, as the children of one common Parent, that they control the baleful passions of the human heart, and thus make men proficient in the science of self-government, — and, finally, that they teach him to aspire after a conformity to a Being of infinite holiness, and fill him with hopes infinitely more purifying, more exalted, more suited to his nature, than any other which this world has ever known, are facts as incontrovertible as the laws of philosophy, or the demonstrations of mathematics. VIII. THE MOMENTS. J. L. EGGLESTON. 1. THE moments are little and unseen things; 2. O, list to the moments! though little they seem, They are bearing your bark on a swift, silent stream; |