tomb will be a place where men in all coming time will resort, to bring away memorials from the sanctuary of the mighty dead. Patriotism, when it desponds, will go there, look, and live; factional strife and sectional jealousy will feel rebuked when they visit the last resting-place of him whose labors of a life-time were to transmit the blessings of life and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, which God ordained should first be made manifest in America.

13. The beams of the setting sun will fall with a mellowed light on the spot where the majestic form of WEBSTER molders back to dust, and where the anthem of the Puritan was heard as he came to build an altar to his God, and find a quiet tomb. May the worshiper of after-years approach that hallowed shrine with no empty offering of idle curiosity, no vain and soulless orison; but with grateful and devout homage may the pilgrim of another age journey with reverent adoration to that consecrated spot, and, arched upon its humble tablet, read, in that simple but significant epitaph, "I STILL LIVE!"*- the high, prophetic record of the last and sublimest victory of his life — that of the unblenching spirit over death.

14. The sun that illumined that planet of clay

Had sunk in the west of an unclouded day;

And the cold dews of death stood like diamonds of
light,

Thickly set in the pale, dusky forehead of Night:
From each gleamed a ray of that fetterless soul,
Which had bursted its prison, despising control,
And, careering above, o'er earth's darkness and
gloom,

Inscribed, 'I STILL LIVE,' on the arch of the tomb!

Last words of Daniel Webster.

15. The gleam of that promise shall brighten the page Of the prophet and statesman through each rolling

age.

He lives! prince and peasant shall join the acclaim:
No fortune can make him the martyr of Fame.

He lives! from the grave of the patriot Greek
Comes the voice of the dead, which, though silent.
shall speak;

Light leaps from the cloud which has deepened the gloom,

And flashes its glance on the arch of his tomb!

16. HE LIVES, ever lives, in the hearts of the free; The wing of his fame spreads across the broad sea; He lives where the banner of Freedom's unfurled; The pride of New England, the wealth of the world!

Thou land of the pilgrim! how hallowed the bed
Where thy patriot sleeps, and thy heroes have bled!
Let age after age in perennial bloom

BRAID THE LIGHT OF THY STARS ON THE ARCH
OF HIS TOMB."

LESSON CXLVI.

SCENERY OF PALESTINE.

REV. J. P. NEWMAN,

PRING is the most delightful season of the year in the Holy Land, whether to enjoy the pleasures of the climate, or to behold the magnificence of the scenery. Then the skies are bright, the air balmy, and the vernal sun lights up the landscape with a thousand forms of beauty.

Then sparkling fountains are unsealed, silver brooks go murmuring by, and wild cascades, leaping from their rocky hights, come dashing down the mountain-side, scattering in their descent wreaths of rainbow spray.

2. Then the valleys and the hills are clothed with verdure, the fields are green with grains and grasses, the fig and palm trees are in blossom, the almond, apricot, olive, and pomegranate are ripening, and the cypress, tamarisk, oak, walnut, sycamore, and poplar are decked with the clean, fresh foliage of a new year. The herds of camels and buffaloes are grazing on the meadows, the flocks of sheep and goats go gamboling up the mountain-sides. Then, in all the glens, on all the vast prairie-plains, and over all the highest mountains, are flowers blooming, anemones, oleanders, amaranths, arbutuses, poppies, hollyhocks, daisies, hyacinths, tulips, pinks, lilies, and roses, growing in unbounded profusion, delighting the senses, and transforming the land into a garden of flowers.

3. But whatever is beautiful in the scenery of Palestine is peculiar to the north. In the south there is a sameness of outline and of color that wearies the eye, and makes one sigh for variety: but, north of the mountains of Ephraim, the beholder is charmed with green plains and fertile valleys, with wooded dells and graceful hills, with rippling brooks and sylvan lakes, with leaping cascades and rushing rivers, with sublime chasms and profound ravines; and with lofty mountains, broken into beetling cliffs and craggy peaks, whose higher summits are capped with perpetual snows, and down whose furrowed sides rush a thousand torrents.

4. If the standard of landscape-beauty be the regular alternation of plain and mountain, as in Greece and Italy; the clean meadows, the well-made farms, and green hills,

as in France and England; or the continent-like prairies, the miniature seas, and multiform mountains of America,then the Land of Promise must yield the palm to those more highly-favored countries. But, if the combination of all these characteristics on a smaller scale constitutes the beautiful and grand in natural scenery, Palestine is not unworthily praised by the sacred writers for the variety and magnificence of its landscape.

5. Viewed from such a stand-point, the Holy Land is a world in miniature, possessing the three great terrene features of the globe, sea-board, plain, and mountain. Selected by Providence to be the medium of divine truth to men of all lands, it was necessary that the national home of the Bible-writers should open to their imaginations the most wonderful and varied of the works of the Creator.

6. Naturally inclined to express our admiration of the Deity in allusions to His wisdom and goodness displayed in Nature, we experience a unison of devotion with those who were the oracles of inspired truth to us in their sublime illustrations, drawn from the sea and land, the valleys and hills, the climate and fruits, and the beasts and birds, of the country that gave them birth. Had they dwelt at heart of Arabia, or

the poles, or on the equator, or in the on the banks of the Nile, they could not have given the same universality of expression to the message they were sent to announce. It is evidence of the presence of that all-wise Spirit, that the prophets and psalmists, the Savior and the apostles, drew their simplest, noblest figures from Nature, such as can not fail to arrest the attention of the untutored mind in every land, and inspire intellects of the highest culture with admiration.

7. Who among all the maritime nations of the earth can

fail to appreciate the Psalmist's description of his native sea, as from its shores, or from some mountain-top, he beheld its wonders? —“O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! in wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy riches so is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts.”* And who that has ever crossed the ocean, or witnessed a storm at sea, does not realize the perfection of his description?" They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; these see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep; for He commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind which lifteth up the waves thereof: they mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths; their soul is melted because of trouble; they reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' ends."†

8. The mountaineer feels that the Psalmist uttered

"What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed,"

when he describes, "The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the conies." The dweller at the poles is conscious of a fellow-feeling when he reads these sublime words," He giveth snow like wool; He scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes; He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before His cold?" The nomad of the desert finds his own country portrayed in the graphic allusions to a "dry and thirsty land where no water is," to the "shadow of a great rock in a weary land;" and feels himself kindred to the patriarchs in his predatory life.

9. They that dwell upon the equator comprehend that grand and terrific passage descriptive of the earthquake *Ps. civ. 24, 25. Ps. cvii. 23-27. Ps. civ. 18. § Ps. cxlvii. 16, 17.