THE MORAL CHANGE ANTICIPATED BY HOPE. 109 VIII. THE MORAL CHANGE ANTICIPATED BY HOPE. "THERE is no happiness which hope cannot promise, no difficulty which it cannot surmount, no grief which it cannot mitigate. It is the wealth of the indigent, the health of the sick, the freedom of the captive."-Brown's Lectures. "One thing is certain, that the greatest of all obstacles to the improvement of the world, is that prevailing belief of its improbability, which damps the exertions of so many individuals; and that in proportion as the contrary opinion becomes general, it realizes the event which it leads us to anticipate."-Stewart's Elements, vol. i. HOPE, when I mourn with sympathising' mind, The boundless fields of rapture yet to be; Where barbarous hordes on Scythian mountains roam From Guinea's coast to Sabir's dreary mines, Truth shall pervade the unfathomed darkness there, 1. Why sympathizing mind? 2. Meaning of rapture? 3. Why mazy plan? 4. Put this and the three following CAMPBELL. lines into the natural order, filling up ellipses, &c. 5. What is alluded to here? 6. State fully the meaning of the last line. IX. DAILY WORK. "THERE is no earthly thing more mean and despicable in my mind, than an English gentleman destitute of all sense of his responsibilities and opportunities, and only revelling in the luxuries of our high civilization, and thinking himself a great person."-Arnold. EXCELSIOR. No dread of toil have we or ours; We know our worth, and weigh our powers; Success to Trade! Success to Spade! And to the Corn that's coming in! His independence as a man. Who only asks for humblest wealth, By chimney nook, Or stroll at setting of the sun. The best of men These are the men we mean to be! 111 CHARLES MACKAY. 1. In what sense is dread of daily work 2. The object of the verb give? used here? X. EXCELSIOR.1 "BUT it boots not to look backwards. Forwards! forwards! forwards! should be one's motto."-Arnold. THE shades of night were falling fast, His brow was sad; his eye beneath, And like a silver clarion rung The accents of that unknown tongue, In happy homes he saw the light Excelsior! Try not the Pass!" the old man said; "O stay," the maiden said, " and rest "Beware the pine-tree's withered branch! This was the peasant's last Good-night, At break of day, as heavenward A traveller, by the faithful hound, There in the twilight cold and gray, LONGFELLOW. 1. Excelsior is a Latin word, meaning | brandy fastened round the neck, and "higher," and the moral of this poem is the same as Montgomery's " Aspirations of youth," p. 121. 2. What is the nominative to low ers? 3. "It is among the Alps that the monks of St. Bernard send out their noble dogs, with a small vessel of a cloak fastened round the body. These dogs find out the poor frozen traveller, perishing in the snow; the brandy is meant to give fresh life to him that drinks it; and the cloak to protect him from the cold. God bless the kind monks of St. Bernard !"-Peter Parley's Geography. KNOWLEDGE PROGRESSIVE. 113 XI. KNOWLEDGE PROGRESSIVE. "THE love of man to woman is less irresistible than the love that binds intellect to knowledge."--Bulwer. FIRED at first sight, with what the muse imparts, And the first clouds and mountains seem the last; POPE. XII. AMELIORATION AND THE FUTURE, MAN'S NOBLE TASKS. "As in ancient Rome, it was regarded as the mark of a good citizen, never to despair of the fortunes of the Republic, so the good citizen of the world, whatever may be the political aspect of his own times, will never despair of the fortunes of the human race, but will act upon the conviction that prejudice, slavery, and corruption must gradually give way to truth, liberty, and virtue; and that, in the moral world, as well as in the material, the farther our observations extend, and the longer they are continued, the more we shall perceive of order and of benevolent design in the universe."-Dugald Stewart. FALL, fall, ye mighty temples to the ground; Is the real exercise Of human nature's brightest power found. I |