LESSON XCVIII.

CHOICE EXTRACTS.

I. HUMAN POWER.

He

1. Man conquers the sea and its storms. He climbs the heavens, and searches out the mysteries of the stars. harnesses the lightning. He bids the rocks dissolve, and summons the secret atoms to give up their names and laws. He subdues the face of the world, and compels the forces of the waters, and the fires, to be his servants.

2. He makes laws, hurls empires down upon empires in the fields of war, speaks words that can not die, sings to distant realms and peoples across vast ages of time; in a word, he executes all that is included in history, showing his tremendous energy in almost everything that stirs the silence, and changes the conditions of the world.

3. Everything is transformed by him. Not all the winds and storms and earthquakes and seas and seasons of the world have done so much to revolutionize the world as he has done since the day he came forth upon it, and received, by the Divine declaration, dominion over it.

Dr. Bushnell.

II. WORK, FAINT NOT.

1. There are times when a heaviness comes over the heart,

Who has not felt it? Plunge into it, put all

and we feel as if there was no hope. For this there is no cure but work. your energies into motion, rouse up the inner man, ACT, and this heaviness shall disappear as mist before the morning sun.

2. There arise doubts in the human mind which sink us into lethargy, wrap us in gloom, and make us think it were bootless to attempt anything. Who has not experienced them?

WORK! That is the cure.

Task your intellect, stir up your

feelings, rouse the soul, do, and these doubts, hanging like a heavy cloud upon the mountain, will scatter and disappear, and leave you in sunshine and open day.

3. There comes suspicion to the best of men, and fears about the holiest efforts, and we stand like one chained. Who has not felt this? WORK! Therein is freedom. By night, by day, in season and out of season, work, and liberty will be yours. Put in requisition mind and body, war with inertness, snap the chain-link of selfishness, stand up as a defender of the right, be yourself, and this suspicion and these fears will be lulled; and, like the ocean storm, you will be purified by the contest, and able to bear and breast any burden of human ill.

What is it?

The laborer

Friend, who

4. Gladden life with its sunniest features, and gloss it over with its richest hues, and it becomes a poor and painted thing, if there be in it no toil, no hearty, hard work. sighs for repose. Where is it? ever thou art, know it is to be found alone in work. No good, no greatness, no progress is gained without this. Work, then, and faint not; for therein is the well-spring of human hope and human happiness.

III. MISSION OF EDUCATION.

Cassius M. Clay.

1. It is related of Michael Angelo,* that, while walking with some friends through an obscure street in the city of Florence, he discovered a fine block of marble lying neglected in a yard, and half buried in dirt and rubbish. Regardless of his holiday attire, he at once fell to work upon it, clearing away its

Michael An' ge lo, a celebrated Italian artist, unrivaled as a painter, sculptor, and architect. He was born in 1474, and died at Rome in 1563. He expended the grandest efforts of his genius in perfecting the great cathedral of St. Peter's.

filth, and striving to lift it from the slime and mire in which it lay. His companions asked him, in astonishment, what he was doing, and what he wanted with that worthless piece of rock. "O, there's an angel in the stone," was the answer, "and I must get it out!"

2. He had it removed to his studio, and with patient toil, with mallet and chisel, he let the angel out. What to others was but a rude, unsightly mass of stone, to his educated eye was the buried glory of art; and he discovered at a glance what might be made of it. A mason would have put it into a stone wall; a carman would have used it for filling in, or to grade the streets; but he transformed it into a creation of genius, and gave it a value for ages to come.

IV. GOD SEEN IN LITTLE THINGS.

1. Where the soil is rich and the climate soft, the hills are low and safe; as the ground becomes poorer and the air keener, they rise into forms of more peril and pride; and their utmost terror is shown only where their fragments fall on trackless ice, and the thunder of their ruin can be heard but by the ibex * and the eagle.

2. The work of the Great Spirit of nature is as deep and unapproachable in the lowest as in the noblest objects; the Divine mind is as visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank and moldering stone as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven, and settling the foundation of the earth; and to the rightly perceiving mind there is the same infinity, the same majesty, the same power, the same unity, and the same perfection manifest in the casting of the clay as in the scattering of the cloud; in the moldering of the dust as in the kindling of the day-star.

Ruskin.

Ibex, a kind of goat, found in the Alps and other mountainous regions of Europe, remarkable for its long curved horns. It is now quite rare.

V. SHORT WORDS.

1. That part of our speech which comes from our sires, far back in the days of yore, is made up, in large part, of those short words which we can speak with one pulse of the breath and one stroke of the tongue. The stream of time, through a long tract of years, and from lands not our own, has brought down to us a vast drift of new and strange terms, poor as they are long, and by which we lose in strength more than we gain in sound.

2. But the good old stock of words is not lost. They shine out here and there from the heap, in bright points, like stars when a fog dims the air, or the face of the sky is dark with clouds. It will pay us for our toil to mine out these gems, and string them on the chain of our thoughts, which will then shine with a new light; and, though the tongue may lose in sound, it will be all the more fit to speak all that the deep soul can feel.

3. The heart beats throb by throb, and thus the tongue should keep in tune while it vents the heart's joys and pains. The arts of life and the lore of the head may call for terms cold and long; but let all that the heart thinks and feels come from the depths of the soul in "thoughts that breathe and words that burn." So sing the rapt bards of earth as they twang the lyre, when the fire of their souls sheds its own light, and gilds the scene with its own charms.

Rev. G. W. McPhail.

VI. THE VALUE OF CHARACTER.

The crown and glory of life is character. It is the noblest possession of a man, constituting a rank in itself, and an estate in the general good-will; dignifying every station, and exalting every position in society. It exercises a greater power than wealth, and secures all the honor without the

jealousies of fame. It carries with it an influence which always tells; for it is the result of proud honor, rectitude, and consistency, qualities which, perhaps more than any other, command the general confidence and respect of mankind.

Smiles.

LESSON XCIX.

THE GRAND CAÑON OF THE COLORADO.

1. The region known vaguely as the "Grand Cañon of the Colorado," is situated in the southwestern part of the United States, and is greatly celebrated for the peculiar features of its sublime scenery. Gorges, with cliffs overhanging so as to shut out the light of day; underground courses of a great river that carries the melted snows of vast mountain cisterns; great cataracts whose plunging waters make roaring music, heard on the distant mountain-summits with a thousand imaginative embellishments, these are a few that have been depicted by the enthusiastic traveler.

2. Many stories of wild adventure have been told by Indians, trappers, and prospecters, stories of walking along the brink of the cañon walls in search of a passage down to the waters, but vainly traveling for days, and then perishing of thirst in sight of the river below, which roared its mockery into dying ears.

3. Other stories are current of men who have entered the

* The Colorado River is one of the longest rivers west of the Rocky Mountains, in which it takes its rise, by two branches called the Grand and Green Rivers. These rivers unite in Utah, and thence the Colorado flows by a generally southwest course into the Gulf of California. Including Green River, its largest branch, it is about twelve hundred miles in length. Its waters assume a reddish color from the falling of the rains upon a soil of red clay; hence the name Colorado, or Colored River.