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Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call
How answers each bold bacchanal!

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You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet-
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave-
Think ye he meant them for a slave?

The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades!

O that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind!

Such chains as his were sure to bind.

Trust not for freedom to the Franks They have a king who buys and sells. In native swords and native ranks

The only hope of courage dwells; But Turkish force and Latin fraud Would break your shield, however broad.

Place me on Sunium's marbled steep, Where nothing, save the waves and I, May hear our mutual murmurs sweep; There, swan-like, let me sing and die: A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine: Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!

LESSON XXXIX.

EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION.

ch:—chide, chime, chain, chair, chin, chid, churl, birch,

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THE Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar character from the daily contemplation of superior beings and eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the great end of existence. They rejected with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects substituted for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on the intolerable brightness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest and meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the boundless interval which separated the whole race from him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title to superiority but his favor, and, confident of that favor, they despised all the accomplishments and all the dignities of the world.

If they were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If their names were not found in the registers of heralds, they felt assured that they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps were not accompanied by a splendid train of

menials, legions of ministering angels had charge over them. Their palaces were houses not made with hands: their diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away! On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they looked down with contempt; for they esteemed themselves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in a more sublime language — nobles by the right of an earlier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose fate a mysterious and terrible importance belonged; on whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness looked with anxious interest; who had been destined, before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity which should continue when heaven and earth should have passed away.

Events which short-sighted politicians ascribed to earthly causes had been ordained on his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flourished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had proclaimed his will by the pen of the evangelist and the harp of the prophet. He had been rescued by no common deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, that the dead had arisen, that all nature had shuddered at the sufferings of her expiring God!

Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men; the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion; the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker, but he set his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional retirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and tears. He was half maddened by glorious or terrible illusions. He heard the lyres

of angels, or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself

Like

intrusted with the sceptre of the millennial year. Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his face from him. But when he took his seat in the council, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their groans and their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little reason to laugh, who encountered them in the hall of debate, or on the field of battle.

The Puritans brought to civil and military affairs a coolness of judgment, and an immutability of purpose, which some writers have thought inconsistent with their religious zeal, but which were, in fact, the necessary effects of it. The intensity of their feelings on one subject made them. tranquil on every other. One overpowering sentiment had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and fear. Death had lost its terrors, and pleasure its charms. They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and raised them above the influence of danger and of corruption. It sometimes might lead them. to pursue unwise ends, but never to choose unwise means.

We

We

Such we believe to have been the character of the Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners. dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often injured by straining after things too high for mortal reach. Yet when all circumstances are taken into consideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce them a brave, a wise, an honest, and a useful body.

11 *

LESSON XL.

EXERCISES IN ARTICULATION.

f:-deaf, off, if, muff, ruff, chafe, laugh, tough, fry, freeze, from, frown, fast.

Importance of Knowledge to the Mechanic.

GEORGE B. EMERSON.

LET us imagine for a moment the condition of an individual, who has not advanced beyond the merest elements of knowledge, who understands nothing of the principles even of his own art, and inquire what change will be wrought in his feelings, his hopes, and happiness, in all that makes up the character, by the gradual inpouring of knowledge. He has now the capacity of thought, but it is a barren faculty, never nourished by the food of the mind, and never rising above the poor objects of sense. Labor and rest, the hope of mere animal enjoyment, or the fear of want, the care of providing covering and food, make up the whole sum of his existence.

Such a man may be industrious, but he cannot love labor; for it is not relieved by the excitement of improving or changing the processes of his art, nor cheered by the hope of a better condition.

When released from labor, he does not rejoice; for mere idleness is not enjoyment, and he has no book, no lesson of science, no play of the mind, no interesting pursuit, to give a zest to the hour of leisure. Home has few charms for him. He has little taste for the quiet, the social converse, and the exchange of feeling and thought, the innocent enjoyments, that ought to dwell there. Society has little to interest him; for he has no sympathy for the pleasures or pursuits, the cares or troubles of others, to whom he cannot feel or perceive his bonds of relationship. All of life is but a poor boon for such a man; and happy for

himself and for

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