صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني
[blocks in formation]

Man, through all ages of revolving time,

Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of Unchanging man, in every varying clime

life:

In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,
An angel-guard of love and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,

Deems his own land of every land the pride,
Beloved by Heaven o'er all the world beside;
His home the spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.

INDUSTRY THE ONLY TRUE SOURCE OF WEALTH.

DR. GEORGE BERKELEY.

NDUSTRY is the natural sure way to success; this is so true, that it is impossible an industrious free people should want the necessaries and comforts of life, or an idle enjoy them under any form of government. Money is so far useful to the public, as it promoteth industry, and credit having the same effect, is of the same value with money; but money or credit circulating through a nation from hand to hand, without producing labor and industry in the inhabitants, is direct gaming.

It is not impossible for cunning men to make such plausible schemes, as may draw those who are less skilful into their own and the public ruin. But surely there is no man of sense and honesty but must see and own, whether he understands the game or not, that it is an evident folly for any people, instead of prosecuting the old honest methods of industry and frugality, to sit down to a public gaming-table and play off their money one to another.

The more methods there are in a state for acquiring riches without industry or merit, the less there will be of either in that state: this is as evident as the ruin that attends it. Besides, when money is shifted from hand to hand in such a blind fortuitous manner, that some men shall from nothing acquire in an instant vast estates, without the least desert; while others are as suddenly stripped of plentiful fortunes, and left on the parish by their own avarice and credulity, what can be hoped for on the one

[graphic]

"A TYPE OF GRANDEUR, STRENGTH AND MAJESTY."

[blocks in formation]

hand but abandoned luxury and wantonness, or on the other but extreme madness and despair!

In short, all projects for growing rich by sudden and extraordinary methods, as they operate violently on the passions of men, and encourage them to despise the slow moderate gains that are to be made by an honest industry, must be ruinous to the public, and even the winners themselves will at length be involved in the public ruin.

God grant the time be not near when men shall say, "This island was once inhabited by a religious, brave, sincere people, of plain, uncorrupt manners, respecting inbred worth rather than titles and appearances, assertors of liberty, lovers of their country, jealous of their own rights, and unwilling to infringe the rights of others; improvers of learning and useful arts, enemies to luxury, tender of other men's lives, and prodigal of their own; inferior in nothing to the old Greeks or Romans, and superior to each of those people in the perfections of the other. Such were our ancestors during their rise and greatness; but they degenerated, grew servile flatterers of men in power, adopted Epicurean notions, became venal, corrupt, injurious, which drew upon them the hatred of God and man, and occasioned their final ruin."

"A LION'S HEAD."

G. WEATHERLY.

PON the wall it hung where all might

see:

A living picture so the people
said-

A type of grandeur, strength and
majesty-

"A lion's head."

Yet, if you gazed awhile, you seemed to see The eyes grow strangely sad, that should have raged;

And, lo! your thoughts took shape unconsciously

A lion caged."

You saw the living type behind his bars,
His eyes so sad with mute reproach, but
still

A very King, as when beneath the stars
He roved at will.

And then your thoughts took further ground,
and ran

From real to ideal, till at length.
The lion caged seemed but the type of man
In his best strength;

Man grand, majestic in both word and deed,
A giant in both intellect and will,
Yet trammeled by some force he can but heed
And cannot still;

Man in his highest attributes, but bound

By chains of circumstance around him cast
Yet nobly living out life's daily round,
Till work be past.

So musing, shadows fall all silently

And swift recall the thoughts that wandering fled:

The dream has ended, and you can but see "A lion's head."

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

T

T. B. MACAULAY.

HE 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

« السابقةمتابعة »