relieve the tedium of that season of life, when new aoquisitions can no more be made, and the mind can no longer flatter and delude us with its illusory hopes and promises. 5. When life begins, like a distant landscape, gradually to disappear, the mind can receive no solace but from its own ideas and reflections. Philosophy and literature, a knowledge of the works of God, and of the laws which govern the material and intellectual world, will then furnish us with an inexhaustible source of the most agreeable amusements, which, if blended with the sustaining power of our divine religion, will render old age as happy as youth was joyous. 6. The man of letters, when compared with one that is illiterate, exhibits nearly the same contrast as that which exists between a blind man and one that can see; and, if we consider how much literature enlarges the mind, and how much it multiplies, adjusts, rectifies, and arranges the ideas, it may well be reckoned equivalent to an additional sense. It affords pleasures which wealth cannot procure, and which poverty cannot entirely take away. A well cultivated mind places its possessor beyond the reach of those trifling vexations and disquietudes which continually harass and perplex those who have no resources within themselves, and, in some measure, elevates him above the smiles and frowns of fortune. Bigland. LESSON 149. THE BURIAL OF MOSES. BY Nebo's lonely mountain, On this side Jordan's wave, And no man knows that sepulchre, And no man saw it e'er, For the angels of God upturned the sod, 2. That was the grandest funeral Comes back when night is done, 3. Noiselessly as the spring-time So without sound of music, Or voice of them that wept, 4. Perchance the bald old eagle, Look'd on the wondrous sight. Still shuns that hallow'd spot, 5. But when the warrior dieth, His comrades in the war, With arms reversed and muffled drum, Y They show the banners taken, And after him lead his masterless steed, 6. Amid the noblest of the land We lay the sage to rest, And give the bard an honor'd place, With costly marble drest, In the great minster transept Where lights like glories fall, And the organ rings, and the sweet choir sings, Along the emblazoned wall. 7. This was the truest warrior That ever buckled sword; This the most gifted poet That ever breathed a word; On the deathless page, truths half so sage 8. And had he not high honor,— To lie in state while angels wait And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes, Over his bier to wave, And God's own hand in that lonely land, To lay him in the grave? 9. In that strange grave, without a name, Shall break again, oh, wondrous thought! And stand with glory wrapt around And speak of the strife that won our life, 10. O lonely grave in Moab's land! Ways that we cannot tell; He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep Of him he loved so well. Mrs. Alexander. LESSON 150. EXTRACT FROM "THE DESERTED VILLAGE.” WEET was the sound, when oft, at evening's close, There, as I passed with careless steps and slow, 2. But now the sounds of population fail; No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale, No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread, That feebly bends beside the plashy spring; The sad historian of the pensive plain. 3. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, Nor e'er had changed, nor wished to change, his place; By doctrines fashioned to the varying hour; Wept o'er his wounds, or, tales of sorrow done, Shouldered his crutch, and showed how fields were won. Pleased with his guests, the good man learned to glow, And quite forgot their vices in their woe. |