4. She has those who love her station, But I've one true heart beside me: I'd not change it for a kingdom, God will weigh it in His balance, And the difference define 'Twixt Mrs. Lofty's wealth and mine. LESSON 16. LAFAYETTE. HILE we bring our offerings for the mighty of our own land, shall we not remember the chivalrous spirits of other shores, who shared with them the hour of weakness and woe? Pile to the clouds the majestic column of glory; let the lips of those who can speak well, hallow each spot where the bones of your bold repose; but forget not those who, with your bold, went out to battle. 2. Among those men of noble daring, there was one, a young and gallant stranger, who left the blushing vinehilis of his delightful France. The people whom he came to succor were not his people; he knew them only in the melancholy story of their wrongs. He was no mercenary adventurer, striving for the spoil of the vanquished; the palace acknowledged him for its lord, and the valley yielded him its increase. He was no nameless man, staking life for reputation; he ranked among nobles, and looked unawed upon kings. 3. He was no friendless outcast, seeking for a grave to hide a broken heart; he was girdled by the com panions of his childhood; his kinsmen were about him; his wife was before him. Yet from all these loved ones he turned away. Like a lofty tree that shakes down its green glories, to battle with the winter storm, he flung aside the trappings of place and pride to crusade for Freedom, in Freedom's holy land. He came; but not in the day of successful rebellion; not when the new-risen sun of Independence had burst the cloud of time, and careered to its place in the heavens. 4. He came when darkness curtained the hills, and the tempest was abroad in its anger; when the plow stood still in the field of promise, and briers cumbered the garden of beauty; when fathers were dying, and mothers were weeping over them; when the wife was binding up the gashed bosom of her husband, and the maiden was wiping the death-damp from the brow of her lover. He came when the brave began to fear the power of man, and the pious to doubt the favor of God. It was then that this one joined the ranks of a revolted people. come. 5. Freedom's little phalanx bade him a grateful welWith them he courted the battle's rage; with theirs, his arm was lifted; with theirs, his blood was shed. Long and doubtful was the conflict. At length kind Heaven smiled on the good cause, and the beaten invaders fled. The profane were driven from the temple of Liberty, and, at her pure shrine, the pilgrimwarrior, with his adored commander, knelt and worshipped. Leaving there his offering, the incense of an uncorrupted spirit, he at length rose, and, crowned with benedictions, turned his happy feet toward his long-deserted home. 6. After nearly fifty years, that one has come again. Can mortal tongue tell, can mortal heart feel, the sublimity of that coming? Exulting millions rejoice in it; and their loud, long, transporting shout, like the mingling of many winds, rolls on, undying, to Freedom's farthest mountains. A congregated nation comes around him. Old men bless him, and children reverence him. The lovely come out to look upon him; the learned deck their halls to greet him; the rulers of the land. rise up to do him homage. 7. How his full heart labors! He views the rusting trophies of departed days; he treads the high places where his brethren moulder; he bends before the tomb of his "father;" his words are tears, the speech of sad remembrance. But he looks round upon a ransomed land and a joyous race; he beholds the blessings these trophies secured, for which these brethren died, for which that "father" lived; and again his words are tears, the eloquence of gratitude and joy. 8. Spread forth creation like a map; bid earth's dead multitudes revive; and of all the pageant splendors that ever glittered to the sun, when looked his burning eye on a sight like this? Of all the myriads that have come and gone, what cherished minion ever ruled an hour like this? Many have struck the redeeming blow for their own freedom; but who, like this man, has bared his bosom in the cause of strangers? 9. Others have lived in the love of their own people; but who, like this man, has drank his sweetest cup of welcome with another? Matchless chief! of glory's immortal tablets there is one for him, for him alone! Oblivion shall never shroud its splendor; the everlasting flame of Liberty shall guard it, that the generations of men may repeat the name recorded there, the beloved name of LAFAYETTE.- Chas. Sprague. EXERCISE. Write expressions equivalent to the following: 1. He was no mercenary adventurer. 2. He came when darkness curtained the hills. LESSON 17. PICTURES FROM HAWAII. HE Pacific Islanders are the most expert of all people THE in swimming and in aquatic games. In all of the tropical groups, nearly the entire population lives upon the seashore; the climate is warm, the people have little to do, and on windy days, when the billows roll in heavily from the mid-ocean, whole villages sometimes adjourn to the water, and spend an entire afternoon in the daring pastime of surf-playing. 2. The Hawaiian practises this sport upon a surfboard, which he calls papa he nalu, "wave-sliding board." It is made of the firm, light wood of the erythrina; it is equal in length to the swimmer's height, about a foot wide, slightly oval in outline, and often convex upon both sides. It is polished and stained black, and preserved with great care. 3. The natives choose a spot where immense billows, driven in by the trade-winds, break furiously upon the coast. Sometimes a hidden reef of coral, ten or fifteen feet below the surface, or, more frequently, the black slag of a cooled lava-stream, long since disgorged into the ocean, agitates the waves sufficiently for this perilous sport; and sometimes the swimmers play in the measured surges that beat upon the sand-beaches of their bays. 4. Each person, taking his swimming-board under him, plunges into the surf, and strikes out for the deep water, half a mile or more from the shore. He does not trouble himself to rise over the great waves that approach him threateningly when they reach him, he ducks his head like a loon, and the billow passes thundering over him wi.hout checking his course. Arrived at last at the outside of the reef, where the waves first begin to break, he turns, extends himself at full length upon his board, faces the shore, and throws quick glances behind him, watching for a larger wave than usual to ride upon. 5. Three or four waves pass, but he laughs at them, though the smallest of them would have dashed a foreign swimmer under and drowned him. At last he sees a mighty billow approaching him. It is the very king of waves. 6. It comes with its crest high in the air, its liquid edge already trembling and snapping in the sunlight; but it is huge, dark, and swift, and it utters a hollow roar as it sweeps down upon the swimmer. It draws him backward for an instant toward it, as if to swallow him up; then, snatching him up in its course, it hurls him with inconceivable speed toward the shore. He lies upon his board on the front surface of the wave; his head is down, his heels slant upward into the flashing foam which half envelops him. A score of his companions are dashing madly onward with him: they become a part of the billow-they shout more loudly than the roaring of the wave. The sensation is delicious, exultant, almost maddening; it is beyond anything that the rider of horses or of the untamed velocipede can feel. 7. But to the stranger nothing can seem more daring and dangerous than surf-riding. To be swept along by these tremendous waves - to be "made one with nature" so intimately as this, would be death to the ordinary civilized man. You look to see the swimmer dashed against the black and jagged lava from which he is now distant not more than the length of his surf-board. He is going with the speed of a racer there seems no escape for him -when suddenly he disappears from sight: the wave has lost its victim. By a backward movement of the hands, he retreats into the heart of the wave, sinking away from its front surface, where its whole propelling power resides. 8. He "backs his engine," as a steamboat-man would say, and instantly stops his career at the very moment when you had expected to see him dashed to pieces. For |