Nor wreck, nor change, nor winter's flight, Nor time's remorseless doom, Shall mar one ray of glory's light LESSON CXXX. THE WIDOWED SWORD. ANON. 1. HEY have sent me the sword that my brave boy THEY wore On the field of his young renown, On the last red field, where his faith was sealed, And the sun of his days went down. Away with the tears That are blinding me so! There is joy in his years, Though his young head be low: And I'll gaze with a solemn delight, evermore, 2. 'Twas for Freedom and Home that I gave him away, Like the sons of his race of old; And though, aged and gray, I am childless this day, He is dearer a thousand-fold. There's glory above him To hallow his name; Who died for its fame; And a solace will shine, when my old heart is sore, 3. All so noble, so true, how they stood, how they fell, In the battle, the plague, and the cold! Oh, as bravely and well as e'er story could tell Was that fearful attack That, so bright ere the blow, And, foremost among them, his colors he bore; 4. It was kind of his comrades, ye know not how kind; It is more than the Indies to me; Ye know not how kind and how steadfast of mind Love loses so young; And they closed his dark eyes when the battle was o'er, LESSON CXXXI. "GOOD-BY, OLD ARM, GOOD-BY!" GEORGE COOPER. The incident, so pathetically described in this short poem, took place in one of our hospitals during the war. The piece should be read in a low and plaintive tone of voice. THE the surgeon bore 1. THE knife was still, He woke, but saw the vacant place Then faintly spoke, "Oh, let me see My strong right arm again!” 2. "Good-by, old arm!" the soldier said, "My strong right arm, no deed of yours But it's hard to part such trusty friends: 3. "You've served me well these many years, In sunlight and in shade; But, comrade, we have done with war, Let dreams of glory fade. You'll never more my saber swing For home and native land: Oh, proud am I to give my mite For freedom pure and grand! Bear, bear it tenderly away,- LESSON CXXXII. 1 CIR CUM VAL LA'TION, (CIRCUM, around; VALLAT, to wall, from VALLUM, rampart; ION, the act of,) the act of surrounding with a wall or rampart. THE THE TEACHER, THE HOPE OF AMERICA. SAMUEL EELLS, 1837. HE patriot who contemplates the vastness of this republic, and the diversified and conflicting interests of its entire population, can not but regard its future welfare with the deepest solicitude. Look abroad over this Country; mark her extent, her wealth, her fertility, her boundless resources, the giant energies which every day develops, and which she seems already bending on that fatal race, — tempting, yet always fatal to republics, the race for physical greatness and aggrandizement. 2. Behold, too, that continuous and mighty tide of population, native and foreign, which is forever rushing through the great valley toward the setting sun; sweeping away the wilderness before it like grass before the mower; waking up industry and civilization in its progress; studding the solitary rivers of the West with marts and cities; dotting its boundless prairies with human habitations; penetrating every green nook and vale; climbing every fertile ridge; and still gathering and pouring onward, to form new States in those vast and yet unpeopled solitudes where the Oregon rolls his majestic flood, and "Hears no sound save his own dashing." 3. Mark all this, and then say by what bonds will you hold together so mighty a people and so immense an empire? What safeguard will you give us against the dangers which must inevitably grow out of so vast and complicate an organization? In the swelling tide of our prosperity, what a field will open for political corruption ! What a world of evil passions to control, and jarring interests to reconcile! What temptations will there be to luxury and extravagance! What motives to private and official cupidity! What prizes will hang glittering at a thousand goals, to dazzle and tempt ambition! 4. Do we expect to find our security against these dangers in railroads and canals, in our circumvallations,' and ships of war? Alas! when shall we learn wisdom from the lessons of history? Our most dangerous enemies will grow up from our own bosom. We may erect bulwarks against foreign invasion; but what power shall we find in walls and armies to protect the people against themselves? There is but one sort of "internal improvement"-more thoroughly internal than that which is lauded by politicians -that is able to save this country. I mean the improvement of the minds and souls of her people. 5. If this improvement shall be neglected, and shall fail to keep pace with the increase of our population and our physical advancement, one of two alternatives is certain: either the nation must dissolve in anarchy, under the rulers of its own choice; or, if held together at all, it must be by a government so strong and rigorous as to be utterly inconsistent with constitutional liberty. Let the hundreds of millions which, at no very distant day, will swarm in our cities, and fill up our great interior, remain sunk in ignorance and vice, and nothing short of an iron despotism will suffice to govern the nation, to reconcile its vast and conflicting interests, control its elements of agitation, and hold back its fiery and headlong energies from dismemberment and ruin. 6. How, then, is this improvement to be effected? Who |