restraints that were formerly imposed by time-honored customs,-venerable names and forms,-military and police establishments, which once maintained the peace of society, but which are fast losing their influence in Europe, 5 and which have long since lost it in this country? I answer, in one word, RELIGION. Where the direct influence of Power is hardly felt, the indirect influence of Religion must be proportionably increased, or society will be converted into a scene of wild confusion. The citizen who 10 is released in a great measure from the control of positive authority, must possess within his own mind, the strong curb of an enlightened conscience, a well grounded, deeply felt, rational, and practical Piety; or else he will be given over, without redemption, to the sins that most 15 easily beset him, and, by indulging in them, will contribute so far as he has it in his power, to disturb the harmony of the whole body politic. LESSON XXXI.-THE FOUNDERS OF BOSTON.-JOSIAH QUINCY. [To be marked by the reader, for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections.] On this occasion, it is proper to speak of the founders of our city, and of their glory. Now in its true acceptation, the term glory expresses the splendor which emanates from virtue, in the act of producing general and 5 permanent good. Right conceptions, then, of the glory of our ancestors, are alone to be attained by analyzing their virtues. These virtues, indeed, are not seen charactered in breathing bronze, or in living marble. Our ancestors have left no Corinthian temples on our hills, no Gothic 10 cathedrals on our plains, no proud pyramid, no storied obelisk, in our cities. But mind is there. Sagacious enterprise is there. An active, vigorous, intelligent, moral population throng our cities, and predominate in our fields; men, patient of labor, submissive to law, respectful 15 to authority, regardful of right, faithful to liberty. These are the monuments of our ancestors. They stand immutable and immortal, in the social, moral, and intellectual condition of their descendants. They exist in the spirit which their precepts instilled, and their example implanted. * Address at the close of the second century from the settlement of Boston. It was to this spot, during twelve successive years, that the great body of those first settlers emigrated. In this place, they either fixed permanently their abode, or took their departure from it for the coast, or the interior. 5 Whatever honor devolves on this metropolis from the events connected with its first settlement, is not solitary or exclusive; it is shared with Massachusetts; with New England; in some sense, with the whole United States. For what part of this wide empire, be it sea or shore, lake 10 or river, mountain or valley, have the descendants of the first settlers of New England not traversed? what depth of forest, not penetrated? what danger of nature or man, not defied? Where is the cultivated field, in redeeming which from the wilderness, their vigor has not been dis15 played? Where, amid unsubdued nature, by the side of the first log-hut of the settler, does the school-house stand and the church-spire rise, unless the sons of New England are there? Where does improvement advance, under the active energy of willing hearts and ready hands, 20 prostrating the moss-covered monarchs of the wood, and from their ashes, amid their charred roots, bidding the green sward and the waving harvest to upspring, and the spirit of the fathers of New England is not seen, hovering, and shedding around the benign influences of sound, 25 social, moral, and religious institutions, stronger and more enduring than knotted oak or tempered steel? The swelling tide of their descendants has spread upon our coasts; ascended our rivers; taken possession of our plains. Already it encircles our lakes. At this hour, the rushing 30 noise of the advancing wave, startles the wild beast in his lair among the prairies of the West. Soon it shall be seen climbing the Rocky Mountains, and, as it dashes over their cliffs, shall be hailed by the dwellers on the Pacific, as the harbinger of the coming blessings of safety, 35 liberty, and truth. LESSON XXXII.-HUMAN CULTURE.-S. J. MAY. [To be marked by the reader, for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections.] When we see a flower,-its calix filled with petals of exquisite form, of the most delicate texture, and diverse colors, so rich and nicely blended that no art can equal 5 them, and withal perpetually diffusing a delicious perfume, we cannot readily believe, that all this variety of charms was evolved from a little seed, not bigger, it may be, than the head of a pin. When we behold a sturdy oak, that has, for a hundred years, defied the blasts of winter, has stretched wide around its sheltering limbs, and has seemed to grow only more hardy, the more it has been pelted by the storms,― we find it difficult to persuade ourselves that the essence, 10 the elements of all this body and strength, were once enclosed in an acorn. Yet such are the facts of the vegetable world. Nor are they half so curious nor wonderful, as the changes, which are wrought by time and education, in the human mind and heart. 15 Here, for example, is a man now master of twenty languages, who can converse in their own tongues with the people of as many different nations, whose only utterance thirty years ago was very much like, and not any more articulate than, the bleating of a lamb. Or it may be that 20 he, who could then send forth only a wailing cry, is now overwhelming the crowded forum, or swaying the Congress of the nation, by his eloquence, fraught with surpassing wisdom. Here is another, who can conceive the structure, and 25 direct the building of the mighty ship, that shall bear an embattled host around the world, carrying a nation's thunder; or the man, who can devise the plan of a magnificent temple, and guide the construction of it, until it shall present to the eye of the beholder a perfect whole, glow30 ing with the unspeakable beauty of symmetrical form. And here is a third, who has comprehended the structure of the solar system. He has ascertained the relative sizes of the planets, and learned at what precise moments they shall severally complete their circuits. He has even 35 weighed the sun, and measured the distances of the fixed stars; and has foretold the very hour, "when the dread comet," after an absence of centuries, "shall to the forehead of our evening sky return." These men are the same beings, who, thirty years ago, 40 were puling infants, scarcely equal in their intelligence to kittens of a week old. There, too, is a man, who is swaying the destiny of nations. His empire embraces half the earth; and, throughout his wide domains, his will is law. At his command, hundreds of thousands rush to arms, the pliant subjects of his insatiable ambition, ready to pour out their blood like water in his cause. He arranges them, as he 5 pleases, to execute his plans. He directs their movements as if they were pawns upon a chessboard. He plunges them into deadly conflict, and wades to conquest over their dead and mangled bodies. That man, the despotic power of whose mind now overawes the world, was once 10 a feeble babe, who had neither the disposition, nor the strength, to harm a fly. On the other hand, there is one, who now evinces unconquerable energy, and the spirit of willing self-sacrifice in works of benevolence. No toil seems to overbear his 15 strength. No discouragement impairs his resolution. No dangers disarm his fortitude. He will penetrate into the most loathsome haunts of poverty or vice, that he may relieve the wretched, or reclaim the abandoned. He will traverse continents, and expose himself hourly to the ca20 pricious cruelty of barbarous men, that he may bear to them the glad tidings of salvation; or he will calmly face the scorn and rage of the civilized world, in opposition to the wrong; or march firmly to the stake, in maintenance of the true and the right. This man, a few years ago, 25 might have been seen crying for a sugar-plum, or quarreling with his little sister for a two-penny toy. And who are they, that are infesting society with their daring crimes, scattering about them "fire-brands, arrows, and death," boldly setting at defiance the laws of man, 30 and of God? They are the same beings, that a few years ago, were innocent little children, who, could they have conceived of such deeds of darkness, as they now perpetrate without compunction, would have shrunk from them instinctively with horror. 35 These, surely, are prodigious changes, greater far than any exhibited in the vegetable world. And are they not changes of infinitely greater moment? The growth of a mighty tree, from a small seed, may be matter for wonder, for admiration; but the development of a being, capable 40 of such tremendous agencies for good or for evil, should be with us all a matter of the deepest concern. Strange, passing strange-that it is not so! LESSON XXXIII. -GRECIAN AND ROMAN ELOQUENCE. J. Q. ADAMS. [To be marked by the reader, for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections.] In the flourishing periods of Athens and Rome, eloquence was power. It was at once the instrument and the spur to ambition. The talent of public speaking was the key to the highest dignities; the passport to the su5 preme dominion of the state. The rod of Hermes was the sceptre of empire; the voice of oratory was the thunder of Jupiter. The most powerful of human passions was enlisted in the cause of eloquence; and eloquence in return was the 10 most effectual auxiliary to the passion. In proportion to the wonders she achieved, was the eagerness to acquire the faculties of this mighty magician. Oratory was taught, as the occupation of a life. The course of instruction commenced with the infant in the 15 cradle, and continued to the meridian of manhood. It was made the fundamental object of education, and every other part of instruction for childhood, and of discipline for youth, was bent to its accommodation. Arts, science, letters, were to be thoroughly studied and 20 investigated, upon the maxim, that an orator must be a man of universal knowledge. Moral duties were inculcated, because none but a good man could be an orator. Wisdom, learning, virtue herself, were estimated by their subserviency to the purposes of eloquence; and the whole 25 duty of man consisted in making himself an accomplished public speaker. LESSON XXXIV.-THANATOPSIS.*- -W. C. BRYANT. [Marked for the application of Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflection, to the reading of Poetry.] To him, who, in the love of Nature, holds * Contemplation of Death. |