LESSON C.-THE VOICES OF THE DEAD.-ORVILLE DEWEY.

The world is filled with the voices of the dead. They speak, not from the public records of the great world only, but from the private history of our own experience. They speak to us, in a thousand remembrances, in a thousand 5 incidents, events, associations. They speak to us, not only from their silent graves, but from the throng of life. Though they are invisible, yet life is filled with their

presence.

They are with us, by the silent fireside, and in the seclu10 ded chamber: they are with us, in the paths of society, and in the crowded assembly of men. They speak to us, from the lonely way-side; and they speak to us, from the venerable walls that echo to the steps of a multitude, and to the voice of prayer. Go, where we will, the dead are with 15 us. We live, we converse, with those, who once lived and conversed with us. Their well remembered tone mingles with the whispering breezes, with the sound of the falling leaf, with the jubilee shout of the spring-time. The earth is filled with their shadowy train.

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But there are more substantial expressions of the presence of the dead, with the living. The earth is filled with the labors, the works, of the dead. Almost all the literature in the world, the discoveries of science, the glories of art, the ever-during temples, the dwelling-places of 25 generations, the comforts and improvements of life, the languages, the maxims, the opinions, of the living, the very frame-work of society, the institutions of nations, the fabrics of empire,-all are the works of the dead: by these, they who are dead, yet speak.

LESSON CI.-THE JEWISH REVELATION.-DR. NOYES.

The peculiar religious character of the Psalms, which distinguishes them from the productions of other nations of antiquity, is well worthy of the attention of such as are disposed to doubt the reality of the Jewish revelation. 5 I do not refer to the prophetic character, which some of them are supposed to possess, but to the comparative purity and fervor of religious feeling, which they manifest; the sublimity and justness of the views of the Deity, and of his government of the world, which they present; and

the clear perception of a spiritual good, infinitely to be preferred to any external possession, which is found in them. Let them be considered, as the expression and fruit of the principles of the Jewish religion, as they existed 5 in the minds of pious Israelites, and do they not bear delightful testimony to the reality of the successive revelations, alleged to have been made to the Hebrew nation, and of the peculiar relation which the Most High is said to have sustained towards them?

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Let the unbeliever compare the productions of the Hebrew poets, with those of the most enlightened periods of Grecian literature. Let him explain, how it happened, that in the most celebrated cities of antiquity, which human reason had adorned with the most splendid trophies of art, 15 whose architecture it is now thought high praise to imitate well, whose sculpture almost gave life to marble, whose poetry has never been surpassed, and whose eloquence has never been equalled, a religion prevailed, so absurd and frivolous, as to be beneath the contempt of a child, at the 20 present day; while in an obscure corner of the world, in a nation in some respects imperfectly civilized, were breathed forth those strains of devotion, which now animate the hearts of millions, and are the vehicle of their feelings to the throne of God. Let him say, if there be not some 25 ground for the conclusion, that whilst the corner-stone of the heathen systems of religion, was unassisted human reason, that of the Jewish was an immediate revelation from the Father of lights.

LESSON CII.-INCITEMENTS TO AMERICAN INTELLECT.

G. S. HILLARD.

The motives to intellectual action, press upon us with peculiar force, in our country, because the connection is here so immediate between character and happiness, and because there is nothing between us and ruin, but 5 intelligence which sees the right, and virtue which pursues it.

There are such elements of hope and fear, mingled in the great experiment which is here trying, the results are so momentous to humanity, that all the voices of the past 10 and the future, seem to blend in one sound of warning and

entreaty, addressing itself, not only to the general, but to the individual ear. By the wrecks of shattered states, by the quenched lights of promise, that once shone upon man, by the long deferred hopes of humanity, by all that has 5 been done and suffered, in the cause of liberty, by the martyrs that died before the sight, by the exiles, whose hearts have been crushed in dumb despair, by the memory of our fathers and their blood in our veins, it calls upon us, each and all, to be faithful to the trust which God has 10 committed to our hands.

That fine natures should here feel their energies palsied by the cold touch of indifference, that they should turn to Westminster Abbey, or the Alps, or the Vatican, to quicken their flagging pulses, is, of all mental anomalies, 15 the most inexplicable. The danger would seem to be rather, that the spring of a sensitive mind may be broken by the weight of obligation that rests upon it, and that the stimulant, by its very excess, may become a narcotic.

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The poet must not plead his delicacy of organization, as 20 an excuse, for dwelling apart in trim gardens of leisure, and looking at the world only through the loop-holes of his retreat. Let him fling himself, with gallant heart, the stirring life, that heaves and foams around him. He must call home his imagination from those spots, on 25 which the light of other days has thrown its pensive charm, and be content to dwell among his own people. The future and the present must inspire him, and not the past. He must transfer, to his pictures, the glow of morning, and not the hues of sunset. He must not go to any 30 foreign Pharphar, or Abana, for the sweet influences which he may find in that familiar stream, on whose banks he has played as a child, and mused as a man.

Let him dedicate his powers to the best interests of his country. Let him sow the seeds of beauty along that 35 dusty road, where humanity toils and sweats in the sun. Let him spurn the baseness which ministers food to the passions which blot out, in man's soul, the image of God. Let not his hands add one seductive charm to the unzoned form of pleasure, nor twine the roses of his genius around 40 the reveller's wine-cup. Let him mingle with his verse those grave and high elements befitting him, around whom the air of freedom blows, and upon whom the light of heaven shines. Let him teach those stern virtues of selfcontrol and self-renunciation, of faith and patience, of

abstinence and fortitude,-which constitute the foundations alike of individual happiness, and of national prosperity. Let him help to rear up this great people to the stature 5 and symmetry of a moral manhood. Let him look abroad upon this young world in hope, and not in despondency. Let him not be repelled by the coarse surface of material life. Let him survey it, with the piercing insight of genius, and in the reconciling spirit of love. Let him find inspiration, 10 wherever man is found; in the sailor, singing at the windlass; in the roaring flames of the furnace; in the dizzy spindles of the factory; in the regular beat of the thresher's flail; in the smoke of the steam-ship; in the whistle of the locomotive. Let the mountain wind blow courage 15 into him. Let him pluck from the stars of his own wintry sky, thoughts, serene as their own light, lofty as their own place. Let the purity of the majestic heavens flow into his soul. Let his genius soar upon the wings of faith, and charm with the beauty of truth.

LESSON CIII.-IMPORTANCE OF KNOWLEDGE TO THE MECHANIC. G. B. EMERSON.

Let us imagine, for a moment, the condition of an individual, who has not advanced beyond the merest elements of knowledge, who understands nothing of the principles even of his own art, and inquire, what change will be 5 wrought in his feelings, his hopes, and happiness, in all that makes up the character, by the gradual inpouring of knowledge. He has now the capacity of thought, but it is a barren faculty, never nourished by the food of the mind, and never rising above the poor objects of sense. 10 Labor and rest, the hope of mere animal enjoyment, or the fear of want, the care of providing covering and food, make up the whole sum of his existence.

Such a man may be industrious, but he cannot love labor, for it is not relieved by the excitement of improving, 15 or changing, the processes of his art, nor cheered by the hope of a better condition. When released from labor, he does not rejoice, for mere idleness is not enjoyment; and he has no book, no lesson of science, no play of the mind, no interesting pursuit, to give a zest to the hour of 20 leisure. Home has few charms for him; he has little taste for the quiet, the social converse, and exchange of

feeling and thought, the innocent enjoyments that ought to dwell there. Society has little to interest him, for he has no sympathy for the pleasures or pursuits, the cares or the troubles of others, to whom he cannot feel nor 5 perceive his bonds of relationship.

All of life is but a poor boon for such a man; and happy for himself and for mankind, if the few ties that hold him to this negative existence, be not broken. Happy for him, if that best and surest friend of man, that messen10 ger of good news from Heaven to the poorest wretch on earth, Religion, bringing the fear of God, appear to save him. Without her to support, should temptation assail him, what an easy victim would he fall to vice or crime! How little would be necessary to overturn his ill-balanced 15 principles, and throw him grovelling in intemperance, or send him abroad, on the ocean, or the highway, an enemy to himself and his kind!

But let the light of science fall upon that man; open to him the fountain of knowledge; let a few principles of 20 philosophy enter his mind, and awaken the dormant power of thought; he begins to look upon his art, with an altered eye. It ceases to be a dark mechanical process, which he cannot understand; he regards it, as an object of inquiry, and begins to penetrate the reasons, and acquire a new 25 mastery over his own instruments. He finds other and

better modes of doing what he had done before, blindly and without interest, a thousand times. He learns to profit by the experience of others, and ventures upon untried paths. Difficulties, which before would have stopped 30 him at the outset, receive a ready solution from some luminous principle of science. He gains new knowledge and new skill, and can improve the quality of his manufacture, while he shortens the process, and diminishes his own labor.

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Then, labor becomes sweet to him; it is accompanied by the consciousness of increasing power; it is leading him forward to a higher place among his fellow-men. Relaxation, too, is sweet to him, as it enables him to add to his intellectual stores, and to mature, by undisturbed 40 meditation, the plans and conceptions of the hour of labor. His home has acquired a new charm; for he is become a man of thought, and feels and enjoys the peace and seclusion of that sacred retreat; and he carries thither the honest complacency which is the companion of well