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at his will." Gambling seizes hold of all the passions, allies itself with all the appetites, and compels every propensity to pay tribute. The subject, however plausible in his external deportment, becomes avaricious, greedy, insatiable. Meditations upon the card table occupy all his day and night dreams. Had he the power, he would annihilate all the hours of this our short life, that necessarily intervene between the periods of his favorite pursuit.

7. Cheating is a sure and inseparable attendant upon a continued course of gambling. We well know with what horror the canons of the card table repel this charge. It pains us to assert our deep and deliberate conviction of its truth. There must be prostration of moral principle, and silence of conscience, even to begin with it. Surely a man who regards the natural sense of right, laying the obligations of Chrisitanity out of the question, can not sit down with the purpose to win the money of another in this way.

may

8. He must be aware, in doing it, that avarice and dishonest thoughts, it may be almost unconsciously to himself, mingle with his motives. Having once closed his eyes upon the unworthiness of his motives, and deceived himself, he begins to study how he deceive others. Every moralist has remarked upon the delicacy of conscience; and that, from the first violation, it becomes more and more callous, until finally it sleeps a sleep as of death, and ceases to remonstrate. The gambler is less and less scrupulous about the modes of winning, so that he can win. No person will be long near the gambling table of high stakes, be the standing of the players what it may, without hearing the charge of CHEATING bandied back and forward; or reading the indignant expression of it in their countenances. One half of our fatal duels have their immediate or remote origin in insinuations of this sort.

9. The alternations of loss and gain; the preternatural excitement of the mind, and consequent depression when that excitement has passed away; the bacchanalian merriment of guilty associates; the loss of natural rest; in short, the very atmosphere of the gambling table, foster the temperament of hard drinking. A keen sense of interest may, indeed, and often does, restrain the gambler, while actually engaged in his employment, that he may possess the requisite coolness to watch his antagonist, and avail himself of every passing advantage.

10. But the moment the high excitement of play is intermitted, the moment the passions vibrate back to the state of repose, what shall sustain the sinking spirits; what shall renerve the relaxed physical nature; what shall fortify the mind against the tortures of conscience, and the thoughts of "a judgment to come,"

but intoxication? It is the experience of all time, that a person is seldom a gambler for any considerable period, without being also a drunkard.

11. Blasphemy follows, as a thing of course: and is, indeed, the well-known and universal dialect of the gambler. How often has my heart sunk within me, as I have passed the dark and dire receptacles of the gambler, and seen the red and bloated faces, and +inhaled the mingled smells of tobacco and potent drink; and heard the loud, strange, and horrid curses of the players; realizing the while, that these beings so occupied were candidates for eternity, and now on the course which, if not speedily forsaken, would fix them forever in hell.

12. We have already said, that gambling naturally leads to quarreling and murder. How often have we retired to our berth in the steamboat, and heard charges of dishonesty, accents of reviling and recrimination, and hints that these charges must be met and settled at another time and place, ring in our ears, as we have been attempting to commune with God and settle in a right frame to repose! Many corses of young men, who met a violent death from this cause, have we seen carried to their long home! Every gambler, in the region where we write, is always armed to the teeth, and goes to his horrid pursuit, as the gladiator formerly presented himself on the arena of combat.

13. The picture receives deeper shades, if we take into the grouping the wife, or the daughter, or the mother, who lies sleepless, and ruminating through the long night, trembling lest her midnight retirement shall be invaded by those who bring back the husband and the father wounded, or slain, in one of those sudden +frays which the card table, its accompaniments, and the passions it excites, so frequently generate. Suppose these forebodings should not be realized, and that he should steal home alive in the morning, with beggary and drunkenness, guilt and despair, written on his haggard countenance, and accents of sullenness and ill temper falling from his tongue, how insupportably gloomy must be the prospects of the future to that family!

14. These are but feeble and general sketches of the misery and ruin to individuals and to society from the indulgence of this vice, during the present life. If the wishes of unbelief were true, and there were no life after this, what perverse and miserable calculations would be those of the gambler, taking into view only the present world! But, in any view of the character and consequences of gambling, who shall dare close his eyes upon its future bearing on the interest and the eternal welfare of his soul! Who shall dare lay out of the calculation the retributions of eternity?

15. Each of the sins that enters into this deadly compound of them all, must incur the threatened displeasure and punishment of the Almighty. If there be degrees in the misery and despair of the tenants of that region, "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," how must the persevering and impenitent gambler sink, as if "a millstone were hung about his neck, and he cast into the sea!" Say thou, my youthful reader, I implore thee, looking up to the Lord for a firm and unalterable purpose, "I will hold fast my integrity and not let it go!"

TIMOTHY FLINT.

QUESTIONS.-What is said of the influence of the love of gambling over an individual? What is the only safe course to pursue? What is the well-known character of this sin? What is another appalling view of gambling? What vice is first mentioned as the sure attendant of gambling? What is the evidence supporting this assertion? What vice next follows? How is it brought on? What follows next to hard drinking? What is said about quarreling and murder? What is said of the wife, the mother, and the daughter? What is the future bearing of this rice?

LESSON LXXI.

REMARK.- Remember that the chief beauty and excellence of reading consists in a clear and smooth articulation of the words and letters.

PRONOUNCE correctly the following words in this lesson; Sac-rific'd, (pro. sac-ri-fiz'd,), not sa-cri-fisd: be-nev-o-lence, not be-nev-erlunce: of-fer'd, not of-fud: bit-ter-ness, not bit-ter-niss: yel-low, not yel-ler: fol-low'd, not fol-lerd: il-lus-tri-ous, not il-lus-trous: a-bundance, not ub-und-unce.

3. Al-lure'-ment, n. something attrac- | 32. Vig'-il-ance, n. watchfulness. tive..

7. Plight, n. state, condition. [specter. 21. Phan'-tom, n. a fancied vision, a 23. A-wry', a. (pro. a-ri') turned to one side, squinting.

26. In-an'-i-mate, a. without life.

43.

38. De-crep'-it, a. wasted with age. Prone, a. bending down, not erect. De-ba'-sed, a, degraded.

49.

Un-alms'-ed, a. (pro. un-amzd') noɩ having received alms, or charitable assistance.

THE MISER.

1. GOLD many hunted, sweat and bled for gold;
Waked all the night, and labored all the day;
And what was this allurement, dost thou ask?
A dust dug from the bowels of the earth,

5. Which, being cast into the fire, came out A shining thing that fools admired, and called A god; and in devout and humble plight Before it kneeled, the greater to the less; And on its altar, sacrificed ease, and peace, 10. Truth, faith, integrity, good conscience, friends, Love, charity, benevolence, and all

+

The sweet and tender sympathies of life;
And, to complete the horrid, murderous rite,
And signalize their folly, offered up
15. Their souls, and an eternity of bliss,

To gain them; what? an hour of dreaming joy,
A feverish hour that hasted to be done,

And ended in the bitterness of woe.

Most, for the luxuries it bought, the pomp,
20. The praise, the glitter, fashion, and renown,
This yellow phantom followed and adored.
But there was one in folly, further gone,
With eye awry, incurable, and wild,
The laughing stock of devils and of men,
25. And by his guardian angel quite given up,
The miser, who with dust inanimate

Held wedded intercourse.

Ill-guided wretch!

Thou might'st have seen him at the midnight hour, 30. When good men slept, and in light-winged dreams Ascended up to God, -in wasteful hall,

With vigilance and fasting, worn to skin

And bone, and wrapped in most +debasing rags, Thou might'st have seen him bending o'er his heaps, 35. And holding strange communion with his gold; And as his thievish fancy seemed to hear

+

The night-man's foot approach, starting alarmed,
And in his old, decrepit, withered hand,

That palsy shook, grasping the yellow earth,

40. To make it sure.

Of all God made upright,

And in their nostrils breathed a living soul,

Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most +debased;
Of all that sold Eternity for Time,

45. None bargained on so easy terms with death.
+Illustrious fool! Nay, most inhuman wretch!
He sat among his bags, and, with a look
Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor
Away unalmsed, and mid abundance died,

50. Sorest of evils! died of utter want.

POLLOK.

QUESTIONS.-What is the subject of this extract? What are some of the evil consequences of the love of money? What good can wealth bestow on its votaries? What are some of the marks of a miserly character? What are the effects of avarice upon body and mind? What is the miser's fate?

Explain the inflections from the 1st to the 27th line.

LESSON LXXII.

REMARK.-Let the pupil stand at a distance from the teacher, and try to read so loud and distinctly, that the teacher may hear each syllable.

ARTICULATE distinctly.-Pen-al-ty, not pen' l-ty: qual-i-ty, not qual' ty: per-ju-ry, not per-j' ry: law-ful-ly, not law-fly: ex-po-si-tion, not ex-p'si-tion: prin-ci-pal, not prin-c'p'l: in-di-rect, not in-d' rect.

Ex-act', v. to compel to pay.

Ex-po-si'-tion, n. explanation.

For'-feit, n. that to which the right is Nom'-i-na-ted. p. named.

lost by breach of contract.

Car'-ri-on, a. putrid.

Duc'-at, n. a piece of money worth from

one to two dollars.

Hu'-mor, n. disposition, fancy.

Ba'-ned, p. poisoned.

Gap'-ing, a. open mouthed.

Strain'-ed, p. forced.

Pen'-al-ty, n. the suffering or loss to which one is subjected by not fulfilling certain conditions.

Con'-fis-cate, a. taken away and devoted to the public use.

Al'-ien, (pro. ale'-yen), n. one who is not entitled to the privileges of a citizen. Cof'-fer, n. treasury.

Judge.

SHYLOCK, OR THE POUND OF FLESH.

WHAT! is Antonio here?

Antonio. Ready, so please your grace.

Ju. I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer
A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,

+

+Incapable of pity.

Ant. I am armed to suffer.

Ju.

(Enter Shylock.)

Dost thou now exact the penalty,

Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh?

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