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earth. Our ignorance is great, because so is our knowledge; for it is from the mightiness and vastness of what we do know that we imagine the illimitable unknown creation. And to whom has God made these revelations ? To a worm, that the next moment is to be in darkness? To a piece of earth, momentarily raised into breathing? To a soul perishable as the telescope through which it looks into the gates of Heaven?

"O, star-eyed Science! hast thou wandered there

To waft us home the message of despair?"

No; there is no despair in the gracious light of heaven. As we travel through those orbs, we feel indeed that we have but little or no power, but we feel that we have mighty knowledge. We can create nothing, but we can dimly understand all. It belongs to God only to create, but it is given to man to know, and that knowledge is itself an assurance of immortality.- Professor Wilson.

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8. DEMORALIZATION CONSEQUENT ON IRRELIGION. Once let men thoroughly believe that secret crimes have no witness but the perpetrator; that human existence has no purpose, and human virtue no unfailing friend; that this brief life is everything to us, and that death is total, everlasting extinction; once let men thoroughly abandon religion, and who can conceive or describe the extent of the desolation which would follow! We hope, perhaps, that human laws and natural sympathy would hold society together. As reasonably might we believe that, were the sun quenched in the heavens, our torches would illuminate, and our fires quicken and fertilize, the creation! What is there in human nature to awaken respect and tenderness, if man be the unprotected insect of a day? And what is he more, if atheism be true? Erase all thought and fear of God from a community, and selfishness and sensuality would absorb the whole man. Appetite, knowing no restraint, and poverty and suffering, having no solace of hope, would trample in scorn on the restraints of human laws. Virtue, duty, principle, would be mocked and spurned as unmeaning sounds. A sordid self-interest would supplant every other feeling; and man would become, in fact, what the theory of atheism declares him to be-a companion for brutes. Channing.

9. ON THE STUDY OF GOD'S WORKS. -The just relations of all created things to one another prove them to be the work of one Almighty Designer. The great globe may be considered as a muse'um, furnished forth with the works of the Supreme Being; man being placed in the midst of it, as alone capable of comprehending and valuing it. And, if this be true, as cer

tainly it is, what then becomes man's duty? Moralists and divines, with nature herself, testify that the purpose of so much beauty and perfection being made manifest to man is that ha may study and celebrate the works of God. If we have no faith in the things which are seen, how should we believe those which are not seen? The man who takes no interest in the contempla tion of the marvels of God's external universe resembles those animals which, wandering in the woods, are fattened with acorns, but never look upwards to the tree which affords them food, much less have they an idea of the beneficent Author of the tree and its fruit. Whoever shall regard with contempt the economy of the Creator here, is as truly impious as the man who takes no thought of the future. - - Linnæus.

10. THE MINISTRY OF THE BEAUTIFUL. It is truly a most Christian exercise to extract a sentiment of piety from the works and the appearances of nature. It has the authority of the sacred writers upon its side, and even our Saviour himself gives it the weight and the solemnity of his example. "Behold the lilies of the field: they toil not, neither do they spin; yet your heavenly Father careth for them." He expatiates on the beauty of a single flower, and draws from it the delightful argument of confidence in God. He gives us to see that taste may be combined with piety, and that the same heart may be occupied with all that is serious in the contemplation of religion, and be at the same time alive to the charms and the loveliness of nature. Chalmers.

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11. THE MOST PRECIOUS POSSESSION. I envy no quality of mind or intellect in others, be it genius, power, wit, or fancy; but if I could choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness; creater new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish; and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of al lights; awakens life even in death, and from corruption and decay calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of for tune, and shame the ladder of ascent to Paradise; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightfu! visions of palms and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the sceptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair. - Sir Hum phrey Davy.

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12. REFLECTIONS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. - When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tomb

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stone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow. When I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates, of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together. Addison.

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13. THE EFFICACY OF PRAYER. -There are some who say, "What good to pray? God is too far above us to hear creatures so insignificant." And who has made these creatures so insignificant? Who but God has given them thought, sentiment, and the faculty of speech? And if He has been thus good towards them, was it to abandon them afterwards, and repel them far from Him? Verily, I say to you, whoever says in his heart that God despises his works, the same blasphemes God. There are others who say, "What good to pray to God? Does not God know better than we what we have need of?" Yes; God knows better than you what you have need of; and that is why He would have you ask it of Him; for God is himself your first need, and to pray to God is to begin to possess God. The father knoweth the wants of his son; must the son therefore never make a request of his father, nor thank him for his benefits? There sometimes passes over the land a wind which dries the plants, and then we see their withered stems droop towards the earth; but, moistened by the dew, they recover their freshness, and lift up their languishing heads. The world has its scorching winds which pass over the soul of man, and make it arid. Prayer is the dew which refreshes the soul.- De Lammenais.

14. DEATH. O, death! dark hour to hopeless unbelief! hour to which, in that creed of despair, no hour shall succeed! being's last hour! to whose appalling darkness even the shadows of an avenging retribution were brightness and relief — death! -what art thou to the Christian's assurance? Great hour! answer to life's prayer; great hour that shall break asunder the bond of life's mystery; hour of relcase from life's burden; hour of reunion with the loved and lost, - what mighty hopes hasten to their fulfilment in thee! What longings, what aspirations, breathed in the still night, beneath the silent stars; what dread emotions of curiosity; what deep meditations of joy; what hallowed impossibilities shadowing forth realities to the soul, all verge to their consummation in thee! O, death! the Chris

tian's death!

What art thou, but a gate of life, a portal of

heaven, the threshold of eternity!- Dewey.

CXLIX. ADAM AND ORLANDO.

Orlando. Way, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go
Adam. No matter whither, so you come not here.
Orl. What! wouldst thou have me go and beg my food'
Or, with a base and boisterous sword, enforce

A thievish living on the common road?

This I must do, or know not what to do:
Yet this I will not do, do how I can;

I rather will subject me to the malice

Of a diverted blood, and bloody brother.

Adam. But do not so; I have five hundred cro
The thrifty hire I saved under your father,
Which I did store, to be my foster-nurse,
When service should in my old limbs lie lame,
And unregarded age in corners thrown;
Take that; and He that doth the ravens feed,
Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,
Be comfort to my age! Here is the gold;
All this I give you: let me be your servant;
Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty:
For in my youth I never did apply
Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood;
NorEI did not with unbashful forehead woo
The means of weakness and debility;
Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,
Frosty, but kindly let me go with you;
I'll do the service of a younger man
In all your business and necessities.

Orl. O, good old man! how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world,
When service sweat for duty, not for meed!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times,
Where none will sweat, but for promotion;
And having that, do choke their service up
Even with the having: it is not so with thee.
But, poor old man, thou prun'st a rotten tree,
That cannot so much as a blossom yield,
In lieu of all thy pains and husbandry:
But come thy ways, we 'll go along together;
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
We'll light upon some settled low content.

Adam. Master, go on, and I will follow thee,
To the last gasp, with truth and loyalty.
From seventeen years till now almost fourscore
Jere lived I, but now live here no more.

At seventeen years many their fortunes seek;
But at fourscore, it is too late a week:
Yet fortune cannot recompense me better
Than to die well, and not my master's debtor.

SHAKSPEARE

CL.

A SISTER PLEADS FOR A BROTHER'S LIFE.

Isabella. I AM a woful suitor to your honor, Please but your honor hear me.

Angelo. Well; what's your suit?

1sab. There is a vice, that most I do abhor,
And most desire should meet the blow of justice;
For which I would not plead, but that I must;
For which I must not plead, but that I am
At war 'twixt will and will not.

Ang. Well; the matter?

Isab. I have a brother is condemned to die : I do beseech you, let it be his fault,12

And not my brother.

Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it! Why, every fault 's condemned, ere it be done :

Mine were the very cipher of a function,

To fine the faults, whose fine stands in record,EI
And let go by the actor.

Isab. O just, but severe law!

Must he needs die?

Ang. Maiden, no remedy.

Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him,
And neither Heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.
Ang. I will not do 't.

Isab.

But can you, if you would?

Ang. Look! what I will not, that I cannot do. Isab. But might you do 't, and do the world no wrong If so your heart were touched with that remorse As mine is to him?

Ang. He's sentenced; 't is too late.

Isab. Too late? why, no; I, that do speak a word,
May call it back again. Well, believe this:

No ceremony that to great ones 'longs,141
Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Become them with one-half so good a grace
As mercy does. If he had been as you,
And you as he, you would have slipt like him;
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
Ang. Pray you, begone.

1sab. I would to Heaven I had your potency, And you were Isabel should it then be thus?

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