6. "But how," said the other, "if the burning house had buried thee?" Then his companion smiled and said, "In that event, I should have been myself the buried seed." From the German of Krummacher. CXVI. OUR OBLIGATION TO LIVE. 1. THOU wouldst cease to live: but I should like to know if thou hast yet begun with life. What! wast thou placed on the earth to do nothing there? Does not Heaven impose on thee, with life, a duty to be fulfilled? If thou hast achieved thy day's toil before evening, take thy rest for the remainder of the day; thou art free to do so; but let us see thy work. 2. What answer hast thou ready for the Almighty Judge when he shall ask thee for thy reckoning? Unhappy man! show me the just one who can pretend to have lived long enough; let me learn from him in what manner life must have becz hōrne to give us a right to abandon it. 3. Thou reckonest the ills of humanity, and thou sayest, “Life is an evil." Look around thee, and search in the order of things for benefits which are not mingled with evils. Is that a reason to say that there is no good in the world? and can you confound what is evil by nature with that which is subject to evil by accident? 4. Man's passive life is nothing—it merely concerns a body from which he will soon be delivered; but his active and moral life, which must influence his whole being, consists in the exercise of his will. Life is an evil to the wicked man in prosperity, and a good to the upright man in misfortune; for it is not its transient alteration, but its affinity with its object, which renders it either beneficial or injurious. 5. Thou art weary of life, and thou sayest, "Life is an evil." Sooner or later thou shalt be comforted, and shalt say, "Life is a good." This will be more truly spoken, without being better argued; for nothing will have changed but thyself. Change thyself, then, from to-day; and since the evil lies in the peccant disposition of thy soul, correct thy disordered desires, and do not burn down thy house to escape from keeping it in order. 6. What are ten, twenty, thirty years, to an immortal being? Pleasure and pain glide by us like shadows; life vanishes in a moment; it is nothing in itself, its value consists in its use. The good we have done is the only thing which abides, and this it is which renders life of any account. 7. Say not any longer, then, that it is bad for thee to live, since it depends entirely on thyself that it be good; and even if it be an evil to have lived, do not say, either, that thou hast a right to die for as well mightest thou say that thou art free not to be a man, as that thou hast a right to rebel against the author of thy existence, and to elude thy destiny. 8. Suicide is a stealthy and abominable death it is a theft practised on mankind. Before you leave the world, return what it has done for thee.- "But I care for nothing; I am of no use in the world." Philosopher of a day! knowest thou not thou canst not move a step on this earth without finding some duty to be done; and that every man is useful to his kind by the very fact of his existence? 9. Rash youth! if there still lingers in thy heart the least principle of virtue, come with me, and let me teach thee to love life. Every time thou art tempted to leave it, say to thyself, "Let me do another act of charity before I die; then, go in quest of some poor man to be relieved, of some unfortunate man to be comforted, of some oppressed man to be defended. If this consideration restrain thee to-day, it will restrain thee to-morrow, the day after, all thy life long. From the French of Rousseau. CXVII. THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 1 SWEET is the scene when virtue dies, 2. So fades a summer cloud away, So sinks the gale when storms are o'er; So gently shuts the eye of day, 3. Triumphant smiles the victor-brow, A calm which nothing can destroy; 5. Farewell, conflicting hopes and fears, Where lights and shades alter'nate dwell! 6. Its duty done -as sinks the clay, Light from its load the spirit flies; CXVIII. THE PARTS OF SPEECH. 1. As the artificial division of language into parts of speech is necessary in order to reduce its construction within general rules, and as this act of abstraction is, without some familiar illustration, beyond the capacity of many, it is important to ascertain the means by which very young children may comprehend what is abstractly and philosophically meant by the parts of speech. Every child, who has a brother younger than himself, may be made to remember the time when his little brother began first to articulate sounds. 2. It may be called to his recollection that the first sounds or words uttered by his brother were those which expressed pleasure or pain: as oh! eh! la! all which words grammarians have agreed to call INTERJECTIONS.EI So that his brother and all other children first began to speak interjections, or cries expressive of pleasure or pain, or sudden ioy or fear. 3. The next words, or sounds, which his brother would speak, papa, mamma, horse, dog, cat, brother, sister, nurse," or were " the names of such persons and things as he saw the oftenest, or was most pleased with; all which words grammarians call NOUNS. For some time, therefore, his brother spoke nothing but interjections, or cries, and nouns, or names of things. EI 4. But the infant would soon begin to use other words; as, "run, fly, eat, drink, walk, laugh, cry," which all express motion or action, and are by grammarians called VERBS.EL This part of speech, denominated the verb, expresses every kind of action and every mode of existence, and is the third general class of words which an infant would use. By means of the noun, or name of a thing, and of the verb, he would be able to say almost anything; as, Noun. Verb. fire burns. Noun. Verb. mamma comes. Noun. Verb. papa runs. 5. But the infant will soon have occasion to express the sense which different nouns convey to his mind; as, hot fire, kind mamma, good papa, sweet sugar; which words "hot, kind, good, sweet," are a new class, or part of speech, called ADJECTIVES, EI or, by some grammarians, Adnouns, as belonging to or qualifying the noun or thing spoken of. 6. The next effort of the child to express himself to others will be to qualify the verb or action; and to say, man runs fast, mamma comes soon, stroke puss softly; which words fast, soon, and softly, and all such, are the kind of words called by gram marians ADVERBS. EI 7. The child will soon have occasion to describe the position of nouns in regard to each other; as, to papa, from mamma, with nurse, behind the door; which words to, from, with, behind, belong to the sixth class, or kind of words called by gramma rians PREPOSITIONS.' ΕΙ 8. To avoid the too frequent repetition of nouns in speaking, the child will soon say, instead of brother hurts Alfred, he hurts me, which word he is used for the noun brother, and me is used for the noun Alfred: the words her and me, as well as I, thou, you, she, they, it, and all such, are words used instead of nouns, and are therefore called PRONOUNS.EI 9. The child will now be able to express himself on all sub ΕΙ jects, and the two parts of speech not yet described are refinements, and not common to language in a rude state. It frequently becomes nccessary to determine whether we speak of a particular man, or of man in general; and therefore we say, A man called, or THE man called, which first implies some man, or any man, indefinitely, and the last a particular man. The little words a and the are called, in the science of grammar, ARTICLES. EI ΕΙ 10. In a formal speech or discourse, it becomes necessary to join sentences together, and introduce words which indicate their connection with each other, all which are denominated CONJUNCTIONS. EI The word and is a conjunction of very frequent use; if is another, though and yet are others. The acquirement and judicious use of this part of speech is the last thing attained in the study of language. 11. It may thus be made to appear, to a class of children, that the division of language into parts of speech is perfectly natural; and, by means of such a pleasant narrative, they may be made to feel the force and necessity of the several divisions better than, by any force of abstraction, they could reduce language, as it is viewed in the mass, back again to its elements. Bossut's First French Grammar. In the following lines the miser is supposed to have just entered aro and to be soliloquizing. 1. 2 So, so! all safe! Come forth, my pretty sparklers, — Come forth, and feast my eyes! Be not afraid! No keen-eyed agent of the government Can see you here. They wanted me, forsooth, To lend you, at the lawful rate of usance,EI For the state's needs. Ha, ha! my shining pets, Ha! could they see These bags of ducats, and that precious pile Of ingots, and those bars of solid gold, Their eyes, methinks, would water. What a comfort |