The black cloud strides upward, the lightning more red,
And the roll of the thunder, more deep and more dread ;
The Gray Forest Eagle, where, where has he sped?
Does he shrink to his eyrie, and shiver with dread ?
Does the glare blind his eyes? Has the terrible blast
On the wing of the Sky-King a fear-fetter cast?
3. O, no, the brave Eagle! he thinks not of fright;
The wrath of the tempest but rouses delight;
To the flash of the lightning his eye casts a gleam,
To the shriek of the wild blast he echoes his scream,
And with front like a warrior that speeds to the fray,
And a clapping of pinions, he's up and away!
Away, O away, soars the fearless and free!
What recks he the sky's strife?—its monarch is he!
The lightning darts round him,-undaunted his sight;
The blast sweeps against him,-unwavered his flight;
High upward, still upward he wheels, till his form
Is lost in the dark scowling gloom of the storm.
4. The tempest glides o'er with its terrible train,
And the splendor of sunshine is glowing again;
And full on the form of the tempest in flight,
The rainbow's magnificence gladdens the sight!
The Gray Forest Eagle! O, where is he now,

While the sky wears the smile of its God on its brow?
There's a dark, floating spot by yon cloud's pearly wreath,-
With the speed of the arrow 'tis shooting beneath;
Down, nearer and nearer, it draws to the gaze,—
Now over the rainbow,-now blent with its blaze ;-
"Tis the Eagle, the Gray Forest Eagle!-once more
He sweeps to his eyrie, his journey is o'er!

5. Time whirls round his circle, his years roll away,
But the Gray Forest Eagle minds little his sway;
The child spurns its buds for youth's thorn-hidden bloom,
Seeks manhood's bright phantoms, finds age and a tomb;
But the Eagle's eye dims not, his wing is unbowed,
Still drinks he the sunshine, still scales he the cloud.

6. An emblem of Freedom, stern, haughty, and high,
Is the Gray Forest Eagle, that king of the sky!
When his shadows steal black o'er the empires of kings,
Deep terror,-deep, heart-shaking terror,-he brings;
Where wicked oppression is armed for the weak,
There rustles his pinion, there echoes his shriek;
His eye flames with vengeance, he sweeps on his way,
And his talons are bathed in the blood of his prey.
7. O, that Eagle of Freedom! when cloud upon cloud
Swathed the sky of my own native land with a shroud,
When lightnings gleamed fiercely, and thunder-bolts rung,
How proud to the tempest those pinions were flung!
Though the wild blast of battle rushed fierce through the air
With darkness and dread, still the Eagle was there;
Unquailing, still speeding, his swift flight was on,
Till the rainbow of Peace crowned the victory won.
8. O, that Eagle of Freedom! age dims not his eye,
He has seen earth's mortality spring, bloom, and die!
He has seen the strong nations rise, flourish, and fall,
He mocks at time's changes, he triumphs o'er all;
He has seen our own land with wild forests o'erspread,-
He sees it with sunshine and joy on its head;
And his presence will bless this his own chosen clime.
Till the Archangel's fiat is set upon Time.

LESSON XCIX.

INSIGNIFICANCE OF THE EARTH.

CHALMERS.

1. THOUGH the earth were to be burned up, though the trumpet of its dissolution were sounded, though yon sky were to pass away as a scroll, and every visible glory which the finger of the Divinity has inscribed upon it, were extinguished forever,-an event so awful to us, and to every world in our vicinity, by which so many suns would be extinguished, and so many varied scenes of life and population would rush into

forgetfulness,-what is it in the high scale of the Almighty's workmanship? A mere shred which, though scattered into nothing, would leave the universe of God one entire scene of greatness and majesty.

2. Though the earth and the heavens were to disappear, there are other worlds which roll afar; the light of other suns shines upon them; and the sky which mantles them, is garnished with other stars. Is it presumption to say that the moral world extends to these distant and unknown regions? that the praises of God are there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced in? that there piety has its temples and its offerings? and the richness of the Divine attributes, is there felt and admired by intelligent worshipers?

3. The universe at large would suffer as little in its splendor and variety by the destruction of our planet, as the verdure and sublime magnitude of a forest, would suffer by the fall of a single leaf. The leaf quivers on the branch which supports it. It lies at the mercy of the slightest accident. A breath of wind tears it from its stem, and it lights on the stream of water which passes underneath. In a moment of time the life, with which we know by the microscope it teems, is extinguished; and an occurrence so insignificant in the eye of man, and on the scale of his observation, carries in it, to the myriads which people this little leaf, an event as terrible and as decisive as the destruction of a world.

4. Now, on the grand scale of the universe, we, the occupiers of this ball which performs its little round among the suns and the systems that astronomy has unfolded,-we may feel the same littleness and the same insecurity. We differ from the leaf only in this circumstance, that it would require the operations of greater elements to destroy us. But these elements exist. The fire which rages within may lift its devouring energy to the surface of our planet, and transform it .nto one wide and wasting volcano. The sudden formation of elastic matter in the bowels of the earth, may explode it into fragments.

5. The exhalation of noxious air from below, may impart a

virulence to the air that is around us; it may affect the delicate portions of its ingredients; and the whole of animated nature may wither and die under the malignity of a tainted atmosphere. A blazing comet may cross this fated planet in its orbit, and realize all the terrors which superstition has conceived of it. We can not anticipate with precision the conse quences of an event which every astronomer must know to lie within the limits of chance and possibility. It may hurry our globe toward the sun, or drag it to the outer regions of the planetary system, or give it a new axis of revolution; and the effect, which I shall simply announce without explaining it, would be to change the place of the ocean, and bring another mighty flood upon our islands and continents.

6. These are changes which may happen in a single instant of time, and against which nothing known in the present system of things provides us with any security. They might not annihilate the earth, but they would unpeople it, and we who tread its surface with such firm and assured footsteps, are at the mercy of devouring elements, which, if let loose upon us by the hand of the Almighty, would spread solitude, and silence, and death over the dominions of the world.

7. Now, it is this littleness and this insecurity which make the protection of the Almighty so dear to us, and bring with such emphasis to every pious bosom the holy lessons of humility and gratitude. The God who sitteth above, and presides in high authority over all worlds, is mindful of man; and though at this moment His energy is felt in the remotest provinces of creation, we may feel the same security in His providence, as if we were the objects of His undivided care.

8. It is not for us to bring our minds up to this mysterious agency. But such is the incomprehensible fact, that the same Being, whose eye is abroad over the whole universe, gives vegetation to every blade of grass, and motion to every particle of blood, which circulates through the veins of the minutest animal; that though His mind takes into its comprehensive grasp immensity and all its wonders, I am as much known to Him, as if I were the single object of His attention; that He

marks all my thoughts; and that with an exercise of power, which I can neither describe nor comprehend, the same God who sits in the highest heaven, and reigns over the glories of the firmament, is at my right hand to give me every breath which I draw, and every comfort which I enjoy.

LESSON C.

A NAME IN THE SAND.

HANNAH F. GOULD.

1. ALONE I walked the ocean strand;
A pearly shell was in my hand;
I stooped and wrote upon the sand
My name, the year,—the day.
As onward from the spot I passed,
One ling'ring look behind I cast;
A wave came rolling high and fast,
And washed my lines away.

2. And so, methought, 'twill shortly be
With every mark on earth from me;
A wave of dark oblivion's sea,
Will sweep across the place,
Where I have trod the sandy shore
Of time, and been to be no more,—
Of me, my day,—the name I bore,
To leave nor track nor trace.

3. And yet with Him who counts the sands,
And holds the waters in his hands,
I know a lasting record stands,

Inscribed against my name,

Of all this mortal part has wrought;
Of all this thinking soul has thought;
And from these fleeting moments caught,
For glory or for shame.