and undertakings that do good; and I should therefore like to have the idea of good explained, and analyzed, and run out to its elements. When this is done, if I do not demonstrate, in about two minutes, that the monument does the same kind of good that any thing else does, I will consent that the huge blocks of granite, already laid, should be reduced to gravel, and carted off to fill up the mill pond; for that, I suppose, is one of the good things. Does a railroad or canal do good? Answer, Yes. And how? It facilitates intercourse, opens markets, and increases the wealth of the country. But what is this good for? Why, individuals prosper and get rich. And what good does that do? Is mere wealth, as an ultimate end, gold and silver, without an inquiry as to their use, are these a good? Certainly not. I should insult this audience by attempting to prove that a rich man, as such, is neither better nor happier than a poor one. But as men grow rich, they live better. Is there any good in this, stopping here? Is mere animal life -feeding, working, and sleeping like an ox-entitled to be called good? Certainly not. But these improvements increase the population. And what good does that do? Where is the good in counting twelve millions instead of six, of mere feeding, working, sleeping animals? There is then no good in the mere animal life, except that it is the physical basis of that higher moral existence, which resides in the soul, the heart, the mind, the conscience; in good principles, good feelings, and the good actions (and the more disinterested, the more entitled to be called good) which flow from them. Now, I say that generous and patriotic sentiments, sentiments which prepare us to serve our country, to live for our country, to die for our country, — feelings like those which carried Prescott, and Warren, and Putnam to the battle field, are good; good, humanly speaking, of the highest order. It is good to have them, good to encourage them, good to honor them, good to commemorate them; and whatever tends to animate and strengthen such feelings does as much right down, practical good, as filling up low grounds and building railroads. This is my demonstration. I wish not to be misunderstood. I admit the connection between enterprises which promote the physical prosperity of the country, and its intellectual and moral improvement; but I maintain that it is only this connection that gives these enterprises all their value; and that the same connection gives a like value to every thing else which, through the channel of the senses, the taste, or the imagination, warms and elevates the heart. CX.-AUTUMN LESSONS. GREENWOOD. [FRANCIS WILLIAM PITT GREENWOOD was born in Boston, February 5, 1797, was graduated at Harvard College in 1814, and settled in 1818 as pastor over the New South Church, in Boston. But he was soon obliged to leave this post of duty, on account of his failing health. In 1824, he was settled as colleague to the late Dr. Freeman over the church worshipping in King's Chapel. He died August 2, 1848. He was a man of rare purity of life, who preached the gospel by his works as well as his words. His manner in the pulpit was simple, impressive, and winning; and his sermons were deeply imbued with true religious feeling. His style was beautifully transparent and graceful, revealing a poetical imagination under the control of a pure taste. He was a frequent contributor to the North American Review and the Christian Examiner, and for a time was one of the editors of the latter periodical. A selection from his sermons, with an introductory memoir, was published after his death; and a volume had appeared during his lifetime, under the title of Sermons of Consolation. Dr. Greenwood had considerable knowledge of natural history, and was an accurate observer of nature, with remarkable powers of description. Some of his lighter productions, contributed to the gift annuals of the day, have great merit as vivid and pioturesque delineations of natural scenes and objects. The following extract is from one of bis sermons.] THE feelings excited by the autumnal season are unvaried; but they are so true, so deep, so near to the fountains of our life, that they are always fresh, always powerful. Time after time we may go into the autumnal woods, and while the yellow leaves fall slowly down, and touch the earth with a sound so soft that it is almost silence, the selfsame thoughts shall be suggested to us, and yet without appearing hackneyed or old. They shall be as affecting the last time as the first. They shall even, like the words of fine poetry, or of ancient prayer, endear themselves by repetition. Are they not poetry? Are they not prayer? When nature and the heart converse together, they converse like old friends, on familiar and domestic things, on truths which cannot lose their interest-the common but eternal truths of mortality. So complete is the system that runs through the visible universe, that there are evident analogies and sympathies between our mortal condition and the condition of all outward things. These analogies and sympathies are the same in every age. They are observed, felt, uttered in every age. The utterance of them is transmitted from mouth to mouth. They often arise to the same heart and the same lips; but man cannot weary of the final truths of his mortal condition. They are his poetry, his prayer; his poetry while they rest in the present world; and his prayer when they are united with the future and with God. And what are the suggestions of autumn? What do we think, and what do we say, when we behold the leaves falling, the grass withering, and the flower fading? The peasant, as he pauses in his toil; the cottage dame, as she sits at her door; the man of business, when he quits the paved and crowded streets; the young as well as the old; ay, and the giddy and gay as well as the serious, all express essentially the same sentiment which poets express, and which the prophet proclaimed, and the apostle repeated, long centuries ago. "All flesh is grass," said the prophet, "and all the goodness thereof is as the flower of the field." "For all flesh is as grass," repeats the apostle, "and all the glory of man as the flower of grass." That is the moral which never tires. That is the feeling which is as old as the time when the first leaf fell dry and shrivelled at the feet of the first man, and as recent as the present season of decadence and death. The conviction that all the goodliness of man's mortal frame, that all the glory of man's earthly prospects, hopes, and plans, is the beauty of withering grass and the array of perishing flowers, is borne to all hearts by the sighing winds of autumn. O bond unbroken between Nature's frailest children and ourselves! Who is not conscious of its reality and its force? O primitive brotherhood between herbs and blossoms and the sons of men; between the green things which spring up and then wither, and the bright things which unfold and then fade; between these and countenances which bloom and then change, eyes which sparkle and then are quenched, breathing and blessed forms which appear in loveliness and then are gone! Who does not acknowledge its claims of kindred? Surely the people is grass;" surely there is no more stability in the strongest of mankind than in "the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven." 66 Go into the fields and woods, when "the wind of the Lord" has blown upon them; when the blasts and the frosts of autumn have been dealing with them. A change has passed over every thing, from the loftiest and broadest tree of the forest down to the little wild plants at its roots. Winged seeds are borne about by the fitful gusts. Leaves descend in dark showers. Dry and bare stems and stalks hoarsely rattle against each other, the skeletons of what they were. You cannot raise your eyes but you look upon the dying; you cannot move but you step upon the dead. Leaves and flowers are returning to the dust; can you forbear thinking that in this universal destiny they are like yourself? Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return. Can you forbear thinking that the successive generations of men, like the successive generations of leaves and flowers, have been cut off by the death frost, and mingled with common earth? And are not individual names whispered to your memory by the dying fragrance and the rustling sounds -names of those who flourished, faded, and fell in your sight? Perhaps you think of the fair infant, who, like the last tender leaf put forth by a plant, was not spared for its tenderness, but compelled to drop like the rest. Perhaps your thoughts dwell on the young man who, full of vigor and hope, verdant in fresh affections, generous purposes, and high promise, and bearing to you some name which means more to the heart than to the ear, friend, brother, son, husband, was chilled in a night, and fell from the tree of life. Or perhaps there rises up before you the form of the maiden, delicate as the flower, and as fragile also, who was breathed upon by that mysterious wind, lost the hues of health, and though nursed and watched with unremitting care, could not be preserved, but faded away. You are not alone in the brown woods, though no living being is near you. Thin and dim shades come round you, stand with you among the withered grass, walk with you in the leaf-strewn path. Forms of the loved, shades of the lost, mind-created images of those who have taken their place with the leaves and flowers of the past summer, they speak not, they make no sound; but how surely do they bear witness to the words of the prophet and the apostle, till you hear their burden in every.breeze, the spontaneous dirge of nature! "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth," is the annually repeated strain from the fields and woods, and man's heart replies, "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field." The listening Psalmist heard the same theme and the same response; and he, too, has repeated and recorded them. "As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth over it, and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more." CXI.-THE BLIND PREACHER. KOSEGARTEN. [L. T. KOSEGARTEN (born 1758, died 1818) was a German poet and man of letters. He was a clergyman, and professor of history at one of the universities of Germany. The translation is by Rev. C. T. BROOKS, of Newport, R. I.] BLIND with old age, the venerable Bedé |