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they still speak to nations, and awaken intellect, sensibility, and genius in both hemispheres; who can think of such men and not feel the immense inferiority of the most gifted warrior, whose elements of thought are physical forces and physical obstructions, and whose employment is the combination of the lowest class of objects, on which a powerful mind can be employed.

All despotism, whether usurped or hereditary, is our abhor

rence.

We regard it as the most grievous wrong and insult to the human race. But towards the hereditary despot we have more of compassion than indignation. Nursed and brought up in delusion, worshipped from his cradle, never spoken to in the tone of fearless truth, taught to look on the great mass of his fellow beings as an inferior race, and to regard despotism as a law of nature and a necessary element of social life; such a prince, whose education and condition almost deny him the possibility of acquiring healthy moral feeling and manly virtue, must not be judged severely. Still, in absolving the despot from much of the guilt which seems at first to attach to his unlawful and abused power, we do not the less account despotism a wrong and a curse. The time for its fall, we trust, is coming. It cannot fall too soon. has long enough wrung from the laborer his hard earnings; long enough squandered a nation's wealth on its parasites and minions; long enough warred against the freedom of the mind, and arrested the progress of truth. It has filled dungeons enough with the brave and good, and shed enough of the blood of patriots. Let its end come. It cannot come

too soon.

It

APOSTROPHE TO EDUCATION.

NURSE of my country's infancy, her stay
In youthful trials and in dangers day;
Diffusive Education! 'tis to thee;

She owes her mountain-breath of Liberty;
To thee she looks, through time's illusive gloom,
To light her path and shield her from the tomb;
Beneath thine Ægis, tyranny shall fail,

Before thy frown the traitor's heart shall quail;
Ambitious foes to liberty may wear

A patriot mask, to compass what they dare,
And sting the thoughtless nation, while they smile
Benignantly and modestly the while;

But thou shalt rend the virtuous-seeming guise,
And guard her from the worst of enemies.
Eternal power! whose tempted thunder sleeps,
While heaven-eyed mercy turns away and weeps;
Thou didst lead our fathers where to send
Their free devotions to their God and friend;
Thou who hast swept a wilderness away,
That men may walk in freedom's cloudless day;
Guard well their trust, lest impious faction dare,
Unlock the chain that binds our birthright fair;
That private views to public good may yield,
And honest men stand fearless in the field!

SUNRISE FROM MOUNT WASHINGTON.

THE laughing hours have chased away the night,
Plucking the stars out from her diadem.-
And now the blue-eyed Morn, with modest grace,
Looks through her half-drawn curtains in the east,
Blushing in smiles and glad as infancy.

And see! the foolish Moon, but now so vain
Of borrowed beauty, how she yields her charms,
And, pale with envy steals herself away!
The clouds have put their gorgeous livery on,
Attendant on the day-the mountain tops
Have lit their beacons, and the vales below
Send up a welcoming;-no song of birds,
Warbling to charm the air with melody,
Floats on the frosty breeze; yet nature hath
The very soul of music in her looks!
The sunshine and the shade of poetry.

I stand upon thy lofty pinnacle,

Temple of Nature! and look down with awe
On the wide world beneath me, dimly seen;
Around me crowd the giant sons of earth,
Fixed on their old foundations, unsubdued;
Firm as when first rebellion bade them rise
Unrifted to the Thunderer-now they seem
A family of mountains, clustering round

Their hoary patriarch, emulously watching
To meet the partial glances of the day."
Far in the glowing east the flickering light,
Mellowed by distance, with the blue sky blending,
Questions the eye with ever-varying forms.

The sun comes up! away the shadows fling,
From the broad hills-and, hurrying to the West,
Sport in the sunshine, 'till they die away.

The many beauteous mountain-streams leap down,
Out-welling from the clouds, and sparkling light
Dances along with their perennial flow.
And there is beauty in yon river's path,
The glad Connecticut! I know her well,
By the white veil she mantles o'er her charms:
At times, she loiters by a ridge of hills,
Sportfully hiding-then again, with glee,
Out-rushes from her wild-wood lurking-place.
Far as the eye can bound, the ocean-waves,
And hills and rivers, mountains, lakes and woods,
And all that hold the faculty entranced,
Bathed in a flood of glory, float in air,
And sleep, in the deep quietude of joy.

There is an awful stillness in this place,
A Presence, that forbids to break the spell,
"Till the heart pour its agony in tears.
But I must drink the vision while it lasts;
For even now the curling vapours rise,
Wreathing their cloudy coronals, to grace
These towering summits-bidding me away:
But often shall my heart turn back again,
Thou glorious eminence! and when oppressed,
And aching with the coldness of the world,
Find a sweet resting-place and home with thee.

SOURCES OF RELIGION.

THERE is religion in every thing around us; a calm and holy religion in the unbreathing things of nature, which man would do well to imitate. It is a meek and blessed influence, stealing in as it were, unawares upon the heart. It comes quietly and without excitement. It has no terror; no gloom

in its approaches. It does not rouse up the passions; it is untrammelled by the creeds and unshadowed by the superstitions of man, It is fresh from the hands of its author, and glowing from the immediate presence of the Great Spirit which pervades and quickens it.

It is written on the arched sky. It looks out from every star. It is on the sailing cloud, and in the invisible wind. It is among the hills and valleys of the earth—where the shrubless mountain-top pierces the thin atmosphere of eternal winter-or where the mighty forest fluctuates before the strong wind, with its dark waves of green foliage. It is spread out like a legible language upon the broad face of the unsleeping ocean. It is the poetry of nature. It is this which uplifts the spirit within us, until it is strong enough to overlook the shadows of our place of probation:—which breaks, link after link, the chains that bind us to materiality; and which opens to our imagination a world of spiritual beauty and holiness.

RELIGION.

RELIGION has planted itself, in all the purity of its image and sufficiency of its strength, at the threshold of human misery; and is empowed to recall the wanderers from their pilgrimage of wo, and direct them in the path of heaven. It has diffused a sacred joy in the abodes of poverty and wretchedness; it has illuminated the dungeon of the captive; it has effaced the wrinkles from the brow of care, shed a gleam of sacred joy to the chamber of death, gladdened the countenance of the dying with a triumphant enthusiasm, and diffused throughout the earth a faint foretaste of the blessings of futurity. It is as benign as the light of heaven, and comprehensive as its span. And it is in the eye of the christian, that it quickens perseverance with the promises of reward, reanimates the drooping spirit, invigorates the decrepitude of age and directs with a prophetic ken to the regions of eternal felicity. Like the sun, it gilds every object with its rays, without being diminished in its lustre, or shorn of its power.

THE UNIVERSAL PRAYER.

FATHER of all! in every age,
In every clime adored,

By saint, by savage, or by sage,
The universal Lord!

Thou great first cause! least understood;
Who all my sense confined,
To know but this;—that thou art good,
And that myself am blind.

What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do,

This teach me, more than hell, to shun,
That, more than heaven, pursue.

What blessings thy free bounty gives
Let me not cast away;

For God is paid when man receives;
T' enjoy is to obey.

Yet not to earth's contracted span
Thy goodness let me bound;
Or think thee Lord alone of man,
When thousand worlds are round.
Let not this weak, unknowing hand
Presume thy bolts to throw;
And deal damnation round the land
On each I judge thy foe.

If I am right, thy grace impart
Still in the right to stay;
If I am wrong, O teach my heart
To find that better way.

Save me alike from foolish pride
Or impious discontent,
At aught thy wisdom has denied,
Or aught thy goodness lent.

Teach me to feel another's wo,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

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