Noiselessly as the springtime her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills open their thousand leaves,-
So, without sound of music, or voice of them that wept,
Silently down from the mountain crown the great procession swept.

Lo! when the warrior dieth, his comrades in the war,
With arms reversed, and muffled drum, follow the funeral car.
They show the banners taken, they tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed, while peals the minute gun.

Amid the noblest of the land men lay the sage to rest,

And give the bard an honored place with costly marble dressed,
In the great minster transept, where lights like glories fall,
And the sweet choir sings, and the organ rings, along the embla-
zoned wall.

This was the bravest warrior that ever buckled sword;

This the most gifted poet that ever breathed a word;

And never earth's philosopher traced, with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so sage, as he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honor, the hillside for his pall;

To lie in state while angels wait with stars for tapers tall;
And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes, over his bier to wave;
And God's own hand, in that lonely land, to lay him in the grave?

Oh, lonely tomb in Moab's land, oh, dark Beth-peor's hill,
Speak to these curious hearts of ours, and teach them to be still.
God hath his mysteries of Grace ways that we cannot tell ;
He hides them deep, like the secret sleep of him he loved so well

(2) Selection for Moderate Movement.

ELEMENTS OF NATIONAL WEALTH

JAMES G. BLAINE

The territory which we occupy is at least three million square miles in extent, within a fraction as large as the whole of Europe. The state of Texas alone is equal in area to the empire of France

and the kingdom of Portugal united; and yet these two monarchies support a population of forty millions, while Texas has but six hundred thousand inhabitants. The land that is still in the hands of the government, not sold or even preëmpted, amounts to a thousand million of acres, an extent of territory thirteen times as large as Great Britain, and equal in area to all the kingdoms of Europe, Russia and Turkey alone excepted.

Combined with this great expanse of territory, we have facilities for the acquisition and consolidation of wealth — varied, magnificent, immeasurable. The single state of Illinois, cultivated to its capacity, can produce as large a crop of cereals as has ever been grown within the limits of the United States, while Texas, if peopled but half as densely as Maryland even, could give an annual return of cotton larger than the largest that has ever been grown in all the southern states combined.

Our facilities for commerce and exchange, both domestic and foreign, who shall measure them? Our oceans, our vast inland seas, our marvelous flow of navigable streams, our canals, our network of railroads more than thirty thousand miles in extent, these give us avenues of trade and channels of communication both natural and artificial such as no other nation has ever enjoyed. Our mines of gold and silver and iron and copper and lead and coal, with their untold and unimaginable wealth, spread over millions of acres of territory, in the valley, on the mountain side, along rivers, yielding already a rich harvest, are destined yet to increase a thousandfold, until their everyday treasures,

familiar grown,

Shall realize Orient's fabled dream.

These are the great elements of material progress, and they comprehend the entire circle of human enterprise, — agriculture, commerce, manufactures, mining. They give into our hands, under the blessing of Almighty God, the power to command our fate as a nation. They hold out to us the grandest future reserved for any people; and with this promise they teach us the lesson of patience, and render patience and fortitude a duty.

With such amplitude and affluence of resources, and with such a vast stake at issue, we should be unworthy of our lineage and

our inheritance if we for one moment distrusted our ability to maintain ourselves a united people, with "one country, one constitution, one destiny."

(3) Selection for Rapid Movement.

THE BOAT RACE, FROM "TOM BROWN AT OXFORD"

THOMAS HUGHES

The crew had just finished their early dinner. Hark! the first gun! The St. Ambrose crew fingered their oars, put a last dash of grease on their rowlocks, and settled their feet against the stretchers. "Shall we push her off?" asked "bow." "No, I can give you another minute," said the coxswain, who was sitting, watch in hand, in the stern; "only be smart when I give the word. Eight seconds more only. Look out for the flash. Remember, all eyes in the boat."

There it comes, at last the flash of the starting gun. Long before the sound of the report can roll up the river the whole pentup life and energy which has been held in leash, as it were, for the last six minutes is let loose, and breaks away with a bound and a dash which he who has felt it will remember for his life, but the like of which will he ever feel again? The starting ropes drop from the coxswain's hands, the oars flash into the water, and gleam on the feather, the spray flies from them, and the boats leap forward.

some slightly

The crowds on the bank scatter and rush along, each keeping as near as it may be to its own boat. Some of the men on the towing path, some on the very edge of, often in, the water in advance, as if they could help to drag their boat forward—some behind, where they can see the pulling better—but all at full speed, in wild excitement, and shouting at the top of their voices to those on whom the honor of the college is laid. "Well pulled, all!" "Pick her up there, five !" "You're gaining, every stroke!" "Time in the bows!" "Bravo, St. Ambrose!" On they rushed by the side of the boats, jostling one another, stumbling, struggling, and panting along.

For the first ten strokes Tom Brown was in too great fear of making a mistake to feel or hear or see. His whole soul was glued to the back of the man before him, his one thought to keep time, and get his strength into the stroke. But as the crew settled down into the well-known long sweep, consciousness returned. While every muscle in his body was straining, and his chest heaved, and his heart leaped, every nerve seemed to be gathering new life and his senses to wake into unwonted acuteness. He caught the scent of the wild thyme in the air, and found room in his brain to wonder how it could have got there, as he had never seen the plant near the river or smelt it before. Though his eye never wandered from the back of the man in front of him, he seemed to see all things at once; and amid the Babel of voices, and the dash and pulse of the stroke, and the laboring of his own breathing, he heard a voice coming to him again and again, and clear as if there had been no other sound in the air: "Steady, two! steady! well pulled! steady, steady!"

The voice seemed to give him strength and keep him to his work. And what work it was! he had had many a hard pull in the last six weeks, but "never aught like this." But it can't last forever; men's muscles are not steel, or their lungs bull's hide, and hearts can't go on pumping a hundred miles an hour long without bursting. The St. Ambrose's boat is well away from the boat behind. There is a great gap between the accompanying crowds. And now, as they near the Gut, she hangs for a moment or two in hand, though the roar from the banks grows louder and louder, and Tom is already aware that the St. Ambrose crowd is melting into the one ahead of them.

"We must be close to Exeter!" The thought flashes into him and into the rest of the crew at the same moment. For, all at once, the strain seems taken off their arms again. There is no more drag. She springs to the stroke as she did at the start; and the coxswain's face, which had darkened for a few seconds, lightens up again. "You're gaining! you're gaining!" now and then he mutters to the captain, who responds with a look, keeping his breath for other matters. Isn't he grand, the captain, as he comes forward like lightning, stroke after stroke, his back flat, his teeth set,

his whole frame working from the hips with the steadiness of a machine? As the space still narrows, the eyes of the fiery little Coxswain flash with excitement.

The two crowds are mingled now, and no mistake; and the shouts

come all in a heap over the water. "Now, St. Ambrose, six strokes more!" "Now, Exeter, you're gaining; pick her up!" "Mind the Gut, Exeter!" "Bravo, St. Ambrose!" The water rushes by, still eddying from the strokes of the boat ahead. Tom fancies now he can hear the voice of their coxswain. In another moment both boats are in the Gut, and a storm of shouts reaches them from the crowd. "Well steered, well steered, St. Ambrose !" is the cry. Then the coxswain, motionless as a statue till now, lifts his right hand and whirls the tassel round his head: "Give it her now, boys; six strokes and we are into them!"

And while a mighty sound of shouts, murmurs, and music went up into the evening sky, the coxswain shook the tiller ropes again, the captain shouted, "Now, then, pick her up!" and the St. Ambrose boat shot up between the swarming banks at racing pace to her landing place, the lion of the evening.

(4) Selection for all Movements.

NOTE. It is suggested that the student make a close study of the following selection and read it aloud for the instructor, observing the changes in the rate of Movement suggested by the context. Such practice will soon fix the habit of a correct use of this principle.

THE LEPER

N. P. WILLIS

"Room for the leper! Room!" and as he came
The cry passed on. "Room for the Leper! Room!"
And aside they stood -

Matron, and child, and pitiless manhood-all

Who met him on the way - and let him pass.
And onward through the open gate he came,
A leper with the ashes on his brow.
Sackcloth about his loins, and on his lip