as pillars, and of the overhanging dome which seems to rest on their summits; but in vain we should attempt to describe the vast creations of His handiwork which adorn this magnificent outer temple. Within its walls, however, are sanctuaries, which no "frail hands have made," and where no traces of "man's pomp or pride" are to be seen, but where the humble worshiper, in all the simplicity of childlike faith, may hold communion with his Maker. These are "the groves""God's first temples"-whose "venerable columns" "thy hand, our Father, reared."

GOD'S FIRST TEMPLES.

3. The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learn'd

To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,

And spread the roof above them-ere he framed

The lofty vault, to gather and roll back

The sound of anthems-in the darkling wood,

Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down
And offer'd to the. Mightiest solemn thanks
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences
That, from the stilly twilight of the place,

And from the gray old trunks that, high in heaven,
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath, that sway'd at once

All their green tops, stole over him, and bow'd
His spirit with the thought of boundless power
And inaccessible majesty. Ah! why

Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect

God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore

Only among the crowd, and under roofs

That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,

Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,

Offer one hymn; thrice happy if it find
Acceptance in his ear.

Father, Thy hand

Hath rear'd these venerable columns: Thou

Didst weave this verdant roof. Thou didst look down
Upon the naked earth, and forthwith rose

All these fair ranks of trees. They in Thy sun
Budded, and shook their green leaves in Thy breeze,
And shot toward heaven. The century-living crow,
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old and died
Among their branches; till at last they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark,
Fit shrine for humble worshiper to hold
Communion with his Maker.

Here are seen

No traces of man's pomp or pride; no silks
Rustle, no jewels shine, nor envious eyes

6.

7.

8.

9.

Encounter; no fantastic carvings show

The boast of our vain race to change the form

Of Thy fair works. But Thou art here; Thou fill'st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds
That run along the summits of these trees
In music; Thou art in the cooler breath,
That, from the inmost darkness of the place,
Comes, scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,
The fresh, moist ground, are all instinct with Thee.
Thou hast not left

Thyself without a witness, in these shades,

Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength, and grace
Are here to speak of Thee. This mighty oak-
By whose immovable stem I stand, and seem
Almost annihilated-not a prince,

In all the proud old world beyond the deep,
E'er wore his crown as loftily as he
Wears the green coronal of leaves with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,
With scented breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.

My heart is awed within me when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on
In silence round me-the perpetual work
Of Thy creation, finish'd, yet renew'd
Forever. Written on Thy works, I read
The lesson of Thy own eternity.

Lo! all grow old and die; but see, again,
How, on the faltering footsteps of decay,
Youth presses-ever gay and beautiful youth-
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly than their ancestors
Moulder beneath them.

There have been holy men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave

Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seem'd

Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks

Around them; and there have been holy men
Who deem'd it were not well to pass life thus.

But let me often to these solitudes

Retire, and, in Thy presence, reassure
My feeble virtue. Here, its enemies,

The passions, at Thy plainer footsteps, shrink,
And tremble, and are still.

O God! when Thou
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire

The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill,
With all the waters of the firmament,

The swift, dark whirlwind, that uproots the woods,
And drowns the villages; when, at Thy call,
Uprises the great deep, and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms

Its cities; who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of Thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by!
Oh! from these sterner aspects of Thy face
Spare me and mine; nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad, unchain'd elements, to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate,
In these calm shades, Thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of Thy works

Learn to conform the order of our lives.-BRYANT.

THE PARTHENON OF ATHENS.

Fair Parthenon! yet still must Fancy weep
For thee, thou work of nobler spirits flown.
Bright, as of old, the sunbeams o'er thee sleep
In all their beauty still-and thine is gone!
Empires have sunk since thou wast first revered,
And varying rites have sanctified thy shrine.
Mourn, graceful ruin! on thy sacred hill,

Thy gods, thy rites, a kindred fate have shared :

Yet art thou honor'd in each fragment still

That wasting years and barbarous hands have spared;
Each hallow'd stone, from rapine's fury borne,
Shall wake bright dreams of thee in ages yet unborn.

HEMANS.

Front Elevation of the Parthenon, as restored. See also p. 285.

LESSON I.-INDIAN SUMMER.

1. WHEN was the red man's summer'?

2.

When the rose

Hung its first banner out'? When the gray rock,
Or the brown heath, the radiant kalmia clothed'?
Or when the loiterer by the reedy brooks

Started to see the proud lobelia glow

Like living flame'? When through the forest gleam'd The rhododendron' ? or the fragrant breath

Of the magnolia swept deliciously

O'er the half laden nerve'?

In fleeting colors wrote their own decay,

And leaves fell eddying on the sharpen'd blast

That sang their dirge'; when o'er their rustling bed
The red deer sprang', or fled the shrill-voiced quail,

Heavy of wing and fearful'; when, with heart
Foreboding or depress'd', the white man mark'd
The signs of coming winter': then began

The Indian's joyous season.

Then the haze,

Soft and illusive as a fairy dream',

Lapp'd all the landscape in its silvery fold.

3. The quiet rivers that were wont to hide

'Neath shelving banks', beheld their course betray'd By the white mist that o'er their foreheads crept', While wrapp'd in morning dreams', the sea and sky

4.

Slept 'neath one curtain', as if both were merged'
In the same element'. Slowly the sun,
And all reluctantly, the spell dissolved',
And then it took upon its parting wing
A rainbow glory.

Gorgeous was the time,
Yet brief as gorgeous. Beautiful to thee,
Our brother hunter', but to us replete
With musing thoughts in melancholy train.
Our joys, alas! too oft were woe to thee';

Yet ah! poor Indian', whom we fain would drive

Both from our hearts, and from thy father's lands',

The perfect year doth bear thee on its crown',

And when we would forget', repeat thy name'.-MRS. SIGOURNEY.

LESSON II.-FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES.

1. THE most plain and natural sentiments of equity concur with divine authority to enforce the duty of forgiveness. Let him who has never, in his life, done wrong, be allowed the privilege of remaining inexorable. But let such as are conscious of frailties and crimes consider forgiveness as a debt which they owe to others. Common failings are the strongest lesson of mutual forbearance. Were the virtues unknown among men, order and comfort, peace and repose, would be strangers to human life.

2. Injuries retaliated according to the exorbitant measure which passion prescribes would excite resentment in return. The injured person would become the injurer; and thus wrongs, retaliations, and fresh injuries would circulate in endless succession, till the world was rendered a field of blood.

3. Of all the passions which invade the human breast, revenge is the most direful. When allowed to reign with full dominion, it is more than sufficient to poison the few pleasures which remain to man in his present state. How much soever a person may suffer from injustice, he is always in hazard of suffering more from the prosecution of revenge. The violence of an enemy can not inflict what is equal to the torment he creates to himself by means of the fierce and desperate passions which he allows to rage in his soul.

4. Those evil spirits that inhabit the regions of misery are represented as delighting in revenge and cruelty. But all that is great and good in the universe is on the side of clemency and mercy. The almighty Ruler of the world, though for ages offended by the unrighteousness and insulted by the impiety of men, is "long-suffering and slow to anger.'