of the orator are immediate; his influence is instantly felt; "The applause of listening senates to command, To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land, And read his history in a nation's eyes." "I can conceive," says Cicero, "of no accomplishment more to be desired than to be able to captivate the affections, charm the understanding, and direct or restrain, at pleasure, the will of whole assemblies." This single art, amongst every free people, has commanded every encouragement and been attended with the most surprising effects; for what can be more astonishing than that from an immense multitude one man should come forth, the only, or almost the only, man who can do what nature has made attainable by all? Or, can any thing impart to the ears and the understanding a pleasure so pure as a discourse which at once delights by its elocution, enlists the passions by its rhetoric, and carries captive the conviction by its logic. What triumph more noble and magnificent than that of the eloquence of one man swaying the inclinations of the people, the consciences of judges, and the majesty of senates? Nay, farther: can aught be esteemed so grand, so generous, so public-spirited, as to relieve the suppliant, to raise up the prostrate, to communicate happiness, to avert danger, to save a fellow-citizen from exile and wrong? Can aught be more desirable than to have always ready those weapons with which we can at once defend the weak, assail the profligate, and redress our own or our country's injuries? Apart from the utility of this art in the forum, the rostrum, the senate, and on the bench, can any thing, in retirement from business, be more delightful, more socially endearing, than a language and elocution agreeable and polished on every subject? For the great characteristic of 1 our nature, that which distinguishes us from brutes, is our capacity of social intercourse, our ability to convey our ideas by words. Ought it not, then, to be pre-eminently our study to excel mankind in that very faculty which constitutes their superiority over brutes? Upon the eloquence and spirit of an accomplished orator may often depend, not only his own dignity, but the welfare of a government; nay, of a people. Go on, then, ye who would attain this inestimable art. Ply the study you have in hand, pursue it with singleness of purpose, at once for your own honor, for the advantage of your friends, and for the service of your country. LI.—TRUE FAITH. OLD Reuben Fisher, who lived in the lane, If the weather proved fair, he thanked God for the sun, If trouble assailed, his brow was ne'er dark, If his children were wild, as children will prove, And the true one at last is sure to prevail; And when in the meshes of sin tightly bound, Old Reuben would say, with kind sympathy fraught, If friends waxed cold, he'd say with a smile— There were sickness and death at last in his cot, Then he lay on his death-bed at last, undismayed; LII.-LIGHT. LIGHT is presented to us in ever-varying conditions, but it is always the same-there is a oneness in its essence after all. It is the same light that glistens on the wing of the fire-fly, and blazes on the ruddy hearth-stone, and sparkles on the jewels in the diadem, and flashes in beauty in the morning. Science tells us that those prolific beds of coal in the bowels of the earth were once forests on the surfaceforests of luxuriant vegetation; that they incorporated the sun's rays, and then, in merciful convulsions, were imbedded in the center of the lower earth by an all-provident foresight for the wants of an inhabited world. Science tells us, too, that time was when the shapeless crystal was yet new to the covering of the earth. Subjected to the wheel of the lapidary, it sparkles out to view as a gem of the first water. It is but the release of the imprisoned rays which shone from the same great source long centuries ago; so that, in both the cottage fire-light and in the monarch's gem, we have just the resurrection of some olden summer—the great return of some sepulchral sunlight, from which man has rolled away the stone. DRUNKENNESS. FLY drunkenness, whose vile incontinence It drowns thy better parts, making thy name K. N. E.-19. To foes a laughter, to thy friends a shame; -Randolph. LIII.-PADDLE YOUR OWN CANOE. VOYAGER upon life's sea, To yourself be true; And where'er your lot may be, Paddle your own canoe. Never, though the winds may rave, Falter nor look back, Leave a shining track. Nobly dare the wildest storm, Stem the hardest gale, Brave of heart and strong of arm, You will never fail. When the world is cold and dark, Paddle your own canoe. Every wave that bears you on To the silent shore, From its sunny source has gone To return no more: Then let not an hour's delay Cheat you of your due; If your birth denied you wealth, |