the squire, who live in a perpetual state of war. The parson is always preaching at the squire, and the squire, to be revenged on the parson, never comes to church. The squire has made all his tenants atheists and tithe stealers; while the parson instructs them every Sunday in the dignity of his order, and insinuates to them in almost every sermon that he is a better man than his patron. In short, matters are come to such an extremity that the squire has not said his prayers either in public or private this half year, and that the parson threatens him, if he does not mend his manners, to pray for him in the face of the whole congregation.

Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the country, are very fatal to the ordinary people, who are so used to be dazzled with riches that they pay as much deference to the understanding of a man of an estate as of a man of learning; and are very hardly brought to regard any truth, how important soever it may be, that is preached to them when they know there are several men of five hundred a year who do not believe it.

Aside from the religious idea of the Sabbath, what reason does Addison give for observing the day? What does he mean by "the rust of the week"? Have you known any one whose conduct at church is like Sir Roger's? Give illustrations of Sir Roger's kindness to the people of his parish. How do you think they feel toward him? The author does not say whether he and the chaplain are friendly. What is your opinion on this point? Compare them with the squire and his chaplain in the next village. What method of showing Sir Roger's character does Addison employ? (See Suggestions, p. 89.) How many instances of humor are there in this selection?

SUGGESTIONS FOR ORAL AND WRITTEN ENGLISH

THEME SUBJECTS

Using Addison's method, write a character sketch of some one in your church who is very generous: it may be either of a man who gives money or of a woman who uses her time and strength in service.

Make your own title and write a theme on one of the following topics:

The Old Gentlemen in the Front Pew. A Country Church.

Our Church Bazaar.

Winning a Sunday School Prize.

Why I Attend Sunday School.

A Sabbath in Colonial Days.
What I Do Sunday Afternoon.
What is the Sabbath for?

SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READINGS

From The Spectator: No. 109, Sir Roger's Ancestors; No. 115, Bodily Exercise; No. 116, Sir Roger and the Chase; No. 130, Sir Roger and the Gypsies; No. 132, The Journey to London.

From Irving's Sketch Book: The Country Church; The Stagecoach; Christmas Eve; Christmas Day.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

JOHN RUSKIN

John Ruskin (1819-1900), art critic, essayist, and social philosopher, was born in London. He was one of the great prose writers who helped to mold the thought of the Victorian age. His greatest works are Modern Painters and The Stones of Venice. Sesame and Lilies, a volume of essays, and The King of the Golden River, an altruistic story, are perhaps his most popular books. The following selection from his autobiography, to which he gave the title Præterita ("Things Past"), is important because it shows what early reading helped to make him a great prose writer. See also:

Halleck's New English Literature, pp. 488-495, 582.

Cook's The Life of John Ruskin.

Harrison's John Ruskin.

1

I AM, and my father was before me, a violent Tory of the old school; (Walter Scott's school, that is to say, and Homer's,) 1 I name these two out of the numberless great Tory writers, because they were my own two masters. I had Walter Scott's novels, and the Iliad (Pope's translation) for my only reading when I was a child, on week days: on Sundays their effect was tempered by Robinson Crusoe and the Pilgrim's Progress; my mother having it deeply in her heart to make an evangelical clergyman of me. Fortunately, I had an aunt more evangelical than my mother; and my aunt gave me cold mutton for Sunday's dinner, which -as I much preferred it hot-greatly diminished the influence of the Pilgrim's Progress, and the end of the matter was, that I got all the noble imaginative teaching of Defoe and Bunyan, and yet - am not an evangelical clergyman.

1 A Greek epic poet, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

I had, however, still better teaching than theirs, and that compulsorily, and every day of the week.

Walter Scott and Pope's Homer were reading of my own election, but my mother forced me, by steady daily toil, to learn long chapters of the Bible by heart; as well as to read it every syllable through, aloud, hard names and all, from Genesis to the Apocalypse,1 about once a year: and to that discipline - patient, accurate, and resolute-I owe, not only a knowledge of the book, which I find occasionally serviceable, but much of my general power of taking pains, and the best part of my taste in literature. From Walter Scott's novels I might easily, as I grew older, have fallen to other people's novels; and Pope might, perhaps, have led me to take Johnson's 2 English, or Gibbon's, as types of language; but, once knowing the 32nd of Deuteronomy, the 119th Psalm, the 15th of First Corinthians, the Sermon on the Mount, and most of the Apocalypse, every syllable by heart, and having always a way of thinking with myself what words meant, it was not possible for me, even in the foolishest times of youth, to write entirely superficial or formal English.

3

What authors does he value of his early train

What instances of humor do you find? specially mention? What is his opinion of the ing? Do you think that his opinion is correct? Aside from the subject matter, what else did Ruskin learn in reading the Bible? How did he acquire a vocabulary? Which of the books that he read are you suffi

1 The Revelation, the last book in the New Testament.

2 Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), a noted converser and writer, who loved long words derived from the Latin.

* Edward Gibbon (1737-1794), author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, who was also fond of words of Latin origin.

ciently familiar with to give some of their general characteristics? How many of the same books did Abraham Lincoln (p. 258) and Ruskin read early in life?

SUGGESTIONS FOR ADDITIONAL READINGS

Read from the Bible: The Story of Creation; The Story of Abraham; The Story of David; The Story of Samson; The Story of Ruth; Daniel in the Lions' Den; The Description of the New Jerusalem (Revelation, xxi, xxii).

Read from Pope's or Bryant's translation of Homer's Odyssey: Ulysses (Odysseus) and Calypso (Book v); The Lotus-Eaters and the Cyclops (Book ix); Æolus and Circe (Book x); The Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis (Book xii).

Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. (Note the Biblical simplicity of his style.) Franklin's Autobiography (the first twenty-five pages).

Ruskin's The King of the Golden River and Sesame and Lilies, Lecture II. (The part relating to Shakespeare.)