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when you see their eyes overflow with sympathy and sorrow, and their young hearts bursting with the pangs of anticipated orphanage, tell them that you had the boldness and the justice to stig matize the monster who had dared to publish the transaction.

LESSON LXXVI.

VICTIM, BRIDE, AND MISER.

ANONYMOUS,

1. I saw her in her summer bower, and oh! upon my sight, Methought there never beamed a form more beautiful and bright. So young, so fair, she seemed like one of those ærial things, That dwell but in the poet's high and wild imaginings;

Or, like one of those forms we meet in dreams, from which we

wake and weep,

That earth has no creations, like the figments of our sleep. 2. Her father loved he not his child, above all earthly things? As traders love the merchandize from which their profit springs; Old age came by, with tottering step, and then for sordid gold, With which the dotard urged his suit, the maiden's peace was sold; And thus, (for oh! her sire's stern heart was steeled against her prayer,)

The hand he ne'er had gained from love, he won from her despair. 3. I saw them through the church-yard pass, and such a nuptial train, I would not, for the wealth of worlds, should greet my sight again; The bride-maids, each as beautiful, as Eve in Eden's bowers, Shed bitter tears upon the path they should have strown with flowers;

Who had not thought that white-robed band the funeral array Of one an early doom had called, from life's gay scene away?

L. The priest beheld the bridal pair before the altar stand,

And sighed as he drew forth his book, with slow, reluctant hand; He saw the bride's flower-wreathed hair, he marked her stream

ing eyes,

And deemed it less a christian rite, than a pagan sacrifice;

And when he called on Abraham's God to bless the wedded pair, It seemed a very mockery to breathe so vain a prayer.

I saw the palsied bridegroom, too, in youth's gay ensign drest, A shroud were fitter garment far for him than bridal vest;

I marked him, when the ring was claimed, 'twas hard to lose his hold,

He held it with a miser's clutch-it was his darling gold.

Hi shriveled hand was wet with tears, she shed, alas! in vain Ard trembled like an cutumn leaf beneath the beating rain.

. I've seen her since that fatal morn - her golden fetters rest, As e'en the weight of incubus upon her aching breast;

And when the vietor, (death,) shall come, to deal the welcome

blow,

He will not find one rose to swell the wreath that decks his brow, For oh! her cheek is blanched with grief, that time may not as

suage:

This early beauty skede her bloom en the wintry bast of age.

LESSON LXXVI!

THE WILDERNESS OF MIND.

OSBONE.

1. THERE is a wilderness more dark,
Than groves of fir on Huron's shore :

And in that cheerless region, hark!
How serpents hiss! how monsters roa

2. 'Tis not among the untrodden isles,
Of vast Superior's stormy lake,
Where social comfort never smiles,
Nor sunbeams pierce the tangled brake ·

3. Nor is it in the deepest shade,

Of India's tiger-haunted wood;
Nor western forests, unsurveyed,

Where crouching panthers lurk for blood

4 'Tis in the dark, uncultured soul,

By education unrefined,

Where hissing malice, vices foul,
And all the hateful passions prowl-
The frightful Wilderness of Mind!

LESSON LXXVIII.

THE FAMINE IN IRELAND.

PRENTISS

1. THERE lies upon the other side of the wide Atlantic a beautiful island, famous in story and in song. It has been prolific in statesmen, warriors, and poets. It has given to the world more than its share of genius and of greatness. Its brave and generous sons have fought successfully in all battles but its own. In wit and humor it has no equal; while its harp, like its history, moves to tears by its sweet but melancholy pathos.

crees.

2. In this fair region God has seen fit to send the most ter rible of all those fearful ministers who fulfill his inscrutable deThe earth has failed to give her increase; the common mother has forgotten her offspring, and her breast no longer af fords them their accustomed nourishment. Famine, gaunt and ghastly famine, has seized a nation with its strangling grasp; and unhappy Ireland, in the sad woes of the present, forgets, for a moment, the gloomy history of the past.

3. In battle, in the fullness of his pride and strength, little recks the soldier whether the hissing bullet sing his sudden requiem, or the cords of life are severed by the sharp steel. But he who dies of hunger, wrestles alone, day after day, with his grim and unrelenting enemy. He has no friends to cheer him in the terrible conflict; for if he had friends, how could he die

of hunger? He has not the hot blood of the soldier to maintain him for his foe, vampire-like, has exhausted his veins.

4. Who will hesitate to give his mite, to avert such awful results? Give, then, generously and freely. Recollect, that in so doing, you are exercising one of the most godlike qualities of your nature, and, at the same time, enjoying one of the greatest luxuries of life. We ought to thank our Maker that he has permitted us to exercise equally with himself, that noblest of even the Divine attributes, benevolence.

5. Go home and look at your families, smiling in rosy health, and then think of the pale, famine-pinched cheeks of the poor children of Ireland; and you will give according to your store, even as a bountiful Providence has given to you not grudgingly, but with an open hand; for the quality of benevolence, like that of mercy,

"Is not strained:

It droppeth like the gentle rain from heaven,
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed;
It blesses him that gives, and him that takes."

LESSON LXXIX.

WOODMAN SPARE THAT TREE.

GEORGE P. MORRIS.

1. WOODMAN spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough,
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now.
It was my father's hand
That placed it near his cot;
Then, woodman, let it stand,
Thy ax shall harm i' not.

2. That old familiar tree,
Whose glory and renown,

Are spread o'er land and sea,
And would'st thou hack it down?
Woodman, forbear thy stroke!
Cut not its earth-bound ties,
Oh, spare the aged oak,
Now towering to the skies!

3. When but an idle boy,
I sought its grateful shade,
In all their gushing joy
There, too, my sisters played;
My mother kissed me here
My father pressed my hand,-
Forgive this foolish tear,

But let the old oak stand.

4. My heart strings round thee cling,
Close as thy bark, old friend!
Here shall the wild bird sing,
And still thy branches bend;
Old tree the storm shall brave,
And, woodman, leave the spot!
While I've a pious hand to save,
Thy ax shall harm thee not!

LESSON LXXX.

EMPLOYMENT OF INDIANS IN CIVILIZED WARFARE.

СНАТНАМ.

1. I AM astonished! shocked! to hear such principles confessed to hear them avowed in this house, or in this country;

principles equally unconstitutional, inhurnan, and unchristian.

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