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Reveals the ruling God! The Heavens are bare,
Each sunny stream, and blossom-mantled bower
Breathes of pervading love, and shows the power
That spoke him into life, hath bless'd man's earthly dower.

LESSON XIX.

The Friendship of Home.

OII, no!-not through the glitt'ring crowd
For faith or stedfast friendship roam ;
Or rich or poor, or meek or proud—
Thy friend is home.

E'en though thou'lt meet the glance, the smile,
The greeting fond, the deep'ning hue :
Heed-heed them not! they but beguile !—
Thy home is true.

What are all other friends to those
Who circle round thy own fireside,
Whose sympathy for ever flows,
To thee allied?

The dew, the flower, the zephyr's sigh,
The heaving ocean's silv'ry spray,
The flakes that gild the evening sky,
Are brief as they.

Bright is thy sun, thy skies are clear,
And fragrant garlands o'er thee twine;
Crown of them all, in beauty dear,
True love is thine.

Not only then!-let tempests low'r,
And blot the disk of life with care,
Still 'midst the wreck of joys no more
That love is there!

Then stray not from the hallow'd bound Which kindred makes thy bosom's own, Nor seek elsewhere the light that's found In that alone.

There thou wilt meet the zeal that knows No chill, no change, no nerveless rest― Balm of the heart! which Home bestows, Thy name be blest.

LESSON XX.

The Quiet Mind.

THOUGH low my lot, my wish is won,
My hopes are few and staid ;
All I thought life would do, is done,
The last request is made :
If I have foes, no foes I fear;
To fate I live resigned :
I have a friend I value here-
And that's a quiet mind.

I wish not it was mine to wear

Flushed honour's sunny crown : I wish not I was fortune's heir; She frowns, and let her frown:

I have no taste for pomp and strife,
Which others love to find :

I only wish the bliss of life-
A poor and quiet mind.

The trumpet's taunt in battle-field,

The great man's pedigree

What peace can all their honours yield,
And what are they to me?

Though praise and pomp, to eke the strife,

Rave like a mighty wind,
What are they to the calm of life-
A still and quiet mind?

I mourn not that my lot is low,
I wish no higher state ;
I sigh not that fate made me so,
Nor tease her to be great :
I am content, for well I see,
What all at last shall find,

That life's worst lot the best shall be-
And that's a quiet mind.

I see the great pass heedless by,

And pride above me tower;

It costs me not a single sigh

For either wealth or power:
They are but men, and I'm a man
Of quite as great a kind,
Proud too, that life gives all she can-
A calm and quiet mind.

I never mocked at beauty's shrine,

To stain her lips with lies;

No knighthood's fame, or luck was mine, To win love's richest prize :

And yet I found in russet weed,

What all will wish to find,

True love, and comfort's prize indeed-
A glad and quiet mind.

And come what will of care or woe,
As some must come to all,

I'll wish not that they were not so,
Nor mourn that they befall :
If tears for sorrows start at will,

They're comforts in their kind,
And I am blest, if with me still
Remains a quiet mind.

When friends depart, as part they must,
And love's true joys decay,

That leave us like the summer's dust
The whirlwind puffs away;
While life's allotted time I brave,
Though left the last behind,
A prop and friend I still shall have,
If I've a quiet mind.

LESSON XXI.

God and Nature.

SOME say that in the origin of things,

When all creation started into birth,

The infant elements receiv'd a law,

From which they swerv'd not since. That under force

Of that controlling ordinance they move,

And need not His immediate hand who first

Prescrib'd their course, to regulate it now.
Thus dream they, and contrive to save a God
Th' encumbrance of his own concerns, and spare
The great artificer of all that moves

The stress of a continual act, the pain
Of unremitted vigilance and care,
As too laborious and severe a task.
So man, the moth, is not afraid, it seems,
To span omnipotence, and measure might
That knows no measure, by the scanty rule
And standard of his own, that is to-day,
And is not e'er to-morrow's sun go down.
But how should matter occupy a charge,
Dull as it is, and satisfy a law

So vast in its demands, unless impell'd
To ceaseless service by a ceaseless force,
And under pressure of some conscious cause?
The Lord of all, himself through all diffus'd,
Sustains, and is the life of all that lives.
Nature is but a name for an effect,

Whose cause is God. He feeds the secret fire,
By which the mighty process is maintain'd,
Who sleeps not; is not weary; in whose sight
Slow circling ages are as transient days;
Whose work is without labour; whose designs
No flaw deforms, no difficulty thwarts;
And whose beneficence no charge exhausts.
Him blind antiquity profan'd, not serv'd,
With self-taught rites, and under various names,
Female and male, Pomona, Pales, Pan,
And Flora, and Vertumnus; peopling Earth
With tutelary goddesses and gods,

That were not; and commending as they would
To each some province, garden, field, or grove.
But all are under one. One spirit-His

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