encounter such a hurricane without being dashed or torn to pieces, at least in all her masts and rigging; for I am persuaded that had the same tempest passed as furiously over your town, during the same length of time, it would have left scarcely a house standing. The yielding character of the element in which the vessel is launched is the great secret of safety on such occasions. Hence, when gales occur upon the wide ocean, there is little danger; but when they drive you upon breakers on a lee shore, where the keel 10 comes in contact with "the too solid earth," then it is impossible to escape shipwreck. 13. I never experienced a sensation of fear on the ocean; but this tempest has increased my confidence tenfold, not only in the sea but in the ship. It no longer surprises me that few vessels are lost at sea, for they and their element are made for each other. And the practical conclusion from this experience of a gale is encouraging for all my future navigation. I shall have confidence in my ship now, as I have ever had in the sea. Ever since my eyes first rested on the ocean, I have cherished an instinctive affection for it, as if it were something capable of sympathy and benevolence. When calm, it is to me a slumbering infant. How tranquilly it sleeps! 1 ĂL'A-BĂS-TER. A white stone used for ornamental purposes. 2 BA-ROM'E-TER. An instrument used for measuring the weight or pressure of the atmosphere, and which gives warning of the approach of a storm by the falling of the mercury; a weather-glass. 8 HUR RI-CANE HOUSE. A house on the upper deck. as a vessel, by bringing her head 6 GRAPHIC. Well described; vivid. 8 9 LEE SHORE. A shore against which the wind blows. 4 TREP-I-DA'TION. Involuntary trem- 10 KEEL. The principal timber in a bling; agitation of mind; alarm. 5 LAY TÔ. Had the progress stopped, vessel, extending from stem to stern, at the bottom. LII. SPEECH ON THE RECEPTION OF THE SAUKS AND FOXES. EVERETT. [Edward Everett, a highly distinguished statesman, orator, and scholar, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, April 11, 1794, and died in Boston, universally honored and lamented, January 15, 1865. In the autumn of 1837, a delegation of the Sauk and Fox tribes of Indians went to Washington on business connected with their boundary. It was deemed expedient by the United States government that they should visit the cities of the Eastern and Middle States, and Boston was included in their tour. They were received in Boston on the morning of October 30. Mr. Everett was at that time governor of Massachusetts, and in that capacity made them the following speech of welcome, which is a happy imitation of the peculiar style of oratory common to our North American Indians.] 1. CHIEFS and warriors of the united Sauks and Foxes, you are welcome to our hall of council. from your 2. Brothers, you have come a long way home to visit your white brethren; we rejoice to take you by the hand. Brothers, we have heard the names of your chiefs and warriors. Our brethren who have travelled into the West have told us a great deal about the Sauks and Foxes; we rejoice to see you with our own eyes. Brothers, we are called the Massachusetts. This is the name of the red men who once lived here. Their wigwams were scattered on yonder fields, and their council fire was kindled on this spot. They were of the same great race as the Sauks and Foxes. 3. Brothers, when our fathers came over the great water, they were a small band. The red man stood upon the rock by the sea-side, and saw our fathers. He might have pushed them into the water and drowned them. But he stretched out his hand to them, and said, "Welcome, white men." Our fathers were hungry, and the red man gave them corn and venison'. They were cold, and the red man wrapped them in his blanket. We are now numerous and powerful, but we remember the kindness of the red men to our fathers. Brothers, you are welcome; we are glad to see you! 4. Brothers, our faces are pale, and your faces are dark; but our hearts are alike. The Great Spirit has made his children of different colors, but he loves them all. 5. Brothers, you dwell between the Mississippi and the Missouri. They are mighty rivers. They have one branch far east in the Alleghanies, and another far west in the Rocky Mountains; but they flow together at last into one great stream, and run down into the sea. In like manner, the red man dwells in the west, and the white man in the east, by the great water. But they are all one band, one family. It has many branches, and one Head. 6. Brothers, as you entered our council house, you beheld the image of our great father, Washington.* It is a cold stone; it cannot speak. But he was the friend of the red man, and bade his children live in friendship with their red brethren. He is gone to the world of spirits, but his words have made a very deep print in our hearts, like the step of a strong buffalo on the soft clay of the prairie3. 7. Brother, I perceive your little son between your knees. May the Great Spirit preserve his life, my brother. He grows up before you, like the tender sapling by the side of the mighty oak. May they flourish for a long time together; and when the mighty oak is fallen on the ground, may the young tree fill its place in the forest, and spread out its branches over the tribe. 8. Brothers, I make you a short talk, and again bid you welcome to our council hall. 1 VEN/ISON (věn'zn). The flesh of edi- |2 PRAIRIE (pra're). An extensive ble beasts of the chase, but usually tract of land, mostly level, bare of restricted to the flesh of deer. trees, and covered with grass. There is a statue of Washington, by Chantrey, in the State House, in Boston. LIII. THE IRREPARABLE PAST. ROBERTSON. [Rev. Frederick W. Robertson, pastor of Trinity Chapel, Brighton, England, was born in London, February 3, 1816, and died August 15, 1853. He was a clergyman of the Church of England. His writings are distinguished for their poetical beauty of expression, their vividness, and their stirring appeals to the religious element in man.] 1. TIME is the solemn inheritance to which every man is born heir, who has a life-rent of this world,· a little section cut out of eternity, and given us to do our work in; an eternity before, an eternity behind: and the small stream between, floating swiftly from the one into the vast bosom of the other. The man who has felt, with all his soul, the significance of time, will not be long in learning any lesson that this world has to teach him. Have you ever felt it? Have you ever realized how your own little streamlet is gliding away and bearing you along with it towards that awful other world of which all things here are but thin shadows, down into that eternity towards which the confused wreck of all earthly things is bound? 2. Let us realize, that, until that sensation of time, and the infinite meaning which is wrapped up in it, has taken possession of our souls, there is no chance of our ever feeling strongly that it is worse than madness to sleep that time away. Every day in this world has its work; and every day, as it rises out of eternity, keeps putting to each of us the question afresh, What will you do before to day has sunk into eternity and nothingness again? 3. And now what have we to say with respect to this strange, solemn thing - TIME? That men do with it through life just what the apostles did for one precious and irreparable hour of it in the garden of Gethsemane they go to sleep! Have you ever seen those marble statues, in some public square or garden, which art has so finished into a perennial fountain that through the lips or through the hands the clear water flows in a perpetual stream on and on forever, and the marble stands there, passive, cold, making no effort to arrest the gliding water? 4. It is so that time flows through the hands of men swift, never pausing till it has run itself out; and there is the man petrified3 into a marble sleep, not feeling what it is which is passing away forever! It is so, just so, that the destiny of nine men out of ten accomplishes itself, slipping away from them aimless, useless, till it is too late. And we are asked, with all the solemn thoughts which crowd around our approaching eternity, What has been our life, and what do we intend it shall be? 5. Yesterday, last week, last year, they are gone! Yesterday was such a day as never was before, and never can be again. Out of darkness and eternity it was born, a new, fresh day; into darkness and eternity it sank again forever. It had a voice, calling to us of its own,-its own work, its own duties. What were we doing yesterday? Idling, whiling away the time, in light and luxurious literature; not as life's relaxation, but as life's business? Thrilling our hearts with the excitement of life, contriving how to spend the day most pleasantly? Was that our day? - 6. All this is but the sleep of the three apostles. And new let us remember this: There is a day coming when the sleep will be broken rudely, with a shock; there is a day in our future lives when our time will be counted, not by years, nor by months, nor yet by hours, but by minutes, the day when unmistakable symptoms shall announce that the messenger of death has come to take us. 4 7. That startling moment will come, which it is vain to attempt to realize now, when it will be felt that it is all over at last that our chance and our trial are past. The moment that we have tried to think of, shrunk from, put away from us, here it going too, like all other mo is. |