The golden mean betwixt them both My wealth is health and perfect ease; C. ANTHONY BENEZET. Among the noble men of Revolutionary days was Anthony Benezet. His public career as a loyal and valuable defender of all that is right in the administration of public trusts is well known. But it is not always remembered that this pious man was a tower of strength to the religion he loved, and to the religious Society of Friends, of which he was a devout member. He was an active, industrious man, with no sympathy for that spirit which seems ever on the watch to evade bodily labor. He believed that man was created to labor. His pure heart expanded toward all persons; the poor as well as the rich. In administering to the true comfort of those around him, he knew he would best fulfill the law of Christ. In 1778, when the pious printer of Germantown, Christopher Sower, was reduced to poverty by the unlawful seizure of his vast estate, Anthony Benezet gave liberally to the persecuted old printer, and aided him to secure food and shelter. One day, while walking the streets of Philadelphia, he saw a man approaching him rapidly. This man was always in a hurry. Anthony Benezet requested him to stop, for he felt a divine impulse to speak to the man. "I am now in haste," said the man, "and will speak with you when next we meet each other." Quick as thought the good man replied, “Dost thou think thou wilt ever find time to die?" This searching reply touched the man's heart, and long afterward he expressed his thanks for the word so fitly spoken. He was a school-teacher, and in his old age he wrote a friend that he was then instructing the grandchildren of his first pupils. On one occasion he called to pay his respects to a former pupil,-a young lady then recently married. He found her in full dress, ready to attend a ball. He was surprised at her appearance, and exclaimed, "My dear S I should not have recognized my amiable pupil, but that thy well-known features and excellent qualities are not to be hidden by so grotesque and lamentable a disguise!" When Count de Luzerne, the French Ambassador, was about returning to his own country many persons called and, in the most flattering words, bade him good-bye. Anthony Benezet also called, for the Count and he had often talked over the slavery question. When his turn came to address the Count, he said, "Thou knowest I cannot use the compliments which the company have expressed— but I wish thee the favor of heaven, and a safe return to thy country." "Oh! Mr. Benezet," exclaimed the Count, embracing him, "you have exceeded them all!" Anthony Benezet died May 3, 1784, aged seventyone years. Rebecca Jones wrote from England: "The removal of that little, valiant man, Anthony Benezet, will be a sensible chasm; but I remember from whom he derived his qualifications, and that the Divine Fountain is inexhaustible." NOTES FOR STUDY. E VADE', to avoid, to shun. LAM'EN TA BLE, sorrowful, mournful. IN EX HAUS'TI BLE, not capable of being emptied or used up. VALIANT, brave, noble. CI. THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT IN 1863. JOHN BRIGHT. Will anybody deny that the Government at Washington, as regards its own people, is the strongest Government in the world at this hour? And for this simple reason: because it is based on the will, and the good will, of an instructed people. Look at its power! I am not now discussing why it is, or the cause which is developing this power; but power is the thing which men regard in these old countries, and which they ascribe mainly to European institutions; but look at the power which the United States have developed! They have brought more men into the field, they have built more ships for their navy, they have shown greater resources than any nation in Europe at this moment is capable of. Look, also, at the quiet which has prevailed at their elections, at which you may see far less disorder than you have seen lately in three of the smallest boroughs in England. Look at their industry. Notwithstanding this terrific struggle, their agriculture, their manufactures and commerce proceed with an uninterrupted success. They are ruled by a President, chosen, it is true, not from some worn-out royal or noble blood, but from the people, and the one whose truthfulness and spotless honor have claimed for him universal praise. And now the country that has been villified through half the organs of the press in England during the last three years, and was pointed out, too, as an example to be shunned by many of your statesmen ; that country, now in mortal strife, affords a haven and a home for multitudes flying from the burdens and the neglect of the old governments of Europe. And when this mortal strife is over-when peace is restored, when slavery is destroyed, when the Union is cemented afresh, then Europe and England may learn that an instructed democracy is the surest foundation of government, and that education and freedom are the only sources of true greatness and true happiness among any people. CII.-COLUMBIA. DAVID T. SHAW. Oh, Columbia, the gem of the ocean, When borne by the red, white, and blue. When war winged its wide desolation, |