100 CHOICE SELECTIONS NO. 6. ALL'S FOR THE BEST. ALL'S for the best! be sanguine and cheerful, All's for the best-if a man could but know it, All's for the best! set this on your standard, Who to the shores of despair may have wandered, All's for the best! then fling away terrors, ELOQUENCE.-LEWIS CASS. WHAT Country ever offered a nobler theatre for the display of eloquence than our own? From the primary assemblies of the people, where power is conferred, and may be retained, to the national legislature, where its highest attributes are deposited and exercised, all feel and acknowledge its influence. The master spirits of our father-land, they who guided the councils of England in her career of prosperity and glory, whose eloquence was the admiration of their contemporaries, as it will be of posterity, were deeply imbued with classical learning. They drank at the fountain and not at the stream, and they led captive the public opinion of the empire, and asserted their dominion in the senate and the cabinet. Nor have we been wanting in contribution to the general stock of eloquence. In our legislative assemblies, at the bar, and in the pulpit, many examples are before us, not less cheering in the rewards they offer than in the renown which follows them. And if our lamps are lighted at the altar of ancient and modern learning, we may hope that a sacred fire will be kept burning, to shed its influence upon our institutions, and the duration of the Republic. But after all, habits of mental and moral discipline are the first great objects in any system of instruction, public or private. The value of education depends far less upon varied and extensive acquirements than upon the cultiva tion of just powers of thought, and the general regulation of the faculties of the understanding. That it is not the amount of knowledge, but the capacity to apply it, which promises success and usefulness in life, is a truth that cannot be too often inculcated by instructors and recol lected by pupils. If youth are taught how to think, they will soon learn what to think. Exercise is not more necessary to a healthful state of the body than is the employment of the various faculties of the mind to mental efficiency. The practical sciences are as barren of useful products as the speculative, where facts only are the objects of knowledge, unless the understanding is habituated to a continued process of examination and reflection. No precocity of intellect, no promise of genius, no extent of knowledge, can be weighed in the scale with those acquisitions. But he who has been the object of such sedulous attention, and the subject of such a course of instruction, may enter upon the great duties of life with every prospect of an honorable and a useful career. His armor is girded on for battle. However difficult the conjuncture in which he may be called on to act, he is prepared for whatever may betide him. A MINISTER'S QUARTER PAY-DAY. THE following scene may contain some slight shades and varieties of coloring, but we fear may still be witnessed, in substance, throughout a great portion of our country. As the Parson sat at his books one day The Parish Collector had called to pay A hundred dollars, and fifty more, Were counted the parson's due, Though small sum this, for half a score, To victual and clothe and shoe. But the day had come, and for youthful sport A day like that, when this scant support The children danced, and giggled, and grinned, And smiles broke forth on the visage thinned By fasting, and tears, and toil. The Parish Collector sat him down, The tithes he'd gathered about the town, It was not much of a cram at that, |