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The double strips of silvery sand unite,

Above, below, each grain distinct and bright.
2. The world, O man, is like that flood to thee;
Turn where thou wilt, thyself in all things see,
Reflected back. As drives the blinding sand
Round Egypt's piles, where'er thou tak'st thy stand,
If that thy heart be barren, there will sweep
The drifting waste, like waves along the deep;
Fill up
the vale and choke the laughing streams,
That ran by grass and brake, with dancing beams;
Sear the fresh woods, and from thy heavy eye
Vail the wide-shining glories of the sky,
And one still, sightless level make the earth,
Like thy dull, lonely, joyless Soul,-a dearth.
3. The rill is tuneless to his ear, who feels
No harmony within; the south wind steals
As silent as unseen among the leaves.
"Who has no inward beauty, none perceives,
Though all around is beautiful. Nay, more,-
In nature's calmest hour he hears the roar
Of winds and flinging waves,-puts out the light,
When high and angry passions meet in fight;
And, his own spirit into tumult hurled,
He makes a turmoil of a quiet world;

The fiends of his own bosom people air
With kindred fiends that hunt him in despair.
Hates he his fellow-men? Why, then, he deems
"Tis hate for hate -as he, so each one seems.

4. Soul! fearful is thy power, which thus transforms
All things into his likeness; heaves in storms
The strong, proud sea, or lays it down to rest,
Like the hushed infant on its mother's breast,—
Which gives each outward circumstance its hue,
And shapes all others' acts and thoughts anew,
That so, they joy, or love, or hate, impart,
As joy, love, hate, holds rule within the heart.

LESSON XCII.

THE CONVICT SHIP.

T. K. HERVEY,

1. MORN on the waters! and purple and bright,
Bursts on the billows the flushing of light;
O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun,
See! the tall vessel, goes gallantly on;

Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail,

And her pennon streams onward, like hope, in the gale;
The winds come around her, in murmur and song,

And the surges rejoice as they bear her along ;
See! she looks up to the golden-edged clouds,
And the sailor sings gayly aloft in the shrouds.
2. Onward she glides, amid ripple and spray,
O'er the rough waters,-away, and away!
Bright as the visions of youth, ere they part,
Passing away, like a dream of the heart!
Who, as the beautiful pageant sweeps by,
Music around her, ånd sunshine on high,—
Pauses to think, amid glitter and glow,

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Oh! there are hearts that are breaking below!

3. Night on the waves !—and the moon is on high,
Hung, like a gem, on the brow of the sky,
Treading its depths in the power of her might,
And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to light!
Look to the waters !-asleep on their breast,
Seems not the ship like an island of rest?
Bright and alone on the shadowy main,

Like a heart-cherished home on some desolate plain!

4. Who, as she smiles in the silvery light,
Spreading her wings on the bosom of night,
Alone on the deep, as the moon in the sky,

A phantom of beauty,—could deem with a sigh,
That so lovely a thing is the mansion of sin,
And that souls that are smitten, lie bursting within?

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5. Who, as he watches her silently gliding,--
Remembers that wave after wave is dividing
Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever,-
Hearts which are parted and broken forever?
Or deems that he watches, afloat on the wave,
The death-bed of hope, or the young spirit's grave?
6. 'Tis thus with our life, while it
passes along,
Like a vessel at sea, amidst sunshine and song!
Gayly we glide, in the gaze of the world,
With streamers afloat, and with canvas unfurled ;
All gladness and glory, to wandering eyes,
Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs;
Fading and false is the aspect it wears,

As the smiles we put on, just to cover our tears;
And the withering thoughts which the world can not know,
Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below;

While the vessel drives on to that desolate shore,
Where the dreams of our childhood are vanished and o'er.

LESSON XCIII.

THE EVILS OF IGNORANCE.

WATSON.

"There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty, giveth him understanding."

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1. THE faculties of knowledge, reason, judgment, and voluntary determination, distinguish us from the beasts that perish, and constitute the true dignity of our nature. God, our Maker, hath made us to know more than the beasts of the field, or to be wiser than the fowls of Heaven." But faculties and powers are of little value till they are brought into exercise, and directed to their proper.objects.

2. They are like the seed of vegetables cast upon the wayside, which, though it contains the rudiments of the future plant, and possesses the faculty or power of vegetation, exists without end and without use, and must be cast into the earth, moistened by the "fatness of the clouds," invigorated by the rays of the sun, and tended by the assiduous care of the hus

bandman, before it can bring forth fruit, yield its increase, and answer its designed purpose in the creation of God.

3. So it is with man. Instruction is to him what culture is to the plant; and when he is deprived of its aid, his powers either remain wholly latent, or their exercises, like the produce of the uncultivated plant, are wild and worthless. Life is spent in a vacant stupidity, or distracted by the ebullitions of a heated and irregular imagination; judgment is perverted by prejudices; and reason subjected to vicious affections.

4. The conduct which ought to have been the result of judgment and prudence, is impelled by sense and appetite, and he whose powers, had they been rightly improved, would have allied him to angels, and stamped upon his nature the image of God, is reduced to a situation little superior to the irrational part of creation,--the subject of instinct, and the slave of passion.

5. Ignorance destroys the usefulness of man. "Knowledge is power, and wisdom is better than strength." Knowledge constitutes the whole difference between savage and civilized society; for to the improvement of the mind, all nations have owed the improvement of their condition. The comforts and conveniences of life, useful arts, salutary laws, and good governments, are all the productions of knowledge.

6. Ignorance is the negative of every thing good and useful. It is the darkness of night, in which man slumbers away an unprofitable and miserable life,-a darkness which the rays. of knowledge must disperse, before he will awake to exercise, and rise into improvement. But ignorance not only renders the members of a community useless to each other, but opposes, and frequently triumphs over all the endeavors of humane and enlightened individuals.

7. How often have the salutary measures of the patriotis statesman, the discoveries of the sagacious philosopher, the improvements of the ingenious artist, and the benevolent in stitutions of the distinguished philanthropist, been rendered abortive and useless by popular ignorance and popular preju dice! The despotism of ignorance is of the most imperiou nature. Its possession of the human mind, at the age of ma

turity, is firm and resisting; and it is only by a kind of force that knowledge gains admission.

8. Ignorance is destructive of virtue. In proportion, therefore, as ignorance prevails in society, virtue is destroyed; and though we can not say, on the contrary, that in proportion as knowledge is disseminated, virtue will prevail,-for there may be knowledge without virtue,-yet when the doctrines of religious science, are generally known, the elements and materials of virtue are proportionably distributed; and by zeal and assiduity, accompanied by the blessing of God, virtue itself may be produced. In this case we labor in hope; but ignorance presents us with nothing but despair. Ignorant men may possibly be made enthusiasts; they may be made superstitious; but before they can be made rational, steady, and consistent Christians, they must be enlightened.

9. Ignorance is destructive of happiness. There is a pleasure in knowledge, of a kind more pure and elevated than can possibly be found in any of the gratifications of sense, and for which the latter are but unworthy substitutes. Ignorance is a state, cold and cheerless, in which the finer feelings of the human soul are locked up, and man is deprived of the enjoyment which results from their exercise and perfection.

10. All the pleasures of the uninformed, if pleasures they may be called, arise only from outward objects, and when they are satiated with these, or deprived of the opportunity of resorting to them, having no mental resources, no power of producing enjoyment from their own thoughts and reflections, they sink into a vacancy and torpor, little superior to idiotism itself.

LESSON XCIV.

THE STUDENT.

"I have seen the pale student, bending over his written volume, or studying the exhaustless tomes of nature, until the springs of life were dried up, and, he died!"

1. "POOR FOOL!" the base and soulless worldling cries, To waste his strength for naught,-to blanch his cheek,

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