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"We may o-ver-turn the desks,” said one.

"Yes," said the teach-er; "they are very slight-ly fas-tened down, in or-der that I may eas-i-ly al-ter their po-si-tion."

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"We might up-set the ink-stands," said an-oth-er. "Some-times," ad-ded a third, we might run a-gainst the scho-lars who are sit-ting in their seats." "It seems, then, you have in-gen-u-i-ty e-nough to dis-cov-er rea-sons why you may not run a-bout; why did not these rea-sons pre-vent you from do-ing

So ?"

"We did not think of them be-fore."

"True; that is the ex-act state of the case. When per-sons are so ea-ger to pro-mote their own en-joy-ment as to for-get the rights and the com-forts of oth-ers, it is sel-fish-ness. Now, is there any rule in this school a-gainst sel-fish-ness?"

"No," they re-plied.

"You are right; there is not-but sel-fish-ness is wrong very wrong, in what-ev-er form it appears-here and ev-er-y-where else; and that, wheth-er I make rules a-gainst it or not."

"You see," con-tin-ued the teach-er, "that though there is but one rule of the school, I by no means in-tend to say that there is on-ly one way of do-ing wrong here. That would be ver-y ab-surd. You must not do an-y-thing which you may by pro-per re-flec-tion know to be in it-self wrong. This, how-ev-er, is a u-ni-ver-sal prin-ci-ple of du-ty. If I should at-tempt to make rules which would spec-i-fy and pro-hib-it ev-er-y pos-si-ble way by which you might do wrong, my laws would be in-nu-mer-a-ble, and e-ven then I should fail of se-cur-ing my ob-ject, un-less you had the dis-po-si-tion to do your du-ty. No

lég-is-la-tion could e-nact laws so fast as a per-vert-ed in-gen-u-i-ty might find means to e-vade them.

LESSON XCVIII.-A CHRISTMAS CAROL.

“Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, that shall be to all people."-LUKE ii. 10.

From heav-en a-bove to earth I come,
To bear good news to ev-er-y home;
Glad ti-dings of great joy I bring,
Where-of I now will say and sing :

To you this night is born a child,
Of Ma-ry, cho-sen moth-er mild;
This lit-tle child of low-ly birth
Shall be the joy of all the earth.
'Tis Christ our God, who, far on high,
Hath heard your sad and bit-ter cry;
Him-self will your sal-va-tion be ;
Him-self from sin will make you free.

He brings those bles-sings, long a-go
Pre-pared by God for all be-low;
Hence-forth His king-dom o-pen stands
To you, as to the an-gel bands.

These are the to-kens ye shall mark,
The swad-dling clothes and man-ger dark;
There shall ye find the young child laid,
By whom the heav-ens and earth were made.

Now let us all with glad-some cheer
Fol-low the shep-herds, and draw near,

To see this won-drous gift of God,
Who hath His on-ly Son be-stowed,

Give heed, my heart, lift up thine eyes!
Who is it in yon man-ger lies?

Who is this child so young and fair?
The bles-sed Christ-child li-eth there.
Wel-come to earth, thou no-ble Guest,
Through whom e'en wick-ed men are blest!
Thou com'st to share our mis-e-ry ;
What can we ren-der, Lord, to Thee?

O Lord, who hast cre-a-ted all,

How hast Thou made Thee weak and small,
That Thou must choose Thy in-fant bed
Where ass and ox but late-ly fed?

Were earth a thou-sand times as fair,
Be-set with gold and jew-els rare;
She yet were far too poor to be
A nar-row cra-dle, Lord, for Thee.

For vel-vets soft, and silk-en stuff,

Thou hast but hay and straw so rough,
Where-on Thou King, so rich and great,
As 'twere Thy heav-en art throned in state.

Thus hath it pleased Thee to make plain
The truth to us, poor fools and vain,
That this world's hon-our, wealth, and might,
Are naught and worth-less in Thy sight.

Ah, dear-est Je-sus, ho-ly child,
Make Thee a bed, soft, un-de-filed,
With-in my heart; that it may be
A qui-et cham-ber kept for Thee.

My heart for ver-y joy doth leap,
My lips no more can şi-lence keep;

I, too, must sing, with joy-ful tongue,
That sweet-est, an-cient cra-dle-song:
"Glo-ry to God in high-est heaven,
Who un-to man His Son hath given!
While an-gels sing with pi-ous mirth,

A glad new year to all the earth!"-Luther. 1540. (Written for his little son Hans.-Translated by Miss Winkworth.)

LESSON XCIX.-A SCENE IN VIRGINIA.

The Nat-u-ral Bridge is en-tire-ly the work of God. It is of so-lid lime-stone, and con-nects two huge mountains to-geth-er, by a beau-ti-ful arch, over which there is a great wag-gon road. Its length from one moun-tain to the other is near-ly eight-y feet, its width thir-tyfive, its thick-ness for-ty-five, and its per-pen-dic-u-lar height a-bove the wa-ter mark is not far from two hun-dred and twenty feet. A few bush-es grow on its top, by which the trav-el-ler may hold as he looks o-ver. On each side of the stream, and near the bridge, are rocks pro-ject-ing ten or fif-teen feet o-ver the wa-ter, and from two to three hun-dred feet from its sur-face, all of lime-stone. The vis-it-or soft-ly creeps out on a shag-gy pro-ject-ing rock, and look-ing down a chasm from for-ty to six-ty feet wide, he sees, near-ly three hun-dred feet be-low, a wild stream dash-ing and foam-ing a gainst the rocks be-neath, as if ter-ri-fied at the rocks above. This stream is called Ce-dar Creek. He sees un-der the arch trees whose height is sev-en-ty feet; and yet, as he looks down up-on them, they ap-pear like small bush-es. I saw sev-er-al birds fly un-der the arch, and they looked like in-sects. I threw down a stone, and count-ed, thir-ty-four be-fore it reached the wa-ter. All hear of

heights and depths, but here they see what is high, and they trem-ble, and feel it to be deep. The aw-ful rocks pre-sent their ev-er-last-ing a-but-ments, the wa-ter murmurs and foams far be-low, and the two moun-tains rear their proud heads on each side, sep-a-ra-ted by a chan-nel of grand and ter-ri-ble beau-ty. Those who view the sun, moon, and stars, and al-low that none but God could make them, will here feel that none but an Al-migh-ty God could build a bridge like this.

The view of the bridge from be-low, is as pleas-ing as that from the top is aw-ful; seen from be-neath, the arch would seem to be a-bout two feet in thick-ness. Some i-dea of the dis-tance from the top to the bot-tom may be formed from the fact that, as I stood on the bridge and my com-pan-ion be-neath, nei-ther of us could speak suf-fi-cient-ly loud to be heard by the oth-er. A man from either view does not ap-pear more than four or five inch-es in height.

As we stood un-der this beau-ti-ful arch, we saw the place where vis-it-ors have oft-en ta-ken the pains to engrave their names upon the rock. Here Wash-ing-ton climbed twen-ty-five feet and carved his name, where it still re-mains. Some, wish-ing to im-mor-tal-ize their names, have en-gra-ven them deep and large, whilst oth-ers have tried to climb up and in-sert them high in this book of fame.

A few years since, a young man, am-bi-tious to place his name a-bove all o-thers, came very near los-ing his life in the at-tempt. Af-ter hav-ing with much fa-tigue climbed up as high as pos-si-ble, he found that a per-son who had oc-cu-pied this place be-fore, had been tall-er than him-self, and had con-se-quent-ly writ-ten his name a-bove his reach. But he was not thus to be dis

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