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While instantaneous as his fall,
Rout, ruin, panic, scattered all:
An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.

Thus Switzerland again was free;
Thus death made way for liberty!

The character and conquest of the invincible champion is ever the same. A Lacedaemonian died while writing with his

own blood on a rock-" Sparta has conquered!"

But, O, there is an illustration higher and better than any derived from mere earthly annals. Jesus veiled his glory in the skies; shrouded divinity in mortality, and, with godhead and humanity coälesced in his person, entered the lists with more than mortal strife against the powers of hell. He drank the bitter cup with sublimer resignation than the sages of earth ever knew; contended victoriously where finite champions must inevitably have been destroyed; fell, like the strong man, destroying his foes by his death; persevered on our behalf in all the fearful descent from the august throne of the Eternal to the stony floor of the cold and gloomy sepulchre; that Hope's sweet fountain might gush up for mankind in Golgotha, and Salvation plant her banner with immortal triumph at the portal of the conquered tomb.

CHAPTER XIV.

PERSEVERANCE.-(CONTINUED.)

In the preceding chapter, it was said that perseverance is the master impulse of the firmest souls, and the discipline of the noblest virtues. Herein we proceed to show that the early possession and active exercise of this quality, is the guaranty of acquisitions the most invigorating in their use and the most valuable in their intrinsic worth.

The diligent pupil in the school of stern necessity, is often the most successful competitor in the race of life, and, as he runs, most enjoys "the sober certainty of waking bliss." They become seasonably acquainted with realities, and are skilful in assigning to each object its relative worth. They are not of the class who "misuse the bounteous Pan, and think the god's amiss; but are contented with a frugal livelihood, provided they can enjoy the luxury of being constantly employed. Herein consists that noble and virtuous discipline to which we have before referred, but which on the former occasion we had not sufficient time fully to describe. “What of all things belonging to virtue is not laborious?" inquired Chrysostom. "God hath parted virtue with us, and neither hath left all to be in us, lest we should be elated to pride, nor himself hath taken all, lest we should decline to sloth. Indeed the very nature and essence of virtue doth consist in the most difficult and painful efforts of soul; in the extirpating rooted prejudices and notions from our understanding; in bending a stiff will, and rectifying crooked inclinations; in overruling a rebellious temper; in curbing eager and importunate appetites;

in taming wild passions; in withstanding violent temptations; in surmounting many difficulties, and sustaining many troubles; in struggling with various unruly lusts within, and encountering many stout enemies abroad, which assault our reason, and war against our soul; in such exercises its very being lieth; its birth, its growth, its substance dependeth on them; so that from any discontinuance or remission of them it would soon decay, languish away, and perish. If travelling in a rough way; if travelling up a steep hill; if combatting stern foes, and fighting sharp battles; if crossing the grain of our nature and desires; if continually holding a strict rein over all our parts and powers, be things of labor and trouble, then greatly such is the practice of virtue."

When enthusiasm of design is associated with sobriety of calculation, and both are crowned with industrious resolve, success must be the result. It was the happy combination of these qualities that rendered Wilberforce so well qualified to perform the duties of his great mission. Says an English writer, "It required all his perseverance, all his enthusiasm, all that faculty of resistance to the petty harassing difficulties which eternally rose up against him, increasing as he advanced; that happy constitution of mind which kept him still fresh and sanguine in the midst of disappointments; that fortunate blindness of zeal which enabled him not to see impediments of a kind which would have seriously interfered with the amour propre of other men; that enduring faith which sustained him through good and evil; and that vanity—for vanity he had, supreme and towering-which carried him like a butterfly to the end. Wilberforce was the only man who could have worked on in Parliament for the abolition with the requisite one-idead energy. He was not a man for a crisis, but a man for a continuance; a great man for a committee—a great sitter—a great sifter of small facts—a man not to be put down by fatigue so long as it bore upon his own paramount object— a man who had always a quantity of papers and correspond

ence in his pocket about cruelties and atrocities, which he whipped out and read at every opportunity-who never met you in the street, but he had a new fact to tell you about the horrors of slavery-who contrived to insinuate that one subject into every company and every topic of conversationand who grew so completely identified with it, that, whenever he made his appearance, or wherever you fell in with his name, he at once brought the question to your mind, and set you thinking about the poor blacks. All this made Wilberforce, personally, very troublesome; and, in spite of the toleration which the amenity of his manners secured for him, people often tried to keep clear of him as well as they could without offence. But this was the only way in which the abolition could have been carried.

“ Attempt the end, and never stand to doubt;
Nothing's so hard, but search will find it out."

The difficulties which Columbus had to encounter, and the stupendous results of his perseverance, are well understood. He traversed an unknown sea until distrust and despair drove his crew to mutiny. The heavens darkened over him and the angry billows howled around; all the omens were inauspicious, and any heart less firm and persevering than his would have ordered the ship about. But he continues to watch and pray at the helm, until the storm subsides, signs of land appear, and a new world is found.

"Perseverance is a Roman virtue, That wins each godlike act, and plucks success Even from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger."

The great utility of perseverance is frequently illustrated in the departments of practical art and science, as well as in the higher walks of religious enterprise. Coleridge thought that "the most extraordinary and the best attested instance of enthusiasm existing in conjunction with perseverance, is related

of the founder of the Foley family. This man, who was a fiddler, living near Stourbridge, was often witness of the immense labor and loss of time caused by dividing the rods of iron necessary in making nails. The discovery of the process called splitting, in works called splitting-mills, was first made in Sweden, and the consequences of this advance in art were most disastrous to the manufacturers of iron about Stourbridge. Foley the fiddler was shortly missed from his accustomed rounds, and was not again seen for many years. He had mentally resolved to ascertain by what means the process of splitting of bars of iron was accomplished; and, without communicating his intention to a single human being, he proceeded to Hull, and thence, without funds, worked his passage to the Swedish iron-port. Arrived in Sweden, he begged and fiddled his way to the iron-foundries, where, after a time, he became a universal favorite with the workmen; and, from the apparent entire absence of intelligence or anything like ultimate object, he was received into the works, to every part of which he had access. He took the advantage thus offered, and having stored his memory with observations and all the combinations, he disappeared from among his kind friends as he had appeared, no one knew whence or whither.

"On his return to England he communicated his voyage and its results to Mr. Knight and another person in the neighborhood, with whom he was associated, and by whom the necessary buildings were erected and machinery provided. When at length everything was prepared, it was found that the machinery would not act,—at all events, it did not answer the sole end of its erection-it would not split the bar of iron.

"Foley disappeared again, and it was concluded that shame and mortification at his failure had driven him away forever. Not so: again, though somewhat more speedily, he found his way to the Swedish iron-works, where he was received most joyfully, and, to make sure of their fiddler, he was lodged in the splitting-mill itself. Here was the very aim and end of

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