No arm in the day of the conflict could wound him,
Though war lanched her thunder in fury to kill;
Now the angel of death in the desert has found him,
Now stretched him in peace by the stream of the hill.
Pale Autumn spreads o'er him the leaves of the forest,
The fays of the wild chănt the dirge of his rest ·
And thou, little brook, still the sleeper deplorest,
And moisteneth the heath-bell that weeps on his breast.

LESSON CII.

The Harvest Moon.-W. MILLAR.
ALL hail! thou lovely queen of night,
Bright empress of the starry sky!
The meekness of thy silvery light
Beams gladness on the gazer's eye,
While from thy peerless throne on high.
Thou shinest bright as cloudless noon,
And bidd'st the shades of darkness fly
Before thy glory-Harvest moon!
In the deep stillness of the night,
When weary labor is at rest,

How lovely is the scene !-how bright

The wood-the lawn-the mountain's breast,

When thou, fair Moon of Harvest! hast

Thy radiant glory all unfurled,

And sweetly smilest in the west,

Far down upon the silent world.

Dispel the clouds, majestic orb!

That round the dim horizon brood,
And hush the winds that would disturb
The deep, the awful solitude,

That rests upon the slumbering flood,
The dewy fields, and silent grove,
When midnight hath thy zenith viewed,
And felt the kindness of thy love.
Lo scattered wide beneath thy throne,
The hope of millions richly spread,
That seems to court thy radiance down
To rest upon its dewy bed:

Oh let thy cloudless glory shed
Its welcome brilliance from on high,
Till hope be realized-and fled

The omens of a frowning sky.

Shine on, fair orb of light! and smile
Till autumn months have passed away,
And Labor hath forgot the toil

He bore in summer's sultry ray;
And when the reapers end the day,
Tired with the burning heat of noon,
They'll come with spirits light and gay,
And bless thee-lovely Harvest Moon!

LESSON CIII.

Thalaba among the ruins of Babylon.-SOUTHEY

THE many-colored domes*
Yet wore one dusky hue;
The cranes upon the mosque
Kept their night-clatter still;

When through the gate the early traveller pass'd.
And when, at evening, o'er the swampy plain
The bittern's boom came far,
Distinct in darkness seen,

Above the low horizon's lingering light,
Rose the near ruins of old Babylon.
Once, from her lofty walls the charioteer

Looked down on swarming myriads; once she flung
Her arches o'er Euphrates' conquered tide,
And, through her brazen portals when she poured
Her armies forth, the distant nations looked
As men who watch the thunder-cloud in fear,
Lest it should burst above them.-She was fallen'
The queen of cities, Babylon, was fallen!

Low lay her bulwarkst; the black scorpion basked
In palace courts: within the sanctuary

The she-wolf hid her whelps.

Is yonder huge and shapeless heap, what once
Hath been the aërial gardens, height on height
Rising, like Media's mountains, crowned with wood,

* Of Bagdad.

+ Pron bul-wurks-u as in bull.

Work of imperial dotage? Where the fane
Of Belus? Where the golden image now,
Which, at the sound of dulcimer and lute,
Cornet and sackbut, harp and psaltery,

The Assyrian slaves adored?

A labyrinth of ruins, Babylon

Spreads o'er the blasted plain. The wandering Arab never sets his tent Within her walls. The shepherd eyes afar Her evil towers, and devious drives his flock. Alone unchanged, a free and bridgeless tide, Euphrates rolls along,

Eternal nature's work.

Through the broken pōrtal,
Over weedy fragments,
Thalaba went his way.

Cautious he trod, and felt

The dangerous ground before him with his bow.
The jackal started at his steps;

The stork, alarmed at sound of man,
From her broad nest upon the old pillar top,
Affrighted fled on flapping wings:

The adder, in her haunts disturbed,
Lanced at the intruding staff her arrowy tongue.

Twilight and moonshine, dimly mingling, gave
An awful light obscure:
Evening not wholly closed-

The moon still pale and faint,—
An awful light obscure,

Broken by many a mass of blackest shade;

Long columns stretching dark through weeds and moss;
Broad length of lofty wall,
Whose windows lay in light,

And of their former shape, low-arched or square,
Rude outline on the earth

Figured with long grass fringed.

Reclined against a column's broken shaft,
Unknowing whitherward to bend his way,
He stood and gazed around.

The ruins closed him in :

It seemed as if no foot of man
For ages had intruded there.

He stood and gazed awhile,

Musing or. Babel's pride, and Babel's fall;
Then, through the ruined street,
And through the farther gate,

He passed in silence on.

LESSON CIV.

Daily Prayer.-Morning.-CHANNING.

THE Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments agree in enjoining prayer. Let no man call himself a christian, who lives without giving a part of life to this duty. We are not taught how often we must pray; but our Lord in teaching us to say, "Give us this day our daily bread," implies that we should pray daily. As to the particular hours to be given to this duty, every christian may choose them for himself. Our religion is too liberal and spiritual to bind us to any place or any hour of prayer. But there are parts of the day particularly favorable to this duty, and which, if possible, should be redeemed for it.

The first of these periods is the morning, which even nature seems to have pointed out to men of different religions, as a fit time for offerings to the Divinity. In the morning our minds are not so much shaken by worldly cares and pleasures, as in other parts of the day. Retirement and sleep have helped to allay the violence of our feelings, to calm the feverish excitement so often produced by intercourse with men. The hour is a still one. The hurry and tumults of life are not begun, and we naturally share in the tranquillity around us. Having for so many hours lost our hold on the world, we can banish it more easily from the mind, and worship with less divided attention. This, then, is a favorable time for approaching the invisible Author of our being, for strengthening the intimacy of our minds with him, for thinking upon a future life, and for seeking those spiritual aids which we need in the labors and temptations of every day.

In the morning there is much to feed the spirit of devotion. It offers an abundance of thoughts, friendly to pious feeling. When we look on creation, what a happy and touching change do we witness! A few hours past, the earth was wrapt in gloom and silence There seemed " a pause

in nature." But now, a new flood of light has broken forth, and creation rises before us in fresher and brighter hues, and seems to rejoice as if it had just received birth from its Author.

The sun never sheds more cheerful beams, and never proclaims more loudly God's glory and goodness, than when he returns after the coldness and dampness of night, and awakens man and inferior animals to the various purposes of their being. A spirit of joy seems breathed over the earth and through the sky. It requires little effort of imagination to read delight in the kindled clouds, or in the fields bright with dew. This is the time when we can best feel and bless the Power which said, "let there be light;" which “set a tabernacle for the sun in the heavens," and made him the dispenser of fruitfulness and enjoyment through all regions.

If we next look at ourselves, what materials does the morning furnish for devout thought! At the close of the past day, we were exhausted by our labors, and unable to move without wearisome effort. Our minds were sluggish, and could not be held to the most interesting objects. From this state of exhaustion, we sunk gradually into entire insensibility. Our limbs becaine motionless; our senses were shut as in death. Our thoughts were suspended, or only wandered confusedly and without aim. Our friends, and the universe, and God himself were forgotten.

And what a change does the morning bring with it! On waking we find, that sleep, the image of death, has silently infused into us a new life. The weary limbs are braced again. The dim eye has become bright and piercing. The mind is returned from the region of forgetfulness to its old possessions. Friends are met again with a new interest. We are again capable of devout sentiment, virtuous effort, and Christian hope. With what subjects of gratitude, then, does the morning furnish us? We can hardly recall the state of insensibility from which we have just emerged, without a consciousness of our dependance, or think of the renovation of our powers and intellectual being, without feeling our obligation to God.

There is something very touching in the consideration, if we will fix our minds upon it, that God thought of us when we could not think; that he watched over us when we had no power to avert peril from ourselves; that he continued our vital motions, and in due time broke the chains of sleep.