but Quakers in the world, because we fear it would be insupportably dull; but when we consider what tremendous evils daily arise from the petulance and profligacy, the ambition and irritability of sovereigns and ministers, we cannot help thinking it would be the most efficacious of all reforms, to choose all those ruling personages out of that plain, pacific and sober-minded sect. LESSON XVIII. On Early Rising. — HURDIS. RISE with the lark, and with the lark to bed. Of Like you it must be wooed or never won, LESSON XIX. A Summer Morning.-THOMSON. THE meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews, And, from before the lustre of her face, White break the clouds away. With quickened step, Brown Night retires; young Day pours in apace, And opens all the lawny prospect wide. The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top, Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn. Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine; Limps awkward; while, along the forest glade, At early passenger. Music awakes The native voice of undissembled joy; And thick around the woodland hymns arise. To meditation due and sacred song? For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise? The fleeting moments of too short a life ; 'Wildered, and tossing through distempered dreams? But yonder comes the powerful King of Day, And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe! 'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force, Informer of the planetary train! Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs Were brute unlovely mass, inert and dead, And not, as now, the green abodes of life; Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede · In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime. A common hymn; while, round thy beaming car, Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch, LESSON XX. On the Pleasure of acquiring Knowledge.- ALISON. In every period of life, the acquisition of knowledge is one of the most pleasing employments of the human mind. But in youth there are circumstances which make it productive of higher enjoyment. It is then that everything has the charm of novelty; that curiosity and fancy are awake; and that the heart swells with the anticipations of future eminence and utility. Even in those lower branches of instruction, which we call mere accomplishments, there is something always pleasing to the young in their acquisition. They seem to become every well-educated person; they adorn, if they do not dignify humanity; and, what is far more, while they give an elegant employment to the hours of leisure and relaxation, they afford a means of contributing to the purity and innocence of domestic life. But in the acquisition of knowledge of the higher kind,in the hours when the young gradually begin the study of the laws of nature, and of the faculties of the human mind, or of the magnificent revelations of the Gospel, there is a pleasure of a sublimer nature. The cloud, which, in their infant years, seemed to cover nature from their view, begins gradually to resolve. The world, in which they are placed, opens with all its wonders upon their eye; their powers of attention and observation seem to expand with the scene before them; and, while they see, for the first time, the immensity of the universe of God, and mark the majestic simplicity of those laws by which its operations are conducted, they feel as if they were awakened to a higher species of being, and admitted into nearer intercourse with the Author of Nature. It is this period, accordingly, more than all others, that determines our hopes or fears of the future fate of the young. To feel no joy in such pursuits; to listen carelessly to the voice which brings such magnificent instruction; to see the veil raised which conceals the counsels of the Deity, and to show no emotion at the discovery, are symptoms of a weak and torpid spirit, of a mind unworthy of the advantages it possesses, and fitted only for the humility of sensual and ignoble pleasure. Of those, on the contrary, who distinguish - *Pron. le'-zhure. |