LESSON LXXXIII. April.-LONGFellow. WHEN the warm sun, that brings I love the season well, When forest glades are teeming with bright forms, From the earth's loosened mould The softly-warbled song Comes through the pleasant woods, and coloured wings Are glancing in the golden sun, along The forest openings. And when bright sunset fills The silver woods with light, the green slope throws Its shadows in the hollows of the hills, And wide the upland glows. And when the day is gone, In the blue lake, the sky, o'erreaching far, Inverted in the tide Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw And the fair trees look over, side by side, And see themselves below. Sweet April, many a thought Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed; LESSON LXXXIV. May.-J. G. Percival. I FEEL a newer life in every gale; And with their welcome breathings fill the sail, Of hours that glide unfelt away The spirit of the gentle south-wind calls And where his whispering voice in music falls, The bright ones of the valley break The waving verdure rolls along the plain, To welcome back its playful maten again, And, from its darkening shadow, floats Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May, With the light dallying of the west-wind play; LESSON LXXXV. The Voice of Spring.-MRS. HEM'ANS. I COME, By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass, I have breathed on the South, and the chestnut-flowers, I have passed o'er the hills of the stormy North And the rein-deer bounds through the pasture free, And the moss looks bright where my step has been. I have sent through the wood-paths a gentle sigh, From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come! Away from the dwellings of care-worn men, But ye!-ye are changed since ye met me last; Ye are changed, ye are changed!—and I see not here There were graceful heads, with their ringlets bright, There were steps, that flew o'er the cowslip's head, There were voices that rung through the sapphire sky, -Are they gone?—is their mirth from the green hills passed? I know whence the shadow comes o'er ye now: They are gone from amongst you, the bright and fair; -But I know of a world where there falls no blight: 4 The summer is hastening, on soft winds borne : Ye are marked by care, ye are mine no more. And the flowers are not Death's :-fare ye well, farewell! LESSON LXXXVI. Folly of deferring, to a Future Time, the religious Duties of the Present.-Wellbeloved. THERE are few young persons so careless and indifferen, as not occasionally to look forward to the time when they shall become devout. However they may neglect God, and disregard the duties of religion at present, they hope to serve and obey God, and to live virtuously, before they die. Alas! they reflect not, that, by a continuance in evil practices, they render it almost impossible that they should attain to any love of virtue; that, by forming habits inconsistent with piety, in the early period of their lives, they expose themselves to the almost certain hazard of never acquiring one pious sentiment, how protracted soever their existence in the present world. Be careful, I entreat you, my young friends, not to indulge such fallacious hopes. To whatever you now devote yourselves, to that you will, most probably, continue to adhere to the last hour. Your future pursuits may be in some respects altered, but they will never be totally changed. A vicious youth almost invariably becomes a vicious man; and they whose declining years are dignified by virtue and piety, are, for the most part, those who sought wisdom early and found her. We are the creatures of habit; and, if we wish to be found, in old age, proceeding in the paths of wisdom and virtue, we must yield ourselves to the counsels of religion in the days of our youth. It is both the safest and the easiest way to form no habits which you propose hereafter to break, to cherish no dispositions which you hope, when time has confirmed them, to relinquish; to gain a fondness for no practices which you know will, if not abandoned, disqualify you for the happiness of a future state. If you cannot resolve to be pious now, how can you hope for the resolution hereafter? If passion exerts so strong an influence at present, how can you expect that long indulgence will lessen its power? If you neglect to form habits of virtue, when every thing invites and assists you in this important work, how can you trust to that period, when, to the labour and difficulty of acquiring new principles, will be added that of undoing all that the former years of your lives have effected? |