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points which he has omitted, or rectifying the errors he has made. If the defects or mistakes are numerous, he should carefully transcribe the exercise a second

time.

The Index, at the end of the book, will enable the pupil, when his memory fails him, to discover any particular rule or remark to which he may have occasion to refer.

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Pride and humility are always relative terms. They imply a comparison of some sort with an object higher or lower; and the same mind, with actual excellence exactly the same, and with the same comparative attainments in every one around, may thus be either proud or humble, as it looks above or looks beneath. In the great scale of society, there is a continued rise from one excel lence to another excellence, internal or external, intellectual or moral. Wherever we may fix, there is still some one whom we may find superior or inferior; and these relations are mutually convertible as we ascend or descend. The shrub is taller than the flower which grows in its shade; the tree, than the shrub; the rock, than the tree; the mountain, than the single rock; and above all are the sun and the heavens. It is the same in the world of life. From that Almighty Being who is the Source of all life, to the lowest of his creatures, what innumerable gradations may be traced, even in the ranks of excellence on our own earth! each being higher than that beneath, and lower than that above; and thus, all to all, objects at once of pride or humility, according as the comparison may be made with the greater or with the less.

Of two minds, then, possessing equal excellence, which is the more noble, that which, however high the excellence attained by it, has still some nobler excellence in view, to which it feels its own inferiority; or that which, having risen a few steps in the ascent of intellectual and moral glory, thinks only of those beneath, and rejoices in an excellence which would appear to it of little value if

only it lifted a single glance to the perfection above? Yet this habitual tendency to 100k beneath, rather than above, is the character of mind which is denominated "pride;" while the tendency to look above, rather than below, and to feel an inferiority, therefore, which others perhaps do not perceive, is the character which is denominated "humility." Is it false, then, or even extravagant, to say that humility is truly the nobler; and that pride, which delights in the contemplation of abject objects beneath, is truly in itself more abject than that meekness of heart which is humble because it has greater objects, and which looks with reverence to the excellence that is above it, because it is formed with a capacity of feeling all the worth of that excellence which it reveres?

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The accomplished philosopher and man of letters, to whom the great names of all who have been eminent in ancient and modern times, in all the nations in which the race of man has risen to glory, are familiar, almost like the names of those with whom he is living in society, who has thus constantly before his mind images of excellence of the highest order, and who, even in the hopes which he dares to form, feels how small a contribution it will be in his power to add to the great imperishable stock of human wisdom, may be proud indeed; but his pride will be of a sort that is tempered with humility, and will be humility itself if compared with the pride of a pedant or sciolist, who thinks, that, in adding the result of some little discovery which he may have fortunately made, he is almost doubling that mass of knowledge in which it is scarcely perceived as an element.

Pride, then, as a character of self-complacent exultation, is not the prevailing cast of mind of those who are formed for genuine excellence. He who is formed for genuine excellence has before him an ideal perfection, that semper melius aliquid, which makes excellence itself, however admirable to those who measure it only with their weaker powers, seem to his own mind, as compared with what he has ever in his own mental vision, a sort of failure. He thinks less of what he has done than of what it seems possible to do; and he is not so much proud of merit attained, as desirous of a merit that has not yet been attained by him.

It is in this way that the very religion which ennobles man leads him, not to pride, but to humility. It elevates him from the smoke and dust of earth; but it elevates him above the darkness, that he may see better the great heights that are above him. It shows him, not the mere excellence of a few frail creatures, as fallible as him

self, but excellence, the very conception of which is the highest effort that can be made by man: exhibiting thus constantly what it will be the only honor worthy of his nature to imitate, however faintly; and checking his momentary pride, at every step of his glorious progress, by the brightness and the vastness of what is still before him.

May I not add to these remarks, that it is in this way we are to account for that humility which is so peculiarly a part of the Christian character, as contrasted with the general pride which other systems either recommend or allow? The Christian religion is, indeed, as has been often sarcastically said by those who revile it, the religion of the humble in heart; but it is the religion of the humble, only because it presents to our contemplation a higher excellence than was ever before exhibited to man. The proud look down upon the earth, and see nothing that creeps upon its surface more noble than themselves: the humble look upward to their God. THOMAS BROwn.

II. ABOU BEN ADHEM.

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight of his room,
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold.

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold;
And to the presence in the room he said,

"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,

And, with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" asked Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night

It came again, with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blest;
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest.

LEIGH HUNT.

III. PANEGYRIC ON ENGLAND.

No character is perfect among nations, more than among men; but it must needs be conceded, that, of all the states of Europe, England has been, from an early period, the most favored abode of liberty; the only part of Europe, where, for any length of time, constitutional liberty can be said to have a stable existence. We can scarcely contemplate with patience the idea, that we might have been a Spanish colony, a Portuguese colony, or a Dutch colony. We can scarcely compare with coolness the inheritance which was transmitted to us by our fathers, with that which we must have received from almost any other country, - absolute government, military despotism, and the "holy inquisition.".... What hope can there be for the colonies of nations which possess themselves no spring of improvement, and tolerate none in the regions over which they rule; whose administration sets no bright examples of parliamentary independence; whose languages send out no reviving lessons of sound and practical science, . . . of manly literature, of sound philosophy; but repeat, with every ship that crosses the Atlantic, the same debasing voice of despotism, bigotry, and antiquated superstition?

What citizen of our republic is not grateful, in the contrast which our history presents? Who does not feel, what reflecting American does not acknowledge, the incalculable advantages derived to this land out of the deep fountains of civil, intellectual, and moral truth, from which we have drawn in England? What American does not feel proud that his fathers were the countrymen of Bacon, of Newton, and of Locke? Who does not know, that, while every pulse of civil liberty in the heart of the British empire beat warm and full in the bosom of our ancestors, the sobriety, the firmness, and the dignity, with which the cause of free principles struggled into existence here, constantly found encouragement and countenance from the friends of liberty there? Who does not remember, that, when the Pilgrims went over the sea, the prayers of the faithful British confessors, in all the quarters of their dispersion, went over with them, while their aching eyes were strained till the star of hope should go up in the western skies? And who will ever forget, that, in that eventful struggle which severed these youthful republics from the British crown, there was not heard, throughout our continent in arms, a voice which spoke louder for the rights of America, than that of Burke or of Chatham within the walls of the British Parliament,

and at the foot of the British throne? No: for myself, I can truly say, that, after my native land, I feel a tenderness and a reverence for that of my fathers. The pride I take in my own country makes me respect that from which we are sprung. In touching the soil of England, I seem to return, like a descendant, to the old family seat; to come back to the abode of an aged and venerable parent. I acknowledge this great consanguinity of nations. The sound of my native language, beyond the sea, is a music to my ear, beyond the richest strains of Tuscan softness or Castilian majesty. I am not yet in a land of strangers, while surrounded by the manners, the habits, and the institutions under which I have been brought up. I wander delighted through a thousand scenes, which the historians and the poets have made familiar to us, of which the names are interwoven with our earliest associations. I tread with reverence the spots where I can retrace the footsteps of our suffering fathers: the pleasant land of their birth has a claim on my heart. It seems to me a classic, yea, a holy land; rich in the memory of the great and good, the champions and the martyrs of liberty, the exiled heralds of truth; and richer as the parent of this land of promise in the West.

I am not - I need not say I am not — the panegyrist of England. I am not dazzled by her riches, nor awed by her power. The sceptre, the mitre, and the coronet,-stars, garters, and blue ribbons, - seem to me poor things for great men to contend for. Nor is my admiration awakened by her armies mustered for the battles of Europe, her navies overshadowing the ocean, nor her empire grasping the farthest East. It is these, and the price of guilt and blood by which they are too often maintained, which are the cause why no friend of liberty can salute her with undivided affections. But it is the cradle and the refuge of free principles, though often persecuted; the school of religious liberty, the more precious for the struggles through which it has passed; the tombs of those who have reflected honor on all who speak the English tongue; it is the birthplace of our fathers, the home of the Pilgrims, it is these which I love and venerate in England. I should feel ashamed of an enthusiasm for Italy and Greece, did I not also feel it for a land like this. In an American, it would seem to me degenerate and ungrateful to hang with passion upon the traces of Homer and Virgil, and follow without emotion the nearer and plainer footsteps of Shakspeare and Milton. I should think him cold in his love for his native land who felt no melting in his heart for that other native country which holds the ashes of his forefathers. EDWARD EVERETT.

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