their humane precaution only postponed his fate. They dragged forward at her summons a wretch, already half dead with terror, in whose agonized features I recognised, to my horror and astonishment, my old acquaintance Morris. He fell prostrate before the female chief, with an effort 2 to clasp her knees, from which she drew back, as if his touch had been pollution, so that all he could do in token of the extremity of his humiliation, was to kiss the hem of her plaid. I never heard entreaties for life poured forth with such agony of spirit. The ecstasy of fear was such, that, instead of paralyzing his tongue, as on ordinary occasions, it even rendered him eloquent; and, with cheeks as pale as ashes, hands compressed in agony, eyes that seemed to be taking their last look of all mortal objects, he prayed but for life-for life he would give all he had in the world;3 it was but life he asked--life, if it were to be prolonged under tortures and privations:-he asked only breath, though it should be drawn in the depths of the lowest caverns of their hills. It is impossible to describe the scorn, the loathing, and contempt, with which the wife of MacGregor regarded this wretched petitioner for the poor boon of existence. She gave a brief command in Gaelic to her attendants, two of whom seized upon the prostrate suppliant, and hurried him to the brink of a cliff which overhung the flood. 4 He set up the most piercing and dreadful cries that fear ever uttered-I may well term them dreadful, for they haunted my sleep for years afterwards. I was so much moved by this horrid spectacle, that, although in momentary expectation of sharing his fate, I did attempt to speak in his behalf; but, as might have been expected, my interference was sternly disregarded. The victim was held fast by some, while others, binding a large heavy stone in a plaid, tied it round his neck, and others again, eagerly stripped him of some part of his dress. 5 Half-naked, and thus manacled, they hurried him into the lake, there about twelve feet deep, drowning his last deathshriek with a loud halloo of vindictive triumph, over which, however, the yell of mortal agony was distinctly heard. The heavy burden splashed in the dark blue waters of the lake, and the Highlanders, with their pole-axes and swords, watched an instant, to guard, lest, extricating himself from the load to which he was attached, he might have struggled to regain the shore. But the knot had been securely bound; the victim sunk without effort; the waters which his fall had disturbed, settled calmly over him, and the unit of that life for which he had pleaded so strongly, was forever withdrawn from the sum of human existence. I have always observed, that women, in all countries, are civil, obliging, tender, and humane; that they are inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest, and that they do not, like man, hesitate to perform a generous action. Not haughty, arrogant, or supercilious, they are full of courtesy, and fond of society; more liable in general to err than man, but in general, also, more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has been often otherwise. In wandering through the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark; through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar; if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and to add to this virtue, (so worthy to be called benevolence,) their actions have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that if I were dry, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry, ate the coarsest morsel, with a double relish.-Ledyard. LESSON XCIX. Pestalozzi's School at Stantz. 1 [Pestalozzi, the celebrated teacher and philanthropist, was a native of Zurich in Switzerland; and of a highly respectable parentage. A benevolent desire to elevate the character and condition of the children of abject poverty in his neighborhood, by conferring upon them the benefits of early instruction, and of correct habits of industry, led him to establish a poor-school, at which pupils from the lowest ranks of the indigent and suffering were collected, and taught the common branches of education, in connexion with agriculture and the mechanic arts. Narrow means, and the want of support from the more wealthy but less benevolent, brought him into pecuniary em2 barrassment; "but" says his biographer," he struggled with ill fortune, divided his bread with his scholars, and lived himself like a mendicant, that he might teach mendicants to live like men." In 1798, he was invited, and partially assisted by the government, to establish a school for poor children, at Stantz, then lately ravaged by fire during the revolutionary war. His own interesting account of that enterprise is as follows:] 3 4 "My first task, was to gain the confidence of my pupils, and to attach them to me; this main point once attained, all the rest appeared to me easy. The deserted state in which I found myself, all painful as it was, and the absolute want of assistance, were precisely what contributed the most to the success of my enterprise. Cut off from the rest of mankind, I turned all my cares and all my affections to the children: to me they were indebted for all the relief they received. I partook alike of their pains and their pleasures; I was every where with them when they were well, and when they were sick I was constantly at their bed-side. We had the same nourishment, and I slept in the midst of them, and from my bed either prayed with them or taught them something." With all the difficulties of his position, to which at one period, sickness was added, Pestalozzi struggled for many months. "In 1799," continues Pestalozzi, "my school contained nearly 80 pupils, the greater part of whom announced good dispositions, and some even first-rate abilities. Study was to them quite a novelty, and they attached themselves to it with indefatigable zeal, as soon as they began to perceive their own progress. The very children who before had never had a book in their hands, applied from morning till night; and when I have asked them, after supper, 'My 5 children, which would you rather do, go to bed, or learn a little longer?' they would generally reply, that they would rather learn. The impulse was given, and their development began to take place with a rapidity that surpassed my most sanguine hopes. In a short time were seen above seventy children, taken almost all from a state of poverty, living together in peace and friendship, full of affection for one another, and with a cordiality that rarely exists among brothers and sisters in numerous families. I had never " 6 given them as yet direct lessons either in religion or morality; but when they were assembled around me, and when there was a dead silence among them, I said to them, When you behave thus, are you not more reasonable beings than when you make a riot?' And when they used to embrace me, and call me their father, I used to say, Yes, you are ready to call me father, and yet you do, behind my back, things which disoblige me; is this right?' Sometimes I would portray to them the picture of a peaceable and orderly family, who, having acquired easy circum7 stances by their labor and economy, found themselves capable of giving advice and assistance to their ignorant, unfortunate, and indigent fellow-creatures: then addressing myself to those in whom I had perceived the most lively disposition to benevolence, I would say, 'Should you not like to live like me, in the midst of the unfortunate, to direct them, and to make them useful to themselves and to society?" Then, with tears in their eyes, and with the generous glow of sensibility in their little countenances, they would reply, Oh! yes, could we ever hope to attain such a 8 point.' 6 6 "When Altorf was reduced to ashes, I assembled them around me, and said to them, 'Altorf is destroyed, and, perhaps, at this moment, there are more than a hundred poor children without clothes to cover them, without a home or a morsel to eat. Shall we petition the government to permit us to receive twenty of them amongst us?' Methinks I still see the eagerness with which they replied. Yes, oh! certainly, yes.' But,' replied I again, 'reflect well what you are about to ask; we have at present but 9 very little money at our command, and it is doubtvery ful whether they will grant us any more in favor of these unfortunates. Perhaps, in order to maintain your existence, and carry on your instruction, it will be necessary to labor much more than you have ever yet done; perhaps it may be necessary to divide with these strangers your victuals and your clothes; do not say, then, you will receive them among you, if you are not sure you will be able to impose upon yourselves all these privations.' I gave to my objections all the force they were capable of; 10 I repeated to them all I had said, to be sure that they per fectly understood me; still they persevered in their first C resolution. Let them come,' said they, 'let them come; and, if all you have stated should come to pass, we will divide with them what we have."" LESSON C. Visit of Raphael to our First Parents in Eden.-MILTON. 1 So spake the eternal Father, and fulfilled Earth and the garden of God, with cedars crowned in flight |