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 "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 9 but very little money at our command, and it is very doubtful 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 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. 2 Divine the sovereign Architect had framed. Earth and the garden of God, with cedars crowned 3 A cloudy spot: down thither prone in flight Each shoulder broad, came mantling o'er his breast Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round And to his message high, in honor rise; For on some message high they guessed him bound. Their glittering tents he passed, and now is come Into the blissful field, through groves of myrrh, And flowering odors, cassia, nard, and balm; A wilderness of sweets; for Nature here Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will 6 Her virgin fancies, pouring forth more sweet, Wild above rule or art-enormous bliss. Him through the spicy forest onward come, Adam discerned, as in the door he sat Of his cool bower, while now the mounted sun Shot down direct his fervid rays to warm Earth's inmost womb; more warmth than Adam needs: 7 Of nectarous draughts between, from milky stream, "Haste hither, Eve, and, worth thy sight, behold, 8 Our heav'nly stranger: well we may afford To whom thus Eve: "Adam, earth's hallowed mould, To nourish, and superfluous moist consumes: Beholding shall confess, that here on earth, i LESSON CI. The History of Property.-PALEY. THE first objects of property were the fruits which a man gathered, and the wild animals he caught; next to these, the tents or houses which he built, the tools he made use of to catch or prepare his food; and afterwards weapons of war and offerce. Many of the savage tribes in North America have advanced no farther than this yet; for they are said to reap their harvest and return the produce of their market with foreigners, into the common hoard or treasury of the tribe. Flocks and herds of tame animals soon became property. Abel, the second from Adam, was 2 a keeper of sheep; sheep and oxen, camels and asses, composed the wealth of the Jewish patriarchs, as they do still of the modern Arabs. As the world was first peopled in the East, where there existed a great scarcity of water, wells probably were next made property; as we learn from the frequent and serious mention of them in the Old Testament; the contentions and treaties about them; and from its being recorded, among the most memorable achievements of very eminent men, that they dug or discovered a well. Land, which is now so important a part 3 of property, which alone our laws call real property, and regard upon all occasions with such peculiar attention, was probably not made property in any country, till long åfter the institution of many other species of property, that is, till the country became populous, and tillage began to be thought of. The first partition of an estate which we read of, was that which took place between Abrain and Lot, and was one of the simplest imaginable: "If thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then will I go to the left." There 4 are no traces of property in land in Cæsar's account of Britain; little of it in the history of the Jewish patriarchs; none of it found amongst the nations of North America: the Scythians are expressly said to have appropriated their cattle and houses, but to have left their land in common. Property in immoveables, continued at first no longer than the occupation; that is, so long as a man's family continued in possession of a cave, or whilst his flocks depastured upon a neighboring hill, no one attempted, or thought he had a right to disturb or drive them out: but, when the 5 man quitted his cave, or changed his pasture, the first whe found them unoccupied, entered upon them, by the same title as his predecessor's; and made way in his turn for All more permaany one that happened to succeed him. nent property in land was probably posterior to civil government and to laws; and therefore settled by these, or according to the will of the reigning chief. 1 2 LESSON CII. Use of the Institution of Property.—PALEY. THE principal advantages of the institution of property are, First, It increases the produce of the earth. The earth, in climates like ours, produces little without cultivation; and none would be found willing to cultivate the ground, if others were to be admitted to an equal share of the produce. The same is true of the care of flocks and herds of tame animals. Crabs and acorns, red deer, rabbits, game, and fish, are all which we should have to subsist upon in this country, if we trusted to the spontaneous productions of the soil and it fares not much better with other countries. A nation of North American savages, consisting of two or three hundred, will take up, and be half starved upon a tract of land, which in Europe, and with European management, would be sufficient for the maintenance of as many thousands. In some fertile soils, together with great |