LESSON CXLV.

SPELL AND DEFINE.-1. MIEN, aspect; look. 2. CHAM' PI ON, hero; advocate. 3. CA' DENCE, tones. 4. ERST, first; formerly. 5. CON' SE ORA TED, holy; sanctified.

HENRY CLAY.

GEORGE D. PRENTICE

1. With voice and mien of stern control,
He stood among the great and proud,
And words of fire burst from his soul,
Like lightnings from the tempest-cloud,
His high and deathless themes were crowned
With glory of his genius born,

And gloom and ruin darkly frowned,

Where fell his bolts of wrath and scorn.

2. (pl.) But he is gone, the free, the bold,
The champion of his country's right;
His burning eye is dim and cold,

And mute his voice of conscious might.
Oh, no! not mute; (<) the stirring call
Can startle tyrants on their thrones,
And on the hearts of nations fall

More awful than his living tones.

3. The impulse that his spirit gave

To human thought's wild, stormy sea,
Will heave and thrill through every wave
Of that great deep eternally;

And the all-circling atmosphere,

With which is blent his breath of flame,
Will sound with cadence deep and clear,
In storm and calm, his voice and name.

4. His words that like a bugle blast
Erst rang along the Grecian shore,
And o'er the hoary Andes passed,
Will still ring on for evermore.
Great LIBERTY will catch the sounds,
And start to newer, brighter life,
And summon from Earth's utmost bounds
Her children to the glorious strife.

5. Unnumbered pilgrims o'er the wave,
In the far ages yet to be,

Will come to kneel beside his grave, And hail him prophet of the free. (8.) 'Tis holier ground, that lowly bed

In which his moldering form is laid,
Than fields where Liberty has bled
Beside her broken, battle-blade.

6. Who, now, in danger's fearful hour,
When all around is wild and dark,
Shall guide with voice, and arm of power,
Our freedom's consecrated ark?
(pl.) With stricken hearts, O God, to Thee,
Beneath whose feet the stars are dust,
We bow, and ask that Thou wilt be,

Through every ill, our stay and trust.

QUESTIONS.-1. What is said of Mr. Clay's oratory? 2. What will be the effect of his eloquence on future generations? 3. What is said of the ground where he is buried? 4. With what petition does the piece close? 5. How, according to the notation, should this piece be read?

LESSON CXLVI.

SPELL AND DEFINE-1. VITAL, life-contributing. 2. FOR TU I TOUS, accidental, casual; happening by chance. 3. CON' COURSE, a confluence; a running together. 4. AT TRACT IVE, drawing to. 5. ILLU MIN ATION, that which gives light; brightness. 6. AF FIRM', to assert positively. 7. DEM ON STRATES, to show or prove to be certain. 8. LU' MIN A RY, any body that gives light. 9. IN COM PRE HENS' I BLE, inconceivable; that which is beyond the reach of the human intel lect 10. IN AO CESS' I BLE, not to be reached. 11. DIS PERS' ED, scattered; spread. 12. IL LIM' IT A BLE, that can not be limited or bounded. 13. UN SEARCH' A BLE, inscrutible; mysterious.

THE SUN AN EXHIBITION OF OMNIPOTENCE.

THOMAS DICK.

1. What a glorious idea does such an object as the Sun present to us of the Grandeur of the Deity and the Energies of Omnipotence! There is no single ob

ject within the range of our knowledge, that affords a more striking and august emblem of its Great Creator. In its luster, in its magnitude, in its energy, in its boundless influence, and in its beneficial effects on this earth, and on surrounding worlds, there is a more bright display of Divine perfection, than in any other material being with which we are acquainted:

2. "Great source of day, best image here below
Of thy Creator,-ever pouring wide,

From world to world, the vital ocean round:
On Nature write, with every beam, His praise!"

3. Could such a magnificent orb have been produced by a fortuitous concourse of atoms, and placed in its proper position to distribute light and attractive influence to the worlds which roll around ít? Could chance have directed the distance at which it should be placed from the respective planets, or the size to which it should be expanded, in order to diffuse its energies to the remotest part of the sy'stem?

4. Could chance have impressed upon it the laws requisite for sustaining in their courses all the bodies dependent on it, or have endowed it with a source of illumination which has been preserved in action from age to agé? To affirm such positions would be to undermine and annihilate the principles of all our reasonings. The existence of the Sun proves the existence of an Eternal and Supreme Divinity, and, at the same time, demonstrates his omnipotent power, his uncontrollable agency, the depths of his wisdom, and the riches of his beneficence.

5. If such a luminary be so glorious and incompre. hensible, what must its Great Creator be? If its splendor be so dazzling to our eyes, and its magnitude so overpowering to our imagination, what must He be, who lighted up that magnificent orb, and bade a retinue of worlds revolve around it,-who "dwells in light inaccessible, to which no mortal eye can approach ?"

6. If the Sun is only one of many myriads of similar globes dispersed throughout the illimitable tracts

of creation, how great, how glorious, how far surpass ing human comprehension, must be the plans and the attributes of the infinite and Eternal Creator! "His greatness is unsearchable, and his ways past finding out." Could we thoroughly comprehend the depths of His perfections, or the grandeur of His empire, He would cease to be God, or we should cease to be lim ited and dependent beings.

7. But, in presenting to our view such magnificent objects, it is evidently His intention that we should rise in our contemplations from the effect to the cause, from the creature to the Creator, from the visible splendors and magnificence of creation to the invisible glories of Him who sits on the throne of the universe, "whose kingdom ruleth over all, and before whom all nations are counted as less than nothing and vanity."

QUESTIONS.-1. What idea does the sun present to us? 2. Of what does it afford a thrilling emblem? 3. What questions are propounded in the 3d and 4th paragraphs 4. Of what does the sun prove the existence, power, and agency? 5. What, in the 5th paragraph? 6. What was the evident intention of the Creator in presenting to our view such magnificent objects?

LESSON CXLVII.

SPELL AND DEFINE.-1. IN VOKE', call upon. 2. COR RO' SION, ealing or wearing away. 3. REN O VA' TION, renewal. 4. AP PAR ELED, clothed. 5. EN SHRIN' ED, deposited; enclosed in a shrine or chest. 6. IN SENS' ATE, unconscious; unfeeling. 7. SEMBLANCE, appearance; form. 8. CON' TOUR, outline. 9. RE LUM' ING, lighting again. 10. HA' LO, a luminous circle. 11. DI LATE', enlarge; expand. 12. IN DE STRUCT' I BLE, imperishable. 13. IR RE VERS I BLE, unchangeable. 14. OB LIT ER ATE, blot out; efface.. 15. MI Nor' lTY, the state of being under age. 16. E MAN CI PA' TION, freedom. 17. AUS' PI CES, protection; favor. 18. USHER ED, introduced. 19. TRANS CEND' ENT, surpassing.

1. MEM NON was, according to some accounts, a king of Ethiopia, according to others, of the Assyrians. After death he was worshipped as a sort of demi-god. There are still to be seen, at Thebes, remains of colossal statues of this celebrated hero. One of these, it is affirmed, used to utter a joyful sound, when the sun rose and shone upon it; when, however, the sun set, the sound was sad and mournful.

AN APPEAL IN BEHALF OF TEMPERANCE AND VIRTUE. HORACE MANN.

1. I invoke the sons of genius, through the sure promotion and supremacy of this cause, to add a luster to their names which the highest perfection of their own beautiful arts can never give, and which no corrosions of time can ever impair.

2. Painters, sculptors, representatives of a whose eldest born dwelt amid forms of eternal beauty, and whose hallowed spirits, in every age, have presided over the sanctuaries where genius has worshiped; know you not that there are forms of loftier beauty than any which ever shone in the galleries of art; souls, souls, created in the very likeness of God, but now faded, blackened, defiled, deformed, yet still capable of renovation, still capable of being appareled in such celestial covering, and of bearing such a divine impress, as no skill of human artist can ever émulate?

3. I know that the out-raying gladness of the forms which quicken beneath your plastic skill, betoken to the eye of sense a living spirit within; yet reason assures us, that, though we call them "divine," they are still unconscious. However deeply they may thrill or ravish us, we know their charms are external only; that no immortal spirit is enshrined beneath their sur face; that conscience, benevolence, and joy, are not their attributes.

4. Spare, then, a brief hour, to shed actual blessedness on bosoms whose heavings and anguish are no illusion of the senses. Leave, for a time, the dead marble and the insensate canvas; mount up to higher conceptions of art than to give coloring, however brilliant, or shape, however exquisite, to inanimate forms; go from perishable matter to the imperishable spirit, and pour blissful feelings deep inward, along the agonized nerve, and the quivering heart-strings.

5. You shape the semblance of divinest contour and features, but they are cold and motionless; their very existence to themselves is death, and day and night