When, mixing in thy gentle looks, I saw

Love blend with reverence, as my lips described
The power, the patience, purity and faith
Of our Almighty Father? Then, I thought
Thy spirit, softened by its earthly passion,
Meetly refined, and tempered, to receive
The impression of a love which never dies.
How art thou changed! All tenderness you seemed,
Gentle and social as a playful child;
But now, in lofty meditation wrapped,
As on an icy mountain top thou sit'st,
Lonely and unapproachable, or tossest
Upon the surge of passion, like the wreck
Of some proud Tyrian in the stormy sea.

LESSON CXLI.

Immortality.-DANA.

Is this thy prison-house, thy grave, then, Love? And doth Death cancel the great bond, that holds Commingling spirits? Are thoughts, that know no bounds But, self-inspired, rise upward, searching out The Eternal Mind-the Father of all thoughtAre they become mere tenants of a tomb ?— Dwellers in darkness, who the illuminate realms Of uncreated light have visited, and lived ?— Lived in the dreadful splendor of that throne, Which One, with gentle hand, the vail of flesh Lifting, that hung 'twixt man and it, revealed In glory? throne, before which, even now, Our souls, moved by prophetic power, bow down, Rejoicing, yet at their own natures awed? Souls, that Thee know by a mysterious sense, Thou awful, unseen Presence, are they quenched, Or burn they on, hid from our mortal eyes By that bright day which ends not; as the sun His robe of light flings round the glittering stars?

And with our frames do perish all our loves?
Do those that took their root, and put forth buds,
And their soft leaves unfolded, in the warmth
Of mutual hearts, grow up and live in beauty,
Then fade and fall, like fair unconscious flowers?
Are thoughts and passions, that to the tongue give speech,
And make it send forth winning harmonies,—
That to the cheek do give its living glow,

And vision in the eye the soul intense
With that for which there is no utterance,-
Are these the body's accidents ?—no more ?—
To live in it, and, when that dies, go out
Like the burnt taper's flame?

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O listen, man!

A voice within us speaks that startling word,
Man, thou shalt never die !" Celestial voices
Hymn it unto our souls: according harps,
By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars
Of morning sang together, sound forth still
The song of our great immortality:
Thick-clustering orbs, and this our fair domain,
The tall, dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas,
Join in this solemn, universal song.

O listen, ye, our spirits; drink it in

From all the air. 'Tis in the gentle moonlight;
"Tis floating midst Day's setting glories; Night,
Wrapped in her sable robe, with silent step
Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears:
Night, and the dawn, bright day, and thoughtful eve,
All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse,

As one vast mystic instrument, are touched
By an unseen, living Hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee.

The dying hear it; and, as sounds of earth
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing soŭis
To mingle in this heavenly harmony.

LESSON CXLII.

Western Emigration.-E. EVERETT.

THE march of our population westward, has been attended with consequences, in some degree, novel, in the history of the human mind. It is a fact, somewhat difficult of explanation, that the refinement of the ancient nations seemed almost wholly devoid of an elastic and expansive principle. The arts of Greece were enchained to her islands and her coasts; they did not penetrate the interior. The language and literature of Athens were as unknown to the north of Pindus, at a distance of two hundred miles from the capital of Grecian refinement, as they were in Scythia. Thrace, whose mountain tops may almost be seen from the porch of the temple of Minerva at Sunium, was the proverbial abode of barbarism. Though the colonies of Greece were scattered on the coasts of Italy, of France, of Spain, and of Africa, no extension of their population toward the interior took place; and the arts did not penetrate beyond the walls of the cities where they were cultivated.

How different is the picture of the diffusion of the arts and improvements of civilization, from the coast to the interior of America! Population advances westward with a rapidity, which numbers may describe indeed, but cannot represent, with any vivacity, to the mind. The wilderness, which one year is impassable, is traversed the next by the caravans of the industrious emigrants, who go to follow the setting sun, with the language, the institutions and the arts of civilized life. It is not the irruption of wild barbarians, come to visit the wrath of God on a degenerate empire; it is not the inroad of disciplined banditti, marshalled by the intrigues of ministers and kings. It is the human family, led out to possess its broad patrimony.

The states and nations, which are springing up in the valley of the Missouri, are bound to us by the dearest ties of a common language, a common government, and a common descent. Before New England can look with coldness on their rising myriads, she must forget that some of the best of her own blood is beating in their veins; that her hardy chil

dren, with their axes on their shoulders, have been literally among the pioneers in this march of humanity; that, young as she is, she has become the mother of populous states.

What generous mind would sacrifice, to a selfish preservation of local preponderance, the delight of beholding civilized nations rising up in the desert; and the language, the manners, the institutions, to which he has been reared, carried with his household gods to the foot of the Rocky Mountains! Who can forget that this extension of our territorial limits, is the extension of the empire of all we hold dear; of our laws, of our character, of the memory of our ancestors, of the great achievements in our history! Whithersoever the sons of the thirteen states shall wander, to southern or western climes, they will send back their hearts to the rocky shores, the battle fields, and the intrepid councils of the Atlantic coast. These are placed beyond the reach of vicissitude. They have become, already, matter of history, of poetry, of eloquence.

The love where death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,

Nor falsehood disavow.

Divisions may spring up, ill blood arise, parties be formed, and interests may seem to clash; but the great bonds of the nation are linked to what is passed. The deeds of the great men, to whom this country owes its origin and growth, are a patrimony, I know, of which its children will never deprive themselves. As long as the Mississippi and the Missouri shall flow, those men and those deeds will be remembered on their banks. The sceptre of government may go where it will; but that of patriotic feeling can never depart from Judah.

LESSON CXLIII.

The God of Universal Nature.—CHALMERS.

To an eye which could spread itself over the whole uni verse, the mansion which accommodates our species might

be so very small, as to lie wrapped in microscopical concealment; and, in reference to the only Being who possesses this universal eye, well might we say, "What is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou shouldest deign to visit him?"

And, after all, though it be a mighty and difficult conception, yet who can question it? What is seen may be nothing to what is unseen; for what is seen is limited by the range of our instruments,-what is unseen has no limit. Though all which the eye of man can take in, or his fancy can grasp at, were swept away, there might still remain as ample a field, over which the Divinity may expatiate, and which he may have peopled with innumerable worlds. If the whole visible creation were to disappear, it would leave a solitude behind it; but to the infinite Mind, that can take in the whole system of nature, this solitude might be nothing,a small, unoccupied point in that immensity which surrounds it, and which he may have filled with the wonders of his omnipotence.

Though this earth were to be burned up, though the trumpet of its dissolution were sounded, though yon sky were to pass away as a scroll, and every visible glory, which the finger of Divinity has inscribed on it, were to be put out forever,- -an event so awful, to us and to every world in our vicinity; by which so many suns would be extinguished, and so many varied scenes of life and of population, would rush into forgetfulness,-what is it in the high scale of the Almighty's workmanship? A mere shred, which, though scattered into nothing, would leave the universe of God one entire scene of greatness and of majesty. Though this earth, and these heavens, were to disappear, there are other worlds which roll afar; the light of other suns shines upon them; and the sky which mantles them, is garnished with other

stars.

Is it presumption to say, that the moral world extends to those distant and unknown regions? that they are occupied with people? that the charities of home and of neighborhood flourish there? that the praises of God are there lifted up, and his goodness rejoiced in? that piety has its temples and its offerings? and the richness of the divine attributes, is.