impresses a direction on every footstep of my goings. Every breath I inhale is drawn by an energy which God deals out to me. This body, which, upon the slightest derangement, would become the prey of death, or of woful suffering, is now at ease, because He at this moment is warding off from me a thousand dangers, and upholding the thousand movements of its complex and delicate machinery. His presiding influence keeps by me through the whole current of my restless and ever-changing history. When I walk by the wayside, He is along with me. When I enter into company, amidst all my forgetfulness of Him, He never forgets me. In the silent watches of the night, when my eyelids have closed, and my spirit has sunk into unconsciousness, the observant eye of Him who never slumbers is upon me. I cannot fly from His presence. Go where I will, He leads me, and watches me, and cares for me; and the same Being who is now at work in the remotest domains of nature and of providence, is also at my right hand to eke out to me every moment of my being, and to uphold me in the exercise of all my feelings, and of all my faculties. LESSON LXX. THE ATHEIST AND ACORN.-WATTS. "METHINKS the world seems oddly made, A dull, complaining atheist said, As stretched he lay beneath the shade, "Behold," quoth he, "that mighty thing, While on this oak an acorn small Its ill contrivance knows. My better judgment would have hung And left the acorn slightly strung, No more the caviler could say, The wounded part with tears ran o'er, As punished for that sin; THIS Figure exhibits the second or middle right hand gesture, palm down.The hand, from this marksweeps swiftly round to the shoulder, in its course, making its stroke in nearly a horizontal line upon the word fool; it falls to rest with some emphasis, immediately after the word pumpkin. The palm should be a little more inward, and the fingers rather closer together than in the first ges as, In ture of this class. Fool! had that bough a pumpkin) bore, Thy whimseys would have worked no more, LESSON LXXI. READ THE SKY.-MISS ROSCOE. Go forth when midnight winds are high, Ask of the tempest if its bound Is fix'd in Heaven's decree, When storm and thunders burst around The winds may keep their midnight way— But, trembling mortal, canst thou say Whence didst thou spring, and whither tend? Is thine this atom world? What is thy being's aim and end, Thou know'st not-no; thou may'st not know- Yes, trace Him there-cxulting trace! Those shining stars have trod, Can never falter in its faith, The conquest over Time and Death, LESSON LXXII. ADAMS AND JEFFERSON.-WEBSTER. ADAMS and JEFFERSON are no more. On our fiftieth anniversary, the great day of National Jubilee, in the very hour of public rejoicing, in the midst of echoing and re-echoing voices of thanksgiving-while their own names were on all tongues, they took their flight, together, to the world of spirits. Adams and Jefferson are no more. As human beings, indeed, they are no more. They are no more as in 1776, bold and fearless advocates of independence; no more, as on subsequent periods, the heads of the government; no more, as we have recently seen them, aged and venerable objects of admiration and regard. They are no more. They are dead. But how little is there of the great and good, which can die! To their country they yet live, and live forever. They live in all that perpetuates the remembrance of men on earth; in the recorded proofs of their own great actions-in the offspring of their intellect-in the deep engraved lines of public gratitude, and in the respect and homage of mankind. A superior and commanding human intellect, a truly great man, when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a temporary flame, burning bright for awhile, and then expiring, giving place to returning darkness. It is rather a spark of fervent heat, as well as radiant light, with power to enkindle the common mass of human mind; so that when it glimmers, in its own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night follows, but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, from the potent contact of its own spirit. LESSON LXXIII. APPLAUSE OF WAR.-KNOWLES. WHAT species of beings are we, that we laud to the skies those men whose names live in the recollection of a field of carnage, a sacked town, or a stormed citadel ?—that we celebrate, at our convivial meetings, the exploits of him, who, in a single day, has more than trebled the ordinary havoc of death?—that our wives and daughters weave garlands for the brow, whose sweat has cost the groans of widows and of orphans?—and that our very babes are taught to twine the arms of innocence and purity about the knees that have been used to wade in blood? I say, what species of beings are we, that we give our praise, our admiration, and our love, to that which reason, religion, interest, every consideration, should persuade us to condemn―to avoid—to abhor! I do not mean to say, that war ought never to be waged— there are at times, occasions, when it is expedient-necessary-justifiable. But who celebrates with songs of triumph those commotions of the elements that call the awful lightning into action-that hurl the inundating clouds to earthand send the winds into the deep to rouse its horrors? These things are necessary; but we hail them not with shouts of exultation; we do not clap our hands as they pass by us; we shudder as we behold them! What species of beings are we? We turn with disgust from the sight of the common executioner, who, in his time, has despatched a score or two of victims; and press to the heels of him, that in a single day, has been the executioner of thousands LESSON LXXIV. VENGEANCE. PERCIVAL. VENGEANCE calls you! quick, be ready- THIS Figure presents the third right hand gesture, palm down. The pupil will notice two dotted lines; that going from the star denotes an upward movementwhich, with the pause of the hand for an in-fo 500 by the preparation booooons line denotes a down ward movement; these movements are the course of the gesture; previous to the downward movement, the hand is thrown back quickly, a few inches, from the point which it occupies in the picture, that it may make the stroke upon the word dash with the greater force. the hand comes to rest immediately after the word earth. This gesture is proper to the language of reprehension, denunciation, extermination, anger, and the like. Dash to earth) the oppressor's rod. |