Imatges de pàgina
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There is a remembrance of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living. O, the grave! the grave! It buries every error, covers every defect, extinguishes every resentment. From its peaceful bosom spring none but fond regrets and tender recollections. Who can look down upon the grave even of an enemy, and not feel a compunctious throb, that he should ever have warred with poor handful of earth that lies mouldering before him? But the grave of those we loved — what a place for meditation! There it is that we call up, in long review, the whole history of virtue and gentleness, and the thousand endearments lavished upon us, almost unheeded, in the daily course of intimacy. There it is that we dwell upon the tenderness, the solemn, awful tenderness, of the parting scene

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the bed of death, with all its stifled griefs, its noiseless attendance, its mute, watchful assiduities! the last testimonies of expiring love! the feeble, fluttering, thrilling — O, how thrilling- pressure of the hand! the last, fond look of the glazing eye, turning upon us even from the threshold of existence! the faint, faltering accents, struggling in death to give one more assurance of affection!

Ay, go to the grave of buried love, and meditate! There settle the account with thy conscience for every past benefit unrequited, every past endearment unregarded, of that departed being, who can never, never, never return to be soothed by thy contrition.

If thou art a child, and hast ever added a sorrow to the soul, or a furrow to the brow, of an affectionate parent; if thou art a husband, and hast ever caused the fond bosom, that ventured its whole happiness in thy arms, to doubt one moment of thy kindness or thy truth; if thou art a friend, and hast ever wronged, in thought, or word, or deed, the spirit that generously confided in thee; if thou art a lover, and hast ever given one unmerited pang to that true heart which now lies cold and still beneath thy feet; — then be y 255.

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sure that every unkind look, every ungracious word, every ungentle action, will come thronging back upon thy memory, and knocking dolefully at thy soul; then be sure that thou wilt lie down sorrowing and repentant on the grave, and utter the unheard groan, and pour the unavailing tear more deep, more bitter, because unheard and unavailing.

Then weave thy chaplet of flowers, and strew the beauties of nature about the grave; console thy broken spirit, if thou canst, with these tender, yet futile tributes of regret; but take warning by the bitterness of this thy contrite affliction over the dead, and henceforth be more faithful and affectionate in the discharge of thy duties to the living.

W. IRVING.

AGONY ;. extreme pain of mind or body. REVELRY; noisy festivity. ASSIDUITIES; services rendered with zeal and constancy. UNREQUITED; not repaid. DOLEFULLY; sorrowfully, sadly.

ALL THINGS ARE HASTENING TO DECAY.

HEARTS; hârts; sound rts. MOMENTS; ents, not unse. ONWARD; Ŏn'wêrd; werd, not wud. DARK; sound r. WORLD; wêrld; sound rld. REALMS; rělmz; sound Imz.

SWIFTLY our pleasures glide away;
Our hearts recall the distant day
With many sighs;

The moments that are speeding fast
We heed not, but the past, the past
More highly prize.

Onward its course the present keeps,

Onward the constant current sweeps,

Till life is done;

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When, in the mansions of the blest,
Death leaves to its eternal rest

The weary soul.

Did we but use it as we ought,

This world would school each wandering thought

To its high state.

Faith wings the soul beyond the sky,

Up to that better world on high,

For which we wait.

LONGFELLOW.

SPEEDING; making haste, moving with celerity. FATHOMED; sounded, tried with respect to the depth. UNFATHOMED; un means not. RILL; a little streamlet. RUGGED; rough, uneven. GOAL; the post or mark set to bound a race, the end. SCHOOL; instruct, train, tutor.

GOODNESS OF GOD TO HIS RATIONAL CREATURES.

Mo

BE

DOES; duz. POSSESS; short ŏ, not й. FIRST; er like er in her. MENT; ĕnt, not unt. OBJECTS; kts, not ks. WANTS; nts, not nse. FORE; be, not bif, nor buf. Bosoмs; bo like boo. YEARS; sound the r; do not call it ye-uz. INNOCENCE; give o its long sound.

We cannot turn in any direction where the Creator's love does not smile around us. In him we live, and move, and have our being; and all that we possess flows entirely from the exhaustless source of his bounty. From the first moment of our existence, his guardian arm surrounded us, and at this instant we are the objects of his providential care.

He listened to our helpless cries, and supplied all our infant wants before our hearts had learned to acknowledge their Benefactor, or our tongues to pronounce his name. It was he who opened the bosoms of our parents to impressions of tenderness, and taught them to experience a nameless

delight in those little attentions which our tender years required.

To secure the good offices of the generous, he clothed our countenances in the smiles of innocence; and to soften the hearts of the cruel, he caused our eyes to overflow with tears. He strengthened our bodies, and enlarged our minds. Through all the slippery paths of youth, his hand, unseen, conducted us, guarding us from temptation, delivering us from danger, and crowning our days with his goodness. And whatever period of life we have now reached, we owe our continued lives to his preserving care, and our blessings, both past and present, to his paternal bounty.

Let us look at particulars. If we turn to our connection with surrounding nature, it is God's air which we breathe, and God's sun that enlightens us. The grateful vicissitudes of day and night, the revolutions of the seasons, marked by the regular return of summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, are all appointed by his unerring wisdom.

It is his pencil which paints the flower and his fragrance which it exhales. By his hand the fields are clothed in beauty, and caused to teem with plenty. At his command the mountains rose, the valleys sank, and the plains were stretched out. His seas surrounded our coasts, and his winds blow to waft to us the treasures of distant lands, and to extend the intercourse of man with man.

But we are made capable of more exalted enjoyments than can be derived from external nature; and He who formed us with these capacities has not left us without the means of exercising them. Originally created in the image of God, the human soul, as if conscious of its celestial origin, finds permanent enjoyment only in the cultivation of those faculties which prove its resemblance to its Creator. Nor has the Father of mercies left us without means of such enjoyment.

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