He piously asks the class-leader of the welfare of his charge, for he was always a Methodist, and always will be,until he meets a Presbyterian, then he is a Presbyterian; however, as he is not a bigot, he can afford to be a Baptist in a good Baptist neighborhood, and with a wink he tells the pious elder that he never had one of his children baptized, not he! He whispers to the Reformer that he abhors all creeds but Baptism and the Bible. After this, room will be found in his heart for the fugitive sects, also, which come and go like clouds in a summer sky.

Upon the stump his tact is no less rare. He roars and bawls with courageous plainness on points about which all agree; but on subjects where men differ, his meaning is nicely balanced on a pivot, that it may dip either way. He depends for success chiefly upon humorous stories. A glowing patriot telling stories is a dangerous antagonist; for it is hard to expose the fallacy of a hearty laugh, and men convulsed with merriment are slow to perceive in what way an argument is a reply to a story: men who will admit that he has not a solitary moral virtue will vote for him, and assist him in obtaining the office to which he aspires.

-H. W. Beecher.

XXX.-SHORT SELECTIONS.

PEACE.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums chang'd to merry meeting,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visag'd war has smooth'd his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds,
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber,
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

-Shakespeare.

PHILOSOPHY.

PHILOSOPHY consists not

In airy schemes, or idle speculations;
The rule and conduct of all social life

Is her great province. Not in lonely cells
Obscure she lurks, but holds her heavenly light
To senates and to kings, to guide their councils,
And teach them to reform and bless mankind.

-Thomson.

PRIDE.

PRIDE by presumption bred, when at a height,
Encount'ring with contempt, both march in ire;
And 'twixt 'em bring base cruelty to light:
The loathsome offspring of a hated sire.

A SKULL.

-Earl of Sterlené.

REMOVE yon skull from out the scatter'd heaps;

Is that a temple where a God may dwell?

Why, ev'n the worm at last disdains her shatter'd cell!
Look on its broken arch, its ruin'd wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul;

Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,

The dome of thought, the palace of the soul;
Behold through the lack-luster, eyeless hole,
The gay recess of wisdom and of wit,

And passion's host, that never brook'd control:
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ,
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit?

SLANDER.

-Byron.

'Tis slander

Whose edge is sharper than the sword; whose tongue
Out-venoms all the worms of Nile; whose breath
Rides on the posting winds, and doth belie
All corners of the world: kings, queens, and states,
Maids, matrons,—nay, the secrets of the grave
This viperous slander enters.

-Shakespeare.

XXXI.-PARALLEL BETWEEN POPE AND DRYDEN.

IN acquired knowledge, the superiority must be allowed to Dryden, whose education was more scholastic, and who, before he became an author, had been allowed more time for study, with better means of information. His mind has a larger range, and he collects his images and illustrations from a more extensive circumference of science. Dryden knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were formed by comprehensive speculation; those of Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in that of Pope.

Poetry was not the sole praise of either, for both excelled likewise in prose; but Pope did not borrow his prose from his predecessor. The style of Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is cautious and uniform. Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rising into inequalities and diversified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is as a velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe and leveled by the roller.

Of genius-that power which constitutes a poet, that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert, that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates the superiority must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigor Pope had only a little because Dryden had more, for every other writer since Milton must give place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be said, that if he has brighter paragraphs he has not better poems.

Dryden's performances were always hasty-either excited by some external occasion or extorted by domestic necessity; he composed without consideration, and published without

correction. What his mind could supply at call or gather at one excursion, was all that he sought and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce or chance might supply. If the flights of Dryden, therefore, are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Dryden often surpasses expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight.

-Dr. Samuel Johnson.

XXXII.-PARSON LEE.

To a drowsy country village
Came a certain Parson Lee;
And a man so quaintly different
From all other men was he,
That the Squire himself, the skeptic,
Came to church to hear him pray,
And to note the strange things uttered
By this marvel of the day.

The eccentric said this planet
Was a true and goodly place,
And the only thing it wanted
Was more of Heaven's grace;
And he sought to show the people
How to think, and work, and live,
So that each should help the other,
And unto the needy give.

How the door that leads to heaven

Was most ample, broad and wide,
How each could turn the handle
And go easily inside;

K. N. E.-16.

That the very gentlest natures
In the world may yet be strong;
And how truth is always wisdom,
And all wickedness is wrong.

He explained how true religion

Was day working,-nothing more; That this world was not an ocean, Nor the pebbles on the shore; But that thinking men and women Should find better things to do Than in twisting God's commandments, Or quite breaking them in two.

As for acting like our neighbors,
Why, we none of us are fools!
You can not be made a Christian
Under every-body's rules;
If your neighbor's not as good as
He or you would have him be,
Just you go ahead and beat him!
Said the candid Parson Lee.

Next he told them how complaining
Was a choking, noxious weed;
That the flowers scarcely blossomed
Ere they changed to homely seed;
How that seed again sprang upward,
And bore many flowerets more;
And that life was ever fading
And renewing, o'er and o'er.

So this man, by honest talking,
Worked his wonders in the town;

But he never cared for praises,

And he laughed at high renown; Yet the people loved him dearly, And they blessed God for the sight, Till at last the master left them

On a cold, dark winter's night.