show how it affects the rest of the sentence., On the right management of the emphasis depends the whole life and spirit of every discourse. If no emphasis be placed on any word, not only is discourse rendered heavy and lifeless, but the meaning is often left ambiguous. If the emphasis be placed wrong, we pervert and confound the meaning wholly.

To give a

is

common instance; such a simple question as this, "Do you ride to town to-day? capable of no fewer than four different acceptatious, according as the emphasis is differently placed on the words. If it be pronounced thus: Do you ride to town to-day? the answer may naturally be, No: I send my servant in my stead. If thus: Do you ride to town to-day? Answer, No: I intend to walk.

No: I ride out into

Do you ride to town to-day? the fields. Do you ride to town to-day? No: but I shall to-morrow.

In order to acquire the proper management of the emphasis, the great rule, and indeed the only rule possible to be given, is, that the speaker or reader study to attain a just conception of the force and spirit of those sentiments which he is to pronounce. For to lay the emphasis with exact propriety, is a constant exercise of good sense and attention. It is far from being an inconsiderable attainment. It is one of the greatest trials of a true and just taste; and must arise from feeling delicately ourselves, and from judging accurately of what is fittest to strike the feelings of others.

Next to emphasis, the pauses in speaking de

mand attention.

These are of two kinds: first, emphatical pauses; and next, such as mark the distinctions of sense. An emphatical pause is made after something has been said of peculiar moment, on which we want to fix the hearer's attention. Such pauses have the same effect as a strong emphasis, and are subject to the same rules; especially to the caution of not repeating them too frequently.

But the most frequent and the principal use of pauses is, to mark the divisions of the sense, and, at the same time, to allow the speaker to draw his breath; and the proper adjustment of such pauses is one of the most difficult articles in delivery. In all reading and public speaking, the management of the breath requires great care, so as not to be obliged to divide words from one another, which have so intimate a connection that they ought to be pronounced in the same breath, and without the least separation.

Many sentences are miserably mangled, and the force of the emphasis totally lost, by divisions being made in the wrong place. To avoid this, every one, while he is reading or speaking, should be careful to provide a full supply of breath for what he is to utter. It is a great mistake to imagine that the breath must be drawn only at the end of a period, when the voice is allowed to fall. It may easily be gathered at the intervals of the period, when the voice is only suspended for a moment; and, by this arrangement, we may always have a sufficient stock for carrying on the longest sentence, without improper interruptions.

1

LESSON XL.

The Use of Flowers.

GoD might have made the earth bring forth
Enough for great and small,
The oak-tree, and the cedar-tree,

Without a flower at all.

He might have made enough, enough
For every want of ours,

For luxury, medicine, and toil,

And yet have made no flowers.

The clouds might give abundant rain,

The nightly dews might fall,

And the herb, that keepeth life in man,
Might yet have drunk them all.

Then wherefore, wherefore were they made,
And dyed with rainbow light,
All fashioned with supremest grace,
Up-springing day and night?

Our outward life requires them not;
Then wherefore had they birth? -
To minister delight to man;

To beautify the earth;

To comfort man; to whisper hope,
Whene'er his faith is dim;

For He who careth for the flowers

Will care much more for him!

LESSON XLI.

Hymn.

IT was my heavenly Father's love
Brought every being forth;

He made the shining worlds above,
And every thing on earth.

Each lovely flower, the smallest fly,

The sea, the waterfall,

The bright green field, the clear blue sky;'Tis God that made them all.

He gave me all my friends, and taught
My heart to love them well,

And he bestowed the power of thought,
And speech my thoughts to tell.

My father and my mother dear,

He is their Father too;

He bids me all their precepts hear,
And all they teach me, do.

God sees and hears, me all the day,

And 'mid the darkest night:

He views me when I disobey,
And when I act aright.

He guards me with a parent's care,

When I am all alone:

My hymn of praise, my humble prayer,

He hears them every one.

LESSON XLII.

Appear, (not upear,) approve, apply, effect, efface, effulgence, oppose, offence, occasion, occur.

Hymn in Prose.

COME, let us walk abroad; let us talk of the works of God.

Take up a handful of the sand; number the grains of it; tell them one by one into your lap.

Try if you can count the blades of grass in the field, or the leaves on the trees.

You cannot count them; they are innumerable; much more the things which God has made.

The fir groweth on the high mountain, and the gray willow bends above the stream.

The thistle is armed with sharp prickles; the mallow is soft and woolly.

The hop layeth hold with her tendrils, and claspeth the tall pole; the oak hath firm root in the ground, and resisteth the winter storm.

The daisy enamelleth the meadows, and groweth beneath the foot of the passenger; the tulip asketh a rich soil, and the careful hand of the gardener.

The iris and the reed spring up in the marsh; the rich grass covereth the meadows; and the purple heath-flower enliveneth the waste ground. The water-lilies grow beneath the stream; their broad