Ay, I had planned full many a sanguine scheme Of earthly happiness-romantic schemes, And fraught with loveliness :-and it is hard To feel the hand of death arrest one's steps, Throw a chill blight o'er all one's budding hopes, And hurl one's soul untimely to the shades, Lost in the gaping gulf of blank oblivion. Fifty years hence, and who will hear of Henry? O, none:-another busy brood of beings Will shoot up in the interim, and none Will hold him in remembrance. I shall sink As sinks a stranger in the crowded streets Of busy London:—some short bustle's caused, A few inquiries, and the crowds close in, And all's forgotten. On my grassy grave The men of future times will careless tread, And read my name upon the sculptured stone; Nor will the sound, familiar to their ears, Recall my vanished memory. I did hope For better things:—I hoped I should not leave The earth without a vestige. Fate decrees It shall be otherwise, and I submit. Henceforth, O world, no more of thy desires! No more of hope!-the wanton, vagrant hope! I abjure all.-Now other cares engross me, And my tired soul, with emulative haste, Looks to its God, and plumes its wings for heaven. LESSON XXVI. The Grave.-BERNARD BARTON. I LOVE to muse, when none are nigh, It seems a mournful music, meet Sad though it be, it is more sweet I know not why it should be sad To nature it seems just as dear The showers descend as softly there "Ay! but within-within, there sleeps One, o'er whose mouldering clay The loathsome earth-worm winds and creeps And wastes that form away." And what of that? The frame that feeds As little of their banquet heeds, As of the winds that blow. LESSON XXVII. The Fall of the Leaf.-MILONOV.* THE autumnal winds had stripped the field Of all its foliage, all its green; The winter's harbinger had stilled That soul of song which cheered the scene With visage pale, and tottering gait, As one who hears his parting knell, I saw a youth disconsolate : He came to breathe his last farewell. "Thou grove! how dark thy gloom to me! Thy glories riven by autumn's breath! * From Bowring's Russian Anthology, Vol. II. In every falling leaf I see A threatening messenger of death, "O Esculapius!* in my ear Thy melancholy warnings chime :— 'Thy spring will winter's gloom o'ershade, "I hear the hollow murmuring- How swift! how sorrowful! how vain! "O wave, ye dancing boughs, O wave! "I see, with loose, dishevelled hair, "Then, in the autumn's silent eve, And hover o'er the mourner's head." Then he was silent :-faint and slow Beneath the aged oaks he sleeps:-- In the Greek mythology, the cock was one of the animals consecrated to Esculapius, the god of medicine. The woodman, to his cottage bound, LESSON XXVIII. Obedience to the Commandments of God rewarded.-MOODIE. THE heathen, unsupported by those prospects which the Gospel opens, might be supposed to have sunk under every trial; yet, even among them, was sometimes displayed an exalted virtue: a virtue, which no interest, no danger, could shake a virtue, which could triumph amidst tortures and death a virtue, which, rather than forfeit its conscious integrity, could be content to resign its consciousness forever. And shall not the Christian blush to repine?—the Christian, from before whom the veil is removed; to whose eyes are revealed the glories of heaven? Your indulgent Ruler doth not call you to run in vain, or to labour in vain. Every difficulty, and every trial, that occurs in your path, is a fresh opportunity, presented by his kindness, of improving the happiness, after which he hath taught you to aspire. By every hardship which you sustain in the wilderness, you secure an additional portion of the promised land. What though the combat be severe? A kingdom, an everlasting kingdom,-is the prize of victory. Look forward to the triumph which awaits you, and your courage will revive. Fight the good fight, finish your course, keep the faith: there is laid up for you a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give unto you at that day. What though, in the navigation of life, you have sometimes to encounter the war of elements? What though the winds rage, though the waters roar, and danger threatens around? Behold, at a distance, the mountains appear: your friends are impatient for your arrival: already the feast is prepared, and the rage of the storm shall serve only to waft you sooner to the haven of rest. No tempests assail those blissful regions which approach to view: all is peaceful and serene :-there you shall enjoy eternal comfort; and the recollection of the hardships which you now encounter shall heighten the felicity of better days. LESSON XXIX. The Promises of Religion to the Young.-ALISON. In every part of Scripture, it is remarkable with what singular tenderness the season of youth is always mentioned, and what hopes are afforded to the devotion of the young. It was at that age that God appeared unto Moses, when he fed his flock in the desert, and called him to the command of his own people. It was at that age he visited the infant Samuel, while he ministered in the temple of the Lord, "in days when the word of the Lord was precious and when there was no open vision." It was at that age that his spirit fell upon David, while he was yet the youngest of his father's sons, and when, among the mountains of Bethlehem, he fed his father's sheep. It was at that age, also, "that they brought young children unto Christ, that he should touch them: And his disciples rebuked those that brought them: But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said to them, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." If these, then, are the effects and promises of youthful piety, rejoice, O young man, in thy youth!-rejoice in those days which are never to return, when religion comes to thee in all its charms, and when the God of nature reveals himself to thy soul, like the mild radiance of the morning sun, when he rises amid the blessings of a grateful world. If, already, devotion hath taught thee her secret pleasures; if, when nature meets thee in all its magnificence or beauty, thy heart humbleth itself in adoration before the Hand which made it, and rejoiceth in the contemplation of the wisdom by which it is maintained; if, when revelation unveils her mercies, and the Son of God comes forth to give peace and hope to fallen man, thine eye follows, with astonishment, the glories of his path, and pours, at last, over his cross those pious tears which it is a delight to shed; if thy soul accompanieth him in his triumph over the grave, and entereth, on the wings of faith, into that heaven "where he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high," and seeth the "society of angels, and of the spirits of just men made perfect," and listeneth to the "everlasting song which is sung before the throne:"-if such are the medita |