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the unwritten page of being; who produces impressions, which only death can obliterate; and mingles with the cradle-dream, what shall be read in eternity. Well may statesmen and philosophers debate, how she may best be educated, who is to educate all mankind.

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1. Every young man ought to feel that his honor is involved in the character and dignity of his sisters. There is no insult which he should sooner rebuke, than one offered to them. But if you would have others esteem and honor them, you must esteem and honor them yourself. Treat them with far less reserve, but with no less delicacy, than you would the most genteel stranger.

2. Nothing, in a family, strikes the eye of a visitor with more delight, than to see brothers treat their sisters with kindness, civility, attention, and love. On the contrary, nothing is more offensive, or speaks worse for the honor of a family, than that coarse, rude, unkind manner, which brothers sometimes exhibit.

3. Beware how you speak of your sisters. Even gold is tarnished by much handling. If you speak in their praise, of their beauty, learning, manners, wit, or attentions, you will subject them to taunt and ridicule; if you say any thing against them, you will bring reproach upon yourself, and them, too. If you have occasion to speak of them, do it with modesty, and with few words. Let others do all the praising, and yourself enjoy it. I hope that you will always have reason to take pleasure in your sisters.

4. If you are separated from them, maintain with them a correspondence. This will do yourself good, as well as them. Do not neglect this duty, nor grow remiss in it. Give your friendly advice, and seek theirs in return. As they mingle intimately with their sex, they can enlighten your mind respecting many particulars relating to female character, important for you to know; and, on the other hand, you have the same opportunity to do them a similar service. However long or widely separated from them, keep up your fraternal affection and intercourse. It is omnious of evil, when a young man forgets his sisters.

1.

LESSON XLI.

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.- GOLDSMITH."

Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,
Where wealth and plenty cheered the laboring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,

And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed;
Dear, lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please,
How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm,—

The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,

The never-failing brook, the busy mill,

The decent church that topped the neighboring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade,
For talking age, and whispering lovers made!

2. How often have I blessed the coming day,

When toil remitting lent its aid to play,

Goldsmith, (Oliver,) was born in Ireland in 1731, and died in 1774. He traveled extensively, and was an excellent writer.

And all the village train, from labor free,

3.

4.

5.

Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree!
While many a pastime circled in the shade,—
The young, contending, as the old surveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round!

Sweet, smiling village, loveliest of the lawn,

Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn;
Amid thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:

No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest.

Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made :
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.

Sweet Auburn! parent of the blissful hour, Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power. Here, as I take my solitary rounds,

6.

Amid thy tangling walks and ruined grounds,
And, many a year elapsed, return to view

Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew,
Remembrance wakes with all her busy train,
Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain.

In all my wanderings round this world of care,
In all my griefs and God has given my share,—

I still had hopes my latest hours to crown,
Amid these humble bowers to lay me down.

7. Oh blessed retirement! friend to life's decline,
Retreat from care, that never must be mine,

How blessed is he who crowns, in shades like these,
A youth of labor with an age of ease;
Who quits a world where strong temptations try,
And, since 't is hard to combat, learns to fly!
So on he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.

LESSON XLII.

THE ETERNITY OF GOD.- BROOKS.

[See Rule 7, p. 182.]

1. The deep fountains of the earth are thine,
Laid by thy hand, Almighty, when of old
From ancient chaos order rose, and light
From darkness, beauty from a shapeless mass.
A glorious orb from its Creator's hands

It came, in light and loveliness arrayed,

Crowned with green em'rald mounts, tinted with gold,
And wearing as a robe, the silver sea,

Seeded with jewels of resplendent isles.

2. The awful heavens are thine; -the liquid sun,

That heaves his fiery waves beneath thy eye!
fount of all the streams of light,

The ocean,

That from their beamy treasures through the wide,
Illimitable ether, watering with their rays,
The wide-spread soil, to where the burning sands
Of dark immensity, eternal barriers throw
Against the flowing of their crystal streams,
Was from the Godhead's urn of glory poured.

3. The stars are thine,- thy charactery grand,
In which, upon the face of awful heaven,
Thy hand has traced in radiant lines, thy grace,
Thy glory, thy magnificence and power,

For

eye of man and angel to behold,

And read and gaze on, worship and adore.

These shall grow old; the solid earth, with years
Shall see her sapless body shrivel up,

And her gray mountains crumble piece-meal down,
Like crypt and pyramid, to primal dust.

4. The sea shall labor: on his hoary head
Shall wave his tresses, silvered o'er with age.
The deep pulsations of his mighty heart,
That bids the blood-like fluid circulate
Through every fiber of the earth, shall cease;
And the eternal heavens, in whose bright folds,
As in a starry vesture, thou art girt,

Shall lose their luster, and grow old with years.

5. And as a worn-out garment, thou shalt fold
Their faded glories, and they shall be changed
To vesture bright, immortal as thyself.
Yea, the eternal heavens, on whose blue page
Thy glory and magnificence are traced,

With

age shall tarnish, and shall be rolled up As parchment scrolls of abrogated acts,

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