rainous state of all these tombs, overthrown, broken, and half open, you would imagine that the last trumpet had already sounded, and that the valley of Jehoshaphat was about to render up its dead.

LESSON LIX.

Self-taught Men.-EDWARD EVERETT."

West, the famous painter, was the son of a Quaker in Philadelphia; he was too poor, at the beginning of his career, to purchase canvass and colors, and he rose eventually to be the first artist in Europe, and president of the Royal Academy at London.

Count Rumford was the son of a farmer at Woburn; he never had the advantage of a college education, but used to walk down to Cambridge, to hear the lectures on natural philosophy. He became one of the most eminent philosophers in Europe, founded the Royal Institution in London, and had the merit of bringing forward sir Humphrey Davy, as the lecturer on chemistry in that establishment.

Robert Fulton was a portrait-painter in Pennsylvania, without friends or fortune. By his successful labors in perfecting steam-navigation, he has made himself one of the greatest benefactors of man.

Whitney, the son of a Massachusetts farmer, was a machinist. His cotton-gin, according to judge Johnson, of the Supreme Court of the United States, has trebled the value of all the cotton lands at the south, and has had an incalculable influence on the agricultural and mechanical industry of the world.

Whittemore of West Cambridge, the person who invented the machinery for the manufacture of cards, possessed no other means of improvement than those which are within the reach of every temperate and industrious man.

Some of our readers have probably been made acquainted with the modest and sterling merit of the late Mr. Paul Moody. To the efforts of his self-taught mind, the early prosperity of the great manufacturing establishments at

Waltham and Lowell is in no small degree owing.-I believe I may say with truth, that not one of these individuals enjoyed, at the outset, superior opportunities for acquiring useful knowledge, to those of most of our readers.

These are all departed; but we have living among us illustrious instances of men who, without early advantages, but by the resolute improvement of the few opportunities thrown in their way, have rendered themselves, in like manner, useful to their fellow men, the objects of admiration to those who witness their attainments, and of gratitude to those who reap the fruit of their labor.

On a late visit to New Haven, I saw exhibited a most beautiful work of art; two figures in marble, representing the affecting meeting of Jephthah and his daughter, as described in the Bible. The daughter, a lovely young woman, is represented as going forth, with the timbrel in her hand, to meet her father as he returns in triumph from the wars.

Her father had rashly vowed to sacrifice to the Lord the first living thing which he should meet on his return; and as his daughter runs forth to embrace him, he rends his garments, and turns his head in agony at the thought of his vow. The young maiden pauses, astonished and troubled at the strange reception.

This pathetic scene is beautifully represented in two marble figures of most exquisite taste, finished in a style that would do credit to a master in the art. They are the work of a self-taught artist at New Haven, who began life, I have been informed, as a retailer of liquors. This business he was obliged to give up, under a heavy load of debt.

He then turned his attention to carving in wood, and, by his skill and thrift in that pursuit, succeeded in paying off the debts of his former establishment,—to the amount of several thousand dollars. Thus honorably placed at liberty, he has since devoted himself to the profession of a sculptor, and, without education, without funds, without instruction, he has risen at once to extraordinary proficiency in this difficult and beautiful art, and bids fair to enrol his name among the brightest geniuses of his day.

LESSON LX.

The Graves of a Household.-MRS. HEMANS.

THEY grew in beauty, side by side,
They filled one home with glee,-
Their graves are severed, far and wide,
By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent, at night,
O'er each fair, sleeping brow;
She had each folded flower in sight :—
Where are those dreamers now?

One, 'midst the forests of the west,
By a dark stream is laid-

The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue, lone sea hath one,—
He lies where pearls lie deep-

He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are dressed,

Above the noble slain;

He wrapt his colors round his breast,
On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one-o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fanned;
She faded 'midst Italian flowers,
The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest, who played
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they prayed,
Around one parent knee.

They that with smiles lit up the hall,
And cheered with song the hearth—
Alas! for love, if thou wert all,

And nought beyond, O earth!

LESSON LXI.

The Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers.-MRS. HEMANS,

THE breaking waves dashed high,
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods, against a stormy sky,
Their giant branches tossed ;-

And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moored their barl
On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted, came;
Not with the roll of the stirring drums,
And the trumpet that sings of fame ;-

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear :

They shook the depths of the desert's gloom
With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard, and the sea!

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthems of the free !

The ocean-eagle soared

From his nest, by the white wave's foam, And the rocking pines of the forest roaredThis was their welcome home!

There were men with hoary hair
Amidst that pilgrim band :—
Why had they come to wither there,
Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,
Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow serenely high,
And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?-
They sought a faith's pure shrine !

Ay, call it holy ground

The soil where first they trod!

They have left unstained, what there they found-
Freedom to worship God!

LESSON LXII.

The Pilgrim's Progress.-GEORGE B. CHEEVER.

PERHAPS no other work could be named which, admired by cultivated minds, has had, at the same time, such an ameliorating effect on the lower classes in society as the Pilgrim's Progress. It is a book so full of native good sense, that no mind can read it without gaining in wisdom and vigor of judgment.

What an amazing effect it must have produced, in this way, on the mass of common minds brought under its power! We cannot compute the good it has thus accomplished on earth. It is one of the books that, by being connected with the dearest associations of childhood, always retains its hold on the heart, and exerts a double influence, when, at a graver age, and less under the despotism given to imagination in childhood, we read it with a serene and thoughtful perception of its meaning.

How many children have become better citizens of the world through life, from the perusal of this book almost in