IV. A FIRM RELIGIOUS BELIEF. I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, or fancy; but, if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing; for it makes life a discipline of goodness,-creates new hopes, when all earthly hopes vanish; and throws over the decay, the destruction of existence, the most gorgeous of all lights; awakens life even in death, and, from corruption and decay, calls up beauty and divinity; makes an instrument of torture and of shame the ladder of ascent to paradise; and, far above all combinations of earthly hopes, calls up the most delightful visions of plains and amaranths, the gardens of the blest, the security of everlasting joys, where the sensualist and the skeptic view only gloom, decay, annihilation, and despair. There's not a plant that springeth, But bears some good to earth; The dusty wayside clover Thus holy Nature teaches The worth of blessings small, VI. RETROSPECTION. It is pleasing to review the day that is past, and to think that its duties have been done; to think that the purpose with which we rose has been accomplished; that in the busy scene which surrounds us, we have done our part, and that no temptation has been able to subdue our firmness and our resolution. Such are the sentiments with which, in every year of life, and still more in that solemn moment, when life is drawing to its close, the man of persevering virtue is able to review the time that is past. VII. SELFISHNESS. What e'er the passions, knowledge, fame, or pelf, The fool is happy that he knows no more. VIII. A RESOLUTE MIND. POPE It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage, and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles. Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art, with which it would rear dullness to maturity; and to glory in the vigor and luxuriance of her chance productions. She scatters the seeds of genius to the winds, and though some may perish among the stony places of the world, and some may be choked by the thorns and brambles of early adversity, yet others will now and then strike root even in the clefts of the rock, struggle bravely up into sunshine, and spread over their sterile birth-place all the beauties of vegetation. WASHINGTON IRVING. IX. THE DROP OF WATER. I "How mean, 'mid all this glorious space, how valueless am I!" It downward fell, in haste to meet th' interminable sea, II. But, ere of no account, within the watery mass it fell— III. Cheer up, faint heart, that hear'st the tale, and though thy lot may seem Nor fear that thou, exempt from care of Providence, shall be IV. The Power that called thee into life has skill to make thee live, Can clothe thy perishable form with beauty rich and rare, And, "when He makes his jewels up," grant thee a station there. X. FEMALE FORTITUDE. RICHARD MANT. I have often had occasion to remark the fortitude with which women sustain the most overwhelming reverses of fortune. Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man, and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and elevation to their character, that at times it approaches to sublimity. Nothing can be more touching than to behold a soft and tender female, who had been all weakness and dependence, and alive to every trivial roughness, while treading the prosperous paths of life, suddenly rising in mental force to be the comforter and supporter of her husband under misfortune, and abiding, with unshrinking firmness, the bitterest blasts of adversity. WASHINGTON IRVING. EXERCISE CLXX. CONNECTICUT IN EARLY TIMES. BANCROFT. 1. Connecticut, from the first, possessed unmixed popular liberty. The government was in honest and upright hands; the little strifes of rivalry never became heated; the magistrates were sometimes persons of no ordinary endowments; but, though gifts of learning and genius were valued, the State was content with virtue and single-mindedness; and the public welfare never suffered at the hands of plain men. Roger Williams had ever been a welcome guest at Hartford; and "that heavenly man, John Haynes," would say to him: "I think, Mr. Williams, I must now confess to you, that the most wise God hath provided and cut out this part of the world as a refuge and receptacle for all sorts of consciences." 2. There never existed a persecuting spirit in Connecticut; while it had a scholar to their minister in every town and village." Education was cherished; religious knowledge was carried to the highest degree of refinement, alike in its application to moral duties, and to the mysterious questions on the nature of God, of liberty, and of the soul. A hardy race multiplied along the alluvion of the streams, and subdued the more rocky and less inviting fields; its population for a century doubled once in twenty years, in spite of considerable emigration; and, if, as has often been said, the ratio of the increase of population is the surest criterion of public happiness, Connecticut was long the happiest State in the world. 3. Religion united with the pursuits of agriculture, to give to the land the aspect of salubrity. The domestic wars were discussions of knotty points in theology; the concerns of the parish, the merits of the minister, were the weightiest affairs; and a church reproof the heaviest calamity.. The strifes of the parent country, though they sometimes occasioned a levy among the sons of the husbandmen, yet never brought an enemy within their borders; tranquillity was within their No fears of gates, and the peace of God within their hearts. midnight ruffians could disturb the sweetness of slumber; the best house required no fastening but a latch, lifted by a string; bolts and locks were unknown. 4. There was nothing morose in the Connecticut character. It was temperate industry enjoying the abundance which it had created. No great inequalities of condition excited envy, or raised political feuds; wealth could display itself only in a larger house and a fuller barn; and covetousness was satisfied by the tranquil succession of harvests. There was venison from the hills; salmon, in their season, not less than shad, from the rivers; and sugar from the trees of the forest. For a foreign market, little was produced beside cattle; and, in return for them, but few foreign luxuries stole in. Even as late as 1713, the number of seamen did not exceed one hundred and twenty. 5. The soil had originally been justly divided, or held as common property in trust for the public, and for new comers. Forestalling was successfully resisted; the brood of speculators in land inexorably turned aside. Happiness was enjoyed unconsciously; beneath the rugged exterior, humanity wore its sweetest smile. There was, for a long time, hardly a lawyer in the land. The husbandman who held his own plow, and fed his own cattle, was the great man of the age; no one was superior to the matron who, with her busy daughters, kept the hum of the wheel incessantly alive, spinning and weaving every article of their dress. 6. Fashion was confined within narrow limits; and pride, which aimed at no grander equipage than a pillion, could exult only in the common splendor of the blue and white linen gown, with short sleeves, coming down to the waist, and in the snow-white flaxen apron, which, primly starched and ironed, was worn on public days by every woman in the land. For there was no revolution, except from the time of sowing to the time of reaping; from the plain dress of the week day, to the more trim attire of Sunday. |