7. Every family was taught to look upward to God, as to the Fountain of all good. Yet life was not somber. The spirit of frolic mingled with innocence; religion itself sometimes wore the garb of gayety; and the annual thanksgiving to God was, from primitive times, as joyous as it was sincere. Nature always asserts her rights, and abounds in means of gladness.

8. The frugality of private life had its influence on public expenditure. Ha a century after the concession of the charter, the annual expenses of the government did not exceed eight hundred pounds, or four thousand dollars; and the wages of the Chief Justice were ten shillings a day while on service. In each county, a magistrate acted as judge of probate, and the business was transacted with small expense to the fatherless.

9. Education was always esteemed a concern of deepest interest, and there were common schools from the first. Nor was it long before a small college, such as the day of small things permitted, began to be established; and Yale owes its birth "to ten worthy fathers, who, in 1700, assembled at Branford, and each one, laying a few volumes on a table, said,— 'I give these books for the founding of a college in this colony.'"

10. But the political education of the people is due to the happy organization of towns, which here, as, indeed, through out all New England, constituted each separate settlement a little democracy of itself. It was the natural reproduction of the system, which the instinct of humanity had imperfectly revealed to our Anglo-Saxon ancestors. In the ancient republics, citizenship had been an hereditary privilege. Connecticut, citizenship was acquired by inhabitancy, was lost by.removal.

In

11. Each town-meeting was a little legislature, and all inhabitants, the affluent and the more needy, the wise and the foolish, were members with equal franchises. There the taxes of the town were discussed and levied; there the village offi

cers were chosen; there roads were laid out, and bridges voted; there the minister was elected, the representatives to the assembly were instructed. The debate was open to all; wisdom asked no favors; the churl abated nothing of his pretensions.

12. Whoever reads the records of these village democra cies, will be perpetually coming upon some little document of political wisdom, which breathes the freshness of rural legislation, and wins a disproportioned interest from the justice and simplicity of the times. As the progress of society required exertions in a wider field, the public mind was quickened by associations that were blended with early history; and when Connecticut emerged from the quiet of its origin, aud made its way into scenes where a new political world was to be created, the sagacity that had regulated the affairs of the village, gained admiration in the field and in the council.

EXERCISE CLXXI.

THE TOMB OF YEARS.

CHARLES CONSTANTINE PISE.

1. Upon the tomb of years the monarch bent,

To read the epitaph of human things;
'Twas written on the time-worn monument,

"Scepters and crowns lie moldering here with kings."

2. Next, crowned with laurel-wreaths the hero came,
And paused in silence o'er the mighty grave;
He read : "Time spares not glory, spares not fame.—
Beneath this sod their plumes no longer wave!"

3. The lord of countless treasures then drew nigh,
And trembled as he stooped to scan the doom
Of the rich man,—and heaved a hollow sigh;

He read: "Wealth can not bribe the impartial tomb."

4. The beauteous girl in all her youth and charms, Fixed her dark eye upon the grave of years; And when 't was written: "In Death's icy arms Beauty lies clasped!" she turned away in tears.

5. The skeptic sternly gazed,-but on his brow A frown of horror gathered while he read; For he hath naught to cheer his spirit now,

And not a ray will light his grave when dead!

6. The Christian knelt,-and reading, that beneath
The tomb of years, crowns, plumes, and treasures lie,
And beauty fades away,-looked upon death
As the mere prelude to eternity.

7. Yes, o'er Time's sepulcher, amid the gloom
That gathers round the place where ages sleep,
Faith, heavenly Faith, will mitigate our doom,
And Hope her vigils o'er our ashes keep!

1.

EXERCISE CLXXII.

EVENING IN PARADISE.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad:
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk; all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unvailed her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

MIITON

2.

When Adam thus to Eve: "Fair consort, the hour

Of night, and all things now retired to rest,
Mind us of like repose; since God hath set
Labor and rest, as day and night, to men
Successive; and the timely dew of sleep,
Now falling with soft slumb'rous weight, inclines
Our eyelids; other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemployed, and less need rest;
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of Heaven on all his ways:
While other animals unactive range,

And of their doings God takes no account.

3. "To-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be risen,
And at our pleasant labor, to reform

Yon flowery arbors, yonder alleys green,
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring, and require
More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth;
Those blossoms, also, and those dropping gums
That lie bestrown, unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease;
Meanwhile, as Nature wills, night bids us rest.”

4. To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorned: "My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st Unargued I obey; so God ordains.

God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more,
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.
With thee conversing, I forget all time;
All seasons, and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads

EXERCISE CLVIII.

NOTE-This piece is well suited to reading in concert. To give it the better effect, the class may be divided into two parts: one side reading the stanzas under the title "EARTH," and the other respond. ing with those under the caption "HEAVEN."

EARTH AND HEAVEN.

EARTH.

G. F. RICHARDSON.

1. There is grief, there is grief,—there is wringing of hands, (pl.) And weeping and calling for aid;

For Sorrow hath summoned her group, and it stands
Round the couch where the sufferer is laid.

And lips are all pallid, and cheeks are all cold,

And tears from the heart-springs are shed; Yet who that looks on the sweet saint to behold, But would gladly lie down in her stead.

2. There is grief, there is grief,-there is anguish and strife, (pl.) And the sufferer is striving for breath;

For the spirit will cling, O! how fondly, to life,

And stern is the struggle with death!

But the terrible conflict grows deadlier still,

Till the last fatal symptoms have birth ;

And the eye-ball is glazed, and the heart-blood is chill,
And this is the portion of earth!

HEAVEN.

3. There is bliss, there is bliss, in the regions above,
They have opened the gates of the sky;
A spirit has soared to those mansions of love,
And seeks for admittance on high.
And friends long divided are hasting to greet
To a land where no sorrow may come,
And the seraphs are eager a sister to meet,
And to welcome the child to its home.