but Quakers in the world, because we fear it would be insupportably dull; but when we consider what tremendous evils daily arise from the petulance and profligacy, the ambition and irritability of sovereigns and ministers, we cannot help thinking it would be the most efficacious of all reforms, to choose all those ruling personages out of that plain, pacific and sober-minded sect.

LESSON XVIII.

On Early Rising. — HURDIS.

RISE with the lark, and with the lark to bed.
The breath of night's destructive to the hue

Of
every flower that blows. Go to the field,
And ask the humble daisy why it sleeps,
Soon as the sun departs; why close the eyes
Of blossoms infinite, ere the still moon
Her oriental veil puts off? Think why,
Nor let the sweetest blossom be exposed
That nature boasts, to night's unkindly damp.
Well may it droop, and all its freshness lose,
Compelled to taste the rank and poisonous steam
Of midnight theatre, and morning ball.
Give to repose the solemn hour she claims;
And, from the forehead of the morning, steal
The sweet occasion. O! there is a charm,
That morning has, that gives the brow of age
A smack of youth, and makes the lip of youth
Breathe perfumes exquisite. Expect it not,
Ye, who till noon, upon a down-bed lie,
Indulging feverish sleep, or, wakeful, dream
Of happiness no mortal heart has felt,
But in the regions of romance'. Ye fair,

Like you it must be wooed or never won,
And, being lost, it is in vain ye ask
For milk of roses and Olympian dew.
Cosmetic art no tincture can afford,
The faded features to restore; no chain,
Be it of gold, and strong as adamant,
Can fetter beauty to the fair one's will.

LESSON XIX.

A Summer Morning.-THOMSON.

THE meek-eyed morn appears, mother of dews,
At first faint gleaming in the dappled east:
Till far o'er ether spreads the widening glow;

And, from before the lustre of her face,

White break the clouds away. With quickened step,

Brown Night retires; young Day pours in apace,

And opens all the lawny prospect wide.

The dripping rock, the mountain's misty top,

Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn.

Blue, through the dusk, the smoking currents shine;
And from the bladed field the fearful hare

Limps awkward; while, along the forest glade,
The wild deer trip, and often, turning, gaze

At early passenger.

Music awakes

The native voice of undissembled joy;

And thick around the woodland hymns arise.
Roused by the cock, the soon-clad shepherd leaves
His mossy cottage, where with peace he dwells:
And, from the crowded fold, in order, drives
His flock, to taste the verdure of the morn.
Falsely luxurious, will not man awake;
And, springing from the bed of slōth, enjoy
Tae cool, the fragrant and the silent hour,

To meditation due and sacred song?

For is there aught in sleep can charm the wise?
To lie in dead oblivion, losing half

The fleeting moments of too short a life ;
Total extinction of the enlightened soul!
Or else to feverish vanity alive,

'Wildered, and tossing through distempered dreams?
Who would in such a gloomy state remain
Longer than Nature craves; when every Muse,
And every blooming pleasure wait without,
To bless the wildly devious morning walk?

But yonder comes the powerful King of Day,
Rejoicing in the east. The lessening cloud,
The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow
Illumed with fluid gold, his near approach
Betoken glad. Lo! now, apparent all,
Aslant the dew-bright earth, and colored air,
He looks in boundless majesty abroad,

And sheds the shining day, that burnished plays
On rocks, and hills, and towers, and wandering streams,
High-gleaming from afar. Prime cheerer, Light!
Of all material beings, first and best!

Efflux divine! Nature's resplendent robe!
Without whose vesting beauty all were wrapt
In unessential gloom; and thou, O Sun!
Soul of surrounding worlds! in whom best seen
Shines out thy Maker! may I sing of thee?

'Tis by thy secret, strong, attractive force,
As with a chain indissoluble bound,
Thy system rolls entire; from the far bourn
Of utmost Saturn, wheeling wide his round
Of thirty years, to Mercury, whose disk
Can scarce be caught by philosophic eye,
Lost in the near effulgence of thy blaze.

Informer of the planetary train!

Without whose quickening glance their cumbrous orbs

Were brute unlovely mass,

inert and dead,

And not, as now, the green abodes of life;
How many forms of being wait on thee,
Inhaling spirit, from the unfettered mind,
By thee sublimed, down to the daily race,
The mixing myriads of thy setting beam.
The vegetable world is also thine,

Parent of Seasons! who the pomp precede ·
That waits thy throne, as through thy vast domain,
Annual, along the bright ecliptic road,

In world-rejoicing state, it moves sublime.
Meantime the expecting nations, circled gay
With all the various tribes of foodful earth,
Implore thy bounty, or send grateful up

A common hymn; while, round thy beaming car,
High-seen, the Seasons lead, in sprightly dance
Harmonious knit, the rosy-fingered Hours,
The Zephyrs floating loose, the timely Rains;
Of bloom ethereal, the light-footed Dews,
And, softened into joy, the surly Storms.
These, in successive turn, with lavish hand,
Shower every beauty, every fragrance shower,

Herbs, flowers, and fruits; till, kindling at thy touch,
From land to land is flushed the vernal year.

LESSON XX.

On the Pleasure of acquiring Knowledge.- ALISON.

In every period of life, the acquisition of knowledge is one of the most pleasing employments of the human mind. But in youth there are circumstances which make it productive of higher enjoyment. It is then that everything has the charm

of novelty; that curiosity and fancy are awake; and that the heart swells with the anticipations of future eminence and utility. Even in those lower branches of instruction, which we call mere accomplishments, there is something always pleasing to the young in their acquisition. They seem to become every well-educated person; they adorn, if they do not dignify humanity; and, what is far more, while they give an elegant employment to the hours of leisure and relaxation, they afford a means of contributing to the purity and innocence of domestic life.

But in the acquisition of knowledge of the higher kind,in the hours when the young gradually begin the study of the laws of nature, and of the faculties of the human mind, or of the magnificent revelations of the Gospel, there is a pleasure of a sublimer nature. The cloud, which, in their infant years, seemed to cover nature from their view, begins gradually to resolve. The world, in which they are placed, opens with all its wonders upon their eye; their powers of attention and observation seem to expand with the scene before them; and, while they see, for the first time, the immensity of the universe of God, and mark the majestic simplicity of those laws by which its operations are conducted, they feel as if they were awakened to a higher species of being, and admitted into nearer intercourse with the Author of Nature.

It is this period, accordingly, more than all others, that determines our hopes or fears of the future fate of the young. To feel no joy in such pursuits; to listen carelessly to the voice which brings such magnificent instruction; to see the veil raised which conceals the counsels of the Deity, and to show no emotion at the discovery, are symptoms of a weak and torpid spirit, of a mind unworthy of the advantages it possesses, and fitted only for the humility of sensual and ignoble pleasure. Of those, on the contrary, who distinguish

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*Pron. le'-zhure.