He shares it with a bounteous hand and scatters blessings round. The treasure sent is rightly spent, and serves the end designed, When held by nature's gentleman, the good, the just, the kind. He turns not from the cheerless home, where sorrow's offspring dwell; He'll greet the peasant in his hut-the culprit in his cell. He stays to hear the widow's plaint of deep and mourning love, He seeks to aid her lot below, and prompt her faith above. The orphan child, the friendless one, the luckless, or the poor, Will never meet his spurning frown, or leave his bolted door; His kindred circles all mankind, his country all the globe An honest name his jewelled star, and truth his ermine robe. He worships God with inward zeal, and serves him in each deed; He would not blame another's faith nor have one martyr bleed; Justice and mercy form his code; he puts his trust in Heaven; His prayer is, "If the heart mean well, may all else be forgiven !" Though few of such may gem the earth, yet such rare gems there are, Each shining in his hallowed sphere as virtue's polar star. Though human hearts too oft are found all gross, corrupt, and dark, Yet, yet some bosoms breathe and burn; lit by Promethean spark,* There are some spirits nobly just, unwarped by pelf or pride, Great in the calm, but greater still when dashed by adverse tide, They hold the rank no king can give, no station can disgrace. Nature puts forth her gentleman, and monarchs must give place. LESSON LIX. THE OLD OAK. The following beautiful lines, by G. P. MORRIS, of New York, have been consecrated by music as well as by poetry. Happy would it be if the taste and love for natural beauty, so feelingly inculcated in thi poem, could be indelibly impressed upon every American heart. The useless sacrifice of noble trees, and the neglect to plant and cultivate them, are peculiar faults of our countrymen. Woodman, spare that tree! That old familiar tree, Whose glory and renown * Among the fables of antiquity, is one which says that Prometheus made the first man and woman of clay, and animated them by fire stolen from heaven. He was worshipped by the Athenians. Are spread o'er land and sea, And would'st thou hack it down? Cut not its earth-bound ties; When but an idle boy I sought its grateful shade; My heart-strings round thee cling, And still thy branches bend. LESSON LX. THE FIRST CHURCH. The author of the following beautiful lines is unknown to the Editor, who took them from the Christian Register. The young pupil may need to be told that a Fane is a religious temple, and the word Catholic means universal. Your voiceless lips, oh flowers, are living preachers, From loneliest nook. 'Neath cloistered boughs each floral bell that swingeth Not to the domes where crumbling arch and column, To that cathedral, boundless as our wonder, There, amid solitude and shade, I wander LESSON LXI. MY AUNT. The following satire upon prevalent modes of education, as well as upon that foolish affectation which endeavors to wipe out the lines that Time writes on all his children alike, was written by Dr. HOLMES. The good humor of his satire must reconcile to it even those who in common language are called "the sufferers." My aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! I know it hurts her, though she looks Her waist is ampler than her life, My aunt, my poor deluded aunt! Her hair is almost gray; Why will she train that winter curl Her father, grandpapa! forgive He sent her to a stylish school; They braced my aunt against a board, They laced her up, they starved her down, They pinched her feet, they singed her hair, They screwed it up with pins ; O, never mortal suffered more In penance for her sins. So, when my precious aunt was done, "Ah!" said my grandsire, as he shook "What could this lovely creature do Against a desperate man!" 9* |