5. My child, the first approach beware; Thy sins, a dark o'ershadowing tree, Shut out the light of Heaven from thee. QUESTIONS.-1. What said the man who wanted to hire a field? 2. How did the owner feel? 3. Did he take the price proffered ? 4. What did the wily tenant sow on the spot? 5. What became of the landlord before the oaks had their full growth? 6. What moral does this piece yield? 7. What caution is given in the last stanza? 8. What is meant by "garden of your souls," 4th stanza? LESSON LII. WORDS FOR SPELLING AND DEFINING. FUR ROW ED, wrinkled. A TON' ING, making atonement. THE HOUR-GLASS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 1. Alas! how swift the moments fly! See childhood, youth, and manhood pass, Time was-time shall be-drain the glass- 2. Time is the measure but of change, The Past, the Future, fill the range In regions of eternal love, Where sits enthroned "I AM." 3. Then, Pilgrim, let thy joys and tears. But, henceforth, all thy hopes and fears, To God let votive accents rise; QUESTIONS.-1. What question is asked in the 1st stanza? 2. How Is that question answered in the 2d? 3. What advice is given in the 3d? 4. What is meant by "drain the glass," 1st stanza? LESSON LIII. WORDS FOR SPELLING AND DEFINING. FAC UL TIES, mental abilities. IN CREDIBLE, not to be believed. AP/ O LOGUES, moral fables. AP PO SITE, suitable. COM MEN DA TION, praise. CO HER ENT, consistent. REA SON ER, arguer. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. JOHN LOCKE. 1. We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of anything; such, at least, as would carry us farther than can be easily imagined; but it is only the exercise of those powers, which gives us ability and skill in anything, and leads us toward perfection. 2. The feet of a dancing-master, and the fingers of a musician, fall, as it were naturally, without thought or pains, into regular and admirable motions. Bid them change their parts, and they will in vain endeavor to produce like motions in the members not used to them, and it will require length of time and long practice to attain but some degree of a like ability. 3. What incredible and astonishing actions do we find rope-dancers and tumblers bring their bodies to not but that some, in almost all manual arts, are as wonderful; but I name those which the world takes notice of for such; because, on that very account, they give money to see them. All these admired motions, beyond the reach and almost the conception of unpracticed spectators, are nothing but the mere effects of use and industry in men, whose bodies have nothing peculiar in them from the amazed lookers-on. 4. As it is in the body, so it is in the mind; practice makes it what it is; and most even of those excellences which are looked on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions. Some men are remarked for pleasantries in raillery, others for apologues and apposite diverting stories. This is apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature, and that the rather, because it is not acquired by rules, and those who excel in either of them, never purposely set themselves to the study of it, as an art to be learned. 5. But yet it is true, that, at first, some lucky hit which took with somebody, and gained him commendation, encouraged him to try again, inclined his thoughts and endeavors that way, till at last he insensibly got a facility in it without perceiving how; and that is attributed wholly to nature, which was much more the effect of use and practice. 6. I do not deny that natural disposition may often give the first rise to it; but that never carries a man far without use and exercise, and it is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind as well as those of the body to perfection. Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never produces anything for want of improvement. 7. We see the ways of discourse and reasoning are very different, even concerning the same matter, at court and in the university. And he that will go but from Westminster Hall to the Exchange, will find a different genius and turn in their ways of talking; and one cannot think that all whose lot fell in the city, were born with different parts from those who were bred at the university or inns of court. 8. To what purpose all this, but to show that the difference so observable in men's understandings and parts, does not arise so much from the natural faculties as acquired habits? He would be laughed at, that should go about to make a fine dancer out of a country hedger, at past fifty. And he will not have much better success, who shall endeavor, at that age, to make a man reason well, or speak handsomely, who has never been used to it, though you should lay before him a collection of all the best precepts of logie or oratory. 9. Nobody is made anything by hearing rules, or laying them up in his memory; practice must settle the habit of doing without reflecting on the rule; and you may as well hope to make a good painter or musician, extempore, by a lecture and instruction in the arts of music and painting, as a coherent thinker, or strict reasoner, by a set of rules, showing him wherein right reasoning consists. QUESTIONS.-1. What is necessary to lead our minds towards perfection? 2. What instances of expertness and grace are cited as the results of practice? 3. What qualities or traits of character, which are the mere effect of use and practice, are often accounted natural gifts? 4. Does the writer allow nature any share in the production of these traits? 5. Does any one ever become great in any calling by merely hearing or learning rules? LESSON LIV. WORDS FOR SPELLING AND DEFINING. FRU GALI TY, economy. PROD I GALI TY, wastefulness. AUCTION, vendue; public sale. ≥ PER PLEX' I TY, embarrassment. DIS CHARGE', pay. BE STIR', put in action. HONESTY AND FRUGALITY LEAD TO WEALTH. DR. FRANKLIN. 1. I stopped my horse lately, where a great number of people were collected at an auction of merchant's goods The hour of the sale not being come, they were conversing on the badness of the times; and one of the company called to a plain, clean, old man, with white locks: "Pray, Father Abraham, what think you of the tìmes? Will not these heavy taxes quite ruin the country? How shall we ever be able to pay them? What would you advise us to dò?” 2. Father Abraham stood up and replied: "If you would have my advice, I will give it you in short; for, A word to the wise is sufficient, as Poor Richard says." They joined in desiring him to speak his mind, and gathering around him, he proceeded as follows: 3. "Friends," said he, "the taxes are, indeed, very heavy, and, if those laid on by the government were the only ones we had to pay, we might more easily discharge them; but we have many others, and much more grievous to some of us. We are taxed twice as much by our idleness, three times as much by our pride, and four times as much by our folly; and from these taxes the commissioners can not ease or deliver us, by allowing an abatement. However, let us hearken to good advice, and something may be done for us; God helps them that help themselves, as Poor Richard says. 4. "It would be thought a hard government, that should tax its people one-tenth part of their time to be employed in its service; but idleness taxes many of us much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labor wears; while the used key is always bright, as Poor Richard says. But dost thou love life? then do not squander time; for that is the stuff life is made of, as Poor Richard says. How much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep; forgetting, that The sleeping fox catches no poultry; and that There will be sleeping enough in the grave, as Poor Richard says. 5. "If time be of all things the most precious, wasting |