any other. They are true friends, excellent counselors, and agreeable companions.

When you are

4. Be careful to read with attention. reading, do not be thinking of any thing else. People who read without thinking what they are reading about, lose their time; and they can not be the wiser, or the better for what they read. Reflect upon what you have read, or heard other people read; and, if you have a proper opportunity, converse upon it. To relate what you have read, or heard, is the best way to help you to remember it.

5. It may afford many useful and pleasant subjects of conversation; and it may often prevent quarreling, telling idle tales, silly joking, and talking scandal. In order to remember any particular passages in a book, read them over several times. If it instructed you in any particular duty, consider whether you have done your best to practice it.

6. A little in this way is more improving than many volumes, however excellent in themselves, read over in a hasty, careless manner. Let nothing tempt you to read a bad book of any kind. It is better not to read at all, than to read bad books. A bad book is the worst of thieves; it robs us of time, money, and principles.

QUESTIONS.-1. What are some of the benefits derived from reading? 2. How should we read? 3. What will assist us to remember what we read? 4. What is said of bad books? 5. To what are they compared? 6. Of what do they rob us?

LESSON XXI.

WORDS FOR SPELLING AND DEFINING.

UN DER STAND' INGS, minds.
EX HAUSTED, used; expended.
CRIT I CISM, act of judging in
literary matters.

IN DUCED, led; caused.
SUS PECT', doubt; mistrust.
AC CUSTOM ED, habituated.
DIS SAT IS FI ED, discontented.
CON TROL', Sway; government.

RE LAX', become remiss.
AT TEMPTED, tried; endeavored.
A BATE', lessen; diminish.
AD MI RATION, high regard.
REV ER ENCE, deep respect.
PRO PENS I TIES, inclinations.
DE FILED, corrupted; polluted.
IM AG IN A TION, fancy.
MONSTROUS, shocking; hateful

THE TRUE TEST OF A BOOK.

SOUTHEY.

1. Young readers, you whose hearts are open, whose understandings are not yet hardened, and whose feelings are neither exhausted nor incrusted by the world, take from me a better rule than any professor of criticism will teach you. Would you know whether the tendency of a book is good or evil, examine in what state of mind you lay it down.

2. Has it induced you to suspect that what you have been accustomed to think unlawful, may, after all, be ínnocent; and that that may be harmless, which you have hitherto been taught to think dángerous? Has it tended to make you dissatisfied and impatient under the control of others, and disposed you to relax in that self-government, without which both the laws of God and man tell us there can be no virtue, and, consequently, no háppiness?

3. Has it attempted to abate your admiration and reverence for what is great and good, and to diminish in you the love of your country and your fellow-créatures? Has it addressed itself to your pride, your vanity, your selfishness, or any other of your evil propénsities? Has it defiled the imagination with what is loathsome, and shocked the heart with what is mónstrous?

4. Has it disturbed the sense of right and wrong, which the Creator has implanted in the human soul? If so, if you have felt that such were the effects that it was intended to produce, throw the book into the fire, whatever name it may bear on the title-page. Throw it into the fire, young man, though it should have been the gift of a friend; young lady, away with the whole set, though it should be the prominent furniture of a rosewood book-case.

QUESTIONS.-1. By what test may we know whether a book has a good or evil tendency? 2. Mention some of the effects by which you may know a bad book. 3. What is recommended to be done with such books?

Are the questions at the end of the 2d and 3d paragraphs direct or indirect? What inflections do indirect questions usually require ?

1. 'Tis not the value of the gift,
That Friendship's hand may tender;
'Tis not the thing's intrinsic worth,
(Though gems of rarest splendor,)
That calls the heart's best gratitude,
Or wakes a deep emotion;

The simplest flower may be the gift,
And claim a life's devotion.

2. A bunch of violets, culled when first
The showers of spring unfold them,
May be of small intrinsic worth,
And fade while yet we hold them;
Yet are they types of modest truth,
And may become a token,

From friend to friend, of kind regard,

That never shall be broken.

3. These fragrant flowers which thou hast given,
And I so fondly cherish,
May, ere another morn shall rise,

Before me fade and perish;

Yet they are sweet,-their grateful soul

No time nor change can sever;

So lives the memory of the gift;

It breathes of thee forever.

QUESTIONS.-1. In what does the real value of a gift consist! 2. Might even a violet or any little flower, if given with the proper spirit, awaken lasting gratitude? 3. Will not the affection indicated by such a gift, last long after the gift itself has perished?

How should a passage, included within a parenthesis, be read? See Sanders' Spelling Book, p. 158.

1 Far away, in the gloomy old forests of Maine, Towered aloft, in his pride, a dark ever-green pine, And he said, looking down on the lowlier trees,

"None hath strength, or endurance, or beauty, like mine."

2. Ere the boast was well spoken, the sunlight had fled, And the storm-cloud was bursting in wrath o'er his head; From its bosom the bolt of Jehovah was thrown,

And the pride of the forest lay riven and prone.

3. "Why art thou here, my old friend?" said an oak, at whose foot,

The proud boaster, rebuked, was now helplessly laid; Of his strength and endurance no traces remained;

Of his beauty-the wreck which the lightnings had made.

4. Thus the pine meek replied: "I forgot my low birth,
And rejoiced in o'ertopping my brothers of earth;
Now all broken and weak, on her bosom I lie,
Unavailing to mourn, and neglected to die."

MORAL.

If the story be simple, the moral is plain,—
Who exalteth himself, shall be humbled again.

QUESTIONS.-1. What was the boast of the pine? 2. What happened to the pine during the thunder-storm? 3. What said the oak to the prostrate pine-tree? 4. What did the pine say in reply? 5. What is the moral of this piece? See Mat. 23d, 12th verse. Which lines of this poetry rhyme? Point out the accented and unaccented syllables of each line. What pause after beauty?

LESSON XXIV.

WORDS FOR SPELLING AND DEFINING.

IN TEG'RI TY, honesty; upright- UN CLOGGED, unimpeded.

1. Suppose a clerk has it in his power to defraud his employer, (as young men of necessity are intrusted with large sums of money or other property,) and he is persuaded that the opportunity is one which, if embraced, will put it forever out of the power of any human being to discover it, he might thus reason with himself:

2. Here is an occasion, in which I can appropriate to myself a sum of money, and no one but the All-seeing Eye will behold my deed of guilt. It may be a nucleus, around which I can soon gather a fortune, and the wealth of my employer will remain undiminished. On the other hand, the act may be discovered, and my prospects blasted, and the possibility of my character being ruined, is a difficulty that deters me. I will not run the hazard.

3. That young man, being honest from the fear of detection alone, is a dishonest youth. When the time comes round, and brings with it a temptation unclogged by any danger of detection, that young man will prove himself false as the sea. He clings to fidelity, solely because by it he believes his interest will best be promoted.

4. He has looked at fraud in the face, and calculated de