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supplant every other feeling, and man would become, in fact, what the theory of atheism declares him to be, companion for brutes!

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LESSON XCV.

RELIANCE ON GOD. CASKET.

If thou hast ever felt that all on earth
Is transient and unstable, that the hopes
Which man reposes on his brother man,
Are oft but broken reeds; if thou hast seen
That life itself "is but a vapor," sprung
From time's up-heaving ocean, decked, perhaps,
With here and there a rainbow, but full soon
To be dissolved and mingled with the vast
And fathomless expanse that rolls its waves
On every side around thee; if thy heart
Has deeply felt all this, and thus has learned
That earth has no security, then go

And place thy trust in God.

The bliss of earth
Is transient as the colored light that beams
In morning dew-drops. Yet a little while,
And all that earth can show of majesty,
Of strength, or loveliness, shall fade away

Like vernal blossoms. From the conquerer's hand,
The scepter and the sword shall pass away;
The mighty ones of earth shall lay them down
In their low beds, and death shall set his seal
On beauty's marble brow, and, cold and pale,

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Bloomless and voiceless, shall the lovely ones
Go to the "congregation of the dead."

Yea, more than this; the mighty rocks that lift
Their solemn forms upon the mountain heights,
Like time's proud citadels, to bear the storms
And wreck of ages, these, too, shall decay,
And Desolation's ivy hand shall wave

O'er all that thou canst see, blot out the suns

That shed their glory o'er uncounted worlds,
Call in the distant comets from their wild

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And devious course, and bid them cease to move,
And clothe the heavens in darkness. But the power
Of God, his goodness, and his grace, shall be
Unchanged, when all the worlds that he has made,
Have ceased their revolutions. When the suns
That burn in yonder sky, have poured their last,
Their dying glory o'er the realms of space,
Still, God shall be the same, the same in love,
In majesty, in mercy: then rely

In faith on him, and thou shalt never find
Hope disappointed, or reliance vain.

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LESSON XCVI.

HOPE TRIUMPHANT IN DEATH.-CAMPBELL

Unfading Hope! when life's last embers burn,
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return,
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour!
Oh! then thy kingdom comes, Immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye!

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Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life's eternal day;
Then, then, the triumph and the trance begin!
And all thy Phenix * spirit burns within!

Oh! deep-enchanting prelude to repose,
The dawn of bliss, the twilight of our woes!
Yet half I hear the parting spirit sigh,
It is a dread and awful thing to die!
Mysterious worlds, untraveled by the sun!
Where Time's far-wand'ring tide has never run,
From your unfathomed shades and viewless spheres,
A warning comes, unheard by other ears.

'Tis Heaven's commanding trumpet, long and loud,
Like Sinai's thunder, pealing from the cloud!
While Nature hears, with terror-mingled trust,
The shock that hurls her fabric to the dust;
And, like the trembling Hebrew, when he trod
The roaring waves, and called upon his God, -
With mortal terrors, clouds immortal bliss,
And shrieks, and hovers o'er the dark abyss!

Daughter of Faith! awake, arise, illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb!
Melt, and dispel, ye specter doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness † on the parting soul!
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of dismay,
Chased on his night-steed by the star of day!
The strife is o'er, the pangs of nature close,
And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes.

Soul of the just! companion of the dead!

Where is thy home, and whither art thou fled?

* Phe'nix, a fabulous bird which is said to exist single, and to rise again from

its own ashes; but here used as an emblem of immortality.

↑ Cimmerian darkness. See note, p. 65.

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Back to its heavenly source thy being goes,
Swift as the comet wheels to whence he rose ;
Doomed on his airy path awhile to burn,
And doomed like thee, to travel, and return.
Hark! from the world's exploding center driven,
With sounds that shook the firmament of heaven,
Careers the fiery giant, fast and far,

On bickering wheels and adamantine car.

From planet whirled to planet more remote,
He visits realms beyond the reach of thought;
But, wheeling homeward, when his course is run,
Curbs the red yoke, and mingles with the sun!
So hath the traveler of earth unfurled

Her trembling wings, emerging from the world;
And, o'er the path by mortal never trod,
Sprung to her source, the bosom of her God!

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DR. FRANKLIN IN THE SOCIAL CIRCLE.-WIRT.

1. Never have I known such a fireside companion as he was, both as a statesman and a philosopher. He never shone in a light more winning than when he was seen in a domestic circle. It was once my good fortune to pass two or three weeks with him, at the house of a private gentleman in Pennsylvania; and we were confined to the house during the whole of that time, by the unremitting constancy and depth of the snows. But confinement could not be felt where Franklin was an inmate. His cheerfulness and his colloquial powers spread around him a perpetual spring.

2. Of Franklin, no one ever became tired. There was

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no ambition of eloquence, no effort to shine, in any thing which ever came from him. There was nothing which made any demand either upon your allegiance or your admiration. His manner was just as unaffected as infancy. It was nature's self. He talked like an old patriarch; and his plainness and simplicity put you at once at your ease, and gave you the full and free possession and use of all faculties. 3. His thoughts were of a character to shine by their own light, without any adventitious aid. They required only a medium of vision, like his pure and simple style, to exhibit to the highest advantage their native radiance and beauty. His cheerfulness was unremitting. It seemed to be as much the systematic and salutary exercise of the mind, as of its superior organization. His wit was of the first order. It did not show itself merely in occasional coruscations; but, without any effort of force on his part, it shed a constant stream of the purest light over the whole of his discourse.

4. Whether in the company of commons or nobles, he was always the same, plain man; always most perfectly at his ease, his faculties in full play, and the full orbit of his genius forever clear and unclouded. And then, the stores of his mind were inexhaustible. He had commenced life with an attention so vigilant, that nothing had escaped his observation, and every incident was turned to advantage. His youth had not been wasted in idleness, nor overcast by intemperance. He had been all his life a close and deep reader, as well as thinker, and by the force of his own powers, had wrought up the raw materials which he had gathered from books with such exquisite skill and felicity, that he had added a hundred fold to their original value, and justly made them his own.

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