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2. The attempt has begun, and is going on, far from foreign corruption, on the broadest scale, and under the most benignant' prospects; and it certainly rests with us to solve the great problem in human society,—to settle, and that forever, the momentous' question,—whether mankind can be trusted with a purely popular system of Government.

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3. One might almost think, without extravagance,' that the departed wise and good, of all places and times, are looking down from their happy seats to witnèss what shall now be done by us; that they who lavished' their treasures, and their blood, of old,-who spake and wrote, who labored, fought and perished, in the one great cause of Freedom and Truth,—are now hanging, from their orbs on high, over the last solemn expĕrimènt of humanity."

4. As I have wandered over the spots once the scene of their labors, and mused among the prostrate columns of their senatehouses and forums," I have seemed almost to hear a voice from the tombs of departed ages, from the sepulchres of the nations which died before the sight. They exhort us, they adjure' us, to be faithful to our trust.

5. They implore us, by the long trials of struggling humanity; by the blessed memory of the departed; by the dear faith which has been plighted by pure hands to the holy cause of truth and man; by the awful secrets of the prison-house, where the sons of freedom have been immured;" by the noble heads which have been brought to the block; by the wrecks of time, by the eloquent ruins of nations,-they conjure us not to quench the light which is rising on the world.

Be nignant, kind; gracious; round form; especially, one of the favorable. heavenly bodies; a sun, planet, or star.

'Mō měnt' oŭs, of moment or consequence; weighty; important. 'Pop' u lar, pleasing, suitable, or pertaining to the common people.

1 Extravagance, the act of wandering beyond proper bounds; excess, as in spending money too freely, or using language that goes beyond the truth.

'Hu măn' ity, mankind in general; the human race.

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Adjure', to charge, bind, command, beg, or entreat solemnly and

'Lǎv'ished, expended or gave earnestly, as if under oath. very freely.

6 Orb, a solid or hollow body of a

10 Im müred', shut up; inclosed within walls.

6. Greece cries to us by the convulsed lips of her poisoned, dying Demosthenes; and Rome pleads with us in the mute persuasion of her mangled Tully."

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V.

111. OUR COUNTRY.

EDWARD EVERETT.

MOTHER of a mighty race,

Yět lovely in thy youthful grace!
The elder dames, thy haughty peers,
Admire and hate thy blooming years;
With words of shame

And taunts of scorn they join thy name.

2. For on thy cheek the glow is spread
That tints thy morning hills with red;
Thy step-the wild deer's rustling feet
Within thy woods are not mōre fleet;
Thy hopeful eye

Is bright as thy own sunny sky.

3. Ay, let them rail, those haughty ones,
While safe thou dwellèst with thy sons!
They do not know how loved thou art,
How many a fond and fearless heart
Would rise to throw

Its life between thee and the foe.

4. There's freedom at thy gates, and rest
For Earth's down-trodden and oppressed;
A shelter for the hunted head,

For the starved laborer toil and bread.
Power, at thy bounds,

Stops, and calls back his baffled hounds.

1 De mos' the nes, the greatest of Athenian orators and patriots, was born about B. C. 385. After the defeat of the confederate Greeks by Antipater, he demanded the surrender of Demosthenes, who thereupon fook poison, and died in 322.

2 Marcus Tŭl' li ŭs Cic' e ro, an able writer, the greatest orator of Rome, was born on the 3d of January, B. C., 106. He was mur dered by the soldiers of Antony, who cut off his head and hands, on the 7th of December, 43.

5. O fair young mother! on thy brow
Shall sit a nobler grace than now.
Deep in the brightness of thy skies
The thronging years in glōry rise,
And as they fleet,

Drop strength and riches at thy feet.

6. Thine eye, with every coming hour,
Shall brighten, and thy form shall tower ;
And when thy sisters, elder born,

Would brand thy name with words of scorn,—
Before thine eye

Upon their lips the taunt shall die.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

WE

SECTION XXIV.

I.

112. FRIENDSHIP.

1.

E have been friends together, in sunshine and in shade, Since first beneath the chestnut-trees in infancy we played.

But coldness dwells within thy heart, a cloud is on thy brow; We have been friends together; shall a light word part us now?

2.

We have been gay together; we have laughed at little jests; For the fount of hope was gushing warm and joyous in our breasts. But laughter now hath fled thy lip, and sullen glooms thy brow; We have been gay together; shall a light word part us now?

3.

We have been sad together; we have wept with bitter tears O'er the grass-grown graves, where slumbered the hopes of early

years.

The voices which were silent there would bid thee clear thy brow; We have been sad together; shall a light word part us now?

CAROLINE NORTON.

II.

113. FORGIVE AND FORGET.

WHEN

HEN streams of unkindness as bitter as gall,
Bubble up from the heart to the tongue,
And Meckness is writhing in torment and thrall,
By the hands of Ingratitude wrung—
In the heat of injustice, unwept and unfair,
While the anguish is festering yet,

None, none but an angel of God can declare,
"I now can forgive and forget.”

2. But, if the bad spirit is chased from the heart,
And the lips are in penitence' steeped,

With the wrong so repented the wrath will depart,
Though scorn on injustice were heaped ;
For the best compensation is paid for all ill,
When the cheek with contrition' is wet,
And every one feels it is possible still

At once to forgive and forget.

3. To forget? It is hard for a man with a mind,
However his heart may forgive,

To blot out all insults and evils behind,
And but for the future to live :

Then how shall it be? for at every turn
Recollection the spirit shall fret,

And the ashes of injury smolder and burn,
Though we strive to forgive and forget.

4. Oh, hearken! my tongue shall the riddle unseal,
And mind shall be partner with heart,
While thee to thyself I bid conscience reveal,
And show thee how evil thou art :
Remember thy follies, thy sins, and-thy crimes,
How vast is that infinite debt!

Yet Mercy hath seven by seventy times
Been swift to forgive and forget!

'Pění i tence, sorrow of heart on account of sins, crimes, or offenses.

2 Contrition, (kon trish'un), deep sorrow for sin; penitence.

5. Brood not on insults or injuries old,
For thou art injurious too-

Count not their sum till the total is told,
For thou art unkind and untrue :

And if all thy harms are forgotten, forgiven,
Now mercy with justice is met;

Oh, who would not gladly take lessons of heaven,
Nor learn to forgive and forget?

6. Yes, yes; let a man when his enemy weeps,
Be quick to receive him a friend;

For thus on his head in kindnèss he heaps
Hot coals-to refine and ăměnd;

And hearts that are Christian more eagerly yearn,
As a nurse on her innocent pet,

Over lips that, once bitter, to penitence turn,

And whisper, Forgive and forget.

III.

114. THE HEADSTONE.

PART FIRST.

M. F. TUPPER

HE coffin was let down to the bottom of the grave, the

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planks were removed from the heaped-up brink, the first rattling clods had struck their knell, the quick shoveling was over, and the long, broad, skillfully cut pieces of turf were aptly joined together, and trimly laid by the beating spade, so that the newest mound in the church-yard was scarcely distinguishable from those that were grown over by the undisturbed grass and daisies of a luxuriant spring.

2. The burial was soon over; and the party, with one consenting motion, having uncovered their heads in decent reverence of the place and occasion, were beginning to separate, and about to leave the church-yard. Here, some acquaintances from distant parts of the parish, who had not had opportunity of addressing each other in the house that had belonged to the deceased, nor in the course of the few hundred yards that the little procession had to move over from his bed to his grave,

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'De ceased', departed: dead.

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