ing it as with a trellis. She bound her babe to her neck, and with hands and feet clung to that fearful ladder. Turning round her head, and looking down, lo! the whole population of the parish, so great was the multitude, on their knees! and hush, the voice of psalms—a hymn, breathing the spirit of one united prayer! Sad and solemn was the strain-but nothing dirge-like-breathing not of death, but deliverance.

Often had she sung that tune, perhaps the very words, in her own hut-she and her mother-or in the kirk, along with all the congregation. An unseen hand seemed fastening her fingers to the ribs of ivy, and in sudden inspiration, believing that her life was to be saved, she became almost as fearless as if she had been changed into a winged creature. Again her feet touched stones and earth-the psalm was hushed-but a tremulous sobbing voice was close beside her, and lo! a she-goat, with two little kids at her feet! 'Wild heights,' thought she, 'do these creatures climb, but the dam will lead down her kid by the easiest paths; for O, even in the brute creatures, what is the holy power of a mother's love!' and turning round her head, she kissed her sleeping baby, and for the first time she wept.

Overhead frowned the front of the precipice, never touched before by human hand or foot. No one had ever dreamt of scaling it; and the golden eagles knew that well in their instinct, as, before they built their eyrie, they had brushed it with their wings. But all the rest of this part of the mountain side, though seamed, and chasmed, was yet accessible and more than one person in the parish had reached the bottom of the Glead's Cliff.

Many were now attempting it, and ere the cautious mother had followed her dumb guides a hundred yards through, among dangers that, although enough to terrify the stoutest heart, were traversed by her without a shudder, the head of one man appeared, and then the head of another, and she knew that God had delivered her and her child in safety, into the care of their fellow creatures.

Not a word was spoken-eyes said enough-she hushed her friends with her hands, and with uplifted eyes pointed to the guides sent to her by heaven. Small green plats, where those creatures nibble the wild flowers, became now more frequent trodden lines, almost as easy as sheep-paths, showed that the dam had not led her young into danger; and now the brushwood dwindled away into straggling shrubs,

and the party stood on a little eminence above the stream, and forming part of the strath. There had been trouble and agitation, much sobbing and many tears among the multitude, while the mother was scaling the cliffs,-sublime was the shout that echoed afar the moment she reached the eyrie, and now that her salvation was sure, the great crowd rustled like a wind-swept wood.

And for whose sake was all this alternation of agony? A poor humble creature, unknown to many even by name -one who had had but few friends, nor wished for morecontented to work all day, here-there-any where-that she might be able to support her aged mother and her little child-and who on the sabbath took her seat in an obscure pew, set apart for paupers, in the kirk!

'Fall back, and give her fresh air,' said the old minister of the parish; and the circle of close faces widened round her, lying as in death. 'Give me the dear child into my arms,' cried first one mother, and then another, and it was tenderly handed round the circle of kisses, many of the young maidens bathing its face in tears. 'There's not a

single scratch about the poor innocent, for the eagle, you see, must have stuck its talons into the long clothes and the shawl. Blind! blind! must they be who see not the finger of God in this thing!'

Hannah started up from her swoon, looking wildly round, and cried, 'O! the bird, the bird!-the eagle, the eagle! The eagle has carried off my dear little Walter-is there none to pursue? A neighbor put her child into her bosom, --and shutting her eyes, and smiting her forehead, the sorely bewildered creature said in a low voice, Am I awake?--0 tell me if I'm awake, or if all this be the work of a fever, and the delirium of a dream.'

LESSON XCVI.

Destruction of Sennacherib.-BYRON.

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

LESSON XCVII.

River and Fall of Niagara.-FLINT.

Ar the point, where this river issues from lake Erie, it assumes the name of Niagara. It is something more than three quarters of a mile in width, and the broad and powerful current embosoms two islands: one of them, Grand Isle, the seat of Mr. Noah's famous Jewish colony, containing eleven thousand acres, and the other, Navy island, opposite to the British village of Chippeway.

Below this island the river again becomes an unbroken sheet, a mile in width. For a half a mile below, it seems

to be waxing in wrath and power. Were this rapid in any other place, it would be noted, as one of the sublimest features of river scenery. Along this rapid, the broad and irresistible mass of rolling water is not entirely whitened, for it is too deep to become so. But it has something of that curling and angry aspect, which the sea exhibits, when swept by the first burst of a tempest.

The momentum may be conceived, when we are instructed, that in half a mile the river has a descent of fifty feet. A column of water, a mile broad, twenty-five feet deep, and propelled onward by the weight of the surplus waters of the whole prodigious basin of the lakes, rolling down this rapid declivity, at length pours over the cataract, as if falling to the eternal depths of the earth.

Instead of sublimity, the first feeling excited by this stupendous cataract is amazement. The mind accustomed only to ordinary phenomena and common exhibitions of power, feels a revulsion and recoil, from the new train of thought and feeling, forced in an instant upon it. There is hardly sufficient coolness for distinct impressions; much less for calculations.

The

We witness the white and terrific sheets-for an island on the very verge of the cataract divides the fall-descending more than one hundred and fifty feet into the abyss below. We feel the earth trembling under our feet. deafening roar fills our ears. The spray, painted with rainbows, envelopes us. We imagine the fathomless caverns, which such an impetus, continued for ages, has worn. Nature arrays herself before us, in this spectacle, as an angry irresistible power, that has broken away from the beneficent control of Providence.

We have gazed upon the spectacle and heard the roar, -until the mind has recovered from its amazement. We believe the first obvious thought, in most minds, is a shrinking comparison of the littleness and helplessness of man, and the insignificance of his pigmy efforts, when measuring strength with nature.

Take it all in all, it is one of the most sublime and astonishing spectacles, seen on our globe. The eye distinctly measures the amount of the mass, and we can hardly avoid thinking with the peasant, that the waters of the upper world must be drained down the cataract. But the stream continues to pour down, and this concentred and impressed symbol of the power of Omnipotence, proclaims his majesty through the forest from age to age.

An earthquake, the eruption of a volcanic mountain, the conflagration of a city, are all spectacles, in which terror is the first and predominant emotion. The most impressive exertion of human power, is seen in the murderous and sickening horrors of a conflict between two mighty armies. These, too, are transient and contingent exhibitions of sublimity.

But after we have stood an hour at the foot of these falls, after the eye has been accustomed to look at them without blenching, after the ear has been familiarized with the deafening and incessant roar, when the mind begins to calculate the grandeur of the scale of operations, upon which nature acts; then it is, that the entire and mingled feeling of sublimity rushes upon it, and this, probably, is the place on the whole globe, where it is felt in its most unmixed simplicity

LESSON XCVIII.

Aurora Borealis.

The following impressive notice of the Aurora Borealis is extracted from the private Journal of Capt. Lyon during the voyage of discovery under Capt. Parry performed in the years 1821-22-23.

As we now had seen the darkest, although not by many degrees the coldest season of the year, it may not here be irrelevant to mention the beautiful appearance of the sky at this period. To describe the colors of these cloudless heavens would be impossible, but the delicacy and pureness of the various blended tints, excelled any thing I ever saw even in Italy.

The sun shines with undiminished lustre, so that it is impossible to contemplate it without a painful feeling to the eyes; yet, the blush color, which in severe frost always accompanies it, is in my opinion, far more pleasing than the glittering borders, which are so profusely seen on the clouds in warmer climates.

The nights are no less lovely, in consequence of the clearness of the sky. The moon and stars shine with wonderful lustre, and almost persuade one to be pleased with the surrounding desolation. The Aurora Borealis does not appear affected by the brilliancy of even the full moon, but its light continues still the same.