marry, unless her sister, from whom she said it was impossible for her to be long separated, was married at the same time.

Velasco, who was no stranger to the passions of his sons, and who dreaded every thing from their violence, to prevent consequences, obliged them by his authority to decide their pretensions by lots; each previously engaging in a solemn oath to marry the nymph that should fall to his share. The lots were accordingly drawn; and Prosperity became the wife of Felix, and Adversity of Uranio.

Soon after the celebration of these nuptials, Velasco died, having bequeathed to his eldest son Felix the house wherein he dwelt, together with the greatest part of his large fortune and effects.

The husband of Prosperity was so transported with the gay disposition and enchanting beauties of his bride, that he clothed her in gold and silver, and adorned her with jewels of inestimable value. He built a palace for her in the woods; he turned rivers into his gardens, and beautified their banks with temples and pavilions. He entertained at his table the nobles of the land, delighting their ears with music, and their eyes with magnificence. But his kindred. he beheld as strangers, and the companions of his youth passed by unregarded. His brother also became hateful in his sight, and in process of time he commanded the doors of his house to be shut against him.

But as the stream flows from its channel, and loses itself among the valleys, unless confined by banks; so also will the current of fortune be dissipated, unless bounded by economy. In a few years the estate of Felix was wasted by extravagance, his merchandise failed him by neglect, and his effects were seized by the merciless hands of creditors. He applied himself for support to the nobles and great men, whom he had feasted and made presents to, but his voice was as the voice of a stranger, and they remembered not his face.

The friends whom he had neglected derided him in their turn, his wife also insulted him, and turned her back upon him and fled. Yet was his heart so bewitched with her sorceries, that he pursued her with entreaties, until, by her haste to abandon him, her mask fell off, and discovered to him a face as withered and deformed, as before it had appeared youthful and engaging.

What became of him afterwards tradition does not relate

with certainty. It is believed that he fled into Egypt, and lived precariously on the scanty benevolence of a few friends, who had not totally deserted him, and that he died in a short time, wretched and an exile.

Let us now return to Uranio, who, as we have already observed, had been driven out of doors by his brother Felix. Adversity, though hateful to his heart, and a spectre to his eyes, was the constant attendant upon his steps: and to aggravate his sorrow, he received certain intelligence, that his richest vessel was taken by a Sardinian pirate, that another was lost upon the Lybian Syrtes, and, to complete all, that the banker, with whom the greatest part of his ready money was entrusted, had deserted his creditors and retired into Sicily.

Collecting therefore the small remains of his fortune, he bid adieu to Tyre, and, led by Adversity through unfrequented roads and forests overgrown with thickets, he came at last to a small village at the foot of a mountain. Here they took up their abode for some time; and Adversity, in return for all the anxiety he had suffered, softening the severity of her looks, administered to him the most faithful counset, weaning his heart from the immoderate love of earthly things, and teaching him to revere the gods, and to place his whole trust and happiness in their government and protection. She humanized his soul, made him modest and humble, taught him to compassionate the distresses of his fellow creatures, and inclined him to relieve them.

'I am sent,' said she,' by the gods to those alone, whom they love: for I not only train them up by my severe discipline to future glory, but also prepare them to receive, with a greater relish, all such moderate enjoyments as are not inconsistent with this probationary state. As the spider, when assailed, seeks shelter in its inmost web, so the mind which I afflict, contracts its wandering thoughts, and flies for happiness to itself. It was I who raised the characters of Cato, Socrates, and Timoleon to so divine a height, and set them up as guides and examples to every future age. Prosperity, my smiling, but treacherous sister, too frequently delivers those whom she has seduced, to be scourged by her cruel followers, Anguish and Despair: while Adversity never fails to lead those who will be instructed by her, to the blissful habitation of Tranquillity and Content.'

Uranio listened to her words with great attention; and as he looked earnestly on her face, the deformity of it seemed

insensibly to decrease. By gentle degrees his aversion to her abated; and at last, he gave himself wholly up to her counsel and direction. She would often repeat to him the wise maxim of the philosopher, 'That those who want the fewest things, approach nearest to the gods, who want nothing.' She admonished him to turn his eyes to the many thousands beneath him, instead of gazing on the few who live in pomp and splendor; and in his addresses to the gods, Instead of asking for riches and popularity, to pray for a virtuous mind, a quiet state, án unblamable life, and a death full of good hopes.

Finding him to be every day more and more composed and resigned, though neither enamored of her face, nor delighted with her society, she at last addressed him in the following manner.

'As gold is purged and refined from dross by the fire, so is Adversity sent by Providence, to try and improve the vir tue of mortals. The end obtained, my task is finished; and I now leave you, to go and give an account of my charge. Your brother, whose lot was Prosperity, and whose condition you so much envied, after having experienced the error of his choice, is at last released by death from the most wretched of lives. Happy has it been for Uranio, that his lot was Adversity, whom if he remembers as he ought, his life will be honorable, and his death happy.'

As she pronounced these words, she vanished from his sight. But though her features at that moment, instead of inspiring their usual horror, seemed to display a kind of languishing beauty, yet as Uranio, in spite of his utmost efforts, could never prevail upon himself to love her, he neither regretted her departure, nor wished for her return. But though he rejoiced in her absence, he treasured up her counsels in his heart, and grew happy by the practice of them.

He afterwards betook himself again to merchandise; and having in a short time acquired a competency sufficient for the real enjoyments of life, he retreated to a little farm, which he had bought for that purpose, and where he determined to continue the remainder of his days. Here he employed his time in planting, gardening and husbandry, in quelling all disorderly passions, and in forming his mind by the lessons of Adversity. He took great delight in a little cell or hermitage in his garden, which stood under a tuft of trees, encompassed with eglantine and honey-suckle. Adjoining to

it was a cold bath, formed by a spring issuing from a rock, and over the door was written in large characters the following inscription:

Beneath this moss-grown roof, within this cell,
Truth, Liberty, Content, and Virtue dwell.
Say, you who dare this happy place disdain,
What palace can display so fair a train?

He lived to a good old age; and died honored and a mented.

LESSON CV.

Moral Effects of Intemperance.-WAYLAND

IN adjusting the nicely arranged system of man's immaterial nature, it is abundantly evident, that his passions and appetites were designed to be subjected implicitly to reason and to conscience. From the want of this subjection all his misery arises; and just in proportion to the perfection in which it is established, does he advance in happiness and virtue.

in their pres

But it unfortunately is found that in all men, ent state, the power of the passions is by far too great, for the controlling influence of that guardianship to which they should be subjected. Hence it is found necessary to strengthen the influence of reason and conscience, by all the concurring aids of law, of interest, of public opinion, and also, by all the tremendous sanctions of religion. And even all these are frequently found insufficient to overcome the power of vindictive, turbulent, and malicious passions, and of earthly, brutal, and sensual lust.

Now it is found, that nothing has the power of inflaming these passions, already too strong for the control of the possessor, like the use of ardent spirits. Nothing also has the power, in an equal degree, to silence the monitions of reason, and drown the voice of conscience, and thus surrender the man up, the headlong victim of fierce and remorseless sensuality.

Let a bear bereaved of her whelps meet a man, said Solomon, rather than a fool in his folly. An intemperate man is frenzied at the suspicion of an insult, he is outrageous at the appearance of opposition, he construes every thing into

an offence, and at offence he is implacable. He is revengeful unto death, at the least indignity; while his appetites are roused to ungovernable strength by the remotest object of gratification.

He is dangerous as a ferocious beast, and our only security is to flee from him, or chain him. I ask, What is there to prevent any man thus bereft of reason and conscience, and surrendered for the time to the dominion of passion and appetite, from committing any crime, which the circumstances around him may suggest?

Such is the moral effect of the excitement of intemperance. But when this first stage has passed away, the second is scarcely more enviable. He is now as likely to commit crime from utter hopelessness, as he was before from frenzied impetuosity. The horror of his situation now bursts upon him in all its reality. Poverty, want, disgrace, the misery which he has brought upon himself, his family, his friends, all stand before him in the most aggravated formsrendered yet more appalling by the consciousness that he has lost all power of resistance, and that all the energies of self government are prostrated within him. He has not moral power to resist the temptation that is destroying him; and he has sufficient intellect left to comprehend the full nature of that destruction. He has no physical vigor left, to resume his former course of healthy and active employment.

The contest within him becomes at last a scene of unmitigated anguish. He will do any thing rather than bear it. He will fly to any thing rather than suffer it. Hence you

find such men the constant attendants upon gambling houses, the associates, partakers, and instruments of thieves; and, not unfrequently, do you find them ending their days by self inflicted murder.

LESSON CVI.

Adams and Jefferson.-WIRT.

In the structure of their characters; in the course of their action; in the striking coincidences which marked their high career; in the lives and in the deaths of these illustrious men, and in that voice of admiration and gratitude which