I have said, that even the children of the vilest and low est portion of the community share in the general right to the advantages of education. Their claim possesses a peculiar title to our consideration. Some have spoken, as if such were beyond or beneath our assistance, and would bring contamination from their birth-place. Their lot is in the region of irreclaimable wickedness, it is said; and as their parents are, so are they destined to become. Destined! and so they are, if you will not save them. They are destined, and forever chained down, to a state of moral loathsomeness, in which degradation seems to be swallowed with the food, and vice breathed in with the air. And shall they stay in such a pit of darkness? Is not their situation the strongest possible appeal, which can be made to your pity, and your generosity, and your sense of justice, and your love of good? Does it not call on you, most loudly and imperatively, to pluck these brands from the burning, ere yet they have been scorched too deeply and darkly by the flame? Nothing is more probable, than that such children may be preserved to virtue by a timely interference; nothing is more certain, than that they will be lost, if they remain. I know of no case, which promises such ample success and reward to the spirited efforts of benevolence, as this. Vice may be cut off, in a great measure, of her natural increase, by the adoption of her offspring into the family of virtue; and, though it is true, that the empire of guilt receives constant emigrations and fresh accessions of strength, from all the regions of society, yet it is equally as true, that they, whose only crime it is that they were born within its con'fines, may be snatched away, and taught another allegiance, before they have become familiar with its language, its customs, and its corruptions, and have vowed a dreadful fidelity to its laws. LESSON LXXXIX. Childhood and Manhood-an Apologue.-CRABBE. "Men are but children of a larger growth." 'Twas eight o'clock, and near the fire And with the title of a sire My ears expected to be greeted ** But vain the thought: by sleep oppressed, Or, nodding, rolled from side to side. "Let this young rogue be sent to bed”— For new delay, though oft denied, "Alas! poor infant!" I exclaimed, "Thy father blushes now to scan, In all which he so lately blamed, The follies and the fears of man. The vain regret, the anguish brief, Which thou hast known, sent up to bed, Portrays of man the idle grief, When doomed to slumber with the dead. And more I thought, when, up the stairs, When nature claims their forfeit breath, Still grasp at wealth in pain and age, 'Tis morn; and see, my smiling boy Thus shall not man forget his wo? O, my Creator! when thy will Shall stretch this frame on earth's cold bed, Let that blest hope sustain me still, "Till thought, sense, memory-all are fled. And, grateful for what thou may'st give, No tear shall dim my fading eye, That 'twas thy pleasure I should live, That 'tis thy mandate bids me die. 1886. LESSON XC. The Skies.-BRYANT. Av, gloriously thou standest there, Far, far below thee, tall gray trees The cagle soars his utmost height; Yet far thou stretchest o'er his flight. Thou hast thy frowns: with thee, on high, His stores of hail and sleet: Yet art thou prodigul of smiles Smiles sweeter than thy frowns are stern Earth sends, from all her thousand isles, A song at their returu : The glory that comes down from thee The sun, the gorgeous sun, is thine, The pomp that brings and shuts the day, The clouds that round him change and shine, The airs that fan his way. Thence look the thoughtful stars, and there The sunny Italy may boast The beauteous tints that flush her skies, I only know how fair they stand And they are fair: a charm is theirs, That earth-the proud, green earth-has not, We gaze upon thy calm, pure sphere, Oh! when, amid the throng of men, LESSON XCI. Address to the Stars.-NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE YE are fair, ye are fair; and your pensive rays Steal down like the light of parted days; But have sin and sorrow ne'er wandered o'er The green abodes of each sunny shore ? Hath no frost been there, and no withering blast, Cold, cold, o'er the flower and the forest, passed ? Does the playful leaf never fall nor fade? No grief to shadow its light of joy? No bleeding breasts, that are doomed to part? Hath death ne'er saddened your scenes of bloom? Farewell, farewell! I go to my rest; LESSON XCII. Song of the Stars.-BRYANT. WHEN the radiant morn of creation broke, And the world in the smile of God awoke, And the empty realms of darkness and death Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath, And orbs of beauty, and spheres of flame, From the void abyss, by myriads came, In the joy of youth, as they darted away, Through the widening wastes of space to play, Their silver voices in chorus rung; And this was the song the bright ones sung:→ "Away, away! through the wide, wide sky,The fair blue fields that before us lie,— |