Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

2. His family may be traced to a Quaker stock in Pennsylvania; but it removed first to Virginia, and then, as early as 1780, to the wilds of Kentucky, which, at that time, was only an outlying territory belonging to Virginia. His grandfather and father both lived in peril from the Indians, and the former perished by their hands.

3. The future President was born in a log-house. His mother could read, but not write. His father could do neither, except so far as to sign his name rudely. Trial, privation, and labor entered into his early life. Only at seven years of age was he able to go to school for a brief period, carrying with him Dilworth's Spelling-Book, which was one of the three volumes that formed the family library.

4. Shortly afterwards, his father turned his back upon that slavery which disfigured Kentucky, and, placing his poor effects upon a raft which his son had helped him construct, set his face towards Indiana. In this painful journey, the son, who was only eight years old, bore his share of the burdens.

5. On reaching the chosen home in a land of liberty, the son aided the father in building the cabin, composed of logs fastened together by notches, and filled in with mud, where, for twelve years afterwards, he grew in character and in knowledge, as in stature, learning to write as well as to read, and especially enjoying Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Æsop's Fables, Weems' Life of Washington, and the Life of Clay.

6. At the age of twelve, he lost his mother. At

the age of nineteen, he became a hired hand, at ten dollars a month, on a flatboat laden with stores for the plantations on the Mississippi; and in this way he floated down that lordly river to New Orleans, little dreaming that, only a few years later, iron-clad navies would float on that same lordly river at his command.

7. In 1830, the father removed to Illinois, transporting his effects in wagons drawn by oxen; and the future President, who was then twenty-one years of age, drove one of the teams. Another cabin was built in primitive rudeness, and the future President split the rails for the fence to enclose the lot.

8. These rails have become classical in our history, and the name of Rail-splitter has been more than the degree of a college. Not that the splitter of rails is especially meritorious, but because the people are proud to trace aspiring talent to humble beginnings, and because they found in this tribute a new opportunity of vindicating the dignity of free labor.

9. His youth was now spent; and, at the age of twenty-one, he left his father's house to begin the world for himself. A small bundle, a laughing face, and an honest heart, these were his visible possessions, together with that unconscious character and intelligence which his country afterwards learned to prize.

10. No inheritance of land or money had fallen to him. No friend stood by his side. He was alone in poverty; and yet not all alone. There was God above, who watches all, and does not desert the

lowly. While yet a child, his father had borne him away from a soil wasted by slavery, and he was now the citizen of a free State. Thus closed the youth of the future President, happy at least that he could go forth under the day-star of liberty.

[blocks in formation]

THE WORLD NOT HAPPY.

1. HE world is wise, for the world is old;

1. THE

Five thousand years their tale have told;

Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be: Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

2. The world is strong with an awful strength, And full of life in its breadth and length;

Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be: Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

3. The world is so beautiful one may fear

Its borrowed beauty might make it too dear;
Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be:
Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

4. The world is kind if we ask not too much;

It is sweet to the taste, and smooth to the touch;
Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be:
Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

5. The cross shines fair, and the church-bell rings,
And the earth is peopled with holy things;
Yet the world is not happy, as the world might be:
Why is it? why is it? Oh, answer me!

6. What lackest thou, World? for God made thee of

old:

Thy faith hath gone out, and thy love grown cold;
Thou art not happy, as thou mightest be,
For the want of Christ's simplicity.

7. Poor world! if thou cravest a better day,
Remember that Christ must have his way;
I mourn thou art not as thou mightest be,
But the love of God would do all for thee.

[blocks in formation]

OUR

sub-stance

con-tin-ue

won-der-ful

A STRANGE FACT.

ma-te-ri-al

un-con-scious un-der-go-ing

UR bodies are continually undergoing a series of changes which we can not see, and of which we are wholly unconscious. We look at our hand to

day as we use it, and we think it the same substance as it was a week or a month ago,—the same as it has been for ten or twenty years.

2. The thumb, the fingers, have the same form which they used to have; the scars which were made when we were children or babes are there still. Nothing seems gone or altered.

3. Yet it is not wholly the same hand. It has been renewed over and over again since we were born. The skin and flesh and bone have been taken away, and new material given us in their place. And what is true of the hand is true mostly of the whole body.

4. The arms and feet that we used in our play or labor, years ago, have long since returned to dust. As often as once in five years the entire body is carried off, and new materials take their place.

5. We do not see this done; it is a hidden work, and the living agencies within us by which this change is made are constantly busy without our notice or knowledge. Every day a small part is carried away unseen, as if a grain of sand were taken from a heap and its place filled by another.

6. Thus our bodies require constant and daily supplies of all those things which help their various parts to grow. God who made us only knows how wonderful our bodies are, and he only can cause them to continue in health and life.

What is a strange fact? Tell how the hand is renewed. How often are our bodies changed thus? What happens every day? What do our bodies require? Who only can preserve them?

« AnteriorContinuar »