620. GOODNESS OF GOD. The light of nature, the works of creation, the general consent of nations, in harmony with divine revelation, attest the being, the perfections, and the providence of God. Whatever cause we have, to lament the frequent inconsistency of human conduct, with this belief, yet an avowed atheist is a monster, that rarely makes his appearance. God's government of the affairs of the universe, an acknowledgment of his active, superintending providence, over that portion of it, which constitutes the globe we inhabit, is rejected, at least theoretically, by very few. That a superior, invisible power, is continually employed in managing and controlling by secret, imperceptible, irresistible means, all the transactions of the world, is so often manifested in the disappointment, as well as in the success of our plans, that blind and depraved must our minds be, to deny, what every day's transactions so fully prove. The excellence of the divine character, especially in the exercise of that goodness towards his creatures, which is seen in the dispensation of their daily benefits, and in overruling occurring events, to the increase of their happiness, is equally obvious. Do we desire evidence of these things? Who is without them, in the experience of his own life? Who has not reason, to thank God for the success, which has attended his exertions in the world! Who has not reason to thank him, for defeating plans, the accomplishment of which, it has been afterwards seen, would have resulted in injury, or ruin? Who has not cause, to present him the unaffected homage of a grateful heart, for the consequences of events, apparently the most unpropitious, and for his unquestionable kindness, in the daily supply of needful mercies? PROGRESS OF LIBERTY. Why muse Upon the past, with sorrow? Though the year Has gone, to blend with the mysterious tide Of old Eternity, and borne along, Upon its heaving breast, a thousand wrecks Of glory, and of beauty,-yet why mourn, That such is destiny? Another year Succeedeth to the past.-in their bright round, The seasons come, and go,-the same blue arch, That hath hung o'er us, will hang o'er us yet,The same pure stars, that we have loved to watch, Will blossom still, at twilight's gentle hour, Like lilies, on the tomb of Day,--and still, Man will remain. to dream, as he hath dreamed, And mark the earth with passion. Love will spring From the tomb of old Affections,-Hope, And Joy, and great Ambition-will rise up, As they have risen,-and their deeds will be Brighter, than those engraven on the scrollOf parted centuries. Even now, the sea Of coming years, beneath whose mighty waves, Life's great events are heaving into birth, Is tossing to and fro, as if the winds THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET. For often at noon, when returned from the field, I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure, The purest, and sweetest, that nature can yield. How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing! And quick-to the white-pebbled bottom it fell; Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing, And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well; The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The moss-covered bucket-arose from the well. How sweet-from the green-mossy leim-to receive it, As poised on the curl-it inclined to my lips! Not a full blushing goblet-could tempt me to leave it, Though filled with the nectar, that Jupiter sips. And now, far removed-from the lov'd nluation, The tear of regret will intrusively swell, As fancy-reverts to my father's plantation, And sighs for the bucket, which hangs in the well; The old caken bucket, the iron-bound bucket, The mos-covered bucket, which hangs in the well. 621. RIGHT OF FREE DISCUSSION. Important, as I deem it, to discuss, on all prop er occasions, the policy of the measures, at present pursued, it is still more important to maintain the right of such discussion, in its full, and just extent. Sentiments, lately sprung up, and now growing fashionable, make it necessary to be explicit on this point. The more I perceive a disposition-to check the freedom of inquiry, by extravagant, and unconstitutional pretences, the firmer shall be the tone, in which I shall assert, and the freer the manner, in which I shall exercise it. It is a It is the ancient and undoubted preroga tive of this people-to canvass public measures, and the merits of public men. "home bred right," a fireside privilege. It hath ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin, in the nation. It is not to be drawn into controversy. It is as undoubted, as the right of breathing the air, or walking on the earth. Belonging to private life, as a right, it belongs to public life, as a duty; and it is the last duty which those, whose representative I am, shall find me to abandon. Aiming, at all times, to be courteous, and temperate in its use, except, when the right it to its extent. I shall place myself on the itself shall be questioned, I shall then carry extreme boundary of my right, and bid de fiance to any arm, that would move me from my ground. This high, constitutional privilege, I shall defend, and exercise, within this house, and without this house, and in all places; in time of peace, and in all times. Living, I shall assert it; and, should I leave no other inheri tance to my children, by the blessing of God, Of heaven were prisoned in its soundless depths, I will leave them the inheritance of free prin And struggling to be free. As some tall cliff, that lifts its awful form, What is fame? A fancy'd life in others' breath. ciples, and the example of a manly, independent, and constitutional defence of them. Grasp the whole world of reason, life, and sense, In one close system of benevolence ; Happier, as kindlier, in whate'er degree, A height of bliss-is height of charity. 622. PEACE AND WAR CONTRASTED. The morality of peaceful times-is directly opposite to the maxims of war. The fundamental rule of the first is-to do good; of the latter, to inflict injuries. The former-commands us to succor the oppressed; the latter to overwhelm the defenceless. The former teaches men to love their enemies; the latter, to make themselves terrible to strangers. The rules of morality-will not suffer us to promote the dearest interest, by falsehood; the maxims of war applaud it, when employed in the destruction of others. That a tamiliarity with such maxims, must tend to harden the heart, as well as to pervert the moral sentiments, is too obvious to need illustration. The natural consequence of their prevalence is an unfeeling, and unprincipled ambition, with an idolatry of talents, and a contempt of virtue; whence the esteem of mankind is turned from the humble, the beneficent, and the good, to men who are qualified, by a genius, fertile in expedients, a courage, that is never appalled, and a heart, that never pities, to become the destroyers of the earth. Away, away, without a wing, Forgetting-what it was to die.-Byron. GENUINE TASTE. To the eye of taste, cach season of the year has its peculiar beauties; nor does the venerable oak, when fringed with the hoary ornaments of winter, ailord a prospect, less various, or delightful, than, when decked in the most luxuriant foliage. Is, then, the winter of life-connected with no associa tions, but those of horror! This can never be the case, until ideas of contempt-are associated with ideas of wisdom, and experience; associations, which the cultivation of true taste-would ellectually prevent. Suppose the person, who wishes to improve on nature's plan, should apply to the artificial florist to deck the bare boughs of his spreading oak with ever-blooming roses; would it not be soon discovered, that, in deserting nature, he had deserted taste! It should be remembered, that the coloring of nature, whether in the ani mate, or inanimate creation, never fails to harmonize with the object; that her most beauti lively emotion from that very circumstance. 624. GAMBLER'S WIFE. While the philanthropist is devising means to mitigate the evils, and augment the happi-ful hues are often transient, and excite a more ness of the world, a fellow-worker together with God, in exploring, and giving effect to the benevolent tendencies of nature; the warrior-is revolving, in the gloomy recesses of his capacious mind, plans of future devastation and ruin. Prisons, crowded with captives; cities, emptied of their inhabitants; fields, desolate and waste, are among his proudest trophies. The fabric of his fame is cemented with tears and blood; and if his name is wafted to the ends of the earth, it is in the shrill cry of suffering humanity; in the curses and imprecations of those whom his sword has reduced to despair. 623. IMMORTAL MIND. When coldness-wraps this suffering clay, Ah, whither-strays the immortal mind? It cannot die, it cannot stay, But leaves its darkened dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace, By steps, each planet's heavenly way? Or fill, at once, the realms of space, A thing of eyes, that all survey? Eternal, boundless, undecayed, A thought unseen, but seeing all, Its eye shall roll-through chaos back; Above all love, hope, hate, or fear, Dark is the night! How dark! No light! No fire! Oh, God protect my child!" The clock strikes three. It rests not on externals, nor its worth Derives from gorgeous pomp, or glitter ng pel Or chance of arins, or accident of birth; It lays its foundations in the soul, And piles a tower of virtue to the skies, Around whose pinnacle-majest.e-roll The clouds of GLORY, starr'd with angel eyes 625. DARKNESS. I had a dream, which was not all a dream. A fearful hope-was all-the world contained: And, terrified, did flutter on the ground, [hands, Even of their mutual hideousness they died, The moon, their mistress, had expired before; 626. TRUE PLEASURE DEFINED. We are affected with delightful sensations, when we see the inanimate parts of the creation, the meadows, flowers, and trees, in a flourishing state. There must be some rooted melancholy at the heart, when all nature appears smiling about us, to hinder us from corresponding with the rest of the creation, But if meadows and trees, in their cheerful and joining in the universal chorus of joy. verdure, if flowers, in their bloom, and all the vegetable parts of the creation, in their most advantageous dress can inspire gladness into the heart, and drive away all sadness but despair; to see the rational creation happy, and flourishing, ought to give us a pleasure as much superior, as the latter is to the former, in the scale of being. But the pleasure is still heightened, if we ourselves have been instrumental, in contributing to the happiness of our fellow-reatures, if we have helped to grief. and revived that barren and dry land, raise a heart, drooping beneath the weight of where no water was, with refreshing showers of love and kindness. THE WILDERNESS OF MIND. Than groves of fir-on Huron's shore; Of India's tiger-haunted wood; But constant, he were perfect that one error- sins: Inconstancy-falls off-ere it begins. thus unsought, unpremeditated, unprepar'd!" But the truth is, there is no more a miracle in it, than there is in the towering of the pr eminent forest-tree, or in the flowing of the mighty, and irresistible river, or in the wealth, and waving of the boundless harvest.-Dewey. 628. THE THREE BLACK CROWS. 627. GENIUS. The favorite idea of a genius among us, is of one, who never studies, or who studies nobody can tell when; at midnight, or at odd times, and intervals, and now and then strikes out," at a heat," as the phrase is, some wonderful production. This is a character that has figured largely in the history of our literature, in the person of our Two honest tradesmen-meeting in the Strand, Fieldings, our Savages, and our Steeles: One, took the other, briskly by the hand; "loose fellows about town, or loungers in the "Hark ye," said he, is an odd story this, country," who slept in ale-houses, and wrote in bar-rooms; who took up the pen as a ma- About the crows!"—"I don't know what it i gician's wand, to supply their wants, and, Replied his friend. No! I'm surprised at the*, when the pressure of necessity was relieved, Where I come from it is the common chat: resorted again to their carousals. Your real But you shall hear: an odd affair indeed! genius is an idle, irregular, vagabond sort of And that it happened, they are all agreed: personage; who muses in the fields, or dreams Not to detain you from a thing so strange, by the tireside: whose strong impulses-that is the cant of it-must needs hurry him into A gentleman, that lives not far from 'Change, wild irregularities, or foolish eccentricity; This week, in short, as all the alley knows, who abhors order, and can bear no restraint, Taking a puke, has thrown up three black crow and eschews al labor: such a one as Newton "Impossible!"-" Nay, but its really true, or Milton: What: they must have been ir-I had it from good hands, and so may you." regular, else they were no geniuses. "The young man, It is often said, “has genius enough, if he would only study." Now, the truth is, as I shall take the liberty to state it, that the genius will study; it is that in the mind which does study: that is the very nature of it. I care not to say, that it will always use books. All study is not reading, any more than all reading is study. Attention it is, though other qualities belong to this transcendent power,-attention it is, that is the very soul of genius; not the fixed eye, not the poring over a book, but the fixed thought. It is, in fact, an action of the mind, which is steadily concentrated upon one idea, or one series of ideas, which collects, in one From whose. I pray?" So, having named the man, point, the rays of the soul, till they search, The matter over." And pray, sir, what was 't?" THE HIGHEST OCCUPATION OF GENIUS. TO diffuse useful information, to farther intellee tual refinement, sure forerunners of moral'im provement, to hasten the coming of that bright day, when the dawn of general knowledge shall chas away the lazy, lingering miste this, indeed, is a high calling in which the most even from the base of the great social pyramid well press onward, ca.er to bear a part. splendid talents and consummate virtue may it, even as it finds them here. It went on but silence was upon its path, and the deep struggings of the inward soul silently minis How soon-time-flies away! yet, as I watch M, tered to it. The elements around breathed Meth uks, by the slow progress of this hand, upon it. and "touched it to fier issues." I should have hv'd an age-s nice yesterday, The golden ray of heaven fell upon it, and And have an age to live. Still on it creeps, ripened its expanding faculties. The slow Each httle monent at another's heels, revolutions of years slowly a ided to its color such small parts as these, and inen look back, lected energies and treasures; till, in its hour of glory, it stood forth imbodied in the form Worn and bewilder'd, wondering—how it is. of living, command.ng, irresistible eloquence. Thou travel st-like a ship, in the w de orean, The world wonders at the manifestation, and Which hath wobounding shore to mark its progrœ. 63)6, “Strange, strange, that it should come [O TIME! ere long, I shuil have done with thoo. 629. PERRY'S VICTORY. Were anything | And those, forsaken of God, and to themselves giv wanting, to perpetuate the fame of this vic- The prudent shunned him, and his house, [en up tory, it would be sufficiently memorable, from As one, who had a deadly moral plague; the scene where it was fought. This war has And fain all would have shunned him, at the day Deen distinguished, by new and peculiar characteristics. Naval warfare has been carried of judgment; but in vain. All, who gave ear, into the interior of a continent, and navies, With greediness, or, wittingly, their tongues as if by magic, launched from among the Made herald to his lies, around him wailed; depths of the forest! The bosom of peace- While on his face, thrown back by injured men ful lakes, which, but a short time since, were In characters of ever-blushing shame, Scarcely navigated by man, except to be Appeared ten thousand slanders, all his own. skimmed by the light canoe of the savage, have all at once been ploughed by hostile ships. The vast silence, that had reigned, for ages, on these mighty waters, was broken by the thunder of artillery, and the affrighted savage stared, with amazement, from his covert, at the sudden apparition of a seafight, amid the solitudes of the wilderness. The peal of war has once sounded on that Jake, but probably, will never sound again. The last roar of cannon, that died along her shores, was the expiring note of British domination. Those vast, eternal seas will, perhaps, never again be the separating space, between contending nations; but will be embosomed-within a mighty empire; and this victory, which decided their fate, will stand unrivalled, and alone, deriving lustre, and perpetuity, from its singleness. 630. TRUE FRIENDSHIP. Damon and Py thias, of the Pythagorean sect in philosophy, lived in the time of Dionysius, the tyrant of Sicily. Their mutual friendship was so strong, that they were ready to die for one another. One of the two, (for it is not known which,) being condemned to death, by the tyrant, obtained leave to go into his own country, to settle his affairs, on condition, that the other should consent to be imprisoned in his stead, and put to death for him, if he did not return, before the day of execution. The attention of every one, and especially of the ty rant himself, was excited to the highest pitch, as every body was curious, to see what would be the event of so strange an affair. When the time was almost elapsed, and he who was gone did not appear; the rashness of the othIn future times, when the shores of Erie shall er, whose sanguine friendship had put him hum with a busy population; when towns, upon running so seemingly desperate a hazand cities, shall brighten, where now, ex-ard, was universally blamed. But he still detend the dark tangled forest; when ports shall spread their arms, and lofty barks shall ride, where now the canoe is fastened to the stake; when the present age shall have grown into venerable antiquity, and the mists of fable begin to gather round its history, then, will the inhabitants of Canada look back to this battle we record, as one of the romantic achievements of the days of yore. It will stand first on the page of their local legends, and in the marvellous tales of the borders. The fisherman, as he loiters along the beach, will point to some half-buried cannon, corroded with the rust of time, and will speak of Deep-in the wave, is a coral grove,' ocean warriors, that came from the shores of Where the purple mullet, and gold-fish rove, the Atlantic; while the boatman, as he trims Where the sea-flower-spreads its leaves of blue, his sail to the breeze, will chant, in rude dit-That never are wet, with fallen dew, ties, the name of Perry, the early hero of Lake Erie.-Irving. THE SLANDERER. Twas Slander, filled her mouth, with lying words, clared, that he had not the least shadow of doubt in his mind, of his friend's fidelity. The event showed how well he knew him. He came in due time, and surrendered himself to that fate, which he had no reason to think he should escape; and which he did not desire to escape, by leaving his friend to suffer in his place. Such fidelity softened, even the savage heart of Dionysius himself. He pardoned the condemned; he gave the two friends to one another, and begged that they would take himself in for a third. THE CORAL GROVE. But in bright and changeful beauty shine, Their bows, where the tides and billows flow; For the winds and the waves are absent there, The sea-flag streams through the silent water, The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea Are bending like corn, on the upland lea: Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, Pride goeth before destruction. |