Fly, Misraim, fly!' -The ravenous floods they see And, fiercer than the floods, the Deity.

'Fly, Misraim, fly!'-From Edom's coral strand Again the prophet stretched his dreadful wand:With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep, And all is waves-a dark and lonely deepYet o'er these lonely waves such murmurs past, As mortal wailing swelled the nightly blast: And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.

LESSON XXXV.

Belshazzar.-CROLY.

HOUR of an empire's overthrow!

The princes from the feast were gone― The idle flame was burning low— "T was midnight upon Babylon.

That night the feast was wild and high;
That night was Zion's God profaned;
The seal was set to blasphemy;

The last deep cup of wrath was drained.

'Mid jewelled roof and silken pall,
Belshazzar on his couch was flung;-
A burst of thunder shook the hall-
He heard but 't was no mortal tongue

"King of the east! the trumpet calls,
That calls thee to a tyrant's grave;
A curse is on thy palace walls—
A curse is on thy guardian wave.

'A surge is in Euphrates bed,
That never filled its bed before;-
A surge that, e'er the morn be red,
Shall load with death its haughty shore.

'Behold a tide of Persian steel-
A torrent of the Median car;-
Like flame their gory banners wheel;-
Rise, king, and arm thee for the war!'

Belshazzar gazed-the voice was past-
The lofty chamber filled with gloom-
But echoed on the sudden blast

The rushing of a mighty plume.

He listened-all again was still;
He heard no clarion's iron clang;
He heard the fountain's gushing rill—.
The breeze that through the roses sang.

He slept;-in sleep wild murmurs came—
A visioned splendor fired the sky;
He heard Belshazzar's taunted name-
He heard again the prophet cry-

'Sleep, Sultan! 't is thy final sleep;
Or wake, or sleep the guilty dies;
The wrongs
of those who watch and weep,
Around thee and thy nation, rise.'

He started:-'mid the battle's yell,
He saw the Persian rushing on;-
He saw the flames around him swell;
Thou 'rt ashes, King of Babylon!

LESSON XXXVI.

Christ in the Tempest.-WHITTIER.

STORM On the midnight waters! The vast sky
Is stooping with the thunder. Cloud on cloud
Reels heavily in the darkness, like a shroud

Shook by some warning spirit from the high
And terrible wall of Heaven. The mighty wave
Tosses beneath its shadow, like the bold
Upheavings of a giant from the grave,
Which bound him prematurely to his cold

And desolate bosom. Lo-they mingle now-
Tempest and heaving wave, along whose brow
Trembles the lightning from its thick cloud fold.

And it is very terrible! The roar

Ascendeth unto Heaven, and thunders back
Like a response of demons, from the black
Rifts of the hanging tempests-yawning o'er
The wild waves in their torment. Hark! the cry
Of the strong man in peril, piercing through
The uproar of the waters and the sky;

As the rent bark one moment rides to view,
On the tall billows, with the thunder-cloud
Closing around, above her like a shroud!

He stood upon the reeling deck-His form
Made visible by the lightning, and his brow,
Uncovered to the visiting of the storm,

Told of a triumph man may never know—
Power underived and mighty.— 'Peace be still!'

The great waves heard him, and the storm's loud tone

Went moaning into silence at his will:

And the thick clouds, where yet the lightning shone, And slept the latent thunder, rolled away

Until no trace of tempest lurked behind,
Changing upon the pinions of the wind
To stormless wanderers, beautiful and gay.

Dread Ruler of the tempest! Thou, before
Whose presence boweth the uprisen storm-
To whom the waves do homage, round the shore
Of many an island empire!—if the form
Of the frail dust beneath thine eye, may claim
Thy infinite regard-oh, breathe upon

The storm and darkness of man's soul, the same
Quiet, and peace, and humbleness, which came
O'er the roused waters, where thy voice had gone,
A minister of power-to conquer in thy name!

LESSON XXXVII.

Great Effects result from Little Causes.-PORTER.

THE same connexion between small things and great, runs through all the concerns of our world. The ignorance of a physician, or the carelessness of an apothecary, may spread death through a family or a town. How often has the sickness of one man, become the sickness of thousands? How often has the error of one man, become the error of thousands?

A fly or an atom, may set in motion a train of intermediate causes, which shall produce a revolution in a kingdom. Any one of a thousand incidents, might have cut off Alexander of Greece, in his cradle. But if Alexander had died in infancy, or had lived a single day longer than he did, it might have put another face on all the following history of the world.

A spectacle-maker's boy, amusing himself in his father's shop, by holding two glasses between his finger and his thumb, and varying their distance, perceived the weathercock of the church spire, opposite to him, much larger than ordinary, and apparently much nearer, and turned upside down. This excited the wonder of the father, and led him to additional experiments; and these resulted in that astonishing instrument, the Telescope, as invented by Galileo, and perfected by Herschell.

On the same optical principles was constructed the Microscope, by which we perceive that a drop of stagnant water is a world teeming with inhabitants. By one of these instruments, the experimental philosopher measures the ponderous globes, that the omnipotent hand has ranged in majestic order through the skies; by the other, he sees the same hand employed in rounding and polishing five thousand minute, transparent globes in the eye of a fly. Yet all these discoveries of modern science, exhibiting the intelligence, dominion, and agency of God, we owe to the transient amusement of a child.

It is a fact, commonly known, that, the laws of gravitation, which guide the thousands of rolling worlds in the planetary system, were suggested at first, to the mind of Newton, by the falling of an apple.

The art of printing, shows from what casual incidents, t1

most magnificent events in the scheme of Providence may result. Time was, when princes were scarcely rich enough to purchase a copy of the Bible. Now every cottager in Christendom, is rich enough to possess this treasure. 'Who would have thought, that the simple circumstance of a man, amusing himself by cutting a few letters on the bark of a tree, and impressing them on paper, was intimately connected with the mental illumination of the world.'

LESSON XXXVIII.

Mount Etna.-LON. ENCYCLOPÆDIA.

THE man who treads Mount Etna seems like a man above the world. He generally is advised to ascend before day-break; the stars now brighten, shining like so many gems of flames; others appear which were invisible below. The milky-way seems like a pure flake of light lying across the firmament, and it is the opinion of some that the satellites of Jupiter might be discovered by the naked eye.

But when the sun arises, the prospect from the summit of Etna is beyond comparison the finest in nature. The eye rolls over it with astonishment and is lost. The diversity of objects; the extent of the horizon; the immense height; the country like a map at our feet; the ocean around; the heavens above; all conspire to overwhelm the mind, and affect it with sensations of astonishment and grandeur.

We must be allowed to extract Mr. Brydone's description of this scene. There is not,' he says, 'on the surface of the globe, any one point that unites so many awful and sublime objects. The immense elevation from the surface of the earth, drawn as it were to a single point, without any neighboring mountain for the senses and imagination to rest upon and recover from their astonishment, in their way down to the world.

This point or pinnacle, raised on the brink of a bottomless gulf, as old as the world, often discharging rivers of fire, and throwing out burning rocks, with a noise that shakes the whole island. Add to this the unbounded extent of the prospect, comprehending the greatest diversity, and the most beautiful scenery in nature, with the rising sun adyancing in the east, to illuminate the wondrous scene,