LESSON 80.

THE RISING IN 1776.

UT of the North the wild news came,

OUT

Far flashing on its wings of flame,
Swift as the boreal light which flies
At midnight through the startled skies.
And there was tumult in the air,

The fife's shrill note, the drum's loud beat,
And through the wide land everywhere
The answering tread of hurrying feet;
While the first oath of Freedom's gun
Came on the blast from Lexington;
And Concord, roused, no longer tame,
Forgot her old baptismal name,
Made bare her patriot arm of power,
And swelled the discord of the hour.

2. Within its shade of elm and oak

The church of Berkley Manor stood;
There Sunday found the rural folk,

And some esteemed of gentle blood.
In vain their feet with loitering tread
Passed 'mid the graves where rank is naught;
All could not read the lesson taught
In that republic of the dead.

3. How sweet the hour of Sabbath talk,

The vale with peace and sunshine full,
Where all the happy people walk,

Decked in their homespun flax and wool!
Where youth's gay hats with blossoms bloom;

And every maid, with simple art,

Wears on her breast, like her own heart,

A bud whose depths are all perfume;
While every garment's gentle stir

Is breathing rose and lavender.

4. The pastor came: his snowy locks

Hallowed his brow of thought and care;
And calmly, as shepherds lead their flocks,
He led into the house of prayer.

The pastor rose; the prayer was strong;
The psalm was warrior David's song;
The text, a few short words of might,—
"The Lord of hosts shall arm the right!"

5. He spoke of wrongs too long endured,
Of sacred rights to be secured;
Then from his patriot tongue of flame
The startling words for Freedom came.
The stirring sentences he spake
Compelled the heart to glow or quake,
And, rising on his theme's broad wing,
And grasping in his nervous hand
The imaginary battle-brand,
In face of death he dared to fling
Defiance to a tyrant king.

6. Even as he spoke, his frame, renewed,
In eloquence of attitude,

Rose, as it seemed, a shoulder higher;
Then swept his kindling glance of fire
From startled pew to breathless choir;
When suddenly his mantle wide
His hands impatient flung aside,
And, lo! he met their wondering eyes
Complete in all a warrior's guise.

7. A moment there was awful pause,

When Berkley cried, "Cease, traitor! cease!
God's temple is the house of peace!"

The other shouted, "Nay, not so,
When God is with our righteous cause;

His holiest places then are ours,
His temples are our forts and towers
That frown upon the tyrant foe;
In this, the dawn of Freedom's day,
There is a time to fight and pray!"

8. And now before the open door —

The warrior-priest had ordered so―
The enlisting trumpet's sudden roar
Rang through the chapel, o'er and o'er,
Its long reverberating blow,

So loud and clear, it seemed the ear
Of dusty death must wake and hear.
And there the startling drum and fife
Fired the living with fiercer life;
While overhead, with wild increase,
Forgetting its ancient toll of peace,
The great bell swung as ne'er before.
It seemed as it would never cease;

And every word its ardor flung
From off its jubilant iron tongue

Was, "War! War! War!"

9. "Who dares?"- this was the patriot's cry,
As striding from the desk he came,-
"Come out with me, in Freedom's name,

For her to live, for her to die?"
A hundred hands flung up reply,

A hundred voices answered, "I."

Р

T. Buchanan Read.

TH

LESSON 81.

THE SCHOOLMASTER.

HE schoolmaster's occupation is laborious and ungrateful; its rewards are scanty and precarious. He may indeed be, and he ought to be, animated by the consciousness of doing good, that best of all consolations, that noblest of all motives. But that too must be often clouded by doubt and uncertainty. Obscure and inglorious as his daily occupation may appear to learned pride or worldly ambition, yet to be truly successful and happy he must be animated by the spirit of the same great principles which inspired the most illustrious benefactors of mankind.

2. If he bring to his task high talent and rich acquirement, he must be content to look into distant years for the proof that his labors have not been wasted, that the good seed which he daily scatters abroad does not fall on stony ground and wither away, or among thorns to be choked by the cares, the delusions, or the vices of the world. He must solace his toils with the same prophetic faith that enabled the greatest of modern philosophers, amidst the neglect or contempt of his own times, to regard himself as sowing the seeds of truth for posterity and the care of Heaven.

3. He must arm himself against disappointment and mortification with a portion of that same noble confidence which soothed the greatest of modern poets when weighed down by care and danger, by poverty, old age, and blindness, still

In prophetic dreams he saw

The youth unborn with pious awe

Imbibe each virtue from his sacred page."

4. He must know and he must love to teach his pupils not the meager elements of knowledge, but the secret and

the use of their own intellectual strength, exciting and enabling them hereafter to raise for themselves the vail which covers the majestic form of Truth. He must feel deeply the reverence due to the youthful mind fraught with mighty though undeveloped energies and affections, and mysterious and eternal destinies. Thence he must have learned to reverence himself and his profession, and to look upon its otherwise ill-requited toils as their own exceeding great reward.

5. If such are the difficulties and the discouragements, such the duties, the motives, and the consolations of teachers who are worthy of that name and trust, how imperious then the obligation upon every enlightened citizen who knows and feels the value of such men to aid them, to cheer them, and to honor them.

6. But let us not be content with barren honor to buried merit. Let us prove our gratitude to the dead by faithfully endeavoring to elevate the station, to enlarge the usefulness, and to raise the character of the schoolmaster among us. Thus shall we best testify our gratitude to the teachers and guides of our own youth, thus best serve our country, and thus most effectually diffuse over our land light and truth and virtue.

Gulian C. Verplanck.

LESSON 82.

CONSEQUENCES OF EXPOSING AN OLD ERROR.

DID you never, in walking in the fields, come across a

large flat stone which had lain, nobody knows how long, just where you found it, with the grass forming a little hedge, as it were, all round it, close to its edges,— and have you not, in obedience to a kind of feeling that told you 't had been lying there long enough, insinuated