199 DIDACTIC. Who sees with equal eye, as God of all, Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world. 2. Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar; 3 Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind He asks no angel's wing, no seraph's fire; 4. Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale of sense our error lies; 5. In pride, in reasoning pride, Aspiring to be gods, if angels fell, Of order, sins against the Eternal Cause POPE. LXVIII.-ADVICE TO PREACHERS OF THE GOSPEL. 1. Ir is unquestionably to be wished, that he who devotes himself to the arduous labor which preaching requires, should be wholly ambitious to render himself useful to the cause of religion. To such, reputation can never be a sufficient recompense. But if motives so pure have not sufficient sway in your breast, calculate, at least, the advantages of self-love, and you may perceive how inseparably connected these are with the success of your ministry. 2. Is it on your own account that you preach? Is it for you that religion assembles her votaries in a temple? You ought never to indulge so presumptuous a thought. However, I only consider you as an orator. Tell me, then, what is this you call eloquence? Is it the wretched trade of imitating that criminal, mentioned by a poet in his satires, who "balanced his crimes before his judges with antithesis?" 3. Is it the puerile secret of forming jejune quibbles? of rounding periods? of tormenting one's self by tedious studies, in order to reduce sacred instruction into a vain amusement? Is this, then, the idea which you have conceived of that divine art which disdains frivolous ornaments-which sways the most numerous assemblies, and which bestows on a single man the most personal and majestic of all sovereignties? Are you in quest of glory? You fly from it. Wit alone is never sublime; and it is only by the vehe mence of the passions that you can become eloquent. 4. Reckon up all the illustrious orators. Will you find among them conceited, subtle, or epigrammatic writers? No; these immortal men confined their attempts to affect and persuade; and their having been always simple, is that which will always render them great. How is this? You wish to proceed in their footsteps, and you stoop to the degrading pretensions of a rhetorician! And you appear in the form of a mendicant, soliciting commendations from those very men who ought to tremble at your feet. Recover from this ignominy. Be eloquent by zeal, instead of being a mere declaimer through vanity. And be assured, that the most certain method of preaching well for yourself, is to preach usefully to others. MAURY. LXIX.-POETRY OF SCIENCE. 1. THE mystery of our being, and the mystery of our ceasing to be, acting upon intelligences that are forever striving to comprehend the enigma of themselves, lead by a natural process to a love for the ideal. The discovery of those truths which advance the human mind towards that point of knowledge to which all its secret longings tend, should excite a higher feeling than any mere creation of the fancy, how beautiful soever it may be. 2. The phenomena of reality are more startling than the phantoms of the ideal. Truth is stranger than fiction. Surely many of the discoveries of science which relate to the combinations of matter, and exhibit results which we could not by any previous efforts of reasoning dare to reckon on, results which show the admirable balance of the forces of nature, and the might of their uncontrolled power, exhibit to our senses subjects for contemplation truly poetic in their character. 3. We tremble when the thunder-cloud bursts in fury above our heads. The poet seizes on the terrors of the storm to add to the interest of his verse. Fancy paints a storm-king, and the genius of romance clothes his demons in lightnings, and they are heralded by thunders. These wild imaginings have been the delight of mankind; the is subject for wonder in them; but is there any thing less wonderful in the well-authenticated fact, that the dew-drop which glistens on the flower, or that the tear which trembles on the eye-lid, holds, locked in its transparent cells, an amount of electric fire equal to that which is discha during a storm from a thunder cloud? d 4. In these studies of the effects which are continually presenting themselves to the observing eye, and of the phenomena of causes, as far as they are revealed by science in its search of the physical earth, it will be shown that be neath the beautiful vesture of the external world there exists, like its quickening soul, a pervading power, assum. ing the most varied aspects, giving to the whole its life and loveliness, and linking every portion of this material mass in a common bond with some great universal principle be yond our knowledge. 5. Whether by the improvement of the powers of the human mind, man will ever be enabled to embrace within his knowledge the laws which regulate these remote principles, we are not sufficiently advanced in intelligence to determine. But if admitted even to a clear perception of the theoretical power which we regard as regulating the known. forces, we must still see an unknown agency beyond us, which can only be referred to the Creator's will. ROBERT HUNT. LXX. EARLY RISING CONDUCIVE TO HEALTH. 1. Unwary belles, Who, day by day, the fashionable round 2. Rise with the lark, and with the lark to bed; The breath of night's destructive to the hue Of ev'ry flower that blows. Go to the field, Nor let the sweetest blossom nature boasts Give to repose the solemn hour she claims, 3. Oh, there is a charm Which morning has, that gives the brow of age HURDIS. LXXI.-ORATORY. 1. Ir is absolutely necessary for the orator to keep one man in view amidst the multitude that surround him; and, while composing, to address himself to that one man whose mistakes he laments, and whose foibles he discovers. This man is to him as the genius of Socrates, standing continually at his side, and by turns interrogating him, or answering his questions. This is he whom the orator ought never to lose sight of in writing, till he obtain a conquest over his prepossessions. The arguments which will be sufficiently persuasive to overcome his opposition, will equally control a large assembly. 2. The orator will derive still farther advantages from a numerous concourse of people, where all the impressions made at the time will convey the finest triumphs of the |