honesty a preparation for fraud, virtue only want of opportunity, and undeniable purity, asceticism. The live-long day he will sit with sneering lip, uttering sharp speeches in the quietest manner, and in polished phrase, transfixing every character which is presented: "His words are softer than oil, yet are they drawn swords."

5. All this, to the young, seems a wonderful knowledge of human nature; they honor a man who appears to have found out mankind. They begin to indulge themselves in flippant sneers; and with supercilious brow, and impudent tongue, wagging to an empty brain, call to naught the wise, the long-tried, and the venerable.

6. I do believe, that man is corrupt enough; but something of good has survived his wreck; something of evil, religion has restrained, and something partially restored; yet, I look upon the human heart as a mountain of fire. I dread its crater. I tremble when I see its lava roll the fiery stream.

7. Therefore, I am the more glad, if upon the old crust of past eruptions, I can find a single flower springing up. So far from rejecting appearances of virtue in the corrupt heart of a depraved race, I am eager to see their light, as ever mariner was to see a star in a stormy night.

8. Moss will grow upon gravestones; the ivy will cling to the moldering pile; the mistletoe springs from the dying branch; and, God be praised, some thing green, something fair to the sight and grateful to the heart, will yet twine around and grow out of the seams and cracks of the desolate temple of the human heart!

QUESTIONS.-1. What is the author's description of a cynic? 2. How are young people apt to regard the sneers and sarcasms of the cynic? 3. In what do they begin to indulge themselves? 4. With what observations on human nature does the piece conclude? 5. What is the literal meaning of the word CYNIO? Ans. Dog-like: the word being derived from a Greek word, meaning a dog. 6. In what part of the Bible may be found the passage quoted in the 4th paragraph

LESSON LI.

SPELL AND DEFINE-1. RE SIGN', Concede, give up. 2. MIS GIV INGS, doubts. 3. EL' O QUENCE, art of speaking well; fluency of speech. 4. PRE VAIL', overcome; get the advantage. 5. PROF FERED, offered; tendered. 6. WI' LY, cunning. 7. TEN' ANT, occupant. 8. TINY, very small; little. 9. AS PIR' ING, aiming at; reaching towards. 10. LAND' LORD, the master of an inn; the proprietor. 11. MOLD' ER ING, turning to dust; crumbling. 12. PAR' LEY, dis course; discussion. 13. RE JECT', refuse; cast off. 14. POL LUTE,

defile; corrupt. 15. IN SID' I Ous, ensnaring.

Avoid saying whose shears for whose years, shut tout for shut out, do.

THE CROP OF ACORNS.

1. There came a man in days of old,
To hire a piece of land for gold,
And urged his suit in accents meek,
"One crop alone is all I seek;
The harvest o'er, my claim I yield,
And to its lord resign the field.”

L. H. SIGOURNEY,

2. The owner some misgivings felt,
And coldly with the stranger dealt;
But found his last objection fail,
And honeyed eloquence prevail;
So took the proffered price in hand,
And, for "
one crop," leased out the land.

3. The wily tenant sneered with pride,
And sowed the spot with acorns wide;
At first like tiny shoots they grew,
Then broad and wide their branches threw;
But long before those oaks sublime,
Aspiring reached their forest prime,
The cheated landlord moldering lay,
Forgotten, with his kindred clay.

4. O ye, whose years, unfolding fair,
Are fresh with youth and free from care,
Should vice or indolence desire,
The garden of your souls to hire,
No parley hold―reject the suit,
Nor let one seed the soil pollute.

5. My child, the first approach beware;
With firmness break the insidious snare,
Lest, as the acorns grew and throve
Into a sun-excluding grove,

Thy sins, a dark o'ershadowing tree,

Shut out the light of Heaven from thee.

QUESTIONS.-1. What said the man who wanted to hire a field? 2. How did the owner feel? 3. Did he take the price proffered ! 4. What did the wily tenant sow on the spot? 5. What became of the landlord before the oaks had their full growth? 6. What moral does this piece yield? 7. What caution is given in the last stanza? 8. What is meant by "garden of your souls," 4th stanza?

LESSON LII.

SPELL AND DEFINE-1. HOUR'-GLASS, an instrument used for measuring intervals of time, by the running of sand from one glass vessel into another. 2. FUR' ROW ED, cut in furrows; wrinkled. 3. RANGE, rank. 4. UN CEAS ING, not stopping. 5. REALMS, kingdoms; dominions. 6. A TON' ING, making atonement. 7. EN THRON ED, placed on a throne. 8. E TER NAL, everlasting. 9. Vo' TIVE, given by vow; devoted.

THE HOUR-GLASS.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

1. Alas! how swift the moments fly!
How flash the hours along!

Scarce here, yet gone already by,-
The burden of a song;

See childhood, youth, and manhood pass,
And age with furrowed brow;

Time was-time shall be-drain the glass-
But where in Time is Now?

2. Time is the measure but of change,
No present hour is found;

The Past, the Future, fill the range
Of Time's unceasing_round.
Where then is now? In realms above,

With God's atoning lamb,

In regions of eternal love,

Where sits enthroned "I AM."

3. Then, Pilgrim, let thy joys and tears
On Time no longer lean;

But henceforth all thy hopes and fears,
From earth's affections wean;

To God let votive accents rise;

With truth-with virtue live;
So all the bliss that Time denies,
Eternity shall give.

QUESTIONS.-1. What question is asked in the 1st stanza? 2. How is that question answered in the 2d 2. What advice is given in the third? 4. What is meant by "drain the glass," 1st stanza!

LESSON LIII.

SPELL AND DEFINE.-1. FAO' UL TIES, mental abilities. 2. Im AG'INED, conceived. 3. IN CRED' I BLE, not to be believed. 4. SUN' DRY, various. 5. MAN' U AL, pertaining to the hand. 6. CON CEPTION, thought; expectation. 7. EN DOW'MENTS, gifts, or abilities. 8. RAIL'LER Y, slight satire. 9. AP' O LOGUES, fables. 10. AP' PO SITE, suitable. 11. DI VERT ING, amusing. 12. COM MEND A' TION, praise. 13. FA CILI TY, easiness; dexterity. 14. AT TRIB' U TED, ascribed; imputed. 15. EX TEM' PO RE, without previous thought or practice. 16. Co HE RENT, consistent.

In reading this lesson, be careful to observe direction VI. p. 16.

PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT.

JOHN LOCKE.

1. We are born with faculties and powers capable almost of anything; such, at least, as would carry us farther than can be easily imagined; but it is only the exercise of those powers, which gives us ability and skill in anything, and leads us toward perfection.

2. The feet of a dancing-master, and the fingers of a musician, fall, as it were naturally, without thought or pains, into regular and admirable motions. Bid them change their parts, and they will in vain endeavor to produce like motions in the members not used to them, and it will require length of time and long practice to attain but some degree of a like ability.

3. What incredible and astonishing actions do we

find rope-dancers and tumblers bring their bodies to! not but that some, in almost all manual arts, are as wonderful; but I name those which the world takes notice of for such; because, on that very account, they give money to see them. All these admired motions, beyond the reach and almost the conception of unpracticed spectators, are nothing but the mere effects of use and industry in men, whose bodies have nothing peculiar in them from the amazed lookers-on.

4. As it is in the body, so it is in the mind; practice makes it what it is; and most even of those excellences which are looked on as natural endowments, will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions. Some men are remarked for pleasantries in raillery, others for apologues and apposite diverting stories. This is apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature, and that the rather, because it is not acquired by rules, and those who excel in either of them, never purposely set themselves to the study of it, as an art to be learned.

5. But yet it is true, that at first some lucky hit which took with somebody, and gained him commendation, encouraged him to try again, inclined his thoughts and endeavors that way, till at last he insensibly got a facility in it without perceiving how; and that is attributed wholly to nature, which was much more the effect of use and practice.

6. I do not deny that natural disposition may often give the first rise to it; but that never carries a man far without use and exercise, and it is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind as well as those of the body to perfection. Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never produces anything for want of improvement.

7. We see the ways of discourse and reasoning are very different, even concerning the same matter, at court and in the university. And he that will go but from Westminster Hall to the Exchange, will find a different genius and turn in their ways of talking;