10. And one people, speaking the same language, reading the same books, holding a common religion, and paying taxes to the same government, pervades these various altitudes and climates, and is, with the potent help of the railroad, fused constantly more closely together as a nation. What manner of man will be the American of 1972, the product of so many different climes, of so various a range as to altitude?

11. In the plains and on the mountains, the railroad is the one great fact. Whatever you notice by the way, that is the handiwork of man, appears to be there solely for the convenience or safety of those who are passing over the road. On the Union Pacific you see miles upon miles of snow-fences. On the Central Pacific, thirty or forty miles of solid snowsheds, thoroughly built, and fully guarded by gangs of laborers, make the passage safe in the severest snow-storms. Great snow-plows, eleven feet high, stand at intervals on the plains and in the mountains, ready to drive, with three or four, or even seven or eight, locomotives behind them, the snow out of the cuts.

12. The telegraph accompanies you on your whole long journey. Coal mines are opened to furnish fuel to your locomotives. At intervals of a hundred miles, night and day, you hear men beating the wheels of the train to see if they arè sound. Eating-stations furnish you your meals; ice is supplied on the way; laborers stand aside in the desert and on the mountains as the train sweeps by, and close up behind it to repair the track and keep it in order; there is a Chinaman on every mile of the Central Pacific Railroad.

13. And this road is not only a marvel of engineering skill and daring, running through a most difficult country, and abounding in deep rock-cuts, tunnels, and snow-sheds, but you will find its road-bed everywhere firm and solid, as though it had been laid for years, the cuts clean and clear, and on every part of the work an air of finish and precision, which shows the confidence of its owners, and the thorough spirit in which it was conceived and completed, and is maintained.

14. You reach San Francisco by passing through the great Sacramento Plain, one of the famous wheat-fields of the State, to Vallejo (Val lā' ho), whence you sail down the magnificent bay of San Francisco to the city; and thus you have, to the last hour of your journey, some new scene opening to your eyes; and when you go to sleep in your hotel at last, you may dream of the Cliff House ride as a pleasure still to come.

Charles Nordhoff.

DEFINITIONS.

Ac ces'so ry, that which belongs to something else as its principal. Cañ'on (kăn' yun), a deep gorge between high and steep banks worn by water-courses.

Flume, a stream; an artificial channel of water for gold-washing.
Im'pe tus, the force with which any body is driven; momentum.
Si ěr'ra (Spanish, a saw), a chain of mountains.

Ver'i ta ble (veritas, truth), agreeable to truth; actual.

LESSON XXXIV.

CHOICE EXTRACTS.

1. THE RAINBOW.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky;

So was it when my life began ;
So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!

The child is father of the man,
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

2. AVOID ENVY.

Wordsworth.

Let no mean jealousies pervert your mind,
A blemish in another's fame to find :

Be grateful for the gifts that you possess,
Nor deem a rival's merits makes yours less.

3. PRAYER.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,

The motion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast.
Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try;
Prayer, the sublimest strains that reach
The Majesty on high.

4. DOMESTIC PEACE.

Tell me, on what holy ground
May Domestic Peace be found ?
Halcyon daughter of the skies,
Far on fearful wings she flies,
From the pomp of sceptered state,
From the rebel's noisy hate.
In a cottaged vale she dwells,
Listening to the Sabbath bells.
Still around her steps are seen
Spotless Honor's meeker mien,
Love, the sire of pleasing fears,
Sorrow smiling through her tears,

Cowper.

Montgomery.

And, conscious of the past employ,
Memory, bosom-spring of joy.

5. THE PATRIOTIC BRAVE.

How sleep the brave who sink to rest,
By all their country's wishes blest!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mold,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod.
By fairy hands their knell is rung,
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay,
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
And dwell a weeping hermit there.

6. THE SOUL ON EARTH.

Coleridge.

The soul on earth is an immortal guest
Compelled to starve at an unreal feast;
A spark, which upward tends by nature's force,
A stream diverted from its parent source,

A drop dissevered from the boundless sea,

A moment parted from eternity,

A pilgrim panting for a rest to come,
An exile anxious for his native home.

7. SYMPATHY.

The heart, the heart! O, let it spare
A sigh for others' pain;

The breath that soothes a brother's care

Is never spent in vain.

Collins.

T. More.

And though it throb at gentlest touch,
Or Sorrow's faintest call,

'T were better it should ache too much,
Than never ache at all.

The heart, the heart that's truly blest

Is never all its own;

No ray of glory lights the breast
That beats for self alone.

Eliza Cook.

8. HOPE..

Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime

Pealed their first notes to sound the march of Time,

Thy joyous youth began,

but not to fade.

When all the sister planets have decayed;

When wrapt in fire the realms of ether glow,

And Heaven's last thunder shakes the world below,

Thou, undismayed, shalt o'er the ruins smile,

And light thy torch at Nature's funeral-pile.

Campbell.

LESSON XXXV.

A PARABLE AGAINST PERSECUTION.

1. And it came to pass, after these things, that Abraham sat

in the door of his tent about the going-down of the sun.

2. And, behold, a man bowed with age came from the way of the wilderness, leaning on a staff.

3. And Abraham arose and met him, and said unto him "Turn in, I pray thee, and wash thy feet, and tarry all night; and thou shalt arise early on the morrow, and go on thy way."