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fated epoch in the history of our country, when the demon of Intemperance shall come into our legislative halls without shame, remorse, or rebuke, when he shall sit upon juries, upon the bench, and drunkenness run riot among the people? Who then will protect the Ship of State upon this maddening tide? Who will steer her onward course amid the dashing billows? who spread her starry flag to the free, fresh, wild winds of heaven? And now shall this puissant nation, Columbia, queen of the world and child of the skies, pause in her efforts when there is an enemy in our land more destructive than war, pestilence, and famine combined, which sends annually one hundred thousand men to untimely graves, makes fifty thousand widows, and three hundred thousand worse than widows; filling our prisons, our poorhouses, our lunatic asylums, and swelling to an untold extent the great ocean of human misery, wretchedness, and woe?

Ex. 38. THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE.

AUSE for a while, ye travellers on earth, to contem

PAUS

plate the universe in which you dwell, and the glory of Him who created it. What a scene of wonders is here presented to your view! If beheld with a religious eye, what a temple for the worship of the Almighty! The earth is spread out before you, reposing amid the desolation of winter, or clad in the verdure of spring, smiling in the beauty of summer, or loaded with autumnal fruit, opening to an endless variety of beings the treasures of their Maker's goodness, and ministering subsistence and comfort to every creature that lives.

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The heavens also declare the glory of the Lord. The sun cometh forth from his chambers to scatter the shades

show you the immensity of space filled numbered, that your imaginations may a limit, in the vast creation of God.

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HERE is a rule for our guidance adopt at the very offstart of our life; it is coeval with human existen in every heart. It is Integrity. It is never depreciates with fluctuations, i count, but is a sure reliance in every trial. It points to honorable success in with unerring certainty, and is both sw him who would wage, with the true h the great battle of life.

What though the tempests howl, the lightnings flash, the thunders roar, and cast up its mire and dirt? he who hold tegrity will outride the danger, and fury of the elements. His bow of

itself up again in the heavens, more be as a living witness that truth can never of vice and the votaries of indolence flourish for a season, but they are perish; and when they have closed the ence, the devotees of truth will rise

like the flowers of spring upon the bleak desolations of winter.

Let us then decide here, at this time, to go forth into this broad field of labor and hope and reward and peril! Let us be temperate, industrious, frugal, self-reliant; and whenever temptation shall cross our pathway and seek to allure us, let us pause and reflect, and repeat this one word, which shall be a talisman, or charm, to shield and protect us from all evil, and bear us through life in safety; and this word is Integrity.

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Ex. 40.-THE TRUE GLORY OF A NATION.

THE

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\HE true glory of a nation is an intelligent, honest, industrious Christian people. The civilization of a people depends on their individual character; and a constitution which is not the outgrowth of this character is not worth the parchment on which it is written. You look in vain in the past for a single instance where the people have preserved their liberties after their individual character was lost. It is not in the magnificence of its palaces, not in the beautiful creations of art lavished on its public edifices, not in costly libraries and galleries of pictures, not in the number or wealth of its cities, that we find a nation's glory.

The ruler may gather around him the treasures of the world, amid a brutalized people; the Senate Chamber may retain its faultless proportions long after the voice of patriotism is hushed within its walls; the monumental marble may commemorate a glory which has forever departed. Art and letters may bring no lesson to a people whose heart is dead.

The true glory of a nation is the living temple of a loyal, industrious, upright people. The busy click of

the display of wealth or the luxury man who drives the plough or swings hi or with cunning fingers plies the tools truly the servant of his country as the senate or the soldier in battle.

The safety of a nation depends wisdom of the statesman or the brave The tongue of the statesman never sa tering to its fall; the sword of a warri destruction.

Would you see the image of true would show you villages where the cr the people are in common schools, w prayer goes heavenward, where the most priceless gift, faith in God.

Ex. 41.

THE

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HE widespread Republic is the t Washington. Maintain its inde its Constitution; preserve its Union; let it stand before the world in all its and beauty, securing peace, order, equa to all within its boundaries, and shedd and joy upon the pathway of human the world, — and Washington needs n Other structures may fitly testify our v

this, this alone, can adequately illustrate his services to mankind.

Nor does he need even this. The Republic may perish; the wide arch of our Union may fall; star by star its glories may expire; stone by stone its columns and its capitol may moulder and crumble; all other names which adorn its annals may be forgotten; but as long as human hearts shall anywhere pant, or human tongues shall anywhere plead, for a true, rational, constitutional liberty, our hearts shall inshrine the memory and our tongues prolong the fame of George Washing

ton.

Ex. 42. THE DIGNITY OF LABOR. Hall.

HE dignity of labor! Consider its achievements!

T by ne difficulty, shrinking from an

tion, exhausted by no struggle, ever eager for renewed efforts in its persevering promotion of human happiness, "clamorous Labor knocks with its hundred hands at the golden gate of the morning," obtaining each day, through succeeding centuries, fresh benefactions for the world.

Labor clears the forest, and drains the morass, and makes the wilderness rejoice and blossom as the rose. Labor drives the plough, scatters the seed, reaps the harvest, grinds the corn, and converts it into bread, the staff of life. Labor gathers the gossamer web of the caterpillar, the cotton from the field, and the fleece from the flock, and weaves them into raiment, soft and warm and beautiful, the purple robe of the prince and the gray gown of the peasant being alike its handiwork.

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Labor, diving deep into the solid earth, brings up its long-hidden stores of coal to feed ten thousand furnaces, and in millions of habitations to defy the winter's

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