CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE. HALF a league-half a league —— Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death, Rode the Six Hundred! Into the valley of Death Rode the Six Hundred! For up came an order which "Forward, the Light Brigade! Rode the Six Hundred! "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Theirs not to make reply; Theirs but to do and die! Into the valley of Death Rode the Six Hundred! Cannon to right of them, Cannon in front of them, Volleyed and thundered! Stormed at with shot and shell, Boldly they rode, and well; Into the jaws of Death, Into the mouth of hell, Rode the Six Hundred! Say something about the importance of obedience, in all stations and at all times in life. Give some examples furnished in the Bible of how God appreciates and requires obedience, and how he abhors and punishes disobedience. Then state that in our own day obedience is equally necessary. Give a sketch of the obedience shown by the Noble Six Hundred. Go over the account given in the poem, arrange the information in your own mind, then try to give the same facts in your own words. Show how these six hundred were doubly brave, since they obeyed an order which was known to be a blunder. Show that life is one continual struggle, and that the obedient man alone "shall speak of victory." Quote some lines from lessons on: "The Flight into Egypt," "How they Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix," Noble Revenge," the story of Saul and Samuel, and others, to prove the importance of obedience. dismayed volleyed sabres sabring ON STUDIES. Francis, Lord Bacon (1561-1626), philosopher, jurist, politician and courtier of the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I. His famo rests upon the Novum Organum," in which he expounds the laws of the inductive or experimental method as applied to natural science, sometimes called from him the "Baconian Philosophy." It was for a long time the fashion with the literary claqueurs of the "Reformation" and the materialistic school, to extol Bacon as if he were the creator of new intellectual faculties. The more temperate criticism of recent times has assigned him his true position, as the exponent and director of the spirit of investigation in natural science, which had been at work long before his time, and which, four centuries previous, had found its first disciple in the monk Roger Bacon, who not only formulated the same laws as his namesake, the courtier, but had far excelled the latter in the knowledge of natural phenomena and their causes. STUDIES serve for delight, for ornament, and for ability. Their chief use for delight, is in privacy and retiring; for ornament, is in discourse; and for ability, is in the judgment and disposition of business. For expert men can execute, and perhaps judge of particulars, one by one; but the general counsels, and the plots, and marshalling of affairs, come best from those that are learned. To spend too much time in studies, is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humor of a scholar. They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience For natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience. Crafty men contemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them: for they teach not their own use; but that is wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested: that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others: but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books: else distilled books are, like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man. And, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know that he doth not. Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. Abeunt studia in mores. Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the * * Studies pass into manners (form character). Ovid, Her, xv. 83. wit but may be wrought out by fit studies: like as diseases of the body may have appropriate exercises, shooting for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the head; and the like. So if a man's wit be wandering, let him study the mathematics; if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the schoolmen; if he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study the lawyers' cases. COMPOSITION. Write the sixth paragraph carefully. Insert, in brackets, synonymes or equivalents for every word you can change. Put this same paragraph in three ways, using the first person in first alteration, second person in next, and third person in last. Thus : I will not read that I may find fault with others, and prove them wrong in what they say; but I will read that I may explain and defend my views. I will not believe everything I read in secular works or in merely pious works, but I will think over what I may read, and accept what I think right in secular questions. In religious works I will be guided by Holy Mother Church, and never question her decisions. expert marshalling experience witty subtle deputy schoolmen SONG OF THE MYSTIC. WALK down the Valley of Silence, Long ago was I weary of voices Whose music my heart could not win; |