more helpless beings than himself now moved toward their certain goal - the tomb.

Already, as it seemed to him, he had passed sixty of the stages which lead to it, and he had brought from his journeys nothing but errors and remorse. His 5 health was destroyed, his mind was vacant, his heart sorrowful, and his old age devoid of comfort.

The days of his youth rose up in a vision before him, and he recalled the solemn moment when his father had placed him at the entrance of two roads—one 10 leading into a peaceful, sunny land, covered with a fertile harvest, and resounding with soft sweet songs; the other leading the wanderer into a deep, dark cave, whence there was no issue, where poison flowed instead of water, and where serpents hissed and crawled.

He looked toward the sky, and cried out in his agony, "Oh, days of my youth, return! Oh, my father, place me once more at the entrance to life, that I may choose the better way!" But the days of his youth and his father had both passed away.

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He saw wandering lights float away over dark marshes, and then disappear; these were the days of his wasted life. He saw a star fall from heaven, and vanish in the darkness, and this was an emblem of himself; and the sharp arrows of unavailing remorse struck 25 home to his heart. Then he remembered his early companions, who entered on life with him, but who, having trod the paths of virtue and of labor, were now honored and happy on this New Year's night.

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The clock in the high church tower struck, and the sound, falling on his ear, recalled his parents' early love for him, their erring son; the lessons they had taught him; the prayers they had offered on his behalf. Over5 whelmed with shame and grief, he dared no longer look toward that heaven where his father dwelt; his darkened eyes dropped tears, and with one despairing effort he cried aloud, "Come back, my early days! come back!"

And his youth did return; for all this was but a dream which visited his slumbers on New Year's night. He was still young, his faults alone were real. He thanked God fervently that time was still his own; that he had not yet entered the deep, dark cavern, but 15 that he was free to tread the road leading to the peaceful land where sunny harvests wave.

Ye who still linger on the threshold of life, doubting which path to choose, remember that, when years have passed, and your feet stumble on the dark mountain, 20 you will cry bitterly, but cry in vain: "Oh, youth, return! Oh, give me back my early days!"

NAPOLEON'S GREATNESS.

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING.

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, a grandson of William Ellery, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was born at Newport, R. I., April 7, 1780.

He was graduated with honors at Harvard College, at eighteen years of age, and first thought of studying medicine, but decided 5 to enter the ministry. After spending some time as private tutor in Richmond, he returned to Cambridge and studied theology.

In 1803 he was ordained, and became pastor of the Federal Street Church in Boston, where he remained during his minis- 10 terial life. He was associated with Ralph Waldo Emerson and a welcome guest at his house.

His writings show freedom of thought, wide interests, and love of literature. His death occurred at Bennington, Vt., April 2, 1842.

SUCH was Napoleon Bonaparte. But some will say he was still a great man. This we mean not to deny. But we would have it understood that there are various kinds or orders of greatness, and that the highest did not belong to Bonaparte.

Among

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There are different orders of greatness. these, the first rank is unquestionably due to moral greatness, or magnanimity; to that sublime energy by which the soul, smitten with the love of virtue, binds itself indissolubly, for life and for death, to truth and 25 duty; espouses as its own the interests of human nature; scorns all meanness and defies all peril; hears

in its own conscience a voice louder than threatenings and thunders; withstands all the powers of the universe which would sever it from the cause of freedom and religion; reposes an unfaltering trust in God in the 5 darkest hour, and is ever "ready to be offered up" on the altar of its country or of mankind.

Of this moral greatness, which throws all other forms of greatness into obscurity, we see not a trace in Napoleon. Though clothed with the power of a god, 10 the thought of consecrating himself to the introduction of a new and higher era, to the exaltation of the character and condition of his race, seems never to have dawned on his mind. The spirit of disinterestedness and self-sacrifice seems not to have waged a 15 moment's war with self-will and ambition.

His ruling passions, indeed, were singularly at variance with magnanimity. Moral greatness has too much simplicity, is too unostentatious, too self-subsistent, and enters into others' interests with too much heartiness, 20 to live an hour for what Napoleon always lived, to make itself the theme, and gaze, and wonder of a dazzled world.

Next to moral comes intellectual greatness, or genius in the highest sense of that word; and by this we mean 25 that sublime capacity of thought, through which the soul, smitten with the love of the true and the beautiful, essays to comprehend the universe, soars into the heavens, penetrates the earth, penetrates itself, questions the past, anticipates the future, traces out the general

and all-comprehending laws of nature, binds together by innumerable affinities and relations all the objects of its knowledge, rises from the finite and transient to the infinite and the everlasting, frames to itself, from its own fulness, lovelier and sublimer forms than it 5 beholds, discerns the harmonies between the world within and the world without us, and finds in every region of the universe types and interpreters of its own deep mysteries and glorious inspirations. This is the greatness which belongs to philosophers, and to the 10 master-spirits in poetry and the fine arts.

Next comes the greatness of action; and by this we mean the sublime power of conceiving bold and extensive plans; of constructing and bringing to bear on a mighty object a complicated machinery of means, 15 energies, and arrangements, and of accomplishing great outward effects.

To this head belongs the greatness of Bonaparte, and that he possessed it, we need not prove, and none will be hardy enough to deny. A man who raised 20 himself from obscurity to a throne; who changed the face of the world; who made himself felt through powerful and civilized nations; who sent the terror of his name across seas and oceans; whose will was pronounced and feared as destiny; whose donatives were 25 crowns; whose antechamber was thronged by submissive princes; who broke down the awful barrier of the Alps, and made them a highway; and whose fame was spread beyond the boundaries of civilization to the