But that were sacrilege: praise is not thine,
But His, who gave thee, and preserves thee mine:
Else I would say, and, as I spake, bid fly
A captive bird into the boundless sky,-
This rising realm adores thee; thou art come
From Sparta hither, and art here at home;
We feel thy force still active; at this hour
Enjoy immunity from priestly power;
While conscience, happier than in ancient years,
Owns no superior, but the God she fears.
Propitious Spirit! yet expunge a wrong
Thy rights have suffered, and our land, too long;
Teach mercy to ten thousand hearts, that share
The fears and hopes of a commercial care :
Prisons expect the wicked, and were built
To bind the lawless, and to punish guilt;
But shipwreck, earthquake, battle, fire, and flood,
Are mighty mischiefs, not to be withstood:
And honest merit stands on slippery ground,
Where covert guile, and artifice abound.
Let just restraint, for public peace designed,
Chain up the wolves and tigers of mankind
The foe of virtue has no claim to thee :-
But let insolvent innocence go free.

LESSON LXXV.

The Hermit.-BEATTIE.

At the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove;
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove ;-
'Twas then, by the cave of the mountain afar,

While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began ;-
No more with himself or with nature at war,
He thought as a sage, while he felt as a man ;-

"Ah, why, thus abandoned to darkness and wo,
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom enthral.

But, if pity inspire thee, renew thy sad lay;

Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn O soothe him, whose pleasures, like thine, pass away— Full quickly they pass-but they never return.

"Now, gliding remote, on the verge of the sky,
The moon, half extinguished, her crescent displays:
But lately I marked, when, majestic on high,

She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendor again :
But man's faded glory no change shall renew!
Ah fool! to exult in a glory so vain!

“"Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you
For morn is approaching your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn :

Kind nature the embryo blossom will save:
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!"

'Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed,
That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind,
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,
Destruction before me and sorrow behind:

"O pity, great Father of light," then I cried,

"Thy creature, who fain would not wander from thee:

Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride;

From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free."

And darkness and doubt are now flying away:
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn.
So breaks on the traveller, faint and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.
See Truth, Love and Mercy, in triumph descending,
And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!

On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending
And Beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.

LESSON LXXVI.

Hymn to the Stars.-MONTHLY REPOSITORY.

Ay, there ye shine, and there have shone,
In one eternal 'hour of prime,'
Each rolling burningly, alone,

Through boundless space and countless time.
Ay, there ye shine, the golden dews

That pave the realms by seraphs trod; There, through yon echoing vault, diffuse The song of choral worlds to God.

Ye visible spirits! bright as erst

Young Eden's birthnight saw ye shine
On all her flowers and fountains first,
Yet sparkling from the hand divine;
Yes, bright as then ye smiled, to catch
The music of a sphere so fair,
Ye hold your high, immortal watch,
And gird your God's pavilion there.

Gold frets to dust,-yet there ye are;
Time rots the diamond,-there ye roll
In primal light, as if each star

Enshrined an everlasting soul!

And does it not-since your bright throngs
One all-enlightening Spirit own,
Praised there by pure, sidereal tongues,
Eternal, glorious, blest, alone?

Could man but see what ye have seen,
Unfold awhile the shrouded past,
From all that is, to what has been,

The glance how rich! the range how vast!
The birth of time, the rise, the fall

Of empires, myriads, ages flown,

Thrones, cities, tongues, arts, worships,—all
The things whose echoes are not gone.

Ye saw rapt Zoroaster send

His soul into your mystic reign; Ye saw the adoring Sabian bendThe living hills his mighty fane'

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Beneath his blue and beaming sky,
He worshipped at your lofty shrine,
And deemed he saw, with gifted eye,
The Godhead in his works divine.

And there ye shine, as if to mock
The children of a mortal sire.

The storm, the bolt, the earthquake's shock,
The red volcano's cataract fire,

Drought, famine, plague, and blood, and flame,
All nature's ills, and life's worse woes,-
Are nought to you: ye smile the same,
And scorn alike their dawn and close.

Ay, there ye roll-emblems sublime

Of Him, whose spirit o'er us moves,
Beyond the clouds of grief and crime,
Still shining on the world he loves :-
Nor is one scene to mortals given,

That more divides the soul and sod,
Than yon proud heraldry of heaven-
Yon burning blazonry of God!

LESSON LXXVII.

Religion the only Basis of Society.-CHANNING.

RELIGION is a social concern; for it operates powerfully on society, contributing, in various ways, to its stability and prosperity. Religion is not merely a private affair; the community is deeply interested in its diffusion; for it is the best support of the virtues and principles, on which the social order rests. Pure and undefiled religion is, to do good; and it follows, very plainly, that, if God be the Author and Friend of society, then, the recognition of him must enforce all social duty, and enlightened piety must give its whole strength to public order.

Few men suspect, perhaps no man comprehends, the extent of the support given by religion to every virtue. No man, perhaps, is aware, how much our moral and social sentiments are fed from this fountain; how powerless conscience would become, without the belief of a God; how

palsied would be human benevolence, were there not the sense of a higher benevolence to quicken and sustain it; how suddenly the whole social fabric would quake, and with what a fearful crash it would sink into hopeless ruin, were the ideas of a supreme Being, of accountableness, and of a future life, to be utterly erased from every mind.

And, let men thoroughly believe that they are the work and sport of chance; that no superior intelligence concerns itself with human affairs; that all their improvements perish forever at death; that the weak have no guardian, and the injured no avenger; that there is no recompense for sacri fices to uprightness and the public good; that an oath is un heard in heaven; that secret crimes have no witness but the perpetrator; that human existence has no purpose, and human virtue no unfailing friend; that this brief life is every thing to us, and death is total, everlasting extinction; once let them thoroughly abandon religion; and who can conceive or describe the extent of the desolation which would follow!

We hope, perhaps, that human laws and natural sympathy would hold society together. As reasonably might we believe, that, were the sun quenched in the heavens, our torches would illuminate, and our fires quicken and fertilize the creation. What is there in human nature to awaken respect and tenderness, if man is the unprotected insect of a day? And what is he more, if atheism be true?

Erase all thought and fear of God from a community, and selfishness and sensuality would absorb the whole man. Appetite, knowing no restraint, and suffering, having no solace or hope, would trample in scorn on the restraints of human laws. Virtue, duty, principle, would be mocked and spurned as unmeaning sounds. A sordid self-interest would supplant every other feeling; and man would become, in fact, what the theory of atheism declares him to be,→ a companion for brutes.

LESSON LXXVIII.

Punishment of a Liar.-BIBLE.

Now Na'ǎman, captain of the host of the king of Syris, was a great man with his master, and honourable; because