LESSON CCIV.

CHARITY.

FROM THE BIBLE.

1. THOUGH I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.

2. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.

3. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; but when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.

LESSON CCV.

ART.

BY CHARLES SPRAGUE.

1. WHEN, from the sacred garden driven,
Man fled before his Maker's wrath,

An angel left her place in heaven,
And cross'd the wanderer's sunless path.

'Twas Art! sweet Art! New radiance broke Where her light foot flew o'er the ground; And thus with seraph voice she spoke :—

"The curse a blessing shall be found.”

2. She led him through the trackless wild,
Where noontide-sunbeam never blazed;
The thistle shrunk, the harvest smiled,
And Nature gladden'd, as he gazed.
Earth's thousand tribes of living things,
At Art's command, to him are given;
The village grows, the city springs,

And point their spires of faith to heaven.

3. He rends the oak, and bids it ride

To guard the shores its beauty graced;
He smites the rock,-upheaved in pride,
See towers of strength and domes of taste.
Earth's teeming caves their wealth reveal;
Fire bears his banner on the wave;
He bids the mortal poison heal,

And leaps triumphant o'er the grave.

4. He plucks the pearls that stud the deep,
Admiring Beauty's lap to fill;
He breaks the stubborn marble's sleep,
And mocks his own Creator's skill.
With thoughts that swell his glowing soul,
He bids the ore illume the page,
And, proudly scorning time's control,
Commerces with an unborn age.

5. In fields of air he writes his name,

And treads the chambers of the sky;
He reads the stars, and grasps the flame
That quivers round the Throne on high.
In war renown'd, in peace sublime,

He moves in greatness and in grace;
His power, subduing space and time,
Links realm to realm, and race to race.

LESSON CCVI.

APPROPRIATE THEMES FOR AMERICAN POETS.

BY GEORGE S. HILLARD.

1. THE poet must not plead his delicacy of organization as an excuse for dwelling apart in trim gardens of leisure, and looking at the world only through the loop-holes of his retreat. Let him fling himself, with a gallant heart, upon the stirring life that heaves and foams around him. He must call home his imagination from those spots on which the light of other days has thrown its pensive charm, and be content to dwell among his own people. The future and the present must inspire him, and not the past. He must transfer to his pictures the glow of morning, and not the hues of sunset. He must not go to any foreign Pharpar or Abana, for the sweet influences which he may find in that familiar stream on whose banks he has played as a child and mused as a man.

2. Let him dedicate his powers to the best interests of his country. Let him sow the seeds of beauty along that dusty road, where humanity toils and sweats in the sun. Let him spurn the baseness which ministers food to the passions that blot out in man's soul the image of God. Let not his hands add one seductive charm to the unzoned form of Pleasure, nor twine the roses of his genius around the reveler's wine-cup. Let him mingle with his verse those grave and high elements, befitting him around whom the air of freedom blows, and upon whom the light of heaven shines. Let him teach those stern virtues of self-control and self-renunciation, of faith and patience, of abstinence and fortitude, which constitute the foundations alike of individual happiness and of national prosperity.

3. Let him help to rear up this great people to the stature and symmetry of a moral manhood. Let him look abroad upon this young world in hope, and not in despondency. Let him not be repelled by the coarse surface of material life. Let him survey it with the piercing insight of genius, and in the reconciling spirit of love. Let him find inspiration wherever man is found in the sailor singing at the windlass; in the roaring flames of the furnace; in the dizzy spindles of the factory; in the regular beat of the thresher's flail; in the smoke of the steamship; in the whistle of the locomotive. Let the mountain wind blow courage into him. Let him pluck, from the stars of

his own wintry sky, thoughts serene as their own light, lofty as their own place. Let the purity of the majestic heavens flow into his soul. Let his genius soar upon the wings of faith, and charm with the beauty of truth.

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3.

5.

LESSON CCVII.

MY CHILD.

BY JOHN PIERPONT.

I CANNOT make him dead!
His fair sunshiny head

Is ever bounding round my study-chair;
Yet, when my eyes, now dim
With tears, I turn to him,

The vision vanishes: he is not there!

I walk by parlor-floor

And, through the open door,

I hear a footfall on the chamber-stair;
I'm stepping toward the hall

To give the boy a call;

And then bethink me that he is not there!

I thread the crowded street;

A satchel'd lad I meet,

With the same beaming eyes and color'd hair,
And, as he's running by,

Follow him with my eye,

Scarcely believing that he is not there!

I know his face is hid
Under the coffin-lid;

Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead fair:
My hand that marble felt;

O'er it in prayer I knelt;

Yet my heart whispers that he is not there!

I cannot make him dead!

When passing by the bed

So long watch'd over with parental care,

My spirit and my eye

Seek it inquiringly,

Before the thought comes that he is not there!

3.

7.

8.

9.

10.

When at the cool, gray break
Of day, from sleep I wake,

With my first breathing of the morning air

My soul goes up, with joy,

To Him who gave my boy;

Then comes the sad thought that he is not there!

When at the day's calm close,

Before we seek repose,

I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer,
Whate'er I may be saying,

I am, in spirit, praying

For our boy's spirit, though-he is not there!

Not there! Where, then, is he?

The form I used to see

Was but the raiment that he used to wear.

The

grave,

that now doth press

Upon that cast-off dress,

Is but his wardrobe lock'd: he is not there!

He lives! In all the past

He lives; nor, to the last,

Of seeing him again will I despair;

In dreams I see him now;

And on his angel-brow

I see it written, "Thou shalt see me there'

Yes, we all live to God!

Father, thy chastening rod

So help us, thine afflicted ones, to bear,
That, in the spirit-land,

Meeting at thy right hand,

"Twill be our heaven to find that he is there!

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LESSON CCVIII.

THE BEAUTIFUL.

BY JOHN G. WHITTIER.

1. WHAT is beauty, after all? Ask the lover who kneels in homage to one who has no attractions for others. The cold onlooker wonders that he can call that unclassic combination of