"but I am not "That may be," replied the man; one of those fools, who quit a certainty in expectation of an uncertainty. As I have got you, I will keep you.” So saying, he threw him into the basket among the rest of the fishes. This fable teaches us the same lesson, as the proverb, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." COLUMBIA. COLUMBIA, Columbia, to glory arise, The queen of the world and the child of the skies! PATRIOTIC ADDRESS. YE martial bands! Columbia's fairest pride! THE VALLEY OF VISION. Where love is blest, and fancy free. The painter's art, the poet's theme, There all who mourn, in bliss shall dwell, Alas! alas! 't is but in sleep, That long lost home we ever see ; Our better nature we repress, When we forget the world unseen, For this unquiet wilderness, Where care and sorrow intervene.] Yet faith, that rises most from sorrow, Can of that world the pleasures borrow, APHORISM. AFFLICTION is the wholesome soil of virtue, where patience, honor, sweet humanity, and calm fortitude, take root and strongly flourish. THE OLD KNIGHT AND HIS GRAY PERUKE. A CERTAIN knight growing old, his hair fell off so fast, that he soon became bald; so he was forced to buy a wig to cover his bare head. But one day, as he was riding out a hunting, with some of his friends, they met with a sudden blast of wind, and off fell his hat on one side, and his large gray wig on the other. Those who were with him could not help laughing at the odd figure he made; and for his part, being a hearty old knight, he laughed as loud as the rest of them. "Ha! ha ha!" said he to them; "how could I expect to keep other people's hair upon my head, when I could not persuade my own to stay there." The surest way to turn off the edge of a joke, is to join in the laugh yourself; whereas, if you resent it, your ill humor will only serve to heighten the jest, and feed the mirth of the bystanders. ADMONITIONS. WHEN you wish to have advice, have recourse to such as have had the most experience. The mariner, who hath long traversed the dangerous ocean, is surely the most fit to direct the unskilful, over the rocks that are therein concealed. Mind the concerns of the soul above all earthly things. See that you get acquainted with your Maker while young. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth." Shun every appearance of evil. Never let your tongue go before your thoughts. Meditate frequently upon the future. For every action in which you engage, see that you have not only a reason, but that the reason be sufficient. ENVY. ENVY is almost the only vice which is practicable at all times and in every place; the only passion that can never lie quiet for want of irritation. The effects, therefore, are every way discoverable, and its influence always to be dreaded. It is, above all vices, inconsistent with the character of a social being, because it sacrifices truth and kindness to every weak temptation. Almost every other crime is practised by the help of some quality, which might have produced esteem and love, if it had been well employed; but envy is a more unmixed and genuine evil; it pursues a hateful end, by despicable means, and desires not so much its own happiness, as another's misery. TREACHERY. Of all the vices to which human nature is subject, treachery is the most infamous, and detestable, being compounded of fraud, cowardice and revenge. The greatest wrongs will not justify it, as it destroys those principles of mutual confidence and security, by which society can alone exist. The Romans, a brave and generous people, disdained to practise it towards their declared enemies. Christianity teaches us to forgive injuries; but to resent them under the disguise of friendship and benevolence, argues a degeneracy, which common humanity and justice must blush at. THE FAIR PILGRIM. "From fortune and from fame they fled To Heaven and its devotion." "ELLEN MOORE, I love you, but I cannot go with you;" said the daughter of a noble house, as she stood in her youthful beauty, among the shadowy elms of her father's park. The diminutive figure of the person whom she addressed, was almost hid in the foliage of the trees, but she raised her dark eye, and her voice was low and sweet, as she replied; "Lady, it is not for the love you bear me; look into your own soul for some holier and higher motive." The lady leaned her brow on her hand, while Ellen calmly watched her countenance. There seemed to be some strong, bitter conflict within; there was an agitated flush on her cheek, and her eye was bright with the fervor of intense feeling. “Oh, Ellen,” at length she said, while a deeper and deeper coloring suffused her face, "how can I leave parent and sister, my own pleasant home, and the land of my fathers? am I not a child, a very child, and is it for me to make this sacrifice, and bring down the gray hairs of my father in sorrow to the grave? and would it not be sin," she added in a deeper tone, "to go away, across the wide blue waters, without my father's blessing?" There was something almost of sternness |