LESSON LXII. WORDS FOR SPELLING AND DEFINING. A BUT MENTS, solid piers to sup- EX UL TATION, joy; triumph. IN I TIALS, first letters of words. A BYSS', great depth; gulf. Ca tas' tro PHE, calamity. 1. ALEXANDER, surnamed the was born B. C. 356, and died B. C. 323. 2. CAIUS JULIUS CESAR, the first Roman Emperor, and one of the greatest of generals, orators, and writers, that Rome ever produced, was assassinated in the Senate-House, in the year B. C. 43, and in the 56th year of his age. 3. Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, and the greatest military genius of either ancient or modern times, was a native of Corsica. He was born A. D. 1769, and died in exile on the Island of St. Helena, on the 5th of May, 1821. 4. MAJOR-GENERAL Edward BRADDOCK, was commander of the British army, in the expedition against the French and Indians, on the Ohio, in 1775. By disregarding the advice of Washington, he fell into an ambuscade, while advancing to invest Fort du Quesne, (now Pittsburg,) and was mortally wounded. THE AMBITIOUS YOUTH. ELIHU BURRITT. 1. The scene opens with a view of the great Natural Bridge, in Virginia. There are two or three lads standing in the channel below, looking up with awe to that vast arch of unhewn rocks which the Almighty bridged over those everlasting abutments, "when the morning stars sang together." The little piece of sky, that is spanning those measureless piers, is full of stars, though it is mid-day. It is a thousand feet from where they stand, up those perpendicular bulwarks of limestone, to the key rock of that vast arch, which appears to them only of the size of a man's hand. 2. The silence of death is rendered more impressive by the little stream that falls, from rock to rock, down the channel, where once the waters of a Niagara may have rushed in their fury. The sun is darkened, and the boys have uncovered their heads instinctively, as if standing in the presence-chamber of the Majesty of the whole earth. At last, this feeling of awe wears away; they begin to look around them; they find that others have been there, and looked up with wonder to that everlasting arch. 3. They see the names of hundreds cut in the limestone abutments. A new feeling comes over their young hearts, and their jack-knives are in their hands in an instant. "What man hath done, man can do," is their watch-word; and, fired with this noble spirit, they draw themselves up, and carve their names above those of a hundred, tall, fullgrown men, who have been there before them. 4. They are all satisfied with this exploit of physical exertion, except one, whose example illustrates perfectly the forgotten truth, that there is no royal road to intellectual eminence. This ambitious youth sees a name, just above his reach, a name that will be green in the memory of the world, when those of 'Alexander, 'Cæsar, and 'Bonaparte, shall rot in oblivion. It was the name of WASHINGTON. Before he marched with 'Braddock to that fatal field, he had been there, and left his name a foot above all his predecessors. It was a glorious thought of the boy, to write his name side by side with the great "FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY." 5. He grasps his knife with a firmer hand, and, clinging to a little jutting crag, he cuts a gain into the limestone, about a foot above where he stands; he then reaches up, and cuts another for his hands. "Tis a dangerous feat; but, as he puts his feet and hands into these gains, and draws himself up carefully to his full length, he finds himself, to his inexpressible exultation, a foot above every name that was ever chronicled in that mighty wall. 6. While his companions are regarding him with concern and admiration, he cuts his name in rude capitals, large and deep, into that flinty album. His knife is still in his hand, and strength in his sinews, and a new-created aspiration in his heart. Again he cuts another niche, and again he carves his name in larger capitals. entreaties of The gradua He measures 7. This is not enough. Heedless of the his companions, he cuts and climbs again. tions of his ascending scale grow wider apart. his length at every gain, and marks his ascent with larger initials and stronger hieroglyphics. The voices of his friends wax weaker and weaker, and their words are, finally, lost on his ear. 8. He now, for the last time, casts a look beneath him. Had that glance lasted a moment, that moment would have been his last. He clings with a convulsive shudder to his little niche of rock. An awful abyss, such a precipice as Gloster's son depicted to his blind father, awaits his almost certain fall. He is faint from severe exertion, and trembling from the sudden view of the dreadful destruction to which he is exposed. 9. His knife is worn half way to the haft. He can hear the voices, but not the words of his terror-stricken companions below. What a moment! What a meager chance to escape destruction! There is no retracing his steps. It is impossible to put his hands in the same niche with his feet, and retain his slender hold for a moment. His companions instantly perceive this new and fearful dilemma, and await his fall with emotions that "freeze their young blood." 10. He is too high, too faint, to ask for his father and mother, his brother and sister, to come and witness or avert his destruction. But one of his companions anticipated his desire; he knows what yearnings come over the human heart, when the King of Terrors shakes his sword at his victim, at any time or place. Swift as the wind, he bounds down the channel, and the situation of the fated boy is told upon his father's hearth-stone. 11. Minutes of almost eternal length roll on, and then there are hundreds standing in the rocky channel, and hun. dreds on the bridge above, all holding their breath, and awaiting the affecting catastrophe. The poor boy hears the hum of new and numerous voices, both above and below. He can just distinguish the tones of his father, who is shouting with all the energy of despair: "William! WILLIAM! don't look down! Your mother, and Henry, and Harriet, are all here praying for you. Don't look down! Keep your eye toward the top!" 12. The boy did not look down. His eye is fixed like a dint toward Heaven, and his young heart on Him who reigns there. He grasps again his knife. He cuts another niche, and another foot is added to the hundreds that remove him from the reach of human help below. How carefully he uses his wasting blade! How anxiously he selects the softest places in that vast pier! How he avoids every flinty grain! How he economizes his physical powers! resting a moment at each gain he cuts! 13. How every motion is watched from below! There stand his father, mother, brother and sister, on the very spot, where, if he falls, he will not fall alone. The sun is now half way down the west. The lad has made fifty additional niches in that mighty wall, and now finds himself directly under the middle of that vast arch of rocks, and earth, and trees. 14. He must now cut his way in a new direction to get from under this overhanging mountain. The inspiration of hope is flickering out in his bosom; its vital heat is fed by the increasing shouts of hundreds perched upon cliffs and trees, and others who stand with ropes in their hands above, or with ladders below. Fifty gains more must be cut, before the longest rope can reach him. His wasting blade strikes again into the limestone. 15. A spy-glass below watches and communicates to the multitude every mark of that faithful knife. The boy is emerging painfully, foot by foot, from under that lofty arch Spliced ropes are ready in the hands of those who are leaning over the outer edge of the bridge. Two minutes more and all will be over. That blade is worn up to the last half inch. The boy's head reels; his eyes are starting from their sockets; his last hope is dying in his breast; his life must hang upon the next gain he cuts. 16. At the last faint gash he makes, his knife, his faithful knife, drops from his little nerveless hand, and ringing along down the precipice, falls at his mother's feet. An involuntary groan of despair runs, like a death-knell, through the channel below, and then all is still as the grave. At the hight of nearly a thousand feet, the devoted boy lifts his hopeless heart, and closing eyes to commend his soul to God. 17. While he thus stands for a moment reeling, trembling, toppling over into eternity, a shout from above falls on his ear. The man who is lying with half his body projecting over the bridge, has caught a glimpse of the boy's shoulders, and a smothered exclamation of joy has burst from his lips. Quick as thought, the noosed rope is within reach of the sinking youth. No one breathes; half unclosing his eyes, and, with a faint convulsive effort, the boy drops his arms through the noose. 18. Darkness comes over him, and with the words God and mother on his lips, just loud enough to be heard in Heaven, the tightening rope lifts him out of his last shallow niche. The hands of a hundred men, women, and children, are pulling at that rope, and the unconscious boy is suspended and swaying over an abyss, which is the closest representation of eternity, that has yet been found in hight or depth. 19. Not a lip moves while he is dangling there; but, when a sturdy Virginian draws up the lad, and holds him up in his arms in view of the trembling multitude below, such shouting, such leaping for joy, such tears of gratitude, suel |