covering, that the argument of the gentleman is wholly fallacious. 6. Allowing what you will for the influence of sublime and beautiful objects on the heart, it must be recollected that familiarity itself begets indifference, and that men soon come to walk among the Alps as among common hills, to sail over ocean billows as over the ripples of a quiet lake, and, in short, to look, with comparative unconcern, upon things familiar, though they be the most thrilling and wonderful works of Creation. 7. The argument, therefore, which the gentleman has selected, with such apparent confidence in its force, is not, in my judgment, a conclusive one. It shows, it is true, that the country offers many features well fitted to awaken emotion and improve the heart; but it does not prove that these objects always produce that effect. I may, therefore, conclude by informing him, that his argument is just as true when applied to the city. The city, also, has many objects admirably adapted to arouse our better nature, and promote our spiritual well-being; but, alas, they are seldom, ay, very seldom, duly regarded. QUESTIONS.-1. How is it attempted to be shown that the previous speaker's argument involves fancy rather than fact? 2. What is said about the difference between contact and communion? 3. To what does the speaker appeal, to show that his opponent's argument is fallacious? 4. In what respect does he say that the first speaker's argument fails ? LESSON CXXVIII. WORDS FOR SPELLING AND DEFINING: RE FUTE', disprove; confute. DIS TINCTION, difference. drawing the mind from surrounding objects. CON CEN TRA TION, act of draw ing together to a point. AR TI FI CIAL, not natural. DEVELOP MENT, act of unfolding. AB STRACTION, the act of with- { DE CIS' ION, judgment; verdict. DEBATE. (CONTINUED.) Which is preferable, city or country life? THIRD SPEAKER. 1. MR. PRESIDENT:-Instead of stopping to examine and refute what seems objectionable in the views expressed by the last speaker, I propose to introduce some two or three new arguments, or considerations in favor of rural life. It will hardly be denied, that contact with vice has a corrupting influence, even by those who deny that contact with country scenes and objects, has no necessary, improving power; for, "Evil communications," says an inspired writer, "corrupt good manners;" and this I hold to be true, whether in the city or the country. 2. The only question is, which yields the greater amount of evil. Now, will any one deny this bad distinction to the city? And, if this be not denied, manifestly the country, on the score of morals, is the better, because the safer place. 3. But, again, sir, the country has a most decided advantage over the city, as a place for intellectual culture. It gives freedom from tumult, noise, and distracting excitements. It guaranties exemption from a thousand intrusions and interruptions, inseparable from city life; favors abstraction and concentration of the mental powers, and so secures to the student the best results of intellectual labor. 4. In proof of this, which is so clear in theory, I might cite the testimony of experience-the experience of pcets, orators, writers, and thinkers of every name and grade, and of almost every age and clime. But why dwell on a point so evident? 5. Again, the country favors not only mental and moral culture, but is eminently adapted to the development of the physical constitution. Every one knows that city life, for the most part, is a thing altogether artificial. It cramps the feet with tight shoes, it compresses the waist with tight dresses; it invites and fosters colds, coughs, and consump tions, through the agency of thin stockings, light clothing, late hours, and many other similar requirements of fashion, which time would fail me to specify. 6. Nor is this all. The resident of the city not always enjoys the fresh products of the country, though he be ever so willing to pay for them. He must often be content with stale fruits, stale vegetables, stale butter, stale milk, stale every thing; while the happy farmer partakes of all these things in their freshness and purity. May we not, sir, in view of these and other kindred advantages connected with a residence in the country, may we not ask your decision in our fávor? QUESTIONS.-1. What does the 3d speaker propose to do? 2. What is his first argument? 3. What, the second? 4. What, the third? What rule for the rising inflection on favor, last word of the 6th paragraph? Where is the passage found, quoted in the 1st paragraph? NUISANCE, any thing which AL LE VI ATE, mitigate. annoys. UN RE LENT ING, unyielding. To' TO CE LO, entirely. AN CHO RET IC, hermit-like. DEBATE. (CONTINUED.) Which is preferable, city or country life? FOURTH SPEAKER. 1. MR. PRESIDENT:-From the observations of the gentleman who has just taken his seat, one might, without an appeal to facts, naturally infer, that all good is confined to the country, and all evil centered in the city. In the life of a citizen, he finds a sort of Siberian destitution; so that whether he walks, or talks, or studies, or eats, or drinks, or exercises, he is equally the victim of tyrannical custom. 2. Well, sir, to this doleful catalogue of imaginary ills, which must surely be regarded as the offspring of a distempered fancy, I can only append that old, familiar caption of certain newspaper paragraphs :-" Important, if true." 3. Why, sir, who ever heard, till this hour, that study was a thing to be done to the best advantage "out in the country"? There only, it seems, we can get clear of noise and nuisance enough to enable us to think; as if people of studious habits, living in the city, were obliged by some unrelenting fatality to choose for a study just that spot in a town, where most "do congregate" carts, wagons, stages, and wheelbarrows, and where the din and clatter of commercial transactions are the most unceasing, and the most annoying; or, as if all parts of a city, and at all times of the day, were equally and hopelessly given up to clamor, uproar, and confusion. Here 4. Talk about opportunities for study? Where can they be better, where can they be as good as in the city? are capital schools, capital teachers, capital apparatus, capital libraries, capital courses of lectures, capital chances for literary conversation; in fact, capital chances for every thing that can enlarge, store, train, and liberalize the mind. 5. But the gentleman dreads the vicious associations of the city. If that argument had any strength, it ought to drive him quite out of the world; for vicious people are, by no means, peculiar to cities. It ought, at least, to render him a hermit,-to force him into the most absolute asceticism; for nothing can be more obvious than that vicious people are not the peculiar heritage and burden of cities. 6. Evil thrives, with more or less vigor and virulence, everywhere. We can not run entirely away from it, though we need not, and should not run heedlessly or designedly into it. Our positive duty is to oppose it, whether in our selves or in others. "Resist the devil," says the apostle James," and he will flee from you." Surely, this Scriptural instruction differs toto cœlo from that which counsels us not to resist, but to run. 7. The truth is, Mr. President, there is often a positive advantage in being near to the wicked and the degraded, provided we have the heart to seek to do them good. Christ himself affords, by his practice in this regard, as in al' others, the best possible example. He was found among the wicked, the outcast, the wretched: saying in answer to the question, "Why cateth your master with publicans and sinners?" "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." By following this divine example, sir, we may derive the highest benefit to ourselves, while we are seeking to alleviate the woes of others. 8. The spirit of true Christianity is no anchoretic spirit. It goes out among men, because evil is among men, and seeks, like its blessed Founder, "to save that which is lost." That wicked men, in numbers, dwell in cities, is, therefore, no argument to induce good men to flee to the country. It is rather a reason to make them court that trial of virtue, by which they may become, at once, the teachers and the taught in the ways and the works of God. Well might the poet sing : "Thy praise, O Charity! thy labors most QUESTIONS.-1. What does the 4th speaker think might be inferred from the preceding speech? 2. What is meant by Siberian destitution? Ane. Such as exists in the barren regions of Siberia. 3. What does he say of his opponent's doleful catalogue of evils? 4. How does he answer the argument, that the country is more favorable to study? 5. How does he answer that respecting the vicious associations of the city? 6. For what purpose does he quote the passage: "Resist the devil," &c.? 7. How does he show that there is often an advantage in being near the wicked? |