money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that which they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or stolen. These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions of the mind, and in obedience to pure motives. The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative. The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you shall have the power; but they who do not the thing have not the power.

10

Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to the construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of the perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give and Take, the doctrine that everything has its price,--and if that 15 price is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and that it is impossible to get anything without its price, is not less sublime in the columns of a ledger than in the budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature. 20 I cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees ever implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle on his chisel edge, which are measured out by his plumb and foot rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop-2 bill as in the history of a state-do recommend to him. his trade, and though seldom named, exalt his business to his imagination.

The league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a hostile front to vice. The beautiful & laws and substances of the world persecute and whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for truth and benefit, but there is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime, and the earth is made of

glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word, you cannot wipe out the foot track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet or clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and substances of nature-water, snow, wind, gravitation—become penalties to the thief.

On the other hand, the law holds with equal sureness 10 for all right action. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has absolute good, which, like fire, turns everything to its own nature, so that you cannot do him any harm; but as the royal 15 armies sent against Napoleon, when he approached, cast down their colors and from enemies became friends, so do disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offence, poverty, prove benefactors:

66

Winds blow and waters roll

Strength to the brave, and power and deity,

Yet in themselves are nothing."

20

The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had ever a point of pride that was not in jurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was 25 not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable admired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the thicket, his horns destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults. As no man 30 thoroughly understands a truth until first he has contended against it, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances or talents of men until he has

suffered from the one, and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same. Has he a defect of temper that unfits him to live in society? Thereby he is driven to entertain himself alone, and acquires habits of self-help; and thus, like the wounded oyster, he mends: his shell with pearl.

а

The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. It makes no difference whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant or a mob. A mob is a society 1 of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason, and traversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would whip a 15 right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite 20 against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison a more illustrious abode; every burned book or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side. Hours of sanity and consideration are always arriving to communities, as to individuals, when the truth is seen, and the martyrs are justified.

NOTES

FOR THE USE OF TEACHERS AND PUPILS.

ABBREVIATIONS: Ar.-Arabic; A. S.-Anglo-Saxon; Du.Dutch; Fr.- French; Gael,-Gaelic; Ger.-German; Gr.Greek; Lat.-Latin; Mid. E.-Middle English; Mid. Lat.Middle Latin; O. Eng.-Old English; O. Fr.-Old French; pro.-pronounced; Span.-Spanish.

I. THE DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

Page 13, Note 1.-GEORGE BANCROFT, from whose "History of the United States" this extract is taken, was born in Worcester, Mass., October 3, 1800. At the age of thirteen he entered Harvard College, where he devoted much attention to mental science and the Platonic philosophy. After graduating in 1817 he went to Europe, spending several years in the best universities, and making the acquaintance of many of the great men of that time. He returned to America in 1822, and was for a short time tutor of Greek in Harvard University. In 1823 he assisted in founding, at Northampton, the Round Hill School, with which he remained connected for several years. He was elected, in 1830, to a seat in the Legislature of Massachusetts, but declined to serve. In 1845 he received from President Polk the appointment of Secretary of the Navy, a position which he resigned the following year in order to accept the office of Minister Plenipotentiary to Great Britain. During his residence in England he made use of every opportunity to perfect his collection of materials relating to American history. In the British Museum and in some private libraries he found many valuable manuscripts, and he was given access to the records of the state paper office, and also the records of the treasury. He was thus enabled, on his return to America in 1849, to continue with great satisfaction his work on the "History of the United States," on which he had already been engaged nearly twenty years. In 1867 he was appointed Minister to Prussia, and in 1871 he was accredited Minister Plenipotentiary to the German Empire. He died in 1891. The great work of his life was the preparation of his "History of the United States," the first volume of which was published in 1834. Other volumes followed at intervals the twelfth, which was issued in 1882, bringing the history down to the adoption of the Constitution. This history occupies a most prominent position in the literature of America, it being

everywhere a recognized authority concerning the period which it covers. It has been translated into several languages.

2. This "long-expected" discovery occurred in the year 1673. De Soto and his party of Spanish adventurers had reached the Mississippi in 1541, and even penetrated some distance into the country beyond. But during the one hundred and thirty-two years which intervened between these dates the great river was known to Europeans only through hearsay and the traditions of the Indian tribes.

At this time the Indians occupied, undisturbed by the whites, the entire continent west of the Alleghanies. The Iroquois, living in central and northern New York, were known and feared by all the tribes, and especially by the Hurons, in the vicinity of the Great Lakes. The Chippewas, Illinois, Kickapoos, Mascoutins, Pottawatomies, and numerous smaller tribes-all included in the great family of Algonquins-occupied the country between Lake Ontario and the upper Mississippi, and among them the French had established several trading posts and missionary stations. The Miamis and Shawnees lived in the Ohio Valley, and the Chickasas in the region of the Tennessee. The Algonquins were a great family of Indians embracing nearly all the above-named tribes except the Iroquois.

Who was the true discoverer of the Mississippi, De Soto or Marquette? Who was the true discoverer of America, Leif Ericsson or Columbus? Why is the discovery by Marquette here spoken of as a "long-expected" one?

3.-JAMES MARQUETTE (mar kět'), a French Jesuit missionary, born in 1637, died, as narrated in this extract, in 1675. The best part of his life was spent among the Indian tribes, especially the Hurons, in the region of the Great Lakes, by whom he was regarded with the greatest esteem and veneration.

4.-LOUIS JOLIET (zhō le ā), or Jolliet, a French-Canadian explorer, born about the year 1645, died in 1700.

5.-TALON (tä lōng'), the French governor general, or intendant, of Canada, succeeded by Frontenac in 1672.

6.-FRONTENAC. Louis de Buade, Count de Frontenac (fron' te nak), was born in France about 1620. He was appointed governor of Canada, or New France, in 1672, and held that office until 1682, when he was recalled. In 1689 he was again sent out. This time he remained in charge of the colonial government until his death, at Quebec, in 1699.

7.-ALLOUEZ. Claude Alloüez (äl wā) was a French Jesuit missionary, who, like Marquette, lived many years among the Indians in Michigan. He was born in 1620, died in 1690.

8. GREAT MANITOU. (măn'i too.) The Great Spirit.

9.-ANCIENTS. The old men who were supposed to have superior wisdom, and hence consulted on all important occasions.

10.-PORTAGE. A carrying place, from Fr. porter, to carry. The narrow tract of land over which boats or canoes were carried from one river to another. See map of Wisconsin. The city of Portage now stands not far from the place here mentioned.

11.-CALUMET. (căl' u mět.) From Lat. calamus, a reed. An Indian pipe, emblem or symbol of peace, sometimes of war.

12.-FIVE NATIONS. A name often applied to the Iroquois, a powerful confederation of Indians in which were included the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. They afterwards admitted their kinsmen the Tuscaroras into the confederacy, and were then called the Six Nations.