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60 stormy distance. Many birds came close to me, as if to flap me with their large spreading wings, screamed round and round me, and then flew away in their strength, and beauty, and happiness.

65 me.

I now felt myself indeed dying. A calm came over I prayed devoutly for forgiveness of my sins, and for all my friends on earth. A ringing was in my ears, and I remember only the hollow fluctuations of the sea with which I seemed to be blended, and a sinking down and down an unfathomable depth, which I thought was 70 Death, and into the kingdom of the eternal Future.

I awoke from insensibility and oblivion with a hideous, racking pain in my head and loins, and in a place of utter darkness. I heard a voice say, "Praise the Lord." My agony was dreadful, and I cried aloud. Wan, glimmer75 ing, melancholy lights, kept moving to and fro. I heard dismal whisperings, and now and then a pale silent ghost glided by. A hideous din was over head, and around me the fierce dashing of the waves. Was I in the land of spirits? But, why strive to recount the mortal pain of 80 my recovery, the soul-humbling gratitude that took possession of my being? I was lying in the cabin of a ship, and kindly tended by a humane and skilful man. I had been picked up apparently dead and cold. The hand of God was there. Adieu, my dear friend. It is now the 85 hour of rest, and I hasten to fall down on my knees before the merciful Being who took pity upon me, and who, at the intercession of our Redeemer, may, I hope, pardon all my sins.

EXERCISE 75.

The Bible the best Classic-GRIMKE.

To the Parent, I would say, your offspring are the children of God. On you they depend for education. God has commanded you to train them betimes, to know and to serve, to love and to enjoy him. The paths of 5 business are equally the paths of temptation and duty. Religion belongs to every thought, and word, and deed. As then the Bible is the only standard of duty, why do you not interweave it with the whole scheme of secular education? To the Instructer, I would say, you stand

10 in the place of Parent and Guardian. Their duties are unquestionably yours. To you is transferred, not only the obligation to teach, but more especially the selection of appropriate books, and the regulation of the order and proportion of studies. What Parent or Guardian has 15 ever interfered with your plans? How entirely, and with what a cordial confidence, have they appointed you to think, to consult, to decide, to act for them? Why then have you excluded the Bible of those very Parents and Guardians, from the whole scheme for the educa20 tion of their children and wards? To the Patriot, I would say, can you doubt, that to the Bible, your country owes not only her religious liberty, and her entire moral condition, but, to a great extent, her civil and political rights, her science, literature and arts? The Bi25 ble is emphatically the book of truth and knowledge, of freedom and happiness to your country. Children you regard as public property; and you know, that they will honor and serve their country best, the more they are instructed in the Scriptures, and imbued with their spi30 rit. Why then, do you withhold the full benefit of those sacred oracles, by thus proscribing them, in every scheme of education? To the Christian, I would say, you admit the divinity of the Scriptures, their absolute authority, and inestimable worth. You concede, that they are the 35 common property of all; that even children may profit by them, since they are so simple and plain, that the wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err therein. Why then do you not give them this lamp of life, as well as the lamp of knowledge to guide them daily, with harmonious 40 beams, in their preparation for the inseparable duties and business of life. To the Scholar, I would say, we offer you a more ancient, venerable, noble classic, than is to be found in the whole compass of Grecian and Roman Literature.

EXERCISE 76.

Fathers of New England.-SPRAGUE.

1 Behold! they come-those sainted forms,
Unshaken through the strife of storms;
Heaven's winter cloud hangs coldly down,

And earth puts on its rudest frown;

But colder, ruder was the hand,

That drove them from their own fair land,
Their own fair land-refinement's chosen seat,
Art's trophied dwelling, learning's green retreat;
By valour guarded, and by victory crowned,
For all, but gentle charity, renowned.

With streaming eye, yet steadfast heart,
Even from that land they dared to part,
And burst each tender tie;

Haunts, where their sunny youth was passed,
Homes, where they fondly hoped at last
In peaceful age to die;

Friends, kindred, comfort, all they spurned-
Their fathers' hallowed graves;

And to a world of darkness turned,
Beyond a world of waves.

2 When Israel's race from bondage fled,
Signs from on high the wanderers led;
But here Heaven hung no symbol here,
Their steps to guide, their souls to cheer;
They saw, through sorrow's lengthening night,
Nought but the fagot's guilty light;

The cloud they gazed at was the smoke,
That round their murdered brethren broke.
Nor power above, nor power below,
Sustained them in their hour of wo;

A fearful path they trod,
And dared a fearful doom;

To build an altar to their God,
And find a quiet tomb.

3 Yet, strong in weakness, there they stand,
On yonder ice-bound rock,

Stern and resolved, that faithful band,
To meet fate's rudest shock.

Though anguish rends the father's breast,
For them, his dearest and his best,

With him the waste who trod-
Though tears that freeze, the mother sheds
Upon her children's houseless heads-
The Christian turns to God!

4 In grateful adoration now,

Upon the barren sands they bow.

What tongue of joy e'er woke such prayer,
As bursts in desolation there?

What arm of strength e'er wrought such
As waits to crown that feeble hour?
There into life an infant empire springs !
There falls the iron from the soul;
There liberty's young accents roll,
Up to the King of kings!

To fair creation's farthest bound,

power,

That thrilling summons yet shall sound;
The dreaming nations shall awake,
And to their centre earth's old kingdoms shake.
Pontiff and prince, your sway

Must crumble from that day;
Before the loftier throne of Heaven,

The hand is raised, the pledge is given-
One monarch to obey, one creed to own,
That monarch, God, that creed, His word alone.

5 Spread out earth's holiest records here,
Of days and deeds to reverence dear;
A zeal like this what pious legends tell?
On kingdoms built

In blood and guilt,

The worshipers of vulgar triumph dwell-

But what exploit with theirs shall
Who rose to bless their kind;
Who left their nation and their age,
Man's spirit to unbind?

Who boundless seas passed o'er,

page,

And boldly met, in every path,
Famine and frost and heathen wrath,

To dedicate a shore,

Where piety's meek train might breathe their vow And seek their Maker with an unshamed brow; Where liberty's glad race might proudly come, And set up there an everlasting home?

19

EXERCISE 77.

Duty of Literary men to their Country.-GRIMKE.

of

We cannot honor our country with too deep a reverence; we cannot love her with an affection too pure and fervent; we cannot serve her with an energy purpose or a faithfulness of zeal, too steadfast and ar5 dent. And what is our country? It is not the East, with her hills and her valleys, with her countless sails, and the rocky ramparts of her shores. It is not the North, with her thousand villages, and her harvest-home, with her frontiers of the lake and the ocean. It is not the 10 West, with her forest-sea and her inland-isles, with her luxuriant expanses, clothed in the verdant corn, with her beautiful Ohio, and her majestic Missouri. Nor is it yet the South, opulent in the mimic snow of the cotton, in the rich plantations of the rustling cane, and in 15 the golden robes of the rice-field. What are these

but the sister families of one greater, better, holier family, OUR COUNTRY? I come not here to speak the dialect, or to give the counsels of the patriot-statesman. But I come, a patriot-scholar, to vindicate the 20 rights, and to plead for the interests of American Literature. And be assured, that we cannot, as patriotscholars, think too highly of that country, or sacrifice too much for her. And let us never forget, let us rather remember with a religious awe, that the union of 25 these States is indispensable to our Literature, as it is to our national independence and civil liberties, to our prosperity, happiness, and improvement. indeed, we desire to behold a Literature like that, which has sculptured, with such energy of expression, which 30 has painted so faithfully and vividly, the crimes, the vices, the follies of ancient and modern Europe: if we desire that our land should furnish for the orator and the novelist, for the painter and the poet, age after age, the wild and romantic scenery of war; the 35 glittering march of armies, and the revelry of the camp; the shrieks and blasphemies, and all the horrors of the battle field; the desolation of the harvest, and the

If,

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