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LESSON LVI.

REMARK. In reading poetry, that does not rhyme, or blank verse, as it is called, the pauses should be regulated chiefly by the sense, as in prose.

ARTICULATE distinctly. First, not furss: hear'st, not hear'ss: didst, not didss: in-vest, not in-vess: re-vis-itst, not re-vis-its: sha-diest, not sha-di-ess: mist, not miss.

6. Ef'-flu-ence, n. that which flows or | 18. Cha'-os, n. confusion, disorder. issues from any substance or body. 25. Drop'-se-rene', n. a disease of the Es'-sence, n. being, existence. In-cre-ate', a. uncreated.

10, In-vest', v. clothe, surround.
14. Sty'-gi-an, a. referring to the Styx,
fabled to be a river of Hell.
15. So'-journ, n. a temporary residence.
17. Or-phe-an, a. referring to Orphous,
a celebrated musician.

eye.

26. Suf-fu'-sion, n. the state of being
spread over as with a fluid.
39. Dark'-ling, a. without light.
40. Noc-tur-nal, a. nightly. [out.
49. Ex-pun'-ged, p. rubbed out, blotted
Ra'-zed, p. blotted out, obliterated.
53. Ir-ra'-di-ate,v. illuminate, enlighten.

APOSTROPHE TO LIGHT.

1. HAIL! holy Light, offspring of Heaven first born,
Or of the eternal, coëternal beam,

May I express thee unblamed? Since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light

5. Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou, rather, pure + ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
10. Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the tvoid and formless infinite.

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
15. In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness borne
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre,
I sung of chaos and eternal night,

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Taught by the heavenly muse to venture down
20. The dark descent, and up to reäscend,
Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovereign, vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes that roll in vain,
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
25. So thick a drop-serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion +vailed. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
30 Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit; nor sometimes forget

Those other two, equaled with me in fate,
So were I equaled with them in renown,
35. Blind Thamyris* and blind Mæonides,†
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers, as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid,
40. Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year,
Seasons return, but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even and morn;
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose;
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
45. But cloud, instead, and ever-during dark

Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expunged and razed, 50. And wisdom, at one entrance, quite shut out. So much the rather thou, celestial Light,

:

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
55. Of things invisible to mortal sight.

MILTON.

QUESTIONS.-Why does Milton mention light so reverently? Who 18 the source and author of light? What is meant by the reference to the Stygian pool? To the Orphean lyre? What does he mean by saying that light revisits not his eyes? To whom does he refer as having been blind like himself? What bird does he call the "wakeful bird"?

A celebrated musician of Thrace, who was blind.

A name of Homer.

ARTICULATION.

Shed'st, forests, hop'st, gifts, hadst, form'd.

Thou shed'st a sunshine on his head. The brown forests. Hop'st thou for gifts like these? Or ever thou had'st form'd the earth. I have received presents.

LESSON LVII.

UTTER distinctly all the consonants in the following and similar words in this lesson: majesty, scriptures, sanctity, gospel, addresses, philosopher, subject, enthusiast, instructions, described, disgrace, exactly, rewards, sobriety, midst, friends, fabricate, subject.

1. Sanc'-ti-ty, n. holiness, purity."

2. En-thu'-si-ast, n. one whose imagination is heated.

Soph'-ist, n. a deceptive reasoner.

4. Pre'-cept, n. a rule of action.
Eu'-lo-gi-zed, v. praised, commended.

Sect'-a-ry, n. one who separates from 5. Fa-nat'-i-cism, n. wild notions of re

the established church.

Max'-ims, n. established principles.

3. Pre-pos-ses'-sion,n. an opinion formed
before examining a subject.
Ig'-no-min-y, n. public disgrace.

ligion.

6. Ex'-e-cra-ted, p. cursed, denounced. Ex-cru'-cia-ting,u. extremely painful. 7. Fab'-ric-ate, v. to invent, to devise falsely.

THE SCRIPTURES AND THE SAVIOR.

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1. THE majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with astonishment, and the sanctity of the gospel addresses itself to my heart. Look at the volumes of the philosophers, with all their pomp: how contemptible do they appear in comparison with this! Is it possible, that a book at once so simple and sublime, can be the work of man !

2. Can he who is the subject of its history, be himself a mere man? Was his the tone of an enthusiast, or of an ambitious sectary? What sweetness! What purity in his manners! What an affecting gracefulness in his instructions! What sublimity in his maxims! What profound wisdom in his discourses!

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What presence of mind, what sagacity and propriety in his answers! How great the command over his passions! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live, suffer, and die, without weakness and without ostentation!

3. When Plato described his imaginary good man, covered with all the disgrace of crime, yet worthy of all the rewards of virtue, he described exactly the character of Jesus Christ. The resemblance was so striking, it could not be mistaken, and all the fathers of the church perceived it. What prepossession, what blindness must it be, to compare the son of Sophronius to the son of Mary! What an immeasurable distance between them! Socrates, dying without pain, and without ignominy, easily supported his character to the last; and if his death, however easy, had not crowned his life, it might have been doubted whether Socrates, with all his wisdom, was any thing more than a mere sophist.

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4. He invented, it is said, the theory of moral science. Others, however, had before him put it in practice; and he had nothing to do but to tell what they had done, and to reduce their examples to precept. Aristides had been just, before Socrates defined what justice was. Leonidas had died for his country, before Socrates made it a duty to love one's country. Sparta had been temperate, before Socrates eulogized sobriety; and before he celebrated the praises of virtue, Greece had abounded in vir

tuous men.

5. But from whom of all his countrymen, could Jesus have derived that sublime and pure morality, of which he only has given us both the precepts and example? In the midst of the most licentious fanaticism, the voice of the sublimest wisdom was heard; and the simplicity of the most heroic virtue crowned one of the humblest of all the multitude.

6. The death of Socrates, peaceably philosophizing with his friends, is the most pleasant that could be desired! That of Jesus, expiring in torments, outraged, reviled, and execrated by a whole nation, is the most horrible that could be feared. Socrates, in receiving the cup of poison, blessed the weeping executioner who presented it; but Jesus, in the midst of excruciating torture, prayed for his merciless tormentors.

7. Yes! if the life and death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a God. Shall we say that the evangelical history is a mere fiction? It does not bear the stamp of fiction, but the contrary. The history of Socrates, which nobody doubts, is not as well attested as that of Jesus

Christ. Such an assertion in fact only shifts the difficulty, without removing it. It is more inconceivable that a number of persons should have agreed to fabricate this book, than that one only should have furnished the subject of it.

8. The Jewish authors were incapable of the diction, and strangers to the morality, contained in the gospel, the marks of whose truth are so striking, so perfectly inimitable, that the inventor would be a more astonishing man than the hero.

ROUSSEAU.

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QUESTIONS. What was the character of Rousseau? How could an infidel testify thus without renouncing his infidelity? How does Plato's character of what a good man ought to be, correspond with what Christ was? What differences can you mention between the life and death of Christ, and those of Socrates? In what country did Aristides, Leonidas, Plato, and Socrates live? What is the character of each? Is the history of Socrates any better attested than that of Christ? Why is it inconceivable that the book is a fiction? Suppose it an invention of man; which would be the most wonderful, the inventor or the hero?

ARTICULATION.

Canst, skin, barbed, slumberdst, laidst, rest.

Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons. Thou slumber'd'st not in vain. Thou laidst thy waves at rest.

dominions, hosts, and kingly thrones.

Around him fall dread powers,

When Ajax strives some rocks

vast weight to throw. He was distinguished for his conscientiousness. His lips grow restless and his smile is curled into scorn. His limb were strength'n'd by exercise.

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