2. When a large steamboat is built, with the intention of having her employed upon the waters of a great river, she must be proved before put to service. Before trial, it is somewhat doubtful whether she will succeed. In the first place, it is not absolutely certain whether her machinery will work at all. There may be some flaw in the iron, or an imperfection in some part of the +workmanship, which will prevent the motion of her wheels. Or if this is not the case, the power of the machinery may not be sufficient to propel her through the water, with such force as to overcome the current; or she may, when brought to encounter the rapids at some narrow passage in the stream, not be able to force her way against their resistance. 3. The engineer, therefore, resolves to try her in all these respects, that her security and her power may be properly proved before she is intrusted with her valuable cargo of human lives. He cautiously builds a fire under her boiler; he watches with interest the rising of the steam-gage, and scrutinizes every part of the machinery, as it gradually comes under the control of the tremendous power, which he is apprehensively applying. eager 4. With what interest does he observe the first stroke of the ponderous piston! and when, at length, the fastenings of the boat are let go, and the motion is communicated to the wheels, and the mighty mass slowly moves away from the wharf, how deep and eager an interest does he feel in all her movements, and in every indication he can discover of her future success! 5. The engine, however, works imperfectly, as every one must on its first trial; and the object in this experiment is not to gratify idle curiosity, by seeing that she will move, but to discover and remedy every little imperfection, and to remove every obstacle which prevents more entire success. For this purpose, you will see our engineer examining, most minutely and most attentively, every part of her complicated machinery. The crowd on the wharf may be simply gazing on her majestic progress, as she moves off from the shore, but the engineer is within, looking with faithful examination into all the minutiae of the motion. 6. He scrutinizes the action of every lever and the friction of every joint; here, he oils a bearing, there, he tightens a nut; one part of the machinery has too much play, and he confines it; another, too much friction, and he loosens it; now, he stops the engine, now, reverses her motion, and again, sends the boat forward in her course. He discovers, perhaps, some great improvement of which she is susceptible, and when he returns to the wharf and has extinguished her fire, he orders from the machineshop the necessary alteration. 7. The next day he puts his boat to the trial again, and she glides over the water more smoothly and swiftly than before. The jar which he had noticed is gone, and the friction reduced; the beams play more smoothly, and the alteration which he has made produces a more equable motion in the shaft, or gives greater effect to the stroke of the paddles upon the water. + 8. When at length her motion is such as to satisfy him upon the smooth surface of the river, he turns her course, we will imagine, toward the rapids, to see how she will sustain a greater trial. As he increases her steam, to give her power to overcome the new force with which she has to contend, he watches, with eager interest, her boiler, inspects the gage and the safety-valves, and, from her movements under the increased pressure of her steam, he receives suggestions for further improvements, or for +precautions which will insure greater safety. 9. These he executes, and thus he perhaps goes on for many days, or even weeks, trying and examining, for the purpose of improvement, every working of that mighty power, to which he knows hundreds of lives are soon to be intrusted. This now is probation-trial for the sake of improvement. And what are its results? Why, after this course has been thoroughly and faithfully pursued, this floating palace receives upon her broad deck, and in her carpeted and curtained cabin, her four or five hundred passengers, who pour along in one long procession of happy groups, over the bridge of planks; father and son, mother and children, young husband and wife, all with implicit confidence, trusting themselves and their dearest interests to her power. 10. See her as she sails away! How beautiful and yet how powerful are all her motions! That beam glides up and down gently and smoothly in its grooves, and yet gentle as it seems, hundreds of horses could not hold it still; there is no apparent violence, but every movement is with irresistible power. How graceful is her form, and yet how mighty is the momentum with which she presses on her way! + 11. Loaded with life, and herself the very symbol of life and power, she seems something ethereal, unreal, which, ere we look again, will have vanished away. And though she has within her bosom a furnace glowing with furious fires, and a reservoir of death, the elements of most dreadful ruin and conflagration, of destruction the most complete, and agony the most unutterable; and though her strength is equal to the united energy of two thousand men, she restrains it all. 12. She was constructed by genius, and has been tried and improved by fidelity and skill; and one man governs and controls her, stops her and sets her in motion, turns her this way and that, as easily and certainly as the child guides the gentle lamb. She walks over the one hundred and sixty miles of her route, without rest and without fatigue; and the passengers, who have slept in safety in their berths, with destruction by water without, and by fire within, defended only by a plank from the one, and by a sheet of copper from the other, land at the appointed time in safety. 13. My reader, you have within you susceptibilities and powers, of which you have little present conception; energies, which are hereafter to operate in producing fullness of enjoyment or horrors of suffering, of which you now can form scarcely a conjecture. You are now on t trial. God wishes you to prepare yourself for safe and happy action. He wishes you to look within, to examine the complicated movements of your hearts, to detect what is wrong, to modify what needs change, and to rectify every irregular motion. + 14. You go out to try your moral powers upon the stream of active life, and then return to retirement, to improve what is right, and remedy what is wrong. Renewed opportunities of moral practice are given you, that you may go on from strength to strength, until every part of that complicated moral machinery, of which the human heart consists, will work as it ought to work, and is prepared to accomplish the mighty purposes for which your powers are designed. You are on trial, on probation now. You will enter upon active service in another world. ABBOTT. QUESTIONS. How does the Bible consider this life? What is a state of probation? What is a steamboat? Who invented it? Was Robert Fulton an American? What is meant by proving a steamboat? What is the use of doing this? Is there any resemblance between man and a steamboat? If this life is our state of probation, what will a future state of existence be? What difference is there between man's probation before the fall, and man's probation now? ARTICULATION. Kraken, kremlin, crutch, crush'd, prank, praiseworthy. The kraken is probably a fabulous animal. The kremlin is the Ruasian emperor's palace. With his crutch he crushed the flowers. The prank was not praiseworthy. The props were prop'd by other props. The crafty creatures crawl'd in crowds. The proud prig prates. LESSON LXIII. ARTICULATE distinctly.-Prec-e-dent, not prec' dent: pro-cras ti-na-tion, not pro-crast' na-tion: e-ter-nal, not e-ter-n'l: mi-rac-u-lous, not mirac' lous: ex-cel-lent, not ex' lent: sus-pects, not s'pec's: in-famous, not in-f'mous. 2. Prec'-e-dent, n. serves for an example. something that | 18. Vails, n. money given to servants. It here means that which may be spent for pleasure. This word is obsolete, that is, it is not now usea 4. Pro-cras-ti-na'-tion, n. delay. 11. Palm, n. victory. 14. Driv'-el, v. to be foolish. [session. 23. Dil'-a-to-ry, a. slow, delaying. 15. Re-ver'-sion, n. right to future pos- 29. Chides, v. reproves. PROCRASTINATION. 1. BE wise today; 't is madness to defer; All pay themselves the compliment to think They one day shall not drivel; and their pride 15. On this reversion takes up ready praise, At least their own: their future selves applaud; + 20. The thing they can't but purpose, they postpone. And scarce in human wisdom to do more. And that through every stage: when young indeed, Resolves; and re-resolves; then dies the same. YOUNG. QUESTIONS.-What is meant by procrastination? Name some of the evils of procrastination? What is the meaning of lines 10, 11, and 12? What, of all things, are men most apt to defer? LESSON LXIV. REMARK. Sound the r clearly in the following words: are, mark, bard, hard, lard, barb, garb, hear, clear, dear, near, tear, arm, harm, charm, lord, cord, far, care, course, never, merely, conform. BE CAREFUL also to pronounce correctly the following: Oth-ers, not oth-uz: rule, not rool: virtue, not vir-too: rec-ti-tude, not rec-ti-tshude: a-dopt, not ud-opt: mer-cy, not mus-sy: com'-plai-sance, not sance: sac-ri-fice, not sa-cri-fis: sec-u-lar, not sec-ky-lar, nor seat. mor-als, not mor-uls: scru-pu-lous, not scru-py-lous. 1. De-void', a. destitute. [ciple. 2. Roc'-ti-tude, n. correctness of prin- 8. Com'-plai-sance, n. (pro. com'-pla 8. Sec'-u-lar, a. worldly. 9. Tam'-per, v. to meddle with impro- 11. En-tail', v. to fix unalienably upon LOVE OF APPLAUSE. 1. To be insensible to public opinion, or to the estimation in which we are held by others, indicates any thing, rather than a good and generous spirit. It is, indeed, the mark of a low and |