GOD'S SCHOLAR This poem from the pen of Archbishop Spalding is filled with many great religious thoughts. Be taught of God; He is deep wisdom's well, The truth with which the highest thought is wed; With Him pure faith and hope must ever dwell. He is the infinite beauty whose sweet spell Gives charm and life to what is seeming dead, He is the balm when the sore heart has bled, And the sole hope when tolls death's fatal knell. Be taught of Him if thou wouldst truly know, To Him bear all the burthen of thy woe, 1. What is the meaning of "Be taught of God"? 2. What reason does the author give for saying so? 3. As infinite beauty, what does He do? When is He our balm and our hope? 4. What things does the poet advise us to do in the last stanza? 5. Commit this poem to memory. 6. Form adverbs from the following words: eternal, truth, faith, infinite, sweet, brilliant, charm, perfect, rest, woe. In memorizing this selection, try repeating the thoughts of the poem in the order in which they occur. After you have mastered the thoughts, endeavor to express them in the exact words of the author. CHRISTMAS The time draws near the birth of Christ: Four voices in four hamlets round, From far and near, on mead and moor, Were shut between me and the sound: Each voice four changes on the wind, That now dilate, and now decrease, Peace and goodwill, to all mankind. ALFRED TENNYSON, JOHN JAMES AUDUBON John James Audubon was born in the sunny land of Louisiana. There he spent the first ten years of his life amid sweet orange trees, bright magnolia flowers, and strangely-colored butterflies, and beasts and birds. When the boy was eleven years of age, his dear mother was killed by the Revolutionists of San Domingo. On this account, he and his father went to France. There they lived in a big lonesome dwelling, until one day a kind-faced woman came to be his new mother. As Mr. Audubon belonged to the French Navy, he was seldom at home for any length of time. John James realized this; and sometimes he preferred to study nature in the woods and fields rather than the multiplication table in school. In vacation time you could find him leaving his home for the country early in the morning to return after dusk. But As he grew older, his father sent him to a military school. this life was not to the boy's liking. Instead of doing the work assigned him, he learned to play on the violin and the flute. He became so proficient in imitating the songs of the birds that the little creatures used to come and perch upon his shoulders. When about seventeen years old, the young man returned to his native land. Here he spent many years in the woods studying the ways of the birds and writing about them. At last, the people realized that he was a great man. Then they bought his books, looked at his pictures, and grew to know birds better than they ever before had known them. THE PRAIRIE On my return from the Upper Mississippi I found myself obliged to cross one of the wide prairies which, in that portion of the United States, vary the appearance of the country. The weather was fine; all around me was as fresh and blooming as if it had just issued from the bosom of nature. My knapsack, my gun, and my dog were all I had for baggage and company. But, although well moccasined, I moved slowly along, attracted by the brilliancy of the flowers, and the gambols of the fawns around their dams, to all appearance as thoughtless of danger as I felt myself. My march was of long duration;. I saw the sun sinking below the horizon long before I could perceive any appearance of woodland, and nothing in the shape of man had I met with that day. The track which I followed was only an old Indian trace, and as darkness overshadowed the prairie I felt some desire to reach at least a copse, in which I might lie down to rest. The night hawks were skimming over and around me, attracted by the buzzing wings of the beetles which form their food, and the distant howling of wolves gave me some hope that I should soon arrive at the skirts of some woodlands. |