Even looking forward to a single day, the spirit may sometimes faint from an anticipation of the duties, the labors, the trials to temper and patience, that may be expected. Now this is unjustly laying the burden of many thousand moments upon one. Let any one resolve always to do right now, leaving then to do as it can ; and if he were to live to the age of Methuselah, he would never do wrong. But the common error is to resolve to act right after breakfast, or after dinner, or to-morrow morning, or next time : but now, just now, this once, we must go on the same as ever.

It is easy, for instance, for the most ill-tempered person to resolve that the next time he is provoked, he will not let his temper overcome him ; but the victory would be to subdue temper on the present provocation. If, without taking up the burden of the future, we would always make the single effort at the present moment; while there would, at any one time, be very little to do, yet, by this simple process continued, every thing would at last be done.

It seems easier to do right to-morrow than to-day, merely because we forget that when to-morrow comes, then will be Thus life

passes

with
many,

in resolutions for the future, which the present never fulfils.

" It is not thus with those, who,“ by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, honor, and immortality.” Day by day, minute by minute, they execute the appointed task, to which the requisite measure of time and strength is proportioned ; and thus, having worked while it was called day, they at length rest from their labors, and their works “ follow them."

Let us then," whatever our hands find to do, do it with all our might, recollecting that now is the proper and accepted time.”

now.

LESSON CXLII.

A belief in the superintendence of Providence the only ade

quate support under affliction.— WORDSWORTH.

ONE adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists, one only ;-an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, howe'er
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being

Of infinite benevolence and power,
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good.
The darts of anguish

fix not, where the seat
Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified
By acquiescence in the will supreme,
For time and for eternity ;-by faith,
Faith absolute in God, including hope,
And the defence that lies in boundless love
Of his perfections; with habitual dread
Of augħt unworthily conceived, endured
Impatiently,-ill-done, or left undone,
To the dishonor of his holy name.
Soul of our souls, and Safeguard of the world,
Sustain—Thou only canst—the sick of heart;
Restore their languid spirits, and recall
Their lost affections unto Thee and thine !

How beautiful this dome of sky,
And the vast hills in fluctuation fixed
At thy command, how awful! Shall the soul,
Human and rational, report of Thee
Even less than these? -- Be mute who will, who can,
Yet will I praise thee with impassioned voice :
My lips, that may forget thee in the crowd,
Cannot forget thee here,—where Thou hast built,
For thy own glory, in the wilderness !
Me didst thou constitute a Priest of thine,
In such a temple as we now behold
Reared for thy presence : therefore am I bound
To worship, here, and every where -
Not doomed to ignorance, though forced to tread
From childhood up the ways of poverty;
From unreflecting ignorance preserved,
And from debasement rescued.—By thy grace
The particle divine remained unquenched ;
And, mid the wild weeds of a rugged soil,
Thy bounty caused to flourish deathless flowers,
From paradise transplanted. Wintry age
Impends : the frost will gather round my heart;
And, if they wither, I am worse than dead !

Come Labor, when the worn-out frame requires Perpetual sabbath :-come disease, and want, And sad exclusion through decay of sense :But leave me unabated trust in Thee

as one

And let thy favor to the end of life
Inspire me with ability to seek
Repose and hope among eternal things,
Father of heaven and earth! and I am rich,
And will possess my portion in content !

And what are things eternal ?-Powers depart,
Possessions vanish, and opinions change,
And passions hold a fluctuating seat:
But, by the storms of circumstance unshaken,
And subject neither to eclipse nor wane,
Duty exists-immutably survives !
What more that may not perish ?-Thou, dread Source,
Prime, self-existing cause and end of all,
That, in the scale of being fill their place,
Above our human region or below,
Set and sustained ; Thou, who didst wrap the cloud
Of infancy around us, that Thyself,
Therein, with our simplicity a while
Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
Or from its death-like void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restor'st us, daily, to the powers of sense,
And reason's steadfast rule-Thou, thou alone
Art everlasting!

LESSON CXLIII.

Greece, in 1809.-BYRON.

FAIR Greece! sad relic of departed worth !

Immortal, though no more though fallen, great! Who now shall lead thy scattered children forth,

And long accustomed bondage uncreate ? Not such thy sons who whilom did awaitThe hopeless warriors* of a willing doom

In bleak Thermopylæ's sepulchral strait : 0! who that gallant spirit shall resume, Leap from Eurotas' banks and call thee from the tomb ?

Spirit of Freedom ! when on Phyle's brow

Thou satt'st with Thrasybūlus and his train, Coulds't thou forebode the dismal hour that now

Dims the green beauty of thine Attic plain ?

Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, But every

carle can lord it o'er thy land; Nor rise thy sons, but idly rail in vain, Trembling beneath the scourge of Turkish hand, From birth till death enslaved ; in word, in deed, unmanned.

In all, save form alone, how changed ! and who

That marks the fire still sparkling in each eye, Who but would deem their bosoms burned anew

With thy unquenched beam, lost Liberty! And many dream, withal, the hour is nigh That gives them back their fathers' heritage;

For foreign aid and arms they fondly sigh, Nor solely dare encounter hostile rage, Or tear their name defiled from Slavery's mournful page.

Hereditary bondmen! know ye not

Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow? By their right arm the conquest must be wrought :Will Gaul, or Muscovite, redress ye?-No!

True, they may lay your proud despoilers low; But not for you will Freedom's altars fame.

Shades of the Helots! triamph o'er your foe! Greece! change thy lords :-thy state is still the same Thy glorious day is o'er, but not thy years of shame.

When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood,

When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, When Athens' children are with arts endued,

When Grecian mothers shall give birth to men,

Then thou may'st be restored :—but not till then. A thousand years scarce serve to form a state ;

An hour may lay it in the dust: and when Can man its shattered splendor renovate ? When call its virtues back, and vanquish Time and Fate ?

And yet, how lovely, in thine age of wo,

Land of lost gods and godlike men, art thou ! Thy vales of ever-green, thy hills of snow

Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite now.

Thy fanes, thy temples, to thy surface bow,
Commingling slowly with heroic earth ;-

Broke with the share of every rustic plough :-
So perish monuments of mortal birth :
So perish all in turn, save well-recorded worth :

Save where some solitary colúmn mourns

Above its prostrate brethren of the cave ;* Save where Tritonia's airy shrine adorns

Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wavé ;

Save o'er some warrior's half forgotten grave, Where the gray stones and unmolested grass

Ages, but not oblivion, feebly brave, While strangers only not regardless pass, Lingering, like me, perchance, to gaze and sigh “ Alas !

Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild,

Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled,

And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields.

There the blīthe bee his frāgrant fortress builds, The freeborn wanderer of thy mountain air.

Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beams Mendeli's marbles glare : Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature still is fair.

Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground:

No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould ! But one vast realm of wonder spreads around,

And all the Muse's tales seem truly told,

Till the sense aches with gazing, to behold The scenes our earliest dreams have dwelt upon.

Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold Defies the power which crushed thy temples gone : Age shakes Athena's tower, but spares gray Marathon.

Long, to the remnants of thy splendor past,

Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng; Long shall the voyager, with th' Ionian blast,

Hail the bright clime of battle and of song.
Long shall thine annals and immortal tongue
Fill with thy fame the youth of many a shore;

Boast of the aged ! lesson of the young!
Which sages venerate and bards adore,
As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore.