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 now. 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 accept ed time." LESSON CXLII. A belief in the superintendence of Providence the only adequate support under affliction.-WORDSWORTH. ONE adequate support For the calamities of mortal life Of infinite benevolence and power, Come Labor, when the worn-out frame requires And let thy favor to the end of life And what are things eternal ?-Powers depart, What more that may not perish ?—Thou, dread Source, That, in the scale of being fill their place, Set and sustained; Thou, who didst wrap the cloud 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 doomIn bleak Thermopyla's sepulchral strait : O! 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 Thrasybulus and his train, Coulds't thou forebode the dismal hour that now Dims the green beauty of thine Attic plain? *Pron. war -yurs. Not thirty tyrants now enforce the chain, 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? Shades of the Helots! triumph o'er your foe! When riseth Lacedemon's hardihood, When Thebes Epaminondas rears again, 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! Proclaim thee Nature's varied favorite now. Broke with the share of every rustic plough :- Save where some solitary column mourns Colonna's cliff, and gleams along the wave; Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild, And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields. Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground: No earth of thine is lost in vulgar mould! Each hill and dale, each deepening glen and wold 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. *Of Mount Pentelicus, from which the marble was dug that constructed the public edifices at Athens. The modern name is Mount Mendeli. In this mountain an immense cave formed by the quarries still remains. |