and necessary. There is some glimmering of hope, that the man who apologizes is willing to amend. God preserve us from that ob duracy of wickedness, which disdains to palliate a crime; from that hardihood of unbelief, which will not give even a weak reason, and which derides the offer of an excuse. But the season of apologies is passing away. All our eloquent defences of ourselves must soon Death stiffens the smooth tongue of flattery, and blots out, with one stroke, all the ingenious excuses, which we have spent our lives in framing. cease. At the marriage-supper, the places of those who refused. to come, were soon filled by a multitude of delighted guests. The God of Heaven needs not our presence to adorn his table, for whether we accept, or whether we reject his gracious invitation, whether those who were bidden taste or not of his supper, his house shall be filled. Though many are called and few chosen, yet Christ has not died in vain, religion is not without its witnesses, or heaven without its inhabitants. Let us then remember, that one thing is needful, and that there is a better part than all the pleasures and selfish pursuits of this world, a part which we are encouraged to secure, and which can never be taken away. LESSON LVI. Apostrophe to Mount Parnassus.*-BYRON. O THOU Parnassus! whom I now survey, But soaring, snow-clad, through thy native sky, What marvel that I thus essay to sing? The humblest of thy pilgrims, passing by, Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string, Though from thy heights no more one Muse shall wave her wing. Oft have I dreamed of thee! whose glorious name Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore; Written in Castri, the ancient Delphi; at the foot of Parnassus, now called Liakura. And now I view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar, Happier in this than mightiest bards have been, LESSON LVII. Mont Blanc :-The hour before Sunrise.-COLERIDGE. Rave ceaselessly, while thou, dread mountain form, How silently! Around thee and above Deep is the sky and black: transpicuous deep, It seems thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine, Thy habitation from eternity. Oh dread and silent form! I gazed on thee Till thou, still present to my bodily eye, Didst vanish from my thought.-Entranc'd in prayer, I worshipped the Invisible alone, Yet thou, methinks, wast working on my soul, E'en like some deep enchanting melody, So sweet we know not we are listening to it. But I awake, and with a busier mind And active will, self-conscious, offer now, Not as before, involuntary prayer And passive adoration. Hand and voice Awake, awake! and thou, my heart, awake! Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, And who commanded and the silence came, Who made you glorious as the gates of heaven The silent snow-mass, loosening, thunders, God! Utter forth God! and fill the hills with praise ! And to thy summit upward from thy base LESSON LVIII. Maternal affection.-SCRAP BOOK. WOMAN'S charms are certainly many and powerful. The expanding rose just bursting into beauty has an irresistible bewitchingness;-the blooming bride led triumphantly to the hymenēal altar awakens admiration and interest, and the blush of her cheek fills with delight;—but the charm of maternity is more sublime than all these. Heaven has imprinted in the mother's face something beyond this world, something which claims kindred with the skies, the angelic smile, the tender look, the waking, watchful eye, which keeps its fond vigil over her slumbering babe. These are objects which neither the pencil nor the chisel can touch, which poetry fails to exalt, which the most eloquent tongue in vain would eulogize, and on which all description becomes ineffective. In the heart of man lies this lovely picture; it lives in his sympathies; it reigns in his affections; his eye looks round in vain for such another object on earth. Maternity, extatic sound! so twined round our hearts, that they must cease to throb ere we forget it! 'tis our first love; 'tis part of our religion. Nature has set the mother upon such a pinnacle, that our infant eyes and arms are, first, uplifted to it; we cling to it in manhood; we almost worship it in old age. He who can enter an apartment, and behold the tender babe feeding on its mother's beautynourished by the tide of life which flows through her generous veins, without a panting bosom and a grateful eye, is no man, but a monster. He who can approach the cradle of sleeping innocence without thinking that "Of such is the kingdom of heaven!" or see the fond parent hang over its beauties, and half retain her breath lest she should break its slumbers, without a veneration beyond all common feeling, is to be avoided in every intercourse of life, and is fit only for the shadow of darkness and the solitude of the desert. LESSON LIX. The last days of Herculaneum.-SCRAP BOOK. A GREAT city-situated amidst all that nature could create of beauty and of profusion, or art collect of science and magnificence—the growth of many ages-the residence of enlightened multitudes-the scene of splendor, and festivity, and happiness-in one moment withered as by a spell -its palaces, its streets, its temples, its gardens, glowing with eternal spring,' and its inhabitants in the full enjoyment of all life's blessings, obliterated from their very place in creation, not by war or famine, or disease, or any of the natural causes of destruction to which earth had been accustomed-but in a single night, as if by magic, and amid the conflagration, as it were, of nature itself, presented a subject on which the wildest imagination might grow weary without even equalling the grand and terrible reality. The eruption of Vesuvius, by which Herculaneum and Pompeii were overwhelmed, has been chiefly described to us in the letters of Pliny the younger to Tacitus, giving an account of his uncle's fate, and the situation of the writer and his mother. The elder Pliny had just returned from the bath, and was retired to his study, when a small speck or cloud, which seemed to ascend from Mount Vesuvius, attracted his attention. This cloud gradually increased, and at length assumed the shape of a pine tree, the trunk of earth and vapor, and the leaves, "red cinders." Pliny ordered his galley, and, urged by his philosophic spirit, went forward to inspect the phenomenon. In a short time, however, philosophy gave way to humanity, and he zealously and adventurously employed his galley in saving the inhabitants of the various beautiful villas which studded that enchanting coast. Amongst others, he went to the assistance of his friend Pomponianus, who was then at Stabiæ. The storm of fire, and the tempest of the earth, increased; and the |