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courtesies, nor in an amphitheatre, with jousts and tournaments, to make trial of our skill in arms, preparatory to a fatal conflict We have come here, enlightened and fraternal states, without pageantry, or even insignia of 5 power, to renew pledges of fidelity, and to cultivate affec tion and all the arts of peace. Well may our sister states look upon the scene with favor, and the nations of the earth draw from it good auguries of universal and perpetual peace.

LESSON CCXXI.-THE BIBLE.-GRIMKÉ.

The Bible is the only book, which God has ever sent, the only one he ever will send, into this world. All other books are frail and transient as time, since they are only the registers of time; but the Bible is durable as eternity, 5 for its pages contain the records of eternity. All other books are weak and imperfect, like their author, man; but the Bible is a transcript of infinite power and perfection. Every other volume is limited in its usefulness and influence; but the Bible came forth conquering and to con10 quer: rejoicing as a giant to run his course, and like the sun, "there is nothing hid from the heat thereof." The Bible only, of all the myriads of books the world has seen, is equally important and interesting to all mankind. Its tidings, whether of peace or of woe, are the same to the 15 poor, the ignorant, and the weak, as to the rich, the wise, and the powerful.

Among the most remarkable of its attributes, is justice; for it looks with impartial eyes on kings and on slaves, on the hero and the soldier, on philosophers and peasants, on 20 the eloquent and the dumb. From all, it exacts the same obedience to its commandments, and promises to the good, the fruits of his labors; to the evil, the reward of his hands. Nor are the purity and holiness, the wisdom, benevolence and truth of the Scriptures, less conspicuous, 25 than their justice. In sublimity and beauty, in the descriptive and pathetic, in dignity and simplicity of narrative, in power and comprehensiveness, depth and variety of thought, in purity and elevation of sentiment, the most enthusiastic admirers of the heathen classics have con30 ceded their inferiority to the Scriptures.

The Bible, indeed, is the only universal classic, the classic of all mankind, of every age and country, of time

and eternity, more humble and simple than the primer of a child, more grand and magnificent than the epic and the oration, the ode and the drama, when genius with his chariot of fire, and his horses of fire, ascends in whirlwind 5 into the heaven of his own invention. It is the best classic the world has ever seen, the noblest that has ever honored and dignified the language of mortals!

If you boast that the Aristotles, and the Platos, and the Tullies, of the classic age, "dipped their pens in intellect," 10 the sacred authors dipped theirs in inspiration. If those were the "secretaries of nature," these were the secretaries of the very Author of nature. If Greece and Rome have gathered into their cabinet of curiosities, the pearls of heathen poetry and eloquence, the diamonds of Pagan 15 history and Philosophy, God himself has treasured up in the Scriptures, the poetry and eloquence, the philosophy and history of sacred lawgivers, of prophets and apostles, of saints, evangelists, and martyrs. In vain may you seek for the pure and simple light of universal truth in the 20 Augustan ages of antiquity. In the Bible only is the poet's wish fulfilled,

"And like the sun be all one boundless eye."

LESSON CCXXII.-FATE OF MONTEZUMA.-WM. H. PRESCOTT.

When Montezuma ascended the throne, he was scarcely twenty-three years of age. Young, and ambitious of extending his empire, he was continually engaged in war, and is said to have been present himself in nine pitched 5 battles. He was greatly renowned for his martial prowess, for he belonged to the highest military order* of his nation, and one into which but few even of its sovereigns had been admitted.

In later life, he preferred intrigue to violence, as more 10 consonant to his character and priestly education. In this he was as great an adept as any prince of his time, and by arts not very honorable to himself, succeeded in filching away much of the territory of his royal kinsman of Tezcuco. Severe in the administration of justice, he made 15 important reforms in the arrangement of the tribunals. He introduced other innovations in the royal household,

* Quachictin.

creating new offices, introducing a lavish magnificence, and forms of courtly etiquette, unknown to his ruder predecessors. He was, in short, most attentive to all that concerned the exterior and pomp of royalty. Stately and 5 decorous, he was careful of his own dignity, and might be said to be as great an "actor of majesty" among the barbarian potentates of the New World, as Louis the Fourteenth was among the polished princes of Europe.

He was deeply tinctured, moreover, with that spirit of 10 bigotry, which threw such a shade over the latter days of the French monarch. He received the Spaniards as the beings predicted by his oracles. The anxious dread, with which he had evaded their proffered visit, was founded on the same feelings which led him so blindly to resign him15 self to them on their approach. He felt himself rebuked by their superior genius. He, at once, conceded all that they demanded, his treasures, his power, even his person. For their sake, he forsook his wonted occupations, his pleasures, his most familiar habits. He might be said 20 to forego his nature; and, as his subjects asserted, to change his sex and become a woman. If we cannot refuse our contempt for the pusillaninity of the Aztec monarch, it should be mitigated by the consideration, that his pusillanimity sprung from his superstition, and that 25 superstition in the savage is the substitute for religious principle in the civilized man.

It is not easy to contemplate the fate of Montezuma without feelings of the strongest compassion ;-to see him thus borne along the tide of events beyond his power to 30 avert or control; to see him, like some stately tree, the pride of his own Indian forests, towering aloft in the pomp and majesty of its branches, by its very eminence, a mark for the thunderbolt, the first victim of the tempest which was to sweep over its native hills! When the wise king 35 of Tezcuco addressed his royal relative at his coronation, he exclaimed, "Happy the empire, which is now in the meridian of its prosperity, for the sceptre is given to one whom the Almighty has in his keeping; and the nations shall hold him in reverence!"

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Alas! the subject of this auspicious invocation lived to see his empire melt away like the winter's wreath; to see a strange race drop, as it were, from the clouds on his land; to find himself a prisoner in the palace of his fathers, the companion of those who were the enemies of

his gods and his people; to be insulted, reviled, trodden in the dust, by the meanest of his subjects, by those who, a few months previous, had trembled at his glance; drawing his last breath in the halls of the stranger;-a lonely 5 outcast in the heart of his own capital! He was the sad victim of destiny,-a destiny, as dark and irresistible in its march, as that which broods over the mythic legends of antiquity!

LESSON CCXXIII.-SCENERY ABOUT HASSEN CLEAVER HILLS.JOHN A. CLARK.

The

It is one of the most beautiful days of summer. sun is proudly marching through the heavens, in full-orbed splendor. The tide of brightness, and the flood of fervid, glowing beams which he pours over the earth, makes an 5 impression upon all animated nature, which one scarcely knows how to describe, though he feels it in every limb and muscle, and sees it in every form of organized being, from the smallest spire of grass, to the tallest tree of the forest, from the buzzing insect that sings at his ear, to 10 the vast herd that seek the shady shelter of the grove, or stand panting midway in the brook. I, too, feel this power, in the genial glow imparted to my system. The cool shelter of this beautiful tree under which I sit, and the sweet and varied landscape before me, make me almost 15 feel that I am encompassed with the Elysian fields.

The village is a mile distant, and some two hundred feet below this spot. The elevated knoll on which I sit, slopes down by a gentle declivity to the road, where the traveller passes on to the village. Beyond, on the opposite 20 side of the road, the land again swells into a broad hill, which the hand of cultivation has so neatly dressed, that not a stump or stone is visible. One extended carpet of green meets the eye, presenting a surface smooth and beautiful, as the newly shorn lawn.

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Beyond this hill, the earth again slopes off, and falls into a valley, through which runs a little stream, ministering fertility to the soil, and refreshment to the cattle that graze the fields on either side of it. Still more remote, the land, by beautiful undulations, again rises, and is again 30 depressed, till at length it sweeps off, by a more precipitous descent, to the bed of the West Canada creek, which, some fifteen miles above, is poured in wild beauty over Trenton Falls.

On the opposite side of the creek, the land again rises with precipitous elevation, lifting itself upward in bold and still bolder forms, till, in the distance, it meets the eye in the broad outline of the Hassen Cleaver Hills, that, like 5 some grand mountain ridge, tower upward till they seem to prop the very heavens. This range sweeps along to the south and east, till it seems in the distance blended with another range, still more remote, that rises beyond the Mohawk, which together form a semicircle in a broad and 10 bold amphitheatre of hills. Over this range of hills, up to their highest peaks, as well as through the whole extent of the intervening country, are seen cultivated fields, interspersed with woodlands, and sprinkled all along, as far as the eye can extend to the north and the south, corn15 fields, and orchards, and barns, and farm-houses, and herds of cattle.

The sun is pouring his golden splendor over this rich landscape. Now and then a passing cloud quenches the bright lustre of his beams; and light and shade alternately 20 rest upon the smooth, green surface of the hills. Just in my rear, far to the left, starts up, like another Tower of Babel, a smooth, verdant knoll, that, by its vast elevation and singular formation, seems to constitute in the pathway of heaven, to the eye that traces its outline, the quadrant of 25 an ellipse, at one of whose bases stands a beautiful cluster of young butternuts, gracefully grouped together, and extending at least over an acre of ground,-at which point it is said, that, in a remarkably clear sky, the waters of the broad and distant Ontario may be seen.

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Over this landscape universal quiet reigns. No sounds come upon the ear, save now and then the cheerful chirp of a bird, the hum of the passing bee,-the lowing of a cow, or the sighing of the summer breeze, that gently creeps through the rich foliage which spreads its grateful 35 covering over my head.

God created these forms of beauty around me, and gave to this scene all its loveliness! If what His hand has formed be so lovely, how lovely must He be, from whom has emanated all these traces of varied and exquisite 40 beauty! I have a book which courts my attention; it is from the pen of John Bunyan, entitled, "Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ." In the face of Jesus Christ, where is displayed "the knowledge of the glory of God," I see stronger lines of beauty, than in all this witching scenery that 45 stretches around me.

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