Even looking forward to a single day, the spirit may sometimes faint from an anticipation of the duties, the labours, 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 errour 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, honour, and immortality." Day by day, minute by minute, they execute the apppointed 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 labours, 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." 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 Exists, one only; an assured belief That the procession of our fate, howe'er Of infinite benevolence and power, The darts of anguish fix not, where the seat Soul of our souls, and Safeguard of the world, 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 Come Labour when the worn-out frame requires And let thy favour to the end of life Repose and hope among eternal things,- And what are things eternal?-Powers depart, 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 Therein, with our simplicity a while Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed- LESSON CXLIII. Greece, in 1809.-BYRON. FAIR Greece! sad relick of departed worth! Leap from Eurotas' banks and call thee from the tomb? Thou satt'st with Thrasybulus and his train, Could'st thou forebode the dismal hour that now Dims the green beauty of thine Attick 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, In all, save form alone, how changed! and who 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 flame. Shades of the Helots! triumph 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 splendour 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 favourite now. Thy fanes, thy temples, to thy surface bow, Commingling slowly with heroick earth; Broke with the share of every rustick plough :So perish monuments of mortal birth: So perish all in turn, save well-recorded worth: Save where some solitary column mourns Above its prostrate brethren of the cave*; Lingering, like me, perchance, to gaze and sigh "Alas!” Yet are thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild, And still his honied wealth Hymettus yields. Long, to the remnants of thy splendour past, Shall pilgrims, pensive, but unwearied, throng ; As Pallas and the Muse unveil their awful lore. * Of Mount Pentelicus, from which the marble was dug that constructed the publick edifices at Athens. The modern name is Mount Mendeli. In this mountain an immense cave, formed by the quarries, still remains. |