3. Can we, whose souls are lighted The joyful sound proclaim, 4. Waft, waft, ye winds, his story; It spreads from pole to pole; In bliss returns to reign.-Heber. This hymn, like all other solemn pieces of poetry, requires long quantity, and rather a low key. The voice should, however, be somewhat elevated on the words in italic, and yet not enough to be disagreeable to the ear. SOLILOQUY ON THE PRINCESS THEKLA. 1. It is his spirit calls me! "Tis the host No! No! That laurel garland which they laid 2. Thou stoodest at the threshold of the scene And Fate put forth its hand: inexorable, cold, This beautiful Soliloquy is from the tragedy of Wallenstine, written by the celebrated German Poet, Frederic Schiller. He died in the year 1805 in the 45th year of his age. The Princess Thekla had been married, it seems, but two hours before her husband was killed. The Soliloquy requires to be given on a low key and with quantity. LINES FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY. 1. Hail our country's natal morn! 2. While this day in festal throng, 3. Who would sever freedom's shrine? 4. Dear to me the South's fair land, 5. By our altars, pure and free, By our WASHINGTON ; 6. By our common parent tongue, We will still be one. 7. Fathers! have ye bled in vain? Blessings sent by thee? 8. No! receive our solemn vow, UNION, LIBERTY.-Anonymous. These truly patriotic lines are admirably suited to each returning anniversary of our national independence. ON THE DEATH OF MRS. WOLFE. 1. If I had thought thou could'st have died, 2. It never through my mind had pass'd, 3. And still upon that face I look, And still the thought I will not brook, 4. But when I speak, thou dost not say, And now I feel as well I may, 5. If thou would'st stay e'en as thou art, I still might press thy silent heart, 6. While e'en thy chill, bleak corse I have, But there, I lay thee in thy grave,- 7. I do not think where'er thou art And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart 8. Yet, there was round thee such a dawn HOW SCHOLARS ARE MADE. 1. Costly apparatus and splendid cabinets have no magical power to make scholars. In all circumstances, as a man is, under God, the master of his own fortune, so is he the maker of his own mind. The Creator has so constituted the human intellect, that it can grow only by its own action, and by its own action it most certainly and necessarily grows. 2. Every man must, therefore, in an important sense, educate himself. His books and teachers are but helps ; the work is his. Aman is not educated until he has the ability to summon, in case of emergency, all his mental powers in vigorous exercise to effect his proposed object. 3. It is not the man who has seen most, or who has read most, who can do this; such an one is in danger of being borne down, like a beast of burden, by an overloaded mass of other men's thoughts. Nor is it the man that can boast merely of native vigor and capacity. 4. The greatest of all the warriors that went to the siege of Troy, had not the pre-eminence because nature had given him strength, and he carried the largest bow, but because self-discipline had taught him how to bend it.-D. Webster. BOOKS. 1. It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse with superior minds, and these invaluable means of communication are in reach of all. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours. 2. God be thanked for books. They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. Books are the true levellers. They give to all who will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and greatest of our race. 3. No matter how poor I am, no matter though the prosperous of my own time will not enter my obscure dwelling, if the sacred writers will enter and take up their abode under my roof, if Milton will cross my threshold to sing to me of Paradise, and Shakspeare to open to me the worlds of imagination and the working of the human heart, and Franklin to enrich me with his practical wisdom, I shall not pine for want of intellectual companionship; and I may become a cultivated man, though excluded from what is called the best society in the place where I live.-Dr. Channing. These beautiful and excellent remarks on books, were made by Dr. Channing in the course of his address, introductory to the "Franklin Lectures," delivered at Boston, in 1838, on "Self-Culture." |