And still there came that silver tone

From the shrivelled lips of the toothless crone, (Let me never forget till my dying day The tone or the burden of her lay,) "Passing away! passing away!”

LESSON CXLIV.

That Silent Moon. GEORGE W. DOANE.

THAT silent moon, that silent moon,
Careering now through cloudless sky,
O, who shall tell what varied scenes

Have passed beneath her placid eye,
Since first, to light this wayward earth,
She walked in tranquil beauty forth!

How oft has Guilt's unhallowed hand,
And Superstition's senseless rite,
And loud, licentious Revelry,

Profaned her pure and holy light!
Small sympathy is hers, I ween,
With sights like these that virgin queen!

But dear to her, in summer eve,

By rippling wave, or tufted grove,
When hand in hand is purely clasped,
And heart meets heart in holy love,
To smile in quiet loneliness,
And hear each whispered vow, and bless.

Dispersed along the world's wide way,

When friends are far, and fond ones rove,

How powerful she to wake the thought,
And start the tear for those we love,
Who watch with us at night's pale noon,
And gaze upon that silent moon!

How powerful, too, to hearts that mourn,
The magic of that moonlight sky,
To bring again the vanished scenes
The happy eves - of days gone by;
Again to bring, 'mid bursting tears,
The loved and lost of other years!

―

And oft she looks, that silent moon,
On lonely eyes that wake to weep
In dungeon dark, or sacred cell,

On couch, whence pain has banished sleep: O, softly beams her gentle eye On those who mourn, and those who die.

But beam on whomsoe'er she will,

And fall where'er her splendors may, There's pureness in her chastened light,

There's comfort in her tranquil ray: What power is hers to soothe the heart What power, the trembling tear to start!

The dewy morn let others love,

Or bask them in the noontide ray;
There's not an hour but has its charm,
From dawning light to dying day:
But O, be mine a fairer boon
That silent moon, that silent moon!

35*

LESSON CXLV.

The Midnight Mail. HANNAH F. GOULD.

"Tis midnight—all is peace profound!
But lo! upon the murmuring ground,
The lonely, swelling, hurrying sound
Of distant wheels is heard!

They come they pause a moment - when,
Their charge resigned, they start, and then
Are gone, and all is hushed again,
As not a leaf had stirred.

Hast thou a parent far away' ?
A beauteous child, to be thy stay
In life's decline? or sisters, they

Who shared thine infant glee?
A brother on a foreign shore?
Is he whose breast thy token bore,
Or are thy treasures, wandering o'er
A wide, tumultuous sea?

If aught like these, then thou must feel
The rattling of that reckless wheel,
That brings the bright, or boding seal,
On every trembling thread

That strings thy heart, till morn appears,
To crown thy hopes, or end thy fears,
To light thy smile, or draw thy tears,
As line on line is read.

Perhaps thy treasure 's in the deep,
Thy lover in a dreamless sleep,
Thy brother where thou canst not weep
Upon his distant grave!

Thy parent's hoary head no more
May shed a silver lustre o'er
His children grouped,

Thy son from out the wave!

-

nor death restore

Thy prattler's tongue perhaps is stilled;
Thy sister's lip is pale and chilled;
Thy blooming bride, perchance, has filled
Her corner of the tomb:

May be, the home where all thy sweet
And tender recollections meet,
Has shown its flaming winding-sheet
In midnight's awful gloom!

And while, alternate o'er my soul
Those cold or burning wheels will roll
Their chill or heat, beyond control,

Till morn shall bring relief,
Father in heaven, whate'er may be
The cup which thou hast sent for me,
I know 'tis good, prepared by thee,
Though filled with joy or grief!

LESSON CXLVI.

The Progress of Knowledge. S. G. GOODRICH

CONTEMPLATE for a moment the progress of science within the last forty years. Geology has almost entirely grown up within the present century. All former ages had dozed in ignorance and indifference over its mighty revelations. The bones of the mastodon and the ichthyosaurus had been occasionally discovered, and some dreaming philosophers

had wondered whence they came; but the knowledge of whole races of animals and vegetables, that lived, and flourished, and perished on this earth before the creation of man, and the existence of the present order of things, of long ages that rolled over the world before any being was here to record its history, — of great revolutions which rent the granite ribs of the earth, like shreds, and fires that dissolved mountains as in the crucible of a chemist; — all these facts, now indisputably established, are the discoveries — the revelations — of our own day.

In mineralogy, chemistry, natural history, and natural philosophy, there has been an almost entire revolution. Old theories have become exploded, old errors abandoned, and philosophy founded on facts has become established. And two things are here specially to be remarked. Philosophy, before a sealed book to all but the learned, is now as familiar as household goods. Philosophy is no longer hidden within a sanctuary, to which a privileged class only are admitted; but the doors are thrown wide to the world, and whosoever will, may enter in and partake of its privileges. Science is not only familiar, but it is rendered practical and useful by application to the arts of life. Chemistry is no longer the mystery of the alchemist, nor the black art of the juggler. It is no longer the perquisite of the scholar nor the plaything of universities. It is in our schools and academies, it is in our workshops, — in the hands of mechanics and farmers, practical men, who are every day turning it to practical account.

Mankind had before enslaved the horse and the ox, and taught them to toil in his service; they had before taught the rivers to turn the wheel of the mill, the waters to bear the ships, and the winds to speed them on their way; but it is within the present century that Philosophy has been chained to the car of human art, and been made to work for the comfort and pleasure of man. Philosophy, forty years ago a proud, privileged thing, the tool and instrument of the