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numbers of women whom it produced, conspicuous for their virtues and their talents?

10. Look at this, in which you live, does it not derive a very considerable share of its reputation from the female pens that eminently adorn it? Look into the history of the world at large; do you not find, that the female sex have, in a variety of ways, contributed largely to many of its most important events?

11. Look into the great machine of society, as it moves before you do you not perceive that they are still among its principal springs? Do not their characters and manners deeply affect the passions of men, the interests of education, and those domestick scenes where so much of life is past, and with which its happiness or misery is so intimately blended?

12. Consult your own experience, and confess whether you are not touched by almost every thing they do or say, or look; confess whether their very foibles and follies do not often interest, and sometimes please you?

13. There cannot, I am persuaded, be many worse symptoms of degeneracy, in an enlightened age, than a growing indifference about the regards of reputable women, and a fashionable propensity to lessen the sex in general.

14. Where this is the case, the decencies of life, the softness of love, the sweets of friendship, the nameless tender charities that pervade and unite the most virtuous form of cultivated society, are not likely to be held in high estimation; and when these fall into contempt, what is there left to polish, humanize, or delight mankind?-FORDYCE.

LESSON XXXVII.

The Wonders of Nature.

1. How mighty! how majestick! and how mysterious are nature's works! When the air is calm, where sleep the stormy winds? In what chambers are they reposed, or in what dungeons confined? But when He, "who holds them in his fist," is pleased to awaken their rage, and throw open their prison doors, then, with irresistible impetuosity, they rush forth, scattering dread, and menacing destruction.

2. The atmosphere is hurled into the most tumultuous confusion. The aerial torrent bursts its way over mountains, seas, and continent. All things feel the dreadful shock. All things

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tremble before the furious blast. The forest, vexed and torn, groans under the scourge.

3. Her sturdy sons are strained to the very root, and almost sweep the soil they were wont to shade. The stubborn oak, that disdains to bend, is dashed headlong to the ground; and, with shattered arms, with prostrate trunk, blocks up the road. While the flexile reed, that springs up in the marsh, yielding to the gust, (as the meek and pliant temper to injuries, or the resigned and patient spirit to misfortunes,) eludes the force of the storm, and survives amid the wide-spread havock.

4. For a moment, the turbulent and outrageous sky seems to be assuaged; but it intermits its warmth, only to increase its strength. Soon the sounding squadrons of the air return to the attack, and renew their ravages with redoubled fury. The stately dome rocks amid the wheeling clouds. The impreg nable tower totters on its basis, and threatens to overwhelm whom it was intended to protect.

5. The ragged rocks are rent in pieces; and even the hills, the perpetual hills, on their deep foundations are scarcely secure. Where now is the place of safety, when the city reels, and houses become heaps? Sleep affrighted flies. Diversion is turned into horrour. All is uproar in the elements; all is consternation among mortals; and nothing but one wide scene of rueful devastation through the land.

6. The ocean swells with tremendous commotions. The ponderous waves are heaved from their capacious bed, and almost lay bare the unfathomable deep. Flung into the most rapid agitation, they sweep over the rocks; they lash the lofty cliffs, and toss themselves into the clouds.

7. Navies are rent from their anchors; and, with all their enormous load, are whirled swift as the arrow, wild as the winds, along the vast abyss. Now they climb the rolling mountain; they plough the frightful ridge, and seem to skim the skies. Anon they plunge into the opening gulf; they lose the sight of day, and are lost themselves to every eye.

8. How vain is the pilot's art; how impotent the mariner's strength! "They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man. ." Despair is in every face, and death sits threatening on every surge. But when Omnipotence pleases to command, the storm is hushed to silence; the lightnings lay aside their fiery bolts, and the billows cease to roll.-HERVEY.

LESSON XXXVIII.

Female Accomplishments.

1. A YOUNG lady may excel in speaking French and Italian; may repeat a few passages from a volume of extracts; play like a professor, and sing like a siren; have her dressing room decorated with her own drawing, tables, stands, flower-pots, screens, and cabinets; nay, she may dance like Sempronia herself, and yet we shall insist that she may have been very badly educated.

2. I am far from meaning to set no value whatever on any or all of these qualifications; they are all of them elegant, and many of them properly tend to the perfecting of a polite education. These things, in their measure and degree, may be done; but there are others which should not be left undone. Many things are becoming, but "one thing is needful." Besides, as the world seems to be fully apprized of the value of whatever tends to embellish life, there is less occasion here to insist on its importance.

3. But, though a well bred young lady may lawfully learn most of the fashionable arts; yet, let me ask, does it seem to be the true end of education to make women of fashion dancers, singers, players, painters, actresses, sculptors, gilders, varnishers, engravers, and embroiderers? Most men are commonly destined to some profession, and their minds are consequently turned each to its respective object.

4. Would it not be strange if they were called out to exercise their profession, or to set up their trade, with only a little general knowledge of the trades and professions of all other men, and without any previous definite application to their own peculiar calling? The profession of ladies, to which the bent of their instruction should be turned, is that of daughters, wives, mothers, and mistresses of families.

5. They should be therefore trained with a view to these several conditions, and be furnished with a stock of ideas, and principles, and qualifications, and habits, ready to be applied and appropriated, as occasion may demand, to each of these respective situations. For though the arts, which merely embellish life, must claim admiration; yet, when a man of sense comes to marry, it is a companion whom he wants, and not an

artist.

6. It is not merely a creature who can paint, and play, and

sing, and draw, and dress, and dance; it is a being who can comfort and counsel him; one who can reason, and reflect, and feel, and judge, and discourse, and discriminate; one who can assist him in his affairs, lighten his cares, sooth his sorrows, purify his joys, strengthen his principles, and educate his children.-HANNAH MORE.

LESSON XXXIX.

The Beggar's Petition.

1. PITY the sorrows of a poor

old man,

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span:
Oh! give relief, and Heaven will bless your store,

2. These tattered clothes my poverty bespeak;
These hoary locks proclaim my lengthened years;
And many a furrow, in my grief-worn cheek,
Has been the channel to a flood of tears.

3. Yon house, erected on the rising-ground,
With tempting aspect, drew me from my road;
For Plenty, there, a residence has found,
And Grandeur a magnificent abode.

4. Hard is the fate of the infirm and poor:
Here, as I craved a morsel of their bread,
A pampered menial drove me from the door,
To seek a shelter in an humbler shed.

5. Oh! take me to your hospitable dome;

Keen blows the wind, and piercing is the cold;
Short is my passage to the friendly tomb,
For I am poor, and miserably old.

6. Should I reveal the sources of my grief,

If soft humanity e'er touched your breast,
Your hands would not withhold the kind relief,
And tears of pity would not be repressed.

7. Heaven sends misfortunes: why should we repine?
'Tis Heaven has brought me to the state you see:

And your condition may be soon like mine,
The child of sorrow and of misery.

8. A little farm was my paternal lot:

Then, like the lark, I sprightly hailed the morn:
But, ah! oppression forced me from my cot;
My cattle died, and blighted was my corn.

9. My daughter,-once the comfort of my age,-
Lured, by a villain, from her native home,
Is cast, abandoned, on the world's wide stage,
And doomed, in scanty poverty, to roam.

10. My tender wife,-sweet soother of my care!
Struck with sad anguish at the stern decree,
Fell, lingering fell, a victim to despair,

And left the world to wretchedness and me.

11. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man,

Whose trembling limbs have borne him to your door,
Whose days are dwindled to the shortest span :
Oh! give relief, and Heaven will bless your store.
ÁNONYMOUS

LESSON XL.

The Dignity of Human Nature.

Extract of an Oration delivered at Rhode Island College, 1796.

1. GUIDED by reason, man has travelled through the abstruse regions of the philosophick world. He has originated rules by which he can direct the ship through the pathless ocean, and measure the comet's flight over the fields of unlimited space. He has established society and government. He can aggregate the profusions of every climate, and every season. He can meliorate the severity, and remedy the imperfections of 'nature herself. All these things he can perform by the assistance of reason.

2. By imagination, man seems to verge towards creative power. Aided by this, he can perform all the wonders of sculpture and painting. He can almost make the marble speak. Je can almost make the brook murmur down the painted land

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