door of which was an aged woman, meanly clad, and shaking with the palsy, she sat all alone,-her head resting on her bosom, and, as the pair approached, vainly tried to raise it up to look at them. "Good-morrow, old lady—and all happiness to you," cried Hope, gayly, and the old woman thought it was a long time since she had heard such a charming salutation. 11. "Happiness!" said she, in a voice that quivered with weakness and infirmity. "Happiness! I have had it not since I was a little girl, without care or sorrow. O, I remember those delightful days when I thought of nothing but the present moment,―nor cared for the future or the past! When I laughed, and played, and sung, from morning till night, and envied no one, or wished to be any other than I was. But those happy times are past, never to return. O, if I could only once more return to the days of my childhood!" 12. The old woman sunk back on her seat, and the tears flowed from her hollow eyes. Hope again reproached her companion, but he only asked her if she recollected the little girl they had met a long time ago, who was so miserable because she was so young. Memory knew it well enough, and said not another word. 13. They now approached their home; and Memory was on tiptoe, at the thoughts of once more enjoying the unequaled beauties of those scenes, from which she had been so long separated. But, some how or other, it seemed that they were sadly changed. Neither the grass was so green,-the flowers so sweet and lovely,-nor did the brooks murmur,-the echoes answer, or the birds sing half so enchantingly, as she remembered them in long time past. "Alas!" she exclaimed, "how changed is every thing!" 14. "Every thing is the same, and thou alone art changed," answered Hope. "Thou hast deceived thyself in the past, much as I deceive others in the future." 15. "What is it you are disputing about ?" asked an old man, whom they had not observed before, though he was standing close by them; I have lived almost four-score and ten years, and my experience may, perhaps, enable me to decide between you." They told him the occasion of their disagreement, and related the history of their journey around the earth. The old man smiled,--and for a few moments sat buried in thought. He then said to them: "I, too, have lived to see all the hopes of my youth turned into shadows, clouds, and darkness, and vanish into nothing. I, too, havė survived my fortune, my friends, my children, the hilarity of youth, and the blessings of health!" and burst into 16. "And dost thou not despair?" said Memory. “No, I still have one hope left me." And what is that?" "The hope of Heaven!" Memory turned toward Hope,--threw herself into his arms,—which opened to receive her, tears, exclaiming, "Forgive me,-I have done Let us never again separate from each other." heart," said Hope; and they continued, forever after, to travel together, hand in hand, through the world. LESSON LXXXVI. thee injustice. "With all my EXPLANATORY NOTES.-1. MURAL means pertaining to a wall. Among the ancient Romans, a mural crown, or golden crown, was bestowed on him who first mounted the wall of a besieged city, and there lodged a standard. 2: EPHEMERA literally denotes that species of insects which live only one day. It is also applied to insects which live but a short time, whether several days or an hour. Figuratively, it denotes åny thing short-lived. THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE. 1. "SAY, what is Hope?" I asked an ancient sage, With tott'ring gait, and head quite white with age ; 'Hope!" he replied, "'tis but a meteor ray, A breath, a dream, the phantom of a day." 2. I asked the mariner on ocean's wave, Where many thousands find an early grave;— 3. I asked the warrior on the tented plain, Now strewed with bodies of the conquered slain "My hope," he said, "consists in high renown, In wreaths of laurels, or in mural' crown." 4. I asked the airy sons of folly gay, The bright ephemera of fashion's ray ; Hope is the sun of life, his quick'ning power Gilds as they pass each tiresome, ling'ring hour." 5. I asked an aged worldling who had run His giddy race, his course was well nigh done;--- "What's hope! alas! there is no hope for me. 6. I asked an aged Christian, and his eye 7. "But when my earthly pilgrimage is o'er, 8. Unfading Hope! when life's last embers burn,—— The morning dream of life's eternal day.-CAMPBELL. LESSON LXXXVII. THE PURE IN HEART SHALL MEET AGAIN. WILLIAM Leggett 1. IF yon bright orbs which gem the night, Be each a blissful dwelling sphere, Where kindred spirits re-unite, Whom death hath torn asunder here,- And leave this dreary world afar,— 2. But O, how dark, how drear, how lone, That death's cold hand alone can sever! 3. It can not be; each hope, each fear, That lights the eye, or clouds the brow, Than this bleak world that holds us now. When heaviest weighs life's galling chain,- LESSON LXXXVIII. THE EXISTENCE OF A GOD. "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." say if 1. Go out beneath the arched heavens, at night, and you can, "There is no God!" Pronounce that dreadful blasphemy, and each star above you will reproach the unbroken darkness of your intellect; every voice that floats upon the night winds, will bewail your utter hopelessness and folly! 2. Is there no God? Who, then, unrolled the blue scroll, and threw upon its high frontispiece the legible gleamings of immortality? Who fashioned this green earth, with its perpetual rolling waters, and its wide expanse of islands and of main? Who settled the foundations of the mountains? Who paved the heavens with clouds, and attuned, amid the clamor of storms, the voice of thunders, and unchained the lightnings that flash in their gloom? 3. Who gave to the eagle a safe eyrie where the tempests dwell and beat the strongest; and to the dove a tranquil abode amid the forests that echo to the minstrelsy of her moan? Who made THEE, O man! with thy perfected elegance of intellect and form? Who made the light pleasant to thee, and the darkness a covering, and a herald to the first gorgeous flashes of the morning? 4. THERE IS A GOD. All nature declares it in a language too plain to be misapprehended. The great truth is too legibly written over the face of the whole creation to be easily mistaken." Thou canst behold it in the tender blade, just starting from the earth in early spring, or in the sturdy oak that has withstood the blasts of fourscore winters. The purling rivulet, meandering through downy meads and verdant glens, and Niagara's tremendous torrent, leaping over its awful chasm, and rolling in majesty its broad sheet of waters onward to the ocean, unite in proclaiming "THERE IS A GOD." 5. 'Tis heard in the whispering breeze and in the howling storm; in the deep-toned thunder, and in 'the earthquake's shock; 'tis declared to us when the tempest lowers,—when the hurricane sweeps over the land,-when the winds moan around our dwellings, and die in sullen murmurs on the plain, when the heavens, overcast with blackness, ever and anon are illuminated by the lightning's glare. 6. Nor is the truth less solemnly impressed on our minds, |