pproach nearer to him every moment, and will be th him in their full weight and measure, as much pains and pleasures which he feels at this very

reason, he is careful to secure to himself that he proper happiness of his nature, and the ultimate his being. He carries his thoughts to the end of on, and considers the most distant as well as the ediate effects of it. He supersedes every little f gain and advantage which offers itself here, if ot find it consistent with his views of an hereafter. his hopes are full of immortality, his schemes are glorious; and his conduct is suitable to one, who true interest, and how to pursue it by proper

LESSON LXXXI.

ntages of a well-cultivated Mind.-BIGLAND.

without reason that those, who have tasted the fforded by philosophy and literature, have lavished the greatest eulogiums. The benefits they proo many to enumerate, valuable beyond estimation, 3 as the scenes of human life. The man who has ge of the works of God, in the creation of the unihis providential government of the immense system erial and intellectual world, can never be without und of the most agreeable amusement. He can litary; for in the most lonely solitude he is not company and conversation: his own ideas are his 5, and he can always converse with his own

ch soever a person may be engaged in pleasures, ered with business, he will certainly have some spare for thought and reflection. No one, who ed how heavily the vacuities of time hang upon irnished with images and unaccustomed to think.

ll be at a loss to make a just estimate of the advantages of ssessing a copious stock of ideas, of which the combinations ay take a multiplicity of forms, and may be varied to inity.

Mental occupations are a pleasing relief from bodily exerons, and that perpetual hurry and wearisome attention, hich, in most of the employments of life, must be given to jects which are no otherwise interesting than as they are ecessary. The mind, in an hour of leisure, obtaining a ort vacation from the perplexing cares of the world, finds, its own contemplations, a source of amusement, of solace ad pleasure. The tiresome attention that must be given to infinite number of things, which, singly and separately ken, are of little moment, but collectively considered, form ■ important aggregate, requires to be sometimes relaxed by oughts and reflections of a more general and extensive ture, and directed to objects of which the examination. ay open a more spacious field of exercise to the mind, give ope to its exertions, expand its ideas, present new combina ons, and exhibit to the intellectual eye, images new, various, blime, or beautiful.

The time of action will not always continue. The young ght ever to have this consideration present to their mind, at they must grow old, unless prematurely cut off by sickess or accident. They ought to contemplate the certain proach of age and decrepitude, and consider that all mporal happiness is of uncertain acquisition, mixed with variety of alloy, and, in whatever degree attained, only a short and precarious duration. Every day brings some sappointment, some diminution of pleasure, or some frusation of hope; and every moment brings us nearer to that riod, when the present scenes shall recede from the view, ad future prospects cannot be formed.

This consideration displays, in a very interesting point of ew, the beneficial effects of furnishing the mind with a stock ideas that may amuse it in leisure, accompany it in solide, dispel the gloom of melancholy, lighten the pressure misfortune, dissipate the vexations arising from baffled ojects or disappointed hopes, and relieve the tedium of at season of life, when new acquisitions can no more be

d the world can no longer flatter and delude us with hopes and promises.

life begins, like a distant landscape, gradually to , the mind can receive no solace but from its own reflections. Philosophy and literature will then = with an inexhaustible source of the most agreeable ts, as religion will afford its substantial consolation. ent youth is the only sure foundation of a happy old axiom of the mathematics is more true, or more monstrated.

e, like death, comes unexpectedly on the unthinking epared, although its approach be visible, and its tain. Those who have, in the earlier part of life, to furnish their minds with ideas, to fortify them plation, and regulate them by reflection, seeing the youth and vigor irrecoverably past, its pleasing nihilated, and its brilliant prospects left far behind, he possibility of return, and feeling, at the same rresistible encroachments of age, with its disagreendages, are surprised and disconcerted by a change xpected, or for which, at least, they had made no ns. A person in this predicament, finding himself capable of taking, as formerly, a part in the busy life, of enjoying its active pleasures, and sharing its nterprises, becomes peevish and uneasy, troublesome and burdensome to himself. Destitute of the rephilosophy, and a stranger to the amusing pursuits re, he is unacquainted with any agreeable method up the vacuity left in his mind by his necessary m the active scenes of life.

is the consequence of squandering away the days and vigor without acquiring the habit of thinking. d of human life, short as it is, is of sufficient length cquisition of a considerable stock of useful and knowledge; and the circumstances of the world superabundance of subjects for contemplation and The various phenomena of the moral as well as orld, the investigation of sciences, and the informmunicated by literature, are calculated to attract

ention, exercise thought, excite reflection, and replenish mind with an infinite variety of ideas.

The man of letters, when compared with one that is illitte, exhibits nearly the same contrast as that which exists ween a blind man and one that can see; and if we coner how much literature enlarges the mind, and how ch it multiplies, adjusts, rectifies and arranges the as, it may well be reckoned equivalent to an additional It affords pleasures which wealth cannot procure, and ich poverty cannot entirely take away. A well cultivated ad places its possessor beyond the reach of those trifling ations and disquietudes, which continually harass and plex those who have no resources within themselves; and, some measure, elevates him above the smiles and frowns fortune.

se.

LESSON LXXXII.

The Vulture of the Alps.-ANONYMOUS

E been among the mighty Alps, and wandered through their vales,

d heard the honest mountaineers relate their dismal tales, round the cottage blazing hearth, when their daily work was o'er,

ey spake of those who disappeared, and ne'er were heard of more.

d there I from a shepherd heard a narrative of fear, tale to rend a mortal heart, which mothers might not hear: e tears were standing in his eyes, his voice was tremulous ; t, wiping all those tears away, he told his story thus :—

t is among these barren cliffs the ravenous vulture dwells, no never fattens on the prey which from afar he smells; t, patient, watching hour on hour upon a lofty rock, singles out some truant lamb, a victim, from the flock

oudless Sabbath summer morn, the sun was rising igh,

rom my children on the green, I heard a fearful cry, ne awful deed were done, a shriek of grief and pain, humbly trust in God, I ne'er may hear again.

ed out to learn the cause; but, overwhelmed with fright, dren never ceased to shriek, and from my frenzied ight

the youngest of my babes, the darling of my care; ething caught my searching eyes, slow sailing through he air.

hat an awful spectacle to meet a father's eye,— nt made a vulture's prey, with terror to descry; ow, with agonizing breast, and with a maniac rave, rthly power could not avail, that innocent to save!

fant stretched his little hands imploringly to me, uggled with the ravenous bird, all vainly, to get free; rvals, I heard his cries, as loud he shrieked and creamed!

pon the azure sky, a lessening spot he seemed.

ulture flapped his sail-like wings, though heavily he Hew;

upon the sun's broad face he seemed unto my view, e I thought I saw him stoop, as if he would alight,-nly a delusive thought, for all had vanished quite.

arch was vain, and years had passed; that child was ne'er forgot,

once a daring hunter climbed unto a lofty spot, hence, upon a rugged crag the chamois never reached, an infant's fleshless bones the elements had bleached!

bered up that rugged cliff,-I could not stay away,they were my infant's bones thus hastening to decay; ed garment yet remained, though torn to many a shred; mson cap he wore that morn was still upon the head.