rifle was again loaded; when he stepped up to the enraged animal, and, placing the muzzle close to its head, every spark of life was extinguished by the discharge.

LESSON CLXXI.

Order of Nature.—POPE.

SEE, through this air, this ocean, and this earth,
All matter quick, and bursting into birth.
Above, how high progressive life may go !
Around, how wide! how deep extend below!
Vast chain of being, which from God began,
Natures ethereal, human, angel, man,
Beast, bird, fish, insect—what no eye can see,
No glass can reach-from infinite to thee,
From thee to nothing! On superior powers
Were we to press, inferior might on ours;
Or in the full creation leave a void,

Where, one step broken, the great scale's destroyed;
From nature's chain whatever link you strike,
Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike.

And if each system in gradation roll,
Alike essential to the amazing whole,
The least confusion but in one, not all
That system only, but the whole, must fall.
Let earth, unbalanced, from her orbit fly,
Planets and suns rush lawless through the sky;
Let ruling angels from their spheres be hurled,
Being on being wrecked, and world on world,
Heaven's whole foundations to their centre nod,
And nature tremble to the throne of God!
All this dread order break? For whom? For thee,
Vile worm !-O madness! pride! impiety!

What if the foot, ordained the dust to tread, Or hand to toil, aspire to be the head?

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YOUNG LADIES' CLASS BOOK.

What if the head, the eye, or ear, repined
To serve mere engines to the ruling mind?
Just as absurd for any part to claim
To be another in this general frame;
Just as absurd, to mourn the tasks or pains,
The great directing MIND of all ordains.

All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body nature is, and God the soul;
That changed through all, and yet in all the sam
Great in the earth as in the ethereal frame;
Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze,
Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees,
Lives through all life, extends through all extent,
Spreads undivided, operates unspent,
Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part,
As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart:

As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns,
As the rapt seraph that adores and burns:
To him, no high, no low, no great, no small;
He fills, he bounds, connects and equals all.

Cease, then, nor Order Imperfection name: Our proper bliss depends on what we blame. Know thy own point: this kind, this due degree Of blindness, weakness, Heaven bestows on thee. Submit!-in this, or any other sphere,

Secure to be as blessed as thou canst bear;
Safe in the hand of one disposing Power,

Or in the natal, or the mortal hour.

All nature is but art unknown to thee;

All chance, direction, which thou canst not see ; All discord, harmony not understood;

All partial evil, universal good:

And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite,

One truth is clear-" Whatever is, is right."

LESSON CLXXII.

A Sister pleading for the Life of a condemned Brother.

SHAKSPEARE.

Isabella. I AM a woful suitor to your honor; Please but your honor hear me.

Angelo. Well; what's your suit?

Isab. There is a vice that most I do abhor, And most desire should meet the blow of justice, For which I would not plead, but that I must Ang. Well; the matter?

Isab. I have a brother is condemned to die ; I do beseech you, let it be his fault,

And not my brother.

Ang. Condemn the fault, and not the actor of it? Why, every fault's condemned ere it be done;

Mine were the very cipher of a function,

To find the faults, whose fine stands in record,
And let go by the actor.

Isab. O just but severe law!

I had a brother, then ;-must he needs die?

Ang. Maiden, no remedy.

Isab. Yes; I do think that you might pardon him, And neither Heaven nor man grieve at the mercy. Ang. I will not do't.

Isab. But can you, if you would?

Ang. Look; what I will not, that I cannot do.

Isab. But might you do't, and do the world no wrong,

If so your heart were touched with that remorse,
As mine is to him?

Ang. He's sentenced; 'tis too late.

Isab. Too late? Why, no; I, that do speak a word, May call it back again: well believe this,

No ceremony that to the great belongs,

Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword,
The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe,
Becomes them with one half so good a grace,
As mercy does. If he had been as you,

And you as he, you would have slipt like him;
But he, like you, would not have been so stern.
Ang. Pray you, begone.

Isab. I would to Heaven I had your potency,
And you were Isabel; should it then be thus ?
No; I would tell what 'twere to be a judge,
And what a prisoner.

Ang. Your brother is a forfeit of the law,
And you but waste your words

Isab. Alas! alas!

Why, all the souls that are, were forfeit once:
And He, that might the 'vantage best have took,
Found out the remedy. How would you be,
If He, which is the top of judgment, should
But judge you as you are? Oh, think on that;
And mercy then will breathe within your lips,
Like man new made.

Ang. Be you content, fair maid;

It is the law, not I, condemns your brother.
Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him; he dies to-morrow.

Isab. To-morrow? oh! that's sudden. Spare him, spare him.

Good, good my lord, bethink you :

Who is it that hath died for this offence?

There's many hath committed it.

Ang. The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept; Those many had not dared to do that evil,

If the first man that did the edict infringe,
Had answered for his deed. Now, 'tis awake

Takes note of what is done; and, like a prophet,

Looks in a glass, that shows what future evils,

Or new, or by remissness new-conceived,

And so in progress to be hatched and born,
Are now to have no successive degrees;

But ere they live, to end.

Isab. Yet show some pity.

Ang. I show it most of all, when I show justice;

For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismissed offence would after gall;

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

Your brother dies to-morrow; be content.

Isab. So you must be the first that gives this sentence; And he, that suffers: oh! 'tis excellent

To have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous
To use it like a giant.- -Merciful Heaven!
Thou rather with thy sharp and sulph'rous bolt
Splittest the unwedgeable and gnarled oak,
Than the soft myrtle: Oh, but man, proud man,
Dressed in a little brief authority,

Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
Plays such fantastic tricks before high Heaven,
As make the angels weep.

We cannot weigh our brother with yourself:
Great men may jest with saints,-'tis wit in them;
But, in the less, foul profanation.

That in the captain's but a choleric word,
Which in the soldier is flat blasphemy.

Ang. Why do you put these sayings upon me?
Isab. Because authority, though it err like others,

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself,

That skins the vice o' the top: go to your bosom ;
Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know
That's like my brother's fault; if it confess
A natural guiltiness, such as is his

Let it not sound a thought upon your tongue
Against my brother's life.

Ang. She speaks, 'tis such sense,

That my sense bleeds with it.

Fare you well.

back.

Ang. I will bethink me; come again to-morrow

Isab. Hark, how I'll bribe you: good my lord, turn back.

Ang. How! bribe me?

Isab. Ay, with such gifts, that Heaven shall share with

you.

Not with fond shekels of the tested gold,

Or stones, whose rate is either rich or poor,

As fancy values them; but with true prayers,

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