4.

Oh! with what pride I used
To walk these hills, and look up to my God,
And bless him that it was so. It was free-
From end to end, from cliff to lake 'twas free-
Free as our torrents are, that leap our rocks,
And plow our valleys, without asking leave;
Or as our peaks, that wear their caps of snow,
In very presence of the regal sun!
How happy was I in it then! I loved
Its very storms! Yes, I have sat and eyed
The thunder breaking from his cloud, and smiled
To see him shake his lightnings o'er my head,
And think I had no master save his own!

5. Ye know the jutting cliff, round which a track
Up hither winds, whose base is but the brow
To such another one, with scanty room
For two abreast to pass? O'ertaken there
By the mountain blast, I've laid me flat along,
And while gust followed gust more furiously,
As if to sweep me o'er the horrid brink,

And I have thought of other lands, where storms

Are summer flaws to those of mine, and just

Have wished me there-the thought that mine was free,

Has checked that wish, and I have raised my head,
And cried in thralldom to that furious wind,

Blow on! this is the land of liberty!

LESSON C.

FUGITIVES FROM JUSTICE.

H. W. BEECHER,

1. WITH such solemn convictions, no law, impious, infidel to God and humanity, shall have respect or observance at our hands. We desire no collision with it. We shall not rashly dash upon it. We shall not attempt a rescue, nor interrupt the officers, if they do not interrupt us. We prefer to labor peaceably for its early repeal, meanwhile saving from its merciless jaws as many victims as we can. But in those provisions which respect aid to fugitives, may God do so to us, yea and more also, if we do not spurn it as we would any other mandate of Satan.

2. If, in God's providence, fugitives ask bread or shelter, raiment or conveyance, at our hands, my own children shall lack bread before they; my own flesh shall sting with cold ere they shall lack raiment. I will both shelter them, conceal them, or speed their flight; and while under ny shelter or under my convoy, they shall be to me as my own flesh and blood; and whatever defense I would put forth for my own children, that shall these poor, despised, and persecuted creatures have in my house or upon the road.

3. The man who shall betray a fellow creature to bondage, who shall obey this law to the peril of his soul, and to the loss of his manhood, were he prother, son, or father, shall never pollute my hand with the grasp of hideous friendship, or cast his swarthy shadow across my threshold! For such service to those whose helplessness and poverty make them peculiarly God's children, I shall cheerfully take the pains and penalties of this bill. Bonds and fines shall be honors; imprisonment and sufering will be passports to fame not long to linger.

LESSON CI.

THE GROVES GOD'S FIRST TEMPLES.

BRYANT.

Ere man learned

1. THE groves were God's first temples.
To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,
And spread the roof above them-ere he framed
The lofty vault, to gather, and roll back
The sound of anthems-in the darkling wood,
Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down,
And offered, to the Mightiest, solemn thanks,
And supplication. For his simple heart
Might not resist the sacred influences,

2.

3.

That, from the stilly twilight of the place,

And from the gray old trunks, that, high in heaven,
Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound
Of the invisible breath, that swayed, at once,
All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed
His spirit, with the thought of boundless power,
And inaccessible majesty.

Ah! why

Should we, in the world's riper years, neglect

God's ancient sanctuaries, and adore,

Only among the crowd, and under roofs,

That our frail hands have raised? Let me, at least,
Here, in the shadow of this aged wood,

Offer one hymn; thrice happy, if it find
Acceptance in his ear.

Father, thy hand

Hath reared these venerable columns; thou
Didst weave this verdant roof.

Thou didst look down

Upon the naked earth, and, forthwith rose

All these fair ranks of trees. They, in thy sun

4.

Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And shot toward heaven. The century-living crow
Whose birth was in their tops, grew old, and died,
Among their branches; till, at last, they stood,
As now they stand, massy, and tall, and dark—
Fit shrine for humble worshiper to hold

Communion with his Maker.

Here, are seen

No traces of man's pomp, or pride; no silks
Rustle, no jewels shine, nor envious eyes
Encounter; no fantastic carvings show

The boast of our vain race, to change the form
Of thy fair works. But thou art here; thou fill'st
The solitude. Thou art in the soft winds,
That run along the summits of these trees,
In music; thou art in the cooler breath,
That, from the inmost darkness of the place,
Comes scarcely felt; the barky trunks, the ground,
The fresh, moist ground, are all instinct with thee.

5. My heart is awed within me, when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on,
In silence round me; the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
Forever. Written on thy works, I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.

6.

Lo! all grow old, and die: but see again,
How, on the faltering footsteps of decay,
Youth presses-ever gay and beautiful youth—
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly, that their ancestors
Moulder beneath them.

Oh! there is not lost

One of earth's charms: upon her bosom yet,

After the flight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,
And yet shall lie. Life mocks the idle hate
Of his arch enemy, death; yea, seats himself
Upon the sepulchre, and blooms, and smiles,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe,
Makes his own nourishment. For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.

7. There have been holy men, who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought, and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seemed

8.

Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks

Around them; and there have been holy men,
Who deemed it were not well to pass life thus.
But let me often to these solitudes

Retire, and, in thy presence, reässure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,

The passions, at thy plainer footsteps shrink,
And tremble, and are still.

O God! when thou

Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill,
With all the waters of the firmament,

The swift, dark whirlwind, that uproots the woods,

And drowns the villages; when, at thy call,

Uprises the great deep, and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms
Its cities; who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by!
Oh! from the sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine; nor let us need the wrath