to hold. His mind will be always on the stretch. He will be obliged to listen with anxious attention to every whisper of the popular voice. The demands of those masters, whom he has submitted to serve, will prove frequently contradictory and inconsistent. He has prepared a yoke for his neck, which he must resolve to bear, how much soever it may gall him.

The toils of virtue are honorable. The mind is supported under them by the consciousness of acting a right and becoming part. But the labors to which he is doomed, who is enslaved to the desire of praise, are aggravated by reflection both on the uncertainty of the recompense which he pursues, and on the debasement to which he submits. Conscience will, from time to time, remind him of the improper sacrifices which he has made, and of the forfeiture which he has incurred, of the praise of God for the sake of praise from men. Suppose him to receive all the rewards which the mistaken opinion of the world can bestow, its loudest applause will often be unable to drown the upbraidings of an inward voice; and if a man is reduced to be ashamed of himself, what avails it him to be caressed by others?

But, in truth, the reward towards which he looks, who proposes human praise as his ultimate object, will be always flying, like a shadow, before him. So capricious and uncertain, so fickle and mutable, is the favor of the multitude, that it proves the most unsatisfactory of all pursuits in which men can be engaged. He, who sets his heart on it, is preparing for himself perpetual mortifications. If the greatest and best can seldom retain it long, we may easily believe, that from the vain and undeserving it will suddenly escape.

There is no character but what, on some side, is vulnerable by censure. He who lifts himself up to the observation and notice of the world, is, of all men, the least likely to avoid it; for he draws upon himself a thousand eyes, that will narrowly inspect him in every part. Every opportunity will be watched of bringing him down to the common level. His errors will be more divulged, and his infirmities more magnified, than those of others. In proportion to his eagerness for praise, will be his sensibility to reproach. Nor is it reproach alone that will wound him. He will be as much

dejected by silence and neglect. He puts himself under the power of every one to humble him, by withholding expected praise. Even when praise is bestowed, he is mortified by its being either faint or trite. He pines when his reputation stagnates. The degree of applause, to which he has been accustomed, grows insipid; and to be always praised from the same topics, becomes, at last, much the same with not being praised at all.

All these chagrins and disquietudes are happily avoided by him, who keeps so troublesome a passion within its due bounds; who is more desirous of being truly worthy, than of being thought so; who pursues the praise of the world with manly temperance, and in subordination to the praise of God. He is neither made giddy by the intoxicating vapor of applause, nor humbled and cast down by the unmerited attacks of censure. Resting on a higher approbation, he enjoys himself, in peace, whether human praise stays with him, or flies away.

LESSON XLV.

God's First Temples. A Hymn.—Bryant.

THE groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned 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,
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
Budded, and shook their green leaves in thy breeze,
And shot towards 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 worshipper 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.
Here is continual worship; nature, here,

In the tranquillity that thou dost love,
Enjoys thy presence. Noiselessly, around,
From perch to perch, the solitary bird

Passes; and yon clear spring, that, midst its herbs,
Wells softly forth, and visits the strong roots
Of half the mighty forest, tells no tale
Of all the good it does. Thou hast not left
Thyself without a witness, in these shades,

Of thy perfections. Grandeur, strength and grace,
Are here to speak of thee. This mighty oak-
By whose immovable stem I stand, and seem
Almost annihilated—not a prince,

In all the proud old world beyond the deep,
E'er wore his crown as loftily as he

Wears the green coronal of leaves, with which
Thy hand has graced him. Nestled at his root
Is beauty, such as blooms not in the glare
Of the broad sun. That delicate forest flower,
With scented breath, and look so like a smile,
Seems, as it issues from the shapeless mould,
An emanation of the indwelling Life,
A visible token of the upholding Love,
That are the soul of this wide universe.

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.

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.

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

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 these sterner aspects of thy face
Spare me and mine; nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad, unchained elements, to teach
Who rules them. Be it ours to meditate,
In these calm shades, thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives.

LESSON XLVI.

Morning Hymn.--MILTON.

THESE are thy glorious works, Parent of good, Almighty! thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair! Thyself how wondrous, then. Unspeakable! who sitt'st above these heavens,

To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works: yet these declare

Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.