not high approaches towards moral perfection; if they possess not an enduring sublimity; then, indeed, have I ill read the human heart; then, indeed, have I strangely mistaken the inspirations of religion. If men like these can be passed by with indifference, because they wore not the princely robes, or the sacred lawn, because they shone not in courts, nor feasted in fashionable circles; then, indeed, is Christian glory a vain shadow, and human virtue a dream, about which we disquiet ourselves in vain.

But it is not so-it is not so. There are those around me, whose hearts beat high, and whose lips grow eloquent, when the remembrance of such ancestors comes over their thoughts; when they read in their deeds, not the empty forms, but the essence of holy living and holy dying. Time was, when the exploits of war, the heroes of many battles, the conquerors of millions, the men who waded through slaughter to thrones, the kings whose footsteps were darkened with blood, and the sceptred oppressors of the earth, were alone deemed worthy themes for the poet and the orator, for the song of the minstrel, and the hosannas of the multitude. Time was, when feats of arms, and tournaments, and crusades, and the high array of chivalry, and the pride of royal banners waving for victory, engrossed all minds.

Time was, when the ministers of the altar sat down by the side of the tyrant, and numbered his victims, and stimulated his persecutions, and screened the instruments of his crimes; and there was praise, and glory, and revelry, for these things. Murder and rapine, burning cities and desolated plains, if they were at the bidding of royal or baronial feuds, led on by the courtier or the clan, were matters of public boast, the delight of courts, and the treasured pleasure of the fireside tales. But these times have passed away. Christianity has resumed her meek and holy reign. The Puritans have not lived in vain. The simple piety of the pilgrims of New England casts into shade this false glitter, which dazzled and betrayed men into the worship of their destroyers.

LESSON XCII.

The Coming of the Pilgrims.*-W. SULLIVAN.

HERE begins that vast wilderness, which no civilized man has beheld. Whither does it extend, and what is contained within its unmeasured limits? Through what thousands of years has it undergone no change, but in the silent movements of renovation and decay? To how many vernal seasons has it unfolded its leaves;-to how many autumnal frosts has it yielded its verdure? This unvaried solitude! What has disturbed its tranquillity, through uncounted ages, but the rising of the winds, or the rending of the storms? What sounds have echoed through its deep recesses, but those of craving and of rage from the beasts which it shelters, or the war-song and the war-whoop of its sullen, smileless masters? Man, social, inventive, improving man,-his footstep, his handiwork, are nowhere discerned. The beings, who wear his form, have added nothing to knowledge, through all their generations. Like the game which they pursue, they are the same now, which their progenitors were when their race began.

These distant and widely separated columns of smoke, that throw their graceful forms towards the sky, indicate no social, no domestic abodes. The snows have descended to cover the fallen foliage of the departed year; the winds pass, with a mournful sound, through the leafless branches; the Indian has retired to his dark dwelling; and the tenants of the forest have hidden themselves in the earth, to escape the search of winter.

This ocean, that spreads out before us!-how many of its mountain waves rise up between us and the abodes of civilized men! Its surges break and echo on this lonely shore, as they did when the storms first waked them from their

* Extracted from a Discourse delivered at Plymouth, Dec. 22, 1829.-In the reflections quoted above, the author goes back, in imagination, to the time when New England was first settled, and "stands upon the shore which the pilgrims were approaching."

sleep, without having brought, or carried, any work of human hands, unless it be the frail canoe, urged on by hunger or revenge. How appalling is this solitude of the wilderness! how cheerless this wide waste of waters, on which nothing moves!

A new object rises to our view! It is that proud result of human genius, which finds its way where it leaves no trace of itself, yet connects the severed continents of the globe. It is full of human beings of a complexion unknown in this far distant clime. They come from a world skilled in the social arts. Are they adventurers, thirsting for gain, or seeking, in these unexplored regions, new gifts for the treasury of science? Their boats are filled; they touch the land. They are followed by tender females, and more tender offspring; such beings as a wild desert never before received. They commence the making of habitations. They disembark their goods.

Have they abandoned their returning ship? Are they to encounter, in their frail tenements, the winter's tempest and the accumulating snows? Do they know, that these dark forests, through which even the winds come not without dismal and terrifying sound, is the home of the savage, whose first prompting is to destroy that he may rob? Do they know that disease must be the inmate of their dwellings in their untried exposure? If the savage, if disease, selects no victims, will famine stay its merciless hand? Do they know how slowly the forest yields to human industry? Do they realize how long, how lonesome, how perilous it will be to their little group, before want can be supplied and security obtained? Can they have come, voluntarily, to encounter all these unavoidable evils? Have they given up their native land, their precious homes, their kind friends, their kindred, the comfort and the fellowship of civilized and polished life? Is this the evidence of affectionate solicitude of husbands, of anxious tenderness of parents, or the sad measure of distempered minds? Wherefore are they come? What did they suffer, what did they fear, what do they expect, or hope, that they have chosen exile HERE, and to become the watchful neighbor of the treacherous Indian?

They gather themselves together, and assume the posture of humble devotion. They pour forth the sentiments of praise, of hope, of unshaken confidence. They cast themselves, their wives, their children, into the arms of that beneficent PARENT, who is present in the wilderness no less than the crowded city. It is to HIM that they look for support amidst the wants of nature, for shelter against the storm, for protection against the savage, for relief in disease.

LESSON XCIII.

Lady Arabella Johnson.-STORY.

THE lady Arabella Johnson, a daughter of the earl of Lincoln, accompanied her husband in the embarkation under Winthrop; and, in honor of her, the admiral ship, on that occasion, was called by her name. She died in a very short time after her arrival, and lies buried near the neighboring shore. No stone, or other memorial, indicates the exact place; but tradition has preserved it with a holy reverence. remembrance of her excellence is yet fresh in all our thoughts; and many a heart still kindles with admiration of her virtues; and many a bosom heaves with sighs at her untimely end.

The

What, indeed, could be more touching than the fate of such a woman? What example more striking than hers, of uncompromising affection and piety? Born in the lap of ease, and surrounded by affluence; with every prospect which could make hope gay, and fortune desirable; accustomed to the splendors of a court, and the scarcely less splendid hospitalities of her ancestral home; she was, yet content to quit, what has, not inaptly, been termed "this paradise of plenty and pleasure," for "a wilderness of wants,” and, with a fortitude superior to the delicacies of her rank and sex, to trust herself to an unknown ocean and a distant climate,

that she might partake, with her husband, the pure and spiritual worship of God.

To the honor, to the eternal honor of her sex, be it said, that, in the path of duty, no sacrifice is with them too high or too dear. Nothing is with them impossible, but to shrink from what love, honor, innocence, religion, requires. The voice of pleasure or of power may pass by unheeded; but the voice of affliction never. The chamber of the sick, the pillow of the dying, the vigils of the dead, the altars of religion, never missed the presence or the sympathies of woman. Timid though she be, and so delicate that the winds of heaven may not too roughly visit her, on such occasions she loses all sense of danger, and assumes a preternatural courage, which knows not, and fears not consequences. Then she displays that undaunted spirit, which neither courts difficulties, nor evades them; that resignation, which utters neither murmur nor regret; and that patience in suffering, which seems victorious even over death itself.

The lady Arabella perished in this noble undertaking, of which she seemed the ministering angel; and her death spread universal gloom throughout the colony. Her husband was overwhelmed with grief at the unexpected event, and survived her but a single month. Governor Winthrop has pronounced his eulogy in one short sentence:—" "He was a holy man, and wise, and died in sweet peace."

He was truly the idol of the people; and the spot selected by himself for his own sepulture became consecrated in their eyes; so that many left it as a dying request, that they might be buried by his side. Their request prevailed; and the Chapel burying-ground in Boston, which contains his remains, became, from that time, appropriated to the repose of the dead. Perhaps the best tribute to this excellent pair is, that time, which, with so unsparing a hand, consigns statesmen, and heroes, and even sages, to oblivion, has embalmed the memory of their worth, and preserved it among the choicest of New England relics. It can scarcely be forgotten, but with the annals of our country.

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