4. Older than all preached gospels' was this unpreached, inarticulate, but ineradicable, for-ever-enduring gospel: work, and therein have well-being. Man, Son of Earth and of Heaven, lies there not, in the innermost heart of thee, a spirit of active method, a force for work;-and burns like a painfully smoldering fire, giving thee no rest till thou unfold it, till thou write it down. in beneficent' facts around thee! What is immethodic, waste, thou shalt make methodic, regulated, arable, obedient and productive to thee. Wheresoever thou findest disorder, there is thy eternal enemy: attack him swiftly, subdue him; make order of him, the subject not of chaos, but of intelligence, divinity, and thee! The thistle that grows in thy path, dig it out that a blade of useful grass, a drop of nourishing milk, may grow there instead. The waste cotton-shrub, gather its waste white down, spin it, weave it; that, in place of idle litter, there may be folded webs, and the naked skin of man be covered. 5. But, above all, where thou findest ignorance, stupidity, brute-mindedness-attack it, I say; smite it wisely, unweariedly, and rest not while thou livest and it lives; but smite, smite in the name of God! The highest God, as I understand it, does audibly so command thee: still audibly, if thou have ears to hear. He, even He, with his unspoken voice, is fuller than any Sinai thunders, or syllabled speech of whirlwinds; for the SILENCE of deep eternities, of worlds from beyond the morning stars, does it not speak to thee? The unborn ages; the old graves, with their long-moldering dust, the very tears that wetted it, now all dry-do not these speak to thee what ear hath not heard? The deep death-kingdoms, the stars in their never-resting courses, all space and all time, proclaim it to thee in continual silent admonition. Thou, too, if ever man should, shalt work while it is called to-day; for the night cometh, wherein no man can work. 6. All true work is sacred; in all true work, were it but true Gos' pel, good news, hence the four books which relate the history of the Saviour are called gospels; divine truth.- In e råd' i ca ble, that cannot be uprooted or destroyed.—3 Be nèf' i cent, doing good; abounding in acts of goodness; charitable.-'Im me thod' ic, having no method; without systematic arrangement, order, or regularity.- Ar' a ble, fit for tillage or plowing; plowed; productive. Sl' nåi, a mountain of Arabia Petræa, famous in Scripture. Height above the sea, 7,497 feet. hand-labor, there is something of divineness. Labor, wide as the earth, has its summit in heaven. Sweat of the brow; and up from that to sweat of the brain, sweat of the heart; which includes all Kepler' calculations, Newton' meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted heroism, martyrdoms-up to that "agony of bloody sweat," which all men have called divine! O brother, if this is not "worship," then I say, the more pity for worship; for this is the noblest thing yet discovered under God's sky. 7. Who art thou that complainest of thy life of toil? Com plain not. Look up, my wearied brother; see thy fellow-workmen there, in God's eternity; surviving there, they alone surviving: sacred band of the immortals, celestial body-guard of the empire of mind. Even in the weak human memory they survive so long, as saints, as heroes, as gods; they alone surviving: peopling, they alone, the immeasured solitudes of Time! To thee Heaven, though severe, is not unkind; Heaven is kind-as a noble mother; as that Spartan mother, saying while she gave her son his shield, "WITH IT, MY SON, OR UPON IT!" Thou, too, shalt return home, in honor to thy far-distant home, in honor; doubt it not-if in the battle thou keep thy shield! Thou, in the eternities and deepest death-kingdoms, art not an alien; thou everywhere art a denizen! Complain not; the very Spartans did not complain. THOMAS CARLYLE. THOMAS CARLYLE, the eminent essayist, reviewer, and historian, was born at Middlebie, in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, in 1796. He received the rudiments of a classical education at a school in Annan, a town about sixty miles south of Edinburgh. At the University of Edinburgh, which he entered at the age of seventeen, he was distinguished for his attainments in mathematics. For some years after leaving the university, he supported himself by teaching, and writing for booksellers. He is the author of various works and translations-" Life of Schiller," "Sartor Resartus," 1836; "The French Revolution," a history in three volumes, 1837; "Chartism," 1839; “Critical and Miscellaneous Essays," from reviews and magazines, in 5 vols., 1839; "Hero Worship," a series of lectures, 1JOHN KEPLER, a distinguished mathematician and astronomer, was born at Wiel, in Wirtemberg, on the 21st of December, 1571, and died November 5th, o. s., 1631.-2 ISAAC NEWTON, a celebrated mathematician and natural philosopher, was born at Woolsthorpe, Lincolnshire, England, on the 25th of December, 1642, o. s., and died the 20th March, 1727.—3 Alien (ål'yen), a foreigner who has not been naturalized; a stranger. Denizen (dên' e zn), a naturalized foreigner. 1811; "Past and Present," 1843; "Life of Oliver C. omwell," "Latter-day Pamphlets," ""Life of John Sterling," &c. &c. The peculiar style and diction of Mr. Cariyle have with some retarded, and with others advanced his popularity. It is more German than English, angular, objective, and unidiomatic: at times, however, highly graphic, and swelling out into periods of fine imagery and eloquence. He is an original and subtle thinker, and combines with his powers of analysis and reasoning a vivid and brilliant imagination. His opinions and writings tend to enlarge our sympathies and feelings-to stir the heart with benevolence and affection-to unite man to man-and to build upon this love of our fellow-beings a system of mental energy and purity far removed from the operations of sense and pregnant with high hopes and aspirations. 1. 42. Now. HE venerable Past'-is past; THE ray: 'Tis dark, and shines not in the Why should we sit where ivies creep, 2. Why should we see with dead men's eyes, Why should we hear but echoes dull, 3 Abraham3 saw no brighter stars Than those which burn for thee and me. When Homers heard the lark's sweet song 'Påst.-' Låst.- ABRAHAM, the patriarch of the Jews, born and died more than 2,000 years B. C.- Burn (bêrn).- HOMER, the most distinguished of poets, called the "Father of Song." He is supposed to have been an Asiatic Greek, though his birth-place, and the period in which he lived, are not known - Hoard. Or 1 ight-bird's lovelier melody, They were such sounds as Shakspeare1 heard, 2 Such lovely sounds as we can hear. 4. Great Plato' saw the vernal year Send forth its tender flowers and shoots, Or plinths and columns overthrown; Through painted window's cobwebb'd o'er, Nor know the beauty of the night Save by the moonbeam on the floor: But in the presence of the sun, Or moon, or stars, our hearts shall glow; And we shall LOVE because we KNOW. J. The present needs us. Every age But strenuous labor for the right; 'WIAM SHAKSPEARE, the distinguished poet and dramatist, was born in 1564, and died in 1616.- GEOFFREY CHAUCER, called the daystar and father of English poetry, born about 1328, and died in 1400. His great work is "The Canterbury Tales."--3 Bird (berd).—a PLATO, a very celebrated philosopher of ancient Greece, was born about 430 B. C., and died in his eightieth year.--* Architrave (årk'ỉ tráv), the part of a roof which rests on the top of a column, designed to represent the beam which supports the roof.- Plinth, a flat, round, or square base or foundation for a column. 7. For Now, the child and sire of Time, And stretch the circle of its ken. Time, nor Eternity, hath seen In all its phases: ne'er hath been And that which is hath ceased to be But Now is ever good and fair, And we of it. So let us live That from the Past we may receive Light for the Now-from Now a joy That Fate nor Time shall e'er destroy. C. MACKAY.' THE 43. STUDY. HE favorite idea of a genius among us, is of one who never studies, or who studies, nobody can tell when-at midnight, or at odd times and intervals--and now and then strikes out, at a heat, as the phrase is, some wonderful production. This is a character that has figured largely in the history of our literature, in the persons of our Fieldings, our Savages, and our Steeles"loose fellows about town," or loungers in the country, who De månd'.-2 See Biographical Sketch, p. 91.- FIELDING, see Biographical Sketch, p. 95.-SAVAGE, a poet of considerable merit, born 1698, in London, died 1743. He was intimate with Johnson, who wrote an admirable Life of him.- STEELE, the principal author of the "Tattler," the "Spectator," the "Guardian," and other periodical papers, an Irishman by birth, born in 1671, and died in 1729. |