orb of day. But for the atmosphere, sunshine would burst on us in a moment and fail us in the twinkling of an eye, removing us in an instant from midnight darkness to the blaze of noon. We should have no twilight to soften and beautify the landscape, no clouds to shade us from the scorching heat; but the bald earth, as it revolved on its axis, would turn its tanned and weakened front to the full unmitigated rays of the lord of day.

The atmosphere affords the gas which vivifies and warms our frames; it receives into itself that which has been polluted by use, and is thrown off as noxious. It feeds the flame of life exactly as it does that of the fire. It is in both cases consumed, in both cases it affords the food of consumption, and in both cases it becomes combined with charcoal, which requires it for combustion, and which removes it when combustion is over. It is the girdling, encircling air that makes the whole world kin. The carbonic acid, with which element our breathing fills the air, to-morrow seeks its way round the world. The date-trees that grow round the falls of the Nile will drink it in by their leaves; the cedars of Lebanon will take of it to add to their stature; the cocoanuts of Tahiti will grow rapidly upon it; and the palms and bananas of Japan will change it into flowers. The oxygen we are breathing was distilled for us some short time ago by the magnolias of Florida, and the great trees that skirt the Orinoco and the Amazon; the giant rhododendrons of the Himalayas contributed to it, and the roses and myrtles of Cashmere, the cinnamon-tree of Ceylon, and the forest, older than the flood, that lies buried deep in the heart of Africa, far behind the Mountains of the Moon, gave it out. The rain we see descending was thawed for us out of the icebergs which have watched the Polar Star for ages, or it came from snows that rested on the summits of the Alps, but which the lotus lilies have soaked up from the Nile, and exhaled as vapor again into the everpresent air.

There are processes no less interesting going on in other parts of this magnificent field of research. Water is nature's carrier: with its currents it conveys heat away from the torrid zone and ice from the frigid; or, bottling the caloric away in the vesicles of its vapor, it first makes it impalpable, and then conveys it, by unknown paths, to the most distant parts of the earth. The materials of which the coral builds the island and the nautilus its shell are gathered by this restless leveler from mountains, rocks and valleys in all latitudes. Some it washes down from the Mountains of the Moon, or out

of the gold-fields of Australia, or from the mines of Potosi, others from the battle-fields of Europe, or from the marblequarries of ancient Greece and Rome. These materials, thus collected and carried over falls or down rapids, are transported from river to sea, and delivered by the obedient waters to each insert and to every plant in the ocean at the right time and temperature, in proper form and in due quantity.

Treating the rocks less gently, it grinds them into dust, or pounds them into sand, or rolls and rubs them until they are fashioned into pebbles, rubble or boulders; the sand and shingle on the sea-shore are monuments of the abrading, triturating power of water. By water the soil has been brought down from the hills, and spread out into valleys, plains, and fields for man's use. Saving the rocks on which the everlasting hills are established, everything on the surface of our planet seems to have been removed from its original foundation and lodged in its present place by water. Protean in shape, benignant in office, water, whether fresh or salt, solid, fluid or gaseous, is marvelous in its powers. It is one of the chief agents in the manifold workshops in which and by which the earth has been made a habitation fit for man.

70.-SOUL SCULPTURE.

ANONYMOUS.

A block of marble caught the glance
Of Buonarotti's eyes,

Which brightened in their solemn deeps,
Like meteor-lighted skies.

And one who stood beside him listened,

Smiling as he heard;

For "I will make an angel of it,"

Was the sculptor's word.

And mallet soon and chisel sharp

The stubborn block assailed,

And blow by blow, and pang by pang.

The prisoner unveiled.

A brow was lifted, high and pure,
The waking eyes outshone;
And as the master sharply wrought.
A smile broke through the stone!

Beneath the chisel's edge, the hair
Escaped in floating rings;

And, plume by plume, was slowly freed
The sweep of half-furled wings.

The stately bust and graceful limbs
Their marble fetters shed,

And where the shapeless block had been,
An angel stood instead!

Oh, blows that smite! Oh, hurts that pierce
This shrinking heart of mine!
What are ye but the Master's tools,
Forming a work divine?

Oh, hope that crumbles at my feet!
Oh, joy that mocks and flies!
What are ye but the clogs that bind
My spirit from the skies?

Sculptor of souls! I lift to Thee
Encumbered heart and hands;
Spare not the chisel, set me free,
However dear the bands.

How blest, if all these seeming ills,
Which draw my thoughts to Thee,
Should only prove that Thou wilt make
An angel out of me!

71.-THE REFORMER.

HORACE GREELEY.

Though the life of the Reformer may seem rugged and arduous, it were indeed hard to say considerately that any other life were worth living at all. Who can thoughtfully affirm that the career of the conquering, desolating, subjugating warrior, of the devotee of gold, or pomp, or sensual joys; the monarch in his purple, the miser by his chest, the wassailer over his bowl,-is not a libel on humanity and an offense against God? But the earnest, unselfish Reformer,-born into a state of darkness, evil, and suffering, and honestly striving to replace these by light and purity and happiness, he may fall and die, as so many have done before him, but he cannot fail. His vindication shall gleam from the walls of his hovel, his dungeon, his tomb; it shall shine in the radiant eyes of uncorrupted childhood, and fall in blessings from the lips of highhearted, generous youth.

As the untimely death of the good is our strongest moral assurance of the Resurrection, so the life wearily worn out in

doubtful and perilous conflict with wrong and woe, is our most conclusive evidence that wrong and woe shall yet vanish forever. Luther, dying amid the agonizing tears and wild consternation of all Protestant Germany-Columbus, borne in regal pomp to his grave by the satellites of the royal miscreant whose ingratitude and perfidy had broken his mighty heart,these teach us, at least, that all true greatness is ripened and tempered and proved in life-long struggle against vicious beliefs, traditions, practices, institutions; and that not to have been a Reformer is not to have truly lived. Life is a bubble which breath any Wealth or dissolve; Power a snow-flake, melting momently into the treacherous deep across whose waves we are floated on to our unseen destiny: but to have lived so that one less orphan is called to choose between starvation and infamy, to have lived so that some eyes of those whom Fame shall never know are brightened and others suffused at the name of the beloved one, that the few who knew him truly shall recognize him as a bright, warm, cheering presence, which was here for a season and left the world no worse for his stay in it,—this surely is to have really lived, and not wholly in vain.

may

72.-SMALL BEGINNINGS.

CHARLES MACKAY.

A traveler through a dusty road strewed acorns on the lea;
And one took root and sprouted up, and grew into a tree.
Love sought its shade, at evening time, to breathe its early vows;
And age was pleased, in heats of noon, to bask beneath its boughs;
The dormouse loved its dangling twigs, the birds sweet music bore;
It stood a glory in its place, a blessing evermore.

grass

and fern,

A little spring had lost its way amid the
A passing stranger scooped a well, where weary men might turn;
He walled it in, and hung with care a ladle at the brink;
He thought not of the deed he did, but judged that toil might drink.
He passed again, and lo! the well, by summers never dried,
Had cooled ten thousand parchéd tongues, and saved a life beside.

A dreamer dropped a random thought; 'twas old, and yet 'twas new;
A simple fancy of the brain, but strong in being true.

It shone upon a genial mind, and, lo! its light became

A lamp of life, a beacon ray, a monitory flame:

The thought was small; its issue great; a watch-fire on the hill, It sheds its radiance far adown, and cheers the valley still.

A nameless man, amid a crowd that thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of hope and love, unstudied from the heart;
A whisper on the tumult thrown,—a transitory breath,—

It raised a brother from the dust; it saved a soul from death.
O germ! O fount! O word of love! O thought at random cast!
Ye were but little at the first, but mighty at the last.

73.-SPEECH OF SEMPRONIUS.
JOSEPH ADDISON.

My voice is still for war.

Gods! can a Roman Senate long debate
Which of the two to choose-slavery or death?
No! let us rise at once, gird on our swords,
And, at the head of our remaining troops,
Attack the foe; break through the thick array
Of his thronged legions, and charge home upon him.
Perhaps some arm, more lucky than the rest,

May reach his heart, and free the world from bondage
Rise, fathers, rise; 'tis Rome demands your help;
Rise, and revenge her slaughtered citizens,

Or share their fate! The bones of half your Senate
Enrich the fields of Thessaly, while we
Sit here, deliberating in cold debate,
Whether to sacrifice our lives to honor,
Or wear them out in servitude and chains.
Rouse up, for shame! Our brethren of Pharsalia
Point to their wounds, and cry aloud, "To battle!"
Great Pompey's shade complains that we are slow,
And Scipio's ghost walks unavenged amongst us.

74.-SUPPOSED SPEECH OF JOHN ADAMS.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning, we aimed not at independence. But there is a divinity which shapes our ends. The injustice of England has driven us to arms; and blinded to her own interest, she has obstinately persisted, till independence is now within our grasp. We have but to reach forth to it, and it is ours. Why then should we defer the declaration? Is any man so weak as now to hope for a reconciliation with England, which shall leave either safety to the country and its liberties, or security to his