278 



THE POPULAE EDUCATOR 



niece va 1'apprendre, si elle a le temps. 25. Est-ce que je vais lire ou 

 e"crire? 26. Vous allez lire demain. 27. Va-t-il chez vous tous les 

 jours ? 28. II vient vous trouver tous les mercredis. 29. A quelle 

 heure? 30. A neuf heures moins un quart. 31. Vieut-il de bonne 

 heure ou tard ? 32. II vient a neuf heures et quart. 33. Qu'envoyez- 

 vous chercher ? 34. Nous envoyons chercher du vin, du pain, du 

 beurre, et du fromage. 35. Qu'allez-vous chercher ? 36. Nous aliens 

 chercher des legumes, de la viande et du sucre. 37. Nous avous 

 besom de Sucre tous les matins. 



READING AND ELOCUTION. XXII. 



EXEECISES ON EXPRESSIVE TONE (continued). 

 VI. ETERNITY OF GOD. 



[Marked for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections."] 

 There is one Being || to whom we can look | with a perfect conviction 

 1 of finding that security which ' nothing about us ' can give, and which 

 nothing about us ' can take away. To this Being | we can lift up our 

 souls, and on Him I we may rest them, exclaiming | in the language ' of 

 the monarch of Israel, " Before the mountains | were brought forth, or 

 ever Thou hadst formed the earth ' and the world, even from everlasting 

 to everlasting || Thou art GOD." "Of old || hast Thou laid the founda- 

 tions of the earth, and the heavens | are the work ' of Thy hands. They 

 | shall parish, but Thou \ shalt endure; yea, all of them | shall wax 

 old ' like a garment, as a vesture ' shalt Thou change them, and they 

 shall be changed ; but Thou \ art the same, and Thy years | shall have 

 no Slid." * 



Here | then | is a support, which will never fail; here ' is a .foundation 

 | wliich can never be moved the everlasting Creator ' of countless worlds, 

 " the high ' and lofty One | that inhdbiteth eternity." What a SUBLIME 

 CONCEPTION ! HE INHABITS ETERNITY, occupies this inconceivable dura- 

 tion, PERVADES | and FILLS | THROUGHOUT || THIS ' BOUNDLESS DWELLING. 

 Ages on ages || before even the dust of which we are formed || was 

 created, HE had existed j in infinite majesty, and ages on ages | will roll 

 away jj after we have all returned to the dust | whence we were taken, 

 ;and ' still | HE will earist || in infinite majesty, living I in the eternity of 

 "his 6wn nature, reigning ' in the plenitude of his 6wn omnipotence, for ever 

 sending forth the word, which forms, supports, and governs ' all things, 

 commanding new-created ligfit || to shine on new-created wdrlds, and 

 raising up new-created generations j to inhabit them. 



The contemplation ' of this glorious attribute of GOD, is fitted to excite 

 I in our minds I the most animating | and consoling ' reflections. Stand- 

 ing, as we are, amid the ruins of time, and the wrecfcs of mortality, where 

 ewery thing about us | is created ' and dependent, proceeding from nothing, 

 and listening to destruction, we rejoice ' that something is presented to 

 our view | which has stood from eDerldsting, and will remain for ever. 

 When we have looked on the pleasures of life, and they have vanis7ied 

 away ; when we have looked on the toorfes of ?idture, and perceived that 

 they were chdnying ; on the monuments of art, and seen that they would 

 not stand ; on our friends, and they have fled ' while we were gdzing ; 

 on ourselves, and felt that we were as fleeting as they ; when we have 

 looked on every object ' to which we could turn our arucious eyes, and 

 they have all -told us that they could give us no hope, nor support, 

 because they were so feeble themselves ; we can look to the THRONE of 

 GOD : change ' and decay | have never reached THAT ; the revolution of 

 tlges || lias never moved it ; the waves of an eternity \ have been rushing 

 post it, but it has remained unshdfcen ; the waves of another eternity | 

 axe rushing toward it, but it is FIXED, and can NEVER be DISTURBED. 

 Greenwood. 



VII. THE UPRIGHT LAWYER. 



f Marked for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, and Inflections."] 



In the walks of private life, the character of an upright lawyer || shines ' 

 with mild i but gJnial ' liistre. He concerns himself ' with the begin- 

 nings of c5ntroversies, not to inflame ' but to extinguish them. He is 

 not content ' with the doubtful morality ' of suffering clients, whose 

 passions are reused, to rush blindly into legal conflict. His conscience 

 | can find no bcilm | in the reflection, that he has but obeyed the orders 

 of an dngnj mdn. He feels that his first duties | are to the community 

 in which he lives, and whose peace ] he is boimd to preserve. 



He is no stranger | to the mischiefs which follow in the train of liti- 

 jdtion ; the deadly feuds ' and animosities | descending from the original 

 combatants ' to successive generations; the perjuries ' and frauds \ so 

 often committed to secure success,- and the impoverishment | so com- 

 monly resulting | even to the winning party ; and in view of these con- 

 sequences, he advises to amicable negotiation and adjustment. He is a 

 peacemaker a composer of dissensions a blessing to his nelghboiirhcod ; 

 his path | is luminous || as the path of the JUST. 



Hook ' with pity | on the man, who regards himself ' a mere machine 

 of the law ; whose conceptions of moral and social duty || are all 

 absorbed in the sense of supposed obligation to his client, and this j of so 

 low a nature || as to render him a very TOOL ' and SLAVE to serve the 

 worst passions of men; who yields himself ' a passive instrument ' of 



* When the falling inflection recurs, in succession, as above, it falls 

 lowei 4 at each repetition. 



legal in/lictions, to be moved at the pleasure of every hirer , and who || 

 beholding the ruin and havoc | made by a lawsuit, which | " two scruples 

 of honesty " \ in 7iis counsel | might have prevented, can calmly pocfcet his 

 fee | with the reflection that he has done his duty to his client, alike 

 regardless of duty to his neighbour ' and his God. 



That such men do exist, to disgrace our profession, is lamentably true; 

 mdn 



" that can speak 



To every cause, and things mere contraries, 

 Till they are hoarse again, yet all | be LAW." 



We would redeem its character || by marking a higher standard of morals. 

 While our aid should never be withheld | from the injured ' or the 

 accused, let it be remembered, that all our duties ' are not concentrated 

 in conducting an appeal to the ldu> ; that we are not only lawyers, but 

 CITIZENS | and MEN ; that our clients | are not always the best judges 

 of their own i?iterests : and that ' having confided these interests to 6ur 

 hands, it is for us to advise to that course wliich will best conduce to 

 their permanent benefit, not merely as solitary individuals, but as men || 

 connected with society \ by enduring ties. Greenleaf. 



VIII. HUMAN CULTURE. 



[To "be marked by the reader, for Rhetorical Pauses, Emphasis, 

 and Inflections."] 



When we see a flower its calyx filled with petals of exquisite form, 

 of the most delicate texture, and diverse colours, so rich and nicely 

 blended that no art can equal them, and withal perpetually diffusing a 

 delicious perfume, we cannot readily believe that all this variety of 

 charms was evolved from a little seed, not bigger, it may be, than the 

 head of a pin. 



When we behold a sturdy oak that has for a hundred years defied 

 the blasts of winter, has stretched wide around its sheltering limbs, 

 and has seemed to grow only the more hardy the more it has been 

 pelted by the storms, we find it difficult to persuade ourselves that 

 the essence, the elements of all this body and strength, were once 

 enclosed in an acorn. Yet such are the facts of the vegetable 

 world. Nor are they half so curious nor wonderful as the changes, 

 which are wrought by time and education, in the human mind and 

 heart. 



Here, for example, is a rr.an now master of twenty languages, who 

 can converse in their own tongues with the people of as many different 

 nations, whose only utterance thirty years ago was very much like, 

 and not any more articulate than, the bleating of a lamb. Or it may 

 be that he, who could then send forth only a wailing cry, is now over- 

 whelming the crowded forum, or swaying the councils of the nation, 

 by his eloquence, fraught with surpassing wisdom. 



Here is another, who can conceive the structure, and direct the 

 building of the mighty ship, that shall bear an embattled host around 

 the world, carrying a nation's thunder; or the man, who can devise 

 the plan of a magnificent temple, and guide the construction of it, until 

 it shall present to the eye of the beholder a perfect whole, glowing 

 with the unspeakable beauty of symmetrical form. 



And here is a third, who has comprehended the structure of the 

 solar system. He has ascertained the relative sizes of the planets, 

 and learned at what precise moments they shall severally complete 

 their circuits. He has even weighed the sun, and measured the dis- 

 tances of the fixed stars ; and has foretold the very hour " when the 

 dread comet," after an absence of centuries, " shall to the forehead of 

 our evening sky return." 



These men are the same beings who, thirty years ago, were puling 

 infants, scarcely equal in their intelligence to kittens of a week old. 



There, too, is a man who is swaying the destiny of nations. Hia 

 empire embraces half the earth ; and throughout his wide domains 

 his will is law. At his command, hundreds of thousands rush to arms, 

 the pliant subjects of his insatiable ambition, ready to pour out their 

 blood like water in his cause. He arranges them, as ho pleases, to 

 execute his plans. He directs their movements, as if they were pawns 

 upon a chessboard. He plunges them into deadly conflict, and wades 

 to conquest over their dead and mangled bodies. That man, the des- 

 potic power of whose mind now overawes the world, was once a feeble 

 babe, who had neither the disposition nor the strength to harm a fly. 



On the other hand, there is one who now evinces unconquerable 

 energy, and the spirit of willing self-sacriiice in works of benevolence. 

 No toil seems to overbear his strength. No discouragement impairs 

 his resolution. No dangers disarm his fortitude. He will penetrate 

 into the most loathsome haunts of poverty or vice, that he may relieve 

 the wretched, or reclaim the abandoned. He will traversa continents, 

 and expose himself hourly to the capricious cruelty of barbarous men, 

 that he may bear to them the glad tidings of salvation ; or he will 

 calmly face the scorn and rage of the civilised world, in opposition to 

 the wrong ; or march firmly to the stake, in maintenance of the true 

 and the right. This man, a few years ago, might have been seen 

 crying for a sugar-plum, or quarrelling with his little sister for a two- 

 penny toy. 



And who are they that are infesting society with their daring 

 crimes, scattering about them " fire-brands, arrows, and death," boldly 

 setting at defiance the laws of man and of God ? They are the sama 



