7. It is not more true, that all men possess the same natural senses and organs, than that their minds are endowed with the same capacities for improvement, though not, perhaps, all in the same degree. Shakspeare, whose productions have been the wonder and delight of all who speak the English language, for two hundred years, was a runaway youth, the son of a wool-comber; and Sir Richard Arkwright, who invented the machinery for spinning cotton, was the youngest of thirteen children of a poor peasant, and, till he was thirty years of age, followed the business of a traveling barber.

8. As men bring into the world with them an equal intellectual endowment, that is, minds equally susceptible of improvement, so, in a community like that in which we have the happiness to live, the means of improvement are much more equally enjoyed than might at first be supposed. Whoever has learned to read, possesses the keys of Knowledge; and can, whenever he pleases, not only unlock the portals of her temple, but penetrate to the inmost halls and most sacred cabinets. A few dollars, the surplus of the earnings of the humblest industry, are sufficient to purchase the use of books which contain the elements of the whole circle of useful knowledge.

9. It may be thought that a considerable portion of the community want time to attend to the cultivation of their minds. But it is only necessary to make the experiment to find two things: one, how much useful knowledge can be acquired in a very little time; and the other, how much time can be spared, by good management, out of the busiest day. There are very few pursuits in life whose duties are so incessant that they do not leave a little time, every day, to a man, whose temperate and regular habits allow him the comfort of a clear head and a cheerful temper, in the

intervals of occupation; and then there is one day in seven, which is redeemed to us, by our blessed religion, from the calls of life, and affords us all time enough for the improvement of our rational and immortal natures.

10. There is also a time of leisure, which Providence, in this climate, has secured to almost every man who has any thing which can be called a home; I mean our long winter evenings. This season seems provided, as if expressly, for the purpose of furnishing those who labor with ample opportunity for the improvement of their minds. The severity of the weather, and the shortness of the days, necessarily limit the portion of time which is devoted to out-door industry; and there is little to tempt us abroad in search of amusement.

11. Every thing seems to invite us to employ an hour or two of this calm and quiet season in the acquisition of useful knowledge, and the cultivation of the mind. The noise of life is hushed; the pavement ceases to resound with the din of laden wheels, and the tread of busy men; the glaring sun has gone down, and the moon and the stars are left to watch in the heavens over the slumbers of the peaceful creation. The mind of man should keep its vigils with them; and while his body is reposing from the labors of the day, and his feelings are at rest from its excitements, he should seek, in some amusing and instructive page, a substantial food for the craving appetite for knowledge.

12. If we needed any encouragement to make these efforts to improve our minds, we might find it in every page of our country's history. Nowhere do we meet with examples, more numerous and more brilliant, of men who have risen above poverty and obscurity, and every disadvantage, to usefulness and an honorable name. Our whole

vast continent was added to the geography of the world by the persevering efforts of a humble Genoese mariner, the great Columbus,3 who, by the steady pursuit of the enlightened conception he had formed of the figure of the earth, before any navigator had acted upon the belief that it was round, discovered the American continent.

13. He was the son of a Genoese pilot, a pilot and seaman himself; and, at one period of his melancholy career, was reduced to beg his bread at the doors of the convents in Spain. But he carried within himself, and beneath a humbler exterior, a spirit for which there was not room in Spain, in Europe, nor in the then known world; and which led him on to a hight of usefulness and fame, beyond that of all the monarchs that ever reigned.

LESSON XLV.

1 PER CEIVE', (PER, through; CEIVE, to take,) to take through the medium of the senses; to see; to discern.

2 PRE CEDE', (PRE, before; CEDE, to go,) to go before in order of time. See Sanders' Analysis, page 40.

MIL' TON, JOHN. See note, p. 107.

THE

THE CAPACITY OF AN HOUR.

JOHN FOSTER.

HE omnipresent Spirit perceives1 all but an infinite number of actions taking place

together throughout the different regions of his empire. And, by the end of the hour which has just begun, a greater number of operations will have been performed, which, at this moment, have not been performed, than the collective sum of all that has been done in this world since its creation.

2. The hour, just now begun, may be exactly the period for finishing some great plan, or concluding some great dispensation, which thousands of years or ages have been advancing to its accomplishment. This may be the very hour in which a new world shall originate, or an ancient one sink in ruins. At this hour, such changes and phenomena may be displayed in some parts of the universe as were never presented to the astonishment of the most ancient created minds.

3

3. At this very hour the inhabitants of some remote orb may be roused by signs analogous to those which we anticipate to precede2 the final judgment, and in order to prepare them for such an event. This hour may somewhere begin or conclude mightier contests than Milton was able to imagine, and contests producing a more stupendous result, contests, in comparison with which those which shake Europe are more diminutive than those of the meanest insects.

4. At this very hour thousands of amazing enterprises may be undertaken, and, by the end of it, a progress made, which, to us, would have seemed to require ages. At this hour wise intelligences may terminate long and patient pursuits of knowledge in such discoveries as shall give a new science to their race.

5. At this hour a whole race of improved and virtuous beings may be elevated to a higher station in the great system of beings. At this hour some new mode of divine operation, some new law of Nature, which was not required before, may be introduced into the first trial of its action.

6. At this hour the most strange suspensions of regular laws may take place at the will of Him that appointed them, for the sake of commanding a solemn attention, and

confirming some divine communication by miracles. At this hour the inhabitants of the creation are most certainly performing more actions than any faculty of mind, less than infinite, can observe or remember.

7. All this, and incomparably more than all this, a philosopher and a Christian would delight to imagine. And all that he can imagine in the widest stretch of thought is as nothing in comparison with what most certainly takes place in so vast a universe every hour, and will take place this very hour, in which these faint conjectures are indulged.

L

LESSON XLVI.

EVENING PRAYER.

CHANNING.

ET us now consider another part of the day which is favorable to the duty of prayer; we mean the evening. This season, like the morning, is calm and quiet. Our labors are ended. The bustle of life is gone by. The distracting glare of the day has vanished. The darkness which surrounds us favors seriousness, composure, and solemnity. At night, the earth fades from our sight, and nothing of creation is left to us but the starry heavens, so vast, so magnificent, so serene, as if to guide up our thoughts above all earthly things to God and immortality.

2. This period should, in part, be given to prayer, as it furnishes a variety of devotional topics and excitements. The evening is the close of an important division of time, and is, therefore, a fit and natural season for stopping, and looking back on the day. And can we ever look back on a day which bears no witness to God, and lays no claim to our gratitude'? Who is it that strengthens us for daily