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retire to rest with a burden of unlamented and unforgiven guilt upon our consciences'? Shall we leave these stains to spread over and sink into the soul' ?

6. A religious recollection of our lives is one of the chief instruments of piety. If possible, no day should end without it. If we take no account of our sins on the day on which they are committed, can we hope that they will recur to us at a more distant period, that we shall watch against them to-morrow, or that we shall gain the strength to resist them, which we will not implore'?

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7. The evening is a fit time for prayer, not only as it ends the day, but as it immediately precedes the period of repose. The hour of activity having passed, we arę soon to sink into insensibility and sleep. How fit that we resign ourselves to the care of that Being who never sleeps, to whom the darkness is as the light, and whose providence is our only safety! How fit to entreat Him that He would keep us to another day; or, if our bed should prove our grave, that He would give us a part in the resurrection of the just, and awake us to a purer and immortal life! Let our prayers, like the ancient sacrifices, ascend morning and evening. Let our days begin and end with God.

1.

LESSON XLVII.

THE TIME FOR PRAYER.

ANON.

HEN is the time for prayer?

WH

With the first beams that light the morning sky,

Ere for the toils of day thou dost prepare,

Lift up thy thoughts on high;

Commend thy loved ones to His watchful care:
Morn is the time for prayer.

2. And in the noontide hour,

If worn by toil, or by sad cares oppressed,
Then unto God thy spirit's sorrow pour,
And He will give thee rest;

Thy voice shall reach Him through the fields of air:
Noon is the time for prayer.

3.. When the bright sun hath set,

While eve's bright colors deck the skies,
When with the loved at home again thou'st met,
Then let thy prayers arise.

For those who in thy joys and sorrows share:
Eve is the time for prayer.

4. And when the stars come forth;

When to the trusting heart sweet hopes are

given,

And the deep stillness of the hour gives birth

To pure, bright dreams of Heaven,

Kneel to thy God, ask strength life's ills to bear:
Night is the time for prayer.

5. When is the time for prayer?

In every hour, while life is spared to thee;

In crowds or solitude, in joy or care,

At

Thy thoughts should heavenward flee.

morn, at noon, and eve, with loved ones there, Bend thou the knee in prayer!

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2. One by one thy duties wait thee;

Let thy whole strength go to each;
Let no future dreams elate thee:

Learn thou first what these can teach.

3. One by one, (bright gifts from Heaven,)
Joys are sent thee here below:
Take them readily when given,
Ready, too, to let them go.

4. One by one thy griefs shall meet thee; Do not fear an armèd band;

One will fade as others greet thee,-
Shadows passing through the land.

5. Do not look at life's long sorrow;

See how small each moment's pain:
God will help thee for to-morrow;
So each day begin again.

6. Every hour that fleets so slowly
Has its task to do or bear:

Luminous the crown, and holy,
When each gem is set with care.

7. Do not linger with regretting,
Or for passing hours despond;
Nor, the daily toil forgetting,
Look too eagerly beyond.

8. Hours are golden links, God's token,
Reaching Heaven; but, one by one,
Take them, lest the chain be broken
Ere the pilgrimage be done.

LESSON XLIX.

NEP' TUNE, (the son of Saturn and Ops,) the god of the sea, fountains, and rivers. He is represented as bearing a trident (a spear with three prongs) for a scepter.

2 MER CU RY (the son of Jupiter and Maia) was the fabled messenger and interpreter of the gods, and the god of eloquence and commerce.

8 Jove, or Ju' PI TER, (the son of Saturn,) was the chief divinity of the ancient Romans.

INVENTIVE GENIUS AND LABOR.

ELIHU BURRITT.

THE physical necessity of mental activity, in every practical sense, confers upon the mind the power to determine our stature, strength, and longevity; to multiply our organs of sense, and increase their capacity, in some cases, to thirty million times their natural power. This capacity of the mind is not a mere prospective possibility; it is a fact,a tried, practical fact; and the human mind is more busy than ever in extending this prerogative.

2. Let us look in upon man while engaged in the very, act of adding to his natural strength these gigantic faculties. See him yonder, bending over his stone mortar, and pounding, and thumping, and sweating, to pulverize his flinty

grain into a more esculent form. He stops and looks a moment into the precipitous torrent thundering down its rocky channel. There! A thought has struck him. He begins to whistle: he whittles some; for he learned to whittle soon after he learned to breathe. He gears together, some horizontally, and others perpendicularly, a score of little wooden wheels. He sets them agoing, and claps his hands in triumph to see what they would do if a thousand times larger.

3. Look at him again! How proudly he stands, with folded arms, looking at the huge things that are working for him! He has made that wild, raging torrent as tame as his horse. He has taught it to walk backward and forward. He has given it hands, and put the crank of his big wheel into them, and made it turn his ponderous grind stone. What a taskmaster! Look at him again! He is standing on the ocean beach, watching the crested billows as they move in martial squadrons over the deep. He has conceived or heard that richer productions, more delicious fruits and flowers, may be found on yonder invisible shore. In an instant his mind sympathizes with the yearnings of his physical nature.

4. See! there is a new thought in his eye. He remembers how he first saddled the horse: he now bits and saddles the mountain wave. Not satisfied with taming this proud element, he breaks another into his service. Remembering his mill-dam, he constructs a floating dam of canvas in the air, to harness the winds to his ocean-wagon. Thus, with his water-horse and air-horse harnessed in tandem,* he drives across the wilderness of waters with a team that would make old Neptune' hide his diminished head for envy, and sink his clumsy chariot beneath the waves.

* IN TANDEM, one after another.

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