I have said, that even the children of the vilest and lowest portion of the community share in the general right to the advantages of education. Their claim possesses a peculiar title to our consideration. Some have spoken, as if such were beyond or beneath our assistance, and would bring contamination from their birth-place. Their lot is in the region of irreclaimable wickedness, it is said; and as their parents are, so are they destined to become.

Destined! and so they are, if you will not save them. They are destined, and forever chained down, to a state of moral loathsomeness, in which degradation seems to be swallowed with the food, and vice breathed in with the air. And shall they stay in such a pit of darkness? Is not their situation the strongest possible appeal, which can be made to your pity, and your generosity, and your sense of justice, and your love of good? Does it not call on you, most loudly and imperatively, to pluck these brands from the burning, ere yet they have been scorched too deeply and darkly by the flame?

Nothing is more probable, than that such children may be preserved to virtue by a timely interference; nothing is more certain, than that they will be lost, if they remain. I know of no case, which promises such ample success and reward to the spirited efforts of benevolence, as this. Vice may be cut off, in a great measure, of her natural increase, by the adoption of her offspring into the family of virtue; and, though it is true, that the empire of guilt receives constant emigrations and fresh accessions of strength, from all the regions of society, yet it is equally as true, that they, whose only crime it is that they were born within its con'fines, may be snatched away, and taught another allegiance, before they have become familiar with its language, its customs, and its corruptions, and have vowed a dreadful fidelity to its laws.

LESSON LXXXIX.

Childhood and Manhood-an Apologue.-CRABBE.

"Men are but children of a larger growth."

'Twas eight o'clock, and near the fire
My ruddy little boy was seated,
And with the title of a sire

My ears expected to be greeted :—

But vain the thought: by sleep oppressed,
No father there the child descried;
His head reclined upon his breast,

Or, nodding, rolled from side to side.

"Let this young rogue be sent to bed”—
Nought further had I time to say,
When the poor urchin raised his head
To beg that he might longer stay.
Refused, towards rest his steps he bent,
With tearful eye and aching heart;
But claimed his playthings ere he went,
And took up stairs his horse and cart.

For new delay, though oft denied,
He pleaded; wildly craved the boon:
Though past his usual hour, he cried
At being sent away so soon.
If stern to him, his grief I shared ;
(Unmoved who hears his offspring weep!
Of soothing him I half despaired;
But soon his cares were lost in sleep.

"Alas! poor infant!" I exclaimed, "Thy father blushes now to scan, In all which he so lately blamed, The follies and the fears of man. The vain regret, the anguish brief,

Which thou hast known, sent up to bed, Portrays of man the idle grief,

When doomed to slumber with the dead.

And more I thought, when, up the stairs,
With "longing, lingering looks," he crept,
To mark of man the childish cares,
His playthings carefully he kept.
Thus mortals, on life's later stage,

When nature claims their forfeit breath,
Still grasp at wealth in pain and age,
And cling to golden toys in death.

'Tis morn; and see, my smiling boy
Awakes to hail returning light,—
To fearless laughter,-boundless joy,-
Forgot the tears of yesternight.

Thus shall not man forget his wo?
Survive of age and death the gloom?
Smile at the cares he knew below?
And, renovated, burst the tomb ?

O, my Creator! when thy will

Shall stretch this frame on earth's cold bed, Let that blest hope sustain me still,

'Till thought, sense, memory-all are fled. And, grateful for what thou may'st give, No tear shall dim my fading eye, That 'twas thy pleasure I should live, That 'tis thy mandate bids me die.

LESSON XC.

The Skies.-BRYANT.

Ay, gloriously thou standest there,
Beautiful, boundless firmament!
That, swelling wide o'er earth and air,
And round the horizon bent,
With that bright vault and sapphire wall,
Dost overhang and circle all.

Far, far below thee, tall gray trees
Arise, and piles built up of old,

And hills, whose ancient summits freeze
In the fierce light and cold.

The eagle soars his utmost height;

Yet far thou stretchest o'er his flight.

Thou hast thy frowns: with thee, on high, The storm has made his airy seat: Beyond thy soft blue curtain lie

His stores of hail and sleet:

Thence the consuming lightnings break;
There the strong hurricanes awake.

Yet art thou prodigal of smiles

Smiles sweeter than thy frowns are stern: Earth sends, from all her thousand isles, A song at their return :

The glory that comes down from thee
Bathes in deep joy the land and sea.

The sun, the gorgeous sun, is thine,

The pomp that brings and shuts the day, The clouds that round him change and shine, The airs that fan his way.

Thence look the thoughtful stars, and there
The meek moon walks the silent air.

The sunny Italy may boast

The beauteous tints that flush her skies, And lovely, round the Grecian coast,

May thy blue pillars rise :—

I only know how fair they stand
About my own beloved land.

And they are fair: a charm is theirs,

That earth-the proud, green earth-has not,
With all the hues, and forms, and airs,
That haunt her sweetest spot.

We gaze upon thy calm, pure sphere,
And read of heaven's eternal year.

Oh! when, amid the throng of men,
The heart grows sick of hollow mirth,
How willingly we turn us, then,
Away from this cold earth,
And look into thy azure breast,

For seats of innocence and rest!

LESSON XCI.

Address to the Stars.-NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

YE are fair, ye are fair; and your pensive rays Steal down like the light of parted days;

But have sin and sorrow ne'er wandered o'er
The green
abodes of each sunny shore?
Hath no frost been there, and no withering blast,
Cold, cold, o'er the flower and the forest, passed?

Does the playful leaf never fall nor fade?
The rose ne'er droop in the silent shade?
Say, comes there no cloud on your morning beam?
On your night of beauty no troubled dream?
Have ye no tear the eye to annoy ?
No grief to shadow its light of joy?

No bleeding breasts, that are doomed to part?
No blighted bower, and no broken heart?

Hath death ne'er saddened your scenes of bloom?
Have your suns ne'er shone on the silent tomb?
Did their sportive radiance never fall

On the cypress tree or the ruined wall?—
"Twere vain to guess;
for no eye
hath seen

O'er the gulf eternally fixed between.

We hear not the song of your early hours;
We hear not the hymn of your evening bowers.
The strains that gladden each radiant sphere
Ne'er poured their sweets on a mortal ear;
Though such I could deem, on the evening's sigh,
The air-harp's unearthly melody!

Farewell, farewell! I go to my rest;
For the shades are passing into the west,
And the beacon pales on its lonely height.
Isles of the blessed, good-night, good-night!

LESSON XCII.

Song of the Stars.-BRYANT.

WHEN the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,
And the empty realms of darkness and death
Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,
And orbs of beauty, and spheres of flame,

From the void abyss, by myriads came,
In the joy of youth, as they darted away,

Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rung;

And this was the song the bright ones sung:

"Away, away! through the wide, wide sky,

The fair blue fields that before us lie,