8

ordered ranks of his baffled and retreating assailants. He was indeed the "Rock of Chickamauga," around and against which the wild waves of battle dashed in vain. It will stand forever written in the annals of his country, that then and there General Thomas saved from total destruction the army of the Cumberland.

1 EN-SHRINED'. Preserved as a thing 5 AS-CEN'DEN-CY. sacred.

2 CO-LOS'SAL. Gigantic; huge.

ence; power. 6 ÎN CRE-MENT.

Controlling influ

Increase.

3 IN-FLEX'I-BLE. Immovable; unyield-7 PRO-DIĢ'IOUS. Enormous; wonderful. ing. 8 BAF/FLED. Defeated by perplexing.

4 E-LAB'O-RAT-ED. Produced with labor.

LXXIV. - TOM BROWN'S VISIT TO DR. ARNOLD'S TOMB.

HUGHES.

[The following piece is taken from Tom Brown at Oxford, written by Thomas Hughes, an Eng.ish barrister and member of Parliament. He is also the author of Tom Brown's School Days, and of The Scouring of the White Horse. All these works have been republished and extensively read in the United States. Mr. Hughes is a man of liberal spirit and generous sympathies. He has always been a warm friend to America. He visited this country in the autumn of 1870, and was everywhere received with a welcome due to his high character and literary eminence.

Tom Brown, the hero of the two works first above named, is described as a manly English lad who goes first to Rugby School, under Dr. Arnold, and afterwards to Oxford, is exposed to many temptations, but comes out well by the help of religious principle and firm resolution. After leaving Oxford, and after Dr. Arnold's death, he goes to Rugby, and in describing his visit to his teacher's tomb, the author expresses the affectionate reverence and gratitude with which the memory of that great and good man is cherished by all his pupils.]

1. THERE was no flag flying on the round tower; the school-house windows were all shuttered up; and when the flag went up again, and the shutters came down, it would be to welcome a stranger. All that was left on earth of him whom he had honored was lying cold and still under the chapel floor. He would go in and see the place once more, and then leave it

once for all. New men and new methods might do for other people; let those who would worship the rising star, he, at least, would be faithful to the sun which had set. And so he got up, and walked to the chapel door and unlocked it, fancying himself the only mourner in all the broad land, and feeding on his own selfish sorrow.

2. He passed through the vestibule, and then paused for a moment to glance over the empty benches. His heart was still proud and high, and he walked up to the seat which he had last occupied as a sixth form boy, and sat himself down there to collect his thoughts.

3. And, truth to tell, they needed collecting and setting in order not a little. The memories of eight years were all dancing through his brain and carrying him about whither they would; while, beneath them all, his heart was throbbing with the dull sense of a loss that could never be made up to him.

4. The rays of the evening sun came solemnly through the painted windows above his head, and fell in gorgeous colors on the opposite wall, and the perfect stillness soothed his spirit by little and little. And he turned to the pulpit, and looked at it, and then, leaning forward, with his head on his hands, groaned aloud. "If he could only have seen the doctor again for one five minutes; have told him all that was in his heart, what he owed to him, how he loved and reverenced him, and would, by God's help, follow his steps in life and death, he could have borne it all without a murmur. But that he should have gone away forever without knowing it all, was too much to bear." "But am I sure that he does not

"May

know it all?" The thought made him start. he not even now be near me, in this very chapel? If he be, am I sorrowing as he would have me sor row as I should wish to have sorrowed when I shall meet him again?"

5. He raised himself up and looked round, and, after a minute, rose and walked humbly down to the lowest bench, and sat down on the very seat which he had occupied on his first Sunday at Rugby. And then the old memories rushed back again, but softened and subdued, and soothing him, as he let himself be carried away by them. And he looked up at the great painted window above the altar, and remembered how, when a little boy, he used to try not to look through it at the elm trees and the rooks, before the painted glass came, and the subscription for the painted glass, and the letter he wrote home for money to give to it. And there, down below, was the very name of the boy who sat on his right hand on that first day, scratched rudely in the oak panelling.

6. And then came the thought of all his old schoolfellows; and form after form of boys, nobler, and braver, and purer than he, rose up and seemed to rebuke him. Could he not think of them, and what they had felt and were feeling-they who had honored and loved from the first, the man whom he had taken years to know and love? Could he not think of those yet dearer to him who was gone, who bore his name and shared his blood, and were now without a husband or a father? Then the grief which he began to share with others became gentle and holy, and he rose up once more, and walked up

the steps to the altar, and, while the tears flowed freely down his cheeks, knelt down humbly and hopefully, to lay down there his share of a burden which had proved itself too heavy for him to bear in his own strength.

7. Here let us leave him where better could we leave him, than at the altar, before which he had first caught a glimpse of the glory of his birthright, and felt the drawing of the bond which links all living souls together in one brotherhood? - at the grave beneath the altar of him who had opened his eyes to see that glory, and softened his heart till it could feel that bond.

LXXV. MORNING.

WEBSTER.

1. It is morning, and a morning sweet, and fresh, and delightful. Everybody knows the morning in its metaphorical sense, applied to so many occasions. The health, strength, and beauty of early years lead us to call that period the "morning of life." Of a lovely young woman we say, she is "bright as the morning;" and no one doubts why Lucifer is called

66

son of the morning." But the morning itself, few people, inhabitants of cities, know anything about. Among all our good people, not one in a thousand sees the sun rise once in a year. They know nothing of the morning; their idea of it is, that it is that part of the day which comes along after a cup of coffee and a beefsteak, or a piece of toast.

2. With them morning is not a new issuing of

light, a new bursting forth of the sun, a new waking up of all that has life from a sort of temporary 1 death, to behold again the works of God, the heavens and the earth; it is only a part of the domestic day, belonging to reading the newspapers, answering notes, sending the children to school, and giving orders for dinner. The first streak of light, the earliest purpling of the east, which the lark springs up to greet, and the deeper and deeper coloring into orange and red, till at length the "glorious sun is this they never enjoy, seen, regent of the day,"

2

for they never see it.

3. Beautiful descriptions of the morning abound in all languages; but they are the strongest, perhaps, in the East, where the sun is often an object of worship. King David speaks of taking to himself the "wings of the morning." This is highly poetical and beautiful. The wings of the morning are the beams of the rising sun. Rays of light are wings. It is thus said that the Sun of righteousness shall arise "with healing in his wings"-a rising Sun that shall scatter life, health, and joy through the universe. Milton has fine descriptions of morning, but not so many as Shakspeare, from whose writings. pages of the most beautiful imagery, all founded on the glory of morning, might be filled.

4. I never thought that Adam had much the advantage of us from having seen the world while it was new. The manifestations of the power of God, like his mercies, are "new every morning," and fresh every moment. We see as fine risings of the sun as ever Adam saw; and its risings are as much a miracle now as they were in his day, and I think a