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tion may be beneath. Though heedless of it, we move in a universe of spiritual life. It is with us as with men that lie dreaming in their beds at sea, between whom and the ocean is but a single plank: cabined, cribbed, confined in our narrow, individual existence, there is all the time rushing by us, its moanings in our ears, its tremblings reaching to our hearts, the mystic tide of spiritual life.

"The spirit giveth life." We need not go far, if we will but open our eyes, to see how the most ordinary acts of man are penetrated by a spiritual element. And where this is, nothing can be tame or common-place. Nothing, at first sight, is more worldly and unspiritual than a commercial newspaper. It deals solely with the affairs of the day, and with material interests. Yet when we come to consider them, its driest details are instinct with human hopes, and fears, and affections; and these illuminate what was dark, and make the dead letter breathe with life.

For example:-in the paper of to-day, a middle-aged man seeks employment in a certain kind of business. The advertisement has, in substance, been the same for weeks. For a time, he sought some place, which presupposed the possession of business habits and attainments. Then there was a change in the close of the advertisement, indicating that he would do any thing by which he could render himself useful to an employer. And, this morning, there is another change: he is willing to commence with low wages, as employment is what he especially wants.

All this is uninteresting enough; yet what depths of life may lie underneath this icy surface of business detail! It is easy for the fancy to seek out and make the acquaintance of this man. He is a foreigner, in poverty, with a family, brought to this country by the hopes which have brought so many hither, only that they might be overwhelmed with disappointment. He is a stranger, and finds all places of business full. Already his family is parting with every superfluous article of dress and furniture; their food grows daily more scanty and meagre; broken down in heart and hopes, he seeks, through all the avenues of business, some employment, and cannot find it. The decent pride, and the desire to enter that business for which his previous habits had fitted him, have kept him up for a time; but these are fast departing under the

pressure of penury; and this morning's advertisement means, that the day seems near at hand when his children may cry for bread, and he have none to give. Not always, by any means, but how often might such advertisements tell tales like this!

Could we but look, through this long line of advertisements, into the hearts of those who have published them, what a revelation would there be of human life! Here are partnerships formed and closed; young men entering into business, old men going out of it; new inventions and speculations; failures, sales of household furniture, and dwellings. These have been attended by the most sanguine hopes, by utter hopelessness, by every form of fear, anxiety, and sorrow. This young man, just entering business, looks forward, with anticipations bright as the morning, to his marriage day. This sale of furniture speaks of death, diminished fortunes, a scattered family. There is not a sale of stocks, which does not straiten or increase the narrow means of widows and orphans.

This long column of ship news-a thousand hearts are at this moment beating with joy and thankfulness, or are oppressed by anxiety, or crushed down by sorrow, because of these records, which to others seem so meaningless!One reads here of his prosperity; another of ruined fortunes. And the wrecked ship, whose crew was swept by the surge into the breakers, and dashed on the rockshow many in their solitary homes are mourning for those who sailed with bright hopes in that ship, but who shall never return!

And, more than this-could these lines which record the transactions of daily business, tell of the hearts which indited them, what temptations and struggles would they reveal! They would tell of inexperience deceived or protected; of integrity fallen, or made stedfast as the rock; of moral trials, in which noble natures have been broken down or built up. Had we the key and the interpretation of what we here read, this daily chronicle of traffic would be a sadder tragedy than any which Shakspeare wrote.

LESSON XLVII.

The Seventh Plague of Egypt. The Tempest.—ANON.

'Twas morn-the rising splendour roll'd
On marble towers and roofs of gold;
Hall, court, and gallery below,
Were crowded with a living flow;
Egyptian, Arab, Nubian there,
The bearers of the bow and spear;
The hoary priest, the Chaldee sage,

The slave, the gemm'd and glittering page-
Helm, turban, and tiara, shone

A dazzling ring round Pharaoh's throne.

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Shrank backward from his stately stride:
His cheek with storm and time was tann'd;
A shepherd's staff was in his hand;

A shudder of instinctive fear

Told the dark king what step was near;
On through the host the stranger came,
It parted round his form like flame.

He stoop'd not at the footstool stone,
He clasp'd not sandal, kissed not throne;
Erect he stood amid the ring,
His only words-"Be just, Ŏ king!"

On Pharaoh's cheek the blood flush'd high,
A fire was in his sullen eye;

Yet on the Chief of Israel

No arrow of his thousands fell:

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All mute and moveless as the grave

Stood chill'd the satrap and the slave.

"Thou'rt come," at length the monarch spoke; Haughty and high the words outbroke:

"Is Israel weary of its lair,

The forehead peel'd, the shoulder bare?
Take back the answer to your band;
Go, reap the wind; go, plough the sand;

Go, vilest of the living vile,
To build the never ending pile,
Till, darkest of the nameless dead,
The vulture on their flesh is fed.
What better asks the howling slave
Than the base life our bounty gave?"

Shouted in pride the turban'd peers,
Upclashed to heaven the golden spears.
"King! thou and thine are doom'd!-Behold!”
The prophet spoke-the thunder roll'd!
Along the pathway of the sun

Sail'd vapoury mountains, wild and dun.
"Yet there is time," the prophet said-
He raised his staff-the storm was stay'd:

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'King! be the word of freedom given: What art thou, man, to war with Heaven ?"

There came no word.-The thunder broke! Like a huge city's final smoke,

Thick, lurid, stifling, mix'd with flame,
Through court and hall the vapours came.
Loose as the stubble in the field,

Wide flew the men of spear and shield;
Scattered like foam along the wave,
Flew the proud pageant, prince and slave:
Or, in the chains of terror bound,

Lay, corpse-like, on the smouldering ground.
"Speak, king!-the wrath is but begun-
Still dumb?-then, Heaven, thy will be done!"
Echoed from earth a hollow roar,
Like ocean on the midnight shore;
A sheet of lightning o'er them wheel'd,
The solid ground beneath them reel'd;
In dust sank roof and battlement;
Like webs the giant walls were rent;
Red, broad, before his startled gaze,
The monarch saw his Egypt blaze.

Still swelled the plague the flame grew pale;
Burst from the clouds the charge of hail;
With arrowy keenness, iron weight,

Down pour'd the ministers of fate;

Till man and cattle, crush'd, congeal'd,
Cover'd with death the boundless field.

Still swell'd the plague-uprose the blast,
The avenger, fit to be the last;

On ocean, river, forest, vale,

Thunder'd at once the mighty gale.
Before the whirlwind flew the tree,
Beneath the whirlwind roar'd the sea;
A thousand ships were on the wave-
Where are they?-ask that foaming grave!
Down go the hope, the pride of years,
Down go the myriad mariners;
The riches of Earth's richest zone,
Gone! like a flash of lightning, gone!

And, lo! that first fierce triumph o'er,
Swells Ocean on the shrinking shore;
Still onward, onward, dark and wide,
Engulfs the land the furious tide.

Then bow'd thy spirit, stubborn king,
Thou serpent, reft of fang and sting;
Humbled before the prophet's knee,
He groan'd, "Be injured Israel free."

To heaven the sage upraised his wand;
Back rolled the deluge from the land;
Back to its caverns sank the gale;
Fled from the noon the vapours pale;
Broad burn'd again the joyous sun:
The hour of wrath and death was done.

LESSON XLVIII.

Danger of Prematurely Tasking the Mental Powers of the Young.-A. BRIGHAM.

MUCH of the thoughtlessness of parents, regarding the injury they may do their children by too early cultivating their minds, has arisen from the mystery in which the science of mind has been involved, and ignorance of the

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