McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader Part 26

NOTES.--Henry V. (1388-1422) was king of England for nine years. During this reign almost continuous war raged in France, to the throne of which Henry laid claim. The battle of Agincourt took place in his reign.

Fet is the old form of fetched.

Alexanders.--Alexander the Great (356-323 B. G) was king of Macedonia, and the celebrated conqueror of Persia, India, and the greater part of the world as then known.

x.x.xVI. SPEECH OF PAUL ON MARS HILL. (160)

Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars Hill, and said, Ye men of Athens! I perceive that in all things ye are too superst.i.tious. For as I pa.s.sed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To THE UNKNOWN G.o.d. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

G.o.d that made the world and all things therein (seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth) dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshiped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from everyone of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of G.o.d, we ought not to think that the G.o.dhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this ignorance G.o.d winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent: because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that Man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given a.s.surance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them.

Howbeit certain men clave unto him, and believed; among the which was Dionysius the Areopagite, and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

--Bible.

NOTES.--At the time this oration was delivered (50 A. D.), Athens still held the place she had occupied for centuries, as the center of the enlightened and refined world.

Mars Hill, or the Areopagus, was an eminence in the city made famous as the place where the court, also called Areopagus, held its sittings,

Dionysius, surnamed Areopageita, from being a member of this court, was an eminent Greek scholar, who, after his conversion to Christianity by St.

Paul, was installed, by the latter, as the first bishop of Athens, He afterwards suffered martyrdom.

x.x.xVII. G.o.d IS EVERYWHERE. (161)

Oh! show me where is He, The high and holy One, To whom thou bend'st the knee, And prayest, "Thy will be done!"

I hear thy song of praise, And lo! no form is near: Thine eyes I see thee raise, But where doth G.o.d appear?

Oh! teach me who is G.o.d, and where his glories shine, That I may kneel and pray, and call thy Father mine.

"Gaze on that arch above: The glittering vault admire.

Who taught those orbs to move?

Who lit their ceaseless fire?

Who guides the moon to run In silence through the skies?

Who bids that dawning sun In strength and beauty rise?

There view immensity! behold! my G.o.d is there: The sun, the moon, the stars, his majesty declare.

"See where the mountains rise: Where thundering torrents foam; Where, veiled in towering skies, The eagle makes his home: Where savage nature dwells, My G.o.d is present, too: Through all her wildest dells His footsteps I pursue: He reared those giant cliffs, supplies that dashing stream, Provides the daily food which stills the wild bird's scream.

"Look on that world of waves, Where finny nations glide; Within whose deep, dark caves The ocean monsters hide: His power is sovereign there, To raise, to quell the storm; The depths his bounty share, Where sport the scaly swarm: Tempests and calms obey the same almighty voice, Which rules the earth and skies, and bids far worlds rejoice."

--Joseph Hutton.

x.x.xVIII. LAFAYETTE AND ROBERT RAIKES. (163)

Thomas S. Grimke', 1786-1834, an eminent lawyer and scholar, was born in Charleston, South Carolina, graduated at Yale in 1807, and died of cholera near Columbus, Ohio. He descended from a Huguenot family that was exiled from France by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. He gained considerable reputation as a politician, but is best known as an advocate of peace, Sunday Schools, and the Bible. He was a man of deep feeling, earnest purpose, and pure life. Some of his views were very radical and very peculiar. He proposed sweeping reforms in English orthography[1], and disapproved of the cla.s.sics and of pure mathematics in any scheme of general education. The following is an extract from an address delivered at a Sunday-school celebration.

[Transcriber's Footnote 1: Orthography: Spelling using established usage.]

It is but a few years since we beheld the most singular and memorable pageant in the annals of time. It was a pageant more sublime and affecting than the progress of Elizabeth through England after the defeat of the Armada; than the return of Francis I. from a Spanish prison to his own beautiful France; than the daring and rapid march of the conqueror at Austerlitz from Frejus to Paris. It was a pageant, indeed, rivaled only in the elements of the grand and the pathetic, by the journey of our own Washington through the different states. Need I say that I allude to the visit of Lafayette to America?

But Lafayette returned to the land of the dead, rather than of the living.

How many who had fought with him in the war of '76, had died in arms, and lay buried in the grave of the soldier or the sailor! How many who had survived the perils of battle, on the land and the ocean, had expired on the deathbed of peace, in the arms of mother, sister, daughter, wife!

Those. who survived to celebrate with him the jubilee of 1825, were stricken in years, and h.o.a.ry-headed; many of them infirm in health; many the victims of poverty, or misfortune, or affliction. And, how venerable that patriotic company; how sublime their gathering through all the land; how joyful their welcome, how affecting their farewell to that beloved stranger!

But the pageant has fled, and the very materials that gave it such depths of interest are rapidly perishing: and a humble, perhaps a nameless grave, shall hold the last soldier of the Revolution. And shall they ever meet again? Shall the patriots and soldiers of '76, the "Immortal Band," as history styles them, meet again in the amaranthine bowers of spotless purity, of perfect bliss, of eternal glory? Shall theirs be the Christian's heaven, the kingdom of the Redeemer? The heathen points to his fabulous Elysium as the paradise of the soldier and the sage. But the Christian bows down with tears and sighs, for he knows that not many of the patriots, and statesmen, and warriors of Christian lands are the disciples of Jesus.

But we turn from Lafayette, the favorite of the old and the new world, to the peaceful benevolence, the unambitious achievements of Robert Raikes.

Let us imagine him to have been still alive, and to have visited our land, to celebrate this day with us. No national ships would have been offered to bear him, a nation's guest, in the pride of the star-spangled banner, from the bright sh.o.r.es of the rising, to the brighter sh.o.r.es of the setting sun. No cannon would have hailed him in the stern language of the battlefield, the fortunate champion of Freedom, in Europe and America. No martial music would have welcomed him in notes of rapture, as they rolled along the Atlantic, and echoed through the valley of the Mississippi. No military procession would have heralded his way through crowded streets, thickset with the banner and the plume, the glittering saber and the polished bayonet. No cities would have called forth beauty and fashion, wealth and rank, to honor him in the ballroom and theater. No states would have escorted him from boundary to boundary, nor have sent their chief magistrate to do him homage. No national liberality would have allotted to him a n.o.bleman's domain and princely treasure. No national grat.i.tude would have hailed him in the capitol itself, the nation's guest, because the nation's benefactor; and have consecrated a battle ship, in memory of his wounds and his gallantry.

Not such would have been the reception of Robert Raikes, in the land of the Pilgrims and of Penn, of the Catholic, the Cavalier, and the Huguenot.

And who does not rejoice that it would be impossible thus to welcome this primitive Christian, the founder of Sunday schools? His heralds would be the preachers of the Gospel, and the eminent in piety, benevolence, and zeal. His procession would number in its ranks the messengers of the Cross and the disciples of the Savior, Sunday-school teachers and white-robed scholars. The temples of the Most High would be the scenes of his triumph.

Homage and grat.i.tude to him, would be anthems of praise and thanksgiving to G.o.d.

Parents would honor him as more than a brother; children would reverence him as more than a father. The faltering words of age, the firm and sober voice of manhood, the silvery notes of youth, would bless him as a Christian patron. The wise and the good would acknowledge him everywhere as a national benefactor, as a patriot even to a land of strangers. He would have come a messenger of peace to a land of peace. No images of camps, and sieges, and battles; no agonies of the dying and the wounded; no shouts of victory, or processions of triumph, would mingle with the recollections of the mult.i.tude who welcomed him. They would mourn over no common dangers, trials, and calamities; for the road of duty has been to them the path of pleasantness, the way of peace. Their memory of the past would be rich in grat.i.tude to G.o.d, and love to man; their enjoyment of the present would be a prelude to heavenly bliss; their prospects of the future, bright and glorious as faith and hope. * * *

Such was the reception of Lafayette, the warrior; such would be that of Robert Raikes, the Howard of the Christian church. And which is the n.o.bler benefactor, patriot, and philanthropist? Mankind may admire and extol Lafayette more than the founder of the Sunday schools; but religion, philanthropy, and enlightened common sense must ever esteem Robert Raikes the superior of Lafayette. His are the virtues, the services, the sacrifices of a more enduring and exalted order of being. His counsels and triumphs belong less to time than to eternity.

The fame of Lafayette is of this world; the glory of Robert Raikes is of the Redeemer's everlasting kingdom. Lafayette lived chiefly for his own age, and chiefly for his and our country; but Robert Raikes has lived for all ages and all countries. Perhaps the historian and biographer may never interweave his name in the tapestry of national or individual renown. But the records of every single church honor him as a patron; the records of the universal Church, on earth as in heaven, bless him as a benefactor.

The time may come when the name of Lafayette will be forgotten; or when the star of his fame, no longer glittering in the zenith, shall be seen, pale and glimmering, on the verge of the horizon. But the name of Robert Raikes shall never be forgotten; and the lambent flame of his glory is that eternal fire which rushed down from heaven to devour the sacrifice of Elijah. Let mortals then admire and imitate Lafayette more than Robert Raikes. But the just made perfect, and the ministering spirits around the throne of G.o.d, have welcomed him as a fellow-servant of the same Lord; as a fellow-laborer in the same glorious cause of man's redemption; as a coheir of the same precious promises and eternal rewards.

NOTES.--Armada, the great fleet sent out in 1588, by Philip II. of Spain, for the conquest of England, was defeated in the Channel by the English and Dutch fleets. After the victory, Queen Elizabeth made a triumphal journey through the kingdom.

Francis I. (b. 1494, d. 1547), King of France, was taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia, and confined at Madrid, Spain, nearly a year.

Austerlitz.--See Note on p. 150.

Lafayette (b. 1757, d. 1834), a French marquis, who served as major general in the Revolutionary War in America, which terminated in 1783.

Lafayette revisited this country in 1824, and was received throughout the land with the greatest enthusiasm.

Robert Raikes (b. 1735, d. 1811), an English printer and philanthropist, noted as the founder of Sunday schools.

Howard, John (b. 1726, d. 1790), a celebrated English philanthropist, who spent much of his life in the endeavor to reform the condition of prisons in Europe.

x.x.xIX. FALL OF CARDINAL WOLSEY. (167)

Wolsey. Farewell! a long farewell, to all my greatness!

This is the state of man: to-day he puts forth The tender leaves of hopes; to-morrow blossoms, And bears his blushing honors thick upon him; The third day comes a frost, a killing frost, And, when he thinks, good, easy man, full surely His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root, And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured, Like little, wanton boys that swim on bladders, This many summers in a sea of glory, But far beyond my depth: my high-blown pride At length broke under me, and now has left me, Weary and old with service, to the mercy Of a rude stream, that must forever hide me.

Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye: I feel my heart new open'd. Oh, how wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favors!

There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to, That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin, More pangs and fears than wars or women have: And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer, Never to hope again.

Enter CROMWELL, and stands amazed.