Then spread each wing,

Far, far above, o'er lakes and lands,
And join the choirs that sing

In yon blue dome not reared with hands.

Or, if ye stay

To note the consecrated hour,

Teach me the airy way,

And let me try your envied power.

Above the crowd,

On upward wings could I but fly,

I'd bathe in yon bright cloud,
And seek the stars that gem the sky.

"Twere heaven indeed,

Through fields of trackless light to soar,
On nature's charms to feed,

And nature's own great God adore.

-CHARLES SPRAGUE.

Better to weave in the web of life
A bright and golden filling,

And to do God's will with a ready heart,
And hands that are swift and willing,
Than to snap the delicate, slender threads
Of our curious lives asunder,

And then blame heaven for the tangled ends,
And sit and grieve, and wonder.

12. MAN AND THE INFERIOR ANIMALS.

The chief difference between man and the other animals consists in this, that the former has reason, whereas the latter have only instinct; but, in order to understand what we mean by the terms reason and instinct, it will be necessary to mention three things in which the difference very distinctly appears.

Let us first, to bring the parties as nearly on a level as possible, consider man in a savage state, wholly occupied, like the beasts of the field, in providing for the wants of his animal nature; and here the first distinction that appears between them is the use of implements. When the savage provides himself with a hut or a wigwam for shelter, or that he may store up his provisions, he does no more than is done by the rabbit, the beaver, the bee, and birds of every species.

But the man cannot make any progress in this work without tools; he must provide himself with an axe even before he can cut down a tree for its timber; whereas, these animals form their burrows, their cells, or their nests, with no other tools than those with which nature has provided them. In cultivating the ground, also, man can do nothing without a spade or a plough; nor can he reap what he has sown till he has shaped an implement with

which to cut down his harvest. But the inferior animals provide for themselves and their young without any of these things.

Now for the second distinction. Man, in all his operations, makes mistakes; animals make none. Did you ever hear of such a thing as a bird sitting on a twig lamenting over her half-finished nest and puzzling her little head to know how to complete it? Or did you ever see the cells of a beehive in clumsy, irregular shapes, or observe anything like a discussion in the little community, as if there were a difference of opinion among the architects?

The lower animals are even better physicians than we are; for when they are ill, they will, many of them, seek out some particular herb, which they do not use as food, and which possesses a medicinal quality exactly suited to the complaint; whereas, the whole college of physicians will dispute for a century about the virtues of a single drug.

Man undertakes nothing in which he is not more or less puzzled; and must try numberless experiments before he can bring his undertakings to anything like perfection; even the simplest operations of domestic life are not well performed without some experience; and the term of man's life is half wasted before he has done with his mistakes and begins to profit by his lessons.

The third distinction is that animals make no improvements; while the knowledge, and skill, and the success of man are perpetually on the increase. Animals, in all their operations, follow the first impulse of nature or that instinct which God has implanted in them. In all they do undertake, therefore, their works are more perfect and regular than those of man.

But man having been endowed with the faculty of thinking or reasoning about what he does, is enabled by patience and industry to correct the mistakes into which he at first falls, and to go on constantly improving. A bird's nest is, indeed, a perfect structure; yet the nest of a swallow of the nineteenth century is not at all more commodious or elegant than those that were built amid the rafters of Noah's ark. But if we compare the wigwam of the savage with the temples and palaces of ancient Greece and Rome, we then shall see to what man's mistakes, rectified and improved upon, conduct him.

"When the vast sun shall veil his golden light
Deep in the gloom of everlasting night;

When wild, destructive flames shall wrap the skies,
When ruin triumphs, and when nature dies;
Man shall alone the wreck of worlds survive;
'Mid falling spheres, immortal man shall live."

PART III,

1. KING ALFRED.

I.

Alfred the Great was a young man three-andtwenty years of age when he became king of England, 871 A.D. Twice in his childhood he had been taken to Rome, where the Saxon nobles were in the habit of going on pilgrimages; and once he had stayed for some time in Paris. Learning was so little cared for in his time that, at twelve years old, he had not been taught to read, although, of the four sons of King Ethelwulf, he, the youngest, was the favorite.

But, like most great and good men, he had an excellent mother; and one day this queen, whose name was Osburga, happened to read to her sons a book of Saxon poetry. The art of printing was not known until long after that period; and the book, which was written, was what is called "illuminated" with beautiful bright letters, richly painted.

The brothers admiring it very much, their mother said, "I will give it to that one of you who first learns to read." The older princes loved hunting