Industry necessary to the Attainment of Eloquence.— WARE.

THE history of the world is full of testimony to prove how much depends upon industry; not an eminent orator has lived but is an example of it. Yet, in contradiction to all this, the almost universal feeling appears to be, that industry can effect nothing, that eminence is the result of accident, and that every one must be content to remain just what he may happen to be. Thus multitudes, who come forward as teachers and guides, suffer themselves to be satisfied with the most indifferent attainments, and a miserable mediocrity, without so much as inquiring how they may rise higher, much less making any attempt to rise. For any other art they would have served an apprenticeship, and would be ashamed to practise it in public before they had learned it. If any one would sing, he attends a master, and is drilled in the very elementary principles; and only after the most laborious process dares to exercise his voice in public. This he does, though he has scarce any thing to learn but the mechanical execution of what lies in sensible forms before the eye. But the extempore speaker, who is to invent as well as to utter, to carry on an operation of the mind as well as to produce sound, enters upon the work without preparatory discipline, and then wonders that he fails! If he were learning to play on the flute for public exhibition, what hours and days would he spend in giving facility to his fingers, and attaining the power of the sweetest and most expressive execution! If he were devoting himself to the organ, what months and years would he labour, that he might know its compass, and be master of its keys, and be able to draw out, at will, all its various combinations of harmonious sound, and its full richness and delicacy of expression! And yet he will fancy that the grandest, the most various and most expressive of all instruments, which the infinite Creator has fashioned by the union of an intellectual soul with the powers of speech, may be played upon without study or practice; he comes to it a mere uninstructed tyro, and thinks to manage all its stops, and command the whole compass of its varied and com

prehensive power! He finds himself a bungler in the attempt, is mortified at his failure, and settles it in his mind forever, that the attempt is vain.

Success in every art, whatever may be the natural talent, is always the reward of industry and pains. But the instances are many, of men of the finest natural genius, whose beginning has promised much, but who have degenerated wretchedly as they advanced, because they trusted to their gifts, and made no efforts to improve. That there have never been other men of equal endowments with Demosthenes and Cicero, none would venture to suppose; but who have so devoted themselves to their art, or become equal in excellence ? If those great men had been content, like others, to continue as they began, and had never made their persevering efforts for improvement, what would their countries have benefited from their genius, or the world have known of their fame? They would have been lost in the undistinguished crowd that sunk to oblivion around them. prove true! industrious!

Of how many more will the same remark What encouragement is thus given to the With such encouragement, how inexcusable is the negligence, which suffers the most interesting and Important truths to seem heavy and dull, and fall ineffectual to the ground, through mere sluggishness in their delivery! How unworthy of one, who performs the high functions of a religious instructer, upon whom depend, in a great measure, the religious knowledge, and devotional sentiments, and final character, of many fellow-beings,— to imagine, that he can worthily discharge this great concern, by occasionally talking for an hour, he knows not how, and in a manner which he has taken no pains to render correct, impressive, and attractive; and which, simply through want of that command over himself, which study would give, is immethodical, verbose, inaccurate, feeble, trifling. It has been said of the good preacher, that “truths divine come mended from his tongue." Alas! they come ruined and worthless from such a man as this. They lose that holy energy, by which they are to convert the soul and purify man for heaven, and sink, in interest and efficacy, below the level of those principles, which govern the ordinary affairs of this lower world.

Ingratitude towards the Deity.—APPLETON.

PERHAPS there is no crime which finds fewer advocates than ingratitude. Persons accused of this may deny the charge, but they never attempt to justify the disposition. They never say that there is no obliquity and demerit in being unmindful of benefits. If a moral fitness is discernible en any occasion, it is so on an occasion of favours bestowed and received. In proportion to these favours is the degree of demerit attached to ingratitude. Agreeable to this is the sentence so often quoted from Publius Syrus, 'Omne dixeris maledictum, quum ingratum hominem dixeris."

With what feelings do we receive and enjoy favours bestowed by our Creator! Our dependence on him is absolute and universal. Existence is not more truly his gift, than are all those objects, which render existence valuable. To his munificence are we indebted for intellectual powers, and the means for their cultivation; for the sustenance daily provided; for the enjoyments derived from the active and varying scenes of the day, and from the rest and tranquillity of the night. His gifts are the relations and friends, whom we love, and from whose affection to us so considerable a part of the joy of life is derived. His are the showers which moisten, and the sun which warms the earth. From Him are the pleasures and animation of spring, and the riches of harvest-all, that satisfies the appetite, supports or restores the animal system, gratifies the ear, or charms the eye. With what emotions, let it be asked, are all these objects viewed, and these blessings enjoyed? Is it the habit of man to acknowledge God in his works, and to attribute all his pleasures and security of life to the Creator's munificence? Possession and prosperity are enjoyed not as a gift to the undeserving, but as the result of chance or good fortune, or as the merited reward of our own prudence and effort. Were gratitude a trait in the human character, it would be proportionate to obligation; and where much is received much would be acknowledged. In this the liveliest sense of obligation would be exhibited among the wealthy, and those whose prosperity had been

long and uninterrupted. But do facts correspond to this supposition? Are God, his providence, and bounty, most sensibly and devoutly acknowledged by you, who feel no want, and are tried by no adversity? The truth is, our sense of obligation usually diminishes in proportion to the greatness and duration of blessings bestowed. A long course of prosperity renders us the more insensible and irreligious.

But on no subject is human ingratitude so remarkably apparent, as in regard to the Christian religion. I speak not of those who reject, but of those who believe Christianity, and who of course believe that "God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish." Search all the records of every era and nation; look through the works of God so far as they are open to human inspection, and you find nothing which equally displays the riches of divine mercy. The Son of God died to save culprits from merited condemnation. But is this subject contemplated with interest, with joy, with astonishment? It is viewed with the most The human

frigid indifference or heartfelt reluctance. mind, far from considering this as a favourite subject, flies from it, when occasionally presented.

Resistance to Oppression.*-J. QUINCY, JUN.

To complain of the enormities of power, to expostulate with overgrown oppressors, hath in all ages been denominated sedition and faction; and to turn upon tyrants, treason and rebellion. But tyrants are rebels against the first laws of Heaven and society; to oppose their ravages is an instinct of nature-the inspiration of God in the heart of man. In the noble resistance which mankind make to exorbitant ambition and power, they always feel that divine afflatus, which, paramount to every thing human, causes

*This piece is extracted from "Observations on the Boston Port Bill," first published in 1774, and recently reprinted in connexion with the Life of Mr. Quincy, by his son.-ED.

them to consider the Lord of Hosts as their leader, and his angels as fellow-soldiers. Trumpets are to them joyful sounds, and the ensigns of war the banners of God. Their wounds are bound up in the oil of a good cause; sudden death is to them present martyrdom, and funeral obsequies resurrections to eternal honour and glory,-their widows and babes being received into the arms of a compassionate God, and their names enrolled among David's worthies :greatest losses are to them greatest gains; for they leave the troubles of their warfare to lie down on beds of eternal rest and felicity.

Lafayette in the French Revolution.-TICKNOk.

LAFAYETTE was, also, a prominent member of the States General, which met in 1789, and assumed the name of the National Assembly. He proposed, in this body, a Declaration of Rights, not unlike our own, and it was under his influence, and while he was, for this very purpose, in the chair, that a decree was passed on the night of the 13th and 14th of July,―at the moment the Bastile was falling before the cannon of the populace,-which provided for the responsibility of ministers, and thus furnished one of the most important elements of a representative monarchy. Two days afterwards, he was appointed commander in chief of the National Guards of Paris, and thus was placed at the head of what was intended to be made, when it should be carried into all the departments, the effective military power of the realm, and what, under his wise management, soon became such.

His great military command, and his still greater personal influence, now brought him constantly in contact with the throne. His position, therefore, was extremely delicate and difficult, especially as the popular party in Paris, of which he was not so much the head as the idol, was already in a state of perilous excitement, and atrocious violences were beginning to be committed. The abhorrence of the queen was almost universal, and was excessive to a degree of which we can have no just idea. The