alent to a capital of two hundred and fifty millions of dollars, at an interest of six per centum per annum.

3. And if our commerce be re-established, it will, in the course of time, yield a sum for which we are scarcely furnished with figures in arithmetic.

4. The spirit of commercial enterprise is diffused through-out the country. It is a passion as unconquerable as any with which nature has endowed us. You may attempt, indeed, to regulate, but you cannot destroy it.

5. It exhibits itself as well on the waters of the western country, as on the waters and shores of the Atlantic.

6. I have heard of a vessel, built at Pittsburg, having crossed the Atlantic, and entered an European port-I believe that of Leghorn. The master of the vessel laid his papers before the proper custom-house officer, which, of course, stated the place of her departure. The officer boldly denied the existence of any such port as Pittsburgh, and threatened the seizure of the vessel as being furnished with forged papers.

7. The affirighted master procured a map of the United States, and pointing out the gulph of Mexico, took the officer to the mouth of the Mississippi-traced the course of the Mississippi more than a thousand miles to the mouth of the Ohio-and conducting him still a thousand miles higher to the juncture of the Alleghany and Monongahela-"There," he exclaimed, "stands Pittsburgh, the port from which I sailed!"

8. The custom-house officer, prior to the production of this evidence, would as soon have believed that the vessel had performed a voyage from the moon.

LESSON XL.

On Literature.-WILKINS TANNEHILL.

1. AMONG the most interesting events in the history of the world, are the rise and progress of literature, its general diffusion, and the influence it has exerted, and continues to exert, upon the moral, intellectual, and political condition, of the human race.

2. The influence of literature and science, is well worth

the investigation, not only of the philosopher, who enters minutely into the investigation of causes and effects, but of every rational and intelligent mind; and its history is not less a subject of interesting pursuit.

3. It is a pleasing employment, when the mind is undisturbed by the cares of the world, or not engaged by more profound studies, to trace its progress through its various ramifications and gradations, its elevations and depressions, from its first rude beginnings, to its present "high and palmy state."

4. Like every thing else, dependent upon human exertion for its cultivation and improvement, it has had its seasons of prosperity and glory; and notwithstanding the inestimable blessings it is calculated to bestow, it has also had its seasons of humiliation and depression.

5. When we compare the condition of a civilized and enlightened people with that of the wild and untutored savage, whose benighted mind no genial ray of science illumines, the influence of learning is strikingly displayed.

6. In the latter we behold mind in a rude and uncultivated state, rough and unpolished as the most precious gems, before the hand of the lapidary has removed the external coat which surrounds its beauties.

7. Contented with the objects which surround him, and with which he has been familiar from his infancy, the uncultivated man, notwithstanding his native energy of intellect, discovers no great merit in the improvements daily making by his more enlightened neighbors, in the arts which conduce to the comforts and conveniences of life; nor does he discover any extraordinary development of mind in the various improvements and discoveries in the different departments of science.

8. But let these things be explained in a manner which he can comprehend, and if he is not able, from the peculiar circumstances of his situation, to adopt them, he will be constrained to acknowledge the advantages to be derived from mental cultivation.

9. The influence of learning is obvious also, when we compare the civil and political institutions of a country, where seminaries of learning, unrestrained by arbitrary rules, are supported and encouraged by public and private munificence, and where learning is generally diffused, with

those of another, where knowledge is limited a fewwhere fair science spreads not her cheering beams abroad throughout the land."

10. In the one, the people are generally intelligent, if not learned, and are capable appreciating their civil and peaceful possession of the life, and are contented and appy.

understanding and properly political rights; they are in mforts and conveniences of

11. In the other, "oppression rules the hour;" the great mass of the people, debased by ignorance and superstition, are poor, wretched, and dependent upon the whims and caprices of some petty tyrant, who, "clothed with a little brief authority," exercises it, not for the general good, but for his own private advantage, or to gratify his lust for

power.

LESSON XLI.

On the Advantages of Learning.-WASHINGTON BAR

ROW.

1. It is the duty and benefit of every man to satisfy himself that whatever is daily presented to him as truth or fact, for the action of his mind, whether for belief or exercise, is really truth or fact.

2. How great here is the advantage of the educated man. The laws of philosophy are familiar to his mind, and he can readily apply them and detect the errors which the ignorant or half-taught man would be sure to overlook.

3. Is he a farmer? He plants with the more certain prospect of success in his crops, from a knowledge of those chemical laws which govern the combinations of the soi!, and which teach him precisely that degree of preparation and that mode of tillage which are best adapted to the results he wishes.

4. Is he a mechanic? Every day he is compelled to call to his aid many of the rules of the precise sciences, and frequently depends for the success of his operations upon the more intricate and profound laws of philosophy.

5. Is he a merchant? Science shall assist him in a multitude of ways-in acquiring a knowledge of the sound and

just condition of the multifarious materials of trade-the state of the world-the causes which go to make up and change the ever-varying demands in all parts of the globe, by which trade is maintained and wealth acquired. The counting-house of a well educated merchant is in itself a school of science.

6. Is he a physician? As well might we place in his hands the tomahawk and scalping knife, and direct him to torture, to mangle, and to destroy, as to trust him to pre scribe for our diseases, without education.

7. And how much is the whole sphere of domestic and family enjoyments enlarged and made attractive and beau tiful, and almost holy, by the amelioration of mind which eduation produces, and the continued series of pleasures and delights which it sprinkles along our path.

8. How many cheering enjoyments, too, does it shed up.n the darksome, and, too often, wearisome days of old age. How few are the pleasures that belong to the ignorant and uneducated, who are spared to this period of life.

9. Too often do we see them, petulent and selfish, scattering discomforts and annoyances upon all within their reach, too often giving themselves up to mere inanity and vacancy of mind, and, not seldom, passing their imbecile hours in such enjoyments as the pipe and intoxicating bowl can furnish.

10. An ignorant old man is almost of necessity a besotted one. His circle of knowledge and of intercourse, whatever it may once have been, is now narrowed down to the merest point.

11. Feeble, and daily yet more feeble, does his conception of all things around him become, till, at length, instead of having advanced in power and strength of mind as he has advanced in years, instead of having sought to bring his faculties nearer and nearer to the INFINITE INTELLIGENCE, his intellect returns again to the condition of vacant infancy, and, he leaves the world as he entered it, with his mind almost a blank.

12. How different the condition and the enjoyments of the man of education at this period? An interesting and instructive writer, speaking of his own cheerful feelings in old age, beautifully says, "It is no unfrequent amusement of mine to turn over the volumes which were the favorites

of my boyhood, and though it is but here and there that 1 meet with a passage that I can distinctly remember to have interested me, yet the comparison of past with present feelings is full of interest.

13. "How very much do I find, of what then must have been to me quite speculative and imaginary, to have been now completely realized; how much that must then have been unintelligible, to be now alas! but too intelligible, how many lines and expressions which must then have fired my faney, do I now pass over with cold indifference, and how many beauties now strike me, to which at that age, I must have been insensible.

14. "As a well diversified landscape ever presents novelty through the longest life, owing to the infinite number of different combinations of light and shade of which it is capable, so is it with my favorite authors-their perusal supplies me with unlimited variety from the ever shifting state of my feelings and memory, the latter of which has clouds and sunshine in abundant store to produce."

15. Such are the gratifications and enjoyments which education and the love of literature may bring to the darkest period of life, illuminating and warming with its genial rays, the often chill and dreary path of old age.

16. This description of men are not, even in their days of decrepitude dependent for their enjoyments and the occupation of their minds, upon the exertions of others.

17. They can retire within themselves and lean upon their own minds for support and enjoyment. They can call up the recollection of studies, and thoughts, and labors of days long past, and hold communion with the cultivated intellect of the whole earth, of past and present time. Hence they are seldom seen as monuments of that dotage into which the ignorant and uneducated mind is almost certain to fall.

LESSON XLII.

Mounds.-BRECKENRIDGE.

1. THE American bottom, is a tract of rich alluvion land, extending on the Mississippi, from the Kaskaskia to the Ca