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vinced, therefore, that you mean to do us good by your proposal; and we thank you heartily. But you who are wise must know, that different nations have different conceptions of things; and you will therefore not take it amiss, if our ideas of this kind of education happen not to be the same with yours.

"We have had some experience of it: several of our young people were formerly brought up at the colleges of the northern provinces; they were instructed in all your sciences; but when they came back to us, they were bad runners; ignorant of every means of living in the woods; unable to bear either cold or hunger; knew neither how to build a cabin, take a deer, or kill an enemy; spoke our language imperfectly; were therefore neither fit for hunters, warriors, or counsellors; they were totally good for nothing. We are, however, not the less obliged by your kind offer, though we decline accepting it: and to show our grateful sense of it, if the gentlemen of Virginia will send us a dozen of their sons, we will take great care of their education, instruct them in all we know, and make men of them."

Having frequent occasions to hold public councils, they have acquired great order and decency in conducting them. The old men sit in the foremost ranks, the warriors in the next, and the women and children in the hindmost. The business of the women is to take exact notice of what passes, imprint it in their memories, for they have no writing, and communicate it to their children. They are the records of the council, and they preserve tradition of the stipulations in treaties a hundred years back; which, when we compare with our writings, we always find exact. He that would speak rises. The rest observe a profound silence. When he has finished, and sits down, they leave him five or six minutes to recollect, that if he has omitted any thing he intended to say, or has any thing to add, he may rise again and deliver it

To interrupt another, even in common conversation, is reckoned highly indecent. How different this is from the conduct of many deliberative assemblies among people called civilized and polite, where scarce a day passes without some confusion, that makes the speaker hoarse in calling to order; and how different from the mode of conversation in many polite companies with which we are acquainted, where, if you do not deliver your sentence with great rapidity, you are cut off in the middle of it by the impatient loquacity of those you converse with, and never suffered to finish it!

The politeness of these savages in conversation, is indeed, carried to excess; since it does not permit them to contradict or deny the truth of what is asserted in their presence. By this means they indeed avoid disputes; but then it becomes difficult to know their minds, or what impression you make upon them. When any of them come into our towns, our people are apt to crowd round them, gaze upon them, and incommode them where they desire to be private; this they esteem great rudeness, and the effect of the want of instruction in the rules of civility and good manners. "We have," say they, "as much curiosity as you, and when you come into our towns, we wish for opportunities of looking at you; but for this purpose we hide ourselves behind bushes where you are to pass, and never intrude ourselves into your company.

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Their manner of entering one another's villages has likewise its rules. It is reckoned uncivil in travelling strangers, to enter a village abruptly without giving notice of their approach. Therefore as soon as they arrive within hearing, they stop and halloo, remaining there till invited to enter. Two old men usually come out to them, and lead them in. There is in every village a vacant dwelling, called the stranger's house. Here they are placed, while the old men go round from hut to hut, acquainting the inhabitants

that strangers are arrived, who are probably hungry and weary; and every one sends them what he can spare of victuals, and skins to repose on.

It is remarkable, that in all ages and countries, hospitality has been allowed as the virtue of those, whom the civilized were pleased to call barbarians. The Greeks celebrated the Scythians for it; the Saracens possessed it eminently; and it is to this day the reigning virtue of the wild Arabs. St. Paul, too, in the relation of his voyage and shipwreck, on the island of Melita, says, "The barbarous people showed us no little kindness; for they kindled a fire and received us every one, because of the present rain and because of the cold."

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Life hath its sunshine-but the ray,
Which flashes on its stormy wave,
Is but the beacon of decay-

A meteor, gleaming o'er the grave.
And though its dawning hour is bright
With fancy's gayest coloring,
Yet o'er its cloud-encumbered night
Dark ruin flaps his raven wing.

Life hath its flowers-and what are they?
The buds of early love and truth,
Which spring and wither in a day,

The germs of warm, confiding youth;

Alas! those buds decay and die

Ere ripened and matured in bloom-
Even in an hour, behold them lie
Upon the still and lonely tomb.

Life hath its pang-of deepest thrill-
Thy sting, relentless memory!
Which wakes not, pierces not, until
The hour of joy hath ceased to be.
Then, when the heart is in its pall,
And cold afflictions gather o'er,
Thy mournful anthem doth recall

Bliss, which hath died to bloom no more

Life hath its blessings-but the storm
Sweeps like the desert wind in wrath,
To sear and blight the loveliest form
Which sports on earth's deceitful path.
Oh! soon the wild heart-broken wail

So changed from youth's delightful tone,
Floats mournfully upon the gale

When all is desolate and lone.

Life hath its hopes-a matin dream-
A cankered flower-a setting sun,
Which casts a transitory gleam
Upon the even's cloud of dun.
Pass but an hour, the dream hath fled,
The flowers on earth forsaken lie-
The sun hath set, whose lustre shed
A light upon the shaded sky.

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LESSON SEVENTY-FOURTH,

Shenandoah the Oneida Chief.

Shenandoah, the celebrated Oneida chief, was well known in the wars which occurred while we were British colonies, and in the contest which ensued in our independence, as the undeviating friend of the people of the United States. He was very savage and addicted to drunkenness in his youth; but he lived a re

formed man for more than sixty years, and died in Christian hope.

Shenandoah's person was tall and brawny but well made; his countenance was intelligent, and beamed with all the indigenous dignity of an Indian chief. In his youth he was a brave and intrepid warrior, and in his riper years one of the ablest counsellors among the North American tribes. He possessed a strong and vigorous mind, and though terrible as the tornado in war, he was bland and mild as the zephyr in peace.

With the cunning of the fox, the hungry perseverance of the wolf, and the agility of the mountain cat, he watched and repelled Canadian invasions. His vigilance once preserved from massacre the inhabitants of the infant settlement of German Flats. His influence brought his tribe to our assistance in the war of the revolution. How many have been saved from the tomahawk and scalping knife, by his friendly aid is not known; but individuals and villages have expressed gratitude for his benevolent interpositions; and among the Indian tribes he was distinguished by the appellation of "White man's friend.'

Although he could speak but little English, and in his extreme old age was blind, yet his company was sought. In conversation he was highly decorous, evincing that he had profited by seeing civilized and polished society, and by mingling with good company in his better days..

To a friend who called on him a short time since, he thus expressed himself by an interpreter; "I am an aged hemlock. The winds of a hundred winters have whistled through my branches, I am dead at the top. The generation to which I belonged has run away and left me. Why I live the great good Spirit only knows. Pray to my Jesus that I may have patience to wait for my appointed time to die."

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