DID NAPOLEON DO MORE HURT THAN GOOD TO THE WORLD?

A. His whole career was marked with blood, oceans of wealth and millions of lives were sacrificed to his ambition.

N. He struck a death blow to popery, and laid the foundation for the liberty of enslaved Europe.

IS PARTY SPIRIT BENEFICIAL?

A.-Check to the party in power from becoming corrupt.

N. It is the means of many bad men being promoted to places of trust, because they are good party men. It increases the immorality of the nation. Washington was slandered, and every man worthy or unworthy ever since his day, that has been held up for the presidency, has been vilely slandered by the opposing party, and at this day we have striking evidence of the evils of party-spirit, in the slang that each party heaps on the other, and the mean and contemptible measures that each take to secure their own party in power. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Methinks that the convulsions of parties are even now weaving the winding-sheet that will enshroud the blood-bought liberties of our country. This will eventually happen, unless the dove of peace shall perch upon our banners, and unite us in one great brotherhood.

DOES THE ORATOR EXERT A GREATER IN.. FLUENCE THAN THE POET?

A.-Greece and Rome. Demosthenes and Cicero. N.-Homer, Virgil, Milton, Young, Pollock.. The influence of the orator is short, that of the poet lives forever.

IS LIGHT MATTER?

A. It is governed by the laws of matter. Sir Isaac Newton believed it to be minute particles of

matter.

N.-If matter, the sun in time would become exhausted, and its particles, however minute, flying two hundred thousand miles in a second, would speedily kill every living being on the globe. [Ref. Nat. Philosophy and Chemistry.]

OUTLINES OF ESSAYS.

DECISION.

ILLUSTRATION..-A little chip, floating on the stream, is tossed here and there by every little breeze and wave, while the huge log ploughs its course majestically along, undisturbed by the raging winds or foaming billows. The former represents the undecided, the latter the decided man.

By it Demosthenes, although he had a stammering tongue, feeble voice, and weak constitution, became the unrivalled orator of the world.

By it Columbus braved ridicule and numerous difficulties, until he opened a new world to the astonished gaze of the old.

With the motto, "Decision and perseverance overcomes all difficulties," Napoleon vanquished armies and conquered nations.

With the same, Franklin, from a poor apprentice boy became the first philosopher of his time; and Roger Sherman rose from the shoemaker's bench to a seat in the halls of congress; Wm. L. Marcy and Martin Van Buren from poor obscure boys, the one to be governor of New-York, and the other to the highest office in the gift of the nation.

HABIT.

ILLUSTRATION.—It is as supple as the tender sapling, and as plastic as the heated wax, when forming; but when formed, is like the sturdy oak, unmoved by the raging hurricane, or the flinty rock that braves the mountain surges unimpressed. Good habits are golden streams, that bless in their course, while they are living fountains of bliss to their possessor; bad ones are rivers of lava blighting, and destroying on every side, while they are stagnant lakes of death to their owner. Let your motto ever be, "Whatever is right, I will pursue ; whatever is wrong, I will reject.'

NOTE.-A lady of New-York has contracted the habit of counting the panes of glass in a house, the moment she casts her eyes upon the window. She has repeatedly assured her friends, that it is impossible to cure herself of the habit, and that the sense of weariness and pain, from associating the number of panes with the idea of a house or window, is a hundred times worse than the labour of superintending the concerns of a family. An attorney had contracted such a habit of numbering his steps, and thinking how many paces distance were certain places, that he found it extremely difficult to meditate on any other subject.

HAPPINESS.

ILLUSTRATION.-It is a second Eden, in which grows the tree of life, by its side stands a cherub, whose countenance beams with benevolence and delight, while he invites all of earth's sons and daughters to eat and live forever; all press on to obtain the boon, but numerous enemies to their peace, tempt a large portion of the multitude from

the only road into numerous by-paths, that lead to misery, wo and death.

Fame, wealth, power, rank, pleasure and mere rounds of excitement, are shadows, and perish with the hour that gave them birth.

GENIUS.

ILLUSTRATION.-Charles Bell, in his introductory address to his first course of lectures in Edin. burgh, in his allusion to that distinguished physiologist and surgeon, Mr. John Hunter, says of him, he has been called a man of genius, but he was disposed to take a different view of his character from that, which is commonly expressed by that term. The great and leading feature in his character was, that he was steadily and eagerly devoted to his ob. ject, and that no change of external circumstances had the power, for one moment, of turning him aside from it. Was he in his study or in his dis. secting-room, or mingling with men in the common occupations of life; was he at sea, shut up in a crowded transport; or was he in the field of battle, with bullets flying, and men dropping around him, one great object was steadily and habitually before him, and he never lost sight of an opportunity of seizing upon every thing, that could in any way be made to bear upon it. Newton stated of himself, that his superiority to common minds, was not an endowment of nature, but acquired by mental discipline.