Imatges de pàgina
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of his motives, and deceived himself, he begins to study how he may deceive others. Every moralist has remarked upon the delicacy of conscience; and that, from the first violation, it becomes more and more callous, until finally it sleeps a sleep as of death, and ceases to remonstrate. The gambler is less and less scrupulous about the modes of winning, so that he can win. No person will be long near the gambling table of high stakes, be the standing of the players what it may, without hearing the charge of CHEATING bandied back and forward; or reading the indignant expression of it in their countenances. One half of our fatal duels have their immediate or remote origin in insinuations of this sort.

9. The alternations of loss and gain; the preternatural excitement of the mind, and consequent depression when that excitement has passed away; the bacchanalian merriment of guilty associates; the loss of natural rest; in short, the very atmosphere of the gambling table, foster the temperament of hard drinking. A keen sense of interest may, indeed, and often does, restrain the gambler, while actually engaged in his employment, that he may possess the requisite coolness to watch his antagonist, and avail himself of every passing advantage.

10. But the moment the high excitement of play is intermitted, the moment the passions vibrate back to the state of repose, what shall sustain the sinking spirits; what shall renerve the relaxed physical nature; what shall fortify the mind against the tortures of conscience, and the thoughts of "a judgment to come," but intoxication? It is the experience of all time, that a person is seldom a gambler for any considerable period, without being also a drunkard.

11. Blasphemy follows, as a thing of course; and is, indeed, the well-known and universal dialect of the gambler. How often has my heart sunk within me, as I have passed the dark and dire receptacles of the gambler, and seen the red and bloated faces, and inhaled the mingled smells of tobacco and potent drink; and heard the loud, strange, and horrid curses of the players; realizing the while, that these beings so occupied were candidates for eternity, and now on the course which, if not speedily forsaken, would fix them for ever in hell.

12. We have already said, that gambling naturally leads to quarreling and murder. How often have we retired to our berth in the steamboat, and heard charges of dishonesty, accents of reviling and recrimination, and hints that these charges must be met and settled at another time and place, ring in our ears, as we have been attempting to commune with God and settle in a

right frame to repose! Many corses of young men, who met a violent death from this cause, have we seen carried to their long home! Every gambler, in the region where we write, is always armed to the teeth, and goes to his horrid pursuit, as the gladiator formerly presented himself on the arena of combat.

13. The picture receives deeper shades, if we take into the grouping the wife, or the daughter, or the mother, who lies sleepless, and ruminating through the long night, trembling lest her midnight retirement shall be invaded by those who bring back the husband and the father wounded, or slain, in one of those sudden frays which the card table, its accompaniments, and the passions it excites, so frequently generate. Suppose these forebodings should not be realized, and that he should steal home alive in the morning, with beggary and drunkenness, guilt and despair, written on his haggard countenance, and accents of sullenness and illtemper falling from his tongue, how insupportably gloomy must be the prospects of the future to that family!

14. These are but feeble and general sketches of the misery and ruin to individuals and to society from the indulgence of this vice, during the present life: If the wishes of unbelief were true, and there were no life after this, what perverse and miserable calculations would be those of the gambler, taking into view only the present world! But, in any view of the character and consequences of gambling, who shall dare close his eyes upon its future bearing on the interest and the eternal welfare of his Who shall dare lay out of the calculation the retributions

soul!

of eternity?

15. Each of the sins that enters into this deadly compound of them all, must incur the threatened displeasure and punishment of the Almighty. If there be degrees in the misery and despair of the tenants of that region, "where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched," how must the persevering and impenitent, gambler sink, as if "a millstone were hung about his neck, and he cast into the sea!" Say thou, my youthful reader, I implore thee, looking up to the Lord for firm and unalterable purpose, "I will hold fast my integrity and not let it go!"

TIMOTHY FLINT.

QUESTIONS.- - What is said of the influence of the love of gambling over an individual? What is the only safe course to pursue ? What is the well-known character of this sin? What is another appalling view of gambling? What vice is first mentioned as the sure attendant of gambling? What is the evidence supporting this assertion? What vice next follows? How is it brought on? What follows next to hard drinking? What is said about

quarreling and murder?

What is said of the wife, the mother, and the daugh

ter? What is the future bearing of this vice?

ARTICULATION. - Articulate the d clearly in the following words: termed, depraved, thousands, gained, bound, descend, kinds, mind, inhaled, armed, husband, world.

SPELL AND DEFINE.-1. Uncontrolled: 2. latent: 3. specious: 4. melancholy 5. indulgence: 6. intervene: 7. inseparable; 8. unconsciously : 9. antagonist: 10. vibrate: 11. inhaled, potent: 13. frays, forebodings, haggard: 14. calculation: 15. tenants, impenitent.

LESSON LXXI.

RULE. Reraember that the chief beauty and excellence of reading con sists in a clear and smooth articulation of the words and letters.

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1. GOLD many hunted, sweat and bled for gold;
Waked all the night, and labored all the day;
And what was this allurement, dost thou ask?
A dust dug from the bowels of the earth,
5. Which, being cast into the fire, came out
A shining thing that fools admired, and called
A god; and in devout and humble plight
Before it kneeled, the greater to the less;
And on its altar, sacrificed ease, peace,
10. Truth, faith, integrity, good conscience, friends,
Love, charity, benevolence, and all

The sweet and tender sympathies of life;
And, to complete the horrid, murderous rite,
And signalize their folly, offered up

15 Their souls, and an eternity of bliss,

To gain them; what? an hour of dreaming joy,

A feverish hour that hasted to be done,
And ended in the bitterness of woe.

Most, for the luxuries it bought, the pomp,
20. The praise, the glitter, fashion, and renown,
This yellow phantom followed and adored.
But there was one in folly, further gone,
With eye awry, incurable, and wild,
The laughing stock of devils and of men,
25. And by his guardian angel quite given up,
The miser, who with dust inanimate

Held wedded intercourse.

Ill-guided wretch!

Thou mightst have seen him at the midnight hour, 30. When good men slept, and in light-winged dreams Ascended up to God,-in wasteful hall,

With vigilance and fasting, worn to skin

And bone, and wrapped in most debasing rags,
Thou mightst have seen him bending o'er his heaps,
35. And holding strange communion with his gold;
And as his thievish fancy seemed to hear
The night-man's foot approach, starting alarmed,
And in his old, decrepit, withered hand,

That palsy shook, grasping the yellow earth, 40. To make it sure.

Of all God made upright,

And in their nostrils breathed a living soul,

Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most debased;
Of all that sold Eternity for Time,

45. None bargained on so easy terms with death.
Illustrious fool! Nay, most inhuman wretch!
He sat among his bags, and, with a look
Which hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor
Away unalmsed, and mid abundance died,
50. Sorest of evils! died of utter want.

POLLOK.

QUESTIONS.

What is the subject of this extract?

What are some

of the evil consequences of the love of money? What good can wealth bestow on its votaries? What are some of the marks of a miserly character? What are the effects of avarice upon body and mind? What is the miser's fate? Explain the inflections from the 1st to the 27th line.

PRONUNCIATION. - - Sac-ri-fic'd (pro. sac-ri-flz'd), not sa-cri-fisd. be-nev-o-lence, not be-nev-er-lunce of-fer'd, not of-fud: bit-ter-ness, not bitter-niss: yellow, not yel-ler: fol-low'd, not ful-lerd: il-lus-tri-ous, not il-lustrous: a-bund-ance, not ub-und-unce.

:

SPELL AND DEFINE.-4. Bowels: 9. sacrificed: 10. integrity: 11 charity 12. sympathies: 13. murderous: 14. signalize: 18. bitterness: 19. luxuries, pomp: 23. incurable: 25. guardian: 35. communion: 43. debased: 46. illustrious: 49. abundance.

LESSON LXXII.

RULE.- Let the pupil stand at a distance from the teacher, and try to read so loud and distinctly, that the teacher may hear each syllable.

Words to be Spelled and Defined.

Ex-act', v to compel to pay.
For'-feit. n. that to which the right is lost

by breach of contract. Car'-ri-on, a. putrid.

Duc'-at, n. a piece of money worth from one to two dollars.

Hu'-mor, n. disposition, fancy.

Ba'-ned, p. poisoned.

Gap'-ing, a. open-mouthed.

Strain'-ed, p. forced.

Ex-po-si'-tion, n. explanation.
Nom'-i-na-ted, p. named.

Pen'-al-ty, n. the suffering or loss to which
one is subjected by not fulfilling certain
conditions.

Con'-fis-cate, a. taken away and devoted
to the public use.

Al'-ien (pro. ale'-yen), n. one who is not
entitled to the privileges of a citizen
Cof-fer, n. treasury.

SHYLOCK, OR THE POUND OF FLESH..

Judge.

WHAT! is Antonio here?

Antonio. Ready, so please your grace.

Ju.

I am sorry for thee; thou art come to answer
A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,
Incapable of pity.

Ant. I am armed to suffer.

Ju.

Shy.

(Enter Shylock.)

Dost thou now exact the penalty,

Which is a pound of this poor merchant's flesh?

By our holy Sabbath, I have sworn,

To have the due and forfeit of my bond.

Ju. This is no answer, thou unfeeling man,
To excuse the current of thy cruelty.

Shy. I am not bound to please thee with my answer.
You'll ask me why I rather chose to have

A weight of carrion flesh, than to receive
Three thousand ducats. I'll not answer that:

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