Jared

“ He refused consideration to such a calamitous possibility, and became a little more grandly formal as he went on listening to Jared's business.
"Oh, George!" he presently called across his slab of Mexican onyx; "come here."
George came. He was a "drummer": nobody could have supposed for an instant that he was anything else.
"What do you think of this?" The clerk took the picture out of Jared's hands and twirled it round on one corner of its clumsy frame.
George looked at it studiously. "Why, it ain't so worse," he said. "That squash is great—big as life and twice as natural." ”

“ The people having the privilege granted them, chose Pagag, the eldest son of their prophet. He declined, as did all of his brothers, and also all the sons of Jared except Orihah. The last named accepted the royal dignity and was anointed king. Soon after this the brother of Jared died, full of years and honor. Like Enoch, he had been privileged to enter the presence of the Lord, and to have revealed to him the history of the world in all its generations. He was also a seer, having received the priceless gift of a Urim and Thummim. His faith was never exceeded by the sons of men ”

“ The valley into which the Lord first led them was called Nimrod, after that mighty hunter of the early post-diluvian age. Here the people of Jared tarried for a time, while they prepared for the long journey which was before them. Their flocks and herds they had with them; they now went to work and snared fowls; they carried with them hives of honey bees (known to them by the name of deseret) ; and prepared a vessel in which they transported the fish of the waters. ”

“ Did ever ambition conceive a more unnatural crime? Akish, though a friend of Omer, consented to the proposed terms, and to help him in his treason Jared suggested to him, again at the instance of his daughter, the plans and oaths common among the antediluvians, originally used by Cain, by which the wicked accomplished their vile and bloody purposes. He consented, Omer was driven from the throne, though by God's mercy his life was spared; Jared was again proclaimed king, and Akish became his son-in-law. ”

“ Next morning he was strolling along the roadway, carefully scrutinizing a stretch of dilapidated fence.
"What you up to, Jared?" inquired Uncle Nathan Hoskins, who happened to be driving past. The fresh morning air had a tonic effect upon Uncle Nathan; he showed himself disposed to be sprightly and facetious. ”

“ That mental power which sees the world
As beauty, grace, and art,
Wherein God's loveliness unfurled,
Speaks to a living heart,
And leads it tenderly to see
The harmony of laws
Which unifies immensity,
And tells of the First Cause,
Yields greater solace, richer lore,
Than books alone can give;
For mind and soul form the great power
By which we act and live. ”

“ As the glow of the living presence
Of one of the noble few
Who counts her pain but pleasure,
If good she may only do.
A teacher who knows her subjects
And has much of didactic art,
Will present the truths of science
To the youthful mind and heart,
In ways so apt and skillful
They will never more depart,
But will gather strength and beauty
With every day and hour,
Until they become a fortress—
An irresistible power
To dispel the gloom of doubting
That oft o'er the mind may lower.
No truth is learned by mere telling,
The mind must conceive and apply ”

“ Are antepasts of joys in heaven
That bring felicity.
Attune your joyous song for me,
And lift my soul that it may see
The world in beauty bright;
Sing on, sing on, until the wood
Shall laugh aloud in merry mood,
And sadness take her flight!
Sweet warbling bird in brown attire,
Your notes of praise do me inspire
With love for Nature wild;
Your songs of joy so sweetly sung,
By heart and throat divinely strung,
Proclaim you Nature's child. ”

“ Cold are the truths of science,
Lifeless their every plan,
Until in living presence,
They're crystalized in man.
As hidden truths are useless
And aid not human skill,
So slumber mighty forces
Through lack of human will.
To know the right is not enough,
It must be given power
Through culture of the heart and soul,
If it shall blessings shower. ”

“ Flecked are the green fields with sunshine and shadows,
Telling so gently of earth's perfect day.
From moss-covered rocks whereon we are seated,
Nature spreads scenes such as art cannot yield;
With flowers of rare beauty our vision is greeted,
Our ears, with the bird-notes of forest and field. ”

“ That knows all my feelings, tho' oft unexpressed,
That sees not my faults with a passionate blindness,
But clings to my soul when 'tis sorely distressed.
Some heart whose affection can never be blighted,
That beats all in concert with that of my own,
That revels in pleasures with which I'm delighted,
And grieves at the sorrows which cause me to moan.
Some heart that can never be swerved from its mooring,
Though tempests may thunder and billows may roar,
That espouses my fate in spite of such roaring,
And when trials are sorest will trust even more. ”

“ Great is the pleasure, supreme the delight
Of searching for joys such coyness doth bear.
Child of the woodland in beauty abiding,
Whose breath scents the air of early spring morns,
Fairies of magical powers are residing
In nooks and valleys your presence adorns. ”

“ Oh, give me some heart of a kindred spirit
That smiles when I smile, or that weeps when I weep,
Whose solace is greater by far to inherit
Than the wealth of the mines or the gems of the deep.
Some heart that will echo response to my feeling,
That thrills with delight when I speak of my joy;
That sorrows with sorrow too deep for concealing,
When cankering griefs make my own heart's alloy. ”

“ When one is charged with practices, which his soul abhors, and which conscious innocence tells him he has never committed, an honest indignation will draw from him expressions in his own favor, which, on other occasions, might be ascribed to an ostentatious turn of mind. The part which I have acted in the American cause has been acknowledged by our friends and by our enemies to have been far from an indifferent one. ”

“ LAKE GEORGE, N. Y.
Beautiful, beautiful Horicon!
Over thy waters so blue,
Sunshine and shadow in silence flit on,
Painting fresh scenes on the ecstatic view.
Blue are the skies that kiss the green tops
Of sentinel mountains grand,
Pure are the waters descending in drops,
Or rushing in torrents from mountain to strand.
Like emerald crowns thy islands rise,
And mirrored back are doubly seen
Gray rocks of the mountains, the cloud-flecked skies,
Gorgeous adornments, and fringes of green. ”

“ ARBOR DAY TRIBUTE.
With lavish hand our God hath spread
Beauty and fragrance o'er the land;
His smile revives the seeming dead;
Nature awakes at His command.
He breathes upon the leafless tree;
He whispers to the tiny flower.
His touch awakes the slumbering bee,
And each obeys th' Almighty power.
The perfumed breeze of smiling May,
The dancing stream on mountain side,
The wild bird's trill of joyous lay
Proclaim Thy goodness far and wide.
Attune our hearts to sing Thy praise,
Expand our souls to comprehend
Thy attributes and all Thy ways,
And ever be our Guide and Friend. ”

“ Before the sweet songster had yielded his life,
Put an end to this cunning and mischievous raider,
And quieted all of the songster's great strife.
We learned from the scenes of this morning's ramble
That moments of happiness soon may decay;
While plucking the flowers to beware of the bramble,
Which hid among blossoms may sadly betray.
We learned that the joys of this world are not lasting;
That what we call pleasure may be a vain show;
While joys seem the sweetest they only are blasting,
And happiness frequently ends in great woe. ”

“ Her heart beats with expectancy,
And Kitchewonk's own dusky maid
Trusts Rippowam's fidelity.
He comes! She sees him near the lake;
She knows his form, his step, his voice;
No other charm for her could make
Her heart and soul so much rejoice.
They meet beside the water's edge
Where hemlock boughs in silence nod,
And there with mutual vow and pledge,
In presence of their living God,
They join the hand, the heart, the life,
While harvest-moon a witness stood,
That he the husband, she the wife,
Should share in life's vicissitude. ”

“ The presence of that artful one,
Who violates truth's sacred laws,
Regardless of the end or cause,
But deems it strategy to live
For the sole purpose to deceive.
If hell has any corner where
Vile culprits may be doomed to share
The merits they richly deserve,
It should be held in strict reserve
For them whose flattery and art
Are used to kill a trusting heart. ”

“ The heart with its strongest desires,
The passions, impulses, and factions
Which animate clay oft inspires.
Ev'ry line of th' face has a father
Whose hand has engraven it there,
But shades of the spirit are rather
Betrayed in the hue of the hair;
The pencils of thought, true to nature,
Have written their records so plain,
That a skillful eye reads each feature
That dwells in the heart and the brain. ”

“ But it was his singular fortune to die, not more beloved by his friends, than lamented by his enemies, whose cause he had sought to ruin, and by whose hands his life was justly taken. Time has consecrated the feeling. There are few Americans, and few will there ever be, who can look back upon the fate of André without deep regret. ”

“ When all we teach in man is mind,
And heart has no domain,
Then fraud, deceit, and treachery
Will form a tyrant train,
For beacon light can never come
Through those who legislate
Unless good seed has been well sown
By those who educate;
But lift the soul by Sinai's laws
And by the Golden Rule,
Then legislation will have power
Through truths taught in the school.
The world is wanting honest men
Who know and dare to do aright,
Whose honor brightens in the ken
Of Justice's ever-searching light. ”

“ The vicissitudes that arise
Upon the course of life's stern race,
Must fail to secure its prize.
To hold a pessimistic view,
And see the world as darkly "blue,"
And feel mankind is false, untrue,
Is not a just conclusion ”

“ The plants as they spring from the earth seem to smile,
The fresh growing leaves of the groves now surround us,
And soft sounds of Spring-time unite to beguile.
The earth is now teeming with bright vegetation,
The early spring flowers are now in their bloom,
And where'er we look there appears animation
Just bursting the cells of the last winter's tomb.
The soft breeze of May-day, we welcome it near us,
As filled with rich fragrance it comes thro' the trees,
And the bright feathered songsters apparently fear us
No more than the odors that float on the breeze. ”

“ The winds of the tempest arise in their force,
And amid their wild shriekings for succor we call
On Him who reigns o'er us, to mark out our course.
We plead for protection from ruin and pain,
Repiningly think of our anchor and helm,
And could we secure those lost prizes again,
No tempest could shake us, no wave could o'erwhelm.
But swiftly we're drifting, we cannot tell where,
The current moves onward regardless of gloom,
We raise our weak voices and utter a prayer
That God in His mercy is drifting us home. ”

“ For solitude's wounds, e'en sweet tho' they be,
For sorrows augment by sacred concealing,
And steal from the heart ev'ry wish to be free.
Dear blessed bird! you have stopped at my pleading,
My soul aids my ears to catch your sweet tone:
"If life is not sweetened by presence and breeding,
'Tis better by far to travel alone.
"I have learned as my wings have borne me thro' groves
Where gods their ambrosial nectar sip,
That the heart's best experience ever proves,
Joy comes not from presence, but companionship." ”

“ For the strength to possess is ours.
[Pg 122]
Let my tongue sing songs of rapture
And my heart-strings sweetly respond,
Till the notes shall pass earth's border
And reach the bright portals beyond;
And when in the great hereafter
The tension shall be much increased,
My joys will be there augmented
To know that earth's songs have not ceased.
I often long for some quiet nook
Away from the noise and strife
Which come from the steady daily round
That absorbs my busy life ”

“ From every breeze went laughing by;
The brook and bird in wanton glee,
Attuned their notes in such refrain
That earth was full of minstrelsy,
And heaven re-echoed it again.
[Pg 141]
God's image, man, heard not the strain,
No beauty charmed his listless eye,
Earth spread her treasures but in vain,
In vain shone the bejeweled sky;
Earth gave no food for hungry heart,
No solace-cup from which to sip,
Defective seemed Nature and Art,
To soul robbed of companionship.
A "help meet" then to man was given,
To soothe and cheer his lonely way ”

“ He was her only surviving son, her husband was lost to himself and to the world, and it was natural that the maternal hopes and fears of a lady of her sensibility and excellence should be powerfully wrought upon, by such wayward exhibitions of character in one, to whom she was bound by the strongest and tenderest ties, and on whom she relied as the support of her declining years. ”

“ To truth and to right heart-strings must be strung,
Every thought, every act must be true.
Let the pencil of truth inscribe on the face,
Let honor illumine the eye,
Let generous thoughts and acts ever grace
The face-page the world shall descry.
[Pg 177] SOME CHARACTERS I MUCH ADORE.
An honest man with noble mind,
With heart sincere, true, and refined,
Who lives for God and all mankind,
Who cares for rich and poor,
And opens wide his soul to see
The sweet designs of Deity,
Yet from all prejudice is free,
Is character I much adore. ”