Page 256 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

Oh, the years are many, the years are long,
But the little toy friends arc true.

Ay, faithful to Little Boy Blue they stand,
Each in the same old place.
Awaiting the touch of a little hand,
The smile of a little face.
And they wonder, as waiting these long years thixwL'h.
In the dust, of that little chair,
What has become of that Little Boy Blue
Since he kissed them and put them there.
Eut'R^K E jklh,

THE PURITANS,

[This extract from the writings of the great Euglish historian lias justly been
considered one uf the titiest passages isi our language-. It ^liomi] hi; Tizftii with
round toties HTtd.in uttmrtTifrr nuitL'fl ty thi:1: tiU'vntion of thr^ Hentiun e Jit. Tine figures
refer to the corresponding numbers iu Part I.J
T H E Puritans were men whose minds had derived a peculiar char­
acter from the daily contemplation of superior beings and
eternal interests. Not content with acknowledging, in general
terms, an overruling Providence, they habitually ascribed every event
to the will of the Great Being for whose power nothing was too vast,*1
for whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know him, to serve
him, to enjoy him was with them the great end of existence. They
rejected4 with contempt the ceremonious homage which other sects
substituted for the pt-re worship of the soul.
Instead of catching occasional glimpses of the Deity through an
obscuring veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable brightness,51
and to commune with him face to face. Hence originated their con­
tempt* for terrestrial distinctions. The difference between the greatest
and the meanest of mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with
the boundless interval which separated the whote race from him 011
whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. They recognized no title