Page 258 - 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 ...

lyres of angels or the tempting whispers of fiends. He caught a
gleam15' of the Beatific Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of ever­
lasting fire. Like Vane, he thought himself entrusted with the scepter
of tlie millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he cried in the bitterness19 of
his soul that God had hid his face from hi in.
But when he took his scat, in the council,2 or gilt on his sword for
war, these tempestuous workings of the soul had left no perceptible
trace behind them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their
uncouth visages, and heard nothing from tliem but their groans and
their whining hymns, might laugh at them. But those had little
reason to laugh who encountered them in the hall of debate1 or in the
field of battle.— L ord M a c a u la y.

TH E AUCTIONEER'S GIFT.
T 1IE auctioneer leaped on a chair, and hold and loud and dear,
He poured his cataract of words,— -just like an auctioneer.
An auction sale of furniture, where some hard mortgagee
Was bound to get his money back and pay his lawyer's fee.

A humorist of wide renown, this doughty auctioneer ;
His joking raised the loud guffaw, and brought the answering jeer ;
He scattered round his jests like rain, on the unjust and the just:
Sam Sloeman said he laughed so much he thought that he would bu.st.

He knocked down bureaus, beds, and stoves, and clocks aud chande­
liers,
And A grand piano, which he swore would Jl last a thousand years;”
He rattled out the crockery, and sold the silverware;
A t last they passed him up to sell a little baby's chair.

" How much ? how much ? come make a bid ; is all your money spent?"
And then a cheap, facetious wrag came up arid bid, one cent.”
Just then a sad-fated woman, who -Stood in silence there,