Page 27 - 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 ...

PART IT.

Readings with Lesson Talks.

THE WRECK OP AN OCEAN STEAMSHIP.

[Written expressly for this Volume.]
7T LL R E A D Y ! Off with the ropes i " We moiTe out from the
^ ^ nock, Farewells are exchanged and fl uttering handkerchiefs
wave us a happy voyage. Down the bay we glide and the
crowd we have ’eft behind rapidly disappears in the distance. One by
one the white signals vanish : now only one remains. I see it! There
it is again ! Now it is gone!
An ocean steamship! White-winged bird of the sea! Majestic
conqueror of winds and waves, one of the grandest works of man I
Swift .shuttle Hying from shore to shore, weaving continents together!

Iler machinery has the precision of that of a watch. With ribs ot iron,
strength of a thousand Titans, and heart of fire, she seems a thing
of life, at once a monster and a sylph. Swdtly she cuts the water:
onwt.rJ she plunges; she pants and leaps like the Arab’s steed dashing
over the plains. The waters splash and curl around her prow. The
dark clouds issue from her smokestacks and float away on the hurrying1
winds. She rocks as nracefullv as a cradle on the gentle swell of the
ocean, or mounts the great waves as easily as the sea-gull rises on the
crest of the bounding billows.
There stands the Captain on the bridge, his cheeks bronzed by the
blasts of a hundred voyage.?. The sturdy quartermasters are at the
wheel, and the mail on the lookout peers into the mist, ready to give
the signal if there is danger ahead. A thousand souls are on board,
and from hundreds of homes on land prayers and good wishes are
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