Thus lovely halcyons dive into the main, Then show far off their shining plumes again.
In conclusion, permit me to relate an anecdote of the great lawgiver, which is traditional, it is true, but, at the same time, direct and authentic. Being on a visit at the house of one of his friends, who resided at GWYNEDD, a Welch settlement, twenty miles from Philadelphia, he remained there during the night. When shown into his chamber, in which there was a considerable quantity of grain, apologies were made to him, and regrets expressed, that no better accommodations could be furnished, on such an occasion. With that urbanity and goodness of heart, for which he was so remarkable, he immediately put to rest every anxiety, which had previously existed, by a single observation: "_I do not wish to see more appropriate furniture in a new settlement; nothing could give me more pleasure._" It should not be forgotten, that PENN could number among his _intimate_ friends, many of the English nobility and gentry; and had stood, with no infrequency, in the presence of princes, but still his humility and unassuming manners were unimpaired.
How little can be known! This is the wise man's sigh;--how far we err! This is the good man's not unfrequent pang! _Wordsworth_.
There is no faculty of the mind, of which man is more proud, than of REASON. It is this which most strikingly distinguishes him from the brute creation, to which he owes his empire over the elements, and by which he dares ever to explore the councils of the Deity. The triumphs of reason, however, have chiefly been in the fields of philosophy, and amidst the stillness of solitude, "in regions mild of calm and serene air." In the ordinary pursuits of life, her voice is drowned amidst the clamour of contending passions; and every successive generation of mankind, has to travel over the same course of inexperience and presumption, of error and misconduct, of remorse and repentance. The triumphs of reason in philosophy endure from age to age, and are not only glorious in themselves, but the means of acquiring new conquests. Those victories, which she obtains over the passions, are confined to the lives, and written in the experience, of individuals. The truths, which it required the utmost capacity of the human intellect to develope, are now familiar to the apprehension of every school-boy: but human nature continues to be as prone to evil, as selfish and untoward, as if the divine Author of our religion had never walked on earth. There is, in this view of the subject, much that may humble the most aspiring intellect. It shows, that the greatest genius affords no exemption from the ordinary weaknesses and vices of our nature, and that the mere force of reason cannot destroy the propensities which for ever drag us down to earth.