This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1854. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... chapter xxiii. conclusion. Mount on contemplation's wings, And mark the causes and the ends of things; Learn what we are, and for what purpose born, What station here 'tis given us to adorn.--Oifford. Within the deep, Still chambers of the heart, a spectre dim, Whose tones are like the wizzard voice of Time, Heard from the tombs of ages, points its cold And solemn finger to the beautiful And holy visions that have passed away, And left no shadow of their loveliness.--Geo. D. Prentice. How still the morning of the hallowed day--Mute is the voice of rural labor.--Graham. To love, to bliss, their blended souls were given, And each too happy, asked no other heaven.--Dr. Dwight. What a mighty contrast a few years presents in a conntry just emerging from a state of barbarism into one of civilization and refinement What a vast change from the old primeval forest, where the native hunters of the wood roamed unmolested by civilized man, to the busy city, with its thousand workshops, or the quiet hamlet of peace and plenty, or the well cultivated, open farm of the industrious yeoman Where is now the Indian--with his terrible war-cry, his deadly rifle, his murderous tomahawk, and his mutilating scalping-knife--which so troubled the peace of our fathers, and made wailing, and wo, and terror among the pale-faces of the frontiers? Where are now those tenants of the wood--the panther, the bear, the catamount, the buffalo, the deer, the copper-head, and rattlesnake--which had their homes in the great forest at the opening of our story? Where, too, are those great forests themselves, which stretched far away, from east to west, from north to south? Gone--all gone; vanished as a dream; fled from before the steps of the white man, as mists flee before the advance of the great lu...