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means of indulging their vanity and restlessness, are allowed, with impunity, to preach and print the lessons of the Devil. Alas! for such teachers! Why will they close their eyes against the whip by which they are driven to their task and labour, deceiving and deceived, in the vilest slavery, to corrupt their inferiors in station and learning? Alas, still more, for the nation which permits such an enormity!

The outbreak of a rebellious spirit should be checked in its earliest stage. When the fathers of our flesh have not their proper honour, we are so much the more ready to disobey our King and to deny our God. When mothers are unheeded by the children they tended through their infancy, and would love while they have life, how can conscience make us good subjects, or affection bind our hearts to Him who gave His only Son to die for us! Few children so conduct themselves to their parents, that manhood is not full of sorrow for past unkindness to father or mother, unless, indeed, they have gone on from one sin to another. "The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." Disobedience to parents is a fatal sign that we are in perilous times. The wages that render a youth independent of his father for maintenance are ill earned, if they render him also independent of his father for his blessing. A golden idol is an idol still; and only more dangerous for its apparent worth and costliness. It were much better for parent and child to be living in mutual love on bread and water, than to be worshipping Mammon, to the increase of selfishness, and the destruction of moral feeling. Affectionate discipline sho

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possible, be revived; and the name of father on earth waken notions that may faintly image what we owe to our Father in Heaven, and lead us to look up to our God in that character. There is still a curse upon every one that setteth light by his father or his mother, the curse of hard-heartedness. Deut xxvii 16. Although the Israel of God may not now, as of old, assemble to acknowledge its certainty, yet are its consequences no less formidable than when they did. It will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of Judgment, than for the city which rejects the Messengers and the words of Christ. It will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon, than for Chorazin and Bethsaida. The love of Christ is more constraining than the Law is deterring; and we are much worse in moral character for rejecting the Gospel, than for disregarding the Law. The greater is our sin, the more dreadful is the state in which we are left, hopeless, and, in fact, unredeemed, with hearts to know God, but not to love Him; and to feel at once what we are, and what we might have been, had we not in our day neglected His great salvation.

There does not appear to be any thing said on any of these pages that renders it, in fairness, necessary for the editor to publish his name: and he therefore considers it allowable, and believes it advisable, for him to subscribe himself, as one among many, what he is by profession, and would earnestly desire to be in conduct and heart,

A CHURCHMAN.

THREE PRAYERS

FROM

ANCIENT DEVOTIONS.

Almighty God! Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in Heaven and earth is named, I give Thee most humble thanks for that Thou didst, of Thy divine providence, vouchsafe to let me be born of Christian parents, by whose care I was first brought unto Thy holy baptism, and afterwards brought up in Thy holy religion. I beseech (Thee), O blessed God, who art the rewarder of every good work, to recompense them their full reward, even out of the riches of Thy bountie and goodness! Give them peace and plenty; defend them from all dangers, both of bodie and soul; keep them in the stedfastness of Thy faith, and in the obedience of Thy holy commandments; that so, having Thee, their merciful and gentle Father, after many happy days here in this life, they may at last be brought into life everlasting, through Jesus

Christ! Amen.

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of prayer for those whom we love and honour cannot be over-valued, or too often pressed upon a Christian community.

We may have to be contented, and for some long period of time, with such Hymns as may seem to individual collectors the least objectionable. It is hardly to be expected that any great number of good Hymns can be written immediately. The number of Hymns we already have, good and bad, is but small, in comparison with what might have been counted upon from English writers. Very few of the Hymns that we do possess have any deep hold on the public mind. Men who should try what they can do, sit down in a sort of despondency; and quote what is almost a proverb in consequence, that Hymns, like Ballads, require the highest poetical powers and the warmest feelings, combined with taste and good sense. There have been poets who might have written Hymns and Carols which would have benefited all ranks; but it has not been their choice. What they would not do, rhymers of inferior power must go on attempting; not without hope that such attempts may become a means of rousing others to the good work. Our hopes may perhaps be realized: at least, there are Poems and Ballads, by writers now alive, which warrant a belief that their Hymns and Carols would soon supersede every other Collection.

It would be well that to every Prayer-book the Church should add prayers for home use, about journeys, and health, and the common accidents of life; about riots, and other public offences. The use of Common Prayers is a sort of approach to the Communion of Saints: the Prayer-book should be on every household table, as well as the Bible; and in that book the Church might publish

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