for great usefulness, occasion your eternal ruin. Let nothing hinder you from giving regular and full time. to devotion. The days of health and strength should be given to God, while the evil days come not nor the years draw nigh when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Are you AFFLICTED? That is the time for special prayer. Call upon me in the day of trouble, and I will hear thee, and thou shalt glorify me. In the absence of the sun, the mild and peaceful radiance of the moon illumines our path. Let devotion spread a cheering light over your darker hours. "The Queen of night," says Bowdler, "unveils its full beauty when the hours of joy and lustre have passed away, pouring as it were a holy light through the damps and darkness of adversity." Thus will constant prayer cheer the darkest season of affliction. Are you YOUNG? Let that rapid torrent of youthful strength and vivacity, which, if left to itself, would only be wasted and dashed against rocks, from precipice to precipice, be turned into a profitable course. Let this stream be brought into the channel of devotion, and it will move the machine of the Christian life, and communicate innumerable blessings to man. Those that seek me early shall find me. Prov. viii, 17. Nothing is more pleasing, nothing more profitable, than early devotion. Slight not him in your strength, who will be the only protector of your weakness. Are you in MIDDLE LIFE? In the midst of this world's engagements, how are you encompassed as in a maze of temptation! Let prayer be the secret thread which leads you safely out of this labyrinth. How are you surrounded with duties of the first importance! What a happy influence, then, would devotion have in making you a general blessing to your family, your neighbourhool, and your country! Like the regulator in the watch, though unseen outwardly, it would keep the spring of your actions in order; it would make all your movements certain and useful. Give the strength of your years to God, and you will leave a good name, better than precious ointment. Eccles. vii, 1. Remember, "the prayer of faith," as Bishop Porteus says, the hand of Him that moveth all things." "moves Are you in DECLINING YEARS? and will you not hold converse with Him whom you are soon to meet and see face to face? Why should you enter the eternal world a stranger to the great King who rules there, when you have an opportunity of being adopted into his family, enjoying his presence here, and sharing the splendors of his crown and of his glories hereafter. "What," says one, 66 can be more truly desirable than to attain to a measure of that light and peace, which, in their full measure, belong to a higher condition? and what more excellent than that occupation which connects the service with the enjoyment of God, the duties of this life with the glories of the better?". . class of my readers I say, PRAY WITHOUT CEASING. HYMNS ON PRAYER. I. PRAYER is the soul's sincere desire, That trembles in the breast. Prayer is the burthen of a sigh, The upward glancing of an eye, Prayer is the simplest form of speech, That infant lips can try; Prayer the sublimest strains that reach Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice, While angels in their songs rejoice, The saints, in prayer, appear as one, Nor prayer is made on earth alone; And Jesus, on th' eternal throne, O Thou, by whom we come to God, II. THOUGH "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord!" Seraph to Seraph sings; And Angel choirs, with one accord, Worship, with veiling wings; Though Earth thy footstool, Heaven thy throne, Thy path deep floods, thy steps unknown, Yet wilt Thou look on him who lies A suppliant at thy feet; And hearken to the feeblest cries, Between the cherubim, of old, Through Him who all our sickness felt, Touch'd with a feeling of our woes, All our infirmities he knows, Our souls are in his hands. He bears them up with strength divine, Lord! cause thy face on us to shine; III. LORD! teach us how to pray aright, We perish, if we cease from prayer; Give deep humility; the sense A strong desiring confidence Faith in the only sacrifice That can for sin atone; To cast our hopes, to fix our eyes› Patience to watch, and wait, and weep, Courage our fainting souls to keep, Give these ;-and then thy will be done; IV. LORD! when we bend before thy throne, And our confessions pour; And hate what we deplore. Our broken spirit pitying see; Then let a kindling glance from thee When we disclose our wants in prayer, May we our wills resign; And not a thought our bosom share, May faith each weak petition fill, And teach our heart 'tis Goodness still CHAP. XV. Forms of Prayer. THE writer's design has been to induce his readers, generally, to pray in private and in the family, without forms. Yet as this work may fall into the hands of many, to whom this, from various causes, would not |