for versatility, but for constancy; not for change, but fidelity; not for wavering, but adherence.

It is, therefore, no less our interest than our duty, to keep the mind in an habitual posture of submission. Adam,' says Dr. Hammond, 'after his expulsion, was a greater slave in the wilderness than he had been in the inclosure.' If the barbarian ambassador came expressly to the Romans to negotiate from his country for permission to be their servants, declaring that a voluntary submission even to a foreign power, was preferable to a wild and disorderly freedom, well may the Christian triumph in the peace and security to be attained by a complete sub. jugation to Him who is emphatically called the God of order.

humour, while we allow ourselves to feel re pugnance in serving our heavenly Master, whet His commands do not exactly fall in with ou own inclination?

Nothing short, then, of this sincere devotedness to God can enable us to maintain an equali ty of mind under unequal circumstances. W: murmur that we have not the things we ask amiss, not knowing that they are withheld by the same mercy by which the things that are good for us are granted. Things good in themselves may not be good for us. A resigned spirit is the proper disposition to prepare us for receiving mercies, or for having them denied Resignation of soul, like the allegiance of a good subject, is always in readiness, though not ai ways in action; whereas an impatient mind is a spirit of disaffection, always prepared to revolt when the will of the sovereign is in opposi tion to that of the subject. This seditious principle is the infallible characteristic of an unrenewed mind.

We must also give God leave, not only to take His own way, but His own time. The appoint ment of seasons, as well as of events, is His. He waits to be gracious.' If he delays, it is because we are not yet brought to that state which fits us for the grant of our request. It is not He who must be brought about, but we ourselves. Or, perhaps, He refuses the thing we ask, in order to give us a better. We implore success in an undertaking, instead of which, He gives us content under the disappointment. We ask for the removal of pain; He gives us patience under it. We desire deliverance from our enemies: he sees that we have not yet turn

A vital faith manifests itself in vital acts.Thy will be done,' is eminently a practical petition. The first indication of the gaoler's change of heart was a practical indication. He did not ask, Are there few that be saved?' but What shall I do to be saved?'-The first symptom St. Paul gave of his conversion was a practical symptom: Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? He entered on his new course, with a total renunciation of his own will. It seemed to this great Apostle to be the turning point between infidelity and piety, whether he should follow his own will or the will of God. He did not amuse his curiosity with speculative questions. His own immediate and grand concern engrossed his whole soul. Nor was his question a mere hasty effusion, an interrogative spring. ing out of that mixed feeling of awe and wonder which accompanied his first overwhelming convictions. It became the abiding principle which governed his future life, which made him in la-ed their enmity to our improvement, and he will bours more abundant. Every successive act of duty, every future sacrifice of ease, sprung from it, was influenced by it. His own will, his ar. dent, impetuous, fiery will, was not merely sub. dued, it was extinguished. His powerful mind indeed lost none of its energy, but his proud heart relinquished all its independence.

We allow and adopt the term devotion as an indispensable part of religion, because it is supposed to be limited to the act; but devotedness, from which it is derived, does not meet with such ready acceptation, because this is a habit, and a habit involves more than an act; it pledges us to consistency, it implies fixedness of character, a general confirmed state of mind, a giving up what we are, and have, and do, to God. De. votedness does not consist in the length of our prayers, nor in the number of our good works, for, though these are the surest evidences of piety, they are not its essence.-Devotedness consists in doing and suffering, bearing and forbearing, in the way which God prescribes. The most inconsiderable duty performed with alacrity, if it opposes our own inclination; the most ordinary trial, met with a right spirit is more acceptable to Him than a greater effort of our own devising. We do not commend a servant for his activity, if ever so fervently exercised, in doing whatever gratifies his own fancy; we do not consider his performance as obedience, unless his activity has been exercised in doing what we required of him. Now, how can we insist on his doing what contradicts his own

bring us to a better temper, by further exercise. We desire him to avert some impending trial; instead of averting it, he takes away its bitterness; he mitigates what we believed would be intolerable, by giving us a right temper under it. How, then, can we say he has failed of his promise, if he gives something more truly valuable than we had requested at his hands?

A sincere love of God will make us thankful when our prayers are granted, and patient and cheerful when they are denied. Every fresh disappointment will teach us to distrust ourselves, and confide in God. Experience will instruct us that there may be a better way of hearing our requests than that of granting them. Happy for us that He to whom they are addressed knows what is best and acts upon that knowledge.

CHAP. X.

A slight scheme of Prayer proposed for young persons on the model of the Lord's Prayer.

WILL the pious mother pardon the liberty here taken of suggesting the few following hints? Those who are aware of the inestimable value of prayer themselves, will naturally be anxious, not only that this duty should be earnestly inculcated on their children, but that they should be taught it in the best manner; and

such parents need little persuasion or counsel, on the subject. Yet children of decent and orderly (I will not say of strictly religious) families are often so superficially instructed in this important business, that when they are asked what prayers they use, it is not unusual for them to answer, The Lord's Prayer and the Creed.' And even some who are better taught, are not always made to understand with sufficient clearness the specific distinction between the two, that the one is the confession of their faith, and the other the model for their supplications. By this confused and indistinct beginning, they set out with a perplexity in their ideas, which is not always completely disentangled in more advanced life.

general, that the teacher is sometimes unreason. ably apt to relieve herself at the child's expense, by loading the memory of a little creature on occasions in which far other faculties should be put in exercise. Children themselves should be made to furnish a good part of this extemporaneous commentary by their answers; in which answers they will be much assisted by the judgment the teacher uses in her manner of questioning. And the youthful understanding, when its powers are properly set at work, will soon strengthen by exercise, so as to furnish reasonable, if not very correct, answers.

Written forms of prayer are not only useful and proper, but indispensably necessary to begin with. But I will hazard the remark, that An intelligent mother will seize the first oc- if children are thrown exclusively on the best casion which the child's opening understand. forms, if they are made to commit them to meing shall allow, for making a little course of mory like a copy of verses, and to repeat them lectures on the Lord's Prayer, taking every di- in a dry customary way, they will produce little vision or short sentence separately; for each effect on their minds. They will not underfurnishes valuable materials for a distinct lec-stand what they repeat, if we do not early open ture. Children should be led gradually through every part of this Divine composition; they should be taught to break it into regular divi. sions into which, indeed, it so naturally resolves itself. They should be made to comprehend, one by one, each of its short but weighty sentences: to amplify and spread them out for the purpose of better understanding them, not in their most extensive and critical sense, but in their most simple and obvious meanings; for in these condensed and substantial expressions, as we have before observed, every word is an ingot, and will bear beating out; so that the teacher's difficulty will not so much be what she shall say, as what she shall suppress; so abundant is the expository matter which this succinct pattern suggests.

When children have acquired a pretty good conception of the meaning of each division, they should then be made to observe the connection, relation, and dependence of the several parts of this Prayer, one upon another; for there is great method and connection in it. A judicious interpreter will observe how logically and consequently one clause grows out of another, though she will use neither the word logically nor consequence; for all explanations should be made in the most plain and familiar terms, it being words, and not things which commonly perplex children, if, as it sometimes happens, the teacher, though not wanting sense, wants perspicuity and simplicity.

Young persons, from being completely instructed in this short composition, (which, as it is to be their guide and model through life, too much pains cannot be bestowed on it,) will have a clear conception, not only of its individual contents, but of Prayer in general, than many ever attain, though their memory has been, perhaps, loaded with long and unexplained forms, which they have been accustomed to swallow in the lump, without scrutiny and without discrimination.

I would have it understood, that by these little comments I do not mean that children snould be put to learn dry, and, to them, unintelligible expositions; but that the exposition is to be colloquial. And here I must remark in

to them the important scheme of prayer. Without such an elementary introduction to this duty, they will afterwards be either ignorant, or enthusiastic in both. We should give them knowledge before we can expect them to make much progress in piety, and as a due preparative to it: Christian instruction in this resembling the sun, who, in the course of his communication, gives light before he gives heat. And to labour to excite a spirit of devotion without first infusing that knowledge out of which it is to grow, is practically reviving the popish maxim, that ignorance is the mother of Devotion, and virtually adopting the popish rule, of praying in an unknown tongue.

Children, let me again observe, will not attend to their prayers if they do not understand them; and they will not understand them, if they are not taught to analyse, to dissect them, to know their component parts, and to methodise them.

It is not enough to teach them to consider prayer under the general idea that it is an ap. plication to God for what they want, and an acknowledgment to Him for what they have. This, though true in the gross, is not sufficiently precise and correct. They should learn to define and to arrange all the different parts of prayer. And as a preparative to prayer itself, they should be impressed with as clear an idea as their capacity and the nature of the subject will admit, of HIM with whom they have to do.' His omnipresence is, perhaps, of all his attributes, that of which we may make the first practical use. Every head of prayer is founded on some great Scriptural truths, which truths the little analysis here suggested will materially assist to fix in their minds.

On the knowledge that God is,' that he is an infinitely holy Being, and that he is the rewarder of all them that diligently seek him,' will be grounded the first part of prayer, which is adoration. The creature devoting itself to the Creator, or self-dedication next presents itself. And if they are first taught that impor tant truth, that as needy creatures they want help, which may be done by some easy analogy, they will easily be led to understand how na

turally petition forms a most considerable in a stock of the more easy and devotional part

branch of prayer; and Divine grace being of Scripture, especially the Psalms.* Children, among the things for which they are to petition, whose minds have been early well furnished from this naturally suggests to the mind the doctrine these, will be competent at nine or ten years of the influences of the Holy Spirit. And when old to produce from them, and to select with a to this is added the conviction which will be contemptible judgment, suitable examples of readily worked into an ingenuous mind that as all the parts of prayer; and will be able to es offending creatures they want pardon, the neces- tract and appropriate texts under each respec sity of confession will easily be made intelligi.tive head, so as to exhibit, without help, com ble to them. But they should be brought to un-plete specimens of every part of prayer. By destand that it must not be such a general and vague confession as awakens no sense of personal humilation, as excites no recollection of their own more peculiar and individual faults. But it must be a confession founded on selfknowledge, which is itself to arise out of the practice of self-examination. On the gladness of heart natural to youth, it will be less difficult to impress the delightful duty of thanksgiving, which forms so considerable a branch of prayer. In this they should be habituated to recapitulate not only their general, but to enumerate their peculiar, daily, and incidental mercies, in the same specific manner as they should have been taught to detail their individual and personal wants in the petitionary, and their faults in the confes. sional part. The same warmth of feeling which will more readily dispose them to express their gratitude to God in thanksgiving, will also lead them more gladly to express their love to their parents and friends, by adopting another indispensable, and to an affectionate heart, pleasing part of prayer, which is intercession. It will be needful to inform them that the omission of this important clause in the Lord's Prayer, arises from the Divine Intercessor not having then assumed his mediatorial office.

When they have been made, by a plain and perspicuous mode of instruction, fully to understand the different nature of all these; and when they clearly comprehend that adoration, selfdedication, confession, petition, thanksgiving, and intercession, are distinct heads, which must not be involved in each other; you may exemplify the rules by pointing out to them these successive branches in any well written form. It is hardly needful to remind the teacher that our truly Scriptural Liturgy invariably furnishes the example of presenting every request in the name of the great Mediator. For there is no access to the Throne of Grace, but by that new and living way. In the Liturgy, too, they will meet with the best exemplifications of prayers, exhibiting separate specimens of each of the distinct heads we have been suggesting.

But in order that the minds of young persons may, without labour or difficulty, be gradually brought into such a state of preparation as to be benefited by such a little course of lectures as we have recommended, they should, from the time when they were first able to read, have been employing themselves, at their leisure hours, in laying in a store of provision for their present demands. And here the memory may be employed to good purpose; for being the first faculty which is ripened, and which is indeed perfected when the others are only beginning to unfold themselves, this is an intimation of Providence that it should be the first seized on for the best uses. It should, therefore, be devoted to lay

confining them entirely to the sense, and nearly to the words of Scripture, they will be preserved from enthusiasm, from irregularity, and conceit By being obliged continually, to apply for them. selves, they will get a habit in all their diff. culties, of searching the Scriptures,' which may be hereafter useful to them on other and more trying occasions. But I would at first confine them to the Bible; for were they allow. ed with equal freedom to ransack other books with a view to get helps to embellish their little compositions, or rather compilations, they might be tempted to pass off for their own what they pick up from others, which might tend at once to make them both vain and deceitful This is a temptation to which they are too much laid open, when they find themselves extravagantly commended for any pilfered passage with which they decorate their little themes and letters. But in the present instance there is DO danger of any similar deception, for there is such a sacred signature stamped on every Scripture phrase, that the owner's name can never be defaced or torn off from the goods, either by fraud or violence.

It would be well, if in those Psalms which children were first directed to get by heart, an eye were had to this their future application; and that they were employed, but without any intimation of your subsequent design, in learning such as may be best turned to this account. In the hundred and thirty-ninth, the first great truth to be imprinted on the young heart, the Divine omnipresence, as was before observed, is unfolded with such a mixture of majestic grandeur, and such an interesting variety of intimate and local circumstances, as is likely to seize on the quick and lively feeling of youth. The awful idea that that Being whom they are taught to reverence is not only in general

acquainted with all their ways,' but that He is about their path, and about their bed,' bestows such a sense of real and present existence on Him, of whom they are apt to conceive as having his distant habitation only in heaven, as will greatly help to realize the sense of his actual presence.

The hundred and third Psalm will open to the mind rich and abundant sources of expression for gratitude and thanksgiving, and it includes the acknowledgment of spiritual as well as temporal favours. It illustrates the compassionate mercies of God by familiar tenderness and ex. quisite endearment, as are calculated to strike

*This will be so far from spoiling the cheerfulness, knows a lady, who, when a little girl, before she was seven years old, had learnt the whole Psalter through a second time; and that without any diminution of uncommon gaiety of spirits, or any interference with the elegant acquirements suited to her station.

or impeding the pleasures, of childhood, that the Author

upon every chord of filial fondress in the heart | fully draw the real penitent to a humble avowal of an affectionate child. The fifty-first supplies of sin; but it is to be feared that there are some, an infinite variety of matter in whatever relates who, because they cannot charge themselves with to confession of sin, or to supplication for the flagrant offences, do not consider a contrite conaids of the Spirit. The twenty-third abounds fession of the sins of the heart and of the daily with captivating expressions of the protecting life an indispensable part of their devotions. But goodness and tender love of their heavenly Fa- God will charge many with sin who neglect to ther, conveyed by pastoral imagery of uncom- charge themselves. Did they attend to the remon beauty and sweetness: in short, the greater monstrances of a conscience not laid asleep by part of these charming compositions overflows neglect, or quieted by palliatives, they would with materials for every head of prayer. find, that, were the daily omissions alone, whether in prayer or conduct, of even their best days registered and presented to them, they would form no inconsiderable catalogue for repentance.

Children who, while they were engaged in learning these Scriptures, were not aware that there was any specific object in view, or any farther end to be answered by it, will afterwards feel an unexpected pleasure arising from the application of their petty labours, when they are called to draw out from their little treasury of knowledge the stores they have been insensibly collecting; and will be pleased to find that, without any fresh application to study, they are now obliged to exercise a higher faculty than memory, they have lying ready in their minds the materials with which they are at length called upon to work. Their judgment must be set about selecting one, or two, or more texts, which shall contain the substance of every specific head of prayer before noticed; and it will be a farther exercise to their understandings to concatenate the detached parts into one regular whole, occasionally varying the arrangement as they like; that is, changing the order, sometimes beginning with invocation, sometimes with confession; sometimes dwelling longer on one part, sometimes on another. As the hardships of a religious Sunday are often so pathetically pleaded, as making one of the heavy burdens of religion; and as the friends of religion are so often called upon to mitigate its intolerable rigours, by recommending pleasant employ. ment, might not such an exercise as has been here suggested assist, by varying its occupations, to lighten its load!

The habits of the pupils being thus early formed, their memory, attention, and intellect being bent in a right direction, and the exer. cise invariably maintained, may we not reasonably hope that their affections also, through Divine grace, may become interested in the work, till they will be enabled to pray with the spirit, and with the understanding also?' They will now be qualified to use a well-composed form, with seriousness and advantage; for they will now use it not mechanically, but rationally. That which before appeared to them a mere mass of good words, will now appear a signifi. cant composition, exhibiting variety, regularity, and beauty; and while they will have the further advantage of being enabled, by their im. proved judgment, to distinguish and select for their own purpose such prayers as are more judicious and more scriptural, it will also habituate them to look for plan, and design, and lucid order, in other works.

CHAP. XI.

Of Perseverance in Prayer an1 Praise.

There are too many who do not consider that all sins are equally a breach of the Divine law. Without pretending to bring all sins, small and great, to one common level, we should remember that all sin is an offence against a gracious Father.

In that profoundly self-abasing prayer of David, after the commission of the two black of fences which disgraced his otherwise exemplary life, though he deeply felt his barbarous treatment of his brave general, in first dishonouring his wife, and then exposing him to meet inevi table death in the fore front of the hottest battle,

yet, in praying to be delivered from this blood-guiltiness,' he bequeathed an important lesson to posterity, when, in his lowly prostration at the throne of God, his first cry was, Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight, plainly declaring, that all sin is, in the first instance, a sin against God.

While the most worldly are ready enough to exclaim against notorious sins, or against any sins carried to the greatest excess, to smaller offences they contrive to be tolerably reconciled. They think the commission of these not inconsistent with the profitable use of prayer in their formal way of using this customary exercise.

They are also sufficiently lenient to certain degrees of great sins; and various are the modifications and distinctions in their logic, and not over-correct the gradations in their moral scale of degrees. They do not consider that it is the extirpation, and not merely the reduction, of any sin, which is to procure them that peace and comfort for which they sometimes pray, and which they wonder they do not receive as an answer to their prayers.

They forget that the evil of sin is not to be measured by its mangnitude only, but by the spirit of disobedience which it indicates towards a generous Father,-a Father whose commands are all founded in mercy and love, and who considers every voluntary fault as no light offence when committed against supreme power exercised with perfect tenderness.

But it is their reluctance to part with the remaining degrees, their wish to retain these modified sins; it is their favourite reserves to which they still cling, that prevent that peace which is promised to the victory, I had almost said to the omnipotence of prayer.

For it is not so much the nicely measured quantity, as to the nature of sin which consti. A DEEP sense of his corruptions will power-tutes its malignity, and obstructs the benefit of

VOL. II.

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prayer. The inferior degree which is cherished, will, without earnest supplication to God, be ready to become the excess which is deprecated, whenever the appropriate temptation shall present itself. For, however our compassionate Father may pardon the unpremeditated fault, yet how can we expect Him to forgive any degree of sin that is allowed, that is even, in a certain measure, intended to be committed? Diminution, however, is a favourable step, if, by perseverance in prayer, it lead gradually to extirpation. And this naturally leads to the important subject of Perseverance in Prayer.

of the actor, reduces all these qualities to their essence when he resolves them into the spirit of supplication.

To pray, incessantly, therefore appears to be, in his view of the subject, to keep the mind in an habitual disposition and propensity to devotion; for there is a sense in which we may be said to do that which we are willing to do, though there are intervals of the thought as well as intermissions of the act,—' as a traveller,' says Dr. Barrow, may be said to be still on his journey, though he stops to take needful rest, and to transact necessary business.' If he pause, he does not turn out of the way; his pur. suit is not diverted, though occasionally interrupted.

Constantly maintaining the disposition, then, and never neglecting the actual duty; never slighting the occasion which presents itself, nor violating the habit of stated devotion, may, we presume, be called to pray without ceasing.' The expression watching unto prayer,' implies this vigilance in finding, and this zeal in laying hold on these occasions.

Prayer is an act which seems to be so prepared in the frame of our nature, to be so congenial to our dependent condition, so suited to our exigencies, so adapted to every man's known wants, and to his possibilities of wants unknown, so full of relief to the soul, and of peace to the mind, and of gladness to the heart; so productive of confidence in God, and so reciprocally proceeding from that confidence, that we should think, if we did not know the contrary, that it is a duty which scarcely required to be enjoined; that he who had once found out his necessities, The success of prayer, though promised to and that there was no other redress for them, all, who offer it in perfect sincerity, is not so would spontaneously have recourse, as a delight, frequently promised to the cry of distress, to the to what he had neglected as a command; that impulse of fear, or the emergency of the mohe who had once tasted the bounties of God, ment, as to humble continuance in devotion; it would think it a hardship not to be allowed to is to patient waiting, to assiduous solicitation, thank him for them; that the invitation to pray to unwearied importunity, that God has declarto his Benefactor, was an additional proof of Died that he will lend his ear, that he will give the vine goodness, that to be allowed to praise Him for his mercies, was itself a mercy.

The Apostle's precept, Pray always,'-pray evermore, pray without ceasing, men_ought always to pray, will not be criticised as a pleonasm, if we call to remembrance that there is no state of mind, no condition of life, in which prayer is not a necessity as well as an obliga. tion. In danger, fear impels to it: in trouble, we have no other resource; in sickness, we have no other refuge; in dejection, no other hope; in death, no other comfort.

Saint Paul frequently shows the word prayer to be a term of great latitude, involving the whole compass of our intercouse with God. He represents it to include our adoration of his perfections, our acknowledgment of the wisdom of his dispensations, our obligation for his benefits, providential and spiritual; the avowal of our en tire dependence on Him, our absolute subjection to Him, the declaration of our faith in Him, the expression of our devotedness to Him; the confession of our own unworthiness, infirmities, and sins; the petition for the supply of our wants, and for the pardon of our offences; for succour in our distress; for a blessing on our undertak. ings; for the direction of our conduct, and the success of our affairs.

If any should be disposed to think this general view too comprehensive, let him point out which of these particulars prayer does not embrace; which of these clauses a rational, a sentient, an enlightened, a dependent being can omit in his scheme of devotion.

But as the multifarious concerns of human life will necessarily occasion a suspension of the exercise, the Apostle, ever attentive to the principle of the act, and to the circumstances

communication of his Spirit, that he will grant the return of our requests. Nothing but this holy perseverance can keep up in our minds a humble sense of our dependence. It is not by a mere casual petition, however passionate, but by habitual application, that devout affections are excited and maintained, that our converse with Heaven is carried on. It is by no other means that we can be assured, with Saint Paul, that we are risen with Christ,' but this obvious one, that we thus seek the things which are above; that the heart is renovated, that the mind is lifted above this low scene of things; that the spirit breathes in a purer atmosphere; that the whole man is enlightened, and strengthened, and purified; and that the more frequently, so the more nearly, he approaches to the throne of God. He will find also that prayer not only expresses but elicits the Divine grace.

Yet do we not allow every idle plea, every frivolous pretence to divert us from our better resolves? Business brings in its grave apology pleasure its bewitching excuse.-But if we would examine our hearts truly, and report them faithfully, we should find the fact to be, that disinclination to this employment, oftener than our engagement in any other, keeps us from this sacred intercourse with our Maker.

Under circumstances of distress, indeed, pray. er is adopted with comparatively little reluc tance; the mind which knows not where to fly, flies to God. In agony, nature is no Atheist. The soul is drawn to God by a sort of natural impulse; not always, perhaps, by an emotion of piety, but from a feeling conviction that every other refuge is a refuge of lies.' Oh! thou afflicted, tossed with tempests, and not comforted, happy if thou art either drawn or driven,

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