I.

Necessity of Prayer.

"O WHEN the heart is full-when bitter thoughts Come crowding up for utterance;

And the poor common words of courtesy
Are such a very mockery-how much

The bursting heart may pour itself in prayer."

GOD, the strength of all them that put their trust in Thee, mercifully accept our prayers; and because through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do no good thing without Thee, grant us the help of Thy grace, that in keeping of Thy commandments we may please Thee, both in will and deed; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

NECESSITY OF PRAYER.

RAYER is natural to men.

The know

ledge of our own weakness is soon forced upon us; but with this conviction there comes another, the sense of dependence on One great, loving, and wise. Out of these springs the necessity of prayer, which is the language of the frail to the mighty-the confession of need, and the instinct of trust.

Every known religion attests this irresistible impulse to pray. Though under the most degraded forms, or lost sight of in the most splendid ceremonial,-the rudest and most revolting Fetichism to the most gorgeous ritual, the instinct of prayer is found the inspiring impulse of every kind of religious worship.

B

Men, indeed, will be found to deny, or to undervalue the evidence of this instinct of prayer; but there are times which wring prayer from prayerless lips; times of danger, when all classes find prayer the most appropriate and natural utterance of their lips, and like the sailors in the story of Jonah, cry every man to his God; times of heart-fear, when the whole spirit sends up from the depths of confusion and darkness an exceeding bitter cry, wherein terror and doubt mingle with the unquenchable instinct of prayer; times when, perhaps, death is approaching, and the dark, unexplored confines of the other world begin to loom vast and vague upon an awakening conscience, and the firm citadel of stoutly maintained unbelief is swept away, and prayer rushes forth in such a despairing shriek as burst from the lips of Thistlewood :-" O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul !"

If the language of prayer is thus natural to