a holy obedience springs. And when we have in solitude thus seriously reflected on ourselves and our condition, our duties and our temptations, our present character and our prospects hereafter, and have commended ourselves to God's care and support, we make all the preparation in our power for the services of the christian life, and may go forth again to its trials, strengthened with a holier might.

PRIVATE PRAYER A PREPARATION FOR SOCIAL WORSHIP.

It

We need private prayer as a preparation for that which is social. If we desire that God should hear and accept us, our prayers must be offered with fervor and earnestness. A devotional spirit must warm our hearts, and hallow the petitions that rise from our lips. But a devotional spirit can be nourished best, if not only, in private. It must be made habitual too, if we would have it pervade our prayers. cannot be assumed at will, like the consecrated garments of the priest, but must at all times array us. And this habitual feeling of devotion can only be sustained by the frequent excitement, and often renewed expressions of it, in our solitary prayers. Without this private preparation, we may indeed bow with our families when the day rises or the shadows of night descend, but

our prayers will be generally distracted and formal. We may gather at the temple and listen to the voice of others, but our minds will be wandering and our hearts be unaffected. The altar may be spread and the sacrifice may be prepared, but the fire will be wanting, and no accepted offering will rise.

Without this private preparation, we cannot enter into the spirit of social prayer. Public prayer must necessarily be general; and general expressions are unaffecting. But when we go from the solitude in which we have held communion with God, have acknowledged his goodness, and implored his mercy and support particularly to ourselves, then the voice of public prayer will awaken the remembrance of thoughts and feelings we have been indulging in private. When the public confession of sin is made, we shall think of our own deficiencies of character, neglect of duty, and acts of sin. And when all around us are rendering their common praise to God for his universal goodness, our praises will be quickened by the recollection of the private mercies he has bestowed on us. In this way we shall apply to ourselves all the general praises of the public devotion, and join in it with sincerity and with feeling. It is in a great degree the want of this private preparation which renders public prayers so uninteresting, and causes us often to

wait on them with so much careless inattention or lifeless formality.

PRACTICAL INFLUENCE OF PRAYER.

PRAYER not only gives fervency to devotion, and elevation to the feelings; it operates on the conscience. It is prayer which, more than anything, makes us realize the constant and immediate inspection of God. When we address ourselves directly to him, we cannot but remember that he ever hears our words, and witnesses our actions; we feel that we are in his presence, and that no darkness nor solitude can conceal us from his view; and we cannot go away and at once feel that we are removed from his observation, or cease to remember that his eye yet watches our steps. Who can be conscious of this without some deep sense of the solemnity of his situation, and of the obligations he is under ever to order his actions as seeing Him who is invisible?

Besides, in prayer we continually and solemnly acknowledge before God our obligations and our duties. And no human soul can be so fearfully presumptuous as thus habitually to bring to his conscience the deep conviction of his duties, and solemnly acknowledge them to God, profess his unaffected purposes of obedience, and seek from

him the strength and mercy which he needs, and then return with indifference to a course of wilful transgression. We must at least strive to relinquish our sins, or the voice of prayer would be to us a tremendous warning we could not hear, and a burden of remorse and misery too heavy for us to endure.

Besides, we cannot in sincerity acknowledge our obligations before God, and not feel some sense of our deficiencies, some need of forgiveness and amendment. When we recount before God the duties we pray to be enabled to practise, shall we not remember wherein we have failed? When we pray to be made pure, can we forget the disorders of our hearts, and the irregularities of our appetites and passions? When we supplicate for feelings of charity, can we then forget our unkindnesses, injuries, or cold neglect of others? When we ask for the gift of a heart grateful for mercy, and filled with pious and obedient affections, can we avoid being conscious of our poor offerings of thankfulness, our weak and wavering devotion, and our ungrateful returns to him who giveth all? And who can be so presumptuous as solemnly to confess before God his own particular sins, and earnestly to pray for forgiveness, without deep and solemn purposes to avoid the occasions of sin, to resist future temptations with fortitude, and to strive with vigilant

earnestness to amend all that has been amiss? Unaffected prayer thus teaches us to know ourselves, awakens us to watchfulness, is a perpetual exercise of repentance, gives vigor and effective-ness to good resolutions, and furnishes a constant motive to resistance of sin, and to amendment and holiness of life.

THE PROPER OBJECTS OF PRAYER.

WHAT are the blessings which we may ask from God, with most propriety and with most frequency?

In regard to temporal goods, we are evidently permitted to pray for those things which are necessary for our protection, support, and comfort, and to deprecate those evils which would render life wretched. "Give us our daily bread, and deliver us from evil," form part of the prayer which our Saviour himself has taught us. When we go beyond this, it is doubtless best not to pray with particularity for temporal gifts. We know not what earthly circumstances would be best for us. The apparent good we desire, may bring with it a burden of misery, and the seeming evil we would deprecate, may prove to us the greatest of mercies; or we might supplicate for gifts, which it would be inconsistent with the