rent has such things to teach, and the young have such things to learn!-when the fountain of life is opened in the midst of them, and the young are suffered to come and quench their thirst! How well, in such simple and sacred scenes, are all the best affections of youthful nature awakened, and its loftiest sentiments kindled, and its noblest ambition called forth! And how salutary to the old, to return thus back again, as it were, to the years of innocence and purity,-to inhale afresh the grateful joy and the undoubting faith of their youth,—and to renew again the happy hours, when they first received the kingdom of God," as a little child."

In such duties, and in such meditations, may those sacred hours be employ

ed, in which we are now preparing ourselves to commemorate the arrival of the Son of God!—Retiring for a while from that world in which are all our dangers

and all our enemies, may we raise our thoughts to that loftier region from which the" Day-star" of Heaven is advancing to rise upon us, and to dispel the clouds and the phantoms of time! May we arise to meet Him, not with the earthly offerings " of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh,” but with the nobler offerings of pious faith, and lowly penitence, and resolved obedience!-May the departing year carry with it upon its wings, all our doubts, our sorrows, and our sins; and may we meet the year that is approaching, with minds so purified at the altar of our Lord, that," under his pure and perfect light," we may all advance" unto the perfect day!"

66

SERMON III.

ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.

ST LUKE, Xi. 2.

"And he said unto them, When ye pray, say

IN these words, which are in answer to a request of his disciples, our Saviour introduces that celebrated form of prayer which is generally termed the Lord's Prayer, and which, in every age, has been considered as the most perfect model for the devotion of his people.

Of the request of his disciples, "Lord "teach us to pray?" I believe there are few serious or thoughtful men who have

not felt the importance.

There is some

thing so solemn in the thought of presenting ourselves before the living God; the best of us are so unfit to appear in the presence of him who "is too pure to be"hold iniquity ;" and the wisest of us are so unable to determine what is proper for them to ask, or right in him to bestow, that in no part of religious duty are we so much in need of assistance: and nowhere is that assistance so important as in the direction of our prayers. It is grateful, accordingly, to observe how much every age and church of Christianity has felt the value of that model which our Saviour here gives us. It enters frequently into the liturgy of every church. It is the first form of pious words which the infant tongue is taught to repeat; and in every language almost upon earth, the Deity is daily addressed by numbers unknown to each other, in

the same simple but sublime terms which, so many centuries ago, were prescribed by his blessed Son.

In the great body of mankind, however, this familiarity, like every other, is apt to have its inconveniences. Of a form so sacred, the spirit may be forgot; the lips of the Christian may move in approaching to God, while his heart is far from him, and the words which infancy has acquired may never afterwards be examined by maturer thought, or understood in the fulness of their sense.

I trust, therefore, that it may be neither useless nor unacceptable to the young around me, if I attempt, at present, to enter into some examination of this ever-memorable prayer of our Lord; -to point out to them the views it af fords of the nature and government of the great Being to whom all prayer is addressed; and from thence to illustrate