repeated prayers of persons in active life, is formality. Such persons, while too conscientious to abandon the habit of stated prayer, soon find that there is every temptation to satisfy the conscience with the attentive repetition of a form, which takes no hold of the mind, and exerts no moral or spiritual influence on the temper. Every real Christian is well aware that thus to reduce prayer to a form, is to drain away from the exercise all its virtue, until it becomes a broken vessel, empty of power and comfort. But how to prevent, even with the best disposition, its lapsing into a form? The thing is by no means easy, or to be accomplished without effort. This is just one of those struggles which beset real Personal Religion, and which baffle and often make sad the Christian who cannot acquiesce in mere respectability, ånd feels that God has called him to saintliness. The design of this treatise being to afford help and counsel to such persons, and to lead them gradually onward, let me recommend that special attention be paid to the beginning and end of stated prayers. "Before thou prayest," says the wise man, "prepare thyself." Let the mind, as much as may be, be solemnized, calmed, toned down, by taking in the thought of the presence of God, and the sublime idea of coming to Him. It has been our purpose in this Chapter to indicate the path along which the mind. may travel with interest and profit on such an occasion. Endeavour to recall these thoughts, or such as these, with a secret aspiration that by grace you may be enabled to realize them. Lift up the mind gradually, and by stages, to some apprehension, however dim and unworthy, of the majesty, the might, the wisdom, the holiness, the love of God; and when, to use the Psalmist's expression, "the fire kindles, then speak with your tongue." The ready excuse for not complying with this advice, which springs to every lip, is, Time; the sort of prayer you describe asks time and my occupations drive me into a corner for time." To which the answer is twofold; first, that time might probably be gained by a very little of that self-disci

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pline, which surely no man should grudge to bestow on the work of his salvation. Let conscience answer whether, despite all this pressure of occupation, time is not continually made for engagements of an agreeable nature? and if made for them, why not for more serious engagements? Secondly; that as in other things, so in prayer, —a little done well is vastly better than more done superficially. Let it be remembered, too, that both the precept and the model which Our Lord has given us, rather discountenance long prayers. We are expressly counselled by Him against using vain repetitions, and thinking that we shall be heard for our much speaking, while the compression of thought and brevity of the Lord's Prayer is such, as to make it desirable that the petitioner should pause a little upon each clause, and slightly expand for himself the meaning, as he goes along.

The end of stated Prayers should also be made the subject of some attention and care. It is surprising how little this principle has been recognized in books of devotion. În manuals of preparation for the Holy Communion, for example, how little emphasis is laid, as a general rule, on the regulation of the heart and conduct, subsequently to the Ordinance! The natural recoil from the strain which real prayer always puts upon the mind is levity. Against this levity the devout man should watch and strive. When we have withdrawn into ourselves for a while for Communion with God, the glare of the world should be let in gradually on the mind again, as an oculist opens the shutters by degrees upon his restored patient. The impression of having had an interview with the King of kings amid the ministries of Cherubim and Seraphim should not be rudely tossed off, but gently and thoughtfully cherished. And it shall be as a nosegay of fresh flowers, which a man gathers before he leaves some fair and quiet garden, a refreshment amidst the dust and turmoil of earthly pursuits.

Make experiment of this advice, remembering that in spiritual as in intellectual discipline, early efforts are for

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the most part clumsy failures, and that repeated trials are the uniform condition of success: and you shall find, under the blessing of God, that your prayers will grow in life and interest, and will give that bright and happy tone to the mind, without which no one ever encountered successfully the duties and temptations of active life.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE TWOFOLD ASPECT OF PRAYER, AND THE NECESSITY OF PRACTISING IT IN BOTH ASPECTS.

"Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice."-PSALM exli. 2.

It is observable that our Blessed Lord, in His Sermon on the Mount, takes up the subject of prayer twice; once in the sixth, and again in a totally different connexion, in the seventh chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel. Why, it may be asked, when He was on the subject of prayer in the sixth chapter, did He not then and there exhaust all that was to be said upon it? It is possible that the answer to this question may be found in the twofold aspect of Prayer, which will form the subject of this Chapter. Prayer is a means of supplying man's necessities; this is its human aspect, its face towards man. Under this aspect our Lord regards it in the seventh chapter, where He gives the consolatory assurance that all our real wants shall be supplied by it: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' But Prayer has another quite distinct aspect. It is an act of homage done to the Majesty of God. Accordingly it is to be performed with the utmost reverence and solemnity; there is to be no babbling in it, no familiar glibness of the tongue, no running of words to waste, but simple, grave, short, sound, well-considered

speech. So had King Solomon said long centuries ago: "Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few." And so says One greater and wiser than Solomon, even Christ, "the Power of God, and the Wisdom of God." These are His words in the sixth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel : "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.' "Be not ye therefore like unto them." In the same paragraph, He says that the homage is not to be ostentatiously offered, but in the privacy of the closet. Privately as it may be paid, the Father will acknowledge it openly. Observe how the promise runs in this section of the Sermon. He says not, "The Father will give you the thing asked for;" for that was not exactly the aspect under which He was then viewing Prayer; but "He shall reward thee openly,"-acknowledge Thee as a true worshipper in the face of men and angels. The secret homage of the Saints is to be owned at the Day of Judgment. Their wants are to be supplied in the present life. Both these benefits are the crown and meed of real believing prayer. But they are entirely distinct subjects of thought.

In our last Chapter we rather looked at Prayer in the former of these two views, as a means of supplying man's wants. We regarded it as a pouring out of the heart with all its felt necessities, trials, and burdens, before God. This it is. But it is something more than this. And unless we hold before the eyes of our minds this second aspect of it, not only will our view be theoretically incomplete, (which of itself would signify little,) but practical errors will be insinuated into our minds, against which it behoves every devout man to be upon his guard.

Let us turn, then, to consider this second aspect of Prayer a little more closely. In the passage which stands at the head of this Chapter, the Psalmist very beautifully compares Prayer to the things which indeed

were types of it under the Old Dispensation, Incense and Sacrifice. "Let my prayer be set forth in thy sight as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." With this we connect the words of St. John in the Revelation,-" Jesus Christ hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father." Every Christian is really and truly a priest, consecrated in Baptism and Confirmation, (not indeed to minister in the congregation, but) to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. If it be asked what these sacrifices are, the Scriptural answer would be,—first, our own bodies, which we are bidden by St. Paul to present as "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is our reasonable service :" secondly, our almsgivings, which the same Apostle declares to be "an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, wellpleasing to God; and last, not least, our prayers (including under this generic term all the exercises of devotion,-confession, intercession, thanksgiving, praise, no less than direct petitions for ourselves). As the fragrant incense-cloud went up from the kindled coal in the censer; as the sweet savour went up from the burnt offering, when it was roast with the fire of the altar; so true believing Prayer, coming from a kindled heart, rises of necessity to God, and steals into His immediate presence in the Upper Sanctuary. We may complete the imagery by observing that the Altar upon which these sacrifices must be laid, the only Altar which sanctifieth the gift, and renders it acceptable,is our Lord Jesus Christ Himself, in the faith of whose meritorious Cross and Righteousness every prayer and spiritual oblation must be made.

Now is not the view of Prayer which we have thus sketched out very distinct, and very important in its practical bearings? Prayer is designed not only to be serviceable to man, but honourable to God. It is a tax (redounding indeed with unspeakable benefits to the tax-payer, but still it is a tax) laid upon our time ; just as almsgiving is a tax laid upon our substance ; and if we would render unto God the things that are