cease not day and night saying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty!" and they are never tired of that blessed form of ceaseless praise. Why ought not we to try not to be tired and not to wander, even if we are often tempted and beaten by the flesh? It is in this way we ought to practise for eternity, even if we had not such a great multitude of wants as we have, to bring before God, and so many sins to confess, and to pray Him to justify us from, in the blood of His Son. Let us look at Simeon and Anna, who almost lived in the temple at Jerusalem; and the first Christian Apostles and brethren, who were "continually" there; and I think we shall always blame ourselves for not being equally devout and prayerful. The fault is surely with us, not with the Church, which teaches us so much the better way. It is very good, I find it, to have this remembrance forced upon us, that we ought so to delight in worship as never to feel it a burden or a weariness, however long it may continue. If we do, let us accuse ourselves faithfully and penitently, and it may soon be better with us. I very often think that some of the objections made to our divine service really arise from the very high tone of piety and devotion which goes through them. There is so much of true holiness, and earnest repentance for sin, and patient submissiveness, and simple faith, in the whole spirit of them, that they require some greater measures than we have of those graces, fully to enter into them. They are above us in many things; and this is the cause that a great number of persons fail to relish them, because they forget that any thing which is really according to the Spirit of God must have a tendency to humble us, by showing how far we are below it. This is one of the greatest excellencies of the collects: they show what Christians ought to desire, and pray for. They very often humble us, but it is good for us to be humbled. But when the Spirit of God is with us, and we are in a truly prayerful state of mind, how beautifully do the collects express all we desire, and present it before God in just that humble, earnest, and yet resigned form which must be most acceptable in His sight!

T. I admit that there is a great deal of truth in what

you say, and it may be my own fault that I do not enjoy the service better. But what should you say if one were to object to it, just because it is a form?

J. Then I should answer that extempore prayer, when uttered by another person for us to join in, is as truly a form as those we have been speaking of.

- I. How so? as much a form as the printed prayers? J. Quite as truly a form as to the meaning of the objection. For what is a form except something set for us by another which we are to follow or join in?

Now let me ask you, is not the extempore prayer as much a form to those who hear it and have to try to join in it, as if it was printed? Is there any difference because in one case it was printed and in the other it came from the lips of the minister? In fact, it comes from his lips in both cases, the only difference being to him and not to us.

If he speaks something quite new to us, it is nevertheless a form for us to follow, to pray it after him, to take it up from his suggestion.

I might, indeed, say it is much more a form when it is set for us in that way, because we have less power of choice whether we can join in it or not. We have had no time to consider it beforehand. But in the case of the Prayer Book we have full knowledge of what is coming; we are sure whether we agree with it, in its expressions and meaning it is therefore less a form than if we were required to join without knowing before what it is.

For my part I do not quite see how we can deliberately join in a prayer, with all our hearts, and with full perception of its meaning and force, if it has only that moment been presented to us for the first time. We may hesitate about it for an instant, or the novelty of the words may engage our attention too much; and while we are thinking of it, another petition has come to our ears equally new, which we have again to consider; so that there is a confusion of mind produced, sadly destructive of that calm and quiet spirit which is requisite for comfortable communion with God. The mind is engaged in judging of what is prayed, instead of being entirely occupied in prayer itself; and this seems to me a great evil, when

we consider how precious is the time spent in worship, and how necessary it is that not a fragment of it should

be lost.

EXTRACT FROM MY FAMILY BIBLE.

MATT. xxiii. 13–34.

E.

THE meek and gentle Jesus, tender of poor, brokenhearted sinners, who, all weary and heavy laden, came to Him for rest, is roused to strong anger against those who dare pretend to be righteous while their conduct proclaims them to be abominable. The woes here mentioned by our Lord are not mentioned for nothing. These Pharisees, by the troublesome and hypocritical nature of their traditions, shut up the kingdom of heaven against their brethren. They extorted money from the widow under pretence of superior knowledge of the law of God. Their long prayers were a pretence, though they must have known from the Scriptures of the Old Testament, that he who could cheat the widow, and play the hypocrite at prayers, was putting himself in the way of the most severe punishment from Him who had declared Himself the God of the widow, and who had so constantly reproved and punished His chosen people for their hypocrisy. Then they were so anxious to make proselytes, or to gain people to their sect. They would do any thing or go any where to get their object, though they well knew that they were endangering the souls of others as well as their own. Here are the specimens of their hypocrisy in the case of the gold that was placed in the Temple for pious uses, and the gifts that were placed upon the altar, their exactness in the payment of tithe, while they neglected judgment, mercy, and faith: these take away all room for wonder that the heart-searching and holy Lord God Jesus Christ was so angry with these wretched men. Well indeed might He say that they were blind guides, who strained at a gnat and swallowed a camel, who were clean without, but full of extortion and excess within. Well indeed might He liken them to whited graves. Well might He call them serpents, or children of that old deceitful serpent, Satan. Well might He fix upon them in a body the awful term

"generation of vipers;" for, with all their declarations of sorrow for the conduct of those who in time past had killed the good prophets that had faithfully preached against sin, with all their assertions that had they lived then they would have had no hand in the murder of those men of God, yet were they committing the selfsame sins that the prophets preached against, and so showing that they were the children of them that had killed the prophets. But now they are doomed to fill up the measure of the iniquities of their fathers. The mild Jesus in holy anger calls them serpents, and asks how such hypocritical persons can escape the damnation of hell?

These Scribes and Pharisees must have been very wicked for our blessed Lord to have made such a severe speech as this that we have just read, in which He gives them up to their own ways, and to the condemnation of those who shall never see God's face, but have their portion with devils. But, dear family, though it be sad to think of, there are many who are called Christians, that by the constant practice of sin will subject themselves to the same awful sentence of Christ Jesus their God. It is indeed dreadful, beyond expression dreadful, for poor wretches to be left to fill up their measure of sin till hell swallow them up; but if we are candid and open, and would deal fairly by our blessed Lord, we must confess His love to be so great as to put it out of the

power of man to say that He leaves any one to himself till he has left his God and Saviour's blessed Spirit unheeded, till at last the very sound of His kind warnings becomes hateful to him, and he turns anxiously away from His friendly counsel. Mildness, gentleness, and sweetness of love are the leading features of the Saviour's character; but where men persist in wickedness, then, and not till then, He gives them over to their own hearts' lusts, and to their just condemnation. If therefore we be tempted to speak hardly of our Lord, let us remember that He is quite consistent with Himself, that He is the Lord God, who from one end of His word to the other proclaims Himself a God of infinite love and mercy, but yet a God who will in no wise spare

the guilty who put Him from their hearts, and will have none of His counsel nor reproof.

A LAYMAN.

THE SON OF MAN ON THE THRONE OF HIS GLORY.

MATT. XXV. 31-33..

"WHEN the Son of Man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit on the throne of His glory; and before Him shall be gathered all nations, and He shall separate them one from another as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and He shall set the sheep on His right hand, and the goats on the left."

These words of our Lord lead us to contemplate subjects and events, whose full interest is beyond all perfect utterance. Until we can find language whereby per fectly to describe an Infinite God, the value of eternal life, the evil of sin, and the preciousness of that ransom which redeems man from its curse,-I say, until then,' we may well despair of conveying a full description of those great realities which await the human race at the judgment of the last day. But though we cannot describe, we are bound to state them, forming as they do a religious question, which must by no means be left to the chance attention of a sensual world. For even if at any time, without a special exhortation of the ministry, men do expend an occasional thought upon a future day of judgment, yet in what a variety of strange misapprehensions do multitudes remain with reference to the test, process, and issues of that supreme tribunal! Such are the slaves of sense; they thus pervert judgment; they consider God as they consider man; they imply Him to be superficial, short-sighted, as though easily imposed upon. by outward seeming, and soon forgetful of those lesser irregularities, which, through frailty and folly, prevail among men. Is there, however, I would ask, no high record of authority enough to correct these destructive errors? Is the God of truth and future judgment an unknown God? Has He veiled in thick, impenetrable darkness the eternal principles which establish His throne, and form the character of His government? Is it left to us as a subject for various conjecture of what