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OCCASIONAL PRAYERS.

OCCASIONAL PRAYERS FOR A FAMILY.

I.

New Year.

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.

Return, O Lord, how long? and repent thou concerning thy servants.

O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Make us glad according to the days in which thou hast afflicted us, and the years in which we have seen evil.

Let thy work appear to thy servants, and thy glory to their children.

And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

ON the morning of another year, we bow ourselves before thee, O thou God of our lives, and seek thy blessing. In thy presence, which we now solemnly invoke, we consecrate ourselves renewedly to thy service. May the coming year prove a new year indeed, bringing new thoughts and better resolutions than we ever yet have formed. Happy, thrice happy will it be for us, if it lead us into a new and divine life. Should it bring us trials and sorrows, and take from us health and friends, still happy will it be if through thy grace we are enabled to use it well. Although it should strip us of our dearest earthly possessions, it will make us rich indeed if it give us wisdom and strength, and its memory will be precious forever. O, then with one mind and heart we would pause, and pray for light, and beseech thee to give us new convictions of the priceless worth of a godly and righteous life. Send down thy Spirit from the holy heavens to write upon our hearts, to record thy will upon those living tables in eternal characters.

We would no longer be in bondage to the world and its foolish and hurtful lusts. But we would have faith in God, and in the unutterable worth of our immortal souls. We would renounce the pleasures of sin and sense, and no more be led astray by the hollow promises and gaudy show of life. We know-in

how many ways hast thou taught us!-- we know that true peace can be found only in making thy will our supreme law, in submitting every desire to thee. But, O God, plain as the way of life is, we are prone to forsake it, and follow false guides, and take counsel of our own blinded minds, our own sinful thoughts. Vanity and passion, the desire of the eyes, and the pride of life, all these ensnare us and mislead our understandings, and cause us to neglect the things which it most solemnly concerns us to know and do. We do not live, but dream, walking in a vain show, ruled by the fear or the favor of the world; and we know not what a blessed thing it is, how divine the joy, to be one with thee, faithful servants of the living God, devoted friends and brethren of thy Son Jesus Christ.

Merciful Father, help thou our insensibility and unbelief. And now, as another year opens upon us, renew us in the whole temper of our minds. Regenerate our affections. Give us strength here and now to break away from every evil habit, and to set out with another spirit, to become new creatures, dead to the terrors and solicitations of the world, alive to God and to truth.

We may not live to see the beginning of another year. Long before the present year closes, we may be laid in the grave. O thou Disposer of life and of death, may we be found doing thy work, with our faces set heavenward and our whole souls bent upon

living wisely and well. Let not this year be marked by broken vows, by a sinful surrender of our souls to the tyranny of wicked passions, by indolence and deadness of heart; but may it be forever memorable as a year rich in generous purposes and Christian deeds. And when we are called to stand at thy bar, may this year bear witness to virtuous resolutions carefully kept, to our growth in knowledge, in piety, and in love.

And may every coming year, every coming day, bear the same blessed testimony. By the divine power of a true spirit, may we convert all the changes of life, abundance and want, sickness and health, into opportunities of grace; and so may we be raised above the power of time, and breathe the air of an eternal world, even while we sojourn in this vale of shadows.

Almighty God, we would lay open our hearts before thee. Search thou us and show us ourselves, all the heights and depths of our own nature, the glory for which we are made, the perils to which we are exposed, the sins which we secretly nourish, and with lowly and earnest minds, with godly fear, may we toil day and night to obtain the end of our being, even the salvation of our souls. Let thy mighty power, which controls the courses of the universe, upholding worlds and systems of worlds, O, let it descend and inspire us, that, like the stars of the firmament, we may show forth the glory of God. Not unto us,

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