substance and effect, what our prayers are in words and profession; but if we look at our own lives, and consider well all our motives, how often are we constrained to confess a determination to continue in some one known sin! We may be healed of the leprosy, yet ambition may bow us down in the house of Rimmon. The covetous defend economy, the vain disclaim every weakness but their own, and are led by it into all folly. The actions of men should flow from one sole motive, and yet how very seldom can we assign to any particular determination the special reason which made us so determine. The way that

If

a man's face is set, is the way on which he is desirous to walk. It is above all things necessary that we do not trifle with prayer. we tempt ourselves, if we set up our idols in our hearts, and put before our own faces the stumbling-block of our iniquity, the Lord will answer us according to our idols, and take us in our own hearts, and cut us off from the midst of His people.

It is revealed to us, that all men must be

lieve sometime or other, with hope or without it, glad or trembling. The obstacles to repentance and belief become greater as we grow older, and the excellence and advantages of religion are less and less intelligible the longer we continue to stand aloof.

The call of Christianity may be, at first, ungracious to our ears; and yet its promises are great, and we mostly know, that, after all, the yoke is easy and the burden is light, and the benefit immediate and increasing. Although the notion of indwelling peace be, in itself, and by words, incommunicable, yet all men may trace its effects on the conduct of Christians. All the strange contradictions and jarring inconsistencies of life are attributable to sin, which is in its nature unreasonable, manifold, and tyrannical. The fogs of earth may reach, and obscure, the hospitable lights, and the boasted beacons of unaided reason; but they cannot cloud the Star of Bethlehem, when it rises upon willing hearts. The children of God are always consistent, for they walk not after their own imaginations: their power

is not in themselves, and their eyes are fixed upon their Redeemer,

On they move,

Indissolubly firm! nor obvious hill,

Nor strait'ning vale, nor wood, nor stream divides
Their perfect ranks, for high above the ground
Their march is.

In the daily intercourse of life, each individual should be upon his guard against blind and obstinate adherence to a general truth, upon any particular occasion, which may not be within its scope. In such a case, misunderstandings ensue between the best friends and even in families: and when we are alienated from those among men whom we ought to love, we cannot have charity, the bond of peace, we cannot love God, we cannot pray. Such jealousies and quarrels destroy all comfort, all singleness of mind, and induce a hardness, against which the Spirit of God may not always be striving: at the very time this hardness is increasing fast upon our hearts, we are less and less sensible of it, and blame others more than ourselves. During this declension

C

from our calling, all the divisions in our household are widened and widening. The dearest relations learn, first, to become independent of each other in a wrong sense, then, to undervalue one another; and excuse themselves, from indolence, if from no worse motive, by alleging they cannot understand such conduct; or, by some other false plea of the same stamp, they strive to veil from themselves, and from others, the real mischief, which is the selfishness and obdurate unthankfulness of their own hearts. We turn against even our Maker in our pride at times, because we are obliged to receive His gifts as gifts; and would wish to be on equal terms with Him, and buy, what we are receiving, whether we thank Him for it or not, from His unbounded goodness in the common course of His providence. Ingratitude to God, and ingratitude to man, are often found in the very greatest degree, where they would be found in the least, if man were not altogether born in sin and the child of wrath. The conversion of love into hatred is almost a proverb: and a fearful one, against each individual,

when deeply considered, and taken in principle only, not in degree. The heart that is not right with God, cannot be right with men: the heart that is not right with men, cannot be right with God. The golden links that bind earth to heaven cannot be severed with impunity; for if one be broken, the hold is lost, the communion is at an end. And as selfexamination, and confession of sins, are soon found essential in religion, as it is soon discovered there can be no half religion, so is it in our charity towards our brethren. If we do not confess what we have done wrong, we must aggravate what they have done wrong, in self-defence. If we do not entirely forgive that wrong, which we think our neighbours have done to us, we are at least doing wrong ourselves and that, does not promise us restoration to peace of mind. A faithful watch against indolence, and pride, and selfishness, in ourselves, will throw a bright glory over the world, which else had been a damp and unwholesome scene in our eyes. Young Christians must look in their daily self-examina