tion; it must appear incomprehensible, that what was most to be venerated, and conferred such blessings, should degenerate into idle ceremony; and that the expression of the holiest feelings should ever be exchanged for words uttered without thought, which deadens the mind and leaves the heart empty and cold. And yet our Redeemer found this abuse of what is most sacred general amongst his people. They had degraded prayer into a court-service, and thought to honour God, when they repeated words before him without consideration, and often and loudly addressed him, whilst they were far from him in heart and mind. They had converted their devotion into a trade, and prayed at the corners of the streets in order to be seen of men; that they might pass for pious, though their hearts were unclean and evil. They made many words, like the heathen, that they might without piety and faith, and merely through the charm of prayer, draw down heaven upon earth, bend the will of the Eternal, and extort his blessings; but as to the proper course of a reverential soul with God, few amongst his contemporaries had any clear sense of it or any taste for it. The pious Man then taught men to pray, and opened to them therewith a new fountain of pure felicity, which hitherto had flowed copiously but for few. This is his merit, that he taught us to know the Father, and imparted to us a filial reverence of him, and only by these means was man inter qualified for prayer, and made capable of its blessings. As long, my friends, as love of the world, indolence, and religious indifference, prevent thousands from performing this sacred duty; as long as one portion of Christians is ashamed of intercourse with God, or asserts it to be useless and a waste of time, and another with gross superstition considers prayer as rendering a service to God, and as a secret influence for biassing eternal destiny; as long as others with vile hypocrisy profane what is most sacred, and carry on a sordid trade with their sanctimonious manners; so long are the instructions and warnings of Jesus not superfluous, and meditation thereon may still be highly fruitful in disseminating a pure worship of God, and a genuine religious temper. And this determines us to call your attention to-day to two equally important defects, and to discourse at present on the abuse, and the neglect, of prayer. When man discerns in the appearances of the visible world the eternal, invisible, creating Spirit, which animates and fills all things, and whose breath pervades the whole creation; when he perceives his power and wisdom and goodness in the smallest as in the greatest of his works, and does homage to the Exalted One, whom no eye can behold and no thought can reach; when every thing around him points to a hidden first Cause, and the mind which thinks within him makes him sensible of his descent from this ineffable Being; then holy feelings are awakened in his breast, with high animation he utters the name of the Creator of worlds.-He, he alone, fills his whole soul, and his mute delight becomes a prayer, with which he praises that glorious Being, whose honour the heavens declare, and whose wonders the whole earth proclaims. At one time this holy feeling pours itself forth in loud hymns; at another it remains speechless, confined in the breast, the tongue devoid of utterance, and becomes the silent adoration of the soul in spirit and in truth. When man has a lively feeling of his dependence on this exalted Being, when he acknowledges his own impotency, and must be sensible that he is but dust which God's breath animates during his pleasure; when with all his efforts he cannot add one cubit to his stature, nor secure one hair on his head, and receives and must expect all that he has and stands in need of from the hand of the Lord of nature; then he prostrates himself before the Mighty One, who creates and destroys, who gives and takes away, who orders the whole destiny of man, his prosperity and adversity, and brings the thanksgiving and the wishes of his heart before him who knoweth the heart, and stammers out his petitions for the manifold gifts of life to him, who rules over inexhaustible abundance-the sense of his weaknesses and his wants inclines the soul to lift itself devoutly to God, and-he prays! When man feels the iron stroke of fate, and vainly contends against the hidden power, to which kings as well as beggars are subject; when he struggles with severe trials and sorrows, and in the night of misfortune beholds no guiding star enlightening his path till the coming of a brighter day; then he pours out his lamentation before the Lord of fate, and implores consolation and help from the Mighty One, from whom help must come ; he prays in anguish of soul; and faith and trust, peace and hope, return into the mournful heart. The exigencies of life lead the way to devout, indefatigable prayer; when calamity assails a man, he seeks God, and, when he chastises, cries to him in his agony. Is it not then incontrovertible, my friends, 'that prayer is as much a necessity for man, as it is the duty of a rational creature towards the Creator? Every reflection on God and nature and ourselves involuntarily raises the soul to him; every remembrance of our limited faculties and weakness leads us to him; every earthly want bears us from earth to the heaven above, where dwells our help, and every wish of the heart seeks to be expressed before Him, who can satisfy the wishes of the heart. And whoever has not in his own life felt any incitement to prayer, verily, he has renounced his rational nature, and lives like the beast, without the most distant idea of his superior dignity and his nobler calling. Must it not then surprise us that there can be any persons, who have so little sense of holy things, that they profane these blissful outpourings of the heart to God, and convert prayer into an idle babbling, which gives the lie to devotion; who put on the semblance of godliness, whose power they deny? Men, who go forth with pious mien, and pray at the corners of the streets, with the crafty intention of being seen and praised, or who think that prayer is a service which must be agreeable to the Eternal, even when the heart has no participation in it, and knows not what the mouth speaks! Or those who ascribe a secret power to a multitude of words and the frequent repetitions of studied forms, and fancy they can give the law to heaven and turn fate by the charm of prayers uttered without devotion and without sense! And yet there are hypocrites and superstitious persons in abundance, who know not the blessedness of a pious intercourse with God, and do not feel its necessity, and who exercise a mere trade with their affected sanctity; who would either deceive men, or prevail upon the Eternal to reward their thoughtless worship, and whose hearts are incapable of that sensibility, which true devotion must produce. "I tell you," says Jesus, "they have their reward." They defraud themselves of the happiest hours of life, and of the sublimest feelings of which the mortal breast is capable. Yet, perhaps, the number of those is still greater E |