gratitude, and our praise! If we have food and raiment, they are abundantly more than we deserve; for in many things we all offend.

Why, Philetus, are we commanded to pray, Give us this day our daily bread, if not to teach us, among other things, our daily dependence upon God as the dispenser of temporal blessings? Most of our wants return with the morning; and to whom should we look but to him who is able to supply them? We need his direction through the vicissitudes and the perplexities of every day; and without his gracious interposition and support, we can effect nothing to any valuable purpose. In the evening we seek rest in vain, unless he give slumber to the eyelids, and sleep to the eyes. Now as these are wants common to every family, and what all its members constantly experience, they ought certainly to unite in supplicating the divine goodness, and in returning thanks for the mercies of which they have jointly been partakers. Surely each can say with the Psalmist, It is good to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O

Most High: to show forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness every night -for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.

Family worship is indeed so highly proper in itself, and calculated to answer such valuable purposes, that no man can justify his conduct in neglecting it. That the continuance of daily mercies calls for daily acknowledg ments, is the dictate of reason as well as of religion. Some suspension of common affairs, some pause of temporal pain and pleasure, is surely necessary to him who deliberates for eternity, who is forming the only plan in which miscarriage cannot be repaired, and examining the only question in which a mistake cannot be rectified.'

That prayer is a duty resulting from our relation to the Almighty, as our Creator and Benefactor, can want no proof. It is, besides, a means by which the comfort and the happiness of his dependent and sinful creatures are promoted. He that knows what is in man,

stands in no need of intelligence respecting his condition. All things are naked and opened

unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do-Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.'-In this, as in every other case, duty and privilege are inseparable; and the utility of prayer will be manifest when it is remembered that it is not intended to give the Father of spirits information concerning either our wants or our unworthiness, for these are perfectly known to him before they are felt or acknowledged by ourselves; but to impress the mind with a deep conviction of both, and to keep perpetually alive a sense of our entire dependence on him for the pardon of the one, and the supply of the other.

'Nothing so forcibly restrains from ill as the remembrance of a recent address to heaven for protection and assistance. After having petitioned for power to resist temptation, there is so great an incongruity in not continuing the struggle, that we blush at the thought, and persevere lest we lose all reverence for ourselves. After fervently devoting our souls to

God, we start with horror at immediate apostacy every act of deliberate wickedness is then complicated with hypocrisy and ingratitude: it is a mockery of the Father of mercies, the forfeiture of that peace in which we closed our address, and a renunciation of the hope which that address inspired. But if prayer and immorality be thus incompatible, surely the former should not be neglected by those who contend that moral virtue is the summit of human perfection.'

In the neglect of either domestic or of private worship, we act much more inconsistently than we do in the common occurrences of life. Were we to receive the smallest token of respect at the hand of some earthly friend, we should be prompt in making our acknowledgments; we should feel pain in recollecting one opportunity when we might have testified our gratitude, but which was either neglected or forgotten. If then we pretend to be sensible of our obligations to our heavenly Benefactorto that Friend who sticketh closer than a brother; by what shall we demonstrate the sin

cerity of these pretensions, if not by yielding the obedience we acknowledge to be due, which we have it in our power to perform, and which the present state of our existence renders both a privilege and a duty? Surely it is right to seek him that turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night?'

If then, Philetus, the neglect of family worship cannot be vindicated in the openly profane, how can it be excused or countenanced in the real christian, who must experience a double tie for the performance of this relative and social duty. Besides the providential favours of which all men are undeservedly partakers, he is indulged with those spiritual supplies that are infinitely superior, and which admit of no comparison with sublunary enjoy. ments. He should therefore certainly be in all things exemplary: he should think it his meat and drink to do the will of his heavenly Father; and especially when he considers that by separating himself from the corrupt conversation, amusements, and company of the