THE DAY-STAR. "AWAKE, AWAKE; PUT ON THY STRENGTH, O ZION; PUT ON THY BEAUTIFUL GARMENTS, O JERUSALEM, THE HOLY CITY !"-Isa. lii. 1. No. 15. JANUARY, 1846. ONE PENNY. PROPOSAL FOR PRAYER. IN an article on "The Conversion of the World," in the Day-Star for January, 1845, we urged on our Christian readers the duty of seeking, by means of persevering prayer and personal effort, the conversion of their fellow-sinners around them. Have you, dear reader, been acting on the plan we recommended? Can you point to any one of your fellow-sinners, who, during the course of the bygone year, has been brought to the knowledge of the Saviour through your instrumentality? We stated that if each of our Christian readers-supposing one such to read each copy of the Day-Star-should attempt and expect and succeed in the conversion of only one sinner to the Saviour during the year, ere January, 1846, other seven thousand of our fellow-sinners-our neighbours and our brethren -would thus be taught to "know the Lord," whom to know is "life eternal." O! how delightful would be the thought that such a host had been rescued from the bondage of Sin and Satanthat such an amount of fresh energy had been brought into the field "to the help of the Lord against the mighty!" We fear, however, that we cannot indulge in this delightful thought. Nevertheless, we know and are assured that our gracious God has owned and honoured the efforts of those supporters and friends of the Day-Star who have been living and labouring for His glory and the good of souls during the past year has owned and honoured their efforts as the means of bringing many to the enjoyment of His favour and friendship through the knowledge of Jesus Christ His Son as the Lord their righteousness. We are as fully assured that all those whose efforts God has thus owned and blessed will with one heart and voice unite in ascribing all the power and the praise to Him-in saying, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be all the glory." We are perfectly certain that those whose efforts have been most successful, instead of being puffed up with any vain conceit of their own "sufficiency for these things," are at this moment more deeply impressed than ever with the conviction that their "sufficiency is of God." We acknowledge, then, dear reader---most sincerely do we acknowledge that our success is from God, who alone “giveth the increase." We rejoice in that success as the manifest token of His gracious approbation of our feeble and unworthy efforts for the revival and extension of His work. And, while we desire to cherish and express deep and devout gratitude to Him for his past favours, we feel encouraged, by the experience of the past, to anticipate still greater things for the future. We deem it the best and most acceptable manifestation of our gratitude to God for his great goodness to us during the past year, that we should expect still greater things from Him, and attempt still greater things for Him, during the coming year. But we are not warranted to expect any such favours from God unless we ask them. We propose, therefore, that we and our friends should "give ourselves to prayer for this object more fully than we have ever yet done. Dear Christian reader, will you not unite with us in this? Read-O read attentively, the subjoined paper, and you will learn from it some most important reasons why every child of God should abound in prayer and supplication to Him for the awakening and conversion of sinners. .*Let us pray, then, as well as labour---let us labour as well as pray for this great object every day that we live. Is it not right and reasonable that we should? What object is there worth living for compared with this? But, while we trust that we and all our Christian readers "will give ourselves continually to prayer" for this great object, our particular design in the present address is to propose, that, at this commencement of a new year, we should UNITEDLY DEVOTE A DAY TO SPECIAL PRAYER—a day during which we might all, “with one accord," meet in spirit at the throne of grace, to pour out our hearts in fervent thankfulness to God for the measure of success with which he has been pleased to crown our feeble efforts during the past year, as well as in fervent supplications for the continuance and increase of his goodness to us in this respect during the coming year. We would earnestly request those of ours readers who regard fasting as a Christian duty, (and we presume there will be little diversity of opinion on the point,) to unite the observance of that duty with their other exercises on the day proposed. We may remark here that we do not regard entire abstinence from food, either during the whole day, or even during any part of it, as essentially necessary to the duty of fasting. That might be hurtful to many; and it may be well for most, if not for all, to observe only a partial fast,-e.g. to take a very slight refreshment at their ordinary hours of eating. But in this every one should be guided by their own conscience and *The Paper here referred to is unavoidably postponed. |