found in reading and thinking; in reading in God's Word, and in thinking about him, and about the world as being his work. Young men and boys are generally, we know, not fond of reading for its own sake; and when they do read for their own pleasure, they naturally read something that interests them. Now, what are called sericus books, including certainly the Bible, do not interest them, and therefore they are not commonly read. What shall we say, then? Are they not interested in becoming good, in learning to do the things which they would? If they are not, if they care not for the bondage of sin and death, there is, of course, nothing to be said; then they are condemned already: they are not the children of God. But one says, "I wish I could find interest in a serious book, but I cannot." Observe again, "Ye cannot do the things that ye would," because the flesh and the spirit are contrary to one another. However, to return to him who says this, the answer to him is this-"The interest cannot come without the reading; it may, and will, come with it." For interest in a subject depends very much on our knowledge of it; and so it is with the things of Christ. As long as the life and death of Christ are strange to us, how can we be interested about them? But read them, thinking of what they were, and what were their ends; and who can help being interested about them? Read them carefully, and read them often, and they will bring before our minds the very thoughts which we need, and which the world keeps continually from us, the thoughts which naturally feed our prayers; thoughts not of self, nor selfishness, nor pleasure, nor passion, nor folly, but of such things as are truly God's― love, and self-denial, and purity, and wisdom. These thoughts come by reading the Scriptures; and strangely do they mingle at first with the common evil thoughts of our evil nature. But they soon find a home within us, and more od thoughts gather round them, and there comes a time hen daily life with its various business, which once seemed › shut them out altogether, now ministers to their nourishent. Wherefore, in conclusion, walk in the Spirit, and ye shall ot.fulfil the lusts of the flesh; but do even the things which e would. And ye can walk in the Spirit, if ye seek for he Spirit; if ye seek him by prayer, and by reading of Christ, nd the things of Christ. If we will do neither, then most ssuredly we are not seeking him; if we seek him not, we hall never find him. If we find him not, we shall never be able to do the things that we would: we shall never be releemed, never made free, but our souls shall be overcome by their evil nature, as surely as our bodies by their diseased nature, till one death shall possess us wholly, a death of body and of soul, the death of eternal misery. WATCHING AND PRAYER THE CHRISTIAN SECURITIES. [BISHOP HAMPDEN.] It is important to mark that the two methods of guarding against a surprise in the coming of the day of the Lord, are required to be used together. "Watch ye, therefore, and pray always," are the words of Christ closely uniting the two. So also St Peter says, "Be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer." (1 Peter iv. 7.) And so in our Saviour's affecting exhortation to his disciples, during the scene of his vehement intercession with the Father, before his crucifixion, "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." (Matt. xxvi. 41.) It is not enough that we bear a lively recollection of the love of Christ towards us in all our inter course with the world; but we must continually be plead ing with the Father our interest in the atonement of his Son. We must not only feel that we owe ourselves to Christ but we must lift up our hearts in the strength of the redemption: importuning God, by what he has already done for us in giving us his Son, to give us all things whereof we have need both for life and godliness. Prayer is dead, unless it be the prayer of the wakeful soul-unless it be the dictate of a habitual dependence on the Redeemer. Watching against the temptations of the world by faith in Christ is a vain waking of the soul, unless it be a vigil of the Lord that we keep exercising our hearts and tongues in communion with him. In fact, a thankful remembrance of the death and sacrifice of Christ, and communion with God in prayer, are inseparable parts of the Christian life. And therefore each must be so exemplified in us, that it may draw after it the other. Whenever we pray to God, it must be Christian prayer that ascends—it must be the incense of the atonement rising from the heart. The "golden vials full of odours," which are described in the apocalyptic vision, are "the prayers of saints" (Rev. v. 8)—the prayers of those who have been sanctified as children of God in Christ. A heathen may pray to God as the creature of natural providence. A Christian must pray to God as a Christian; as one who knows that he is God's by a second creation; as one who acknowledges God as the Head of the kingdom of grace. "Watch ye, therefore, and pray always," my brethren, "that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man." God will mercifully look upon you with his favour, if you be found among those who are thus waiting for your Lord; and will finally admit you to that place prepared for the redeemed, where your happiness shall be endangered no more. You thus "be accounted worthy," says the text. This does mean that our watching and prayers will, after all, be of meritorious effect: for we can never earn our salvation: ngh the eye of faith never slumbered, and though our ers sent up their unintermitted sweet incense to the ■ne of grace, we can never appear worthy in the sight of . But we may be privileged by his grace to inherit a -mpense, which we cannot ever deserve. And this is the e of the passage before us. "Watch and pray always," order that ye may be privileged "to escape," and "to nd before the Son of Man." As the prayers and the alms he unconverted Cornelius came up for a memorial before 1, and obtained for him a special call to the knowledge of Gospel, so will your faithful watching, and your unwearied yer, come up before him, and cause you to be remembered him in the great day of judgment. In that day he will k on you, and know you to be of those whom he has pted as sons--whom his Well-beloved died to saveom his Holy Spirit has anointed and sanctified to life rnal. CHRISTIAN DEPENDENCE ON PRAYER. [JELF.] A confidence in God, such a confidence as shall exclude all lependent trust in ourselves, and all fear as to the wisdom d goodness of his providential disposal of events, is absolutely cessary to the character of Christ's disciples, and it must carried into every particular of our lives. And yet, while submit our innocent wishes to the good pleasure of our mighty Father, we are not called upon to stifle them altother. Christian resignation is not perfect without the use of prayer, and yet prayer is relative to some actual wish Resignation implies the existence of our own will, but as to its fulfilment makes it subordinate to his will, who is Lord of all. "Not my will, but thine be done." It is not therefore a sense of our own wants, spiritual and temporal, which is forbidden, but a distrustful anxiety. The wants do and will exist; the wishes corresponding to those wants will arise in the heart; and the expression of those wishes is not only permitted, but expressly enjoined. The very earnestness of the prayer marks the intensity of the wish; and the intensity of the wish makes the resignation which surrenders it, by God's grace, more complete. Hence it is, that in the very same sentence in which the apostle forbids overanxiety, he recommends resort to prayer and supplication, as the proper vent of our natural feelings. "Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God." HOW FEW PRAY AS THEY OUGHT. The value of prayer, under whatever aspect we may regard it, can hardly be overrated. An instrument is offered to us, compendious and simple in its construction, yet of incalculable power; compounded simply of the motion of the faithful heart, and of the vehicle of words, conceived or uttered, yet rising as incense from earth to heaven; complete in an ejaculation, yet capable of being expanded, in all "the beauty of holiness," to the utmost variety of liturgical forms; ready for use in every emergency; always at hand, in doubt, in difficulty, in danger, in temptation; suited to all times and places, accessible to all kindreds, nations, and lan |