titions, occasional postponements, lengthened interruptions, total neglect; floating doubts as to the efficacy of prayer, settled down into absolute scepticism; scoffing at prayer, derision of all means, denial of all grace. "An enemy hath done this." Gradually, but surely, his work is done. And thus the man, over whom his parents wept in hope and gladness as a child of God, is taught to do "despite to the Spirit of grace," to banish him from his heart, and to become once more a subject of Satan, and a child of wrath.

The first prayer, then, which we have to offer is, that we may have grace to pray. And yet our own efforts, however naturally helpless, owing, as they do, all their strength to the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, are, nevertheless, absolutely needed. We must "watch and pray, lest" we "enter into temptation;" but to watch, to keep the soul awake, requires the most determined exercise of the will of the inner man. Whatever tends to quicken our dead desires, to kill the world and the flesh within us, to keep under the body, to give the ascendency the soul, is a fit preparation for prayer.

THE CHOICE OF READING.

[BISHOP WORDSWORTH.]

FOR the occupation and entertainment of your minds at your leisure hours, what kind of books you may best read at such times as are left to your own disposal-this is a matter of which the responsibility is mainly or entirely your own. And I do beseech you to consider how very great, how very serious, a thing your responsibility is in this respect. For, I need scarce observe to you, it is in the free and spontaneous action of the mind that our love is truly shown; and if, so soon as the matter is left to your own choice, you choose to employ your mind upon anything that is evil, upon anything that is ungodly-I ought rather to say upon anything that is not positively good-where is your love of God with the mind? God cannot intend that you should employ his gift in the service of his enemy; in familiarity and communion with that which is merely of the world, and of worldlymindedness, with "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life." Therefore the very least that we can do, ш obedience to this command, is to refrain our minds from

the perusal of all such things as, so far from tending to promot God's glory, have a tendency directly the reverse. And her let me remind you again of that to which I before alludedviz., how very great and momentous is the infiuence which the employment of the mind has upon the condition of the heart. The healthiness of the heart cannot but depend in a very great degree upon the quality of the food and entertainment which the mind receives; just as the head is wont to be affected by the healthy or disordered action of the stomach: and to hope to love God with all our hearts, while we neglect to love him with our mind, is idle and impossible. I put these things before you simply and plainly; but I must leave you to judge of the application of them, in great measure, for yourselves. I address you, my brethren, as those who know that it is your first duty to love God, and who desire honestly to be told the way. I say, that you must not choose to ocrupy your minds-no, not for a moment-with anything that is evil; for this is inconsistent with the love of God. What books are evil, you must either inquire of others, or you must judge for yourselves. But I may so far assist your judgment, as to give you this one rule:-Have the Bible always, as it were, at your right hand, and let the book that is at your left hand be no unfit companion for it. If you cannot pass with a safe and with a pure conscience from the reading of the one to the reading of the other, be sure the book has no tendency to God's glory; and, as such, is not fit entertainment for the mind of one who desires to love God wholly and sincerely. And as you will read nothing that is plainly at variance with God's law, so you will judge of all that you do read by the standard of that law; you will be pleased or ffended, you will approve or condemn, according as God's law requires; that so, "by reason of this use," as the apostle peaks, "you may have your senses exercised to discern both good and evil." (Heb. v. 14.) And that you may be able

to do this, I need scarcely say you must be very conversant with that law; you must not only set the Bible, as I have said, at your right hand, but you must make it a main portion of what you read. There are many people who read ɔ newspaper daily, who would think that they had lost a day if they should ever miss to do so, but who, it is to be feared, never read a syllable of God's Word, and never feel that they are losing anything, while they thus deprive their souls of the very bread of life. What should you say of such men ? Should you say that they loved God with all their minds? Should you not rather say that they loved this life, and the things of this life, and that they thought very little, and cared very little, for the life which is to come? Such people would say, perhaps, that they have not much leisure time for reading; but if they have any, I leave you to judge whether of the two should come first, if we really desire to love God and to sanctify our minds to his glory-the daily reading of a newspaper, that tells only of the vain, evil, perishing things of this world; or the daily reading of the Gospel, the glorious tidings of the kingdom of God? I have no need to speak nɔw of the value and necessity of reading the Bible upon other grounds: for the sake of the instruc tion it contains, of the truth which it reveals; or even because it is the best and most proper food of the mind, and so designed by God, as bread and meat are given to be the best and most proper food of the body. But what I am now saying simply amounts to this: that if we sincerely seek to love God, as he has commanded us, with all our mind, there is nothing with which we shall desire our minds to be so much conversant as with his Word.

[TRENCH.]

Holy Scripture gives testimony for a pervading unity, an nner law according to which it unfolds itself as a perfect and organic whole, in the epoch at which growth in it ceases, and it appears henceforth as a finished book. So long as humanity was growing, it grew. But when the manhood of our race was reached-when man had attained his highest point, even union with God in his Son-then it comes to a close. It carries him up to this, to his glorious goal, to the perfect knitting again of the broken relations, through the life, and death, and resurrection of Him in whom God and man were perfectly atoned. So long as there was anything more to tell, any new revelation of the name of God, any new relations of grace and nearness into which he was bringing his creatures, so long the Bible was a growing, expanding book; but when all is given, when God, who at divers times spake to the world by his servants, had now spoken his last and fullest Word by his Son, then to this Book, the record of that Word of his, there is added no more, even while there is nothing more to add; though it cannot end till it has shown in prophetic vision how this latest and highest which now has been given to man, shall unfold itself into the glory and blessedness of a perfected kingdom of heaven.

For thus, too, it will mark itself as one, by returning visibly in its end upon its beginning. Vast as the course which it has traced, it has been a circle still, and in that most perfect form comes back to the point from whence it started. The heaven, which had disappeared from the earth