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and the stain is washed out in the blood of Jesus.

If the path of duty be not obvious, if perplexity attend his course, at the throne of grace there is light and direction. Hence it will be an important advantage to your enemies, if they can draw you from this palladium, this strong tower of defence. Keep alive, then, I beseech you, to the first symptom of declension in prayer. Prayer is a difficult, often an arduous work; but it is the life and soul of a Christian. It is not only his incumbent duty, but his most precious privilege.

Now it will be the aim of the tempter, to withdraw you from being "instant in prayer.” He knows what a powerful weapon it is; and, therefore, he will endeavour to wrest it out of your hands. He will represent it as an irksome duty. He will suggest that fewer and shorter prayers will answer. He will interpose obstacles between you and your closet. He will divert your attention while there, and then taunt you with your coldness and your folly. He will say that your prayers are hypocritical, insincere, an abomination to God. He will suggest, that now you are not in a good frame, and advise you to put it off until you feel in a better. Thus will he try every art, and use every machination, to draw you from this refuge of your soul. But, "Get thee behind me, Satan," must be your reply to all such suggestions. You must cling closer to the "horns of the altar." You must "bind the sacrifice with cords," if you cannot keep it there. You must give yourself to prayer, and to the word of God. Like the vestals, you must live at the

altar.

LETTER IV.

I FEEL constrained, my young friend, to add something more on the subject of prayer. This duty, in my view, is of such importance as to warrant a few more remarks; although I do not intend enlarging on a subject upon which so much, and such excellent things, have been written.

You were taught, by your pious parents, to utter a form of prayer, as soon as your infant mind could comprehend,

back upon these juvenile devotions, you doubtless see wherein they were deficient. Your ideas of the Being to whom they were addressed, were confused and inadequate. You could not then comprehend the necessity of a Mediator; for as yet you had not discovered the evil of sin, and the wrath of God, as revealed against it. You had too deep a sense of obligation, to neglect prayer entirely; but of the real nature and efficacy of prayer, you had little conception. To your mind, prayer was a form of words to be repeated at stated intervals. When thus repeated, the obligation was discharged. This was probably all you knew about prayer.

But shall parents omit to inculcate this duty on their children, because they cannot comprehend the nature of it? Certainly not. How can they tell but that when they have taught the little prattler to compose himself to rest, with his familiar and simple petitions, the Spirit of God may enlighten the child into the spiritual import of his prayer, and make it a means of leading him to more enlarged petitions, offered up "in spirit and in truth?" No person can estimate the advantages of early imbuing the youthful mind with a sense of its obligations to God. Such instructions should commence with the first dawn of intellect; and sure I am, that in subsequent life, the subject of them will generally be the better and the happier.

To illustrate this, I will recur again to my own case. I was taught by one of the best of mothers, never to close my eyes without repeating my prayers. This I conscientiously adhered to, until about thirteen or fourteen years of age, when I began gradually to omit them. Whether I felt that they were too childish, or whether, as is most probable, my conscience was becoming seared in the downward course to iniquity, I cannot now remember. But at all events, my prayers were no longer offered; and I went to sleep and rose up like a brute. With the omission of these prayers commenced a retrograde movement in morals, until I hung over the abyss of ruin, ripe for the judgments of God. And what do you suppose occurred first, to rouse me from the fatal slumbers of death? As I was retiring one night,

prayer rushed upon my mind. I paused.

"What," said

I to myself, "am I going to lie down without one thought of God, or offering one prayer for the safety of my soul? Did I not once repeat my prayers; and at a time too when I was far less guilty than now? Why have I omitted them so long? Suppose I should die this night, where then would my soul be ? ” With such reflections I became impressed; and although I did not kneel that night, yet in a recumbent posture I began again to repeat my juvenile devotions. I was nearly seventeen years of age when I resumed them. I had almost forgotten them. A few days and nights rolled away, and convictions grew heavier on my soul. I thought a repetition of these forms was not enough. My soul began to sink in the deep waters; and a few more days brought me on my knees at the bed-side, with the prayer of the publican: "God be merciful to me a sinner.”

Thus, my young friend, were my mother's early instructions among the means, under God, of rescuing me from ruin, temporal and eternal. Thus it is evident that the sooner children are taught to pray, the better; and no assiduity can be too great, to impress on them the obligation and the necessity of prayer.

Still I believe that the Christian only prays the acceptable prayer. Until the Spirit of God convince of sin, the soul will not see its odiousness, nor pray for its removal. The danger to which it is exposed here and hereafter, it may see; and it may deprecate the punishment to which it is subjected; but it is only when the soul is renewed in the image of God, that "sin appears exceeding sinful," and that the effectual fervent prayer for sanctification is offered.

If you are a Christian, my young friend, the throne of grace is yours. Your Father is seated on it. Your Saviour has sprinkled it with his blood. The Holy Spirit draws you sweetly to kneel before it ; and the promise, when there, is, "Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." What an honour thus to approach the King of kings! Were we to have audience with an earthly monarch, we should deem

you, and I, and others, may have audience with the King of the universe. Nay, we have liberty to approach him at any time, and under all circumstances. Have we wants? He can supply them. Are we in trouble? He can extricate us. Do afflictions press our souls? He can mitigate and remove them. Does sin pollute our joys? With him is the fountain of cleansing. Does Satan vex our souls? He invites us to his arms as our refuge. All relief and every blessing are with God.

There is nothing which so elevates a character, and especially the female character, as deep and intimate communion with God. Woman seems then to be allied to angelic natures. A sort of mellow radiance is poured into her character, as if some particles of heaven's glory had been let fall upon her. She moves in a higher sphere than the generality of her sex. She is another being than those idle, sickly daughters of pleasure, who waste their lives in dreaming fanciful visions of happiness, sporting awhile amid life's tumultuous joys, and then sinking unblessed into a wretched eternity. She converses with God. At the throne of grace she acquires a benevolence, a dignity, a humility, which throw around her an attractive lustre, put sweetness into every action and expression, make her contented in every condition of life, patient under every affliction, faithful in the discharge of every duty, and which even grace her dying hours, and make her "death-bed privileged beyond the common walks of life."

LETTER V.

THERE are three inquiries, my young friend, respecting prayer, which every conscientious Christian will be likely to institute. How ought I to pray? when, or at what times? and for what things? These are important inquiries. A full and satisfactory answer I feel myself unable to give. I shall, in my desultory way, barely touch upon each.

Those who worship God are bound to “ worship him in spirit and in truth." In spirit, as opposed to merely external ceremonies. The Jews and the Samaritans, at the

time our Lord uttered the prediction just alluded to, were reposing an unfounded confidence in the mere forms and ceremonies of their religion; while, in the emphatic language of inspiration, their "hearts were far from God."

We must pray then with the Spirit. The heart must be in the work, or it will be insincere and ineffectual. The Quakers, you know, reject all external forms. They are in one extreme. The Jews and Catholics having a multitude of forms, are in the other. I would not insinuate, that among Quakers and Catholics there are no sincere worshippers; far from it. I believe there are many devout Christians among both. I am persuaded, for my own part, that some attention to form and circumstance is an important auxiliary to us poor weak mortals, in our attempts to worship God. In my own experience I have found the benefit of it. For example: when I have a particular room allotted to my devotions; a certain place in that room, where I am accustomed to kneel; a degree of obscurity shed over the place by the exclusion of too great a glare of light; all these circumstances are a help to me, by the power of mental association. There is nature in this and God permits us to have recourse to every lawful auxiliary in worshipping him. The great point is, to worship" in spirit and in truth."

True worship is distinguished from false, inasmuch as the one is scriptural, but the other is not. A true worshipper views the character of God as it is delineated in the Bible. The omniscience, omnipresence, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth of God, are attributes of delightful contemplation; and centring in one eternal, unchangeable, and incomprehensible Spirit, they excite his reverence, his confidence, his humility, and his love. He looks into his Bible to learn the character of God; and, as there found, "worships him in spirit and in truth."

But can a guilty creature, who has violated every obligation he is under to his Creator, approach him without the intervention of a Mediator? I bring this question home to myself, and inquire, would I dare, as a suppliant, to ap

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