lot in life; such confession will scarcely fail to be followed by especial prayer, that I may henceforth learn to meet the difficulty, or endure the inconvenience referred to, with an unrepining and more acquiescent mind; that I may habitually compare this trial with the greater trials of some around me; that I may consider how utterly unentitled I am to ask a dispensation from this, or from much severer duties and crosses, on the ground of desert; and that I may more approvingly and practically consent to that view of the present life, which the Scripture gives, as designed to be a state of labour and conflict. And so, in every other instance, specific confession, if it be heartfelt, will be succeeded by specific petition; and each may, in secret, be far more detailed than the hints which have now been given; because it is, of course, not the object of these general reflections to enter upon individual and actual examples. It should also be remembered that prayer, besides its direct efficacy, is undoubtedly productive of indirect good; as being the most solemn kind of meditation, the most serious review of our strong reasons for gratitude, submission, and diligence in "well doing," and of the various moral and spiritual evils which we have to resist; involving a resolution practically to

foster the one class of habits, and to oppose the other. But this indirect advantage of devotion must wholly depend on its specific character; and therefore, it may be added, must chiefly attach to that which is secret.

We can easily conceive of great direct efficacy in the briefest and most general prayer, if offered with the whole heart; but in order to those indirect benefits, there must be a distinct recollection of the blessings which are to be appreciated, and the duties which are to be pursued: above all, there must be a clear recognition of the evil tempers to be resisted, the temptations to be encountered, the occasions to be shunned, the passions to be moderated or controlled. It is only when thus conducted, that secret worship can be in the highest sense a profitable and reasonable service, whether we regard its primary aim, or its secondary tendency. It will then be most remote from "vain repetitions," most reverential towards the God who heareth prayer, and most beneficial to ourselves.

XIII.

ON AIMING AT LARGE VIEWS OF THE PREVALENCE OF GOOD IN THE UNIVERSE, AS DEDUCIBLE FROM THE REVEALED PERFECTIONS OF ITS AUTHOR.

IF the Scottish "minstrel" boy, whose genius and sensibility have been so attractively delineated by Beattie, (himself perhaps partly the model of the character he drew,) had been born and bred up on a ground-floor, in one of the closest "wynds" of the Scottish capital, detained by some cruel guardian in perpetual servitude at a sedentary trade, surrounded by dismal and repulsive objects, and purposely kept in deep ignorance of

"the boundless store
Of charms which Nature to her votary yields;"

pure

we can suppose what a confused desire and melancholy veneration would have possessed his mind, as he saw the sun, and moon, and stars, crossing by turns that narrow section of the sky, which was visible between the dark towering walls around him :-imagine him then, on some happy night, suddenly liberated, and conducted before dawn to the summit of" Arthur's Seat," there, in full freedom, to view the day breaking on the whole expanse of the heavens, the Forth magnificently widening to the sea, its bordering towns and busy navigation, the noble city beneath him, and the varied plains and woods, mountains and islands, which combine to form that great panorama; and think what a new conception of nature and art, what a tide of delight and wonder, would rush into his spirit at the sight!-But is not this, in some sort, an emblem, and yet a very imperfect one, of the contrast of a Christian's present and approaching state, as to his view of the spiritual creation? We are here on earth confined in a narrow scene, which evil has pervaded: doomed by our fallen and mortal condition, to see and converse with nothing earthly, but what this bane of happiness has, in some measure, touched with its contaminating power. There is, indeed, through the great mercy

of God, a pure and heavenly light of divine knowledge, glancing on us from above, if we will but raise the mental eye to meet it, amidst all this moral gloom, and through the hazy atmosphere of ignorance and depravation. But when we shall suddenly be borne away, each through some one of the thousand dark avenues of death, to a wide and free survey of the spiritual world, will not the astonishing and transporting contrast be incomparably greater, than that which would delight the supposed captive?

In the mean while, let it not be forgotten, that the spiritual light of revelation, which has reached our minds, is a much more informing light as to the prevailing character of the spiritual universe, than the natural light could be to that young bondsman, while so immured, as to the character and aspect of the material world. Revelation has, in some degree, though in a figurative manner, intimated to us the glories and felicities of other regions; but, which is far more important than any such intimations, it has made us acquainted with the moral perfection of God; with that sovereign and infinite principle of good, which is greater than the universe, and which must eternally forbid that evil should predominate, or, in in any large and relative sense, abound.