fore, that the aid of the Spirit does not necessarily, or always, consist in imparting or enhancing the eloquence of words.

These are the weightiest considerations; but the thought, which it has here been attempted to illustrate, may be auxiliary to them. For we may justly say,--This feeling of the poverty and brokenness of my prayers, as compared with my own at some other times, or with the eloquent devotions of others, is a highly exaggerated estimate of difference between degrees of weakness, arising from the very minuteness of my whole range. To an insect, it may be much, whether the sun-beam paint his wings, and cheer him into a flight of some hand-breadths from the soil, or whether an autumn drop have so stained and chilled them, that he can but flutter from blade to blade: but in the eye of the eagle, or even of the little songstress who aspires into the morning cloud, what is this difference, or how much is it "to be accounted of?"

Perhaps the sublimest strain of worship that ever a mere mortal uttered, has been, in the estimation of higher intelligences, no more superior to these broken prayers, (supposing there be an equal measure of true piety in each,) than the more graceful or significant gestures of one speechless petitioner would appear to me to excel those of

another. The mode of communicating ideas is so extremely defective, that its differences claim little or no regard. Let me ever bear in mind that emphatic and gracious admonition, "My son, give me thine heart." Our heavenly Father knows that his children have nothing else to give; and even this they give that it may be "formed anew." When its sacred renovation is complete, none can doubt that the intellectual power, the affluence of feeling, and the means of expression, will be perfected beyond all that hope can now anticipate, or imagination reach.

VI.

ON THE GREATNESS OF THE BLESSINGS WHICH WE SEEK IN PRAYER.

WHO has ever rightly conceived, when addressing himself to the throne of the heavenly grace to implore benefits for his immortal spirit,—the true greatness and worth of the favours that he is about to ask? Nothing but the revelations of a world "not seen as yet," can give a due impression of their nature: and immortality itself cannot appreciate their amount, because it will be everlastingly to come: yet, doubtless, there might be attained a much stronger apprehension of the value of spiritual good, than that in which I have commonly rested. It will be attained at that period, (so inevitably sure, although so vaguely and

dimly anticipated,) when I shall be, like "our fathers," a prisoner on the last "bed of languishing," where sensitive and earthly good must be viewed in its real insignificance and impotency; and I must feel with an entire irrefutable consciousness, "All this availeth me nothing!"

What an incalculable importance and excellency will the possessions and prospects of the soul then assume in its own estimation! What words or thoughts shall then suffice to compute the preciousness of "eternal redemption," or of that "partaking of the Divine nature," which is the pledge of a divine and imperishable bliss!

We can imagine a subject of the great northern monarchy, sentenced, for some state offence, to banishment for life into Siberian deserts, prostrating himself before his prince with intense anxiety for pardon, overwhelmed with the bitter thought of perpetual separation from all that is dear, and the shame, and hardship, and desolation of that lingering, irreversible penalty. And should heart be cold, when I fall before the true and universal Monarch, as an offender against the state and Majesty of heaven; when the favour which I have to entreat is that of a pardon from the righteous and uncontrollable Ruler of all worlds? What would be the intenseness of my solicitude to obtain this

my

act of grace, and the satisfying assurance of its reality, if I could contemplate the unmixed gloom, the hopeless rigour, and unutterable ignominy, of a spirit's banishment from the Father of mercies, and from the rejoicing millions that triumph in

his love!

There is, indeed, this most happy difference, that, while success in entreating pardon from an earthly ruler, must be always, in a high degree, doubtful,―pardon from "the King Eternal and Invisible," if perseveringly pleaded for with a truly penitent heart, through the atoning mediation of his beloved Son, is declared to be infallibly sure: -"He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." And this certainty, it may seem, must remove the deep and painful anxiety with which the suit would else be accompanied. So, indeed, in the mind of the true penitent, it ought to operate: his solicitude should not long be of a nature inconsistent with substantial peace; yet it is to be remembered, that he has, in the present life, no external conveyance of this divine pardon, and no internal sign or ratification of it which will prospectively suffice; the well-founded assurance of its being really granted, can only be proportioned to the continued sincerity and faith with which we seek