may keep me at ease for fulfilling duty, allowing me to prosecute with renewed strength those endeavors which thy providence and grace alone can encourage and empower me to pursue. I ask all through the all-prevailing mediation of my Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. V. Prayer for Patience under Trials and Fears. O THOU who still leadest me in thy own dark, mysterious way, thou beholdest the doubts and discouragements which oppress my mind and weigh upon my spirit, and seest that I have no vigor and resolution to bear up against them. Yet, Lord, thou art able to bear me through. Help me, most merciful Father, to commit my way unto thee. Thanks be to thee that thou hast ever taught me that it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps. O bring the blind by a way that he knoweth not; lead him in paths which he hath not known. These things do unto him, and forsake him not. Heavenly Father, new cares succeed the former; and thus will it be until I put off this tabernacle, and the pilgrimage of mortality is ended. O teach and strengthen me to meet them all with a more steadfast and sub missive mind. Give me grace to remember that the period hastens on when these toils and conflicts shall be all forever past; that thou meanwhile knowest my frame, and art acquainted with all my infirmities; and while I feel that I can have no shadow of merit on which to ground a single hope, O, let hope arise and augment in thy free, boundless mercy, through thy beloved Son; the delightful hope that, when the pains of time have ceased, that glorious Saviour will receive even me, who have been so unbelieving and so unworthy, with those most dear to me, into the rest which remaineth; where we shall know perfectly how to serve him, and shall experience no inability, no incompetence, no reluctance, to attempt and fulfil what we know. And now, O God, make me docile under the discipline of thy providence; and if I walk in darkness and have no light, give me grace still to trust in the name of Jehovah, and stay myself upon my God. Thou knowest, O Discerner of the heart, how little ability I now have to act, how little capacity to pray, how many and great anxieties oppress me, and how liable I am by an unwatchful state of mind to render myself even less fit for contending with them; but yet, O gracious God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I thou canst still hold me up, thou canst bear me through. How often in past times hast thou said to the waves of trouble, Hitherto shall ye rise, but no further! How often have I had to say, Hitherto the Lord hath helped me. Suffer me not to despond, but enable me patiently to wait and hopefully to confide, through my Saviour and Redeemer. Amen. VI. The Prayer to be said in the Beginning of a Sickness. O ALMIGHTY GOD, merciful and gracious, who in thy justice didst send sorrow and tears, sickness and death, into the world as a punishment for man's sins, and hast comprehended all under sin, and this sad covenant of sufferings, not to destroy us, but that thou mightest have mercy upon all, making thy justice to minister to mercy, short afflictions to an eternal weight of glory; as thou hast turned my sins into sickness, so turn my sickness to the advantages of holiness and religion, of mercy and pardon, of faith and hope, of grace and glory. Thou hast now called me to the fellowship of sufferings. Lord, by the instrument of religion let my present condition be so sanctified that my sufferings may be united to the sufferings of my Lord, that so thou mayest pity me and assist me. Relieve my sorrow, and support my spirit; direct my thoughts, and sanctify the accidents of my sickness, and that the punishment of my sin may be the school of virtue, in which, since thou hast now entered me, Lord, make me a holy proficient; that I may behave myself as a son under discipline, humbly and obediently, evenly and penitently, that I may come by this means nearer unto thee; that if I shall go forth of this sickness by the gate of life and health, I may return to the world with great strength of spirit, to run a new race of a stricter holiness and a more severe religion or if I pass from hence with the outlet of death, I may enter into the bosom of my Lord, and may feel the present joys of a certain hope of that sea of pleasures in which all thy saints and servants shall be comprehended to eternal ages. Grant this through Jesus Christ our dearest Lord and Saviour. Amen. VII. Prayer After a Night of Pain. How many days and nights of bodily ease, most merciful God and Father, hast thou, in my past life, graciously vouchsafed to me! And now that it hath been thy will to permit or to ordain the interruption of that ease in the hours when I desired rest, I beseech thee to save me from murmuring thoughts and discontented feelings. Save me from the unbelieving suspicion that these sensations come by fate or chance; that thou regardest not the lot of thy frail creatures, or that such trials are too small for thy notice, and unfit to be a subject of prayer. Guard me by thy heavenly grace, O Lord, from repining, as though a hard and strange thing happened unto me when I am thus visited, even were thy discipline far more severe and lasting. O let me not forget that thus thy servants have been called to suffer in all ages; that thus, and inexpressibly more, my Redeemer suffered, and that I ought humbly to expect, and then patiently receive, such a portion of like suffering as thy providence and grace may determine; which will probably, in remaining years or days, be a larger and heavier share than hitherto. Often have I read and heard and thought of those who on earth endured great tribulation, but are departed to the realm where there shall be no more pain. I have admired their acquiescence, and thy grace thus manifested in them; but now, when it toucheth me, how little am I prepared to meet the same infliction, to trust fully in the same Deliverer, and to anticipate the same repose! O grant me fortitude, heavenly Father; and above all, since affliction too often has but increased my proneness to sinful thoughts, and wishes, and imaginations, open my eyes, I beseech thee, and awaken my heart to this peril; show me that all my hope of peace, and of escaping from deep unhappiness, must depend on being freed, through thy grace, from unConvince me more profoundly holy tempers of mind. that to be spiritually-minded is life and peace, and |