Chapter EEE.

"WATCH AND PRAY, THAT YE ENTER NOT INTO TEMPTATION"

"O LORD, OPEN THOU MY LIPS, AND MY MOUTH SHALL SHEW FORTH THY PRAISE."

ALMIGHTY God, the Fountain of all wisdom, Who knowest our necessities before we ask, and our ignorance in asking; we beseech Thee to have compassion on our infirmities; and those things, which for our unworthiness we dare not, and for our blindness we cannot ask, vouchsafe to give us, for the worthiness of Thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

day may be classed under the following heads those which are directly devotional, and those which are only relatively so, that is, which being indifferent in themselves, may nevertheless be so performed as to assume something of a devotional character. Under the former head will be comprized attendance on the ordinances of the Church, all acts of prayer, whether public or private, meditation, self-examination, hearing, or reading and studying the Word of God; acts of mercy, and acts of self-denial, and mortification of the flesh under the latter, our usual work and worldly business, our conversation with our fellow-men, our meals and recreations.

Of each of these I will now proceed to speak, reserving, however, for sepa rate chapters those remarks which I have to offer on the subject of obedience to Church ordinances generally.1

1 The chapters "Agenda" and "Postulanda" in Bishop Jeremy Taylor's "Golden Grove," I will be found to contain invaluable advice on many of the subjects treated of below. But

How, then, will the Christian spend a common day?

I. First, as to his Prayers, their nature and number.

The Christian is a man of prayer, and, in proportion as he advances further in the spiritual life, will prayer occupy a larger and larger share of his time and thoughts; but no one ever became at once a man of prayer, and though, like other habits, it grows easier to us the more we exercise it, I believe the experience of all God's faithful servants will testify that the spirit of prayer is the most difficult of all graces to acquire. For as prayer is the surest and most efficacious method of resisting the devil, baffling his crafty efforts, and driving him from us, so does it seem to

with respect to the directions on the subject of Fast days, &c. in section 28, it will be well to bear in mind that they are rather suited to "the present distress," than to what Bishop Taylor would have advised under other circumstances. The "Golden Grove" appeared in 1654, when the "adversaries were roaring in the midst of the congregation, and had set up their banners for tokens."