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beyond the relieving of our necessities, and to which the relieving of our necessities immediately contributes "the setting forth of" His glory." God's glory is set forth, when we bless and praise Him for the relief which we have experienced. When the lame man at the Beautiful gate of the temple was miraculously recovered from his lameness, he walked and leaped and praised God.

And is not this reminder of thanksgiving, as being the appropriate result of relief experienced from the hand of God, wholesome and necessary? For are not many recipients of God's bounty like the nine unthankful lepers in the Gospels? And are there not many, "the filling of whose mouths is the stopping of their throats," --many who cry, under the pressure of sickness and adversity, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us," but as soon as they have experienced relief in answer to their prayers, are not found among those who return "to give glory to God"?

The Collect at the end of the Order of Confirmation.

O Almighty Lord, and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments; that through thy most mighly protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul; through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. Dirigere et sanctificare et regere dignare, Domine Deus, quæsumus, corda et corpora nostra in lege tua, ei in operibus mandatorum tuorum: ut hic et in æternum te auxiliante sani et salvi esse mereamur; per Dominum nostrum Jesum, qui tecum vivit, etc. (BREV. SAR., PSAL. SAR.)

THIS

HIS Collect is found in the Sarum Psalter, as part of the devotions for Prime, or the first hour of the day. It there stands as the concluding Collect for the Office of Prime, and thus may be regarded as the final prayer, by which the Christian arms himself to meet the trials and duties of the day.

As to the use of the Collect by the Reformed Church, it is to be remarked that it did not hold this place originally, but was transplanted from the end of the Communion Service at the last Revision of our Offices in 1661. And surely it was a most felicitous and appropriate addition to the Confirmation Service. What can be more appropriate to such an occasion than a prayer, the concluding aspiration of which is that both

soul and body may be preserved both here and ever, through God's most mighty protection?

"O Almighty Lord, and everlasting God." The epithets were inserted by the translators in 1549, the invocation of the Latin Collect being simply "O Lord God;" but they both have their force and point in reference to the thing petitioned for. It is a "mighty protection" which we sue for, to shield us amid the difficulties and dangers of our pilgrimage; and it is a protection which is to extend itself into that other state of existence, which we glance at when we say "both here and ever." It is therefore to an "Almighty Lord, and everlasting God" that we resort for such protection.

Vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern both our hearts and bodies." To "sanctify" stands midway between the two words to "direct" and to "govern," and embraces the ideas conveyed by both of them. To sanctify, as applied to God, is to shed the influences of the Holy Spirit upon a person. Now, these influences are of two kinds: the Holy Spirit guides, and the Holy Spirit also governs; He is the pilot of our vessels over the waves of this troublesome world; and also their captain, who gives orders to the crew. In plain words, the Holy Spirit, by enlightening our minds, shows us what is the path of duty, and by influencing our will and affections induces us to walk therein.

"Both our hearts and bodies "in the Latin, "corda et corpora nostra," there being here again

that alliteration and play upon sounds, of which the old Collect writers were so fond. But a mere play upon sounds would be an unworthy artifice, unless it were borne out by the sense. Are our bodies then the subject of sanctification, of Divine direction, of Divine government, as well as our souls? The body, the mere animal element of our nature, what has it to do with religion, with the influences or exercises of religion, with the worship and service of Almighty God? Whatever objections. of this kind might be raised to the Collect, must be alleged against the Scriptures themselves, not against the Book of Common Prayer, which follows humbly in the footprints of Scripture. St. Paul thus prays for his Thessalonian converts: 'The very God of peace sanctify you wholly" (in every department of your composite nature): "and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." The body, therefore, is to be sanctified no less than the spirit and the soul, and its sanctification is to be made the subject of prayer and Christian effort. And this on several grounds. In the first place; the body was an original element of human nature, as it came fresh and uncorrupted from the hands of God. A disembodied soul is not a man, any more than a corpse is. And therefore, if man is to be saved as man, his body, as well as his soul, must be recovered from the effects of sin.

And this cannot be done unless the work of Christ and of the Spirit take

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effect upon his body as well as his soul. And therefore we ask, in the Prayer of Access, "that our sinful bodies may be made clean by " Christ's "body," as well as our souls washed through His most precious blood," and in the prayer before us, that " our bodies," no less than " our hearts," may be "directed, sanctified, and governed."-Secondly; as a token that the sanctification of man is to extend to his body, God has incorporated into the Christian religion two outward visible signs, the washing of the body with water, and the nourishment of the body with bread and wine. If we were designed to be wholly and merely spiritual beings, these outward visible signs would be impertinent and out of place. Why is the body to receive the stamp of God's consecration upon it, if it is not ultimately to be a sharer in the salvation of the soul?Thirdly; even in our present condition of existence, the members of our bodies, which previously to our conversion had been yielded "as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, are to be yielded as instruments of righteousness unto God," our ears to hear His word, our eyes to read His book and survey His works, our feet to travel on His errands, our hands to do His work, our mouth to speak His praises.--And lastly; it is a truth of Revelation, and one of its rudimentary truths, since it enters into the Apostles' Creed, that the body of man, infirm though it is in its present state, and a badge of degradation, and ever hastening to corruption and decay, shall