My friends, are there among us, in the outward and inward state of society, certain signs and proofs, that the kingdom of God, of which Jesus Christ said, that it was nigh at hand, has actually come? Jesus says, the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. Is there, among us, that righteousness, which consists in asserting and maintaining, not our own rights only, but the rights of all men ? The love of liberty, which we profess, is it that true, elevated, and enlarged feeling, which would impart the blessings of freedom to all whom God created in his own image; or is it a selfish passion, that prompts us to claim these privileges only for ourselves? Having "looked into the perfect law of liberty," can it be said of us, that we have continued therein ?

Is there, in the state of society among us, that true peace, which arises from the conviction, that the rights, the just claims of all, are respected? "Blessed are the peacemakers," says Jesus; but the work of the peacemaker, my friends, begins in his own bosom. The hostile principles in society will never be overcome, while we harbour the enemy in our own hearts. Finally, is there, in our souls, that holy joy, which makes all darkness to shine as the perfect day, -the inward felicity of a soul at peace with herself, and rejoicing against the judgment day?

Let each one put these questions to his own heart, and answer them to himself, remembering, that he shall have to answer the same at the judgment-seat of God.

SERMON XXII.

1 THESSALONIANS V. 17.

"Pray without ceasing."

WHAT is prayer? Is it the monotonous muttering of solemn sounds? Is it the fingering of the beads of a rosary? Or is it an elaborate composition of pertinent and needful petitions, skilfully strung together for what is called a judicious and appropriate prayer? Is this prayer? As well might you say, that music consists in beating time, or poetry in measured lines with jingling endings. What is prayer? A poet says,

"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,

Uttered or unexpressed;

The motion of a hidden fire,

That trembles in the breast."

These words of the poet seem to me to reveal the very soul of prayer. To pray is to desire, to long, to stretch forth every power of the soul after the one thing needful to an immortal spirit, even a free access, an intimate union, an active intercourse, with the Father of spirits. "My soul," says the Psalmist, "thirsteth for God, for the living God." This thirst after the living waters that flow for ever

at the right hand of God, this thirst of the soul is prayer. "Prayer," says the pious Fenelon, "is a simple movement of the heart towards its Creator. Ever desire to approach your Creator, and you will never cease to pray."

Desire is the permanent essence, the particular requests or petitions are only the accidental and temporary directions or applications of prayer. If it were not so, the monition of the Apostle, "Pray without ceasing," would imply a practical impossibility. If prayer consisted in petition, the time, which was given us for action, for constant doing, would be consumed in ceaseless praying. But there is a still greater objection to this view of prayer, which considers the petitions, the actual requests, as more important than the inward desire, the devout aspiration, which prompts them. This view of prayer, as a mere collection of petitions, contains a fearful temptation to infidelity, to a decided unbelief in the superintending providence of God. The temptation I speak of is one which comes to the child on his very entrance upon a course of religious life; and it is those in particular, to whom God has committed or who have taken upon themselves the care of infant souls, whom I wish to apprize of this moral danger. My friends, if you desire, that religion should be to your children, not merely a sacred prejudice, that fears to be profaned by being put to the test of experience; if you wish, that religion should be to them a reality, safely established in the understanding heart, beware, lest you lead them into temptation by

the manner in which you teach them how to pray. If you lay too much stress upon the petitions of the child, be they ever so proper and simple, be they no other than those contained in the Lord's prayer, you induce the child to believe, that God will grant him the things he asks, because he asks them. But a short experience is sufficient to teach the child, that some of his requests, however reasonable and needful, and however fervently urged, are not granted. Every human being has to learn, earlier or later, that the cries of the destitute, the prayers of honest industry, and the pleadings of innocence, are sometimes the harbingers of utter disappointment and dismay. It is then, that the tempter, the enemy of our peace, comes to us with the fearful question, "Where now is thy God? " and the soul is stirred up by secret murmurings and painful upbraidings, which, if they were to find utterance, would break forth in the exclamation, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

It is true, we generally endeavour to guard against this temptation to skepticism, arising from the apparent uselessness of our prayers, by qualifying all our petitions by the salutary condition, "not as I will, but as thou wilt"; "thy will, not mine, be done.” But even this belief, that our prayers will be granted, provided they be consistent with the will of God, is not sufficient to convince us, that those things, which come to pass in conformity with our petitions, would not have occurred without them. The experience of success, unexpected, and unprayed for, as well as the disappointment of our reasonable hopes

and devout aspirations, tempts us to doubt the efficacy of prayer; nay, the existence of a God "that heareth prayer."

These doubts disturb the mind, not only of the man who would walk by sight rather than by faith, but of the little child, who begins to doubt as soon as he begins to think, and whose self-taught questionings might puzzle many a schoolman.

I know these doubts may be smothered, for some time, by imposing names and confident assertions. But he, who seeks true peace of mind and quiet selfpossession, must not, like a despotic ruler, impose silence on every rebellious thought, and suppress the bold questionings of unsatisfied reason; he must grant a fair and full hearing to the pleadings of faith and of skepticism, and then "even of himself he must judge what is right."

With regard to the efficacy of prayer, we know, that there are many cases, recorded in Scripture, in which the petition, the special request, of the suppliant heart brought down the desired good, be it rain or sunshine, deliverance to the captive, health to the sick, life to the dead. And every one, in examining the history of his own life, may find evidences, which are sufficient, at least to himself, that there were times or moments, when, sinking in the troubled waters of life, and lifting up his hands in prayer, he felt himself supported and saved by an invisible arm. But in the ordinary course of events, every one is left to the exercise of his own faculties, and the favorable or adverse circumstances, from which he is to