thoughts, once told me that he never failed in his efforts to discard them, when he carefully pondered over the fifty-first Psalm. There is, indeed, much in it to occupy your reflections, in the most beneficial manner, and to adopt as the most appropriate materials for prayer before Him who pities and will heal the broken heart.

Farewell,

Yours, as ever, &c.

208

LETTER XI.

Difficulties in prayer.-Causes.- Mistake respecting the nature of prayer.-Confusion in the mind of the Inquirer.— False anticipations in prayer.-Perplexity from our ignorance of the Person addressed.-Directions in prayer.—The duty of describing personal trials.-Habit of attention.-Remedy for wandering thoughts.-Application of special promises.—Scriptural examples.—Seasons for prayer. — Ejaculatory desires.-Forms of prayer.- Does God ever withhold his grace, for a season, to try the sinner?-This query examined.

MY DEAR SIR,

You are right when you say, that "no class of difficulties seems more serious to the Inquirer than those relating to the duty of prayer." Easy as it may have appeared to him, formerly, to offer a petition to the throne of grace, his disappointment now is frequently equal to that which he experiences in reading the scriptures. The discovery which he may make, in his first attempt to pray, is mortifying and distressing: and it ought also to be humbling. He sees that the utterance of a form of words, and the posture of

supplication, on which before he would have depended, are a very different thing from the awakened exercise of heart before the mercy-seat. He looks back with astonishment to those unmeaning acts of outward devotion, with which he had once satisfied his conscience, and for which he expected, in return, the favour of God. He sees, that there was something wanting of which he had not thought; and which he now labours to obtain. Perhaps there is no discovery more striking, to the mind of the awakened sinner, than this and certainly none is more alarming to his fears. All the general directions which he receives, on this subject, appear either inapplicable to his case, or wholly impracticable. In a strait of this kind, advice is often thrown away, although given by the lips of prudence and piety. All representations of divine mercy are ineffectual. To others, he conceives, they may be suitable; but not to himself. He apprehends himself utterly incompetent to express any thing but empty sounds, which reach no further than the atmosphere above him. Let us endeavour to account for this.

One of the first causes is a mistake respecting the nature of prayer. So confident was he in the mercy of God, that he believed any application for it would be infallibly successful. To the bare expressions of prayer he had attributed a

sovereign influence; without any reference to the state of the petitioner's heart, or to a sense of his personal wants. He makes the experiment in the first hour of his alarm: and he ends it, as might have been expected, with a sense of disappointment. Now, the whole reason of this failure may be summed up in a single word, ignorance: ignorance of what he was doing, of the character of his God, or of the nature of the object desired. Had this man duly reflected on these things, the tenor of his prayer would have been very different from what it was. Instead of asking for an undefined something, instead of looking for what he did not understand, he would have seen the necessity of praying, "Enlighten thou mine eyes!" He would have seen the importance of giving himself up, at once, to the holy and sovereign God, as awfully ignorant as well as helpless. He would have seen, too, the duty of approaching the great Arbiter of his fate, with a very different idea of his attributes and government.

Never let us, my dear sir, venture on the solemn act of addressing Deity, without pausing to inquire of ourselves, what we are about to do. Reflection and self-examination should always precede the exercise of prayer: not on our own account alone, but likewise on that of Him who demands the homage of both the understanding and the heart.

Another cause of failure consists in the confusion of thought, which usually accompanies the anxiety of the awakened sinner. This painful agitation and conflict of the passions often indisposes the mind to any direct exertion. This is a natural effect of powerful or unexpected grief, in even temporal circumstances; and I have adverted to it in a former letter. The feelings may so completely overcome the judgment, as to prevent any proper application of the faculty of thought. In this state of distress we hear the distressed soul exclaim, "O, I cannot pray!" He makes the effort again and again; but only to relinquish it as hopeless, after each instance of trial.

This is sometimes an awful condition of mind. The moral darkness within, which the sufferer vainly attempts to dissipate, is as it were in contrast with the light of the natural world around him; and it seems to tell fearfully to his soul. The tumult in his bosom, that breaks out into the loud sigh, or the heaving and reluctant groan, that interrupts the stillness of his place of retirement; and the silence which succeeds it, and seems to pervade the universe of his being, as if to intimate a negative to any hopes of relief; all are portentous to an alarmed imagination. An undefined but horrible sensation of vacancy attends the exclamation, “I am lost!" Attempts to force the way