If you know the principles of prayer, and have a lively sense of your necessities, and hearty desire of God's grace and mercy, you will be able to pray without forms, and your affections will bring forth words out of the fulness of your heart; and you will not be over-solicitous and timorous about words; for, doubtless, the Spirit, who is the help to us in speaking to men, will also much more help us to speak to God, if we desire it; and God regards not eloquent words, nor artificial composure; neither need we regard it in private prayer. If you limit yourselves to forms, you will thereby grow formal, and limit the Spirit.— Marshall.

Prayer is the wealth of poverty; the refuge of affliction; the strength of weakness; the light of darkness. It is the oratory that gives power to the pulpit; it is the hand that strikes down Satan, and breaks the fetters of sin; it turns the scales of fate more than the edge of the sword, the craft of statesmen, or the weight of sceptres; it has arrested the wing of time, turned aside the very scythe of death, and discharged heaven's frowning and darkest cloud in a shower of blessings.-Guthrie.

"Could ye not watch with me one hour?" We are often in a religious hurry in our devotions. How

much time do we spend in them daily? Can it not be easily reckoned in minutes? Fugitive acts of devotion, to be of high value, must be sustained by other approaches to God, deliberate, premeditated, regular, which shall be to those acts like the abutments of a suspension bridge to the arch that spans the stream. It will never do to be in desperate haste in laying such foundations. This thoughtful duty, this spiritual privilege, this foretaste of incorporeal life, this communion with an unseen Friend-can you expect to enjoy it as you would a casual visit ?

Oh, it is a glorious fact that prayers are noticed in heaven! The poor broken-hearted sinner, climbing up to his chamber, bends his knee, but can only utter his wailing in the language of sighs and tears. Lo! that groan has made all the harps of heaven thrill with music; that tear has been caught by God, and put into the lachrymatory of heaven, to be perpetually preserved. The suppliant, whose fears prevent his words, will be well understood by the Most High.

First, let your prayers be composed of thanksgiving, praise, confession, and petition, without any argument or exhortation addressed to those who are supposed to be praying with you. Second, adopt no fixed forms of expression, except such as you obtain

from Scripture. Third, express your desires in the briefest, simplest form, without circumlocution. Fourth, avoid the use of compound terms in place of the imperative mood. Fifth, hallow God's name by avoiding its unnecessary repetition. Sixth, adopt the simple devotional phrases of Scripture; but avoid the free use of its figures, and all the quaint and doubtful application of its terms to foreign subjects. Seventh, pray to God and not to man.

Prayer requires more of the heart than of the tongue, of sighs than of words, of faith than of discourse. The eloquence of prayer consists in the fervency of the desire, in the simplicity of faith, and in the earnestness and perseverance of charity. Our trust and confidence ought to proceed from that which God is able to do in us, not that which we can say to God.-Quesnel.

The wildest temptations must shortly have an end; the fiercest flame must burn out for want of fuel; the most bitter cup, when drank to the dregs, will trouble thee no more. These things are temporal, and hasten, while I speak, to pass away; but the hope which is unfading, eternal, heavenly, is visible to the inward eye a little while. If thy trial is intolerable, it will by so much the sooner have an end.

Thy heart may break, but thy good angel points to heaven; and One greater than the angels will ere long fulfil His promise, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”

LOVE TO CHRIST.

OVE to Christ comes of His love for us. This

smooths the path of duty, and wings the feet to travel it. He that hath love can no more be motionless than the aspen in the gale, the sere leaf in the hurricane, or the spray in the tempest. Love is instinct with activity, it cannot be idle; it is full of energy, it cannot content itself with littles; it is the well-spring of heroism, and great deeds are the gushings of its fountain.

The simple truth is, this first love ought to more than hold its own. It should protect itself by increasing from year to year. Love grows by just loving. It is stimulated by the disclosure of new excellencies in the person whom we love. It strengthens itself by gentle ministries of kindness. It becomes happier and firmer with expression. No young con

vert was ever beguiled by the devil into a mightier mistake than when he began to imagine that backsliding into a common level of apathy and coldness was the regular expectation and experience of true Christian life.-C. S. Robinson.

When we are fullest of heavenly love we are best fitted to bear with human infirmity, to live above it, and forget its burden. It is the absence of love to Christ, not its fulness, that makes us so impatient of the weaknesses and inconsistencies of others.

The highest motive to urge man towards a better life, away from selfism, is love for the Supreme Being. It cannot be an abstract love, a too reverential love, or a too awful love, but a near, trustful, trusting love. A whole heart love. And the sequence to this is love for mankind. Both are connected.