the sermon of Peter on the day of Pentecost. For ten days previous to that memorable morning, aye, and on that very morning up to the hour of the descent of the Spirit, the whole company of the disciples were all, with one accord, in one place, engaged in prayer and supplication. They were together, and agreed as touching the thing they should ask. I suppose every one made an exertion to be present. I suppose there was not one disciple unnecessarily absent from those meetings; nor from that meeting which was called to pray for Peter's release: "Prayer was made of the church for him." Suppose one half or three fourths of the church had staid at home, or gone to some place of worldly resort on that evening, (for, shocking to relate! there were evening meetings, even at that early period,) think you Peter would have been released, in answer to their prayers? Yet full that proportion of the members of our churches absent themselves from our meetings for prayer. Yes! at least one half or three fourths of our churches dissent, when the proposal is to pray for the revival of religion. There is no agreement as touching it, and hence it cannot be reasonably expected. There is not even There is not even a plurality in favor of it-no! not half the church in favor of a revival!-the vote is carried to have none !

I would not make any sweeping assertions, but I do not see how any one, who has grace even as a grain of mustard-seed, can habitually and voluntarily be absent from the assemblies for social prayer.

but on

Some never unite in any form of social prayer the Sabbath. To suit their hebdomadal devotions, that

petition should have run, "Give us this week our weekly bread." But as it now is, by using it only one day in the week, we leave the supplies of the other six days unasked for. We acknowledge our dependance on God for only a seventh part of our time.

Respectable people attended those prayer-meetings mentioned in Acts.

Besides their synagogues, the Jews had oratories, or places of prayer, proseuchæ. One is mentioned in Acts xvi, 13.

It is strange that any should object to a prayer-meeting. How proper, as we carry much of the secularity of the week into the Sabbath, that we should carry something of the spirituality of the Sabbath into the week!

PRAISE.

PAUL was one whose religion did not confine itself to the heart. He gave thanks as well as felt them. He offered praise. You will hear people say there is never a day, and scarcely an hour, that they do not feel grateful to God; and yet they rarely, if ever, give any devout expression to their gratitude. The duty of solemn praise they seem to overlook altogether. But what should a man do with his tongue, if he do not therewith bless God? It is remarkable, that in the Bible the tongue is called the glory of the man, Ps. cviii, 1, not merely because it is the organ and inter

preter of that reason by which we are distinguished above the brutes, but mainly, perhaps, because with it we utter the praises of the Most High, and show forth his mighty works.

There is no way in which benevolence more beautifully displays itself than in thanking God for his favors to others. The world is rather, by the bounty of God to others, excited to envy and discontent. But, to rejoice with them that do rejoice is necessary, in order to weep with them that weep. He who has no sympathy in our joys, has none in our sorrows.

It indicates a sad state of things in any church when the business of praising God is attempted to be performed by representation, and when one of the objects in coming to a church is to hear fine music, rather than to celebrate, in one united anthem, the praises of the Most High. Why, we might as well go one step farther, and depute a few of the congregation to feel all the gratitude that is due from us, as well as to express it. Nothing is here intended against a choir, but only against the exclusive commitment of this part of worship to a choir.

RICHES.

RICHES, instead of satisfying, seem only to create appetite.

Who is so poor as he who has nothing in the other world laid up, and can carry nothing out of this?

WINE IN THE LORD'S SUPPER.

THE Catholics have never taken greater liberties with the Bible, nor any of the boldest and wildest interpreters of that abused book, than those misguided men who have, of late, begun to disuse, and to contend for the disuse, of wine at the sacrament of the Supper. How are the common people ever to be reconciled to such an interpretation, even if the learned could be? Good people, when they hear of this new controversy, are beginning to wish that the Temperance Reformation had never taken place; and verily, if it is to deprive us of an ordinance of the New Testament, and leave us but half a sacrament, I heartily concur with them. [Among the last things he ever wrote.]

BACKSLIDING.

THE truth is, the heart that turns itself away from God, divides itself among many objects. Forsaking the one fountain of living waters, it is not always employed in constructing a single cistern, but is hewing out to itself cisterns; and when one and another is broken, it hews out others that are equally incapable of holding water. Or, to change the mode of speech,

how common it is, when a person is convinced of the vanity of one idol, instead of turning from it to the service of God, he betakes himself to another idol equally vain; and when that has disappointed his trust, he resorts to a third, still retaining the idolatrous principle, though he successively changes its objects. He changes one idol for another of a different kind, but he does not renounce them all for God.

CONFORMITY TO THE WORLD.

YE people of the world! when we speak to those who profess to be "not of the world, as Christ was not of the world," and exhort them to act in a manner becoming their profession, we beg them not to be like you. We tell them that they must serve another master, and have another standard of duty-that they must not conform to your habits, nor pursue your pleasures, and that on the peril of their souls. Yes! we tell them that, as they regard the approbation of God and the honor of Christ, their present peace and their everlasting felicity, they must be very unlike you of the world. Ah! then, what must you be, that a Christian should belie his profession, and blast his hopes by being like you? What means the exhortation to Christians "not to be conformed to the world," but that you are going the road to ruin; and Jesus