wisdom has taught them to utter, they lift up their desires at his footstool, not seeking great things for themselves, or panting after the dust of the earth, or sighing for the vain delights of the sons of men, but thirsting and longing for the blessedness of the man whose transgression is forgiven, and who, being justified by faith, has peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have no encouragement to hope that, by taking thought for temporal satisfactions, we shall find grace in the sight of the Lord; but if we aspire after the best gifts, which are the heritage of the faithful, seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, we believe and are sure that his Divine power will give us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. Though our Father in the heavens knoweth what things we have need of before we ask them, and though the purposes of his everlasting kindness are often fulfilled more substantially by withholding than by granting the desires which we naturally cherish, it is only to them who worship him in spirit and in truth, that he has promised to do exceeding abundantly above all that they ask or think; and we have no more solid ground to expect that we shall receive without asking, or that we shall find without seeking, than the husbandman has to look for an abundant harvest springing up in the fields which he has neither planted nor watered, or than the merchant has to calculate on reciving his own with usury, for the talent which has been tied up in a napkin or buried in the earth.

It is not for us to unfold the laws of the spiritual world, or to demonstrate why and how it is that the communications of heavenly influence and favor are in any degree suspended on the frequency and fervency of our supplications. But this we know, that, as in old time, the father of the faithful commanded his children, and his household after him, to unite with him in the exercises of a holy life, that the Lord might bring upon Abraham that which he had spoken of him,-even so, in all generations, may the willing and obedient hope that, while seeking unto God, and committing their cause to Him who doeth great things and unsearchable, they place their confidence not in their own importunity or their own efforts, but in the exalted merit and prevalent intercession of the Mediator of the new covenant, they cannot fail to be made partakers of that abundant grace which ought to be the chief object of all our prayers, and which is never denied to the humble We know, assuredly, that our heavenly Father giveth his Holy Spirit to them who ask him; and if, for the sake of his beloved Son, he is pleased to bestow this unspeakable gift in answer to the prayer of the believing soul, why should we hesitate to admit that it is of the Lord's mercies that, by the eternal ordination of Divine wisdom, prayer has been rendered one of the sure and sufficient means of transmitting to the faithful every other good and perfect gift which cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning?

To the duties of social prayer and thanksgiving, accompanied with that instruction in righteousness which the reading of the Scriptures is calculated to impart, let the benefits thus conferred on your

several domestic circles operate as a strong incitement. It is not, indeed, within the compass of human ability to infuse grace into the souls which are most tenderly beloved. But great will probably be the influence of a pious example on those who confide in your affection, and have cause to revere your worth. If your children and dependants perceive, that, while you are not slothful in the business of time, you are also fervent in spirit, serving the Lord; and that, while you provide for your own the food and the raiment which are obtained by the blessing of God on the hand of the diligent, you ask for them that bread of heaven which strengtheneth the heart; may you not hope that they will be stirred up both to pray and to labor for the meat which endureth to life everlasting, and that they will learn to regard the favor of God as a better portion than the abundance of corn and wine? May you not hope that, while your own minds are elevated by contemplating the works of creation, providence, and redemption, and by reflecting on the dignified and endearing relation to which you have been raised in having "received the Spirit of adoption whereby you cry, Abba, Father," they who look up to you for guidance and protection will take pleasure in approaching to God, and through the experience of the peace of walking with the wise, will be taught to abhor the enticements of sinners, and to hold fast that which is good? And even in the case of those who, through perversity of heart, and the snares of an evil world, have forsaken the path of integrity and truth, may it not be hoped that the wise counsels which they have for a season forgotten, and the devotional habits which they have long failed to imitate, will, like the bread cast upon the waters, be found after many days? Small must have been your experience of the discipline of Providence, if you have never known so much as one who had wandered so far from the way of peace as to disappoint the earnest expectations of his father, and to turn the joy of her who bare him into bitterness, but who, after his own wickedness had corrected him, and his backslidings reproved him, has been awakened to new obedience, by recalling to his agonized mind with reverential awe the solemn image of the parental guide, in whose quiet habitation the daily exercises of prayer and praise hallowed every pursuit, lightened every care, soothed every sorrow, and seasoned every enjoyment, so as to render the voice of rejoicing and salvation in the tabernacles of the righteous a lively type of the blessed conversation of heaven, and a delicious foretaste of the fellowship of the saints in light.

If ye know these things by your own experience, or by the incontrovertible testimony of them who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, happy are ye if ye do them. Nor can you have peace and safety if, knowing what is good, you leave it undone.

And while you present your supplications for yourselves and your families, forget not the eternal concerns of the families which call not on the name of God. If it be, as it ought to be, your heart's desire that they may be brought to the obedience of the Gospel, brethren, pray for us, and for all the ministers of the truth, "that the word of the Lord may have free course and be glorified, even as it is with you." Such an intercession as this will assuredly

prove efficacious toward the enlargement of the household of faith, if all of you, both small and great, not only in the congregations of the upright, who, in heaviness of heart, sigh for the abounding of iniquity and the failing of truth, but in your families apart, and in your unseen retirements, prostrate yourselves at the footstool of your Father in heaven, who seeth in secret, and pour out your desires before him in that effectual fervent importunity which, like the long and patient waiting of the husbandman for the precious fruit of the earth, will, according to the sure word of promise, issue in plenteous showers of blessings, not confined to any favored spot, or any privileged community, but dropping down fertility far and wide over fields coextensive with the inhabited world, filled as it shall be in that evening time of light with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea; and thus the God of the whole earth, in remembrance of his holy covenant, and in fulfilment of the good pleasure of his goodness, will arise and have mercy not only on the mountain of holiness in which he had his dwelling in time past, but on all in every place who call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord; so that, while he clothes his priests with salvation, and makes his people shout for joy, the ways of Zion which have mourned, because few came to the solemn feasts, shall be thronged with the multitudes who keep the holy day with thanksgiving in their hearts, and the high praises of God in their mouths, wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of those times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, when his work shall appear before the face of his servants, and his glory to their children; and they that fear the Lord, being all replenished with the riches of grace, shall take that sweet counsel together which revives the inward part, and knits the brotherhood of Christians in the unity of the faith and the holy bond of perfectness. "Then shall the offering of his people be pleasant unto the Lord as in the days of old, and as in former years "And the Lord will create upon every dwelling place of Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies, a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of a flaming fire by night; for upon all the glory shall be a defence."

The above circular we recommend to the prayerful attention of all our readers. The subject of which it treats is one of vital interest to professing Christians; but, it is to be feared, too much neglected by many of them. Wedeem family worship to be instituted by the same authority and on the same principles as public worship, and enforced by the same sanctions. The principal difference between them appears to be that the one is to be performed daily, and the other weekly-the former by the constituted head of the family, the latter by the authorized minister of the Church. Now, what should we say of a body of Christians professedly in Church fellowship with each other, without any public worship? Such a course of conduct, anomalous as it might appear, would be analogous to that of too many professors of religion with regard to family worship. The doctrines laid down in the circular, and enforced with a perspecuitv and strength of reasoning for which the Scottish divines are so eminent, are adapted to all Christians in all countries, and are perhaps as much needed in ours and other American Churches as in the venerable Kirk whence they emanated.-EDs.