THE LORD'S PRAYER.

If you would see what prayer is, or rather what it ought to be, study the Lord's Prayer. What plainness, simplicity, earnestness, and confidence have we here! No complaint, no groveling desire, no selfish aspiration, but direct, common-sense expression of the wants of the heart. Its thought is noble, its feeling warm and tender. It is spiritual communion and heavenly longing, combined with healthy contentment to labor on, assisted by Divine grace. Well might Carlyle, in his last years, writing to a friend, exclaim: "Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy will be done;' what else can we say? The other night, in my sleepless tossings about, which were growing more and more miserable, these words, that brief and grand prayer, came strangely to my mind with altogether new emphasis, as if within and shining for me in mild, pure splendor, on the dark bosom of the night there; when I, as it were, read them word by word, with a sudden check to my imperfect wanderings, with a sudden softness of composure which was much unexpected. Not for perhaps thirty or forty years had I ever formally repeated that prayer-nay, I never felt before how intensely the voice of man's soul it is; the inmost aspiration of all that is high and pious in poor human nature; right worthy to be recommended with an 'After this manner pray ye.""

The following lines, embodying, in beautifully impressive form, the Lord's Prayer, are said to have been written by King James I, though by other authorities ascribed to Bishop Andrews:

Thou mad'st earth, as well as planets seven;

Thy name is blessed here,

As 'tis in heaven.

Nothing we have to use, or debts to pay,

Except thou givest it to us;

Give us this day

Wherewith to clothe us, wherewith to be fed,

For without thee we want

Our daily bread.

We want, but want no faults; for us day passes;
But we do sin-

Forgive us our trespasses.

No man from sinning ever free did live;

Forgive us, Lord, our sins,

As we forgive.

If we repent our faults, thou ne'er disdainest us;
We pardon

Them that trespass against us.

Forgive us that is past, a new path tread us,
Direct us always in thy faith,

And lead us.

We thine own people are, thy chosen nation,
Into all truths, but

Not into temptation.

Thou that of all good graces art the Giver,

Suffer us not to wander,

But deliver

Us from the fierce assaults of world and devil,

And flesh, so shalt thou free us

From all evil.

To these petitions let both Church and laymen
With one consent of voice and heart, say

Amen!

THE PRAYING SPIRIT.

The loss of the prayerful spirit is the greatest of all losses. Nothing answers its purpose; nothing can fill its place. Prayers of the lips, prayers of the head, prayers of the life, all avail nothing in the

absence of prayers of the heart. All prayer is rendered fruitless, if not sinful, by that spirit which longs for the gratification of self and the possession of the world more than for the presence and communion of God, and the promotion of his glory. Nothing is easier than to say words of prayer, but to pray hungering and thirsting, in humble submission to the will of Heaven, is the hardest of all works. Prayer is living with God; and, if founded upon right principles of religion, gives us a disposition to search ourselves in order to know our own weaknesses and wants; it weans us from the world, and fixes us in a feeling of dependence on God.

"When I can say my God is mine;
When I can feel his glories shine,
I tread the world beneath my feet,

And all the world calls good or great."

"The perilous nature of the commonest things is well known to all, and he who can rush forth to meet the perils of a day without a prayer on his lips and a tremor at his heart has lost all true sense of responsibility."

Hon. B. F. Burnham has well declared that there are two extremes, each having its peculiar evil. The man who never sequesters himself (or, as the New Revision beautifully renders it, enters into his "inner chamber"), and when he has shut the door against the overbearing pressure of secular pursuits, contemplates his higher destinations, becomes a groveling earth-worm rather than

"A glorious thing

Of buoyant wing."

The woman's mind that is always in a giddy whirl of frivolities remains inane. "As one thinketh in his heart, so is he." If he longs to be submissive, patient, modest, liberal, considerate of his relations. to his moral environment, such must he tend to become. To be godlike, he must meditate upon God; to make any part of the attributes of Deity his own, he must aspire to the true, the beautiful, and the good.

"Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers,

Whose loves in higher love endure;

What souls possess themselves so pure,

Or is our blessedness like theirs?"

VARIOUS FACTS ABOUT PRAYER.

Here is an old but very fine private prayer bearing the stamp of royal use:

A DAILY PRAYER, ENTIRELY IN THE HANDWRITING OF KING

CHARLES THE FIRST,

Copied from a MS. discovered in His Majesty's State-Paper Office, London. "A Praper-1631.

day

night;

"GOOD LORD, I thanke thee for keeping me this day. I humblie beseeche thee to keepe mee this night from all dangers or mischances that may happen to my boddie, and all evell thoughts which may assalt or hurt my sowel, for Jesus Christ his sake: and looke upon me, thy unworthie servant, who here prostrates himselfe at thy throne of grace, but looke upon mee, O Father, through the merites and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy beloved Sone, in whom thou art onlie well pleased; for, of my-selfe, I am not worthie to stand in thy presence, or to speake with my uncleane lips, to thee most holly and æternal God; for thou knowest that in sinn I was conceaued and borne, and that euer since I haue lived in Iniquetie, so that I haue broken all thy Holly Comandments, by sinful motions, evel words, and wicked workes, omitting many dewties I ought to doe, and comitting manie vyces, which thou hast forbidden vnder paine of heavie displeasure: as for sinnes, O Lord, they are innumerable; in the multitude, therefore, of thy mercies, and by the merites of Jesus Christ, I intreate thy Devyne Majestie, that thou wouldest not enter into judgment with thy servant, nor be extreame to mark what is done amisse, but bee thou mercifull to mee, and washe away all my sinnes with the merits of that pretius blood that Jesus Christ shed for mee; and not only washe away all my sinnes, but also to purge my hart, by [thy] holly spirit, from the drosse of my naturall corruption; and as thou doest add dayes to my lyfe, so (good Lord) add repentance to my dayes, that when I have past this mortal lyfe, I may bee a partaker of thy everlasting kingdom, throught Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

The first definite record of the public observance of prayer is in Genesis iv, 26: "Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." From that time a life of prayer was the distinction of the righteous, and was a marked characteristic in the chosen family of Abraham, and the lives of other ancient worthies.

The best historical accounts of successful prayer we have, or can

have, are also found in the Bible. Among the many may be noted: Jacob prays the angel is conquered; Esau's revenge is changed to fraternal love. Joseph prays-he is delivered from the prison of Egypt. Moses prays - Amalek is discomfited; Israel triumphs. Joshua prays the sun stands still; victory is gained. David praysAhithophel goes out and hangs himself. Asa prays-Israel gains a glorious victory. Jehoshaphat prays-God turns away his angel and smiles. Elijah prays-the little cloud appears; the rain descends upon the earth. Elisha prays the waters of the Jordan are divided; a child is restored to life. Isaiah prays-one hundred and eighty-four thousand Assyrians are dead. Hezekiah prays-the sun-dial is turned back; his time is prolonged. Mordecai prays-Haman is hanged; Israel is free. Nehemiah prays the king's heart is softened in a moment. Ezra prays the walls of Jerusalem begin to rise. The Church prays the Holy Ghost is poured out. The Church prays again-Peter is delivered by an angel. Paul and Silas pray—the prison shakes; the door opens; every man's hands are loosed.

Here is a suggestive epigram on prayer, published in the Monitor, March, 1712, by Mr. Tate, poet-laureate :

"Prayer highest soars when she most prostrate lies,
And when she supplicates, she storms the skies;
Thus to gain heaven may seem an easy task,

For what can be more easy than to ask?

Yet oft we do by sad experience find

That, clogged with earth, some prayers are left behind,
And some like chaff blown off by every wind.

To kneel is easy, to pronounce not hard.

Then why are some petitioners debarred?

Hear what an ancient oracle declared:

Some sing their prayers, and some their prayers do say;
He's an Elias who his prayers can pray.

Reader, remember, when you next repair

To church or closet, this memoir of prayer."