woman bore that contempt with a calmness which surprised me. There were then but few converts to that religion in those parts, and its profession was therefore more exposed to ridicule and persecution from its strangeness. Notwithstanding her religion, I thought I could love this interesting and amiable female, and, in spite of my former mistake, I had the vanity to imagine I was not indifferent to her. As our intimacy increased, I learned, to my astonishment, that she regarded me as one involved in ignorance and error: and that, although she felt an affection for me, yet she would not become my wife, while I remained devoted to the religion of my ancestors. Piqued at this discovery, I received the books, which she now for the first time put into my hands, with pity and contempt. I expected to find them nothing but the repositories of a miserable and deluded superstition, more presuming than the mystical leaves of the Sibyls, or the obscure triads of Zoroaster. How was I mistaken! There was much which I could not at all comprehend; but in the midst of this darkness, the effect of my ignorance, I discerned a system of morality so exalted, so exquisitely pure, and so far removed from all I would have conceived of the most perfect virtue, that all the philosophy of the Grecian world seemed worse than dress in the comparison. My former learning had only served to teach me that something was wanting to complete the systems of philosophers. Here that invisible link was supplied, and I could even then observe a harmony and consistency in the whole, which carried irresistible conviction to my mind. I will not enlarge on this subject. Christianity is not a mere set of opinions, to be em braced by the understanding. It is the work of the heart as well as the head. Let it suffice to say, that in time, I became a Christian, and the husband of Sapphira.

REFLECTIONS.

ON PRAYER.

If there be any duty which our Lord Jesus Christ seems to have considered as more indispensably necessary towards the formation of a true Christian, it is that of prayer. He has taken every opportunity of impressing on our minds the absolute need in which we stand of the divine assistance, both to persist in the paths of righteousness, and to fly from the allurements of a fascinating, but dangerous life : and he has directed us to the only means of obtaining that assistance, in constant and habitual appeals to the throne of grace. Prayer is certainly the foundation-stone of the superstructure of a religious life: for a man can neither arrive at true piety, nor persevere in its ways when attained, unless, with sincere and continued fervency, and with the most unaffected anxiety, he implore Almighty God to grant him his perpetual grace, to guard and restrain him from all those derelictions of heart, to which we are, by nature, but too prone. I should think it an insult to the understanding of a Christian to dwell on the necessity of prayer, and, before we can harangue an infidel on its efficacy, we must convince him, not only that the Being to whom we address ourselves really exists, but that he condescends to hear and to answer our humble supplications. As these objects are foreign to my present purpose, I shall take my leave of the necessity of prayer, as acknowledged by all to whom this paper is addressed, and shall be content to expatiate on the strong inducements which we have to lift up our souls to our Maker in the language of supplication and of praise; to depict the happiness which results to the man of true piety from the exercise of this duty; and, lastly, to warn mankind, lest their fervency should carry them into the extreme of fanaticism, and their prayers, instead of

being silent and unassuming expressions of gratitude to their Maker, and humble entreaties for his favouring grace, should degenerate into clamorous vociferations and insolent gesticulations, utterly repugnant to the true spirit of prayer, and to the language of a creature addressing his Creator.

There is such an exalted delight to a regenerate being in the act of prayer, and he anticipates with so much pleasure, amid the toils of business, and the crowds of the world, the moment when he shall be able to pour out his soul, without interruption, into the bosom of his Maker, that I am persuaded, that the degree of desire or repugnance which a man feels to the performance of this amiable duty, is an infallible criterion of his acceptance with God. Let the unhappy child of dissipation-let the impure voluptuary boast of his short hours of exquisite enjoyment; even in the degree of bliss they are infinitely inferior to the delight of which the righteous man participates in his private devotions; while in their opposite consequences they lead to a no less wide extreme than heaven and hell, a state of positive happiness, and a state of positive misery. If there were no other inducement to prayer, than the very gratification it imparts to the soul, it would deserve to be regarded as the most important object of the Christian; for no where else could he purchase so much calmness, so much resignation, and so much of that peace and repose of spirit, in which consist the chief happiness of this otherwise dark and stormy being. But to prayer, besides the inducement of momentary gratification, the very self-love implanted in our bosoms would lead us to resort, as the chief good, for our Lord has said, Ask, and it shall be given to thee; knock, and it shall be opened;' and not a supplication made in the true spirit of faith and humility, but shall be answered; not a request which is urged with unfeigned submission and lowliness of spirit, but shall be granted, if it be consistent with our hapness, either temporal or eternal. Of this happiness, however, the Lord God is the only judge; but this

we do know, that whether our requests be granted, or whether they be refused, all is working together for our ultimate benefit.

When I say, that such of our requests and solicitatations as are urged in the true spirit of meekness, humility, and submission, will indubitably be answered, I would wish to draw a line between supplications so urged, and those violent and vehement declamations which, under the name of prayers, are sometimes heard to proceed from the lips of men professing to worship God in the spirit of meekness and truth. Surely I need not impress on any reasonable mind, how directly contrary these inflamed and bombastic harangues are to every precept of Christianity, and every idea of the deference due from a poor worm, like man, to the omnipotent and all-great God. Can we hesitate a moment as to which is more acceptable in his sight---the diffident, the lowly, the retiring, and yet solemn and impressive, form of worship of our excellent church; and the wild and laboured exclamations, the authoritative and dictatory clamours of men, who, forgetting the immense distance at which they stand from the awful Being whom they address, boldly, and with unblushing front, speak to their God as to an equal, and almost dare to prescribe to his infinite wisdom the steps it shall pursue? How often has the silent, yet eloquent eye of misery, wrung from the reluctant hand of charity that relief which has been denied to the loud and importunate beggar? And is heaven to be taken by storm? Are we to wrest the Almighty from his purposes by vociferation and importunity? God forbid! It is a fair and reasonable, though a melancholy inference, that the Lord shuts his ears against prayers like these, and leaves the deluded supplicants to follow the impulse of their own head-strong passions, without a guide, and destitute of every ray of his pure and holy light.

Those mock apostles, who thus disgrace the worship of the true God by their extravagance, are very fond of appearing to imitate the conduct of our Saviour, during his mortal peregrination; but how contrary

were his habits to those of these deluded men! Did he teach his disciples to insult the car of Heaven with noise and clamour? Were his precepts those of fanaticism and passion? Did he inflame the minds of his hearers with vehement and inflammatory harangues? Did he pray with all this confidence---this arrogance---this assurance? How different was his conduct! He divested wisdom of all its pomp and parade, in order to suit it to the capacities of the meanest of its auditors. He spake to them in the lowly language of parable and similitude; and when he prayed, did he instruct his hearers to attend to him with a loud chorus of Amens? Did he (participating as he did in the Godhead,) did he assume the tone of sufficiency, and the language of assurance? Far from it! he prayed, and he instructed his disciples to pray, in lowliness and meekness of spirit; he instructed them to approach the throne of grace with fear and trembling, silently, and with the deepest awe and veneration; and he evinced, by his condemnation of the prayer of the self-sufficient Pharisee, opposite to that of the diffident publican, the light in which those were considered in the eyes of the Lord, who, setting the terrors of the Godhead at defiance, and boldly building on their own worthiness, approached him with confidence and pride.

THERE is nothing so indispensably necessary towards the establishment of future earthly, as well as heavenly happiness, as early impressions of piety. For, as religion is the sole source of all human welfare and peace, so habits of religious reflection, in the spring of life, are the only means of arriving at a due sense of the importance of divine concerns in age, except by the bitter and hazardous roads of repentance and There is not a more awful spectacle in nature, than the death-bed of a late repentance. The groans of agony which attend the separation of the soul from the body, heightened by the heart-piercing

remorse.