LORD, give me a heart to turn all knowledge to thy glory, and not to mine: keep me from being deluded with the lights of vain philosophy; keep me from the pride of human reason; let me not think my own thoughts, nor dream my own imaginations; but, in all things acting under the good guidance of the Holy Spirit, may I live in all simplicity, humility, and singleness of heart, unto the Lord Jesus Christ, now and for ever more. Amen. [The above Prayer was prefixed to a manual, or memorandum-book.] A PRAYER. ALMIGHTY Father, at the close of another day I kneel before thee in supplication, and ere I compose my body to sleep, I would steal a few moments from weariness, to lift up my thoughts to thy perfections, to meditate on thy wonderful dispensations, and to make my request known unto thee. Although the hours of this day have not been spent in the busy haunts of society, but in the pursuit of needful and godly knowledge, yet I am conscious that my thoughts and actions have been far from pure ; and many vain and foolish speculations, many sinful thoughts and ambitious anticipations, have obtruded themselves on my mind. I know that I have felt pleasure in what I ought to have abhorred, and that I have not had thy presence continually in mind; so that my ghostly enemy has mixed poison with my best food, and sowed tares with the good seed of instruction. Sometimes, too, the world has had too much to do with my thoughts; I have longed for its pleasures, its splendors, its honors, and have forgotten that I am a poor follower of Jesus Christ, whose inheritance is not in this land, but in the fields above. I do therefore supplicate and beseech thee, Oh! thou my God and Father, that thou wilt not only forgive these my wanderings, but that thou wilt chasten my heart, and establish my affections, so that they may not be shaken by the light suggestions of the tempter Satan ; and since I am of myself very weak, I implore thy re straining hand upon my understanding, that I may not reason in the pride of worldly wisdom, nor flatter myself on my attainments, but ever hold my judgment in subordination to thy word, and see myself as what I am, a helpless dependant on thy bounty. If a spirit of indolence and lassitude have at times crept on me, I pray thy forgiveness for it; and if I have felt rather inclined to prosecute studies which procure respect from the world, than the humble knowledge which becomes a servant of Christ, do thou check this growing propensity, and only bless my studies so far as they conduce to thy glory, and as thy glory is their chief end. My heart, O Lord! is but too fond of this vain and deceitful world, and I have many fears lest I should make shipwreck of my hope on the rocks of ambition and vanity. Give me, I pray thee, thy grace to repress these propensities: illumine more completely my wandering mind, rectify my understanding, and give me a simple, humble, and affectionate heart, to love thee and thy sheep with all sincerity. As I increase in learning, let me increase in lowliness of spirit: and inasmuch as the habits of studious life, unless tempered by preventing grace, but too much tend to produce formality and lifelessness in devotion, do thou, O heavenly Father, preserve me from all cold and speculative views of thy blessed Gospel; and while with regular constancy I kneel down daily before thee, do not fail to light up the fire of heavenly love in my bosom, and to draw my heart heavenward with earnest longing [to thyself.] And now, O Blessed Redeemer! my rock, my hope, and only sure defence, to thee do I cheerfully commit both my soul and my body. If thy wise Providence see fit, grant that I may rise in the morning, refreshed with sleep, and with a spirit of cheerful activity for the duties of the day but whether I wake here or in eternity, grant that my trust in thee may remain sure, and my hope unshaken. Our Father, &c. : [This prayer was discovered amongst some dirty loose papers of H. K. White's.] MEM. September 22nd, 1806. ON running over the pages of this book, I am constrained to observe, with sorrow and shame, that my progress in divine light has been little or none. I have made a few conquests over my corrupt inclinations, but my heart still hankers after its old delights; still lingers half willing, half unwilling, in the ways of worldly-mindedness. My knowledge of divine things is very little improved. I have read less of the Scriptures than I did last year. In reading the Fathers, I have consulted rather the pride of my heart than my spiritual good. I now turn to the cause of these evils, and I find that the great root, the main-spring, is-love of the world; next to that, pride; next to that, spiritual sloth. REMARKS ON THE ENGLISH POETS. IMITATIONS. THE sublimity and unaffected beauty of the sacred writings are in no instance more conspicuous, than in the following verses of the xviiith Psalm: 'He bowed the heavens also and came down and darkness was under his feet. 'And he rode upon a cherub and did fly: yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.' None of our better versions have been able to preserve the original graces of these verses. That wretched one of Thomas Sternhold, however, (which, to the disgrace and manifest detriment of religious worship, is generally used,) has in this solitary instance, and then perhaps by accident, given us the true spirit of the Psalmist, and has surpassed not only Merrick, but even the classic Buchanan. This version is as follows: "The Lord descended from above, And bowed the heavens high, And underneath his feet he cast The darkness of the sky. 'On cherubs and on cherubims Full royally he rode, And on the wings of mighty winds Dryden honored these verses with very high commendation, and, in the following lines of his Annus Mirabilis, has apparently imitated them, in preference to the original : The duke less numerous, but in courage more, On wings of all the winds to combat flies.' And in his Ceyx and Alcyone, from Ovid, he has And now sublime she rides upon the wind.' which is probably imitated, as well as most of the following, not from Sternhold, but the original. Thus Pope, With arms sublime that float upon the air.' Few poets of eminence have less incurred the charge of plagiarism than Milton; yet many instances might be adduced of similarity of idea and language with the Scripture, which are certainly more than coincidences, and some of these I shall, in a future number, present to your readers. Thus the present passage in the Psalmist was in all probability in his mind when he wrote And with mighty wings outspread, The third verse of the civth Psalm He maketh the clouds his chariot, and walketh upon the wings of the wind,'is evidently taken from the before-mentioned verses in the xviiith Psalm, on which it is perhaps an improvement. It has also been imitated by two of our first poets,-Shakspeare and Thomson. The former in Romeo and Juliet 'Bestrides the lazy-paced clouds, And sails upon the bosom of the air.' The latter in Winter, 1. 199. -Till Nature's King, who oft As these imitations have not before, I believe, been noticed, they cannot fail to interest the lovers of polite letters; and they are such as at least will amuse your readers in general. If the sacred writings were attentively perused, we should find innumerable passages from which our best modern poets have drawn their most admired ideas: and the enumerations of these instances would perhaps attract the attention of many persons to those volumes, which they now perhaps think to contain everything tedious and disgusting, but which, on the contrary, they would find replete with interest, beauty, and true sublimity. STERNHOLD AND HOPKINS. MR. EDITOR, In your Mirror for July, a Mr. William Toone has offered a few observations on a paper of mine, in a preceding number, containing remarks on the versions and imitations of the 9th and 10th verses of the xviiith Psalm, to which I think it necessary to offer a few words by way of reply; as they not only put an erroneous construction on certain passages of that paper, but are otherwise open to material objection. The object of Mr. Toone, in some parts of his observations, appears to have been to refute something which he fancied I had advanced, tending to establish the general merit of Sternhold and Hopkins's translation of the Psalms but he might have saved himself this unneces sary trouble, as I have decidedly condemned it as mere |