excellent way would be for the same persons to pray twice, rather than tire their hearers by one long prayer. There is no reason why the same man may not pray twice as well as the minister. Such meetings as are held on the evening of the Lord's day, when most of those who attend them have been at some place of worship twice before during the day, especially require brevity. When this caution is not attended to, serious inconveniences will follow; people generally will not only be tired, but mothers who have young children will be wanted at home, some of their domestic duties probably neglected; and those who have to attend family worship, when they find it is got so late, may be tempted to pass it by, or, at most, to attend to it in a loose and careless manner, so that the loss will more than counterbalance the gain. 6. To render prayer-meetings the more lively and edifying, there must be a proper attention paid to the singing. As the mind is refreshed by variety, it is not well to sing too long. Three or four verses at the beginning, and at intervals, during the service, two or three verses, will in general be better than whole hymns. These verses should be appropriate and striking. The hymns, moreover, should always be selected beforehand. It produces an unpleasant effect on the minds of the people, to see a person turning over for a long time the pages of a hymn-book, to find what he wants; and in the end haste often leads to an improper choice. These are far from little things. Nothing is little that has to do with worship. "Let all things be done decently and in order," 1 Cor. xiv. 40. 7. Let all leaders of social prayer diligently search the Holy Scriptures, that they may be well acquainted with those directions, precepts, and promises, which have a more immediate relation to this sacred duty. Let them approach God as he has taught them, with his own words in their mouth, and his own spirit in their hearts; and then they shall be heard and answered. A deep acquaintance with the word of God will give a rich variety to their prayers. Out of the good treasure of their heart in this respect they will bring forth the things which are good. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; singing with grace in your hearts unto the Lord," Col. iii.16. 8. Let all who lead worship carefully guard against affectation. Let them also be on their guard against all lofty and pompous expressions, which are utterly incompatible with devotion. Let the simple language of the upright heart be the language of the lips. Beware of false fire! Let no man, under the idea of appearing zealous, affect in manner and loudness of voice that which his state of mind does not warrant him in doing before God. If they live near to God, their prayers will not be cold or lifeless, but fervent and importunate. God will hear, and those that are with them will feel that they have access unto the throne of grace. 9. Let every leader endeavour to keep the eye of the mind fixed on the great object of worship. It is with Him that they have to do! They may say with the psalmist, "My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed," Psa. lvii. 7. Let them watch against envy and all unholy jealousy, and learn to rejoice if another excels them, and is preferred before them; "in honour preferring one another," Rom. xii. 10. 10. It becomes all Christians in these days to pray particularly for the success of the gospel; this is a subject, therefore, with which every leader ought to be intimately conversant. Ignorance quite disqualifies a man to lead at the missionary prayer-meeting. The increasing knowledge which prevails respecting the awful state of the heathen world, the union and exertions of good men of all denominations in promoting the interests of Christianity, should excite in all the spirit of ardent, persevering prayer. The first three petitions of the Lord's prayer have reference to this work. "Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth," Isa. lxii. 6, 7. How strong are the expressions, and how loud is the call to the Church of God, to be fervent and incessant in their cries to him for the universal spread of the gospel. prophets very often speak of this work as that which shall be done in answer to prayer, Isa. xxv. 9; xxvi. 9, 12, 13, 16, 17; xxxiii. 2; xli. 17; xlv. 24; Psa. cii. 13, 22; Hos. v. 15; xiv. 2, to the end; Zech. x. 6; xii. 10. Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children, And let the beauty The of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it," Psa. xc. 16, 17. 11. Let all leaders abstain from quoting hymns in prayer. A little reflection will show that it is a violation of propriety. What man in his senses would think of larding a memorial to the Queen, or a petition to Parliament, with scraps of poetry? What would a gentleman think of a person coming to his door to solicit aid, interspersing his statement with scraps of hymns? He might, perhaps, doubt the poor man's sanity. To people of taste, sense, and culture, it is offensive, unless done sparingly and with skill, even in preaching; but in prayer it is intolerable. Concerning preaching, the celebrated Dr. Adam Clarke, addressing a preacher, says: "Seldom quote poetry in your sermons: if you avail yourself of the sentiment of the poet, give it in plain prose. To say the least of this custom, it certainly is not agreeable to the rules of congruity to interlard prose discourses with scraps of verse. It is nothing but custom that renders this impropriety at all supportable. Reverse the business, and see how oddly a poem will appear which has here and there scraps of prose in it. It must be granted, that many public speakers use it sometimes; but the very best speakers use it very seldom. I wish it to be generally avoided; not only because I believe it does no good, but also, because there are few who know how to do it well, and the poet is often murdered by his injudicious rehearser. How can a man, who has scarcely a dignified sentiment in his prose, quote, with any propriety, a sublime thought in verse?" All this applies with increased force to the exercise of prayer. 12. Let leaders beware of a loud, noisy, ranting manner of address, which is not to be confounded with holy zeal. It is generally false flame, a thing full of peril! But danger apart, nothing can be more incongruous with the solemn exercise of prayer, which dictates a blending of fervour with humility and deeply chastened expression. 13. Let leaders beware of excessive rapidity, which, not (to speak of its inherent impropriety, is wholly unfitted for social worship, where many minds are to find expression through one mouth. That the company may go along with the leader, his utterance must be not only distinct, but delibe rate and equable, excluding everything that savours of a mere harangue. In this way alone the weak and the illiterate can follow with comfort and edification, while it will be not less agreeable to the intelligent and the cultivated. 14. The leader ought to understand the importance of pausing in prayer as well as in preaching, and other kinds of speaking. This is required wherever there is a transition from one topic to another. Morally, the effect of this is impressive, and grateful to the mind. The opposite is a constant stream, which may be likened to an alarum, running on from the first word to the last, without break or breathing to the end. Such pauses, which come, as a matter of course, if the speaker follow nature, will enable the leader to compose himself, and to fix his mind afresh on the great object of worship. These pauses, where the habit of running on is formed, are, at first, a matter of some difficulty; but their importance is so great as to compensate any labour and trouble that may be involved in the matter. 15. Let the leader eschew all artificial tones. Here many excellent men are greatly at fault. Some whine, some cant or sing, and others drawl; one shouts, and another whispers-and all in a manner wholly artificial. The cure for this and other evils, is for men to pray as they speak-to be themselves. "But that would not be solemn." Why not? Does solemnity lie in artifice and not in nature? Strangers accustomed to the unnatural were often startled on first hearing the late Dr. Chalmers; so perfectly unsophisticated was his manner, that he seemed to mean what he was saying, and actually to see the Father of Mercies to whom he was speaking! He, therefore, was at first thought to be wanting in reverence; but it was soon felt to be the perfection of excellence, the very climax of true reverence. 16. Let the leader who opens the meeting avoid the common evil of covering the entire field of supplication. This grave error arises from taking pulpit prayer as a model for social prayer; it is forgotten, that the prayer of the pulpit is all the prayer of the occasion, and hence the necessity for comprehensiveness; whereas in the social meeting a number share in the exercise, so that what one omits another may take up, and all the prayers united will be even more comprehensive than that of the pulpit. Neglect of this is the main cause of the wide-spread evil of excessive length, another name in this matter, for endless repetition. Let the leader who opens fix on two or three chief points, and on these pour out his soul, and make an end! 17. Let the next suppliant, and all who follow, not speak at random, but use their own judgment, omitting matters that have been previously noticed, and introducing new topics instead of going on without regard to what has been already done. From this it often happens, that a number of individuals professedly pray, while in reality only one prayer, with variations, has been offered! This is alike fatal to devotion and to edification. It cannot too soon be put an end to. 18. Let the leader beware of injecting phrases which make no necessary part of the prayer, and serve only to clog and deaden it. Dr. Porter well observes: "Another form of the same fault consists in a constant recurrence of such passages as, We beseech thee,' We pray thee,' &c., instead of expressing the petition directly, without any prefatory clause. The great infelicity of this habit is, that it apparently aims to provide in each sentence a resting-place for the mind, while it reflects on what shall follow. The consequence is, that the speaker has an apparent, and commonly a real hesitation, instead of that freedom and fluency which give interest to devotion. And this difficulty is apt to be exactly proportioned to the length of these interjected clauses. If the mind of the speaker rests while the tongue says, 'We pray thee,' the remainder of the sentence may perhaps go on without a break; but if the mind rests very often while the tongue repeats a long periphrastic clause, such as, We humbly beseech thee, most merciful God,' both mind and tongue, probably, will make a perceptible stop at the end of this clause. The sensation of langour is unavoidable in an assembly, if a quarter of the time is occupied in a round of words which are felt to be no part of prayer, but only successive preparations to pray. And the usual hesitation of this manner adds greatly to the difficulty. To the same class of faults belongs the excessive use of the interjection Oh! This should always denote emotion, and is never proper except when followed by a title of God, in the vocative case, or in the direct language of earnest petition. It is a great extreme VOL. XV. to Multitudes of prayers are made up of such excrescent phraseology, the extent of one-third, or nearly half! Were they to be taken down in short hand, transcribed, and presented to the speaker, he would stand amazed at his own short-comings. Such prayers partake of two faults, both condemned in the sacred word, "vain repetitions," and taking "the name of God in vain." 19. It behoves every leader to ignore himself, and for the time being, to become wholly impersonal. Personal feelings must not intrude. He is to speak not for himself, but for the assembly. The supplications must, therefore, turn on things which are common to all, or to the classes into which the meeting is divisible. 20. No leader who is not wanting in sense, or in piety, will make prayer the vehicle of either flattery or insult. To do either were to perpetrate a heinous offence against propriety. Extreme delicacy is required wherever individuals are introduced. Especially should this be the case in prayer for pastors. How greatly such need the prayers of their flocks! How wrong it is, therefore, to forget them! That great and good man, the late Rev. Matthew Wilks, of the Tabernacle, London, at the close of a prayer-meeting, at which he presided, and at which he had been wholly overlooked, said: " Well, no man has prayed for me; I will, therefore, go home and pray for myself." As a rule, it will be found, that when a pastor is present, he is seldom passed over, whereas when absent it is frequently the reverse. This ought not to be. This absence is the very time when judicious and genuine affection ought to pour itself forth with a fulness and a fervour commensurate with his manifold necessities, since then there are no restraints. The omission is of course the result of pure thoughtlessness; but in a matter so serious, men ought not to be thoughtless. A wise and loving people, or rather the leaders of their devotions, should not require his personal presence to stimulate their X devout and affectionate supplications. Not only to him, but to themselves, through him, are such omissions a serious loss. 21. The practice of saying "Amen," is in itself proper and agreeable to the Word of God. It signifies so be it, or, let it be so,-Lord, grant us our petitions. It should be used at the conclusion of the sentence, that it may not interrupt the person who is praying, or those who would hear. It should be the result of our deliberate judgment and approbation of the prayer offered up to God. The following are the words of an old divine on this subject: "The ordinary way and the best for people to express their consent when a person is praying, is with a distinct and audible voice to say, Amen. This was commanded, Deut. xxvii. 15. It is a sound well beseeming the public worship of God, to make the place ring again with the joint Amen of the people. The Jews uttered this word with great ardency, and, therefore, used to double it, saying, Amen, Amen. 'And Ezra blessed the Lord the great God; and all the people answered, Amen, Amen, with lifting up their hands; and they bowed their heads, and worshipped the Lord with their faces toward the ground,' Neh. viii. 6." REVIVAL PRAYER-MEETINGS. THAT the whole earth may be filled with the glory of the Lord, Christendom must first be filled with meetings for prayer and supplication. It is in vain to look for the one without the other. All God's people cannot preach, but all can pray; and every saint must be turned into a suppliant! The power through which the preaching is to prove efficacious is power obtained by prayer. Prayer, in the day of decision, will be the great distinguishing characteristic of the Universal Church. Why not make a beginning now? Reader! is not such a beginning already made? The present Sabbath services, in all denominations, must, substantially, remain as they are. They cannot generally be multiplied, neither can they be greatly modified. If, therefore, social prayer is to be indefinitely increased, it can only be through the establishment of new arrangements. On the morning or the evening of the Lord's day, meetings for prayer may, in many cases, no doubt, be vastly multiplied, with the happiest results; but that, however desirable, will not be enough. In addition to these, week-day meetings, to the utmost extent compatible with due attention to the business of life, will be indispensable to bring on the glory of the latter day. No plan can be laid down that will suit all places and all classes every church and every class must determine their own arrangements. Only let all the churches of the empire, in effect, constitute one great association to pray for the salvation of a lost world, with faith, fervour, and hope, and it will suffice! Let the whole realm be covered with meetings of the faithful to that end, comprising old and young, rich and poor, all classes and conditions of men,-meetings that shall be held in season and out of season, and that will never cease to sigh and to cry for the abominations of the earth,-meetings whom nothing will satisfy but the universal establishment of the kingdom of God; and it will be a token that the millennial sun is about to rise, diffusing health and gladness throughout every land! In order to this, one thing is absolutely essential-appropriate agency to carry on the prayer-meetings. In the absence of this, the effort will be a failure, and prove that the "set time to favour Zion" has not yet come. That we have an abundance of men possessing the grace of prayer, and requiring only a fresh baptism, cannot be doubted; and as to the gift, time, with exercise, will improve it. With a view to help on the great consummation, we have embodied and set forth a multitude of suggestions in the foregoing article, which, if duly attended to, may be useful. Again in all such meetings very much will depend on the hymnology. In the hands of Luther and his brother Reformers, this exceedingly contributed to the furtherance of the mighty work. Most hymn-books, however, now extant are either wholly wanting or greatly defective in such hymns as are specially suitable to revival meetings. To supply this want, we have set forth a larger and a richer selection than is to be found in any single compilation with which we are acquainted. All the churches, from the largest to the smallest, will here have hymns in abundance for the supply of Revival Prayer-meetings. If Pastors and Deacons will only condescend to use them, the members have simply to take with them their Magazines, and the arrangement will be complete; all fresh trouble and expense on that score will be obviated. HYMNS FOR REVIVAL PRAYERMEETINGS. I. Give us a reviving. Ezra ix. 9. 8. 7. 4. 1 Saviour, visit thy plantation; Grant us, Lord, a gracious rain; All will come to desolation, Should'st Thou not return again. Lord, revive us, All our help must come from Thee. 2 Keep no longer at a distance; Shine upon us from on high, 3 Let our mutual love be fervent, Make us prevalent in prayers; 4 Break the tempter's fatal power; II. They shall revive as the corn, &c. 10 God of Zion! from the skies, And make our joy and praise abound! III. Great joy in that city. Acts viii. 8. C. M. 2 The ministers of Christ rejoice, When souls receive the word- 3 The church of God their praises join, Thou wilt revive me. Ps. cxxxviii. 7. 1 Now may the Mighty Arm awake,` 2 Art Thou not still the same, O God! Wilt thou not revive us again? 1 Met, O God, to ask thy presence, 2 May thy people wake from slumber, VII. Our fathers have told us, &c. Ps. xliv. 1. 1 Lord, we have heard thy works of old, |