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his easily besetting sin! The little foxes creep in easily and spoil the vines. The worm that eats up cha

men and women sank down, down,
miles, before they rested on the
bottom! All done through the neglect
of Jim Spiker, who was too unfaith-racter,
ful to mend the hole made by the
broken nail.

There were watchings and anxieties by those on shore-all wondering why the richly-laden ship did not arrive. The cargo and ship were all gone, and many were made poor, because the broken nail was not replaced!

The wife waited long and tearfully for the husband-the children longed for the father who never came. The little hole had been left!

The poor widow, who depended on her only son, a kind, dutiful, manly youth, her stay and staff-looked out of her humble dwelling in vain. Her boy never came! The nail had been left broken!

Scores of homes were desolated, and many had their earthly hopes crushed by the sinking of that ship, and all because the little hole was left! Mrs. Teredo and her great family had never brought about all this ruin-had not Jim Spiker been unfaithful.

Oh! how often is a child ruined by some neglect, as to his temper,

He

and wrecks all the hopes of life, can crawl into a very small hole. A mother neglected to punish or even reprove her boy for stealing an egg, and that neglect, as he said on the gallows, brought him that shameful death. A single bow or a single smile may win the good-will of a child, that will lead him to Christ. A single visit to the sickchamber, to the Sabbath-school scholar a single conversation or a single word dropped may result in the salvation or the ruin of an im mortal soul. The spiritual Teredoes are multitudinous, and they enter any hole, however small, and sink the ship. All great effects grow out of small beginnings. The loosening of a single grain of sand may end in the sweeping away of the dam, carrying off the mills, and ruining a village. Beware of the first lewd word, the first profane expression, the first taste of strong drink, the first neglect of your Bible, the first neglect of prayer, the first breaking of the Sabbath. You are leaving holes for the Teredo family to ruin you for ever.

THE PREACHER'S PRAYER.

BY THE REV. C. H. SPURGEON.

"If we would reap in the pulpit, we must plough in the closet."

Or course the preacher is above all others distinguished as a man of prayer. He prays as an ordinary Christian, else he were a hypocrite. prays more than ordinary Christians, else he were disqualified for the office which he has undertaken. "It would be wholly monstrous," says Bernard, "for a man to be highest in office and lowest in soul; first in station and last in life."

All that a college course can do for a student is coarse and external, compared with the spiritual and delicate refinement obtained by communion with God. While the unformed minister is revolving upon the wheel of preparation, prayer is the tool of the great potter, by which he moulds the vessel. All our libraries and studies are mere emptiness, compared with our closets.

A certain Puritan divine, at a debate, was observed frequently to write upon the paper before him; upon others curiously seeking to read his notes, they found nothing upon the page but the words, "More light, Lord," "More light, Lord," repeated scores of times: a most suitable prayer for the student of the Word when preparing his discourse. The walls of his chamber were witnesses of his prayerfulness and of his tears, as well as of his cries.

Prayer will singularly assist you in the delivery of your sermon. None are so able to plead with men as those who have been wrestling with God on their behalf. It is said of Alleine, "He poured out his very heart in prayer and preaching. His supplications and his exhortations were so affectionate, so full of holy zeal, life, and vigour, that they quite overcame his hearers; he melted over them, so that he thawed and mollified, and sometimes dissolved the hardest hearts." A truly pathetic delivery, in which there is no affectation, but much affection, can only be the offspring of prayer. There is no rhetoric like that of the heart, and no school for learning is like the foot of the Cross. It were better that you never learned a rule of human oratory, but were full of the power of heaven-born love, than that you should master Quintilian, Cicero, and Aristotle, and remain without the apostolic anointing.

Often

As fresh springs of thought will frequently break up during preparation, in answer to prayer, so will it be in the delivery of the sermon. Most preachers who depend upon God's Spirit, will tell you that their freshest and best thoughts are not those which are premeditated, but ideas which come to them flying, as on the wings of angels-unexpected treasures, brought on a sudden by celestial hands, seeds of the flowers of paradise, wafted from the mountains of myrrh. and often, when I have felt hampered both in thought and expression, my secret groaning of heart has brought me relief, and I have enjoyed more than usual liberty. But how dare we pray in the battle, if we never cried to the Lord while buckling on the harness? The remembrance of his wrestling at home comforts the fettered preacher when in the pulpit. God will not desert us unless we have deserted Him. You, brethren, will find that prayer before preaching will insure you strength equal to your day.

As the tongues of fire came upon the apostles, when they sat watching and praying, even so will they come upon you. You will find yourselves, when you might perhaps have flagged, suddenly upborne as by a seraph's power. Wheels of fire will be fastened to your chariot, which had begun to drag right heavily, and angelic steeds will be in a moment harnessed to your fiery car, till you climb the heavens, like Elijah, in a rapture of flaming inspiration.

How often have some of us tossed to and fro upon our couch half the night, because of conscious shortcomings in our testimony! How frequently have we longed to rush back to the pulpit again, to say over again more vehemently what we have uttered in so cold a manner!

Like Joseph, the affectionate minister will seek where to weep.

His emotions, however freely he may express himself, will be pent up in the pulpit, and only in private prayer can he draw up the sluices and bid them pour forth. If we cannot prevail with men for God, we will at least endeavour to prevail with God for men. We cannot save them, or even persuade them to be saved, but we can at east bewail their madness, and entreat the interference of the Lord. Like Jeremiah, we can make it our resolve, "If ye will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride, and mine eyes shall weep sore and run down with tears." To such pathetic appeals the Lord's heart can never be indifferent; in due time the weeping intercessor will become the rejoicing winner of souls. There is a distinct connection between importunate agonizing and true success, even as between the travail and the birth, the sowing in tears and the reaping in joy. "How is it that your seed comes up so soon?" said one gardener to another. "Because I steep it," was the reply. We must steep all our teachings in tears, "when none but God is nigh," and their growth will surprise and delight us.

The man who is mighty in prayer may be a wall of fire around his country, her guardian angel and her shield. We have all heard how the enemies of the Protestant cause dreaded the prayers of Knox more than they feared an army of ten thousand men. The famous Welch was also a great intercessor for his country. He used to say, "He wondered how a Christian could lie in his bed all night, and not rise to pray." When his wife, fearing that he would take cold, followed him into the room into which he had withdrawn, she heard him pleading in broken sentences: "Lord, wilt thou not grant me Scotland ?" Oh, that we were thus wrestling at midnight, crying, "Lord, wilt Thou not grant us our hearers' souls ?"

Satan's kingdom fears not our rhetoric, our literature, or our orthodoxy; prayer is the master weapon, and the enemy quails before it. Vain are all our words till the word of the King comes with power to the conscience in answer to our prayers.

for

Could we read Jonathan Edwards' description of David Brainerd, and not blush? "His life," says Edwards, " shows the right way to success in the works of the ministry. He sought it as a resolute soldier seeks victory in a siege or battle; or as a man that runs a race a great prize. Animated with love to Christ and souls, how did he labour always fervently, not only in word and doctrine, in public and private, but in prayers day and night, wrestling with God in secret, and travailing in birth with unutterable groans and agonies, until Christ were formed in the hearts of the people to whom he was

sent!"

We not only ought to pray more, but we must. The fact is, the secret of all ministerial success lies in prevalence at the mercy-seat. One bright benison which private prayer brings down upon the ministry is an indescribable and inimitable something, better understood than named; it is a dew from the Lord, a Divine presence, which you will recognise at once, when I say it is " an unction from the Holy One."

The getting up of fervour in hearers by the simulation of it in the preacher is a loathsome deceit to be scorned by honest men. "To affect feeling," says Richard Cecil, "is nauseous and soon detected; but to feel is the readiest way to the hearts of others." Unction is a thing which you cannot manufacture, and its counterfeits are worse than worthless; yet it is in itself priceless, and beyond measure needful, if you would edify believers and bring sinners to Jesus. To the secret pleaders with God this secret is committed.

80.

Priceless as the gift of utterance may be, the practice of silence in some aspects far excels it. Do you think me a Quaker? Well; be it Herein I follow George Fox most lovingly; for I am persuaded that we most of us think too much of speech, which after all is but the shell of thought. Quiet contemplation, still worship, unuttered rapture, these are mine when my best jewels are before me. Brethren, rob not your hearts of the deep-sea joys; miss not the far-down life by for ever babbling among the broken shells and foaming surges of the shore.

It would be a great thing every now and then for brethren to spend a day or two with each other in real burning agony of prayer. Our seasons of fasting and prayer at the Tabernacle have been high days indeed; never has heaven's gate stood wider; never have our hearts been nearer the central glory. Even if our public work were laid aside to give us the space for special prayer, it might be a great gain to our Churches. Our silence might be better than our voices, if our solitude were spent with God.

ANNIE AND WILLIE'S PRAYER.

'Twas the eve before Christmas; "Good night," had been said,
And Annie and Willie had crept into bed;

There were tears on their pillows, and tears in their eyes,

And each little bosom was heavy with sighs

For to-night their stern father's command had been given,
That they should retire precisely at seven,

Instead of eight; for they troubled him more
With questions unheard of than ever before.

He had told them he thought this delusion a sin,

No such being as "Santa Claus" ever had been;

And he hoped, after this, he should never more hear

How he scrambled down chimneys with presents each year.

And this was the reason that two little heads
So restlessly tossed on their soft, downy beds.
Eight, nine, and the clock on the steeple tolled ten,—
Not a word had been spoken by either till then,-
When Willie's sad face from the blanket did peep,
And whispered, “Dear Annie, is you fast asleep?"
"Why, no, brother Willie," a sweet voice replies,
"I've tried it in vain, but I can't shut my eyes;

For, somehow, it makes me so sorry because
Dear papa has said there is no 'Santa Claus;'
Now we know that there is, and it can't be denied,
For he came every year before mamma died.

But then, I've been thinking that she used to pray,
And God would hear everything that mamma would say;
And perhaps she asked him to send Santa Claus here,
With the sacks full of presents he brought every year."
"Well, why tan't we pray dest as mamma did then,
And ask Him to send him with presents aden ?"
"I've been thinking so, too." And without a word more
Four little bare feet bounded out on the floor;

And four little knees the soft carpet pressed,

And two tiny hands were clasped close to each breast.

"Now Willie, you know we must firmly believe That the presents we ask for we're sure to receive; You must wait just as still till I say the 'Amen,'

And by that you will know that your turn has come then." "Dear Jesus, look down on my brother and me, And grant us the favour we are asking of Thee:

I want a wax dolly, a tea-set and ring,

And an ebony work-box that shuts with a spring;
Bless papa, dear Jesus, and cause him to see
That Santa Claus loves us far better than he;
Don't let him get fretful and angry again
At dear brother Willie and Annie, Amen!"
"Please, Desus, et Santa Taus tum down to-night,
And bring us some presents before it is ight,
I want he should dive me nice little sed,

With bright shiny runners and all painted yed;
A box full of tandy, a book and a toy,

Amen, and then, Desus, I will be a good boy."

Their prayers being ended, they raised up their heads,
And with hearts light and cheerful again sought their beds;
They were soon lost in slumber, both peaceful and deep,
And with fairies in Dreamland were roaming in sleep.

Eight, nine, and the little French clock had struck ten,
Ere the father had thought of his children again;
He seemed to hear Annie's half-suppressed sighs,
And to see the big tears stand in Willie's blue eyes.
"I was harsh with my darlings," he mentally said,
And should not have sent them so early to bed;
But then I was troubled-my feelings found vent,
For bank-stock to-day has gone down ten per cent.
But of course they've forgot their troubles ere this,
And that I denied them the thrice-asked for kiss;
But, just to make sure, I'll steal up to their door,
For I never spoke harsh to my darlings before."

So saying, he softly ascended the stairs,

And arrived at the door to hear both of their prayers.

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