Prayer should be social. There should be meetings for prayer, upon the principle of devotion being enlivened by the sympathy of mind with mind. Some blessings are promised only to united prayer. "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven,' Matt. xviii. 19. "When ye pray, say, Our Father," Luke xi. 2. The church prayed successfully in the house of the mother of Mark, for the liberation of Peter; and the apostles, continuing in prayer "with one accord," received the Pentecostal effusion.

Family devotion is a branch of social prayer. A family whose collective wants, desires, and penitential confessions are not expressed in prayer, is identified with a heathen one, whatever be the private conduct of some of its members. "Pour out thy fury upon the heathen that know thee not, and upon the families that call not on thy name," Jer. x. 25. Christians are redeemed to be "priests unto God and the Father," Rev. i. 6. Is that a Christian family that has no officiating priest? Some plead the want of gifts. They have not words. What, not with all the Scriptures for their use?

"Have you no words? Ah, think again :

Words flow apace when we complain.'

Prayer should be intercessory. God, the Author of all his gifts, dispenses them in the way he chooses. His best blessings are often communicated to others in connection with the prayers of his own people. Thus he honours them, and forms new ties, sacred and tender, between them, and those benefited by their intercessions. For the church, for our friends, for the world at large, we should thus pray. This intercession should be for their spiritual benefit, chiefly and earnestly. We may thus most eminently promote the glory of God. When Edward 111. received the hostages of Calais, with halters on their necks, Philippa, his queen, fell on her knees, and ceased not entreating for their lives, till her request was granted. "By this means," says the historian, "she advanced the glory of Edward, and became afterwards more beloved by him than ever.

Definitiveness in prayer is most desirable. He that prays for many things at once, is not likely to feel strongly after any. Desire must be concentrated to be ardent. Almost

all successful prayers recorded in Scripture are for definite blessings. Paul's prayer in the buffetings of Satan, and the Saviour's in his agony, will immediately occur to us. See, in the Psalms of David, what long prayers for one particular object! This collected and internal musing on the matter was the fire which made the fuel of devotion burn. The words then ascended to heaven, and the suit prevailed.

Finally, there must be perseverance. Our suit has doubtless often failed at the throne of grace, by our fainting and drawing back. Foolish mariner, to take down his sails just as the breeze was rising, that would have carried him into port. Who, with the parable before him of the widow importuning the unjust judge (Luke xviii. 1—8), and the fact of the Syrophenician's method of succeeding with the Saviour (Mark vii. 25-30), can either expect to succeed without importunity, or doubt of success with it.

A widow, poor, forlorn, oppress'd,
Importunate, her suit can gain;
And shall not we our joint request
By persevering prayer obtain?

A stranger to the judge she was,

But we God's chosen people are ;
And, wishing us to gain our cause,
Himself doth all our burdens bear.
To an unrighteous judge she came,
But to a righteous Father we,
That bids us confidently claim
His grace, for needy sinners free.

The widow's and the orphan's Friend
Kindly commands us to draw nigh;
And, lo, our hearts to heaven ascend,
And boldly, Abba, Father, cry.

She had no promise to succeed,

And but at times could find access;
Encouraged we, and sure to speed,

Both day and night our suit may press.

Her vehemence did the judge provoke ;
But God our earnestness approves,
Watches our every sigh and look,
And most the boldest suitor loves.

She had no friend or patron kind

To enforce and make her suit his own;

But we a powerful Spokesman find
Before us at the Father's throne.

Our Advocate for ever lives

For us in heaven to intercede;
For us the Comforter receives

And sends him in our hearts to plead.

A FRIGHTENED DISCIPLE.

HE was frightened by a cloud! The precious privileges of the sabbath would commence in an hour or two. But that cloud! It did not look good-natured. There was no thunder or lightning about it, but then there might be water; and if there was, and if it should let the travellers below know it by an actual descent of rain, and he should happen to be one of the number, how lamentable! He might get wet! It was a terrible thought. I have read of an ancient disciple who was a night and a day in the deep," and yet he was not frightened by it. It would take more water than there was in all the ocean to frighten him. But the danger, not very pressing either, of a little sprinkling, did the work for the man I am noticing.

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A supposition frightened him. The hour of the prayer meeting was approaching. It was in his mind to go, but a supposition started up, like a serpent out of the grass. "I may be called on to pray. I do not feel disposed to do so. I do not think I could offer a prayer in my present state. I will not go." The supposition stalked like a frightful spectre before him. It palsied his purpose, and his seat was vacant. I believe many have been frightened from such meetings in the same way. I should like to see a group of them give, each in turn, his views of the passage: "Men ought always to pray, and not faint."

Hard words gave our disciple a fright. Wicked men know how to use this species of artillery against faithful saints, and the disciple in my eye had it tried on him. And I was sad at the result. It made him droop. He was evidently alarmed, for he took some things back, both true and good, which he had said, and shrunk from saying or doing others to which the Bible and conscience both urged him. I wish he could have had a campaign with Paul. Hard words, like flint upon steel, did but strike out the fire in the good old soldier's soul; they roused him not to give hard words back again, but to love and pray the more for his enemies, and to go the more zealously onward in his Master's cause. If hard words could

have frightened Paul, he would have been in a fright most of his Christian life; but I will thank the man that will show me the instance in which they caused alarm.

A proposed charitable collection gave our disciple something of a fright. It was thought that he bore relationship to One who had sent him word that "it was more blessed to give than to receive," and who had set the example of the blessedness of giving, in that "He gave himself for us;" it was thought the disciple would have felt that such a relation to such a Giver would have made charitable giving a very pleasant affair, and that there could have been nothing frightful about it. But it seems that any blessedness in giving, to say nothing about more, was not a matter he well understood, and the example of his Lord was to him but a dimly seen star; and, in fact, one not often in his horizon at all. Hence he was uneasy if a collection or contribution box was on a pilgrimage in his vicinity. I never heard that he made a bodily escape in terror on any such occasion; but his soul had wings, and fled from the object whose claims were presented. And if his soul was as empty as the charity box would be if all were like him, a very small pair of wings would suffice to carry so small and empty a soul from the regions of benevolence.

"IN A STRAIT BETWIXT TWO."

1. CLINGING TO EARTH.

Oн, do not let me die! the earth is bright,
And I am earthly, so I love it well;
Though heaven is holier, all replete with light,
Yet I am frail, and with frail things would dwell.

I cannot die! The flowers of earthly love

Shed their rich fragrance on a kindred heart;
There may be purer, brighter flowers above,

Yet with all these 'twould be too hard to part.

I dream of heaven, and well I love those dreams,
They scatter sunlight on my varying way;
But 'mid the clouds of earth are priceless gleams
Of brightness, and on earth oh let me stay.

It is not that my lot is void of gloom,

That sadness never circles round my heart;
Nor that I fear the darkness of the tomb,

That I would never from the earth depart.

"Tis that I love the world, its cares, its sorrows,

Its bounding hopes, its feelings fresh and warm,
Each cloud it wears, and every light it borrows,
Loves, wishes, fears, the sunshine and the storm;

I love them all; but closer still the loving
Twine with my being's chords and make my life;
And while within this sunlight I am moving,

I well can bide the storms of worldly strife.

Then do not let me die! for earth is bright,
And I am earthly, so I love it well:
Heaven is a land of holiness and light;
But I am frail, and with the frail would dwell.

II.-ASPIRING TO HEAVEN.

YET, let me die! Am I of heav'nly birth,
And shall I cleave to sin and death and hell,
Loving the stain they cast on all the earth?
Oh, make me pure, with pure ones e'er to dwell.

I long to die. The flowers of earthly love,
Fair, frail, spring blossoms, early droop and die ;
But all their fragrance is exhaled above,
Upon our spirits evermore to lie.

Life is a dream, a bright but fleeting dream,
I can but love; but then my soul awakes,
And from the mist of earthliness a gleam

Of heavenly light, of truth immortal, breaks.

But heaven is dearer. There I have my treasure;
There angels fold in love their snowy wings;
There sainted lips chant in celestial measure,
And spirit fingers stray o'er heaven-wrought strings.

There loving eyes are to the portals straying;
There arms extend, a wanderer to enfold;
There waits a dearer, holier One, arraying
His own in spotless robes and crowns of gold.

Then let me die. My spirit longs for heaven,
In that pure bosom evermore to rest;

But if to labour longer here be given,

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"Father, thy will be done!" and I am blest.

FANNY FORESTER.