vise wicked imaginations. Teach me to loathe and flee from these beginnings of evil, which debase the spirit, enfeeble the mind, and drown the soul in perdition. Enable me to put away uncleanness, and to glorify thee in my body and spirit, which are thine.

God of Justice, enter not into judgment with our land for the foul impurity which covers it. If thou wert strict to mark its iniquity, thou wouldst bring over it the besom of desolation, and make it a monument of reproach. O lead us, in thy mercy, to the use of such measures as shall subvert the dominion of licentiousness, and establish purity of heart, speech, and conduct. Lord, thou knowest whether the means which have been employed, by social and open action, for the suppression of that destroying vice, are according to thy holy will. If they are, O give them abundant success. But if they are not, cause them to be laid aside, and teach thy people what they may do that will secure thy blessing. Correct, elevate, and inform public opinion in relation to the destroying evils of lewdness. Put under the ban of universal condemnation the unchaste word, the licentious song, the impure page, the lascivious dance, and the dissolute play-house. Make the libertine a scorn and reproach in every society. O preserve those who are still pure; and let them not go down the pathways of disgrace and destruction. Convince and alarm those whose name is clean in the eyes of the world, but whose thoughts cherish unholy emotions, and whose hearts work uncleanness greedily. Recover those who have fistened to the song of the syren, and who go as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life who think not that many strong men

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have been slain by her, and that her house is the chambers of death, and that her guests are in the depths of hell. Cleanse our land and the world from this vile leprosy which destroys health, and happiness, and virtue: and bring over it a reformation that shall be total abstinence from impurity of every

name.

CHEERFULNESS.

Lord, make cheerfulness the habit of my temper. Enable me to pursue the happy mean between that mirth, the end of which is heaviness, and that sullenness, which is a canker upon personal comfort, a reproach upon social character, and a libel on divine goodness. Let not my spirit be soured by disappointment; nor be dejected by misfortune; nor be made morose by hostility. May I regard these as light afflictions, compared with a peevish and gloomy temper: which will corrupt my own pleasures, shed mildew on all my associations in life, and disparage thy grace. Show me that a cheerful mind will diffuse gladness over my pathways, scatter pleasure around those who journey with me, and glorify the mercy of God.

Gracious Parent, speak to me-"Son, be of good cheer: thy sins are forgiven thee." O how light would the crosses, and afflictions, and disasters of earth weigh on me, if I were conscious of guilt forgiven, and peace with heaven! Lord, grant that whilst I drink gladness from all the lawful sources of comfort around me, I may draw from the wells of salvation a living water, which the world can neither give nor take away.

CHILDREN.

Lord, I thank thee that thou dost suffer little children to come unto thee, and that thou dost ordain praise out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. I would praise thee that thy saving truth, while it is fitted to fill the minds of angels with the most exalted knowledge, can be learned, and understood, and felt by children; and that many such have known its power, and have spoken in their feeble accents of its excellence, both in their life and death, and are now enjoying the fruits of its redemption in the courts above. Lord, for the sake of the compassionate and prevailing Redeemer, increase that cloud of witnesses. May many remember their Creator in the days of their youth, and increase in wisdom and in favour with God. Be thou the guide of their youth, and satisfy them early with thy mercies, that they may rejoice and be glad all the days of their lives.

God of Grace, I would praise thee for what thou hast done and art doing, through the labours of thy people, for the rising generation. Multiply the number and increase the efficacy of these efforts. Enable parents to make an unreserved dedication of their offspring to the Lord, and train them up in the way they should go, that when they are old, they shall not depart from it. May all who have any influence over youth, devote their most zealous labours that they may be made wise unto salvation, through the faith which is in Christ Jesus. And grant, I pray thee, that thy Church may regard them as the hope of the world, and bend all her energies of faith, and love, and zeal, that the rising generation may be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

Heavenly Father, incline the hearts of children to fulfil their duties to their parents. Teach them that they are bound by the laws of natural affection, and the ties of gratitude, to honour their father and mother-which is also the will of God, and the first commandment with promise. O, how often are the authority and peace of parents disregarded or violated by those for whom they have spent their property, and time, and anxieties; and to whom they have looked for comfort and support in declining age. Lord, do thou make every child feel its obligations to keep its father's commandment, and to forsake not the law of its mother; but to bind them continually upon the heart, and to obey them in reverence and love.

Gracious Parent, look in mercy, I pray thee, on the ungodly children of the church. Lord, shall it be that many shall come from the north, and from the south, and from the east, and from the west, and sit down in the kingdom of heaven, while the children of the kingdom shall be cast out? Turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, until they shall all be households of faith.-But do thou regard, in special compassion, the impenitent offspring of the pious dead. Startle in their memory the echoes of long forgotten parental instructions; bring to their remembrance the images of long neglected examples of parental godliness. And, O let the prayers of these saints, which are kept by thee as odours in golden vials, be poured out before thee, until spirits redeemed shall see of the travail of their souls, and rejoice over their offspring, born again to an endless life.-[See EARLY PIETY, SABBATH SCHOOLS YOUTH.]

CHRISTMAS.

Heavenly Father, assist me to exercise those feelings of grateful devotion which are suitable to this day, which has been set apart by so many of thy followers, in memory of the birth of thy well-beloved Son. Grant me enlarged and soul-moving views of all that relates to the glorious plan of salvation through a Redeemer.

Unfold to my mind, I beseech thee, the deep depravity and lost estate into which our guilty race had fallen. The whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint: and from the sole of the foot even unto the head, there was no moral soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores ! All flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth; and the whole world was guilty before God. Lord, thou wast angry with the wicked every day : thy curse was in their house; and thy wrath treasured up for them perdition in the day of thy wrath. O, if thou hadst not laid help upon One, mighty to all men would have had their part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

save,

Gracious God, make me sensible of that love whereby thou didst give thine only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life-and which thou hast commended to us, in that while we were sinners, Christ died for us. Though thou hast shown thy lovingkindness in the works of creation, and in the developements of providence, in this thou hast gathered, as into a bright and burning centre, the matchless proof of thy good-will to man. O, the breadth, and length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge!