supplications unto Thee; and dost promise that when two or three are gathered together in thy name, Thou wilt grant their requests, fulfil now, O Lord, the desires and petitions of thy servants, as may be most expedient for them; granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth, and in the world to come life everlasting. Amen.”

CYPRIAN.

A

Cyprian was born at Carthage, about the beginning of the 3d century, and suffered martyrdom 258 A. D. He was of noble birth, conspicuous talents, and in his early days accustomed to the pleasures and splendor of wealth. study of the Scriptures and of the lives of the Christians completely changed his life to one of self-renunciation and sacrifice. He renounced Paganism, sold his gods, and gave their value to the poor. He became one of the most useful of the early Christian teachers and preachers.

On being appointed to martyrdom, he prayed: "God be thanked, who delivereth me at last from the chain of the body."

THE SO-CALLED PRAYERS OF ST. JAMES AND ST.

MARK.

Among the earliest collections of prayers in the early church are two which are traceable in their general form and substance to the 2d century; one of which had its supposed origin in the Christian church at Jerusalem, and the other in the church at Alexandria. As the name of St. James is conspicuously associated with the beginning of the church at Jerusalem, and St. Mark with the beginning of the church at Alexandria, these two collections are commonly known in the East as the Prayers (or Liturgies) of St. James and St. Mark; not from any certain association with the pens of these evangelists, but from the supposed connection with the churches that respectively bear their names.

The following fervent, majestic and inspiring prayer is from the collection which bears the name of St. James, and had its origin in the early church at Jerusalem:

"O God, the Father of our Lord and Sa viour Jesus Christ. Lord, whose name is great,

whose nature is blessful, whose goodness is inexhaustible, thou God and Maker of all things, who art blessed forever:

"Who sittest upon the Cherubim, and art glorified by the Seraphim:

"Before whom stand thousands of thousands and ten thousand times ten thousand, the hosts of holy Angels and Archangels :

"Sanctify, O Lord, our souls and bodies and spirits, and touch our apprehensions and search out our consciences, and cast out of us every evil thought, every base desire, all envy and pride and hypocrisy, all falsehood, all deceit, all worldly anxiety, all covetousness, vain glory and sloth, all malice, all wrath, all anger, all remembrance of injuries, all blasphemy, and every motive of the flesh and spirit that is contrary to thy holy will.

"And grant us, O Lord, the lover of men, with freedom, without condemnation, with pure heart and a contrite soul, without confusion of face, and with sanctified lips, boldly to call upon Thee our holy God and Father, who art in heaven."

A PRAYER FROM THE EASTERN LITURGY OF ST.

MARK.

"Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, Co-eternal word of the Father, made like to us but sin, for the salvation of our race:

us in all

"Enable us to be not only hearers of thine oracles, but also doers of the word; and to bring forth good fruit, thirty-fold and an hundredfold, that we may attain the kingdom

heaven.

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of

Speedily may thy compassion overtake us: "In Thee are our glad tidings, O Saviour and Guardian of our souls and bodies, and to Thee we ascribe all the glory.”