referred to some of our most ardent supplications; such, for example, as those for the conversion of our dearest relatives.

Other prayers, such as those for present grace against present dangers and temptations, we may expect to be "fulfilled now," but, as the rule, it as little becomes us to dictate to God as to time, as it does as to the manner of answering our prayers.

"The desires and petitions of thy servants." Our "petitions" should, but do not, always proceed from our "desires." The formal, hurried, cold prayer for what we do not much care to obtain, cannot proceed from those "desires" which ought to characterise our addresses to God for his favours. Even a friend would not care to grant us a request which he saw, by our manner of asking for it, we cared but little about. If any one, then, secretly complains that his public devotions usually leave his soul in much the same unwarmed, unstrengthened, uncomforted condition in which he commenced them, let him ask how far his "petitions" deserve the name of "desires"-the feelings arising from conscious wants.

"As may be most expedient for them."

This clause, openly uttered, or secretly implied, must qualify our prayers, whether public or private, "as may be most expedient for us." We do not know what is really good for us, at any one moment

of our probation. Deliverance from some supposed evil, which would be good for us at a future time, might prove a misfortune, if the prayer for it were "fulfilled now." It would not have been good for Joseph had God answered his prayer to be released from prison the day he entered it; nor Daniel from the lion's den, the hour he was cast into it. Time is always needed for discipline. Therefore, "Fulfil this petition now, O Lord,—if it is expedient for me," is a lawful and wise prayer. The qualified prayer saves the soul; the unqualified prayer would destroy it.

Under the heaviest pressure, too, the urgent words "fulfil now, O Lord, this desire and petition of thy servant," must be followed by patience. For the agencies by which God replies to prayer are all secretly conducted, and are oftentimes utterly remote from human processes. The means by which Joseph was delivered from prison lie almost out of the bounds of human invention. Grówth in any particular grace, regarded as answer to prayer, is only known by its fruits, in our actions, and not by our being conscious of inward processes, capable of description and de

monstration to others.

Hence, then, lying in the background of the greater number of our petitions, must be the qualifying words of this Collect,-"Fulfil them, O Lord, now, if it be expedient, of which thou only art the true judge."

Granting us in this world knowledge of thy truth."

There is no reservation attached to this petition, because a knowledge of God's truth is absolutely needful for our salvation. By this is meant a true knowledge of the character of God as holy and just; of his laws; of the nature and consequences of sin; of the methods by which God can now be just and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus; the repentance and faith which make the sacrifice of Christ available for individual salvation; the gift of the Holy Spirit to enlighen the human soul, enabling it to apprehend, and act upon those transcendental truths, which, lying wholly beyond the range of human experience, could not, without such aids, produce conviction in the mind :-these, and whatever other special truths as needful, or helpful to the soul's everlasting welfare, are included in this important petition, "granting us in this world a knowledge of thy truth.”

"And in the world to come, life everlasting."

The phrase "everlasting life," is confined in Scripture entirely to designate the reward of the just. This peculiarity will be seen at once by the contrast in Matt. xxv. 46. "And these shall go away unto everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal."

THE COLLECTS.

It has been supposed that these short prayers are called Collects "on account of their comprehensive brevity; the minister collecting into short forms the petitions of the people, which had been before divided between him and them by versicles and responses, and for this reason God is desired in some of them to hear the prayers and supplications of the people, though I think it is very probable that the Collects for the Sundays and holy days bear that name upon account that a great variety of them are evidently collected out of the Epistles and Gospels."WHEATLY.

The account which Wheatly in the above extract, gives of the brevity of these prayers, is thoroughly practical, and should be understood by such as use them.

"The reason why they"-(these prayers)—" are not carried on in one continued discourse, but divided into short collects, such as is that which our Lord himself composed, may be, that the Church might follow the example of our Lord, who best knew what kind of prayers were fitted for us to use. And, indeed, we cannot but find by our own experience, how difficult it is to keep our minds long intent upon anything, much more upon so great things as the object and subject of our prayers; and that do what we can, we are still liable to wanderings and distrac

tions, so that there is a kind of necessity to break off sometimes, that our thoughts being respited for awhile, may with more ease be fixed again, as it is necessary they should, so long as we are actually praying to the Supreme Being of the world.

"But besides, in order to the performing our devotions aright to the most high God, it is necessary that our souls should all along be possessed with due apprehensions of his greatness and glory, to which purpose our short prayers contribute very much. For every one of them beginning with some of the attributes or perfections of God, and so suggesting to us right apprehensions of him at first, it is easy to preserve them in our minds during the space of a short prayer, which in a long one would be too apt to scatter and vanish away.

"But one of the principal reasons why our public devotions are and should be divided into short collects, is this: our blessed Saviour we know hath often told us that whatsoever we ask the Father in his name, he will give it us, and so hath directed us in all our prayers to make use of his name, and to ask nothing but upon the account of his merits and mediation for us, upon which all our hopes and expectations from God do wholly depend. For this reason, therefore (as it always was, so now), it cannot but be judged necessary that the name of Christ be frequently in our prayers, that so we may up our hearts unto him, and rest our faith upon

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