2. Vigilantly guard against the beginning of every evil habit, in heart, intellect, or conduct. By watchfulness it is easy to prevent the first irregularity; but who can vanquish an evil habit? "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil." You may defend the Thermopyla by which the enemy would penetrate into your country; but when he has once entered and taken possession of all the strong-holds, who shall dislodge him? Paley says that some things ought to be done if for no other purpose than to preserve good habits. The preservation of these is a matter of incalculable importance; and the first step towards the breaking up of a good habit and the contracting of an evil one, should be guarded against with the most vigilant care.

3. Let your reading be safe. Not many novels, not a perpetual round of angry politics, not a constant poring upon theological errors. On the subject of religion, there are men who read little else than controversial writings, and always on that side which supports their preconceived opinions against the truth. This is a fatal course, and betrays a determined hatred of the light, and a resolute purpose to take shelter in impenetrable darkness. When the errors thus defended are cardinal, there is little chance that the miserable man will ever attain to salvation.

prayer-without thinking of him on whom you are so dependent-whose operations fill the world-who sustains heaven and earth and all their motions; to turn him out of the world which he has made, and to fill it with your thousand idols: how ungrateful, how awfully wicked, how desperately hazardous ! To think of breaking through and being happy without asking leave of God, when he commands every agent and every operation of nature- how daring, how insane! Yet all this does the man who casts off fear and restrains prayer.

These rules you will find it hard to keep with a fallen nature, and impossible unless you observe another; which leads me to say,

6. That in the outset you must devote your hearts and souls and lives to the service of God. Without doing this you will not pray effectually, and of course will have no security against one of these dangers. Without this you will be the enemies of God: and what security against any evil can an enemy of God have in a world which he governs? What security against the deepest evils in a world which the Son of God, for their redemption, bathed in his blood, and whose blood they are constantly trampling under foot? O my dear friends, you are under the greatest obligations to devote your hearts and souls and lives to the service of God. He is your Creator: he made you what you are, and owns you altogether. He is your Preserver: he sustains you and every fibre of your

5. Establish the settled habit of prayer. Without prayer you have no security against one of these dangers Without Christ you can do nothing. Without assistance from above you never will prevail against one temptation or one bad habit; and without prayer you cannot expect assistance from above. And then your obligations to God for all his mercies-to God in whom you "live, and move,

mortal soul, by his own deliberate purpose and by his own almighty power, continually. All the operations of nature around you, by which the world is filled with beauty and with bounty and with song, are nothing but the constant action of his goodness. No other eye watches over you when you sleep; no other arm bears you about by day; no other breast nourishes you and pillows your aching head. No other being "so loved the world as to give his onlybegotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." No other being is so

holy and just, or administers so right and so kind a government. In the service of no other being could you be so happy. No other frown is so terrible to enemies. He sent you into his world for no other purpose than to serve him. He supports you here for no other end. He watches you every moment to see whether you are faithful, or whether you have forgotten your errand into the world. And the time is rapidly approaching when you must give an account. O beloved youth, I expect to meet you at that awful bar, to hear your answers, and to give an account myself, respecting the four years we have been together. Those years are now with the years beyond the flood. The account is sealed up to the judg. ment of the great day. The seal will never be broken till that tremendous morning.

CHILDREN'S PRAYER.

A LITTLE girl, a Sunday-scholar in the north-east of London, had a father who neglected public worship and lived without God in the world. He was taken ill, and confined to his bed. One day during his illness he heard his daughter, who was only six years of age, come into his room accompanied by another of his children still younger. They supposed him to be asleep. The elder child said, "Our father's asleep, isn't he? Let us kneel down and ask God to change his heart, for we know that he is not fit to die." The father heard them in simple language pray for him. It so affected and impressed his mind that on his recovery he began | to attend a place of worship, and he is now a communicant at the chapel where his little girl went to school.

THE BLESSED.

Luke xi. 28.

I SAW young children playing,
And my heart was full of bliss,

For I know not midst the scenes of earth

A lovelier sight than this.

Like rose hearts glow'd each flush'd

cheek

With pleasure's richest hue And the warm blood lit the tell-tale brow,

Most eloquently true; Then my thoughts grew bright with joyfulness,

And sweet words were on my tongue, "How blessed are the innocent!

How blessed are the young!" But a voice, (like low flute music,)

My waken'd spirit heard, "Yea, rather are they bless'd

Who keep God's holy word." I look'd on life more earnestly,

With all its checker'd lot,

And saw how bitter weeds would spring

Where flowers of love were not
I learn'd to read the heart deeps,
Where mines of feeling glow,
To give a purer light to life,
Or fill it up with wo.
Then softly spake I to myself,

Ah, childhood's mirth is vain;
But how blessed are the loving
When their love is met again!"
Yet still that deep heart music,
Like a whisper round me stirr'd,
"Yea! rather are they bless'd
Who keep God's holy word."
I saw how men were toiling

All through their little day,
To win from earth the glittering wealth
That often leads astray;
And my heart and eyes grew weary

At this folly of mankind, For I saw how gold grew dim before

The brightness of the mind; Then I sang aloud triumphantly

What dazzled fancy taught, "How blessed are the gifted,

With their dower of burning thought;"

But a shadow fell among the light, And the music seem'd a sigh, When the world-adored, the worshipp'd

ones,

Were call'd upon-to die; Then I needed not that spirit-voice

To tell me how I err'd,

For I felt that they alone are blest Who keep God's holy word.