should strive to keep your will always in subjection to God's providential appointments; that you should ever depend upon him; that you ought not to slacken or faint in prayer, when you do use it; but continue the practice of it every day as long as you live, and as far as your state and condition will allow, independent of such other opportunities as God shall afford you." P. 16.

-The cultivation of a habit of prayer, as a means of spiritualizing and sanctifying temporal occupations, will naturally lead to a due improvement of those seasons of distinct and separate adoration, set apart by the command of God or the canons of the church. The propriety of imploring common blessings, and deprecating the common evils of life in the solemn service of the church, and in the place of public devotion, dignified by God himself with the special name of "my house of prayer," cannot be questioned. But there are other grounds for urging the practice of this duty.

"Public devotion is especially calculated by the influence of example to collect and rivet your wandering thoughts; to heighten your affections, by the sympathy you must feel in your addresses to the same God, made in the same language, and on the same subjects; to awaken the social affections and animate the best feelings of your natures. And who will deny, but that after the solemn dedication of your souls and bodies to God, and the acknowledgment of his will, as the common rule of your lives and actions, you must return to your homes better subjects, better citizens, better neighbours, and better Christians? Who will deny, but that this will render your religion more uniform, exemplary and profitable; that this will be to make your light shine to the glory of God, and to sanctify and bless that state of life unto which it hath pleased God to call you?" P. 20.

Mr. Collins next proceeds to the main purpose of his publication, an enforcement of the duty of family devotion, which he considers to have prevailed by Divine appointment from a very early period. There are, indeed, no express commands to be found in Scripture, which in direct terms enjoin this duty; but it is always spoken of as already established, and universally practised, therefore requiring no other injunction to support it than such as respected the times, mode, spirit, and universality of its exercise. The worship of the penates, or household gods; the domestic libations of the Gentile nations; the family sacrifices of Noah, Job, Ethanah, Jesse, and others, under the Jewish dispensation; the religious assemblies of the Apostles and those in the houses of Aquila and Nymphas, are evidences that household devotion was common to Jews, Gentiles, and Christians.

In the Lord's prayer we have an intimation of the same duty. It was evidently framed for social use, and inasmuch as it requires us to pray for daily bread, we infer that the petitionis to be daily offered; it was not therefore primarily intended for the church, because mankind generally are not, cannot be at church every day; "it is a household prayer, designed not so much for the individual or the public assembly, as for the family and domestic circle," p. 29. A yet stronger intimation, we think, may be found in those promises of our Saviour, " If two of you shall agree, &c. it shall be done for you." "When two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them," interpreted by St. Chrysostom to mean I will grant their requests.

Why then is family devotion so little practised? proceeds Mr. Collins, or if practised at all why is it limited to the Sabbathday? Do we not especially meet in the paths of business or pleasure those dangers and temptations with which in a world of sin, of sorrow, of difficulty and trial we are continually beset, and through which the superintending care of heaven alone can safely guide us. Surely the morning and evening of every returning day have, next to the Sabbath, the highest claims to the service of the creature for the Creator. The Scriptures, together with the voice of reason and of nature, inculcate this truth, did not gratitude alone enforce the duty; but

"When a family meets in the morning with health reunited, reason retained, and spirits refreshed; when parents receive their children, and children their parents, having just passed from a state of helpless insensibility, when no bed has proved a grave, when no accident, no enemy has approached to hurt." P. 37.

Can it be that the mercy is disregarded, and the miracle makes no impression? Does it not rather behove every individual to make open avowal of the suggestions of gratitude? "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits."

The propriety of renewing in the evening the sacrifice of prayer and praise, is perhaps even more strongly marked by the example of our Lord himself, who generally dedicated this season to the most solemn offices; and first appeared to his Apostles, after his resurrection, when they were engaged in evening prayer. In addition to the causes for thanksgiving, and the necessity of imploring protection, which operated on our morning devotions, we have in the evening the further motive of seeking pardon for sin. Where is the man who does not offend in some point every day of his life? Who can tell, but

that at midnight the cry may be heard, "Behold the bridegroom cometh, go ye out to meet him!"

The benefits resulting from a regular discharge of this duty are many and great; but are perhaps more rightly appreciated by experience, than by the testimony of others. It promotes a spirit of religion in the household, by setting the Lord constantly before them; it lays the surest foundation for a conscien→ tious discharge of the relative duties of life; it nourishes, in the intervals between the returning sabbaths, those holy impressions made by the Sunday's duties; it strengthens family affection, and draws closer the ties which bind in one interest the various members of the household; and as far as regards the young, and the dependants of a family, but especially the latter, it affords an assurance to those responsible for their spiritual welfare, that the duty of prayer is indeed performed. Not that social prayer is intended to supersede the devotion of the closet, which should occupy the first and last thoughts of each individual; but the limited means of religious instruction which some of the lower classes enjoy, and the temptations to carelessness and neglect in private religious exercises, to which those are exposed whose time is not at their own disposal, oblige their employers to facilitate their means of discharging this and every other their duty to God, by putting words in their mouths, praying with them and for them, and thus sanctifying the bonds which, in the economy of Providence, unite masters and servants,-those in authority with those whose duty it is to obey. Of the objections brought forward to excuse past neglect there is really little to be said. The principal, the absence of any express command to this duty, has been already considered. Fear of ridicule, want of time, are reasons so unworthy a professor of religion, that we must be constrained to believe with Mr. Collins, that it is in the coldness of their affections, in the want of inclination, not in the want of leisure, that the real hindrance to devotion lies.

"They love the world, therefore the love of the Father is not in them.' Believe me, there is nothing wanting but the will to break through all your seeming difficulties, and to place the weakness and futility of them in so glaring a light as shall prevent their being any longer impediments to the most essential of all duties. In fact you have all of you in your own power the ready means for compliance. You have only to keep good hours, and to pray for the will, only to regulate your time, and to bring with you the disposition." P. 76.

Of the prayers subjoined for the use of families and of individuals in various situations we need only say that they

"Have been compiled with much care from the devotional writings of the learned and pious Wake, Gibson, Wilson, Pearson, Kenn, Merrick, and Watts. Recourse has also been had to the more modern labours of Stonhouse, Paley, Cotterill, Warner, and others." Introd. v.

To this account of his own work, the author subjoins the following note: "There is an excellent Selection of Family Prayers,' by my estimable friend, the Rev. James Duke Coleridge, which cannot be too warmly recommended for general

use.

Christian Truth, explained in familiar Letters on the Tenets of the Church of England, &c. addressed to a Friend, and written at his Request. By the REV. C. POWLETT. Pp. 326. 9s. Booth. 1824. "CHRISTIAN TRUTH" is a subject vast, magnificent, and imposing: that it should be "explained in a series of familiar letters," will derogate nothing from its dignity; for it is to be considered, that to reach the heart of man is the object sought, and that the avenues to that heart are most commonly closed against lengthened dissertation and dry discussion. The title of the volume before us, is therefore, of the most promising kind; professing to blend the most important instruction with the liveliest illustration, and to engage the affections, if not the imagination, whilst it enlightens the understanding, and improves the heart. The Preface exhibits to us the author no way insensible to the magnitude of his undertaking.

"When I received the earnest request of my friend, to give such a statement of the Christian doctrines, as might make them so clear to his mind, that he could embrace them with thorough conviction and satisfaction, I knew this could not be done in a small compass. I considered, also, that if a well-disposed man, like him, could harbour a doubt on any of the tenets of the Church of England, others not sa intelligent, and not so serious, would still less understand the grounds on which the doctrines are founded, and still less comprehend the NECESSITY of FAITH. I therefore, resolved to exert the humble faculties which God has given me, and publish to the world the following Letters." P. iii.

Proceeding to the table of contents we find that the Letters are seven in number: I. On the Religion of the Heart. II. On the Trinity. III. On the Atonement. IV. On Regeneration. V. On Predestination, Election, and Reprobation.

VI. On indifference to Religion, and on the Duty of contending for the Faith. VII. Concluding and general. It could not but strike us that it must be a person of considerable confidence, as well as skill, that would voluntarily step forward to give "thorough conviction and satisfaction" upon all the points here mentioned, in the compass of a moderate octavo volume; and a certain line of our friend Horace would, in spite of ourselves, recur to our minds, "Quid dignum tanto feret hic promissor, &c."

The First Letter is merely preliminary, and contains some few remarks upon the indifference which is usually shewn by persons who have in no degree investigated the truth of the doctrines of their religion. The indifference but too generally observable in the deportment of many, who frequent our places of public worship, is accounted for on this principle.

The Second Letter" on the Trinity," begins with some observations on the "authenticity and divine inspiration of the Bible:" these however, we are told, are to be short; first, because no doubt is supposed to be entertained on the subject; and secondly, because it would be useless to present any arguments to those who "do not acknowledge the truth of St. Paul's asser tion, that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God." P. 20. This can hardly be intended to mean precisely what it ex presses; but we pass on. We find upon perusal of the whole chapter, for we are not let into the secret in any shorter way, that the method of "proof of the doctrine of the Trinity," which is taken up runs as follows:

First, Proof of the co-equal nature, and therefore divinity of the Three Persons from two texts of the New Testament; viz. Our Saviour's last command to his disciples, Matt. xxviii. 19. and the contested passage, 1 John v. 7.

In the consideration of the first of these texts, we meet with the following answer to the objection that the word "Trinity" is not to be found in the whole Bible.

"I do not recollect that the word morality,' is to be found in the Gospels; and yet, I believe, you will not deny that they contain the

We are anxious to relieve this "favourite lyric poet" from the imputation of wishing to check that warmth of admiration which is but a natural tribute to the sublime, as well we think as to the beautiful and the excellent. His precept "nil admirari," in the beginning of one of his confessedly prosaic epistles "need never be allowed to interfere with Mr. Powlett's admiration either of Bishop Horne or his writings. It is the enunciation of the greatest truth to which man ever attained in the absence of the light of Revelation," that "happiness consists not in strength and attenuation of excitement, but in preserving self-possession under all occurrences whether joyous or griev ous." "Nil admirari"' is, in the words of the Apostle, "Not to be afraid with any

amazement,"