And let them not look for unattainable, by looking for unmingled bliss on earth: but remember that this is not our rest; and be prepared for difficulties, trials, changes, and final separation.

FOR A WOMAN APPROACHING THE TIME OF

TRAVAIL.

REGARD thine handmaid who is looking forward to an important hour. Be not Thou far from her when trouble is near. May her mind be kept in perfect peace, being stayed upon the God of her salvation. Bring to the birth, and give strength to bring forth. Soften the pains of labour, as well as command deliverance; and in due time, may she remember no more her anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world. And may the root and the branch, abide under the shade of the Almighty.

FOR ONE UNDER SICKNESS.

THINK, O God, for good upon the afflicted; especially him (or her) whom we now commend to thy compassionate regard. Comfort him upon the bed of languishing, and make all his bed in his sickness.

If the sickness be unto death, prepare him for the solemn event, and be with him in it. But we are allowed to implore deliverance, with submission; nothing is too hard for the Lord; Thou canst heal as well as wound-we therefore pray, if it be thy good pleasure, that Thou wilt put efficacy into the means; rebuke the disorder; renew the strength; and prolong the days of thy servant.

Above all, let the dispensation be sanctified to the suffe rer and his connexions; and may all have reason to acknowledge, in the review, It is good for me that 1 have been af flicted.

FOR A YOUTH GOING FROM HOME.
(If with a view to Business.)

O Gon, Thou appointest the bounds of our habitation; and arrangest all our individual concerns; and it is thy pleasure not only that we should part at death, but often separate in life. When absent from each other in body, may we be present in spirit; and may our natural affection be strengthened and sanctified by inquiry, and correspondence, and divine remembrance at the throne of grace.

Regard the member of our family, who is now leaving the

parental roof, and the parental wing. In all his ways may he acknowledge Thee; and be Thou the guide and the guard of his youth. Secure him from the paths of the destroyer, and the evils of the world. May uprightness preserve him. In the situation he will be called to fill, may he be dutiful, and obliging, and diligent, and faithful: may he always remember, that the eye of God is upon him; and be not only amiable, but pious; and in favour with God, as well as man. (If with a view to School.)

O THOU God of providence and grace, we commend to thy care the dear child, about to leave our abode for a season, in order to receive needful instruction. Let his (or her) life be precious in thy sight. May he redeem his time, and acquire the improvement that will fit him for usefulness, in his day and generation. And O, let him be made wise unto salvation; and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon him; that he may be a useful and ornamental member in thy church below, and hereafter a pillar in thy temple above, never more to go out.

FOR CHILDREN IN ORDINARY CIRCUMSTANCES. [All the Petitions need not be used at the same time.]

O GOD, Thou art the lovely Father of all mankind; Thou hast implanted in us the parental instincts; and commanded us to train up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord-we feel our awful responsibility, and often exclaim, Who is sufficient for these things? But Thou givest wisdom to the ignorant, and power to the faint. Aid, ( aid us, in discharging the duties we owe to those whom thou hast given us, and continued to us.

We give them up to Thee, who art able to fulfil all our petitions. Rescue them from the numberless accidents and diseases to which they are exposed. Let their tempers be lovely, and meek, and kind. Let their manners be simple and engaging. May they be respectful towards their superiors; obliging towards their equals; and condescending towards their inferiors.

Let not envy, and pride, and censoriousness, render them disdainful to others, and wretched in themselves. May they speak evil of no one-but upon their tongue, may there dwell the law of kindness. May they hate and abhor lying— with all deceit and hypocrisy.

May they be always willing to receive instruction; and be diligent in acquiring all the knowledge and improvement,

that may render them the blessings and ornaments of society. Keep them from evil company. If sinners entice them, may they never consent; but early may they take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, I will go with you, for I have heard that God is with you.

We seek not great things for them as to this world-but O, let them live in thy sight; let them be numbered with thy saints in glory everlasting; let them be blessed with all spiritual blessings, in heavenly places in Christ.

Instead of multiplying riches, and leaving them incentives to pride, and vanity, and idleness, and sensuality; and augmenting a thousand fold all the difficulties of their salvation -May we lay up for them treasure in heaven; may we be concerned to leave behind us, a large inheritance of prayers, and instructions, and examples with the blessing of God, that maketh rich, and addeth no sorrow with it.

If their parents should be taken away from them, when father and mother forsake them, may the Lord take them up. If they should be deprived of their father-be Thou the Father of the fatherless; or, should they be deprived of their mother-as one whom his mother comforteth, so do Thou comfort them.

Should they be removed from us, in early life, may the heavenly shepherd gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom; and may we be prepared to resign them. And, if, as we submissively implore, their lives should be prolonged-may they grow up, and prove our comfort and honour; serve thy generation according to thy will, and walk before Thee in the land of the living.

FOR CRIMINALS IN PRISON.

BEHOLD, in the greatness of thy mercy, those who are bound in affliction and iron, because they rebelled against the word of God. May they be led to reflect upon the evil of sin, in the degradation and misery to which it has reduced them. Give them repentance unto life, that they may acknowledge that Thou art just in all that is brought upon them, and be more concerned to obtain deliverance from the wrath to come, than exemption from the hand of civil justice. If, after lengthened confinement, they should be released, let them be rescued from the bondage of corruption, and partake of the glorious liberty of the sons of God; and if appointed unto death, O, hear the sighing of the prisoner, and though the flesh be destroyed, let the spirit be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

While we feel an abhorrence of sin, may we always display compassion for sinners; and be thankful that we have been exempted, by the favourableness of our condition in life, by pious relations, by education, by thy restraining and thy sanctifying grace, from so many temptations by which we might have been conquered. Who made us to differ from another; and what have we that we did not receive?

ADDRESSES

FOR

PARTICULAR SEASONS.

SPRING.

THOU art the fountain of life; in Thee we live, move, and have our being-and the prerogative of that being is, that we are able to contemplate thy perfections, and rise from thy works-to thyself.

Thou sendest forth thy Spirit; and renewest the face of the earth; and, from apparent death, all nature starts into re-animated vigour and joy. In what myriads of productions art Thou displaying afresh, the wonders of thy wisdom, powand goodness-the whole earth is full of thy riches.

er,

While we partake of the general sympathy and delight, may we join with all thy works to praise Thee. And, O Thou God of all grace, bless us with the renewing of the Holy Ghost, in all the powers of our souls. May old things pass away, and all become new in Christ: may the beauty of the Lord be upon us; and the joy of the Lord be our strength.

May the young remember, that they are now in the spring of life; and that this spring, once gone, returns no more. May they, therefore, eagerly seize, and zealously improve, the short, but all important season, for the cultivation of their minds, the formation of their habits, the correction of their tempers, their preparation for future usefulness, and their gaining that good part which shall not be taken away from them.

SUMMER.

We hail Thee in the varying aspects of the year, and bless Thee for all their appropriate influences and advantages. O, let us not view them and enjoy them as men only, but as christians also; and ever connect with them, the better blessings of thy grace.

How wise, and useful, and necessary, are these intermingled rains and sunbeams-may Jesus, as the Sun of righteousness, arise upon us, with healing under his wings; and may he come down as rain upon the mown grass, and as showers that water the earth.

When we walk by the cooling brook-may we think of that river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God. When we retire from the scorching warmth of the day, into the inviting shade-may we be thankful for a rest at noon, a shelter from the heat, the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.

May thy servants behold the moral fields, that are already white unto harvest, and be all anxiety to save the mul titudes, that are perishing for lack of knowledge.

The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few; we therefore pray, that Thou wilt send forth labourers into thy harvest.

He that gathereth in summer, is a wise son; he that sleepeth in harvest, is a son that causeth shame. Now is our accepted time, now is our day of salvation. O, let us not waste our precious privileges, and in a dying hour exclaim -The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.

AUTUMN.

How fleeting as well as varying, are the seasons of the year. How insensibly have the months of spring and summer vanished; and nature has no sooner attained its maturities, than we behold its declension and decay. The fields are now shorn of their produce; the beauties of the garden are whithered; the woods are changing their verdure, and the trees shedding their foliage-we also never continue in one stay. Many of our connexions and comforts have already dropped away from us; and the remaining are holden by a slender tenure; while we ourselves, do all fade as a leaf, and in a little time, our places will know us no more.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the announcement of an inheritance that fadeth not away.