mightiest efforts are profitless; without mighty efforts on our part, the heavenly influences are withheld. This truth confessedly pervades the whole system of practical and experimental religion; but we often overlook it in our times of need and perplexity, when it would give us an easy mastery of our difficulties. Let us make an application of it to the devotions of the closet.

The sincere Christian, in his approaches to the throne of grace, feels that his success is wholly dependent upon the Divine energy, through Jesus Christ. He has no claims to urge, no faithfulness to plead. He looks upon himself as utterly helpless and unworthy, and is persuaded that he must be renewed and sanctified by an efficiency which is wholly extraneous and beyond his own control. Self-abasement and self-renunciation fill his heart and dwell upon his tongue. Now it is not surprising if he is sometimes so fully occupied with these orthodox and befitting sentiments as wholly to forget another consideration equally just and hardly less important, that prayer is not an isolated single act, wholly independent of the other actions of his life. So far from it, it is intimately connected with his daily walk and conversation, and in a very material point of view, it is little else than a summing up before God his current history. The success of his devotions is far more dependent upon his habitual deport ment and tempers than upon any fervors or faith of the clos et. A day that has been spent in folly and sin can not be closed in profitable and consolatory devotion. It has reared up a barrier in the way of access to God. It may furnish many an affecting theme for confession and repentance-and forgiveness is never far from the humble penitent—but it is vain to imagine that there is in the Gospel any provision in virtue of which we may pass from the contaminating scenes of worldly pleasure into communion with the Holy Spirit. None but the watchful, the pure, and the painstaking can profit greatly by prayer. Prayer has no efficacy to atone for

the obliquities of a perverse life, nor can it find pardon for sins into which we have contentedly fallen to-day, and which we have no purpose to shun to-morrow. We know that God heareth not sinners."

Piety must reach somewhat beyond the closet. The whole life is a preparation for judgment, and each successive portion of it may be regarded as a preparation for that solemn account which a Christian exacts from himself, and renders to God at every recurring season of prayer. Devotion will be profitable according only as the deportment has been blameless and the motives pure.

What a contrast is observable in some professors between the earnestness of their prayers and the carelessness of their lives. They seem to imagine that the whole Christian warfare is a vocation of the closet. There, and there alone, they seek to nurture their Christian virtues, to mortify the deeds of the flesh, and to offer themselves a living sacrifice to God. In the common pursuits of life they are guided by common maxims, and animated by the common spirit. In the closet only they do the works of Him that hath called them.

They pray for grace to subdue the evil propensities which they voluntarily indulge throughout the rest of the day. They cherish pride, and pray for humility. They eagerly court the applause of the world, and make it the main element of their happiness, and pray for heavenly affections. They indulge in sinful tempers and passions, and pray, perhaps with strong cries and tears, to be made meek, and childlike, and patient. Parents pray that their children may be delivered from worldly vanities, and converted to God, and at the same time indulge them in all the frivolous and corrupting excesses of the fashionable world. And all this startling inconsistency is often united with the most perfect sincerity. Who has not seen it? What minister has not mourned over this tendency in professing Christians to disjoin their praying and their acting altogether, to give their devotions to God, and the rest

of their time to the world? There lies the great secret of barren devotions and unanswered prayers. We separate what God has joined together. We pray perhaps enough, and with sufficient fervor. There may be no want of confidence, which easily passes for faith. We are not ashamed of the cross, but rather glory in our Christian profession. What we lack is holy living. It is this want that spoils our prayers

in the sight of God. It is a good rule that the life should be ordered with special reference to the objects which we seek to obtain by prayer.

Do you desire humility? Watch, then, against the risings of pride, condescend to men of low estate, and meddle not with things that are too high for you. Do you pray to be delivered from covetousness? You will do so in vain if you at the same time give your nights and your days to the pursuit of wealth, remain unfeeling and penurious, unmindful of the starving poor and the perishing heathen. Do you pray for the sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit? Your prayer will be wholly in vain, if it be not accompanied with a denying of all ungodliness and worldly lusts, with unceasing watchfulness against anger, envy, and covetousness-with the diligent cultivation of all the fruits of the Spirit.

The Gospel is very plain and practical. It is accommodated, not indeed to the corruptions, but to the constitution of man; and it acts in admirable harmony with the laws of our moral and physical nature. For purposes infinitely wise and merciful, God has attached conditions to the bestowment of His gifts. In religion, as in nature, the richest blessings are denied to sloth and indifference, and are given to the willing and the obedient. Nor are they, on this account, less valuable and free, or less honorable to the Divine benevolence. Prayer, and faith, and salvation by Christ, have been mystified by the ingenious speculations of theologians, and still more by the perverseness of a practical Antinomianism; but, after all, who that has attempted to follow Christ in a sin

cere and intelligent obedience, has wandered far from the path of safety? Who that has made the New Testament the law of his life, and humbly offered his prayers in the name of Jesus, has been left to darkness and despair? Be assured, my brother, your unfruitful, comfortless devotions originate in the unholiness of your life. You are instructed in the way of truth. You are well read in doctrines. You have not attempted to lay another foundation than that which is laid-Christ Jesus our Lord. But with all your orthodoxy, your practice is sadly defective. The Gospel is designed for every-day use. Carry its unbending precepts with you into your shop, to the mar ket, to your farm. Let its meekness support you under provocation. Let its charity modify your opinions and cool your resentments. Exercise its forgiving temper toward your enemies, and cherish its strong sympathies for the souls of all men. Feel for the honor of Christ, and labor for the spread of the Gospel. Remember God all the day long, and let all things, even eating and drinking, be done to His glory. Let religion choose your associates and order your speech. Let it rule your household and train your children. See, then, if your prayers are any longer unavailing, if your comforts be few, if the Spirit be withheld, and the promises made of no effect. See if there be any longer a difficulty or a mystery in the exercise of filial confidence and saving faith in a crucified Redeemer with whom you have walked and communed all the day, and to whom you have rendered a sincere and cordial, though imperfect obedience.

XXXV.

ADVANTAGES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF DWELLERS IN CITIES.*

A city that is set on a hill can not be hid.--MAtt., v., 14.

IT should, I think, be esteemed a high privilege to spend one's days in a populous, thriving metropolitan city. All things considered, this must be regarded the most favorable situation for the satisfactory attainment of the great ends of our being. It is better, no doubt, for the physical constitution that infancy and childhood should be passed in the country; and our school-boy days are likely to be more pure, as well as more blithesome, spent amid green fields, and woodlands, and bubbling springs, and mountain breezes. When, however, this initiatory period of life is passed, and the body and mind are beyond these earlier stages of development, there is no field either for discipline, or action, or enjoyment like the thronged centres of population and business, where the battle of life is waged upon the largest scale, and the incentives to strenuous effort are ever the most urgent and significant. Not only the lower wants and necessities of man, but his more refined tastes and higher aspirations, find, in the metropolis, the readiest and most abundant means of gratification. In all that concerns personal dignity and mere external accomplishments, the citizen possesses similar advantages over the denizens of rural villages and agricultural districts. He has ever before him the best models for imitation; he acquires self-possession and ease by living in the public eye, and acting his part in the presence of spectators. Here are the

* Delivered in the Methodist Episcopal Church, in Ninth Street, New York, on the evening of January 3d, 1849.