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THE LORD'S PRAYER.

PERHAPS you are one who, having been well instructed in religion, have long been accustomed to pray your own prayers, to ask of God, and to thank Him in your own words, without difficulty. But all men who wish, and mean to pray, cannot do this. Some are so little of scholars, that they do not know how to pray for what they want in their own words. Most of these have been accustomed (if in the habit of praying at all) to repeat some prayer which they were taught in their infancy, probably the Lord's prayer; and they have said it over so often, that they are apt to begin at the beginning, and find themselves at the end of it, with no more in their thoughts than a general notion, that they have been doing something which God required of them. But this prayer, which they know so well, has every thing in it that a man can want to pray for in his utmost need, if he will but keep his heart up to the words, while he prays in them. There is not any thing a man ought to pray for, which he cannot make the Lord's prayer express for him by the help of his thoughts. Suppose that any one is living surrounded by wicked neighbours, himself plagued continually by their drunkenness, swearing, and riotous living. When he says, in the Lord's prayer, "Hallowed be thy name!-Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven," he expresses in the best manner he can his dislike of such doings, and asks God to deliver him and all others from the misery which comes from not doing GOD'S WILL, as the angels do in heaven, but doing SATAN'S WILL, as the devils do in hell.-Is he poor and needy, with a large family, for whom he has difficulty in providing, he need hardly be told that "Give us this day our daily bread," will express, not only his wants of that kind generally, but any particular want he wishes to have supplied, if it is but fit to

be asked of God.-Has he been guilty of any crime, fault, or even failing which he hopes may not be found written against him in the book at the last day?-no different form of words, which a scholar with the greatest devotion could pour forth, would better carry up to God this feeling of the heart, than the words, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us," which remind the petitioner, at the same time, that a forgiving, loving temper is expected of him, and that without it he must not hope to have his sins forgiven. What is there that a man dreads, be it loss of wife or children, or sickness, or danger, or crime, but he can feel that he asks God to save him from it, when he says, "Deliver us from evil." Moreover, there are other parts in the Lord's prayer, which, perhaps, ask for more than all Christians feel they wish to ask. By these a man may learn how far he comes short of what he ought to be. "Thy kingdom come," "lead us "lead us not into temptation," are not (like being kept from evil, and receiving the means of life) the expressions of any common wants of humanity, sure to be asked for by all who know that God made them, and that He alone can keep them. A man must have a deep sense of the sin and evil of this world, a lively hope for the next, to wish in his heart that this world and the fashion of it may give place to that other world where only GOD and HIS CHRIST reign. But if he has not this sense, he ought to have it. Such words, put by our Saviour into

the prayer He gave His disciples, show that a

true disciple has need of them, as well as of the rest, to express his desires to God. So that when a man has no heart to accompany this request, he may know that he thinks too much about this world, too little about the next. Not every man, even with the fear of God (which is the beginning of wisdom) before his eyes, wishes to be kept out of

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the that way lead him to sin. To be formay given when he has sinned, that, indeed, he wishes; but to be kept out of all temptation is the earnest desire of him only, who truly feels his own weakness to resist when he is tempted. But this desire, too, is part of the character of a true disciple of Christ, and stands where it is as a warning to all who say the "Lord's prayer," and feel it not. A. B.

That which is certain is, that the Spirit is the principle of a new life or a new birth: that Baptism is the laver of this new birth; that it is the seed of God, and may lie long in the furrows before it springs up: that from the faculty to the act the passage is not always sudden and quick that the Spirit is "the earnest of our inheritance;" that is, of resurrection to eternal life.—(Bp.) Jeremy Taylor.

There is a tempest in the soul of the passionate man, and though every wind does not shake the earth, nor rend trees up by the roots, yet we call it violent and ill weather, if it only makes a noise and is harmless.-(Bp.) Jeremy Taylor.

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"There liveth not in whom I have so good hope and trust, and in whom mine heart rejoiceth and my soul comforteth herself as in you; not one thousandth part so much for your learning, and what other gifts else you have, as that you will low by the ground, and walk in those things that the conscience may feel, and not in the imaginations of the brain; in fear, and not in boldness; in open necessary things, and not to pronounce or define of hid secrets, or things that neither help nor hinder, whether they be so or no; in unity, and not in seditious opinions."- "As lowliness of heart shall make you high with God, even so meekness of words shall make you sink into the hearts of men.”Tyndale.

The Churchman's

Monthly Companion.

APRIL, 1844.

THE SONS OF THE CHURCH.

II.

Death of St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, a Disciple of St. John's.

THE aged bishop, on the first notice of what was going on, had determined to stand at his post. He was, however, afterwards prevailed upon to retire to a farm not far from the town. Here he remained a day and a night in continual prayer, and having seen in a dream his pillow on fire, foretold to his attendants the manner of his approaching death. The vigour of the search compelled him to go to another farm, where the confession of a slave, who was put to the rack, disclosed his hiding-place. He was discovered resting in an upper chamber, late on a Friday evening. He might still have escaped along the roof, but instead of attempting this he cried, "The Lord's will be done," and went down stairs to his pursuers. He had done his duty in not tempting the Lord by a needless exposure of life, and was now set at liberty joyfully to welcome the death which was evidently his destiny. His venerable appearance and calm composure struck them with shame and sorrow, which would not be lessened, when, with the cheerful hos

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pitality of a bishop, he ordered meat and drink, as much as they would, to be set before them. He required from them, in return, but the indulgence of an hour for prayer. They allowed him two; and, heathens though they were, heard him with admiration, and even sorrow for their sad duty, as he offered up his prayers for all with whom he had ever held intercourse, for small and great, noble and ignoble, and for the universal Church throughout the world. Having mounted him upon an ass, they were conducting him to the city (Smyrna), when he was met by the tetrarch Herod, with his father Nicetas. They took him up into their chariot, and immediately began to persuade him to save his life by sacrificing. But when they could not prevail, they turned him out so roughly, that he injured his leg in his descent. Yet he walked on cheerfully, as if nothing had happened, towards the race-course.

As he entered, many of the faithful heard (as they assert) a voice from heaven, crying, "Be strong and have courage', Polycarp!" He here appeared at the tribunal of the Proconsul, who, as usual in such cases, began with mildness to persuade him to comply. He grew, however, more stern, as the conversation proceeded. "Swear by the fortune of Cæsar;" he said; "change your mind, and cry, 'Away with the Atheists!'"

Polycarp replied by a severe look at the crowd, and, waving his hand at them, as if tossing back to them that exclamation, cried out, "Away with the Atheists!" looking at the same time up to Heaven with a deep groan. On the Proconsul still insisting, and saying, "Swear, and I will release you. Revile Christ." He answered, "Eighty and six years have I been serving Him, and He hath done me no wrong. And how can I blaspheme my king, who hath brought me salvation?" Finding his firmness invincible, the

1 Deuter. xxxi. 7.

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