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spair if we had to rely on ourselves alone to guard our souls' purity, and to carry them on in holiness. But we are not left to do this by ourselves alone. By prayer we may have the cooperation of the Infinite Spirit in our great work. By prayer we may have this blessed assurance brought home to our hearts, "My strength shall be sufficient for thee." Prayer may become to the experienced Christian the life, the happiness, the security of his soul in the paths of holiness and virtue. Notwithstanding this however, the work we have to do as spiritual beings,---the entering on and continuing in the spiritual life,---must be always a weighty and anxious charge upon our minds.

By the spiritual life we mean that state of the character in which the truths and concerns of the eternal world, ---those solemn revelations which are of infinite and unalterable importance to our souls,--are brought home to the mind with such force and impression as to powerfully and steadily affect and control the heart and the life, producing a great and radical change and enlargement in the views, feelings, desires and purposes. To bring us to live this spiritual life was the great purpose for which the Saviour came upon earth. Yet we shall never so much as enter upon it without efforts of our own,---especially without prayer. It is appointed that by prayer we should be introduced to the spiritual life,--or be born again. We entered on the animal life at our natural birth. By prayer, we must be born again into the spiritual life ;---by prayer, the faculties of ou spiritual nature must receive the direction to take hold

of divine things,---the enlargement to embrace them, not as shadows, but as realities;---by prayer, these spiritual ideas must come to be naturalized to the mind, so as to be at home there,---familiar to us,---gaining a hold on our affections and making themselves necessary to our happiness---by prayer, they must be brought to act on our characters, to renew and sanctify our hearts,-and thus to form us to a fitness for the spiritual world, to which we are hastening.

Spiritual conceptions, the invisible world,-truths unattested by our senses,―are indeed strange to us at first. There is a repugnance, a hesitation, a fearfulness in embracing them. They seem to have no reality,-nothing tangible for the mind, immersed in matter, to take hold of. Yet we may come at last, by the divine blessing, to perceive their reality and their infinite importance to our souls ;---and prayer is appointed to be our guide, and our helper in this great process of our minds. It is in the very nature of a life of prayer, to give us a relish for spiritual things,---to make us enjoy, more than any other employment of our thoughts, devout contemplations on the vast, sublime and incomprehensible truths which religion brings before us,---the infinite attributes of Jehovah, his perpetual presence with us, his searching knowledge of us,---the love of the Saviour for us---his heavenly character, his piety, his sufferings,---the eternal world,---our own destination,---the great judgment;---it is the very nature of prayer to bring these truths more powerfully home to our apprehension,---to make us feel that we have a deeper and

more enduring concern in them than in all earthly things,--to fix them in our minds with a stronger feeling of their reality and importance to us than all other truths,---making us look upon this world as a land of shadows,---its amusements as trifles,---and all its pursuits which are inconsistent with a preparation for heaven, as foreign to us, unworthy of us and only fastening clogs and hinderances on our souls in their upward progress. Now, if it is in the very nature of prayer to effect this right direction and enlargement of our views, purposes, and desires, we perceive that the difficulties in the way are not so great as we imagined; that, in our very endeavors to do our duty, we shall find the necessary strength to accomplish it; while, if we fail, the blame, as well as the bad consequences, must rest on ourselves. Our heavenly Father places our future destiny in our own hands. If we neglect to use the means he has appointed for our spiritual growth and enlargement, our souls,or spiritual natures---must remain dwarfish, stinted, and never attain to the stature of perfect men in Christ. Our spiritual faculties, unless used and cultivated, must sink into imbecility and décay, as naturally as our bodily powers decline and waste away without exercise. Prayer is the natural exercise of the soul, by which its energies are to be continually renewed, supported and enlarged. While therefore, with fear and trembling, we seek to work out our own salvation, let us, as our Father in heaven meant we should, implore his grace in earnest, persevering prayer. He is not the being that would then leave us to accomplish

our task alone. O no; He takes a gracious interest in our welfare; He will hear our cries for help and guidance; He will kindly work in us so as to lead us to become what he most desires we should be ;---pure, holy and fit for his presence. R. F. W.

INQUIRY OF THE TERRIFIED JAILER OF PHILIPPI.*

WHILE Paul and Silas were at Philippi, a chief city of Macedonia, Paul cast out of a female slave a spirit of divination, for which he and his companion were imprisoned. For greater security, they were thrust into the inner prison, and their feet were made fast in the stocks. In this miserable condition they prayed to God at midnight, and sang praises; and the other prisoners heard them. At that moment, amid the voice of prayer and praise, there suddenly came on so powerful an earthquake, that the foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened, and the bands of all were loosed.

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The jailer awoke; and when he saw the prison doors opened, he drew out his sword, and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. knew that if they had escaped, the Roman law condemned him to the same punishment,to which they were obnoxious. But Paul, apprehending his purpose, either from hearing in the dark some wild exclamation, or perhaps from

Acts xvi. 30.

the suggestion of the spirit with which he was inspired, cried with a loud voice: Do thyself no harm, for we are all here. Then the jailer called for a light, sprang in, that is, into the inner prison, came trembling, and fell before Paul and Silas; and when he had brought them out, he said with strong emotion: Sirs, what must I do to be saved?'

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This seems to be a very unexpected inquiry. What can the jailer have meant by the expression--to be saved? From such a character, under such circumstances, at such an hour, never was there a question more unaccountable. Suppose an American jailer in a similar predicaCan we imagine an address more strange or unlikely than this-what must I do to be saved? Should we not fear that the earthquake had affected the soundness of his mind? Our wonder, however, arises from attaching a wrong idea to the original term. The keeper of the prison, whom the voice of Paul had just rescued from self-murder, now asks with trembling eagerness, what must I do to be preserved or safe? to be preserved from blame? to “avoid punishment for what has befallen the prisoners and the prison?"-To suppose this terrified heathen inquiring what he should do to secure salvation in a future state, is extremely wild and improbable. What connexion has it with the narrative? What did he know of heaven, or the God of heaven? Quite a different consideration, something less abstract and of more immediate moment, awoke his anxiety and alarm.

The answer of Paul and Silas, indeed, is more extensive than the inquiry: it goes beyond personal safety to

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