your own weakness and unworthiness. You were meeker, gentler, and less easily offended than formerly. You were afraid of anger, and of peevishness, and of all jangling, lest they should make all that was bad in the closet worse. You had neither time nor inclination to fret yourself about the trifles which vex those who care little about their souls. In a word, many of the best parts of your character, and of your habits in life, were actually formed whilst you were hanging between hope and despair, and groaning in spirit before the Lord.

I do not mean, of course, that your happier moments in prayer were less holy in their direct influence. Sweet communion with God in prayer is sure to have a sweet influence upon our temper and habits, because we have then something worth taking care of, and too valuable to be sacrificed for the sake of trifles. A man whose closet is really a Bethel, and whose heart is happy, in the consciousness of the divine presence, will do much and suffer much, rather than open the door of either to ill-humour, or useless pursuits. He

knows, by experience, how easily the veil is drawn upon the mercy-seat, and how difficult it is to undraw it again; and, therefore, watches both his temper and his habits, that they may not get between him and the "face of the throne." Indeed, he can neither indulge ill habits nor ill humours, whilst he maintains "fellowship with the Father, and with the Son." It is, therefore, no wonder that we refer to the help of the Holy Spirit those prayers chiefly which make us happiest, seeing they also make us holiest. Much, however, of their holy influence arises from the prior influence of "the groanings which cannot be uttered." They laid, or dug, the foundations of our religious character; and, but for these straits in prayer, we should either have not prized enlargement, or not improved it fully.

I thus remind you of the humbling and sanctifying influence of our speechless prayers, (which we did not think prayers at the time,) that you may see clearly their divine origin. They are the intercession of the Spirit, excited and sustained by Him, as the teacher and helper of the church.

H

THE ACTUAL

No. V.

PRESENCE

AND HELP OF THE

SPIRIT IN PRAYER.

WERE We fully aware of the full meaning of our words, when we say that God is the Hearer of prayer, Christ the Intercessor for prayer, and the Holy Spirit the Helper in prayer, we could not pray without deep solemnity and real pleasure. The amazing fact that the sacred Trinity unite in equal attention to prayer, could not fail, if duly weighed and vividly realized, to awe and animate our souls, whenever we knelt at the mercy-seat. alas! though in one sense quite familiar with this sweet and sublime fact, it is not often that we pray under its sweet and solemn influence. Accordingly, it is almost a new fact to us, both when we see it vividly presented by others, and when we ourselves enter

But,

into the spirit of it. Then, like Job, we resolve all our past impressions of God into "the hearing of the ear," and exclaim, "But now-mine eye seeth thee."

It is, indeed, humiliating to acknowledge that our realizing views of Father, Son, and Spirit, being equally interested in prayer, should be so few and far between. It is, however, only too true; and it is necessary to acknowledge it to ourselves fully, that we may set upon ascertaining its causes and cure. Many of its causes are, indeed, easily ascertained. We sometimes hurry into the presence of God, and even hurry over the duty of prayer. Instead of pausing to compose our spirits, or to collect our scattered thoughts by reading a portion of the Scriptures, we often enter at once upon the duty. In like manner, we do not in general expect to enjoy communion with God, nor to find much pleasure in our closets. We are even in danger of taking for granted that intimate communion with God is not often to be obtained.

We have heard it spoken of as a special privilege; and thus we imagine that it must, of

course,

be a rare thing. And when these misapprehensions and hurries are combined with any degree of a bad conscience towards God or man, it is no wonder that our realizing views of the divine presence are both few and feeble. For how could they be otherwise, whilst we expect little, and prepare less? Oh, it was not thus, it could not be thus, that the disciples entered their closets to pray, after the day of Pentecost! When they knew fully that the Spirit would help their infirmities, and that their ascended Lord would intercede for them, and that their heavenly Father would hear and answer prayer, they could not have knelt without awe, nor pleaded without hope. It was impossible, whilst these glorious facts were before them, in all their freshness, that they could be formal or heartless in devotion: for, next to the open vision of the throne of grace in heaven, is the vivid belief of the truth concerning that throne;-it is, indeed, "the evidence of things not seen, and the substance of things hoped for."

If you have not fully realized this, or if