or studies, or official employments, or the practice of courts, or even to ministries of healing, as physicians and pastors; what remains to them, but to reclaim from the hours when at last the world is at rest some of the time on which it keeps so tyrannous a hold? Verily these are they who, most of all men, have need to "redeem the time, because the days are evil."* It is indeed true, that multiplicity of labors and employments makes 'retirement very hard to obtain; but it makes it all the more necessary. All activity not controlled by the presence of God, has in it a tendency to withdraw the mind from Him, and to render it less open towards Him, less susceptible of passive impressions, and less conscious of an unseen presence. So, again, all excitements, not only of a worldly and corrupting sort, as pleasure, gaining, ambition, and the like, but even the purer kinds, are adverse to devotion. A highly intellectual habit of thought, such as students or professional men usually live in, has a very subtil effect on the mind: it makes it over-active; so that the stillness and fixedness necessary in prayer are irksome and peculiarly difficult. Also it tends to dry up and to deaden the affections, on which devotion is chiefly engrafted. This is true even of pastors, in the study of divine truth, and in the exercise of their spiritual ministry. Over-activity often leads to indevotion, and busy care about others to forgetfulness of our own soul. And if this be true of us, how much more of those whose lot is cast in the world, and whose scene of toil is among the snares and secularities of life! But into this I will not go farther now; we shall have need to come back to it hereafter. All that it is necessary to say is, that the common excuse made by even well-meaning people for their low habits of devotion, is no excuse at all: rather, all the

* Ephes. v. 16.

force it has is on the other side, in the way of warning and admonition. Alas for the man that is too busy to pray; for he is too busy to be saved.

3. But once more. It may be said, "All this proves too much; for if it prove any thing, it proves that we ought to give up our natural rest and our night's sleep, and to break the common habits of a regular life in a way that health and sound discretion, and almost the humility which avoids singularities and extremes, would equally forbid." It may be asked, "Do you literally mean, that we ought ever to 'continue the whole night in prayer?' for if not, do you not give up the argument and the example; and then what measure of time will you fix?" It may not be amiss to say, that better men than ourselves, and that in all times, have seen reason to take these words even to the letter; and their lives have been a witness to their sound discretion, and to their humility. The very name of vigil, which the Church puts into our mouths, has some deeper and fuller meaning than we are wont to give it. This is an age of metaphors and accommodations: words once realities are now but figures, symbols of vague notions. Now-a-days a vigil is the evening before a Feast, in which men used in early times to watch and pray; and it stands for the duty of watchfulness. We have grown to be great masters of defining by glosses and parables. This at least may be said: there are many of us who would think it reasonable and discreet to spend a whole night in study, or writing, or in conversation, or in the levities of the world, or in travelling; who have done and still do this, and yet have never passed a night in contemplation and prayer, and would think it extravagant to do so. My object in saying this is, to show in what unequal scales even fair and religious people weigh these things. Is it not true, that people who would, without

a word, travel many nights together for business or amusement, would positively resent the notion of spending even a few hours of Christmas or Easter Eve in prayer and selfexamination? However, it is enough for the present purpose to say, that whosoever would live a life of prayer, must spend no small part of every day in praying. There is no art or science, no practice or faculty of which the human mind is capable, that demands for its acquirement so much time as a habit of prayer. One of the chief reasons why we find it so hard to pray, one of the chief causes of all our distraction, wandering, and indevotion, is, the infrequency and shortness of our prayers. It is indeed true, that prayer is in one sense a gift of God: He pours out on whomsoever He will "the spirit of grace and supplications; "*"the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." Nevertheless, the same is equally 'true of purity and humility; they both are gifts of grace, yet subjected to the conditions of our nature, and to be made our own by discipline and in time. So it is with prayer. And, indeed, if we will but consider what the act of prayer is, we shall see that, of all the spiritual powers of the regenerate soul, it is the highest and most nearly akin to perfection. It is no less than speaking with God under a consciousness of His presence, with kindled desires, and a submitted will. It implies the presence and energy of faith, love, and repentance. Such as we are, such our prayers will be. It is the unfolding of ourselves in God's sight; and there must needs go before it and with it a knowledge of ourselves, founded on habitual self-examination. And for this, stated and not short seasons of silence † Rom. viii. 26.

Zech. xii. 10.

and retirement in the presence of God are absolutely needed.

Now what is actually the state of most people? They pray twice in the day. Their prayers are, for the most part, certain fixed and ever-recurring forms of devotion; in themselves good, but necessarily general both in confession and petition. These prayers are said over with more or less of attention, desire, feeling, and emotion. They take, it may be, a quarter of an hour in the morning, and the same at night. They are often not preceded by conscious preparation, nor followed by prescribed acts of reflection. They are parentheses in the day, which will not read into the context of life, but are entered and left by a sensible transition of the mind. To this, perhaps, is added, in most cases, a reading of the Bible once in the course of the day. With some there lingers still the remains of an excellent and most significant practice of reading the appointed Psalms and Lessons-a memorial of better times, and an unconscious act of unity, in spirit and intention, with those who daily pray before the altars of the Church. Now the time spent in these habits is half an hour in prayer, and perhaps the same in reading. If to this be added family prayers, a quarter of an hour in the morning, and the same at night, I believe we shall have taken no unfavorable sample of the measure of time given to their daily prayers by persons even of a serious and religious character. It cannot be doubted that such people would pass for devout persons; nor will I, which God forbid, gainsay their claim to be so esteemed. But what does it come to, after all? One hour and a half in every twentyfour. And how are the rest allotted? Nine or ten to sleep and its circumstantials, two or three hours spent over food; four or five, that is, whole mornings and whole evenings,

given up to conversation, visits, amusements, and what the world calls society; the rest consumed in various employments of various degrees of nearness to, or remoteness from, the presence and thought of God. Now, assuredly, if this world were not a fallen world, if all its spontaneous daily movements were in harmony with the will of God and the state beyond the grave, there would be no harm in resting upon those movements, and in being borne along with them. But if it be indeed a world fallen from God; and if in its fairest forms it be still, at least by privation of righteousness, sinful in His sight, then to live in it as if it were not fallen cannot but estrange us from real communion with Him. An hour and a half of better thoughts in every day will not disinfect our hearts, and counterwork the perpetual and transforming action of the world in all the rest of our time. In this point, busy and toilworn people have an advantage over the more leisurely; for business and labor are a part of the fall, and have in them chastisement and humiliation. There is great danger, in cases like that which I have taken, lest such minds, though in many ways blameless and pure, should be strangers to the deeper things of God, and to the realities of compunction and devotion.

To the case I have supposed, one more point may be added: I mean, attendance at the daily prayers of the Church. Measured by time, this adds somewhat more than another hour in the day; but after all, what is it? Not so much as three hours for God, and one-and-twenty for ourselves. Alas for us! what would they judge of us, those saints of old, who wore the very stones with their perpetual kneelings? What would they say of our distribution of time? Would they acknowledge us among the number of those that pray? What would they answer to