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EXTRACT

FROM THE THIRD ADDRESS OF THE HERTS REFORMATION AND PROTESTANT ASSOCIATION.

LET us be assured of the certain triumph of the gospel of Christ over all its enemies; this will animate us to intercessory prayer. It is predicted of our Lord, He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth, and the isles shall wait for his law." Every changing scene of Providence, all the subtle schemes and politics of men, all the stubbornness of evil, all the temporary triumphs of his enemies, only prepare the way for the wider, deeper, fuller, and everlasting triumph of Christ our Lord over every Antichrist opposing his truth and grace, and all his purposes of love to man. In the assured conviction of this we are taught by our Lord to direct our first and chief prayers for this glorious issue, "Hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

It may further quicken us more largely and fully to unite in fervent prayer, to remember that the Papists have formed a Society to pray for the conversion of England to Popery. They profess to feel that prayer is the mightiest engine for working on the human mind, and they are putting this engine to work in their way, by addresses to the saints, and by idolatrous masses. Let their zeal, not according to knowledge, stir us up with scriptural wisdom and enlarged love, fervently to pray to the

Father of our spirits, the God who is a Spirit, and who reveals himself to us as light and love, and to whom we may always, by Christ, have access through one Spirit, that he would effectually succour his true church in these her last conflicts with his enemies.

The ways by which prayer will express itself are various and multiplied. It is not requisite here to enlarge upon these ways. All the passing events which come before us, such as the assembling of Parliament, the Queen's marriage, and public measures affecting our common Protestantism, will furnish the Christian with fresh occasions and calls for intercession. Let the same desire which marked the dying prayer of our good King, Edward VI. come more into our daily prayers, "O my Lord God, defend this realm from Papistry, and maintain the true religion, that we and all thy people may praise thy holy name, for thy Son Jesus Christ's sake." Private prayer in our closets is to be first attended to. In this we can freely enlarge according to our time, circumstances and knowledge, as Abraham did for Sodom, and Daniel and Ezra for the Jews. Earnest intercession, not only for our country and its deliverance from those sins which bring down God's displeasure, and that system of corruption and tyranny which is equally dishonourable to Christianity and enslaving to all its adherents, should first be made; we should also enlarge our prayers, that God's people, now immersed in Babylon (for never let us forget there are real Christians ensnared by this apostacy), may come out and be separate from it, and escape those last plagues which God has predicted. (Rev. xviii. 4.) Prayer in the family gives the Christian parent or master another opportunity of fulfilling this great duty. Let the welfare of the Protestant churches be more and more

thought of by us in domestic worship, and an increasing volume of prayer, like holy incense, ascend from all the families of the faithful through the land in behalf of our country. Prayer in social and religious Meetings, may well be made to include petitions and intercessions on a subject so vitally connected with our national prosperity, and the ultimate success of every other religious, or charitable, or social object of interest. In times of apostacy and avowed wickedness the servants of God should and will often meet together to encourage each other in God's ways, and they will be spared and blessed in doing so. (Mal. iii. 13—18.) In public worship the church of England has important Protestant anniversaries, especially the 5th of November and the Queen's Accession, when there are suitable prayers for those interesting occasions. Let those days be more observed by us. Our church also leads us constantly to pray that God would deliver us "from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism," which are the very characters of Popery in our country. It leads us also to pray that it may please God to "bring into the way of truth all such as have erred and are deceived;" and well may we include our erring brethren of the Roman church in such petitions.

Let us only really feel the unutterable and primary importance of that high and positive duty and that great privilege of prayer, which is in the power of every faithful Christian, and let us in all practicable ways "lift up everywhere holy hands without wrath and doubting,” and soon the present clouds would pass away, and the Sun of Righteousness in fuller splendour than ever shine on our beloved land, and make us the salt of the earth, and the light of the world.

CHARITABLE SOCIETIES.

No. I.

"THE poor ye have always with you," was the declaration of one who saw at a glance the world in all its conditions, present, past, and future, of happiness and misery. He knew, that so long as earth remained the abode of sin, it would also be the abode of sorrow; and that his people should ever meet in their pilgrimage some to claim their sympathy, some to whom, having freely received, they might freely give. And while he pleaded the cause of the poor, and preached his gospel peculiarly to the poor, never did he for a moment suggest the thought, that before the glory of the latter days a time would come, when the poor should cease out of the land.

More than eighteen centuries have passed away, and still there are poor. Their number is not smaller, nor their wants less pressing, in England than in Judæa. And the Redeemer's commands respecting them remain unrepealed, and shine in the same page with those promises of divine forgiveness, which form at once the motive and example for human mercy.

Christ has not changed-the Bible has not changed -the wants of the poor have not changed: but neither has man's nature changed. That still remains as

ever, cold and selfish, adorned with the name of Christianity, but uninfluenced by its power. So that except where heavenly grace has descended into the soul, or an uneasy conscience sought peace in its own efforts, men, though Christian in name, have left their poorer brethren as wretched and miserable as they were when heathen.

Still the gospel has shone amidst the darkness of human nature. It has illuminated and warmed many a heart, and melted the icy chains in which the breasts of men are bound by nature. Its unmeasured mercy has imparted something of its own kindly glow to all who have received it, rendering them, at least in will, lighthouses to cheer and gladden the world in which they are placed.

Every advance of true religion, every triumph of the gospel over the power of the prince of darkness, has a natural tendency to increase the number of those lighthouses, and brighten the lamp within them; so that in our age of scriptural knowledge we may well expect peculiar illustrations of Christian benevolence.

It is not, therefore, a matter of surprise that various societies for charitable purposes should spring up in every part of the land. We have a right to look for District Societies, and Benevolent Societies, and Clothing Societies, and other similar institutions, having for their object the relief of the spiritual or temporal necessities of our poorer brethren. It is scarcely a matter of congratulation that they exist; it were so deep a disgrace if they existed not.

The mere existence however of such societies is of little use, unless they effect their proper object. If in any respect their aim be wrong; if their princi