to the petition of his servant, "Should ten righteous men be found there, I will not destroy it for ten's sake." But, in these populous cities, ten righteous persons could not be found. Therefore, on the morrow at sunrise, the Lord gathered his thunder-clouds and sent his lightnings forth to ignite the inflammable materials, upon and of which the cities were built. Over-head, was the cloud of vengeance with its electric flash and appalling thunders; below, the ignited bitumen rising in flames; and, to complete the confusion and dismay of the inhabitants, an earthquake rends the plain, and sulphur and fire are showered from their native mountains, covering man and beast-blotting out this fruitful and populous district from the map of future history, and leaving an enduring monument of the vengeance of Heaven on the sins of mankind. The fact of the miracle, is evidenced by the expression of the purpose of God; for if ten righteous men had existed amid the thousands of their wicked brethren, these cities would, like Nineveh, have been preserved from their merited destruction. Let me adduce only another preparatory illustrative fact. Cast your eyes on those mounds of ruin, on the banks of the Euphrates, covering the vale of Shinar, where once stood the golden city of Babylon. Reflect on the period when that city was "the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency," built on massive foundations, guarded by impregnable ramparts, and scorning the attacks of hostile armics; when all within and around promised security and permanence. Then the voice of a prophet of the Most High proclaimed aloud amid its mocking multitudes, "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." This prediction was not only uttered, but written; yet, many years passed away, and no symptoms of the coming calamity was seen or apprehended. At length the armies of the Mede line the banks of its guardian river, threatening its conquest by famine or storm. But in full consciousness of superabundant provision and of the impregnability of their walls, its inhabitants laughed to scorn the assaults which even the assailants, in process of time, began to consider unavailing. At length the voice of triumphant revelry echoes through the streets and palaces-the sentinels, in drunken repose, sleep on the walls-the foes steal silently in through an unguarded entrance and, in a short hour, the blood of slaughtered thousands flows along the streets, and the flames of burning cottage and palace ascend the skies. Still for centuries the complete fulfilment of the prediction tarried. But at last the molten lava-streams come rolling fiercely onwards; the "broad foundations of Babylon are shaken as wheat, and the dust of her mortar rises as a cloud of chaff," her proud towers are hurled to the earth, and seared with fire that issues from its bosom. Nothing now is to be seen but heaps of vitrified brick and mortar, realizing the denunciation of the prophet, "I will make thee as a burnt mountain. Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground, there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans." Here, then, are two events, foretold, and accomplished as foretold, attested by geological facts visible at the present day; and we discover a perfect congruity between the latter and the Scriptural narrative. i We are hence prepared to expect, that such an event as the Deluge is recorded to have been, should have left apparent, upon the surface of the earth, certain traces of its devouring progress. The principal facts recorded in Scripture, relating to this event, are these:-"The waters increased greatly and prevailed upon the earth, and the ark went upon the face of the waters; the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heavens were covered; all flesh died that moved upon the face of the earth; the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days; on the seventh month the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat; and on the tenth month the tops of the mountains were seen." To the circumstance of the ark resting on Ararat, a mountain rising upwards of one thousand five hundred feet before it becomes covered with eternal snow, traditionary record, believed in by the Armenians, Persians, and many other eastern nations, bears strongly corroborative evidence. If the waters, then, covered the top of these hills for fifteen cubits or twenty-two and a-half feet above them, the deluge could not, by any possibility, have been partial. Again, had the deluge been but partial, the winged messenger of hope sent forth by Noah would readily have discovered the land beyond. For when birds travel across an ocean, instinct prompts them to take a lofty flight, that, from a commanding eminence, they may discover the far distant land whither they are winging their course. Again, in the second epistle of Peter, we have the fact of the universality of the deluge, strikingly implied in these words,-" Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with waters, perished; but the heavens and earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.' Thus far, then, Scripture is our warrant for believing in the event and its universality. We shall now proceed to the test demanded by our modern geologists, and adduce strongly confirmatory proofs, from the traditions of various nations*—the arrangement of the surface strata-the collection and collocation of bones-and the banks and shores of our rivers and seas. In examining the traditionary records of various nations regarding some great aqueous catastrophe, we may expect to find differences in the mode of relation, secing that, in many countries, the facts have been transmitted through successive generations of men ignorant and superstitious,—the natural consequence of which is the gradual loss of their distinctive character, by becoming mixed up with superstitious legends and poetry. Humboldt, when among the Red Indians of the Orinoco, was surprised and delighted at the glowing descriptions of the deluge given by this people, in connection with the most absurd legends regarding the origin and distribution of mankind. In noticing this circumstance, he remarks, that these ancient traditions of the human race dispersed over the face of the globe, like the fragments of a vast shipwreck, are of great use in the philosophical study of our species, and present, among all nations, a resemblance that fills us with astonishment. Ellis, in his "Polynesian Researches," takes notice of a similar tradition among the barbarous tribes of the islands in the Pacific. The Chinese, in their * See SCOTTISH CHRISTIAN HERALD, vol. i., p. 373. historical writings, relate that their first king, Fohi, had no father, that his mother conceived him while she was encompassed with a rainbow, at a time when their land was overflowed with water. The Parsees, successors to the Magi, in one of the sacred books at. tached to their Zendavesta, wildly, but obviously allude to the event in question. The Sanscrit writers of Hindustan, bear testimony to it in their great poem Mahabharat, in their Paranas, and Vedas. Berosus, the Babylonish historian, and Abydenus, reco d it in their histories of the Medes and Persians. Nonus who was born in Persepolis, in the fifth century, in his Dionysica, gives allusions to it derived from the Hieroglyphics and ancient poetry of the country. Ovid, in his fable of Deucalion and Pyrrha, describes the rise, progress, and decline of the flood, in remarkable harmony with the scriptural account :— "The south wind quick on moistened wings, darts forth Its fearful face in pitchy darkness shaded, And as its mighty arm the hanging clouds oppressed, "The floods are lulled, the hills seem to arise. The ground appears, and with the waves' decrease, All parts increase, when now, the long day done, The hidden trees their naked tops present, And on their branches bear the clammy clay." Without enumerating more evidences from tradition, we shall proceed to the second point, viz., the arrangement of the surface, with the diluvial strata immediately below. In this we have numerous and interesting traces of the mighty waters having careered like maddened spirits over the face of the globe, washing down the hardest rock, tearing from its airy pinnacle, the jutting cliff, and hurling its monstrous bulk onwards for hundreds of feet. Who can look upon the sloping levels of our planet, which form such beautiful and connected valleys, passing into one another as they descend, till they become lost on ocean's shores-upon its rich comminuted soils, its gravelly subsoils, its rounded hills, its undulating glens, but will at once perceive the strongest proof of a mighty overwhelming flood simultaneous in its force over every part of the surface which polished off and smoothed the rugged ridges of the hills, and scooped out by its powerful eddies, the picturesque valleys; and left the earth, on retiring, in a state fitted for the purposes of health, and plenty to man and beast. The rounded shape of the hills is admitted by all geologists to display the effects of water, but many maintain that this rounded appearance was caused by the action of the waves of that ocean in which they were formed, while they were slowly emerging from its depths, during ages long prior to the creation of man. Had this been the case, how comes it that we have such a perfect system of levels which uniformly pass into one another; and that the valleys should possess no irregularity, no stoppage or interruption in their uniform inclinations? For the hills coming out of the ocean in the manner stated, slowly and progressively, it is apparent that an abrupt and irregular ridge would be left, possessing the horizontality given to it by the tidal waves, and that the valleys would be suddenly termi nated by a flat level plain. We should, accordingly, have had a system of drainage, partial, irregular, and mischievous. But instead of this, we have a system of valleys, some with, some without any water, which, independent of their important uses as drains for the continent, relieve, by their picturesque undulations, the rugged aspect of mountain scenery; and affed an impression of beauty and harmony from the completeness and uniformity of their arrangement. The explanation afforded above, seems, therefore, inadequate to account for their formation, which we cannot assign to a more efficient cause than the waters of the flood. The probability of this being the case, is enhanced by the strata of sand, gravel and clay, found deposited over every quarter of the globe. These beds bear decided evidence of their having been deposited and arranged from water; in many places, the ripp'es and currents of the tidal wave seems still impressed upon their layers,—and, wherever discovered, whether on the tops of the highest bills, or forming a covering to the rocks of the valley, are universally sinalar m their appearance and arrangement, which proves that the waters which deposited these strata on the surface of Europe, must have, likewise, in a similar manner, arranged the diluvial beds of Asia, and of the whole earth. Another fact in regard to them requires to be noticed, which is, that these beds do not always contain pebbles of those rocks which form the hills around, but, that in numerous cases, the pebbles which they contain have been derived from rocks at great distances. It is highly probable that many of our fine clayey soils, and gravelly subsoils, have beca derived from Cape Horn or the Antipodes. I shall now call your attention to another class of facts of still greater importance to our argument, viz, the organic remains belonging to the diluvial track. The natural inference that some remains of animals would be found to corroborate the testimony of the sacred record, is amply borne out in the accumulation of bones in all the diluvial strata in every part of the known world: and what renders the discovery of these bones of greater interest is, the mode in which they are associated. There are no perfect skeletons, bu bones of all species of animals of opposite instincts and habits, of different countries and latitudes, commingled together, broken and waterworn. This is what Be would, a priori, have expected, for the animals overtaken by the deluge in the gloomy retreats of their jungles, on the peak of the lofty mountain, or in the darksome caves to which they had filed for sheltermust have been drifted, by the tempestuous waves, to and fro around the world of waters-mixed and borne along with the ruins of former cities and countries, and at last deposited in the earth that now is, to constitute part of the soil destined to give wealth and nutriment to future generations. Specimens of these bones have been obtained from all parts both of the old and new world, having been found mingled with the subsoilsin caves, on the tops of mountains, or embedded in the diluvial strata. Bones of elephants have been found many thousand feet high on the sides of the Andes and Himmalayahs. Bones of the mammoth horse have been discovered in the mountains of India, and in precipitous situations where they could not possibly have lived, and which they dared not have ventured to ascend. United together, have been discovered bones of the glutton and hyena, of the rhinoceros and rein-deer, of animals native to the frigid zone, and those belonging to the equator. Whence is it that animals of instincts so dissimilar, of habits and climes so wide asunder, are thus brought together the tiger with its wonted prey, the lion, hyena, and wolf, with the ox, horse, and sheep? The only adequate solution of the difficulty is this,-that they have been so commingled, fractured, and waterworn by the waves of the deluge. THE CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE OF MISS L How true is the observation of the poet, "That life is saints. Miss L was the daughter of the minister of a burgh town in one of the southern counties of Scotland. From her infancy she was of a tender and delicate e nstitution. Before she was two years old, her father was cut off, after only two days' illness, in the prime of life, and in the midst of his usefulness, leaving a disconsolate widow, with three children, without any other provision for herself or them, than the necessarily scanty allowance derived from the Ministers' Widows' Fund. By this painful bereavement, the family were suddenly precipitated from a condition of plenty and comfort to a state of comparative poverty. The subject of the present Sketch was the youngest of the now fatherless family, and, at her tender age, she was, of course, unconscious of the change which had taken place in their circumstances. She was reared, along with her brother and sister, under the roof of her maternal grandmother, who was herself a minister's widow, and with whom her widowed daughter and the infant children came to live. Miss L, in an autobiographical sketch which she had commenced a little before her death, and a small portion of which still remains in manuscript, acknowledges that, though she never remembered a time when she did not know there was a God, still she adds:-" My earliest remembrances showed that I neither knew God, nor had been taught to know him as he is revealed in his Word. I never knew or was taught the wickedness of my own heart, nor the way of salvation through the Redeemer. Those who had the care of my soul thought, I suppose, that a child could not understand the wickedness of nature, nor the Gospel plan." These remarks point to an error which is too common, alas! even among professedly Christian parents. They entertain the false notion, that the peculiar doctrines of the Bible cannot possibly be communicated to the mind of a child, and, accordingly, they limit their religious instructions to a few cold general truths in regard to the existence of a God, of a heaven, and a hell, and thus, unintentionally we admit, they infuse into the minds of their offspring the most defective, and, therefore, erroneous, views of Divine truth. In consequence of an early training of this kind, many young persons are under the necessity, in after life, of unlearning what they have been taught in childhood. This was remarkably the case with Miss L. As she grew in years, she grew in the knowledge of Christ and his salvation. Her views, under the teaching of the Spirit, became clearer and more scriptural; and, accordingly, we find her thus writing in her Diary, while yet in her fourteenth year : "I am weary and heavy laden with sin, therefore I have gone to the throne of God, told him all my sins and wants, and plead with him the fulfilment of that promise, through Christ, I will give you rest' (from sin); and this- He that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' Lord, I have come to thee again and again, and I do now come to thee. Lord, look on thy Son, and through him look on me. I confess I am un. worthy, utterly unworthy; I deserve death, and not life-hell, and not heaven. I have nothing to recommend me to thee, but sin--no excuse to offer for myself. When I consider what I am a worm of the dust, and what thou art-the great and holy God, I am led to lay my hand on my mouth, and my mouth in the dust, and to cry out, Unclean, unclean-unworthy, unworthy-ungrateful, ungrateful, sinner.' To think that to such as me the Gospel message is addressed. Lord, I embrace the offer; Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief;' Lord, I give myself to thee. Oh! take me under thy care; oh! make me thine; forsake me not, the work of thy hands. Lord, I cannot say I am thine, but I hope I am; and I can say with truth, I wish to be thine. It is the height of my ambition that I may he found in Christ, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith.' This is the point on which all my hopes centre, and this has been my petition for years, and still is my petition, viz., O Lord, teach me to rest and to believe on Jesus Christ alone for salvation as he is offered to us in the Gospel. For his sake hear me." Nor did she pray in vain; for, in the course of a few days after, she thus records the Almighty's goodness in listening to the voice of her supplications: "Since writing the above, God has been very gracious to me, and has confirmed my hope in Christ. He has heard and answered my prayers; he has caused light to shine out of darkness, and taught me to believe in his promises, and take them for my own. God has given me peace and joy in believing,' greater than I can express in words-greater, far greater joy, than the worldly man ever felt, or can feel, when his corn and his wine are most increased. O that I could praise the Lord with my whole heart! O that my life were one continued hymn of praise! O that every action were an action of gratitude to this great Being, to whom I owe every blessing, temporal and spiritual! Praise to his name for ever!" Such language, from the pen of a believer so young in years, is deeply refreshing. She had been sitting | notice. She was daily endeavouring, however, to beat the feet of Jesus, and there she had found rest to her soul. Her very words breathe warmth of heart, sincerity of purpose, ardent longings after a holy walk and conversation. Like all the true followers of Jesus, she endured "much tribulation;" yet though her personal sufferings abounded, her "consolations in Christ did much more abound." Accordingly, we find her thus recording her thoughts on this subject : "Nature shrinks at the prospect of suffering, but I can endure all things, if God be with me. In general I am supported by this, that I have given myself to God, to dispose of me as he sees fit; and I know he will do all things well-I believe that every thing will work together for my soul's good. He has enabled me to trust in his promises, and apply them to myself,and as my day is, so shall my strength be.' If I am called to great trials, I trust God will give me great grace to endure them; if to great duties, great grace to perform them. I am principally anxious that I may never murmur, or find fault with his dispensations towards me; but glorify him at all times, and always be able to say from the heart, Good is the will of the Lord: all his ways are perfect.' Indeed his tender mercies are over all his other works: if it were not unbelief, we should constantly see this. Even in the midst of judgment we may sing of mercy. Think on the sufferings the blessed Jesus (who was God over all ') underwent for us, not only in his body, but his soul. When we reflect on his agony in the garden and on the cross-that he suffered the fierce ness of the wrath of Almighty God for us sinners; shall we not suffer any thing he is pleased to lay on us without a murmur; particularly if he (as in general he does), while afflicting the body, comforts the soul? "If Christ the wrath of God and man With patience did sustain, Becomes it those for whom he died To murmur or complain? "God can make up to me for all my sorrows; I know he can. I have ever found him a God at hand, and not afar off; but I have never suffered any thing in this world to cause real sorrow, but sin. It is this that puts a bitter in our earthly cup; compared to which, I think every thing else sweet. It is sin in myself and others, and in those near and dear to my heart, which is the chief, I had almost said the only, cause of sorrow to me; indeed, it is the only cause of any deep or abiding grief. If sin were taken away, this world, with all its ills, would be a heaven to me; and the chief thing that makes heaven a place of happiness must be, that there we shall be free from sin. We shall be happy, because we shall see God, and enjoy his presence; but unless we were without sin (and in this respect like God in kind, though not in degree), we could not be happy, even in heaven. This is the glorious character of our gracious Redeemer, not only that he will save his people from the guilt of sin, but from its power. Yes! it is a precious promise, Sin shall not have dominion over you;' and this too is a grand truth, that Christ, if we are his, will purify us to himself, a peculiar people, zealous of good works.' "Oh, ye happy few, the very joys of heaven will be heightened by your arrival. The Almighty himself shall welcome you with a smile; and that very smile, that welcomes you into their presence, adds joy to the whole assembly. Come, ye blessed!'" Miss L's life was for many years uncheckered by incidents of any kind. She continued to reside in the immediate neighbourhood of her birth-place, and with the exception of those variations in the state of her health to which her weakly constitution rendered her subject, nothing occurred in her history worthy of come more and more assimilated to her great Exemplar and Head. To the accomplishment of her sanctification her sufferings were evidently blessed. They were means intended by the Almighty to subserve an all-important end; and though they might not "for the present be joyous, but grievous," still they were “ working out in her the peaceable fruits of righteousness." Thus in her diary, under date May 24, 1828, she adverts to an attack of illness in these words : : "I have been from home ten days lately; have been ill with pain in my side, and a degree of fever. I am a good deal better, for which I ought to be thankful to God. I have been much on the mount lately. Felt, when ill, that death might be at hand; felt no fear cn that account, but much inward peace, and quite assured of God's love to me through Jesus. I am a poor guilty worm; but God has enabled me, by his grace, to come to Christ for life and salvation, depending ca his all-sufficient atonement and perfect righteousness. I believe that what I have committed to him, he will kcep; and that my soul shall never perish, neither shall any be able to pluck me out of his hand. These are happy moments, when I am permitted to behold, by the eye of faith, the King in his beauty, when he discovers his matchless loveliness, and gives me a foretaste of heaven. At such blessed seasons, the soul is bowed down and humbled in the dust, and adores the infinite mercy and goodness of God. If there be such happiness in these manifestations of Divine love, what must heaven be?" In such a frame of mind afflictions are precious blessings to the Christian. They carry him onward with the most astonishing rapidity along the road that leads to glory. This was the happy experience of Miss L; she could say with David, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, for now I have learnt thy law." But while she felt that she was making progress in the divine life, she often looked back to "the rock whence she had been hewn, and the hole of the pit whence she had been drawn." As an example of her reflections on this subject, we may cite the following from her diary for July, 1828: "I have been reading this morning, in the Sacred Word, the beautiful relation of our blessed Savicar curing him that was born blind. I was born blind, in a spiritual sense; but, glory be to God, I can say with the man, Whereas I was blind, now I see.' Some Christians can say this, but cannot tell the time nor the manner how they came to see. With me this is not the case; I remember both the time and the manner when I was first brought to see in a spiritual sense, and can, as it were, trace the progressive steps by which God has led me to this day, which takes in a space of more than six years. During this time, all my experience confirms and proves more and more unto me, that I am a great sinner, born with a load of original guilt, to which is added a daily burden of actual. This is the case with every individual, and with me in particular. I am the very chief of sinners. Of myself I cannot come to Christ (farther than by the use of the appointed means); for the natural man is prone to evil, and has such a dislike to any thing good, that I believe, did God not pluck many as brands from the burning, we should all inevitably perish. For myself I can say, I was found of Him when I sought him not. All the praise of my redemption and con version I do, and ever will, ascribe to free, sovereign, almighty grace. Christ died for sinners, and he invites such to come to him, even the chief, such as I. He has enabled me to accept this invitation. I know that I am his, because he has taught me to choose him for mine. I never either could or would have chosen him, had he not first chosen me. By nature, my love to sin was too strong, and my propensity to practise it too active, to be subdued by any thing short of the power of God. By nature, I was too base-minded to love him too blind to know him-too proud to trust him too obstinate, and too much a slave to sin and Satan, to serve him. I wished to be saved from hell, and therefore avoided gross sins; but I had no hatred to sin-no sense of its ingratitude. No; instead of this, I regretted the restraints of the law, and thought it was a pity God had threatened such punishment to the breakers of it. I was sorry for doing so and so; such a sin merited punishment; and it was this fear alone that prevented me from committing gross sins. But now God has taught me a very different way of thinking he has taught me to obey him from love. I believe I shall never be sent to hell; but this, so far from making me commit sin, has the contrary effect. I hate sin (O, that I could say with a perfect hatred!); because it is hateful to God." In our next, we shall continue the history of this excellent young person-showing how rapidly she grew in grace as she approached her heavenly home. us. THE BELIEVER'S PRAYER FOR TEMPORAL BLESSINGS: A DISCOURSE.* BY THE REV. ROBERT ELDER, A.M., Minister of St Paul's Parish, Edinburgh. "Give us day by day our daily bread."--LUKE xi. 3. It was one of the precepts of our Lord, delivered for the guidance of his followers, " Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." How remarkable the illustration of this rule which he has given in the arrangement of the prayer before We are bidden pray that God's name may be glorified,—that his kingdom may prosper in the world, that his will may be practically acknowledged as supreme, by ourselves and our brethren around us. And then, as entirely subordinate to all these objects, these being first and chiefly sought by us,—he warrants and enjoins us to pray for whatever may be absolutely needful for this present transitory life. "When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done as in heaven, so in earth;"-and then, giving these great objects the highest place in your affections, pray further, so long as you are here," Give us day by day," or, as it is expressed by another evangelist, "Give us this day our daily bread." It is much to be feared that the rule, so clearly laid down, and so strikingly illustrated by our Saviour in the text, is in general reversed by the children of men. The foremost subjects of anxiety too generally are, "What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" And nothing is deemed more visionary than that any desires should be cherished in preference to these. But mark what notable examples of the opposite spirit are given us in the Word of Inspiration. Thus we read of Moses Preached in St George's Church, Edinburgh, on the evening of the 28th October 1841, in behalf of "The Society for the Relief of the Destitute Sick." "Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt." Of Paul also we read, that when the Holy Ghost witnessed in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions awaited him, he could say, through the grace of God, subordinating the dearest personal considerations, "But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the Gospel of the grace of God." Were these men, think you, visionary or insincere? No; they had been taught of God to weigh every possible object of desire in the balance of the sanctuary, to regard and compare them in the light of eternity. And, like all who have heard and have learned of the Father, they aimed at entire conformity to the rule illustrated by the Divine arrangement of the text. Let us now consider more attentively the petition before us; and may God give us grace rightly to understand it, and truly to imbibe its spirit! What is implied in the right use of this petition, which our Lord prescribes to his followers, "Give us day by day our daily bread?" I. It implies a sense of continual dependence There can be no reasonable doubt, I think, that on God, even for the smallest temporal mercies. our Lord refers to temporal mercies in the petition we are now considering. Now, I say, that even in regard to these, our Saviour directs his followers to cherish a continual sense of their entire dependence upon God. This view is abundantly established by the simple fact that, without any limitation arising out of special circumstances, he bids them pray to God for the supply of their temporal necessities. But suffer me to say, dear friends, that my deep conviction is that, practically speaking, no view presented by God's Word is more frequently disregarded by the children of men. Not only with reference to spiritual and eternal realities, but also in regard to the smallest temporal mercies, and the light in which they are contemplated, does the utter ungodliness of the heart of man appear. How often do you hear it remarked in the ordinary intercourse of life, This man is eating the fruit of his labours, and reaping. the reward of his industry and exertion; and that man is a child of misfortune, whose every scheme of worldly interest is baffled by adverse circum stances. I fear that such observations are fre quently made among men, while God is not in all their thoughts, and that the spirit which lurks within is that condemned in God's word: "For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom; for I am prudent.' It is very true, and it ought always to be remembered, that it is only in the use of means that we are warranted to pray to God, in reference to temporal as well as to spiritual blessings. There can be nothing in this prayer inconsistent with the duties of lawful and honourable industry; for the same |