II. PRAYER USED ON SUNDAY EVENING IN THE SCHOOL

HOUSE.

O Lord our God, we are once again arrived at the evening of Thy holy day. May Thy Spirit render it truly blest to us!

We have attended the public service of Thy Church; Thou knowest, O Lord, and our own consciences each know also, whether while we worshipped Thee in form, we worshipped Thee in spirit and in truth. Thou knowest, and our own consciences know also, whether we are or are likely to be any the better for what we have heard with our outward ears this day.

Forgive us, Lord, for this great sin of despising the means of grace which Thou hast given us. Forgive us for all our carelessness, inattention, and hardness of heart: forgive us for having been far from Thee in mind, when our lips and outward expression seemed near to Thee.

Lord, will it be so forever? Shall we ever hear and not heed? And when our life is drawing near to its end, as this day is now, shall we then feel that we have lived without Thee in the world, and that we are dying unforgiven? Gracious Father, be pleased to touch our hearts in time with trouble, with sorrow, with sickness, with disappointment, with anything that may hinder them from being hard to the end, and leading us to eternal ruin.

Save us from the

Save us from idle

Thou knowest our particular temptations here. Help us with Thy Holy Spirit to struggle against them. Save us from being ashamed of Thee and of our duty. base and degrading fear of one another. ness and thoughtlessness. Save us from the sin of falsehood and lying. Save us from unkindness and selfishness, caring only for ourselves and not for Thee, and for our neighbors.

Thou who knowest all our weaknesses, save us from ourselves, and our own evil hearts. Renew us with Thy Spirit to walk as becomes those whom Thou hast redeemed, through Thy Son Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Amen.

III. PRAYER USED AFTER CONFIRMATION AND COMMUNION.

O Lord, we thank Thee for having preserved us safe from all the perils and dangers of this day: that Thou hast given us health and strength, food and clothing, and whilst there are so many who are poor, so many who are sick, so many who

are in sorrow, that Thou hast given us so richly such manifold and great blessings.

Yet more, O Lord, we thank Thee for Thy mercies to us in Thy Son Jesus Christ. We thank Thee for Thy infinite love shown in our redemption, that Thou hast opened, through Thy beloved Son, the kingdom of heaven to all believers. We thank Thee for the full assurance of hope which Thou hast given us, that if our earthly tabernacle be dissolved, we have yet a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. Thou hast shown to us nothing but goodness, O Lord, for this life and for life eternal; and yet we have sinned,.and are sinning against Thee daily. We are forfeiting all Thy blessings, and turning them into a curse. Forgive us, for Jesus Christ's sake, all and each, for all our many sins in thought, word, and deed; whether known to others, or to our own conscience alone, or forgotten even by our own careless hearts, but known and recorded by Thee, against the great day of judgment.

One thing more, O Lord, we pray for, without which all these blessings shall only condemn us the more heavily. O Lord, increase and keep alive in us Thy faith. Let not the world, and our own health, and the many good things which Thou hast given us, prove a snare unto us. Let us endure, as seeing by faith Thee who art invisible.

O Lord Jesus Christ, who didst take our nature upon Thee, and art now standing as the Son of Man at the right hand of the Majesty on high, reveal Thyself to our minds and hearts, as Thou didst to the bodily eyes of Thy martyr Stephen. As Thou didst comfort and strengthen him in his suffering, so, O Lord, do Thou warn and chasten us in our enjoyments; making us to know and feel that in Thee is our only life, and that if we cleave not to Thee, and have not Thee abiding in us, we are dead now, and shall be dead forever.

Quicken in us the remembrance of our baptism: how we were pledged to become Thy true servants and soldiers to our lives' end. Dispose us all to renew this pledge from the bottom of our hearts, both those of us who are going to receive the rite of confirmation soon, and those of us who have received it already, and those of us who may expect to receive it hereafter. Quicken in as many of us as have either this day or heretofore been partakers in the communion of Thy body and blood, the remembrance of that blessed sacrament,

that we gave ourselves therein to be wholly Thine, in body, soul, and spirit, that we might evermore dwell in Thee, and Thou in us.

O Holy Spirit of God, who art the only author of all spiritual life, quicken us with Thy power, and preserve and quicken us in the life which is Thy gift. Forgive us that we have so often grieved Thee, and preserve us from grieving Thee so long and so often, that Thou wilt depart from us for evermore, and leave us to a state beyond repentance, and beyond forgiveness. Teach us to remember that every day which we spend carelessly and unprofitably, we are grieving Thee, and tempting Thee to leave us. Let not our prosperity harden our hearts to our destruction. Screen us from the horrible sin of casting a stumbling-block in our brother's way, of tempting him to evil, or discouraging him from good by our example, or by our laughter, or by our unkindness and persecution.

O Lord Almighty, this day is now drawing to its end. May the means of grace which Thou hast given us in it work good in us for to-morrow, and the days to come. May Thy blessing be with us on this first day of the week, to guide us and to strengthen us even to its end.

Bless all our friends in all places, and keep them in Thy faith and fear: bless Thy universal church militant here on earth, and grant that all who confess with their mouth the Lord Jesus, may believe on Him in their hearts, to life everlasting. Bless our Queen and our country; that we may be a Christian people, not in word only, but in power. Bless this school, that it may be a place of godly education, to Thy glory and the salvation of our own souls. Fill us with Thy Holy Spirit, that we may labor in our several duties towards one another and towards Thee, as befits those whom Thou hast redeemed by the blood of Thy dear Son.

Finally, we thank Thee for all those, whether we have known them on earth, or whether they were strangers to us, who have departed this life in Thy faith and fear; and who are safe and at rest till the day of Thy coming. Increase their number, O Lord, and enable us through Thy grace to be of their company, that when Thou comest in Thy glorious majesty, and shalt call us all to judgment, we may stand with all Thy faithful people at Thy right hand, and may hear Thee call us "blessed," and bid us enter into Thy kingdom to see God face to face.

IV. PRAYER USED IN THE SICK ROOMS.

O Lord and heavenly Father, we come before Thee with our humble thanks for all Thy mercies towards us, more especially for the means of grace which Thou hast afforded us in this interruption to our usual course of health. We thank Thee for thus reminding us that our enjoyment of the blessings of this world will not last forever - that the things in which we commonly take delight will one day cease to please us. We thank Thee that by calling us off for a little while from our common employments and amusements, Thou givest us time to think how we are passing our life, and what those joys are which if we once learn to know them will abide with us forever. Lord, deliver us from all impatience and from all fear for our bodies, and fill us at the same time with spiritual fear; let us not be afraid of pain or sickness, but let us be afraid of Thee, and not waste the opportunity which Thou art now affording us. Give us grace to think under the visitations of light sickness whether we are fit to be visited with dangerous sickness; let us consider what we should do if, while our body were weakened, our mind should be clouded also, so that we could not then pray to Thee for succor. Now, therefore, O Lord, teach us to call on Thee, while we can call on Thee, to think on Thee while our reason is yet in its vigor. Teach us to look into our heart and life, to consider how Thou wouldst judge us, to ask Thy forgiveness through Thy Son Jesus Christ, for all that Thou seest amiss in us, and by the help of Thy Holy Spirit to overcome all that is evil in our heart, and to learn and practise all that is good. Restore us in Thy good time to our usual health, and grant that this interruption to it may be sanctified to our souls' health, so making it not an evil to us, but an infinite blessing, for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Saviour.

V. THANKSGIVING ON A BOY'S RECOVering from SICKNESS.

O Lord, our heavenly Father, we give Thee our humble and hearty thanks for Thy goodness shown to Thy servant whom Thou hast been pleased to visit with sickness. We thank Thee for the prospect which Thou hast given him of recovery of his full health and strength, as well as for the present abatement of his disorder. Grant that Thy mercies may be felt by him and us; that they may not lead us to tempt Thy long-suffering by continued hardness of heart, but

may make us desirous of showing our gratitude to Thee by living according to Thy will. May we remember how nearly health and sickness come together, and that the time will surely come to us all when we shall be raised up from sick

ness no more.

While Thou yet sparest us, give us grace to turn to Thee in earnest, that we may not have to turn to Thee when it is too late with a vain regret and despair. Grant this, O Lord, for Thy dear Son's sake, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The following prayers were contributed by Dr. Arnold, in 1842, to a "Book of Family Prayers for every Day in the Year," (published by Mr. Whittlemore, Brighton,) in answer to a request made to him by the Editor, and they are here inserted by the kind permission of the publisher. The subjects of them were doubtless suggested by two wants which he often lamented, in the public services of the Liturgy, viz., a more direct reference to the blessings of the natural seasons, and also an offering of thanksgivings and prayers for the blessings of law and government, unconnected with any such political allusions as occur in the Four State Services appended to the Book of Common Prayer.

I. JOHN IV. 35.

O Lord God, who givest us the promise of food for our bodies, and markest the seed sown to grow up and ripen and yield its fruits in its season, do Thou be pleased to give us the true bread of life, and to bless and ripen in us the seed sown by Thy Holy Spirit in our hearts, that it may bring forth fruit unto life eternal. Give us, we beseech Thee, the true bread of life, Thy beloved Son. May we ever hunger after Him, and ever be filled. May we feed upon Him by faith, receiving into our hearts His most precious body and blood, even the virtue of His sacrifice which alone cleanseth from all sin. May we cleave unto Him, and grow into Him, that we may be one with Him and He with us. Ripen in us also, we pray Thee, the seed of Thy Holy Spirit. Make us to cherish every good resolution which He suggests to us, and dread the great sin of grieving Him. Save us from hardness of heart which will not listen to Him; from carelessness