the soul's devotion is clogged with the weight of earthly and carnal affections. And in this damp of devotion hear the words of complaint

The Words of Complaint.

Oh the deadness of mine heart, and the dryness of my devotion! Whereas God's worship should be my delight, and an heavenly communion my happy contentment; ah! when I come unto God, it is with unwillingness, and when I stay it is with wearisomeness! My contritions of repentance should melt in tears; but alas, mine eyes are dry, and mine heart hard! My prayers should have their fervour of devotion in an humble confidence of faith, and sweet enlargement of love; but alas, my spirits are chilled, mine heart is straitened, my whole man distempered and discomposed my services are neither so frequent in their act nor so vigorous in their activity: what I do is from a compulsory judgment of conscience as a task, rather than from an impulse of love as a delight. I make my obedience a legal debt, not a free-will offering; a necessitated service awed with fear, not an eucharistical sacrifice moved with love. Yea, I am not what I was; instead of improving my talent of grace I have forsaken my first love; I am not at all ready and cheerful, willing and constant, in holy duties as formerly, so that I fear I have received the grace of God in vain. Time was when, with David, I made God's word my portion and heritage; gold and silver not so precious, liberty and life not so dear; mine heart seemed then to be filled with God and with Christ, holy services were so sweet to my soul that I counted my very work wages. But oh, now my delightful Paradise is turned into a barren wilderness; holy duties and religious

performances, they are as the ways of thorns and briars, even wearisome and unpleasant paths; and oh! how can I then believe God accepts my person in Christ, when I feel no quickenings of his Spirit in an holy life?

The Grounds of Comfort.

1. It is the wise dispensation of our gracious God, sometimes to suffer our devotion to decay, and our corruptions to prevail, on purpose to advance the dignity and discover the necessity of his grace; that so, knowing our dependance, we may become the more sincere in our obedience, and, being humbled in the sense of our own emptiness and vanity, we may be the more intent upon the fulness of his all-sufficiency. The goodliest fabric of an holy life, if God withdraw the props and pillars of his supporting and strengthening grace, how will it soon shake, and sink, and fall to ruin! If David, then, be continually with God, it is because God holds him by his right hand. As it was grace which wrought effectually to our conversion and regeneration, so it is grace that worketh still in the like efficacy, to our further sanctification and final perseverance. And therefore it is David's prayer unto God, saying, "Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not." And that we are kept, it is by the power of God through faith to salvation. So that, as fuel to the fire, as food to the body, as showers to the corn, such is grace to devotion and an holy life, without which it faints, it dies, it withers away.

2. That there is a less active vigour in our holy life and religious conversation may proceed from weakness of nature not of grace. The soul follows much the temperature of the body; if that be sickly and weak,

the soul cannot act its gracious operations with that vigour and zeal as when healthful and strong. A decay of spirits in the body will certainly make an abatement of vigour in the soul; the unaptness of the instrument takes much from the art and excellency of the workman; and the body, that is the soul's instrument whereby it acts its motions; and therefore if the body be more dull, the soul must needs be less vigorous, and so the duties of devotion the less active and lively.

3. Whereas many complain, as thou dost, that they are fallen from their first love, because not so affected with the enlargements of devotion, and therein not so quickened with the life of grace as at their first conversion, when they first give up their names unto Christ; they may haply find (if rightly examined) those enlargements and delights of their first conversion did proceed as much from the novelty as the piety of their estate. Their love, and in that their delights, more sensible but not more solid; more passionate, but not more sincere; right like the love and delight of first espousals; whereas we question not but that a long-married couple are as dear in their love, though not so frequent in their embraces. Yea, it may be an excess of love which begets this affliction of soul; for true love is so enlarged in dispositions and resolutions of doing more service to God and Christ that all it does seems too little; and therefore many complain their present duties are short of former services, and their present vigour less than former zeal, which yet is not so indeed but in appearance. Before small love thought little to be much, and now great love thinks much to be but little.

To close, then, Whereas it is ordinary with God to deal with the penitent convert as the Father did with his prodigal son, even entertain him with feasting and mirth, receive him with much of spiritual solace and delight. And this he does, the better to encourage him in the way of holiness, yea, and to fortify him against the days of trial and temptation, which shall after come upon him; in which days of temptation and trial he may not think but that, though his former joys and delights do cease, yet the sincerity, and strength too of grace may continue, yea and be

SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHING.

REV. SIR,-The remarks by one of your Correspondents in the September number on Sunday-School Teaching are very just. I can only hope that such examples of bad management and method are not now very common, and that the evil which has been so pointed out, will in this case be made known and

avoided. But in some other Sunday-Schools where only short portions of Scripture are read, many of the teachers are not always careful in selecting what the class should read. I have stood by a class of little boys who were bungling through a doctrinal part of the Epistles; not one word of which did they understand, nor would it have been very easy for the teacher to have explained to such young children: this, however, he did not attempt. Another error or failing is often this not endeavouring by close questioning to make the scholars fully acquainted with every word, &c.; and also not applying it where possible to the conscience and conduct. This latter often depends on the state of the teacher's own mind; if he is indifferent to the love of Christ, and the value of his own soul, he will not think and know, indeed, how to impress others. But it should be remembered that the short season of a Sunday-School is often all the opportunity which a child may have of being instructed in divine truth. This thought should be continually before the Sunday-School Teacher; that so he may pray to be able to bring out something from the lesson, and apply it to the immortal creatures under his charge.

Judson's Questions are excellent helps to a teacher so disposed. Suppose we take Luke xvi. 19, “There was a certain rich man which was clothed," &c. How was he clothed? Do you wear such clothes? No. Why not? Because I am not rich. Ought we to be fond of fine clothes? No. Can you recollect a little hymn about it? ،How proud we are, how fond to shew,' &c. What do you mean by faring sumptuously? Having plenty of meat and drink.