better to lay aside such services as those which, blessed be God! we find prescribed for our use in our own branch of the Church Catholic.

Now, (not to observe that where a minister and congregation are concerned, any prayer used by the former, must be a form to the latter, whether it be read from a book or poured forth without premeditation,) I would just remark, that this argument, if it proves anything, proves too much. If we are to lay aside the repetition of a well-known prayer because there is danger that our familiarity with it may make us heedless, we may, upon the same ground, give up the habit of reading the Bible, for there is just the same risk that the more intimate we are with its contents, the more we may lose the sense of awe and reverence with which we always ought to peruse it.

How much better would it be, if, instead of bewildering themselves with such a fallacy as this, people would learn to suspect themselves, and endeavour to ascertain whether the blame may not rather rest on their own shoulders than in the quarter where they are disposed to throw it. It is, of course, much pleasanter to find faults any where rather than in ourselves; and it is no easy matter to get the mastery over our indolence and waywardness; but the way of safety is a way of difficulties.

When, therefore, we find that formalism begins to attend our prayers, we had better look to ourselves, before we condemn the prayers. And this if we do, we shall, by God's mercy, be led to find the true causes of our indevotion, to guard against them, and to make the discovery that since prayer is as much a habit as anything else, he who prays the most, will pray the best; and, as he who confines himself to one branch of a business will be a better workman than he who attends to several, so he who uses the same forms of prayer, continually, will enter into their spirit better than he, who, in his constant search after novelty, thinks more of himself than of God.

And now to apply what has been said to the passage to which I would call your attention. The text conveys a great and awful truth; but it is a truth which is so continually repeated in every part of Scripture, and to which, therefore, our minds are so habituated, that we hear it, perhaps, without thinking more about it, than, admitting the doctrine generally, we contrive to satisfy our minds that the threatening does not apply to us, and that, terrible as the denunciation is, there are other parts of Scripture, in which the future doom of transgressors is more vividly and strikingly depicted.

This, or something like it, is probably the reflection that occurs to us, when the passage is read in the

ordinary course of the Psalms, if we are allowing ourselves in that careless state of mind which I have been condemning.

And yet there is a consideration connected with this text, which is enough to make even the most advanced Christian to fear and tremble when it occurs to him.

If, in David's day, when men were under the law, and had no promise of the abiding presence of the Holy Ghost the Comforter to "teach them all things, and bring all things to their remembrance," it was a known and recognised truth that they who forgat God should be turned into hell; what fate must they expect who, having been admitted into the Church by Baptism, and having, therefore, the assurance that the Spirit dwelleth in them, do yet fail to remember their Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier? Is it possible to find any excuse for those who are forgetful, merely because they will not apply to the Remembrancer, Who is within them,-for those who have "the anointing which they have received of Him, abiding in them," and who therefore "need not that any man teach them," (that is, require, in this respect, no outward aids,) seeing they have the Witness in themselves? Is it possible that forgetfulness, so often alleged as an excuse under sudden temptation, can in their case be anything else but an adding of sin to sin?

Now let us take this view of the text, and see what lessons and warnings it may bring home to our hearts and consciences.

"The wicked shall be turned into hell; and all the people that forget God." We admit the fact; but we ward off, as it were, the blow which seems threatening to fall on ourselves, who, we trust, are not among the openly and notoriously wicked, by assuming that those who "forget God" altogether are few in number, and we have the testimony of conscience that we ourselves are not of that number. We do not remember God as much as we ought, but still we do not forget Him.

Now in one sense this is quite true. I believe that no one who has once heard of God can forget Him, even if he desires it ever so. A man may apostatize from the faith, and fall so low, that like the fool of whom the Psalmist speaks, "He may say in his heart, There is no God." But think you that this will banish the thought of God from his mind? Think you that memory will fail when invited to do so? That oblivion is an act of volition? Or that conscience can be lulled to sleep when we will? No, we can no more escape the sound of its small stern voice, than we can, by a wish, stop the brain from exercising its functions, or destroy our sensibility to pain. A man may deny God, and resolve to forget Him. He can

do the one, but the other is beyond his power: the devils themselves, they who have more power than man, and more cause why they should strive to keep the thought of God from their hearts, cannot do it, and for man to do it is impossible. He may exclude himself from every thing outward which may suggest the remembrance to his mind, he may go far, very far in unbelief: he may almost persuade himself to be an infidel. Almost, not quite. And the one thought which comes creeping in unbidden, when he is off his guard, that after all there may be a God, is enough to drive sleep from his pillow. It may not be probable; it may be barely possible. But so long as that shadow of a chance is not got rid of, farewell to peace. And get rid of it he cannot. The thought of it robs him of his armour wherein he trusted, and comes upon him when he cannot escape from it, like that terrible vision which haunted the couch of the afflicted Patriarch: "In thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on men, Fear came upon me, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up: It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: an image was before mine eyes, there was silence and I heard a voice, saying, 'Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?'"