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ADDRESSES TO SUNDAY-SCHOOLCHILDREN

No. II.

"Use not vain repetitions." Matt. vi. 7.

I HAVE told you, my dear children, that the Lord Jesus is willing to teach you to pray. Perhaps some of you think you can pray very well already. If you think so, it is because you do not know what prayer is. To pray, is to ask of God with your whole hearts. Do you ask of God with your whole hearts every time you say your prayers? No; that I am sure you do not, or your prayers would do you more good. There is a kind of praying which God loves, and which he will hear. There is also a kind of praying which God hates, and which he will not hear. This last kind of praying is what our Saviour calls in the text, using vain repetitions. I will try to explain the meaning of this to you.

A vain repetition is the repeating a thing in a careless, silly, manner. When you say your prayers without thinking of their meaning, or perhaps are thinking of something else all the time, this is to repeat them in a careless, silly, manner; this is to use vain repetitions. This kind of praying will never do you any good. God does not care for your words unless they come from your very heart. He hates vain repetitions. "The prayer of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord." Who are the wicked? The Bible tells you, "those that forget God" are wicked. But if to forget God at any time be wicked, to forget him when you are praying to him is most exceedingly wicked. If you forget God when you are praying to him, then your prayer is the prayer of the wicked. It is an abomination to the Lord. So, then

if you ask of God with your whole hearts this is prayer. If you only say your prayers without feeling them, this is to use vain repetitions. God loves to hear you pray, he hates to hear you use vain repetitions. Those who pray are the children of grace. Those who use vain repetitions are the children of wrath. My dear young friends, do you pray in the way that God loves or in the way that he hates? Do you pray with all your heart and soul, or do you use vain repetitions? This is not a little thing that I am asking you. For if you have been using vain repetitions all your life long, you cannot be God's children, you cannot be in the way to heaven, but you must be in the way to hell. All these careless prayers are idle words, of which you must give account at the day of judgment. Oh, careless children, what will then become of you? I tremble for you. I beseech you to leave off all your vain repetitions, and to begin to pray in good earnest. Oh careless children, you have been pretending to pray to God day after day, and have been all the while affronting him with vain repetitions. Who knows that he will give you another day for prayer: but you have got this present hour, begin while you may. Thank God that you are alive to day; suppose you had died in the night, what could have become of your careless souls? O, from this very moment go to your dear Saviour, say to him, Lord, forgive my vain repetitions and teach me to pray. Only think how many times you have said the Lord's prayer. Do you say it with your hearts, and try to think about the meaning; or, do you chatter it over without any thought at all, and so turn it into a vain and senseless repetition. That you may not use the

Lord's prayer in the way that he hates, beg of him to help you to remember these four things.

1. Think whose words you are saying.-These are the words of your dear Saviour; it is the Lord's prayer. The words of the Lord are not common words. They have every one of them a most delightful meaning. They must not be said in a thoughtless, trifling, manner. It is a great offence to the Lord Jesus Christ to turn his prayer into a vain repetition.

2. Think to whom you are speaking.-You are addressing the great God, who is able to take you to heaven, or to cast you into hell. Think how great his goodness in giving you leave to pray to him. Remember that he looks at your hearts while you are praying. Be afraid to pray in a careless manner, while the great God is taking account of every word you say.

3. Think what great things you are asking for.Mercies for the body, and mercies for the soul. Every thing that can make you happy here, and every thing that can make you happy hereafter. Will you ask for these great things in a careless manner, as if you did not care whether you got them or not?

4. Remember, that you cannot pray aright unless you have the grace of God to help you. You are so ignorant, that you do not know either what to pray for, or how to pray. You are so sinful, that you cannot pray as you ought. But do not let this discourage you. If you really wish to pray, the Lord Jesus will send his Spirit to teach you. Never say your prayers then, either at home, or in the church, or in the school, without first begging of God to keep you from using vain repetitions, and to help you to pray to him in spirit and in truth.

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ON REVIVALS.

(Continued from page 174.)

Fourthly. How are we to look for a revival?

And here I scarcely need press upon you again our need of it, for that has been done already; but I would exhort you to have in your mind, and on your heart, a sense of that need, and an earnest desire to obtain that good thing I plead for, together with a conviction that it is the influence of the Holy Spirit can alone effect it. Feeling this need; desiring this end; and fixing your eye steadily on its author; look for it by fasting, that is religious fasting, which is by being so much grieved, affected, and impressed with your own sins, the sins of the church, and the sins of the world, as to have little or no inclination for the gratification of the ordinary appetite. When in great grief, a little food suffices; any thing approaching to a feast or banquet is abhorred, and fasting itself becomes congenial to a man's nature. In your grief then for Jerusalem's sins, keep a religious fast, a fast which shall express and aid inward humiliation, which shall loose the fleshly cords of nature that the spirit may mount upwards-that the body may

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commune with the soul in self-examination and mortification. How comes it to pass that fasting has been laid aside in modern times? Because Roman Catholics have abused it, do Protestants therefore think they have a licence for despising and neglecting it? I fear it is, because the present generation of believers love ease, and shrink from rigour and self-denial. But did not the disciples fast, though not as the Pharisees did? Did not our Lord himself fast? And has not the universal Church in all ages considered it a Christian's bounden duty? Not, indeed, that man was made for fasting, but fasting was made for man. Ah! but the persuasion is now wanting that this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting, and here lies the root of the evil; it is unbelief, and in looking for a revival, we must first look for the removal of this accursed thing.

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Again, look for it by prayer. I stop not to tell you the mighty things prayer has done, but I remind you that the Lord has said to every one of his family; Open thy mouth wide, and I shall fill it;" things ye ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive:" "Hitherto ye have asked nothing in my name: ask and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." Consider that now is the day, when "the Lord of Hosts mustereth the hosts of the battle," that the cry is gone forth, "Who is on the Lord's side? Who will go and pray before the Lord?" Consider that no one is exempted from this summons; and although the priests of the Lord have already encompassed the walls of Jericho, the shout of the people is needed to bring them down. Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Pray then in the Spirit and with the whole heart, that His kingdom may come; and although your prayers, yea the united prayers

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