In songs immortal, angels laud his name; HEAVEN Shouts with joy, and saints his love proclaim GIVE us, O Lord, our food, nor cease to give Us needful food on which our souls may live! DAY without end in our eternal home. BREAD though we ask, yet, Lord, Thy blessings lend. AND make us grateful when Thy gifts descend. Us, the vile rebels of a rebel race; OUR follies, faults, and trespasses forgive, DEBTS which we ne'er can pay, nor Thou receive. As we, O Lord, our neighbor's faults o'erlook, WE beg Thou 'd'st blot ours from Thy memory's book. Us in this world, and may our souls destroy. FROM all calamities that man betide, EVIL and death, O turn our feet aside,— FOR we are mortal worms, and cleave to clay,- Is not thy mercy, Lord, forever free? AND be thy name adored by earth and heaven. FOREVER be Thy holy name adored. AMEN! Hosannah! blessed be the Lord TRIFLING OF BIBLE COMMENTATORS. Dr. Gill, in his Expository, seriously tells us that the word ABBA resa backwards or forwards being the same, may teach us that God is the father of his people in adversity as well as in prosperity. THE PRAYER ECHOED. Ir any be distressed, and fain would gather Our Father. For we of hope and help are quite bereaven Who art in heaven. Thou showest mercy, therefore for the same Hallowed be Thy name. Of all our miseries cast up the sum; Show us thy joys, and let Thy kingdom come. We mortal are, and alter from our birth; Thou constant art; Thy will be done on earth. Thou madest the earth, as well as planets seven, Thy name be blessed here As 'tis in heaven. We want, but want no faults, for no day passes But we do sin. Forgive us our trespasses. No man from sinning ever free did live Forgive us, Lord, our sins, As we forgive. If we repent our faults, Thou ne'er disdain'st us; We pardon them That trespass against us; Forgive us that is past, a new path tread us ; And lead us— Us, Thine own people and Thy chosen nation, Not into temptation. Thou that of all good graces art the Giver, Suffer us not to wander, But deliver Us from the fierce assaults of world and devil And flesh; so shalt Thou free us From all evil. To these petitions let both church and laymen With one consent of heart and voice, say, Amen. THE PRAYER IN AN ACROSTIC. In the following curious composition the initial capitals spell, "My boast is in the glorious Cross of Christ." The words in italics, when read from top to bottom and bottom to top, form the Lord's Prayer complete: Make known the Gospel truths, Our Father King; Infinite be-ing-first man, and then the crucified. The blessed kingdom for thy saints the choice. Enemies to thy self and all that's thine, Lending to sin our be-ing, evil in our design. In earth from sin deliver-ed and forgiven, O give us grace and lead us on thy way; Shine on us with thy love and give us peace; Oh! grant each day our trespass-es may cease. Convince us daily of them to our shame; Ecclesiasticæ. EXCESSIVE CIVILITY. TOM BROWN, in his Laconics, says that in the reign of Charles II. a certain worthy divine at Whitehall thus addressed himself to the auditory at the conclusion of his sermon: "In short, if you don't live up to the precepts of the gospel, but abandon yourselves to your irregular appetites, you must expect to receive your reward in a certain place, which 'tis not good manners to mention here." This suggested to Pope the couplet, "To rest, the cushion and soft dean invite, SHORT SERMONS. DEAN SWIFT, having been solicited to preach a charity sermon, mounted the pulpit, and after announcing his text, "He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord," simply said, "Now, my brethren, if you are satisfied with the security, down with the dust." He then took his seat, and there was an unusually large collection. The following abridgment contains the pith and marrow, sum and substance, of a sermon which occupied an hour in delivery : "Man is born to trouble." This subject, my hearers, is naturally divisible into four heads: 1. Man's entrance into the world; 2. His progress through the world; 3. His exit from the world; and 4. Practical reflections from what may be said. First, then : 1. Man's ingress in life is naked and bare, 2. His progress through life is trouble and care, 3. His egress from it, none can tell whore. 4. But doing well here, he will be well there. Now, on this subject, my brethren dear, A SERMON ON MALT. The Rev. Dr. Dodd lived within a few miles of Cambridge, (England,) and had offended several students by preaching a sermon on temperance. One day some of them met him. They said one to another, "Here's Father Dodd: he shall preach us a sermon." Accosting him with, "Your servants." "Sirs! yours, gentlemen!" replied the Doctor. They said, "We have a favor to ask of you, which must be granted." The divine asked what it was. "To preach a sermon," was the reply. "Well," said he, "appoint the time and place, and I will." "The time, the present; the place, that hollow tree," (pointing to it,) said the students. ""Tis an imposition!" said the Doctor: "there ought to be consideration before preaching." "If you refuse," responded they, "we will put you into the tree!" Whereupon the Doctor acquiesced, and asked them for a text. "Malt!" said they. The reverend gentleman commenced :— "Let me crave your attention, my beloved! "I am a little man, come at a short warning, to preach a short sermon, upon a short subject, to a thin congregation, in an unworthy pulpit. Beloved! my text is 'MALT.' I cannot divide it into syllables, it being but a monosyllable: therefore I must divide it into letters, which I find in my text to be four-M-A-L-T. M, my beloved, is moral-A, is allegorical -L, is literal-T, is theological. "1st. The moral teaches such as you drunkards good manners; therefore M, my masters-A, all of you-L, leave offT, tippling. "2d. The allegorical is, when one thing is spoken and another meant; the thing here spoken is Malt, the thing meant |