Be sure then you take your part in each Prayer, whether repeated by the Clergyman alone, or by all together. An old Writer, speaking of the early Christians, says, "They echo out the Amen like a clap of thunder." Let us be more hearty in our Amens, and thus show that we are all agreed, and that it is not the mere utterance of words, but that we mean what we say that each person in the Church desires to make the Prayer his own.

We have in this and the foregoing Chapter carefully examined our Communion Office. It is, I think, the most heart-stirring of all our Services. A portion of it, as we have seen, is used on ordinary occasions when we are gathered in God's house; but the whole, whenever the holy Communion is administered. The Service does indeed breathe a calm peace and joy to the people of God. What deep humiliation for sin is there in it! It has been truly said, that if we desire to see sin in all its depth, we shall best see it in the cross of Christ. When the penitent Believer thinks of the Son of God suffering for

sin, then it is that he sees the full evil of it, and feels his own unworthiness to be great beyond expression. Now, it is just this spirit that our matchless Communion Service inspires. It humbles us in the dust, and at the same time it raises us up, uttering the language of hope and encouragement.

Oh that God may tune our hearts for this delightful Service, and give us increasing enjoyment every time we engage in it!

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CHAPTER IX.

HINTS FOR A PROFITABLE USE OF
THE CHURCH SERVICES.

HAVING examined together the ordinary Services of the Church, I desire to offer you now a little counsel regarding our use of them. I shall give you Ten directions.

1. Study the Prayers, and try to understand them. They are full of meaning. It is sad to think how often we have used them, as if they were mere empty winds and meant nothing. Henceforth let this be your Resolution, "I will pray with the Spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also."

2. Before going to God's House, try and get your mind into a serious and devout frame. "It is harder (says an old writer) to get the

great Bell up, than to ring it when raised." And so it is with our hearts. Harder we shall find it to prepare them for the work of Prayer, than to pray when they are prepared. If we go into the House of God in an unprepared state, we shall have great difficulty to raise our hearts upwards. Worldly thoughts will trouble us, and worldly plans will come rushing into our minds, even though we desire to shut them out.

When you dress yourself for God's House, take care to get your heart ready also for His service. It would be better to go into the courts of the Lord in your work-day clothes, ruffled with your seven days' occupation, than to go there with a heart crammed, and disturbed, and fretted with earthly schemes and earthly anxieties.

Try to act upon my advice, and you will soon find a marked increase in your enjoyment of Public Worship. Ask God to give you His Holy Spirit; and so prepare you for the solemn work in which you are going to engage.

Consider wherefore we come together. It is to pray, and to hear God's Word. And we

can do neither of them rightly, unless God Himself prepares us. Then remember to ask Him to tune your heart for His service, to awaken in you a hungering and thirsting for His truth, to give you a holy and devout frame, and to keep the world out of your heart.

3. When you enter church, think whose House it is. "Keep thy foot (says Solomon) when thou goest to the house of God." And the Lord Himself bids us, "Reverence my sanctuary."

When, on one occasion, I went with some others to present a petition to the Queen in her palace, the moment we entered the room in which she was seated, every voice was hushed. Even to have whispered in her presence would have been out of place. How much more should this be the case, when we come to the Sanctuary of God, the presencechamber of the great King!

The Jews of old, whenever they entered the Temple, felt that they were treading on holy ground. And so should we; for anything like lightness or worldliness should be entirely put aside.