salutary influence, encourages me to hope that your Majesty will graciously condescend to sanction this humble effort to advance the interests of our holy religion among the people of these realms. That it may please Almighty God to prolong your Majesty's valuable life;-that the influence of your Majesty's exemplary virtues may long be continued to this nation, as its distinguished ornament and example; —and that, when your Majesty shall have resigned an earthly crown, you Invocation. "O THOU by whom we come to God, The Life, the Truth, the Way! The path of prayer thyself hast trod, Lord, teach us how to pray!" INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ON PRAYER. PRAYER is the application of want to Him who alone can relieve it-the confession of sin to Him who alone can pardon it. It is the urgency of poverty, the prostration of humility, the fervency of penitence, the confidence of trust. It is not eloquence, but earnestness: not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it: not figures of speech, but compunction of soul. It is the "Lord, save us; we perish!" of drowning Peter-the cry of faith to the ear of mercy. Adoration is the noblest employment of created beings; confession the natural language of guilty creatures; gratitude the spontaneous expression of pardoned sinners. Prayer is desire; it is not a mere B |