will be better for you not to have what you ask for. If any dear friend, for instance, should be extremely ill; if your father, or mother, or brother, or sister, should be lying on the bed of sickness, and seem to be near death, you could hardly help asking God, with the words of your mouth or the words of your heart, and most earnestly, too, that your friend might live. This would be right. But God might not see fit to grant your prayer. He would hear you, and love you; but in his great wisdom he might know it to be best that your friend should die.

Now, children, listen to what I am going to say to you at the end of this sermon on prayer. The most important things for which you can ask your heavenly Father, are not bread, or clothing, or health, or even life in this world. Goodness is more important; religion is more important. Innocence, justice, kindness, truth, and honesty—these are the most important things; and not only are they the most important, but God will surely give them to you, if you sincerely ask him for them. One reason why so many people are not good, is, that they do not ask for goodness of God; or, if they ask for it with their lips, do not ask for it with the strong feelings of their hearts. Pray to God for

goodness, and he will give it to you, if you pray heartily and sincerely. When you are about to do wrong, pray to God to keep you from doing wrong— say in your heart, "Father, keep me from doing this wrong," and you will be kept from doing it. When you are going to be violently angry, say in your heart, "Father, save me from being angry," and the peace of God will come down into your bosom like a dove, and the bad fire in your eyes will be quenched, and the hot color in your cheeks will cool away. When you feel that there is any danger that a good feeling or a virtuous resolution is going to be taken out of your heart, say to your heavenly Father, "Father, let not my virtue be taken out of my heart," and I firmly believe it will not be taken, but will remain. And why? Because God is ready to help his children; and because the thought of God, which you place in your heart by speaking to him, is holy and strong, and will stand in your heart, and guard your virtues, which are your heart's best treasures, and will keep them from being stolen away. The thought of God is the best thought, and the strongest thought that you can have; and when it really comes into your heart, all other good thoughts will stay

under its protection, and bad thoughts will be driven

out.

You are weak; but the thought of God is strong -strong to guard your innocence and virtue; strong to check your anger, and pride, and selfishness; strong to help your weakness, and console your sorrows. Pray to God, your Father, that the thought of God may come into your hearts, and keep, and comfort, and bless them.

SERMON V.

OFFICES AND TITLES OF JESUS CHRIST.

THE GRACE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST BE WITH YOU ALL.

In my last sermon, I spoke to you, my dear children, on the subject of praying to your heavenly Father. The words of my text were the words of Christ, who said, "Pray to thy Father." The words which I have taken for the text of this sermon, were written by one of his apostles, Paul, in an epistle, or letter, to the Christian Romans, sixteenth chapter, and twenty-fourth verse. It is a form, in which he gives them his blessing. He prays that the grace, or kind favor, of Jesus Christ may be with all his friends. I likewise pray, that