they are at least as new as any which Jesus Christ's sake. Produce in us have been urged, or can be urged, deep and unfeigned repentance for our against it. I have others which, if oc. manifold transgressions; and a lively casion require, shall be brought forward faith in that Saviour who hath died for in due time. And, though I do not en- our sins, and risen again for our justifitertain the hope that I shall be able to cation. And may thy pardoning mercy proselyte your correspondent, I have be accompanied with the sanctifying inthe confidence to believe that I shall fluence of thy Holy Spirit, that we may convince the generality of your readers, no more sin against thee; but may live that extemporary sermons do not in from henceforth as becomes the recrease the number of Dissenters, and deemed of the Lord and the candidates that reading sermons constitutes no part for a happy immortality. Put thy fear of a true churchman. Ντιμπ. into our hearts that we may never move depart from thee. May thy blessed will set bounds to our desires, and reg ulate all our passions. May our affections be fixed, not on present objects, but on those which are unseen and eternal. Convince us more effectually of the vanity of this world, and its utter insufficiency to make us happy; of the vileness of sin and its tendency to make us for ever miserable; of the value of our souls, and the awfulness of that everlasting state on the borders of which we are standing: and may we be serious and diligent in our preparation for death and judgment. MORNING PRAYER FOR A FAMILY. ALMIGHTY and ever living God! we acknowledge ourselves bound, by innumerable obligations, to praise and adore, to love and serve thee. From thee we have received our being. Thou art our constant preserver and bountiful benefactor: the source of every present enjoyment, and the spring of all our future hopes. Thou hast also, in thine infinite condescension, been pleased to look down with pity on our fallen race, and freely to offer salvation to us through Jesus Christ. We adore thee for the knowledge of thy will, for the promises of thy mercy and grace, and for the joyful prospect of eternal life so clearly revealed in thy holy word. Possess our minds, O Lord, with such a deep sense and firm persuasion of the important truths which are there made known to us, as shall powerfully influence and regulate ail our thoughts, words, and actions. But while we celebrate thy goodness towards us, we have cause to be ashamed of our own conduct. We have great reason, O Lord, to be humbled before thee on account of the coldness and insensibly of our hearts; the disorder and irregularity of our lives; and the preva lence of worldly and carnal affections within us. Too often have we indulged the passions and appetites which we ought to have opposed and subdued, and have left our duty unperformed: and we find a daily occasion to lament our proneness to corrupt inclinations and sinful lusts, and our reluctance to the practice of what is agreeable to thy will. O Lord be merciful to us miserable sinners, and forgive us for thy Son We desire this morning to offer thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving for the watchful care of thy Providence exercised over us during the past night. We laid us down to sleep, and, blessed be thy name, we have arisen in safety. May the lives which thou hast mercifully prolonged be devoted entirely to thy service. Graciously continue thy protection and favour to us this day. Save us from sin, we beseech thee, and from all other evils, if it be thy blessed will. Enable us faithfully to perforin every relative duty under an abiding sense of thy presence and of our ac countableness to thee. May we, as a family, dwell together in peace and unity. May we put away from us every angry and discordant passion; and loving thee with a supreme affection, may we love each other with pure hearts fervently. Preserve us, O Lord, from the influence of those temptations to which we are daily exposed. Make us duly sensible of our own weakness, that our hearts may be raised to thee in humble and fervent supplications for the needful supplies of grace and strength. When we are in company, may it be our care to do and to receive as much in the same manner as it is in charity good as possible. When we are alone, schools in general, and therefore may may we remember that our heavenly be capable of great improvement. I father is with us; and may this thought am expected to give some attention to excite in us an earnest desire to act as this establishment, and indeed I am per. in thy sight, suaded it might become highly useful if properly conducted. But as I have hitherto had no experience in the superintendance of such an institution, I feel myself entirely at a loss upon what plan to proceed, in order to effect the good which may fairly be expected from it. I shall, therefore, esteem myself very much obliged to any of your correspondents to favour me with instruc tions, as practical and as much detailed as may seem expedient with regard to the most advantageous mode of regu lating the school. Bless, we pray thee, the king, and all the branches of the royal family. Be favourable to these nations: save us from the evil designs of all our enemies; and restore to us, if it please thee, the blessing of peace. May all mankind be visited with the light of the gospel; and may its influence be more widely diffused in this land. In tender mercy regard all who are in affliction of whatever kind, Grant unto our dear friends and relations every blessing which thou knowest to be needful for them. May they and we experience thy favour in this life, and in the world to come life everlasting. We offer up these our imperfect prayers, in the name of our only mediator and advocate Jesus Christ.-Our Father, &c. 211 S. P. To the Editor of the Christian Observer. HAVE lately been appointed to the curacy of a large parish in the country, in which I have found established a school of poor children, maintained principally by subscription. The scholars are taught to read and write, and the girls (for it consists of both sexes under a master and mistress) are instructed to work at their needle. The business of education is conducted, I suppose, much For the Christian Observer. A COUNTRY, GURATE respondent is one of great importance. The question proposed by our icons The resident parochial clergy having it in their power to obtain the superin tendance over a large proportion of the lower classes of schools throughout the kingdom, the good which they may ef fect, by well directed and active exer tions in this way, is incalculable. We hope, therefore, that those of our cor respondents, who have directed, their attention to this interesting subject, or who, by their experience, have acquir ed much practical knowledge respect, ing the best mode of conducting schools, will favour us with their sentiments upon it. MISCELLANEOUS. Memoir relating to the Prevalent Su perstition of the Thalamists. Luctus, et ultrices posuêre cubilia Curæ: EN. vi. 273. CHRONOLOGISTS have generally admitted that the sect of the Thalamists is coeval with that of the Non-doers; and it is presumed, that at an early period the two parties entered into an alliance, founded on principles common to both, the terms of which have been preserved writers have connected the Thalamistic inviolate to the present time. Some superstition with the ancient mythology, alleging that the sect has, from the most remote antiquity, paid divine honours to Somnus, son of Erebus and Nox, and to Phobetor, Phantasia, and Morpheus, the ministers of that sullen deity. The mysteries of the Thalamists were, however, long anterior to Polytheism, though the advocates of the above. mentioned hypothesis have advanced arguments in its support which might startle incredulity itself. Another class of antiquaries, argu ing from the Thalamistic rite of immolating human victims, has laboured to identify that worship with the sanguinary superstition of the Druids. It will appear in the sequel, that every individual among the Thalamists is both priest and sacrifice. As it is by no means the design of this memoir to meddle with the endless controversies of antiquaries and mythologists, the compiler hastens to describe existing facts; begging leave to premise, that evident allusions to the worship of the Thalamists are to be found in the Book of Proverbs, which was probably written a thousand years before the christian æra. The reader is referred to chap. vi. 9-11, and xxiv. 30-34. The ritual observances of the sect in question commence in the morning, precisely at the hour when the conscientious are rising to their early orisons, and the industrious to their daily employments. The devotee is generally a solitary worshipper: for, strange as it may appear, where two or more assemble in the same temple, they restrain each other's idolatrous propensities, unless, as sometimes occurs, these abject idolists consent to forbear mutual reprehension. During the sacrificial rites the devotee continues prostrate on the Thalamos* or altar, concealed, though not entirely, under the sacred vestments. The silence of the temple is only interrupted by the deep drawn sighs of the aspirant,f who, excepting occasional changes of posture, involuntary contractions of the limbs, or convulsive starts, remains motionless: animation seems to be suspended: and the devotee's countenance bears the pallid impress of death. The period of this gloomy devotion varies according to the strength of the devotee's principles. A bigot, it is said, will consume whole mornings in his private chantry, whispering an almost silent mass. The temples or chantries, where the Thalamistic mysteries are celebrated, are in some mansions decorated with costly furniture; and the altar is their distinguished ornament. This, elevated on four low pillars, is a quadrangular frame of car. pentry, supporting the softest spoils of the feathered world; and upon these the willing victim is offered. Above him is a superb canopy adorned with magnificent drapery. The temple is supplied with a lavatory, and all the apparatus necessary to cleanse the vic. tim from ceremonial feculence. The Thalamists gain numerous proselytes among all sects and parties, but are peculiarly successful in their efforts to convert the young, and such as have no regular occupation: and their attempts to disseminate heresy among the white slaves have been attended with invariable success. It is confidently affirmed, that in the universities the Thalamistic heresy would generally prevail, were not the immature heretics disturbed every morning, at an early hour, by the unwelcome expostulations of a faithful and sonorous monitor. Many a superstitious. gownsman, however, contrives, three or four mornings in the week, to disregard the admonitions of metallic orthodoxy, and instead of duly attending the college primes prolongs the Tha lamistic nocturn. Yet these idolatrous habits are readily detected in the fatal hour of examination, where the academical devotee too late recognises the value of sound principles. In our public schools the sect has numbered few adherents, the governors of those seminaries having ever opposed tenets which ultimately tend to the destruction of all scholastic discipline. These governors are decided Anti-Thalamists; and, in defiance of The reader need not be apprized, that the opposers of Thalamism are a numerous and bighly respectable body. The lover of poetry will remember in Dryden's Fable of that received maxim which forbids the propagation of opinions by via lence, do nevertheless employ that rude argument, by subjecting the trembling little Thalamists, if such be found, to the terrors of the torturing scourge a and the youthful devoices regain purity of principle at the expense of lacerated skins, and amidst sighs, and groans, and tears. Were not this rigorous penance imminent, it is generally believed that the long chamber at Eton, and the dormitory at Westminster, would every morning be thronged with Thalamistic worshippers. In the army, the influence of the sect is variable. Foreign service is confessedly the sworn foe of military Thalamism: but in comfortable winter quarters at home the sons of glory are often tainted with unsound principles, particularly when the morning parade is not early. Regiments stationed near the coast, while an enemy lines the adverse shore, are by no means the slaves of superstition; and from camps Thalamistic tenets are effectually ban ished. Volunteers, when on permanent duty, are generally reckoned to be practical Anti-Thalamists. The sect has numbered few illus trious characters among its patrons. Its creed has ever been deemed hostile to all that can be admired or loved, The faction is, indeed, popular; and glories in the number of its adherents, while it is silent with regard to their moral respectability. Nevertheless, a late philosopher, who has been called, and as many think justly, the brightest ornament of the eighteenth century, was (horresco referens) a confirmed Thalamist! Forgetting one of his own sententious maxims, that "the duties of life are commensurate with its du ration," he was the slave of a ruinous superstition, as his annual confessions abundantly testify.† And now, dropping the sportive style of this paper, and to be serious on a serious subject, the writer invites the attention of all Palamon and Arcite, the following mention of an elegant Anti-Thalamist, "Up rose the sun, and up rose Emily" See the interesting posthumous volume of Johnson's Prayers and Meditations. who consume their morning hours in criminal sloth, to the following extracts from a work which, with all its acknowledged blemishes, deserves à place in every library. "I take it for granted," says my author, "that every christian, that is in health, is up early in the morning: for it is much more reasonable to suppose a person up early, because he is a christian, than because he is a labourer, or a tradesmaɛ, or a servant, or hus business that wants him. Sleep is such a dull, stupid state of existence, that, even amongst mere animals, we despise them most which are most drowsy. You will perhaps say, though you rise late, yet you are always careful of your devotions when you are up. It may be so. But what then? Is it well done of you to rise late, because you pray when you are up? Is it pardonable to waste great part of the day in bed, because sometime after you say your prayers? It is as much your duty to rise to pray, as to pray when you are risen. And if you are late at your prayers, you offer to God the prayers of an idle, slothful worshipper, that rises to prayers as idle servants rise to their labour. Farther, if you fancy that you are careful of your devotions when you are up, though it be your custom to rise late, you deceive yourself: for you cannot perform your devotions as you ought. Now he that turns sleep into an idle indulgence, does as much to corrupt and disorder his soul, to make it a slave to bodily appe tites, and keep it incapable of all devout and heavenly tempers, as he that turns the necessities of eating into a course of indulgence. "A person that eats and drinks toe much, does not feel such effects from it as those do, who live in notorious instances of gluttony and intemperance: but yet his course of indulgence, though ference between rising at five, and at seven, in A late eminent divine calculated that the dif the morning, for the space of forty years, sup posing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to the addition of ten years to a man's life, of which (supposing the two hours in question to be so spent) eight hours every day should be employed in study and devotion, it be not scandalous in the eyes of the world, nor such as torments his own conscience, is a great and constant hindrance to his improvement in virtue it gives him eyes that see not, and ears that hear not: it creates a sensuality in the soul, increases the power of bodily passions, and makes him incapable of entering into the true spirit of reli gion. "Now this is the case of those who waste their time in sleep it does not disorder their lives, or wound their consciences, as notorious acts of intemperance do but like any other moderate course of indulgence, it silently, and by smaller degrees, wears away the spirit of religion, and sinks the soul into a state of dulness and sensuality. If you consider devotion only as a time of so much prayer, you may perhaps perform it, though you live in this daily indulgence: but if you consider it as a state of the heart, as a lively fervour of the soul, that is deeply affected with a sense of its own misery and infirmities, and desiring the spirit of God more than all things in the world: you will find that the spirit of indulgence and the spirit of prayer cannot subsist together, Mortification, of all kinds, is the very life and soul of piety: but he that has not so small a degree of it, as not to be able to be early at his prayers, can have no reason to think that he has taken up his cross and is following Christ. What conquest has he got over himself? What right hand has he cut off? What trials is he prepared for? What sacrifice is he ready to offer unto God, who cannot be so cruel to himself as to rise to prayer at such time as the drudging part of the world are content to rise to their labour? Some people will not scruple to tell you, that they indulge themselves in sleep, because they have nothing to do: and that if they had either business or pleasure to rise to, they would not lose so much of their time in sleep. But such people must be told that they mistake the matter: that they have a great deal of business to do: they have a hardened heart to change: they have the whole spirit of religion to get. For surely, he that thinks devotion to be of less moment than business or pleasure; or he that has nothing to do, because nothing but his prayers want him, may be justly said to have the whole spirit of religion to seek. You must not, therefore, consider, how small a crime it is to rise late, but you must consider how great a misery it is to want the spirit of religion, to have a heart not rightly affected with prayer, and to live in such softness and idleness, as makes you incapable of the most fundamental duties of a truly christian and spiritual life. You must not consider the thing barely in itself, but what it proceeds from: what virtues it shews to be wanting: what vices it naturally strengthens. For every habit of this kind discovers the state of the soul, and plainly shews the whole turn of your mind. When you read the scriptures, you see a religion that is all life, and spirit, and joy in Ged: that supposes our souls risen from earthly desires and bodily indulgences, to prepare for another body, another world, and other enjoyments. You see christians represented as temples of the Holy Ghost, as children of the day, as candidates for an eternal crown, as watchful virgins, that have their lamps always burning in expec tation of the bridegroom. But can he be thought to have this joy in God; this care of eternity, this watchful spirit, who has not zeal enough to rise to his prayers? "When you look into the writings and lives of the first christians, you see the same spirit that you see in the scriptures. All is reality, life, and action. From that time to this, there has been no person like them, cminent for piety, who has not, like them, been eminent for self-denial and mortification. This is the only royal way that leads to a kingdom."* It is confessed with regret, that some, whose claim to the christian character their general habits establish, must toofrequently plead guilty to the charges. implied in the above extracts. -"How many consciences are kept quiet." observes the author in another part of his work," upon no other foundation, but because they sin under the authority of the christian world. Christians had nothing to fear from the heathe *Law's Serious Call, chap. xiv. |