PREFACE.

PRIESTLEY has said, in the Preface to a similar work,— "No apology is necessary for this new manual of devotion; old ones passing into disuse, and new ones being preferred, often only because they are new." Though these words might plausibly enough servefor every future collection, that now offered does not seek the benefit of such an explanation of its origin. There will be found, it is probable, enough peculiar in the plan, character or matter of the following pages, to show that the author thought the great duty of family religion might be further recommended than it is by any of the existing manuals, and also wherein. Those which are esteemed and used chiefly by the professors of a different faith, offend often by their quaintness, and oftener yet by their unscriptural phraseology. These blemishes, it were vain to deny, are outweighed in some of them by that deep tone of piety and that large measure of evangelical sentiment and feeling, in which the devotional forms of liberal christians are so confessedly defective. If the exercises of Merivale may escape this charge, they are eminently open to another, that of running out to a most ill-judged length.

'The present manual, it may be hoped, (for on such a point there is no room for vanity) has entirely kept clear of the last fault. The author was desirous of obviating one of the most popular pleas for the neglect of family religion, viz.

the pressure of household cares; a plea which has little plausibility, except as applied to the opening of the day. While therefore he has studied brevity in both exercises, he has meant to make a difference between them. The morning service, in particular, is contracted as far as decent respect for so sacred a duty would permit, or as any reasonable plea of the kind referred to, could require. Both the one and the other, however, are supposed to be prefaced by the reading of the scriptures, by singing, or some like accompaniment, without which this service loses much of its attractiveness, and perhaps something of its efficacy. But blemishes there are, more serious than that of length; and whether the author may not have exposed himself to share in his own stricture but just passed, is for others to say. He can only cherish a trembling hope, that in this work any thing may be discerned of the spirit or the diction of that of Jay.

There is a mechanical succession (if it may be called so) of the chief topics of prayer, most frequent and noticeable; which is best illustrated perhaps by what is called the long prayer in the public worship. Adoration prepares the way for thanksgiving; this rises in order from temporal blessings to the mention of our rational and moral nature, and then passes into the copious theme which revelation comprehends, Next, the speaker is led by the connecting thought of unworthiness in the subjects of these favours, to confession; while petition, in its various branches, completes the whole. The brevity of these family exercises allows nothing of all this; and considering the unhappy air of formality, which it gives to the prayers of the sanctuary, it is no subject of regret. As a work of daily devotions, this collection may be viewed as a continued act of religious communion; each division of which may therefore, with less im propriety, be somewhat confined in its train of thought,

Of the sentiment and diction in the following exercises, some part has been suggested to the writer's memory from familiarity with those of Hartley, Johnson, Cappe, Merivale, Jay, and the Liturgy of the Lutheran churches. Perhaps the mention of this was not strictly required; as he is well aware, that scarcely any work of the kind appears among us, without needing much larger acknowledgment; and which too is not, in all instances, very distinctly made. With the hope that this help to family religion may appear in any points, so far an improvement on its predecessors, as to persuade one more household to a revival of this most obvious and most forgotten duty, it is commended to the candour of the pious, and the acceptance of the Hearer of prayer.

BOSTON, MARCH 11, 1831.

1*

FAMILY PRAYERS.

First Week.

SUNDAY MORNING.

ALMIGHTY GOD! whose we are, and whom by every obligation we are bound to serve: help us, of this household, to find thee now, and at all times, the Rewarder of such as seek and serve Thee diligently. Yet, frail and sinful as we are, how shall we address Him aright, who is infinite perfection and and infinite purity! How indeed, but for the teachings of thy Spirit! and, since from Thee cometh both the preparation of the heart and the answer of the tongue, endite for us our petitions. Help us this morning to look up in gratitude to Thee, as the giver of life and of its nameless, numberless enjoyments. Help us especially to thank Thee for an intelligent, moral, and immortal existence, and