"I have always found," says Mr. Baxter, "that the fittest time for myself is the evening, from sunsetting to twilight."

As the best food cannot nourish the outer man, unless it be digested,-so divine truth cannot refresh and strengthen the inner man, if it be not well considered, and revolved in the mind. Mary, it is said, kept all those important and divine sayings she had heard, and pondered them in her heart. There is a connexion between reading the word and prayer, and meditation is the chain which joins them. When we begin to meditate, we insensibly break forth into prayer. "While I was musing, the fire burned; then spake I with my tongue, Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days know how frail I am."

the fire of devotion,

what it is, that I may And if you would have which now perhaps is

covered with ashes and nearly extinct, to blaze out with new vehemence, it must be stirred and re-kindled by the same means.

When a certain famous orator was asked, what was the first requisite in eloquence, he said pronunciation; what the second, he answered pronunciation; and what the third, he still replied pronunciation:" " So," says Dr. Bates, if I should be asked, what are the best means and way to advance the faculties, to make the ordinances fruitful, to increase

grace, to enlarge our comfort, and produce holiness, I should answer, Meditation, meditation, meditation."

The wicked, it is said, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God; God is not in all his thoughts. Awful state! When pride sits on the brow, unbounded levity dissipates the mind, and rooted enmity shuts up the heart. Now, judging by contrast, it may be safely concluded, that the more God is in our thoughts, the more shall we seek and prize his favour. "Meditation," says Gerson, "is the nurse of prayer;" and another calls it "the treasury of the graces." As these maxims, from their brevity, can be easily remembered, so, for their worth and weight, they ought to be highly valued. The calm and comfortable exercise of the thoughts on divine things, is never to be considered as an end, but rather as a means to the attainment of an end. Meditate," says Bishop Taylor, "till you make some act of piety upon the occasion of what you meditate; either get some new arguments against sin, or some new encouragements to virtue." The exhortation which Paul addresses to his son Timothy, conveys the same sentiment, but in more pointed and forcible language, "Meditate on these things; give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all." Now, as communion with God is assuredly

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our noblest and sweetest privilege, and the chief end both of our creation and redemption, whatever conduces to it, is in the highest degree valuable. The measure of our spiritual profit is to be determined by the degree of nearness and likeness to God, as our loss is certainly proportioned to our distance from, and disparity to him. There can hardly be any thing more evident, as a principle of truth revealed in the word, or as a matter of fact, verified by experience, than this-that a settled habit of contemplation promotes the exercise of prayer. "I will remember the works of the Lord surely I will remember thy wonders of old. I will meditate also of thy work, and talk of thy doings. (Psalm lxxvii. 11, 12.) When the soul is agitated with fears, and surrounded with troubles, there is still this one path left open, and it leads to an unfailing refuge, and an everlasting consolation. "I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the works of thy hands. I stretch forth my hands unto thee: my soul thirsteth after thee, as a thirsty land. Hear me speedily, O Lord; my spirit faileth; hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit." (Psalm cxliii. 5—7.) Here it may be seen that serious recollection, as it were, musters the scattered powers of the mind; memory traces the footsteps of Providence and mercy in seasons past, while hope

revives at every retrospective glance; meditation ponders over the works of divine power, and the wonders of eternal love; then the hands are lifted up, and the desires of the heart are poured out in humble and importunate prayer. If we note the Psalmist on the mount of joy, as we have seen him in the vale of sorrow, we shall come to the same conclusion. (Psalm cxix. 15, 16.) When we consider this as a matter of fact, verified by experience, we shall find every pious man ready to become a witness. Archbishop Tillotson says, "To worship God, to study his will, to meditate on him, and to love him; all these bring pleasure and peace." Most men are miserably deluded, supposing that honour and happiness consist in, or flow from, certain outward circumstances; meanwhile the state of the mind is not taken into their account. Now there is neither true dignity nor pure delight, without a serene, contemplative, devotional spirit, daily approaching to God, daily growing in a conformity to his perfections, and deeply imbued with his heavenly grace. That valuable minister of the word, the Rev. John Flavel, many of whose useful works are well known, was not less happy in the private exercises of prayer, than successful in his pulpit labours. His intimate and delightfu] intercourse with heaven is manifest, from a remarkable story which he relates in his Pneumatology, though with great modesty using the

third person, as the Apostle Paul did, when speaking of his extraordinary revelations. The following is the substance of the narrative:

Being on a journey, he set himself to improve his time by meditation, when his mind grew intent, till at length he had such ravishing tastes of heavenly joys, and such full assurance of his interest therein, that he utterly lost the sight and sense of this world, and all its concerns; so that for hours he knew not where he was. At last, perceiving himself faint, through a great loss of blood from his nose, he alighted from his horse, and sat down at a spring, where he washed and refreshed himself, earnestly desiring, if it were the will of God, that he might there leave the world. His spirits reviving, he finished his journey in the same delightful frame of mind. He passed all that night without a wink of sleep,-the joy of the Lord still overflowing him; so that he seemed an inhabitant of the other world. After this, a heavenly serenity and sweet peace long continued with him; and for many years he called that day one of the days of heaven, and professed he understood more of the life of heaven by it, than by all the discourses he had heard, and the books he had ever read*.”

Nonconformist's Memorial.