Second week. Sunday Morning. and be glad in it. Save us now, O Lord, we beseech thee; send us now prosperity. We beseech thee, O God, mercifully to direct and aid us in all the duties suitable to this day, according to thy gracious purpose in its appointment. May thy Spirit be with all who unite in thy holy worship. Sanctify their affections and help them to withdraw their thoughts from worldly cares, to hold their conversation in heaven, and to worship thee in spirit and in truth. May the power of godliness possess their hearts. Make us sensible, O Lord, how great are the privileges of thy sanctuary: how blessed it is to enter into thy gates with thanksgiving, and into thy courts with praise; to fall down and kneel before the Lord our Maker. We beseech thee of thy compassionate goodness to pity those who, by sickness or other causes, are deprived of the privilege of uniting with thy people in thy house of prayer. May they consider that thy gracious presence is not confined to temples made with hands: that the hearts and the wants of thy creatures are all before thee, and that thy mercy is over all thy works. Help them, in faith and hope, to raise their souls in prayer and praise to thee. Comfort them with a sense of thy goodness, and give them peace. Let thy Spirit, O Lord, be with those of us who shall be permitted this day to meet with thy people in the place of thy public worship. Fill our hearts with seriousness and devout affections, and make us attentive to the duties of thy house. Give us, we entreat thee, repentance unto life, and make us joyful in thy house of prayer. Dispose us, in an honest and good heart, to hear the gospel of our Savior Christ, and to receive the words of eternal life. Wilt thou, O gracious Lord, accompany thy word with power, and adapt it to the wants of all who hear it. May sinners be awakened to righteous Second Week. Sunday Morning. ness and flee from the wrath to come. May they seek thee while thou mayst be found and call upon thee while thou art near. May the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Alarm the careless; comfort and help the weakhearted, and reclaim those who have erred from the paths of truth. May we never be forgetful hearers, but doers of thy work, manifesting in our lives that we are the disciples of Jesus Christ. May we know him and the power of his resurrection: as he was raised up by the glory of the Father, may we also walk in newness of life. Make us duly thankful for the Holy Scriptures written for our learning, and for the religious privileges, and all the means of knowledge and grace which we enjoy. Help us, O Lord, so to estimate and to use these blessings, that we may become wise unto salvation. May we remember the Lord's day to keep it holy, and have grace to profit in the religion of our Savior, Christ. Look, we beseech thee, with thy favor and blessing upon all Sunday schools, and upon that especially with which we are more particularly connected. Give thy blessing to the teachers who are occupied in this labor of love, and remember them for good. Bless the children and youth who attend upon their instruction. Help them to receive in their hearts and to evince in their lives the precepts of thy word, and the principles of the doctrines of Christ. Open their understandings, and incline their ear unto thy testimonies. Graft in their tender minds a religious faith and a godly fear, and nourish them with the doctrines of life. Help them so to proceed in all virtue and godliness of living, that finally they may be inheritors of thine everlasting kingdom. Assist us, O Lord, with thy heavenly grace; direct our hearts and dispose our ways to the attain Second Week. Sunday Evening. ment of everlasting salvation; and in all the pains and perils of this mortal life, may we ever be defended by thy most gracious and ready help, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Second Week. Sunday Evening. ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father, we desire once more to bow before thee, with reverence and humility, and with a thankful sense of thy goodness. It is a good thing to give thanks unto thee, O Lord, and to praise thy name; to show forth thy loving kindness in the morning, and thy faithfulness in the night season. A pleasant thing it is to be thankful for thy mercies; to acknowledge thy goodness, and to adore thy perfections. How manifold are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made them all. The heavens declare thy glory, and the firmament showeth thy handy work. Thou hast appointed the moon for certain seasons, and the sun knoweth his going down. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. But far surpassing all the glory of the starry heavens is the Sun of Righteousness, who hath risen upon this sinful world with healing in his wings. We adore thee for the gift of a divine Savior; that thou, who didst command the light to shine out of darkness, hast shined in the hearts of thy people, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, in the face of Jesus Christ. Grant that we may walk as the children of light, and while it is called to-day, before that night cometh in which no man can work. Sanctify to us all the means of grace, and especially thy appointment of a holy day of rest. Make Second Week. Sunday Evening. us duly thankful that we have been favored again with its weekly return, and sensible that one day in thy courts is better than a thousand spent in vanity and sin. Help us to profit in seasons of grace. May we not be of those who are ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth; but receive with meekness and with joy the ingrafted word, which is able to save the soul. Enter not into judgment with thy servants, O Lord; but in mercy pardon our neglect of thy word, and our having profited so little by Sabbaths and ordinances and other means and blessings. Awaken in our minds a lively sense of thy goodness, and grant that we may ever hereafter serve and please thee in newness of life. Give us hearts, O Lord, to pity and to pray for those who need the blessings which we possess. Extend the light of the gospel and the saving truths of thy word to all the families of the earth. Be merciful to those who are still sitting in darkness and the shadow of death. Send, we beseech thee, O gracious Lord, send laborers into that great harvest, the heathen world. If thou speak the word great will be the company of the preachers. At thy command let their sound go out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. O may thy kingdom come with power, and truth and righteousness increase, till thy will shall be done on earth, as it is in heaven. And grant that the kingdom of God may be within us; that the word of Christ may dwell in us richly, in all wisdom. May thy Spirit convince us of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, and excite us to diligence, watchfulness, and prayer. May that mind be in us, which was also in Jesus Christ, that it may be our meat and drink to do thy will, and that we may love one another, as he has given us commandment. May the fruits of the Spirit Second Week. Sunday Evening. so appear and abound in us, that we may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things. Grant, O Lord, that the prayers which have been, during this day, offered unto thee may be graciously heard. What prayer and supplication soever has been made by any man or by all thy people, hear thou in heaven thy dwelling-place, and forgive, and do and give to every man according to his ways and his need; for thou, O Lord, knowest the hearts and the wants of all the children of men. And grant, O Lord, that thy word, which has been read and preached this day, may be a savor of life to those who have heard it. May they not be forgetful hearers, but look into the perfect law of liberty, and so faithfully continue therein, that they may be blest in their deed. Gracious art thou, O Lord, and long-suffering: all day long dost thou stretch out thy hand unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. O let not the means of knowledge and of grace which we receive rise up in judgment and condemn us. While we call thee Lord, may we do the things which thou commandest, and daily grow in grace and in the knowledge and love of God. And wilt thou bless to our edification all the religious privileges which we have this day enjoyed. O may thy counsels and thy precepts, and the revelations of thy mercy, take root in our hearts and be fruitful in our lives. May we never neglect the great salvation which thy gospel brings to our ears. While our lives, through thy goodness, shall be prolonged, may we live to thee. Take us and ours, O heavenly Father, under thy care and keeping, and fit and prepare us, we humbly beseech thee, for that eternal Sabbath and heavenly rest which remains for the people of God. May every passing day and week bring us nearer to those everlasting joys which thou hast promised to those who love thee. Keep us this night, both outwardly in our |