But first-Why should we all just at that moment praise God? Because we have just had the gracious promise and declaration of his forgiving (absolving) mercy through Christ Jesus. Could there be anything more deserving the thankfulness of poor, sinful man than that? See what St. Paul thought of God's mercy to himself, and to all men, Ephes. ii. 4; iii. 19; and also St. John's words, 1 John iv. 10.

Now for the Gloria Patri (all should stand up and repeat it slowly and distinctly). What is glory? Think what you mean by a glorious throne-a glorious sun-set. You mean that it is both beautiful and grand; something to

make you feel pleasure mingled with awe.

Earthly glory is not to be compared with God's heavenly glory, Ex. xxxiii. 20; Is. xl. 18; xlvi. 5; 1 Tim. vi. 16. None of us could look on that glory and live. You remember the hymn

"How glorious is our Heavenly King."

But God has all that glory! Why, then, should we say, "Glory be to God!" Can God have more glory? No; but more people may feel his glory, and more people may speak of it; and so, in one sense, the glory of God shall increase. And one great way in which God's glory is increased is by the salvation of sinners through Jesus Christ, 1 Pet. iv. 11.

But the chief meaning of the words here is, that the whole congregation stand up and acknowledge God's great glory, and that He ought to be honoured, and glorified, and praised.

Now notice that we give glory to three Persons in one God, the three Persons of whom John speaks in 1 John v. 7; and why? God the Father is glorious, because He made us and sustains us; the Son is glorious, because He died for us; and the Holy Spirit is glorious, because He makes us to be born again, and sanctifies us. The Triune God had perfect glory from the beginning: read John xvii. 5; He has it now, and will have it for ever, as we see in Matt. vi. 13.

LESSON XII.

THE INVITATORY PSALM.

THE next part of the Service is the 95th Psalm, which is to be read every Sunday, except the 19th day of the month, when it comes in the regular course and could not well be read twice over. It was originally called the Invitatory Psalm, for in the early Church the service began with it, and was sung in a loud voice, to hasten those people to Church who were waiting in the neighbourhood till prayers commenced. Our Reformers assigned it its present place, as a preparation for the following Psalms, Lessons and Collects.

Let us now look at the Psalm, and see (if we can) why it is considered so full of meaning as to be always used.

There are eleven verses in it, and it exhorts us, first to praise God, showing us how and wherefore we should do so (v. 1-5); to pray to Him, in what manner, and for what reason (v. 6, 7); and to hear God's Word speedily and willingly (v. 10, 11), giving us a caution against hardening our hearts, by the instance of the Jews, whose punishment is set before us, to warn us against despising or distrusting God (v. 8—11).

Let us read the Psalm through.

Verses 1, 2. These verses are an exhortation from one to the other to praise God; to sing to Him (we are told that the angels sing to Him, Job xxxviii. 7)

to rejoice in the strength of our salvation, i.e., to rejoice in Almighty God, who is our salvation, Ex. xv. 2; to come before his presence, i.e., to come into his temple (a place where He especially promises to be present, Ex. xx. 24) with thanksgiving.

Verses 3-5. These verses give us reasons for praising God.

1st. He is great-so wondrously great, that no one else is worthy to be named at the same time; not even "the gods," which means the kings and great men of the earth, as it means in Ex. xxii. 28.

2nd. He is the Creator and Preserver of the world. To have "the corners," i.e., the various parts of the earth in his hand, means that his hand made them and sustains them; read Is. lxvi. 2. The strength of the hills is his also, means that He made the hills so strong, as they are said to be in Ps. cxxv. 1; Hab. iii. 6. All creation is his, for He is the great Creator.

Verse 6.-Here is another exhortation to praise God as our Maker, and that in the humble reverent way which He requires; He would have us approach Him with a holy fear, Mal. i. 14; Is. lxvi. 2.

Verse 7.-Here is a fresh reason for praising God. He is to us as a shepherd to his sheep. He leads us with "his hand" to "his pasture." So David calls God his shepherd, Ps. xxiii. 1; lxxx. 1. Isaiah foretold Christ as a Shepherd, Is. xl. 11; and Jesus applied the title to Himself, John x. 14.

Verse 8-11.-These words are solemn, and we should try and feel them. For when we hear them, it is as if God said once more, "To-day, hear me!" God speaks to us by his Bible and his ministers; and we are not to harden our hearts, that is, we are not to refuse to hear Him.

Then we are reminded of some who did harden their hearts against Godwhen they did-and the dreadful consequences. Who were they? "Your fathers," the Jews in the wilderness, read Numbers xiv. 10, 11, to see how they hardened their hearts. And when? God calls it the day of provocation and temptation. They tempted God and proved Him, that is, tried his faithfulness, and whether He would punish sin; read Ps. cvi. 14, 24.

What was the dreadful end of it? God was grieved with them, and they all perished in the Wilderness, Num. xxvi. 64, 65; as He had said in his wrath. Not one of them (save the two faithful men, Caleb and Joshua), entered into Canaan, the rest which God had prepared for the Israelites; read Num. xiv. 29, 30; 1 Cor. x. 5.

We see, then, that this Psalm is especially fit for the service, because, 1st, it teaches us to praise God; 2nd, it warns us to hear God. Let us try if we can do both this day.

LESSON XIII.
THE PSALMS.

After the 95th Psalm, it is appointed that a portion of the Psalms shall be read; for which purpose the Psalms are divided into sixty parts, one for the morning and one for the evening of every one of the thirty days which a month usually contains. When there are thirty-one days, the thirtieth day is used for the thirty-first, if the latter be a Sunday.

By this means there is a variety in the service, and we read more of Scripture than if we always kept to the same.

Let us endeavour to get an idea of what the Psalms are, as distinguished from the other parts of the Bible. The Bible is all from God, and all good, as St. Paul says, 2 Tim. iii. 16. But it is not all alike. Open at Gen. i., and run your eye down it. Now open Job, and look down any one of the chapters in the middle of

the Book. Now look over a chapter in Proverbs; now one in Isaiah; now one in the Epistles of Paul. All these are inspired; but are they all alike? No; all different. Genesis is history; Isaiah is poetry; so is Job; but Isaiah is prophecy also. The Proverbs are wise sentences; the Epistles are letters full of argument.

Now, what are the Psalms? and why (do you suppose) should we read them so much?

It would do us little good to hear of God if we never ourselves talked to Him; and this is just what many of the Psalms lead us to do. Turn to the 63rd, 77th, 86th, and many others. You will see that they give us the very words we may use in approaching God. Therefore, the Book of Psalms is called a Devotional Book.

Again. We ought to praise God; and here come in the Psalms with the very words we ought to use; as this 95th, and the 103rd, and the 107th. Then there are wise sayings in the Psalms; as in the 1st, 15th, and 49th. There is comfort in them for the troubled, as in the 32nd, and 51st; and for all the people of God, as in the 91st and 121st. Some of them describe God's glory and love very beautifully, as the 19th, 103rd, and 145th. Lastly, many of them are prophetic, and foretell the work, the sufferings, the glory of Christ; such as the 2nd, 40th, 45th, and 110th.

If you will think of all this, you will see why the Psalms are so constantly read in Church. For they are the inspired experiences of God's servants of old, under every variety of circumstance, and thus form a sort of Liturgy ready formed for the utterance of the homage of Christ's people in all ages. The principal part of the ancient services were composed of Psalms. Those we read in Church are the translations made by Tyndale and Coverdale for the great English Bible, and are not quite the same in word (although in effect), as those in the last Authorised Version. Our mode of reading them in the service, alternately by the minister and congregation, is both an ancient practice among Christians, and also among the Jews,-the Psalms which were composed expressly for the service of the Temple being written in alternate verse. Musical instruments were then used in the public services, and organs were early introduced into Chris tian Churches.

Every worshipper is expected to take part in these hymns of praise, and in the utterance of the petitions with which they are mingled, else would the invitation, "Praise ye the Lord," and the ready response, "The Lord's name be praised," be without a meaning.

But, when reading the Psalms in their course in the Church, we must not forget that many of them were composed in the name of God's chosen people of old, and others are typical of Messiah and his kingdom: and that there are various supplications and sentiments contained in them respecting the enemies of the chosen people and of Christ's Church, which are evidently inapplicable to the state of the individual believer, and which it would not be proper for him to use, speaking in his own person, but can only be employed by the elect servants of the Messiah, in his name, as members of His kingdom.

LESSON XIV.
THE LESSONS.

In the preceding Lesson we have been speaking of the Psalms, and shewing how they meet our need for use in Divine worship, being full of prayer, praise, confession, and instruction. At the end of each Psalm we are to repeat the Gloria Patria, (already explained in Lesson xi.), partly to praise God for his

general goodness to us, and partly to thank him for giving us those very Psalms. The Rubric, (or direction for what is to be said or done, which used to be, and is still sometimes printed in red letters-the word ruber being Latin for red), next calls for our special notice. We will read it through, and also the one following

the Benedicite.

I. It speaks of a Calendar divided into months, at the beginning of the Prayer Book, in which the Scripture lessons are appointed,-first one out of the Old Testament, then one out of the New. If we refer to that Calendar we shall find that it gives two Lessons for every morning and two for every evening. By this arrangement the principal portions of the Old Testament are read once in the year, and the whole of the New Testament (excepting the Apocalypse) three times. Thus the Reformers showed their desire to honour the Bible, and that all they taught might be brought plainly and honestly to the test of Divine Truth. Therefore they directed the Scriptures so to be read that the whole scheme of God's providence, and the plan of salvation, should be laid before the people. Both the Old and New Testaments have equal authority-for what is the Law but the Gospel foreshadowed? What the Gospel but this Law fulfilled? That which lies in the one under a shadow is in the other brought out into the open sun; things there prefigured are here performed, and thus the veil of the Law helps us to bear the light breaking forth in the Gospel.

But II. The Rubric says, "except there be proper Lessons assigned" (or appointed) "for that day." If we turn again to the Tables at the beginning of the Prayer Book we shall find one headed "Proper Lessons for every Sunday and Holy-day, throughout the year." Those Lessons are chosen with some regularity. for the Books of the Old Testament are taken in turn, Genesis beginning on Septuagesima Sunday, although only a few chapters in cach Book could be selected, to make a course for one year.

Notice that these are only First Lessons, either for matins (i.e. Morning Service) or Even-song (i.e. Evening Service), but as the Second Lesson in the Monthly Calendar is always out of the New Testament, it comes to pass that whether it be a Sunday or a week-day you will always hear in church one Lesson from the Old Testament, and one from the New in the morning, and so also in the evening.

III. There are some most important directions about the manner of reading the Bible. It is to be read "distinctly," with an audible voice, (i.e. aloud) and the reader is so to stand and turn to the people that all present (as far as possible) may hear him. This direction, although it might seem superfluous, was rendered necessary― for in the Romish Church the priests were in the habit (as they still are) of repeating the prayers and service with their backs to the people before the altar, in a low, monotonous tone, and in a tongue which is not understood by the majority of those present. The Reformers corrected this abuse; and as we hear the Bible read constantly and regularly in our native tongue in our churches, we may well thank God for the privileges which the Reformation obtained for us, and remember with gratitude those good and holy men who were ready even to die to obtain such privileges. In no Church is the Bible so honoured by extensive and constant use as in the Church of England; even our dissenting brethren, much as they prize it, do not incorporate it with their prayers and praise, and bring every part of it in order before the people as is the practice among ourselves.

Why should we value the Bible so much? Who is its Author? What does it tell us of Him? What does it teach us about ourselves? What is it compared to by David and by Peter? These are questions for which we may profitably seek answers from the Bible itself; and each should also ask himself the question, Do really love the Bible?

The Eecture.

HOW TO INTEREST OUR SCHOLARS IN MISSIONS.

An Address, delivered before the Sunday School Teachers' Class of the Islington branch of the Church of England Young Men's Society, on Tuesday 29th of October, 1861, by the REV. L. STANHAM, B.A., (Curate) St. Mary, Islington.