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While adverting to the importance of prayer for assistance in the pulpit, may we not remind ourselves, that the same assistance is equally needed in the desk? No uninspired service contains so much mind or spirituality as the Liturgy. As the service both of our understanding and of our heart, it requires the energy as well as the devotion of the spiritual habit. Mr. Cecil considered, that ‘the leading defect in Christian Ministers was the lack of a devotional habit ‘—a remark, that is too often illustrated by the contrast of the monotonous formality of the desk with the fervid energy of the pulpit; as if the exercise of communion with God in supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving, in penitential self-abasement and faith, were less spiritual than the delivery of a discourse to our fellow-sinners. We wonder not, under such circumstances, at the listlessness and lack of response in our Liturgical worshippers. The mere reading of the prayers has little power of exciting a spirit of prayer throughout the congregation. It is when they are felt and prayed, that the chord of sympathy vibrates from the heart of the Minister to the hearts of his congregation—“Arise, O Lord, into your rest. Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your saints shout for joy.” Psalm 132.8, 9.