Take all my beloved friends under Thy shadowing wings this night. The darkness can not screen them from Thee; the curtains of night can not exclude Thy kind and watchful eye. Guide, guard, protect them, and bring them all at last to Thy heavenly kingdom.
Bless Thy Church everywhere; lengthen her cords and strengthen her stakes. Be a wall of fire around Thy Zion and the glory in the midst thereof. Clothe her priests with salvation, let her saints and people shout aloud for joy.
Bless those on whom Thou hast laid Thine afflicting hand. May they take refuge in the arms that are chastising them, and be enabled to say in unmurmuring submission, "The Lord's will be done." Hear me, gracious Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ, my blessed Lord and Saviour. Amen.
"LET MY PRAYER BE SET FORTH BEFORE THEE AS
INCENSE: AND THE LIFTING UP OF MY HANDS
AS THE EVENING SACRIFICE."
ELEVENTH EVENING.
FOR WEANEDNESS FROM THE WORLD.
"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."—John xvii. 16.
O God, I desire to come into Thy gracious presence this night, beseeching Thee to bless me. Let my prayer come before Thee as incense. May the incense-offering of gratitude and thanksgiving ascend from a grateful heart. How manifold are the proofs I have to recount of kindness on thy part! how deep the ingratitude I have to mourn on my own! My sins have reached unto the clouds; they are more in number than the sand of the sea.
Thou art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. I cannot evade Thy righteous scrutiny; all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom I have to do! Lord, I have to lament the proneness of this evil heart of unbelief ever to depart away from Thee, the living God. I mourn the debasing influence of earthly things; the fascinating power of a present evil world. How inclined to conform to its evil maxims and unholy practices! How often am I found ranged among those who "mind earthly things;" my soul cleaving to the dust, instead of soaring upwards to Thyself, my alone satisfying portion!
Lord, it is my earnest prayer that Thou wouldst wean me from the world. Keep me from over-anxiety about the things that are seen—from being over-careful and troubled about earth's "many things," to the exclusion of the one thing needful! Break every alluring worldly spell; disenchant things temporal of their false and delusive charm; disengage me by all the salutary discipline of Thy providence from what is fleeting, uncertain, transient, perishable; and unite me to the things which cannot be shaken, but which remain forever! May my citizenship be more in heaven; imbibing more of the pilgrim spirit, may I declare plainly that I seek a better country.