A BOOK OF PRIVATE PRAYER FOR Morning, Mid-day, Night, and other Times, WITH NOTES, FOR THOSE WHO WOULD LIVE TO GOD AMID THE BUSINESS OF DAILY LIFE. EDITED BY THE REV. T. T. CARTER, M.A., RECTOR OF CLEWER, BERKS. "HE KNEELED UPON HIS KNEES THREE TIMES A DAY AND Prayed, and GAVE THANKS BEFORE HIS GOD."-DAN. VI. 10. LONDON: JOSEPH MASTERS, ALDERSGATE STREET, AND NEW BOND STREET. 1861. "He hath learnt to live well who hath learnt to pray well."-S. Augustine. LORD, help us this, and every day PREFACE. THE Author of this Manual was desirous of having the name of some Clergyman attached to it, and on this account the undersigned has ventured to add such recommendation as he is able, to a work which he believes will be found to be extensively useful. Notwithstanding the many Manuals of Devotion which of late years have issued from the press, this little book has its own special use not as yet supplied. Its principal feature is, that it provides, together with a considerable variety of prayers, many helps and instructions for self-examination and meditation in a simple form, and practical suggestions for a devout life. To earnest persons labouring in the active business of life, but able and wishing to acquire habits of devotion beyond the ordinary use of Morning and Evening Prayer, it will be found very serviceable. The aim of the compiler has been to render this little work entirely in harmony with the Book of Common Prayer, in its spirit and doctrine as well as in its language. The Author desires to ask the prayers of those who use this book, as for "one who has not compiled it with the idea of teaching any one, but only with the wish to help out of such experience as may have been derived from miserable shortcomings." Clewer Rectory, T. T. CARTER. Night Prayers and Self-Examination A Shorter Form of Morning and Evening Another Form of Morning and Evening Prayers 1 This (with other portions of the book) has been A BOOK OF PRIVATE PRAYER. PREFACE ON PRAYER. Ir is impossible to speak too strongly of the absolute necessity of saying your Morning and Evening Prayers. It is not too much to say that upon the fulfilment of this duty hangs your salvation. It is allimportant. Look upon it therefore as a matter of life and death, and never be tempted by idleness or fancied want of time to neglect it. If you allow yourself once to omit your daily prayers the habit of neglecting them will grow upon you. The first time you will feel uneasy, but gradually you will think less and less of such omission, until B |