I2O
��Prayers and Meditations.
��Repentance and pardon. Lattd*.
In disease.
On the loss of friends by death ; by his own fault or friend's.
On the unexpected notice of the death of others.
Prayer generally recommendatory ; To understand their prayers ; Under dread of death ;
Prayer commonly considered as a stated and temporary duty performed and forgotten without any effect on the following day. Prayer a vow. Taylor*.
SCEPTICISM CAUSED BY
1. Indifference about opinions.
2. Supposition that things disputed are disputable.
3. Demand of unsuitable evidence.
4. False judgement of evidence.
��some prayers of my own, and pre fixing a discourse on prayer." We all now gathered about him, and two or three of us at a time joined in pressing him to execute this plan. He seemed to be a little displeased at the manner of our importunity, and in great agitation called out, " Do not talk thus of what is so aweful. I know not what time GOD will allow me in this world. There are many things which I wish to do." Some of us persisted, and Dr. Adams said, "I never was more serious about any thing in my life." JOHNSON. "Let me alone, let me alone ; I am over powered." And then he put his hands before his face, and reclined for some time upon the table.' Life, iv. 293.
On August i (ante, p. 117) he had recorded his wish ' to attempt a book of prayers.' In November he passed a few days with Dr. Adams. 'We had much serious talk together,' wrote Adams to Boswell, ' for which I ought to be the better as long as I live. You will remember some discourse which
��we had in the summer upon the subject of prayer, and the difficulty of this sort of composition. He re minded me of this, and of my having wished him to try his hand, and to give us a specimen of the style and manner that he approved. He added, that he was now in a right frame of mind, and as he could not possibly employ his time better, he would in earnest set about it.' Life, iv. 376.
1 My friend the Rev. W. H. Hutton, Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford, suggests that Johnson had in mind the second and third paragraphs of Laud's Officium Quotidianum. Laud's Works, ed. 1853, iii. 5.
2 ' Be careful thou dost not speak a lie in thy prayers, which though not observed is frequently practised by careless persons, especially in the forms of confession, affirming things which they have not thought, pro fessing sorrow which is not, making a vow they mean not.' Jeremy Taylor's Works, ed. 1865, vii. 622.
5. Complaint
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