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As the prophet made the sins, the perils, and the needs of his nation his own, and confessed and supplicated as for his life, so should we. Our sins and transgressions are as great and as many as our mercies; our perils are as real and imminent and fearful as our exaltation and opportunity and overflowing outward prosperity.

I. Lot us name SOME OF OUR MERCIES, PRIVILEGES AND OPPORTUNITIES.

1. Take into view our national heritage — its locality, extent, richness, and abounding resources — unparalleled in the history of nations.

2. Our Providential history. Our ancestral stock, Puritan, Huguenot, etc. Our wondrous growth and development. God's special interpositions, as in war.

3. The character of our institutions. A free ballot, a free Bible.

II. Let US NOT OVERLOOK OUR PERILS, for they are many and imminent.

1. The decadence of personal integrity and public morality.

2. The rapid influx of a foreign and alien element.

3. The enormous growth and corrupting influence of our great cities.

4. The increasing prevalence of vice, pauperism, and crime throughout the land.

5. The grasping policy and overshadowing influence of combinations and monopolies.

6. The growing alienation of the great labouring class from the Church and from Christianity.

7. The audacity and strength of the Rum Power, allied with corruption in politics, to legalise the traffic in making drunkards, and in gambling on race-courses, and to keep in office disreputable and wicked men in many of our leading cities.

(J. M. Sherwood, D.D.)

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KJV: And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:

WEB: I set my face to the Lord God, to seek by prayer and petitions, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.