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I purpose to show you that happiness is within your reach, and to point out the means by which it may be infallibly attained.

1. Prepare your hearts, or rightly dispose and order your hearts especially with reference to subsequent acts and exercises. If we would be truly happy, we must seek happiness within.

1. A prepared heart is thoughtful and considerate. The careless and trifling never attain peace of mind. A prepared heart is a penitent and humble heart. Sin is the great hindrance to human happiness; and the removal of it is therefore absolutely necessary.

2. A prepared mind is a decided mind. The mind thinks with reference to decision; otherwise thinking is a vain employ, a mere mocking of intelligence. If a man decides under that preparedness which serious thoughtfulness, prayer, and the aid of God concur to supply, it will determine to make the cultivation and salvation of the soul the great end of life.

2. Stretch out the hand towards God. This denotes the act and habit of prayer. The expression "stretching forth the hand" is strikingly descriptive of true and prevalent prayer. It was an action over a sacrifice, and it marked man's submission to the rites which God had appointed his trust in them, and his appeal to God upon their presentation. It was an action which acknowledged God as the source of supply and help. It was the action of desire. It was an action of waiting upon God.

3. Personal reformation. "If iniquity be in thine hand put it far away." Those who sin are not generally the men who pray; but some do. They pray both in public and in secret, and yet do not renounce all evil. The most perverse attempt that man has ever made, is to reconcile religion with the practice of sin. This will appear if you consider the only principles upon which such an attempt can be made. It may suppose that God loves religious services for their own sake. Or that God can be deceived by a show of outward piety, if outward morality be superadded, or that men may sin because grace abounds. Or that the end of religion is to save men from punishment. If, then, you have practised iniquity, renounce it entirely, and renounce it forever. If it be shut up secretly "in thine heart," let it not remain there any longer. Conscience is privy to it, and will smite you for it in your seasons of calm reflection. If the price of iniquity is in your hand, divest yourself of the evil thing. Make restitution to the men you have injured. "The righteous Lord loveth righteousness." When iniquity is put away then comes true peace. The blessing of God is given, and conscience approves of the act. The conscious. ness of integrity and uprightness is a source of the purest enjoyment.

4. The fourth direction relates to a godly family discipline. In ancient times the heads of families were the priests. Nor did parents cease, in a very important sense, to be the priests in their families after the establishment of the Levitical priesthood. In this respect no change has taken place under the Christian dispensation. The office of the head of the family is to instruct his household in the truths of God's law and Gospel. Our ancestors understood this duty. Together with religious concern, there is to be the actual putting away of evil from your families. From a proper course of family discipline and order God's blessing will not be withheld. "For then shalt thou lift up thy face without spot; yea, thou shalt be steadfast and shalt not fear." "Thy face" shall be "lifted up" in holy confidence towards God; and it shall be undefiled by a spot of guilty shame towards men.

(R. Watson.)

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KJV: If thou prepare thine heart, and stretch out thine hands toward him;

WEB: "If you set your heart aright, stretch out your hands toward him.