may come--a day of
sadness, fear, perplexity, sorrow, when they will understand it, and
thank God that their forefathers placed it in the prayer-book, for them
to fall back upon, as comfort and hope in the day of trouble; putting
words into their mouths and thoughts into their hearts, which they,
perhaps, never would have found out for themselves.

I mean that latter part of the Litany which talks of the evils which the
craft and subtilty of the devil or men work against us, that they may be
brought to nought, and by the providence of God's goodness be dispersed,
that we may be hurt by no persecutions--which calls on Christ to arise
and deliver us, for His name's sake and His honour, which pleads before
God the noble works which He did in the days of our forefathers; and
which continues with short prayers, almost cries, which have something in
them of terror, almost of agony. What have such words to do with us? Why
are they put into the mouths of us English, safe, comfortable,
prosperous, above almost all the nations upon earth?

Ah! my friends, those prayers, when they were first put into our prayer-
book, were spoken for the hearts of Englishmen. They were not prayers
for one afflicted person here, and another there,--they, too, were
National prayers. They were the cries of the English nation in agony--in
the time when, three hundred years ago, the mightiest nations and powers
of Europe, temporal and spiritual, were set against this little isle of
England, and we expected not merely to be invaded and conquered, but
destroyed utterly and horribly with sword and fire, by the fleets and
armies of the King of Spain. In that great danger and war our
forefathers cried to God; and they cried all the more earnestly, because
they felt that their hands were not clean; that they had plenty and too
many sins to be "mercifully forgiven," and that at best they could but
ask God "mercifully to look upon their infirmities," and, "for the glory
of His name, turn from them those evils which they most righteously had
deserved." But nevertheless they cried unto God in their great agony,
because they had the spirit of the old Psalmist, who said, "They cried
unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their
distress."

And what answer God made to their prayers all the world knows, or should
know. For if He had not answered their prayer, we should not be here
this day, a great, and strong, and prosperous nation, wi