ed on the nature and practice of prayer.
They shewed great skill in comprehending and defining the several
component parts of prayer, as invocation, adoration, confession,
thanksgiving, petition, &c. They first gave examples of each separately;
and then, with great facility, made selections from each division in its
order, which they gave consecutively; shewing, that they had acquired,
with ease and aptitude, by means of this classification, a most
desirable scriptural directory in the important duty of prayer. They
then turned several lessons and passages of scripture into prayer; and
the Chairman, and several of the gentlemen present, read to them
passages from various parts of the Bible, which they readily classified,
as taught in the 'Questions on Prayer,' and turned them into adoration,
petition, confession, or thanksgiving; according to their nature, and as
they appeared best suited for each. Some of the texts were of a mixed,
and even of a complicated nature; but in every case, even when they were
not previously acquainted with the passages, they divided them into
parts, and referred each of these to its proper class, as in the more
simple and unique verses."

But a similar working of the same principle takes place when the
analytical exercise is employed synthetically, and when the pupil is
required to go from the root, forward to the extreme branches of the
analysis, as is done when he forms an extemporaneous prayer, from a
previous acquaintance with its several divisions and their proper order.
In this very necessary and important branch of a child's education, the
"Analysis of Prayer" is usually employed, and has, in thousands of
instances, been found exceedingly effective. During this exercise, the
child has steadily to keep in view the precise form and order of the
Analysis, and at the same moment he has to select the matter required
under each of the parts from the miscellaneous contents of his memory,
to put them in order, and to give them expression. In doing this there
is a variety of mental operations going on at the same moment, during
all of which the pupil will soon be enabled continuously to give
expression to his own ideas, with as much ease and self-possession as if
he were doing nothing more than mechanically repeating words previously
committed to memory. This is a valuable attainment; and yet the whole of
this complicated operation of attending to the several branches of the
analysis, and of s