being internally occupied and engaged with God is wholly incompatible with being busied and employed in the numerous trifles that surround us (Luke xxxviii. 42). When through imbecility or unfaithfulness we become dissipated, or as it were uncentred, it is of immediate importance to turn again gently and sweetly inward; and thus we may learn to preserve the spirit and unction of prayer throughout the day; for if prayer and recollection were wholly confined to any appointed half-hour or hour, we should