or temporal things: the whole earthly life is given to
the Father's loving care.

'_And forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our
debtors._' As bread is the first need of the body, so forgiveness
for the soul. And the provision for the one is as sure as for the
other. We are children, but sinners too; our right of access to
the Father's presence we owe to the precious blood and the
forgiveness it has won for us. Let us beware of the prayer for
forgiveness becoming a formality: only what is really confessed
is really forgiven. Let us in faith accept the forgiveness as
promised: as a spiritual reality, an actual transaction between
God and us, it is the entrance into all the Father's love and all
the privileges of children. Such forgiveness, as a living
experience, is impossible without a forgiving spirit to others:
as _forgiven_ expresses the heavenward, so _forgiving_ the
earthward, relation of God's child. In each prayer to the Father
I must be able to say that I know of no one whom I do not
heartily love.

'_And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil
one._' Our daily bread, the pardon of our sins, and then our
being kept from all sin and the power of the evil one, in these
three petitions all our personal need is comprehended. The prayer
for bread and pardon must be accompanied by the surrender to live
in all things in holy obedience to the Father's will, and the
believing prayer in everything to be kept by the power of the
indwelling Spirit from the power of the evil one.

Children of God! it is thus Jesus would have us to pray to the
Father in heaven. O let His Name, and Kingdom, and Will, have the
first place in our love; His providing, and pardoning, and
keeping love will be our sure portion. So the prayer will lead us
up to the true child-life: the Father all to the child, the
Father all for the child. We shall understand how Father and
child, the _Thine_ and the _Our_, are all one, and how the heart
that begins its prayer with the God-devoted THINE, will have the
power in faith to speak out the OUR too. Such prayer will,
indeed, be the fellowship and interchange of love, always
bringing us back in trust and worship to Him who is not only the
Beginning but the End: 'FOR THINE IS THE KINGDOM, AND THE POWER,
AND THE GLORY, FOR EVER, AMEN.' Son of the Father, teach us to
pray, 'OUR FATHER.'

'LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY.'

* * * * *

O Thou who art the