"Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven." There is but one
will; so make it known to us that we may realize out [Transcriber's
note: our?] at-one-ment with the Divine, even as do the "angels in
heaven."

"Give us this day our daily bread." "The earth is the Lord's and the
fulness thereof." (Make us partakers of thy bounty, that our bodies
may have needed nourishment. Illuminate our spiritual understanding
that we may take to ourselves each day such spiritual food as we are
best fitted to appropriate and use.)

"And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Up to this
point there is simply suggested the personal relationship between the
petitioner and the Being to whom he prays; but into this phrase quite
another element is introduced--a new factor; forgive us, as we in turn
forgive our enemies. This puts upon one who utters these words the
responsibility of answering his own prayer, or of making the conditions
whereby he shall be forgiven and accepted, that thus may be established
the eternal vibrations that bind the very lowest to the Highest.

"And lead us not into temptation;" _i. e._, graciously protect us from
following the devices of our own ignorance; but if we willfully go our
own way, and are overcome with grief and disappointment because of our
misdoing, "deliver us from [the] evil" consequences thereof, by
inspiring our minds with courage to bear our pains and penalties with
true heroism, and teach us through our experiences wherein lie our
highest growth and wisdom for all our future lives. "For thine is the
kingdom, and the power" to create and destroy, "and the glory." (All
things begin and end in God.) "Forever and ever. Amen."

Jesus had undoubtedly learned the pure ethics of this all-embracing
appeal. Principles are unchanging; but, as the law of evolution
carries each succeeding representation of the underlying facts of
spiritual science ever higher in the ascending series, on the spiral
pathway that leads to the kingdom of God, so in each is embodied a more
advanced phase or externalization of such facts. The revelations
vouchsafed to the world through the teachings of Confucius, Buddha, and
other saviors of men appealed only to the intellect. Jesus was the
first to announce to the heart-hungry that "God so loved the world"
that he sent one of his best beloved sons to bear witness to his own
eternal love, and to show how all may become participators in its
boundlessnes