confess that we believe He will not take bread out of
others' mouths to give it to us; we declare that God's curse is on
all selfishness and oppression of man by man; we renounce our own
selfishness, the lust which our fallen nature has to rise upon
others' fall, and say, 'Father, we are all children at Thy common
table. Thou alone canst prosper the richest and the wisest; Thou
alone canst prosper the poorest and the weakest; Thou wilt do equal
justice to all some day, and we confess that Thou art just in so
doing; we only ask Thee to do it now, and to give us and all mankind
that which is good for them.'

Thus we pray not for this generation only, but for generations yet
unborn; not for this nation of England only, but for heathens and
savages beyond the seas. When we say, 'Give us our daily bread,' we
pray for every child here and on earth, that he may receive such an
education as may enable him to get his daily bread. We pray for
learned men in their studies, that they may discover arts and
sciences which shall enrich and comfort nations yet unborn. We pray
for merchants on the seas, that they may discover new markets for
trade, new lands to colonize and fill with Christian men, and extend
the blessings of industry and civilization to the savage who lives
as the beasts which perish and dwindles down off the face of the
earth by famine, disease, and war, the victim of his own idleness,
ignorance, and improvidence.

And all the while we are praying for the widow and the orphan, that
God would send them friends in time of need; for the houseless
wanderer, for the shipwrecked sailor, for sick persons, for feeble
infants, that God would send help to them who cannot help
themselves, and soften our hearts and the hearts of all around us,
that we may never turn our faces away from any poor man, lest the
face of the Lord be turned away from us.

So far we have been praying to our Heavenly Father, first as a
Father, then as a King, then as an Inspirer, then as a Giver; and
next we pray to Him as a _For_giver--'Forgive us our trespasses.'
We have been confessing in these four petitions what God's goodwill
to man is; what God wishes man to be, how man ought to live and
believe. And then comes the recollection of sin. We must confess
what God's law is before we can confess that we have broken it; and
now we do confess that we have broken it. We know that God is our
Father. How often have we forgotten that He is a fath