outward order
surpass this vision of Jesus of a coming kingdom of God.

{210}

But to Jesus the means to that outward transformation were always
personal and individual. The golden age, as Mr. Spencer has said,
could not be made out of leaden people. The first condition of the
outward kingdom must be the kingdom within. The new order must be the
product of the new life. That is the doctrine of the social order in
the Lord's Prayer.

We too are looking for outward reform in legislation and economics. It
is all a part of the movement to the kingdom of God. Yet any outward
transformation which is to last proceeds from regenerated lives. The
kingdom of God is within before it is without. Do you want a better
world? Well, plan for it, and work for it. But, first of all, enter
into the inner chamber of your prayer, and say: "Lord, make me a fit
instrument of thy kingdom. Purify my heart, that I may purify thy
world. I would live for others' sakes, but first of all that great
self-sacrifice must be obeyed: 'For their sakes I sanctify myself,
Reign thus in me that I may rationally pray: Thy kingdom come!'"

{211}

LXXXV

THE LORD'S PRAYER, VI

THY WILL BE DONE

_Luke_ xxii. 39-46.

The Lord's Prayer begins as a prayer for the great things. It prays
for a sanctified world: "Holy be Thy name." It gives form to that
great hope: "Thy kingdom come." It deals with the means of that great
coming: "Thy will be done." The coming of the kingdom and the
hallowing of the name are to happen through the doing of the will.

I suppose that most prayers which ask that God's will may be done are
prayers of passive acquiescence and resignation. We are apt to pray
"Thy will be done," as though we were saying: "Let it be done in spite
of us and even against our wills, and we will try to bear it." But
that is not the teaching of the Lord's Prayer. "Thy will be done;"--by
whom? By the man that thus prays! He prays to have his part in the
accomplishment of God's will, even as Jesus prays in the Garden: "Thy
will be done," and then rises and {212} proceeds to do that will. The
prayer recognizes the solemn and fundamental truth that the will, even
of God Himself, works, in its human relations, through the service of
man. Here, for instance, is a social abuse. What is God's will toward
it? His will is that man should remove it. Here is a threat of
cholera, and people pray that God's will be done. But what is