ow to do my will, prompt to obey,
Help me to sacrifice myself, just for to-day.
So for to-morrow and its needs, I do not pray,
But help me, keep me, hold me, Lord, just for to-day."

{215}

LXXXVII

THE LORD'S PRAYER, VIII

FORGIVENESS

_Luke_ xii. 1-3.

We come to the petition in the Lord's Prayer which is the easiest to
understand and the hardest to pray,--the prayer that we may be forgiven
as we forgive. This prayer does not, of course, ask God to measure His
goodness by our virtues. We should not dare to ask that God would deal
with us just as we have dealt with others. It is the spirit of
forgiveness for which we pray. "Give us forgiveness," we ask, "because
we come in the spirit of forgiveness." The spirit of forgiveness, that
is to say, is the condition and prerequisite of the prayer for
forgiveness. If you do not love your brother whom you have seen, how
can you truly pray to God whom you have not seen? If a man comes to
his prayer with hate in his heart, he makes it impossible for God to
forgive him. He is shutting the door which opens into the spirit {216}
of prayer. Right-mindedness to man is the first condition of right
prayer to God.

The traveler in Egypt sometimes looks out in the early morning and sees
an Arab preparing to say his prayers. The man goes down to the
river-bank and spreads his little carpet so that he shall look toward
Mecca; but before he kneels he crouches on the bank, and cleanses his
lips, his tongue, his hands, even his feet, so that he shall bring to
his prayer no unclean word or deed. It is as if he first said with the
Psalmist: "Wash me thoroughly of my iniquity; purge me of my sin; make
me a clean heart; renew in me a right spirit;" and then with a right
spirit in him, he bends and rises and bows again in his prayer. The
petition for a forgiving spirit prepares one in the same way to say his
morning prayer. It cleanses the tongue; it washes the motives; it
purifies the thoughts of their uncharitableness; and then, in this
spirit of forgiveness even toward those who have wronged him, the
Christian is clean enough to ask for the forgiveness of his own sin.

{217}

LXXXVIII

THE LORD'S PRAYER, IX

TEMPTATIONS

_James_ i. 12-17.

This passage from the Epistle of James is a commentary on the last
petition of the Lord's Prayer. When we pray: "Lead us not into
temptation," it is, as James says, not God who tempts, for God tempteth
no ma