it gives us authoritatively
the order and relative worth of all human desires, and with these the
order and subordination of our pursuits and life's aims. As a prayer it
is all comprehensive and intended to be so, holding within the perfect
seven of its petitions, all for which we should come to God, and resting
them all on His divine name, and closing them all with a chorus of
thanksgiving. As a prophecy it opens the loftiest vision, beyond which
none is possible, of the final transformation of this world into the
kingdom in which God's will shall be perfectly done, and of the final
deliverance from, all evil of the struggling, sinning, sorrowing souls
of His children.

I desire to try in a series of sermons to set forth what little I can
see of the depth and comprehensiveness of this model of all prayer, and
of its ever fresh applicability to the wants and difficulties of our
days as of all days. But before dealing with that great invocation of
the divine name on which all rests, a word or two must be said touching
the introductory clause.

'After this manner pray ye.' The question which is usually made
prominent in thinking of these words is really a very subordinate one.
Did Christ intend to establish a form, or only to give an example?
Churchmen say, a form; Dissenters generally say, an example. But it
would be better for both Churchmen and Dissenters to try to realise for
themselves what 'this manner' is.

Unquestionably, whether our Lord is giving us a form or not, His chief
object was not to prescribe words. To pray is not to repeat petitions,
and His commandment has for its chief meaning a much deeper one than
that He was giving us either a form which we are to incorporate verbally
with our prayers, or an outline according to which our spoken
supplications are to be shaped. Whether in addition to this we are to
regard the very words as to be used by us, will be determined by each
man and church according as he regards the use of set forms in prayer as
being the true and noblest manner of prayer. Such use is certainly not
inconsistent with the utmost spirituality, but the habitual use of
forms, especially their exclusive use, seems to many of us to be
dangerous, regard being had to the tendency of human nature to rest in
them. And it is not without significance that this very prayer of our
Lord's, which was given as the corrective of vain repetitions and idle,
heathenish chattering of forms of prayer, has it