the fancy of the writer. The conception is clear
and well defined. The kingdom of God is an organised community which is
subject to the will of the personal God. The elements of subordination
and society are both there. On the one hand there is the Ruler, on the
other there is the mass of subjects. The whole of the varieties in the
use of the term can be all reconciled in the one simple central notion,
but we cannot afford to lose sight of any of them if we would understand
what is meant by this prayer.

Let us take these thoughts which I have suggested, as expressing the
Scriptural meaning of this phrase, and by their help try to ascertain
what this prayer suggests.

I. God reigns, yet we pray for the coming of His kingdom.

That is to acknowledge that the world has departed from Him. It is at
once to separate ourselves from those who see in it no signs of
departure and rebellion. It is to confess that, Lord as He is whether
men believe it or no, whether men will it or no, yet that the relation
of common subordination as to a supreme Lord which we hold with all
creatures is not all that we are fit for, not all that we should be.
That dominion which the psalmist saw making the sea and the fulness
thereof rejoice, which is at once the control and the upholding, the
sustaining and the commanding, of all orders of being, is not the whole
of the dominion which can be exercised over man. The rule, which we
share with the trees of the field and the tribes of life, is not all;
and the unwilling control which the thought of an overruling Providence
demands that we shall believe that God exercises over all the workings
of men--that is not enough. And the terrible bending of men into
unconscious instruments, by which He that sitteth in the heavens laughs
at princes' and rulers' counsel, speaking to the tyrant as the rod of
His anger, using men as the axe with which He hews, and the staff in His
hand, and then casting away the tool into the fire--that is not the
kingdom that men are made to be. Something more, even the loving,
willing submission of heart and life to Him is possible, is needed,
unless, indeed, it is true that a man hath no pre-eminence over a beast.
Enough for them that He feedeth them when they cry; enough for them that
led they know not how, and fed by they know not whom, they live they
know not why, do they know not what, and die they know not when. But 'be
ye not as the horse or the mule which have no underst