very first words of the prayer.

Properly speaking, too, this doxology is not a part of the prayer. It
expresses two things: the devout contemplation of God which the whole
course of the petitions has excited in the soul--and in that aspect it
is the Church's echo to the Lord's Prayer; and the confidence with which
we pray--and in that aspect it is rather the utterance of meditative
reflection asking of itself its reasons for hope and stirring itself up
to lay hold on God.

Notice, then--

I. The meaning of the doxology.

Kingdom, power, and glory correspond to kingdom, will, and hallowing in
the first part. The order is not the same, but it is still substantially
identical.

'Thine the kingdom.' All earthly things, the whole fates of men here,
are ruled by Him. The prayer asked that it might be so; here we declare
that it is so already, not, of course, in the deepest sense, but that
even now and here He rules with authority. 'Thy kingdom is an
everlasting kingdom,' and this conviction is inseparable from our
Christianity. How hard it is to believe it at all times, from what we
see around us! The temptation is to think that the kingdom is men's, or
belongs to blind fate, or chance, and our own evil hearts ever suggest
that the kingdom is our own. Satan said, 'All is mine, and I will give
it Thee.'

The affairs of the world seem so far from God, we are so tempted to
believe that He is remote from it, that nations and their rulers and the
field of politics are void of Him. We see craft and force and villainy
ruling, we see kingdoms far from any perception that society is for man
and from God. We see _Dei gratia_ on our coins, and 'by the grace of the
Devil' for real motto. We see long tracks of godless crime and mean
intrigue, and here and there a divine gleam falling from some heroic
deed of sacrifice. We see king and priest playing into each other's
hands, and the people destroyed, whatever be the feud. But we are to
believe that the world is the kingdom of God; to learn whence comes all
human rule, and to be sure that even here and now 'Thy kingdom is an
everlasting kingdom.'

'Thine the Power.' Not merely has He authority over, but He works indeed
through all--the whole world and all creatures are the field of the ever
present energy of God. That is a simple truth, deep but clear, that all
power comes from Him. He is the cause of all changes, physical and all
other. Force is the garment of the present God,