r Father, He will deliver us and our
brethren from all evil, and by His all-powerful Love will found His
universal kingdom and get the glory due unto His name, the glory of
loving and being loved by all His children.

II. The force of the doxology in its place here.

It reminds us that the ground of our confidence is in God's own
character. We do not need to make ourselves worthy to receive. We cannot
move Him, but He is self-moved, and so we do not need to be afraid. Nor
is our prayer to be an attempt to bend His will.

Our confidence digs deep down to build on the rock of the ever-living
God, whose 'is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.' We
flee to Him for a refuge against ourselves. We bring nothing. We look to
His own character, which will always be the same, and to His past, which
is the type and prophecy for all His future. He is His own reason, His
own motive, His own end.

When we ground our prayers on Him, then we touch ground, and in whatever
weltering sea of trouble we may be buffeted, we have found the bottom
and can stand firm.

But the 'Amen' which closes the doxology is not the empty form which it
has now become. It means not only, So may it be! but also, So will it
be! It is not only the last breathing of desire, but also the expression
of assured expectancy and confidence; not merely be it so, but confident
expression of assurance that it will be so.

How much of our prayer flies off into empty air because there is no
expectation in it! How much which has no certainty of being answered in
it! How much which is followed by no marking of the future to discern
the answer! We should stand praying like some Grecian statue of an
archer, with hand extended and lips parted and eye following the arrow
of our prayer on its flight till it touches the mark. We have a right
to be confident that we shall be heard. We should apply the Amen to all
the petitions of the prayer. So it becomes a prophecy, and the Christian
man is to live in the calm expectation that all the petitions will be
accomplished. For the world they will be, for us they may be. It is for
each of us to decide for ourselves whether they will be answered in and
for us.

The place of the doxology here suggests that all prayer should lead to
thankful contemplation of God's character.

We have seen how the prayer begins with contemplation, and then passes
into supplication. Thus all prayer should end as it began. It has a
circ