ular motion, and starting from the highest heavens and coming down
to earth, is thither drawn again and rests at the throne of God, whence
it set out, like the strong Spirits before His throne who veil their
faces while they gaze upon the glory, and then fly forth to help human
sorrows and satisfy human hearts, and then on unwearied pinions winging
their way to their first station, meekly sink their wings of flight, and
veil their faces again with their wings. The rivers that flow through
broad lands, bringing blessing and doing humble service in drinking-cup
and domestic vessel, came in soft rain from heaven, and though their
bright waves are browned with soil and made opaque with many a stain,
yet their work done, they rest in the great ocean, and thence are drawn
up once more to the clouds of heaven. So with our prayers; they ought to
start from the contemplation of our God, and they ought to return
thither again.

And as this is the last word of our prayers, so may we not say that it
represents the perpetual form of fellowship with God? Prayers for bread,
and pardon, and help, and deliverance, are for the wilderness. Prayers
for the hallowing of His name, and the coming of His kingdom, and the
doing of His will, are out of date when they are fulfilled; but for ever
this voice shall rise before His throne, and that last new song, which
shall ring with might as of thunder and sweetness as of many harps from
the thousand times ten thousand, shall be but the expansion and the
deepening of the praise of earth. Then 'every creature which is in
heaven, and on the earth and under the earth and in the sea, shall be
heard saying, "Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him
that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."'

So we finish these meditations. I have felt all along how poorly my
words served me to say even what I saw, and how poorly my vision saw
into the clear depths of the divine prayer. But I hope that they may
have helped you half as much as they have myself, to feel more strongly
how all-comprehensive it is. I said at the beginning, and I repeat with
more emphasis now, that there is everything in this prayer--God's
relations to man, man's to God and his fellows, the foundation stones of
Christian theology, of Christian morals, of Christian society, of
Christian politics. There is help for the smallest wants and light for
daily duties; there is strength for the hour of death and