thyself well. In spite of many faults, you still love yourself. You never speak evil of yourself, or hold yourself up to scorn, though you often could do so with splendid effect. Again, God loves you, and you should love what God loves. But God loves your upper self, not your under self; your true self, and not that false self which is made up of evil passions. Because God loves your higher self, He seeks to kill your lower self. You are to love yourself in that God-like fashion, and then love your neighbour as yourself. Thus the highest selflove and neighbour love will find their common root in the love of God. It is very easy to love some of your neighbours -the rich, the kind hearted, the social, -but you are to love all. You are to love your friend in God, and your enemy for God. Love to man thus grows warm in the love of God. You see here God's amazing goodwill to man. He might have claimed all our love, but He wishes to share it with our fellows. Love of man seems to be nearly as acceptable to Him as the love of Himself. And love teaches us how to pray. If we really love others, we shall have many desires for them which only God can fulfil. thus we must pray to Him for them, even And "He that minds as we pray for ourselves. but himself in prayer," an old writer says, "doth not mind himself rightly. If thou prayest for thyself alone, thou alone prayest for thyself." The old Jewish proverb runs, "He that prays for another is heard for himself." And the Lord turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends" (xlii. 10). True self-love should make us love others and pray for them. The world sorely needs an incarnation of Christ up to date. The secret of it lies in those oft-used words, Our Father which art in heaven." No. III HALLOWED BE THY NAME CHRIST HRIST teaches you to pray first as a child, and then as a worshipper. The angels are worshippers, but not children; they are in the second rank, but not in the first: "for unto which of the angels said He at any time, thou art My son ?" The child's place is the highest; the worshipper comes next. The leal-hearted child wishes his Father's name to be hallowed and His Kingdom to come. Do try to understand the words in this first petition, for some, we fear, use them with as little knowledge as they do, who recite their paternoster in a dead language which they do not understand, and sometimes recite it backwards as a charm against evil. I have read about a boy who always said when repeating the Lord's Prayer, “Harold be Thy name. 99 God's name is God's nature, or rather the little bit of it we can know. God's name stands for God Himself: what you do to the name you do to God. At political meetings some names are cheered and others are hooted. In that way people shew their feelings to the men whose names are mentioned. Hallowed is just holyed; that is, held and treated as holy, honoured as is meet. This petition comes first, because if we do not rightly reverence God's name, our whole religion must be cracked from bottom to top and from side to side. Profane words must destroy every vestige of real piety. This petition suggests three things, though it says only one thing. We pray against all idolatry and against profaning and neglecting God's name, and we pray for hallowing the great name. Passing by the idolaters at present, this petition divides men into three classesI. The Profaners. II. The Neglecters. III. The Hallowers. I. THE PROFANERS. Profaning is the very opposite of hallowing. "Profane" means before or outside the fane or temple: from pro, before, and fanum, a temple. Inside the walls around the temple lay the sacred, undefiled garden, the loveliest spot in all the land. But the unwalled ground outside was common, and trampled bare by the foot of man and beast. Esau was "a profane person": his life was all spent outside the sacred enclosure, and he profaned every hallowed thing, treating it as cheap and vile. This petition is against profane swearing. It turns into a prayer the third commandment: " thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain." Men may hold him guiltless, and he may hold himself guiltless, but the Judge of all will not. God, you see, has given us a whole commandment, and a long one, against such swearing. He forbids it as strictly as murder. It is very hard for many to believe this, for the sin of swearing is not keenly felt by thousands who shun other sins. Very strange it is that scarce any other name is so dishonoured as the blessed name of our Father in heaven. Hate profane words. What good can they ever do you? Little Esaus there are in most places, rude boys who sell their birthright for less than one morsel of meat, and think that horrid oaths are manly. "Maintain your rank, vulgarity despise, For want of decency is want of sense." The Red Indians have not one single oath in their mother-tongues. They do swear now, |