NEW LIGHT 
 
 ON 
 
 THE OLD PRAYER. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN CAMPBELL, LL.D, F.R.S.C, Etc. 
 
 PKOFESSOR IN THE HRESBYIERIAN COI.I.EGK, ..ONTREAI-. 
 
 TORONTO : 
 
 WILIvIAIVI BRIGQS, 
 
 WESLEY BUILDINGS. 
 
 Montreal: C. W. Coates. Halifax: S. F. Huestis, 
 
 1895. 
 
Entered, according to the Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one 
 thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, by John Campbell, in the Office of 
 the Minister of Agriculture, Ottawa. 
 
A BRIEF EXPOSITION OF THE LORD'S 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 The invocation of this beautiful prayer is, "Our 
 Father which art in heaven." It teaches the indi- 
 vidual and universal fatherhood of God to each be- 
 liever who prays, and to all humanity. Succeedinsj 
 petitions indicate that the sphere of supplication and 
 the scope of expectation is the whole world. The 
 solidarity of our race is found in its federal relation to 
 Adam, its proj^enitor, and to Jesus Christ, who in a 
 very real sense is the Saviour of all men, though 
 specially of them that believe. Of Adam's one blood, 
 St. Paul told the Athenians, God made all nations of 
 men to dwell on all the face of the earth ; and of that 
 Adam St. Luke has these words, " which was the son 
 of God." Israel knew the father name and applied it 
 in a restricted national sense. In Moses' wonderful 
 song appears this question relative to the Lord : "Is 
 not he thy father that hath bought thee ? " David 
 blessed the Lord before all the congregation, saying : 
 " Blessed be thou. Lord God of Israel, our father ! " 
 And in Psalm ciii. we read the comforting words : 
 " Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord 
 
pitieth them that fear him." Isaiah breaks in upon a 
 confession of great sin with the cry : " But now, O 
 Lord, thou art our father;" and, to the same clear- 
 eyed prophet, the child born and the son given is one 
 with the Everlasting Father. But he seems to give 
 the Father name a wider range, when he represents 
 men as protesting: "Doubtless thou art our father, 
 though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel 
 acknowledge us not : thou, O Lord, art our father, 
 our redeemer ; thy name is from everlasting," Yet 
 these expressions are rare. The Israelite was slow to 
 grasp the divine fatherhood even for himself, and 
 slower to apply it to all nations of mankind. 
 
 There are otherwise worthy people that would 
 restrict the use of this prayer to those who, by the 
 new birth, have become conscious of a nearer relation 
 to God. This would be to deny its invocation to 
 children and to unconverted worshippers in the con- 
 gregation. But this is a great mistake. Filial piety 
 does not create a relationship; it is merely an acknow- 
 ledgment of a relation already existing. The cer- 
 tain man who had two sons was the father of the 
 younger, even while he was a prodigal, to the same 
 extent as he was father to the elder who remained at 
 home. The spirit of adoption, whereby we cry : 
 " Abba, Father," is the divine influence that awakens 
 in our hearts the consciousness of sonship, but does 
 not constitute the filial relation. When the blessed 
 knowledge comes that one is our Father, even God, 
 then we know that all we are brethren ; and, if we will 
 
but accept it, joint heirs with Jesus Christ. The 
 natural heritage, lost by the Fall, is in Christ restored 
 to all the world, for which Christ died. When you 
 have found man, woman or child for whom the 
 Saviour did not die, then, and then only, will you find 
 one who has no rij^ht to pray, " Our Father." As no 
 man taketh the honor to himself of being a high-priest 
 but he that is called of God, as was Aaron, so no man, 
 by any faith, virtue or practice, can assume the honor 
 of divine sonship, which God has potentially conferred 
 upon the whole human race. To use the language of 
 the schools, sonship is objective, not subjective ; it 
 resides in the act of God, not in the thought of man, 
 and God's desire is that all the world should call 
 Him Father. 
 
 The import of the words, " which art in heaven," is 
 generally misunderstood. To some minds it is simply 
 a contradistinction from an earthly human parent ; to 
 others it is a qualification of supreme excellence. Yet 
 it must be remembered that the Israelite, in psalm 
 and in prophecy, recognized the omnipresence of God. 
 Christ taught that the Father was with Him, although 
 men could not see His face. St. Paul declared that in 
 God all men live and move and have their being ; and 
 all rational theologians believe in the divine imma- 
 nence or presence in all phenomena. It was no part 
 of our Lord's design to obscure the truth of the 
 Father's nearness to His children, whose every hair 
 He numbers, nor even to the inferior creation, not a 
 sparrow of which falls to the ground outside of His 
 
providential care. Wliy, then, is Me the Father in 
 heaven to us ? It is because earth cannot declare that 
 Father as He is. When He reveals His presence in our 
 world, He does so under limitations. What we call 
 laws of nature are self-imposed limitations of the 
 divine freedom, from which God has occasionally 
 broken forth in the exercise of what men term the 
 miraculous. The light of heaven shining into our 
 midst spreads itself abroad in darkness — the darkness 
 of ignorance, sin and physical evil. The countenance 
 of our Father is veiled in that darkness, which is of 
 the earth earthy. 
 
 Solomon realized this truth when, at the dedication 
 of the temple, he uttered these words, " The Lord hath 
 said that he would dwell in the thick darkness." In a 
 thick cloud, with thunders, lightnings and earthquake, 
 God came to Moses and all Israel at Sinai. Clouds and 
 darkness were round about Him, and the earth trem- 
 bled at the presence of the Lord. Elijah, also, went 
 to Horeb, the mount of God, and there beheld the 
 effects of whirlwind, earthquake and lightning, earthly 
 precursors of divinity ; yet revelation expressly states 
 that God was not in any of them, but only in the still 
 small voice. It is these clouds and darkness round 
 about God that baffle men seeking a proof of the 
 divine existence in the benevolent designs of nature. 
 They find good and evil intermingled — diabolic malice 
 raging in the elements, earth, sea and air, in tiger's 
 claw and in serpent's fang, in moth and rust that cor- 
 rupt, and a thousand other manifestations of the thief 
 
that Cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to 
 destroy. When Jesus was arrested He exclaimed, 
 "This is your hour and the power of darkness;" but 
 His whole life was God's revelation in the midst of 
 deep Satanic pfloom, when the devils of the pit were 
 loosed and suffered to infest the bodies and souls of 
 burdened humanity. Everywhere through the ages the 
 light of heaven has shined into darkness, lighting up 
 the gloom ; but before the Fall it was not so, nor shall 
 it be thus when the restoration comes. Our world is 
 not in a normal state, nor can we, in what we somewhat 
 profanely call providence, behold the normal God. 
 
 Our God is in the heavens, dwelling in light which 
 no man can approach unto, a region where sin has no 
 abode, that no fallen spirit or mischief-worker ever 
 enters. There is nothing to shroud its glory, to mar 
 its beauty, to interrupt its peace. Neither moth nor 
 rust corrupts, the inhabitant shall never say, " I am 
 sick," and death is a thing unknown. It is a region 
 where light reigns, and in which is no darkness at all, 
 where the divine glory shines with no shadow of limit- 
 ation, where wrath and curse have no place, and 
 where the love of the Father is over all. He is there, 
 our Father in heaven. Here, indeed, we see through 
 a glass darkly, but, nevertheless, the invocation calls 
 us to see, away beyond the mists and clouds of our 
 earthly atmosphere, away beyond all the puzzling 
 phenomena we call providences, beyond the dark 
 scenes of Nature's strife, and beyond all partial 
 revelations into the straitened limits of human vision, 
 
8 
 
 ' • 
 
 the glorious source of all power and all goodness, to 
 whom each child, however unworthy, may confidently 
 say, " Our Father which art in Y eaven." 
 
 The petition, " Hallowed be thy name," is one that 
 we only begin to comprehend the meaning of when 
 we have realized the Father in heaven. The devout 
 believer who knows that God will overrule evil for 
 His glory and man's benefit, thtit He will make all 
 things work together for the good of His own, may 
 hallow the divine name in the midst of sore trials. 
 The martyr at the stake may, amid his tortures, bless 
 the name of Him who counts him worthy to suffer 
 for His sake. But it is no hallowing of God's name 
 to couple it with persecution to death, with loss and 
 dishonor, disease and bereavement. Christ did not 
 come, a house divided against itself, to contend with 
 the Father, when He stilled the winds and waves 
 of the Sea of Galilee, cast out devils, healed all man- 
 ner of sickness, deformity and disease, and raised the 
 very dead to life. He came to bind earth's strong 
 man and spoil his house, to destroy the works of the 
 devil, healing all that were oppressed by him, as St. 
 Peter said. In the words of the paraphrase : 
 
 " He comes ! the prisoners to relieve, 
 In Satan's bondage held ; 
 The gates of brass before Him burst, 
 The iron fetters yield." 
 
 We spiritualize too much, as if the soul were all of 
 our humanity, as if, in contradiction of manifold 
 
plain facts, Christ cared not for the perishing body. 
 He distinctly said of the woman with the spirit of 
 infirmity that Satan, and not God, had bound her ; 
 and the same is true of all the sicknesses and diseases 
 He bore. If it was the Father's stroke of death that 
 fell on the daughter of Jairus, on the widow's son of 
 Nain, on His friend Lazarus, how came it that He 
 who was one with that Father wept over the tomb 
 of Bethany and plucked the three from the jaws of 
 man's last enemy ? He that has the power of death 
 is the devil, and that Scripture cannot be broken ; 
 hence all minor ills, however permitted by God in the 
 realm of wrath called into operation by man's free 
 will, are from the same diabolic source. They do not 
 belong in any sense to the realm of our Father in 
 heaven, whose name, therefore, we can hallow with- 
 out any alloy. It is a hollow mockery for anyone 
 who identifies God with Siva, the destroyer, when 
 smarting under wrong, racked with pain, or heart- 
 broken under cruel loss, to speak the adoring words, 
 " Hallowed be thy name." Rather might he heed the 
 words of Job's wife, " Curse God, and die." So have 
 I known a father thrice bereaved, in the resentment 
 of fierce agony, shake his clenched fist in the sight of 
 heaven and characterize the death-strokes as coward's 
 blows. From his point of view, he was the more 
 truthful of the two. 
 
 We do not hallow God's name for the persecutions 
 of the early Church, for Bulgarian and A.rmenian 
 atrocities, because we recognize in them the powers 
 
of darkness workinor through fiendish men, nor do we 
 dare to call these wicked men God's sword. But with 
 the Psahnist we praise the Lord for His goodness and 
 for His wonderful works to the children of men, when 
 He delivers us out of our distresses to understand His 
 lovingkindness. It is because we believe it is in His 
 heart to redeem us from all evil that we hallow His 
 name. And if, like Job, we, in the midst of great 
 ■ trials, seek and obtain justification from our Maker ; 
 if, like the Son of Man and St. Paul, we pray that the 
 bitter cup and the thorn in the flesh may pass away 
 from us, our self-justification and our prayers arise 
 from the felt truth that an adversary hath done these 
 things, and that our Father is well-disposed, should it 
 be possible or desirable, to deliver us from them. 
 Even when we look upon the law of God and behold 
 Him in the threefold capacity — legislative, judicial and 
 executive — we are enabled to exclaim, " The Lord is 
 our Judge, the Lord is our Lawgiver, the Lord is our 
 King ; he will save us," and, with this salvation tower- 
 ing over all other considerations, can truthfully and 
 adoringly add, " Hallowed be thy name." 
 
 The Israelite believed in the sovereignty of God on 
 earth as well as in His heaven ; not so God's Son, for 
 He prayed, " Thy kingdom come." Man was to have 
 been a subordinate ruler of the world under God, who 
 gave him dominion over it and put all things under 
 his feet. But that man, who to-day might have been 
 in possession of all the powers and secrets of unfallen 
 nature, proved traitor to his trust, even as a child, and 
 
handed over his lordship and dominion to one whom 
 no less a being than the Lord Jesus Christ calls the 
 prince of this world. Under him are principalities 
 and powers that dominate the natural and spiritual 
 realms of earth with innumerable minor agencies of 
 evil that bend all their energies to counteract the will 
 of God and bring ruin upon mankind. " Thy king- 
 dom come " is the wail of an oppressed world, the out- 
 ward expression of the whole creation that groaneth 
 and travaileth in pain together until now ; but it is, 
 at the same time, the lie to the thought that this earth 
 is as God would have it be, and the hopeful expecta- 
 tion of a good time coming, when nothing shall hurt 
 or destroy. 
 
 The kingdom we pray for is God's, and when it 
 comes in its fulness it will be as the kingdom of 
 heaven in all perfection. But, meantime, it is no 
 New Jerusalem, suddenly, at a prophetic moment, to 
 descend from above. The kingdom is partly here, 
 energizing against evil in the realms of spirituality 
 and of social life and nature, through religious thought 
 and activity, missionary and benevolent effort, social, 
 economic and physical science — everything that makes 
 for the true well-being of man. The statesman is not 
 foreign to it, nor the poet ; the tiller of the soil and 
 the medical discoverer alike help it on. All who work 
 for such an end are electors, giving their suffrages 
 against earth's present rulers and in favor of the King 
 whose right it is to reign. No man who offers this 
 petition should rest content with the present condition 
 
12 
 
 of the world, but should strive earnestly to leave it 
 better than he found it ; in physical character, in social 
 condition, in spiritual energy and in restoration hope. 
 Yet, as the chief foes of our race are supernatural, 
 their Overcomer must be endowed with supernatural 
 power, that He may teach His followers, as once He 
 taught His disciples, how to wield the weapons that 
 transcend all human science and moral goodness, by 
 which even devils may be cast out, to enter no more 
 into man. 
 
 No petition has been less understood than " Thy 
 will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." We murmur 
 it when losses fall upon us, and by the bedsides of our 
 dead. We sing, " Thy will be done," in church, with 
 tones of mournful resignation, enumerating all the 
 ways in which God may rob us of property, and hopes, 
 health, pleasures, good name and friends, even to the 
 nearest and dearest. A grand thing truly is the 
 Christian grace of resignation ! Christ said : " Not 
 my will, but thine, be done," in regard to the cup which 
 He prayed might pass from Him ; but He counselled 
 nobody thus to speak concerning pain, sickness or 
 bereavement. In regard to such cases His language 
 was: "My Father worketh hitherto and I work." 
 Storms were not God's will to Him, nor deformity, 
 nor disease, nor death, and, therefore, He rebuked the 
 one, and restored, healed and raised those who had 
 suffered from the others. He told nobody to be re- 
 signed, but said that all things were possible to the 
 believing one. He encouraged the afflicted to cry out 
 
18 ^^ 
 
 against, the tyranny of evil, and to turn to God for 
 healing and blessing. God's will is man's complete 
 redemption in body, soul and spirit. What we want 
 in the world is not resignation, but a mighty spirit of 
 discontent and wholesome resentment against the 
 rulers of the darkness of this world, until the com- 
 plaint enters the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. 
 
 Look at the second part of the petition, " as it is in 
 heaven." God's will in heaven comprehends no sick- 
 ness nor pain, loss nor bereavement, for in heaven 
 these things do not exist, since sin and Satan are not 
 there. There is no irksomeness in Heaven's com- 
 mands, no unnatural submission to the divine will 
 above. God's angel-ministers find their pleasure in 
 doing His pleasure. But here below His will is not 
 done as it is done there. The will of wicked men and 
 of evil spirits is done here, and that will means all the 
 misery and wretchedness, the pain and sorrow, the toil 
 and strife, the sin and death, that reign continually. 
 " Thy will, not mine, O Lord," does not mean taking 
 away your baby -child or the wife of your love, de- 
 forming your body or tying you to a sick-bed, plung- 
 ing you and your family into poverty, or taking away 
 your good name. Such things are never done in 
 heaven, and you have no right, are most illogical and 
 irrational in supposing that they are the divine 
 will because God, limited in action by this world's sin, 
 permits them to be done. If God had His own way, 
 His will would be done on earth as painlessly and as 
 
joyously as it is done in holy heaven, into which no 
 evil enters. 
 
 God's kingdom has not yet come, His will is not yet 
 done as it is in heaven ; but we will not ask the 
 prince of this world for our bread — we will not be 
 beholden to the evil will for anything. As soldiers 
 in the great army that is marching on to hurl the 
 usurper from his throne, we turn to our King and 
 Commander for our rations, saying, "Give us this day 
 our daily bread." When Satan showed Jesus the 
 glory of the kingdoms of this world, and said, " to 
 whomsoever I will I give it," Jesus did not deny the 
 statement. The power of the Evil One is not ail-im- 
 mediately destructive. Part of his motley human 
 court is in poverty and tatters, and part in purple 
 and fine linen. Millions seek their daily bread from 
 him, though indirectly, as the wages of sin. We can- 
 not serve two masters ; but trusting Him who feeds 
 the fowls of the air and clothes the grass of the field, 
 and can feed and clothe soul as well as body, we, as 
 His servants and soldiers, call, " Our Father, give us 
 this day our daily bread." In our Father's house is 
 bread enough and to spare, and it is our own bread 
 we ask for, the children's bread, a sufficiency out of 
 the bountiful provision God originally bestowed 
 upon man when He i>ave the teeming earth into his 
 hands. 
 
 The child in his father's house does not concern 
 himself with anything but the meal of the present 
 hour, but leaves it to the provider to anticipate his 
 
1 
 
 .) 
 
 coming wants. In an army with a good commissariat, 
 the marching soldier should not be burdened with 
 provision for more than one day. He applies in the 
 morning for his daily bread. Only our daily bread 
 we ask for, because we are not going away on any 
 expedition from our base of supplies; we are no 
 prodigals, asking for a division of the fortune, that 
 we may leave home and revel on it in a far country. 
 We wish to wait upon the Father every day, and, 
 therefore, our request is only for this present one. 
 Whatever basketfuls of fragments we may find over 
 and above in the feasts of life we will thankfully 
 gather up and gratefully dispense abroad, but never 
 hoard in such manner as to be able to live without 
 the petition, lest they should breed corrupting worms 
 and turn our souls into the charnel house of avarice. 
 It is this day that we ask the Father for the daily 
 bread, which we have faith will be daily supplied to 
 us, long as the number of the days of the years of our 
 pilgrimage may be. 
 
 Unless it come under this head, there is in the 
 prayer no petition for the food of the soul. Man 
 shall not live by bread alone, but by ev^ry word that 
 proceedeth ou^- of the mouth of God. The soul craves 
 its food, Satan feeds his votaries on the wanderings 
 of evil desire, self-seeking day-dreams, cunning 
 schemes and malicious plans, bread, fishes and eggs 
 that turn to stones, serpents and scorpions. The 
 Father gives us Christ, the bread and the water of 
 life, the heavenly manna, angels' food, the new wine 
 2 
 
of the kingdom. Our daily spiritual food comes to 
 those who seek it in infinite variety of courses. 
 Some soul- treasure, old or new, whether the creeds 
 will allow U3 to publish the new abroad or not, may 
 be our daily portion, strengthening the heart and 
 keeping the spiritual man in health and vigor. It 
 is not only the body that waits at the Father's 
 bountiful table; our souls wait for the Lord, and they 
 shall be abundantly satisfied. They shall be satisfied 
 with the knowledge of what God is and of what for 
 us God has done, with the knowledge in conscious 
 experience of what He has wrought in us now, and 
 with boundless hopes for the future in time, and 
 above all in eternity. Father, give our souls this 
 day their daily bread. 
 
 We are sinners who pray, and we know it. The 
 heathen Ovid said, " I see what is good, and approve 
 it ; but I follow the bad." Conscience makes cowards 
 of us all ; but God wants no cowards, no fawning, 
 sycophantic dogs, no slaves of an Oriental despot. He 
 wants humble, yet manly confessors of sin, and strivers 
 after righteousness. How plain, simple, direct and 
 manly this petition, " Forgive us our debts, as we for- 
 give our debtors." It says, " Lord, we are at best unpro- 
 fitable servants ; but something of thyself in us enables 
 us to forgive people who have injured us. If we, with 
 but a modicum of grace, can do this grand thing, who 
 can place any limits to thy forgiving power ?" Every- 
 thing God has made and inspired may lead us towards 
 the knowledge of Him. The heavens declare the glory 
 
17 ■ '■ . 
 
 of God ; the beauty of the Lord is upon us in flower 
 and forest tree, in painted butterfly and bird of song ; 
 His ways are seen in providential care for the indi- 
 vidual and in the guidings of nations. But the upper 
 rungs of the ladder of the soul that reaches His throne 
 are those of human life which ascend into that of the 
 Divine Man. 
 
 Resentment, retaliation, the resistance of evil, revenge, 
 are natural to humanity, and very characteristic of the 
 savage still. But in past ages men, who knew nothing 
 of divine revelation as we understand it, forgave their 
 debtors and their enemies, refused to avail themselves 
 of opportunities of revenge placed within their reach. 
 Now, everything that the better nature of man ap- 
 proves has its counterpart in God the Father^ its 
 counterpart carried to infinity ; for these better traits 
 of character are but sparks from the divine fire ever 
 burning. When a human being realizes the fact of 
 earthly pardon, he turns his gaze heavenward, and 
 says to God, so far as he apprehends Him, " There is 
 forgiveness with thee." The knowledge of God comes 
 more by doing than by thinking. He that doeth the 
 will of God shall know of the doctrine. Do you want 
 to know whether your daily bread, temporal or 
 spiritual, is sure ? Go and minister of your superfluity 
 to the needy. Do you want to know whether your 
 offences are pardoned ? Forgive from the heart them 
 that have trespassed against you. 
 
 Many people, however, are better in practice than 
 their theology. The unconscious promptings of the 
 
18 
 
 Holy Spirit within them are truer than their conscious 
 spelling out of His intimations to men of old time. 
 Ever present to their minds is the censorious God, 
 strict to mark iniquity, who will not clear the guilty, 
 taking account in judgment of every idle wo/d even, 
 a resister and avenjgfer of all manner of evil. All 
 this is Scriptural and true, but it is not the highest 
 Scripture and sublimest truth. A sermon on this 
 petition is our Lord's discourse, amply illustrated in 
 such a way as to excite the wonder and dismay of 
 those who really seek to lead the Christ-life, on the 
 words, " I say unto you that ye resist not evil ; that 
 ye may be the children of your Father which is in 
 heaven." In a practical discourse on the most practi- 
 cal of all things, a prayer given by infallibility, 1 am 
 not concerned to split theological hairs or reconcile 
 apparently divergent Scripture. Theological studies 
 had sunk Martin Luther in the Slough of Despond, 
 when a simple-hearted old monk recited in his ear the 
 words of the creed, *' I believe in the forgiveness of 
 sins." No doctrinal subtleties will long stand in the 
 way of this comforting truth in that man's heart 
 which has forgiven the trespasses of a brother. St. 
 Bernard said, " As great as is our love of God, so great 
 is our knowledge of him." But Jesus Christ virtually 
 says, " As great as is our love of our brother, so great 
 is our knowledge of God." And St. John, who drank 
 deeply of his Master's spirit, aptly puts it, " He that 
 loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can 
 he love God, whom he hath not seen ?" 
 
It is strange that Christ in the petition, " Lead us 
 not into temptation," should have allowed a handle to 
 be given to those who wish to err regarding the 
 character and acts of the Heavenly Father. Yet the 
 Bible is full of this deference to the freedom of the 
 reader, whether he wish to be killed by the letter or 
 be made alive by the spirit. God placed man origi- 
 nally, and still keeps him, in a world full of temptation, 
 for the necessary trial of his faith. Yet the tempting 
 powers are inimical to God. St. James the Less, the 
 so-called brother or cousin on the reputed father's side 
 of Jesus, knew this prayer well, and would have been 
 among the last to contradict any statement in it. Never- 
 theless, he says: "Let no man say when he is tempted, I 
 am tempted of God : for God cannot be tempted with 
 evil, neither tempteth he any man." And yet Jesus 
 was himself led by the Spirit into the wilderness to 
 be tempted by the devil. So may that same Spirit 
 sometimes lead a strong man of God even where 
 Satan's seat is, as a champion full armed with the 
 panoply of the faith, to stand against the wiles of 
 the devil. 
 
 This is a contest for which every Christian war- 
 rior should be prepared, constantly putting on the 
 whole armor of God. The great temptation of your 
 life may face you in your business, in your social 
 recreations, in the Seld of your ambition, in the secret 
 chamber of your soul's imagery, and its shock may be 
 too terrible for flesh and blood. As Moses prayed to 
 be excused from appearing before Pharaoh, so may 
 
20 ' 
 
 weaker souls pray not to be led into Satan's audi- 
 torium. They may even go farther, and entreat that 
 their ignorant feet be so divinely guided as not to 
 stray of themselves into the path of the tempter. 
 There are in the Church thousands of God-protected 
 souls, that almost doubt the existence of the powers 
 of evil, because, like the Hebrews of the epistle, they 
 have not yet been called upon to resist unto blood. 
 Happy they, if, in their complacence, the enemy do 
 not at some time gain the advantage of them, and, all ^ 
 unknown, infuse hii spirit, as that of an angel of light, 
 into theirs, making of them earthly Satans, accusers 
 of the brethren who are marked with many a battle- 
 scar. Not lightly will we venture on the contest, 
 since heavenly wisdom tells us to pray, " Lead us not 
 into temptation ;" but this we know, that not without 
 severe conflict, and it may be many a fall as well as 
 successful resistance, shall the spiritually valiant be 
 fitted to lead the hosts of God. 
 
 " But deliver us from evil," says our English version ; 
 and it is wrong. Abstract evil exists where all other 
 abstractions exist, as a mere definition, in the mind of 
 man. Real evil is a personal thing, in our own 
 persons, in those of our fellows, in spirits of wicked- 
 ness, doubtless in brutes, if they have personality. 
 But here the language of the original is plain : " De- 
 liver us from the Evil One." Abundant Scripture 
 makes clear and definite who the Evil One is — the 
 adversary, that old serpent who is the devil and Satan. 
 We wrestle not against flesh and blood (would to God 
 
21 
 
 that Christians (lid not!), but aj^ainst his principali- 
 ties and powers. The whole world lies in that Wicked 
 One, and he has a mortgage on the physical life of all 
 men. A supernatural being of great power over 
 Nature and the elements, his power that is most to 
 be dreaded is that which enslaves the soul. St. Peter 
 understood this petition, for his loving Lord and 
 Master had actually identified him with the adversary, 
 and had warned him that Satan desired to sift him as 
 wheat. And all those upon whom the Evil One has 
 had a hold in the past, through temper or pride, greed 
 of gain or coward falsehood, lust or intemperance, 
 may well dread his blandishments, and pray to be 
 delivered from them. 
 
 It is a petition for the slave as well as for the 
 temporarily free man. The wretched one who has 
 awakened to realize the body of death that is chained 
 to him, may cry out from his prison-house, " Deliver 
 us from the Evil One." There is hope for all in 
 this petition, for the lowest fallen, the most utterly 
 degraded, for those whom the world truly speaks of 
 as " gone to the devil." He cannot- hold the soul 
 that prays in earnest, "Deliver me," for none can 
 pluck out of the Father's hand those whose pitiful 
 cry He hears. Oh, to ring out, clear and definite and 
 loud, no mere abstraction, but the most concrete 
 personal appeal of suffering, lost humanity, till all the 
 world is wrought to sympathy r **ih its tones, " Our 
 Father, deliver us from the Evil One." It is the revolt 
 ef the people against their tyrant, the resistance of 
 
■ ''" 22 
 
 the bondman to his oppressor, the struggle of the 
 victim writhing under the heel of fiendish brutality ; 
 and the Father, who is Redeemer and Saviour, will 
 hear the cry and give strength to break every 
 yoke. 
 
 " Deliver us from the Evil One." I would pray it 
 when the tierce tempest rages and deadly lightnings 
 flash across the sky. In the earthquake's shock and 
 in the path of the levelling '•yclone, I would make 
 its voice to be heard. When engulfing waves 
 threaten to devour them that go down to the sea in 
 ships, this should be their united voice. Whatever of 
 evil may be found in man, in nature, in soul tempta- 
 tion, let its great source be recognized, and, face to 
 face with it, let this oft-agonized, yet ever strong and 
 confident petition arise, " Deliver us from the Evil 
 One." Thank God that Christ has given us this 
 petition, that He has taught us to know our enemy, 
 and to find, in His Father and our Father, one who 
 has no pleasure in destruction, but is able, and willing 
 as He is able, to save to the very uttermost, even from 
 such a foe. 
 
 "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and 
 the glory, for ever. Amen." What do we mean by 
 saying, " Thine is the kingdom," after praying, " Thy 
 kingdom come " ? The prince of this world holds 
 the kingdom still, and no doubt a poll of earth's 
 teeming millions would keep him in his place to-day 
 by a majority of votes. We are speaking as electors 
 here, and saying, So far as we who pray are concerned, 
 
23 
 
 the kiii<^doin of this world is tliine, O, Father! Our 
 hearts are thy throne, our Church is thine abode, all 
 that we are and have and can do that is worthy in 
 any degree of thine acceptance, we freely offer to our 
 King. We refuse to own the usurper, and would 
 hurl that Evil One from his throne were it in our 
 power so to do. We are seeking to lift thee up 
 before the nations on the Cross of Christ, that thou 
 mayest draw all men unto thee, until its thousands 
 of thousands shall cry with united voice, " Thou art 
 our King, 0, God ; command deliverances." If the 
 world only knew God, were able clearly to distin- 
 guish between His acts and those of the great 
 deceiver who darkens the human understanding, its 
 choice would be that of the ascription, and its king- 
 doms would become the kingdom of our God and of 
 His Christ. 
 
 God is omnipotent in His heaven, but " Thine is the 
 power" has no reference to this. It also is an ascrip- 
 tion by man. By the gift of freedom with dominion 
 to angels and men, God limits His power. As in a 
 republic, an elective monarchy, and in democratic 
 governments generally, the people are the repository 
 of power, so is it in the case of the whole world. This 
 world's history is that of an elective system on trial — 
 so far a dismal failure. Power is wielded here below 
 largely for injury ; but for God's intervention in 
 Christ, it would have been exercised for total destruc- 
 tion, physical and spiritual. I saw a book on a counter 
 once, entitled, " Why doesn't God kill the Devil ?" I 
 
 'i' 
 
24 
 
 have not read the book, and do not know its import, 
 good or bad. But the question is capable of being 
 answered. To kill the devil would involve the killing 
 of those who have set him on the throne of the world ; 
 that is, of our race, or the annulling of that quality of 
 freedom whereby the conquerors in the strife between 
 good and evil are to become the sons and daughters 
 in the highest sense of the Lord God Almighty. 
 
 The votes of the people place rulers in power. God 
 condescends to our suffrages, to be the ruler of a free 
 and willing people. He recognizes our dominion over 
 the works of His hands, and our right to give it to 
 whom we will. We have placed that power in the 
 hands of the Evil One, and have suffered for so doing, 
 finding out slowly that it is an evil thing and bitter 
 to forsake the Lord. We have awakened to see 
 power misplaced in every possible way, so that it 
 smites us from morn till night, and from year to 
 year. We pray, "Take to thyself thy great power 
 and reign. If that power be in our human will, we 
 offer that will to thee. We revoke our race's gift of 
 the dominion to the rulers of darkness. Take to 
 thyself all the powers a willing people can confer, 
 and use them for our good and the destruction of our 
 spiritual enemies. Then shall the land yield her 
 increase, and God, even our God, shall bless us." 
 
 The name of God has been blasphemed among 
 heathen Gentiles and Jews, in the Christian world 
 and Church. Thoughts and deeds He abhors have 
 been attributed to Him, and the character that should 
 
25 
 
 win the world has been so travestied as to repel. The 
 Son, who gave this prayer, saw himself going forward 
 to a judgment of shame and an ignominious death. 
 His followers have too often shared the same dis- 
 honor, and when those who called themselves such 
 have been glorified in the sight of the world it has 
 been because they were no true disciples of the meek 
 and lowly Jesus. The people are the awarders of 
 honor, the bestowers of glory and immortal fame. 
 They press around some honored name and praise it 
 with united voice ; they crown its owner with the 
 laurel and the bay, until royalty has no such an empire 
 over the hearts of generations as these recipients of 
 the people's glory. It is not a capricious thing ; the 
 glorified must have performed some great work that 
 raises him above his fellows. So far, the people are 
 discriminating ; yet many of the world's greatest 
 heroes and benefactors have no monument, have not 
 even had their names handed down to posterity. 
 More than half the world is ignorant of the great God 
 in whom they live and move and have their being. 
 
 But we who pray this prayer know the Father, and 
 His marvellous long-suffering, His infinite condescen- 
 sion. His sparing not His own Son, whom He freely 
 gave to death for us all. Our little life-labors we are 
 apt to pride ourselves upon and ask recognition for, 
 at the thought of Him and His, sink to the bungling 
 work of unprofitable servants. All holy prophets and 
 apostles, saints and martyrs, we look upon as tiny 
 wave-beats of the great ocean of knowledge and 
 
26 
 
 inspiration, of holy love and patient endurance of ill, 
 which is God. Every effort to spread the truth, to 
 ameliorate the condition of humanity, to drive out of 
 corner after corner the lurking foes of our race, is a 
 pulsation of His strong arm, mighty to smite and to 
 save. Therefore, we freely say, " Blessing and honor 
 and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth upon 
 the throne, and unto the Lamb, forever and ever." 
 And, working for His glory, we confidently wait until 
 every creature shall say, * Amen !" 
 
27 
 
 THY KINGDOM COME. 
 
 Up ! up I ye young men, stout of heart, 
 
 Of active brain and hand, 
 Arise to play the hero's part 
 
 In many a warrior-band. 
 When face to face with myriad wrongs, 
 
 'Tis no time to be dumb ; 
 Shout with ten thousand thousand tongues, 
 
 " O Lord, Thy kingdom come !" 
 
 Awake ! ye maidens, good and pure. 
 
 Have ye not slumbered long ? 
 Ye, too, must help Earth's ills to cure. 
 
 Strike up your virgin-song : 
 No gentle cooing of the dove. 
 
 No plaintive dreamer's hum, 
 But full and strong, as heart's best love, 
 
 *'0 Lord, Thy kingdom come !" 
 
 Ye veterans in holy strife, 
 
 Whose heads are turning hoar, 
 Well have ye served your time of life, 
 
 Now must ye do the more. 
 It fits you not to contemplate 
 
 The curse, with visage glum ; 
 Come, hurl your plaint at Heaven s gate, 
 
 *'0 Lord, Thy kingdom come!" 
 
28 
 
 O mothers of our Israel, 
 
 How great the Church's debt 
 To your kind care what tonfrue can tell ? 
 
 The Christ will ne'er forget 
 That, when all fled, ye did abide 
 
 By Cross and seek the tomb ; 
 Come, swell our supplication's tide, 
 
 "O Lord, Thy kingdom come!" 
 
 Children, ye children Jesus loved, 
 
 And, living, who loves still, 
 By His own Spirit be ye moved. 
 
 And answer with a will. 
 Your fresh young souls have power with God, 
 
 The tyrant's arm to numb ; 
 Call out to Him this earth who trod, 
 
 *'0 Lord, Thy kingdom come I " 
 
 And you who suffer more than all 
 
 From Satan's evil sway. 
 Who have no doubts about the Fall 
 
 Nor of the Judgment Day ; 
 From homes with want and squalor rife, 
 
 In many a crowded slum, 
 Cry loud, spare not, 'tis for your life, 
 
 "O Lord, Thy kingdom come !" 
 
 O sinners, whatsoe'er ye be, 
 
 List to your Captain's shout, 
 " Stand up ! be men and women free, 
 
 And put your foes to rout." 
 The King, the hosts of Heaven, wait, 
 
 As roll of charging drum. 
 The signal of your tumult great, 
 
 "O Lord, Thy kingdom come !"