x Archbishop Temple.
The Lord's Prayer.
ST. MATT. 9
Literature.
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The Lord's Prayer.
After this manner therefore pray ye. — Matt. vi. 9.
1. The Lord's Prayer has been the type of prayer among Christians in all ages. Throughout the Christian centuries men have poured forth their hearts to God in these few words, which have probably had a greater influence on the world than all the writings of theologians put together. They are the simplest form of com- munion with Christ : when we utter them we are one with Him ; His thoughts become our thoughts, and we draw near to God through Him. They are also the simplest form of communion with our fellow-men, in which we acknowledge that He is our common Father and that we are His children. And the least particulars of our lives admit of being ranged under one or other of the petitions which we offer up to Him.
2. It has not only become the one universal prayer of Christendom; it has appealed to and has been adopted by the most enlightened exponents of other faiths. This result is all the more astounding if, as some scholars have declared, no single petition of the prayer was in the strict sense " original," the startling originality being in the structure of the prayer. Within the narrow framework of an utterance containing only peti- tions, Jesus has gathered all the deepest necessities of the col- lective and of the individual life of mankind, and has so knit together and built up these petitions in orderly sequence that the prayer as a whole appeals to men everywhere, and remains to any man who will thoughtfully use it a liberal education in sympathy with mankind and in understanding the character of God.
Tj In his " Ode on the Pleasure Arising from Vicissitude," Thomas Gray endeavoured to impress on an age of indifference the priceless value of the daily earthly blessings which we receive,
132 THE LORD'S PRAYER
too often without a thought of their beauty, and bealthfulness, and joy, without a word of gratitude to Him who gives and sus- tains, without one real expression of prayer that we may conse- crate them more entirely to His service. He describes the feelings of one who, after a long and painful illness, finds himself at last able to leave his room, and move once more amid familiar sights and sounds which, in a normal state of health, scarcely excite attention :
See the Wretch, that long has tost
On the stormy bed of Pain, At length repair his vigour lost
And breathe and walk again; The meanest flowret of the vale, The simplest note that swells the gale, The common Sun, the air, the skies, To him are opening Paradise.
In the spiritual world there are blessings like "the common sun, the air, the skies," the priceless value of which in regard to com- munion with God in Christ, the conscious sense of the Divine presence, the formation of character, and control of conduct, we for the most part hardly estimate until we find ourselves deprived of them, or unable to make use of them. Among such blessings, inestimable, yet taken as a matter of course, is the gift of the Lord's Prayer.1
(1) To begin with, a man is bidden postpone the outpouring of his private needs till he has related himself aright to the needs of the world : the first three petitions of the Lord's Prayer are "missionary" intercessions, which, when a man begins to use, at once narrowness and possible selfishness of outlook are checked, and the sympathies spread out to take in the wants that lie deepest in the life of universal man. "Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name" — hallowed, that is, the whole world over. What a sweep of intercessory affection, what enlightening recollection of what the world most truly needs, what readjustment to fraternal fellowship of desire lies behind the intelligent use of this petition alone ! It means that one sees, instructed by Christ, that the profoundest necessity for the broken and sundered lives of our race is reunion in spiritual religion, in one universal reverence to one worthy thought of God ; and to go on intelligently to pray, " Thy kingdom come :