What prayer

that eternal world, into which our departed friend has been removed,-One Who hath it in His power to bestow both upon ourselves, and upon him whom we mourn, a place and portion in His glorious presence. "Hallowed be Thy name." can be more becoming, more fit for those on whom the realities of life and death have come, than this? We own Him to be worthy to receive glory, and honour, and power; seeing that He has created all things, and that for His pleasure they are and were created; and, therefore, we desire that the whole universe, heaven and earth, and all things therein, the quick and dead (or to speak more accurately, those who live, whether amid things temporal or things eternal), may devote all their energies to lauding and magnifying Him. Thy kingdom. come.' We see before us the effects of sin ; we see death exerting his dominion over our mortal bodies; we know that while the world lasts, the fountains of sorrow will continue to overflow the earth with their bitter streams; that day by day, and hour by hour, there will be more pain, more tears, more death, more

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separation. Never will our thraldom cease till God's kingdom comes; fitly, therefore, may we pray for its advent, if only in our prayer the petition, though unexpressed in words, be included that we may be enabled to prepare ourselves to meet our God.

And now, since partings are grievous, since bereavement is hard to bear, since we have a rebellious spirit within, since it is ever the tendency of our corrupted nature to murmur against the dispensations of the Most High, we meekly beseech Him that His "Will may be done on earth, as it is in heaven." Because we know that what is His Will is always best for us, we pray that whether He order life or death to us or our dear friends, yet still His Will, and not our's, may be done,-done with a submission as complete as that of the Eternal Son, when for us He drank to its very dregs the overflowing cup of the bitterness of the wrath of God,-done with a cheerfulness and a willing alacrity such as animates the blessed angels when they go forth at His command to encamp around the dwellings of the just, and to minister unto them that shall be heirs of salvation.

Nor will the remaining petitions of this divine prayer bear a construction less appropriate to the occasion of which we are speaking than the preceding clauses, for what are they but a confession and exposition of the miserable condition of us who linger on in this mortal life?-of the need in which we stand of daily bread to sustain us, of divine mercy to pardon our manifold transgressions and offences, of grace and favour to deliver us from all sorts of evil, temporal, spiritual, and eternal?'

Thus, then, it is manifest that a devout and thoughtful mind will find in the Lord's Prayer a form of supplication meet for the expression of its wants in the season of affliction. Unhappily for ourselves, there are many of us, I fear, who, through the daily habit of using this prayer, have, to a great extent, lost our feeling of its capabilities to express our wants under all the circumstances into which we are thrown amid the changes and chances of this mortal life. We use it indeed continually, but more as a matter of custom, and because by very general

1 Comber, ubi supra.

consent our devotions would not be complete without it, than because we feel it peculiarly appropriate to us. Because its petitions are general, we treat them as though they were vague: we are too indolent or too thoughtless to give them, as we utter them, a particular reference to our own immediate condition, and so, for any good to be hoped from a prayer offered in such an inconsiderate, heartless manner, it might as well have been left unsaid.

One would think that it was an easy thing enough to say the Lord's Prayer devoutly,— that any man, who was in the habit of praying at all, could so far command his thoughts as to be able to go through its brief petitions without offending God by his formality, or distraction of mind,—that the first prayer which we teach our children, would not be too difficult for ourselves in manhood. And yet let us ask ourselves seriously whether we have acquired the spirit of prayer or not, by taking this as a test, and looking into the frame of mind in which we usually offer the Lord's Prayer; that is to say, whether we ponder on each clause as we utter it, whether

we consider its applicability to ourselves at that particular time, whether we reflect what the fulfilment of our supplication would involve, and really desire that our prayer should be acceded to, or whether we repeat the form in a listless, perfunctory manner, without intentional irreverence, but nevertheless in such a way as to give no evidence of a sense of God's presence, of a desire to please Him, of a fear of offending Him.

To illustrate this by a single instance. Of those who join in the Lord's Prayer in the Burial Service at the funeral of one whom they have loved, how many are there who can offer the petition which I have chosen for my text with anything like earnestness or sincerity? "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven!"

Think what it is which, on such an occasion, ought to be implied by us in the use of such words. And less than this, they cannot imply, that, mourners as we are, we do not wish our cause of mourning removed; that if we could, we would not have events other than they are; that we wholly, and unreservedly, and without qualification of any

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