for a little while. But God provides "an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away" wealth which we could never secure by our own exertions, yet the hope of which stimulates to industry and makes us rich indeed. If we are "children, then heirs ; heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ." V.-UNIVERSAL BROTHERHOOD IN THE DIVINE Many use the word "Our" thoughtlessly, forgetting that it implies the individual acceptance of God in this relationship. It is comparatively easy to recognise a general fatherhood in God, without yielding the heart in solemn surrender, saying, "My Father." The prodigal said, "I will arise and go to my Father." Thus all sinners must return one by one. Thus every believer with adoring faith exclaims, "My Lord and my God." So Christ teaches in this very discourse. "Thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly." The “Our” encourages me to say "My." I know God is willing to be Father to me because He is Father to all besides. I shall utterly despair if I am to establish a special personal plea. Assurance resulting from my own mind might disappear with to-morrow's clouded sky. It is only as one amongst mankind that I can begin to call God" my Father." He "so loved the world" as to give His Son to save it. Because Christ is the "propitiation for the sins of the whole world," I put in my claim simply as a sinner. Because God is "Our Father," I claim Him as "My Father." And now I recognise with new emphasis my relationship to others with whom I share the qualification and the blessing. We are thus taught human brotherhood while appealing to the Divine fatherhood. "When thou prayest alone, shut thy door,-shut out as much as thou canst the sight and notice of others, but shut not out the interest and good of others" (Leighton). In the very act of asking help for ourselves we are reminded of the succour we owe to one another. We cannot pray acceptably if we pray selfishly. We cannot truly call God "Father" unless we cherish the spirit that would call every man "brother." Christ says: Bear others upon your heart all through-pray for yourself and them in one-say, 'Our Father,' and prayer is intercession at once. Take your friend with you, your pastor, your Church, your people,-yea, your enemy too, and your slanderer, and kneel with them, as one, in your own prayer and confession. So, at the very spring and fountainhead of your life, you will have cast in the salubrious tree which shall make every Marah of your converse sweetness" (Vaughan). Thus we are reminded of a corresponding privilege; we share in the prayers of our brethren. What a blessed community of goods! This is indeed the "Communion of saints." All true prayers from filial hearts to "Our Father" bring ourselves into the tide of their benedictions, which help to bear us onward to God. "The most private prayer of the godly is a public good. Every believer has a share in all the prayers of all the rest; for he is a partner in every ship of that kind that sets to sea, and hath a portion of all their gainful voyages" (Leighton). How delightful is the realizing of this fellowship when the whole household-parents, children, servants-gathered round the family altar, seek daily blessings from their Divine Head, and the voices of young and old blend as they invoke the common "Father" How impressive is it, when a ship's company-officers, seamen, passengers-one family, alike dependent on the care of Him who rides upon the storm, send up from the wide waste of waters this invocation-"Our Father"! And what more impressive part of any service in any congregation, however imposing or however simple the ceremonial, than the blending of the accents of rich and poor, minister and people, in this first word! This recognition of brotherhood should include all who invoke the one Father. The special interest we feel in "Our Church" should not exclude from our hearts those who, in other organizations and with other forms, call upon "Our Father." How often "Our Creed hath devoured our Pater Noster, and Faith hath shut Charity out of doors"! By whatever term distinguished, all congregations of believers belong to each; and each should regard as brethren "all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours." Varieties of form there must ever be; but while holding our own convictions with loyalty to conscience, we should cultivate brotherhood with all who invoke this Fatherhood. To narrow it by human authority, sectional jealousy, or personal antipathy; to cut ourselves off from the fellowship of any who, in the name of Christ and by the Holy Ghost, call God "Father," is a schism which this prayer condemns. How different from the mind of Christ, who said, "Whosoever doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother." There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all.” This brotherhood in "Our Father" extends to the various conditions of social life. Rich and poor, master and servant, prince and peasant, queen and cottager, unite in one and the same confession, which should abate pride in the lofty and envy in the low, and prompt us to "bear one another's burdens." "This shows how far the equality reaches between the king and the poor man, if in things the greatest we all of us are fellows. No one hath aught more than another: neither the rich more than the poor: master than servant: ruler than subject: philosopher than barbarian: scholar than unlearned. For to all He hath given one nobility, having vouchsafed to be called Father of all alike" (Chrysostom). This is the only real equality, the true Christian Socialism; not a bringing down of any, but a levelling up of all into the relationship of sons of God. The writer can never forget the exclamation of a negro woman, amidst a congregation of recently emancipated slaves at Richmond, Virginia, to whom he had been preaching from the words, "Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted"-"When I feel de lub of God in my heart, I know I belong to de royal family of heaven." "Have we This word "Our" embraces nations. not all one Father? Hath not one God created us?" The monopoly of the Fatherhood by the Jews to the exclusion of the Gentiles, and the haughty disdain of the Greeks towards barbarians, were grandly rebuked by St. Paul on Mars Hill, when he told the Athenians that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." All nations! coloured and white, are included in the command to each member of the one brotherhood: "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." How would the recognition of this brotherhood influence the foreign policy of socalled Christian nations! There is but one law for us as individuals and as communities. We do not cease to be under the law of Christ when our responsibility is shared in a committee, or a senate, or an executive government. As all the inhabitants of the globe, however different their longitude, are lighted by the same sun in the course of every twenty-four hours; so, all men who pray this prayer, though as regards nationality, station and culture, they are at D |