Page:An analysis of religious belief (1877).djvu/360

 philosophic regard for the interests of mankind, and with a practicable scheme of social ethics.

Jesus proceeds to enjoin his disciples neither to give alms, nor to pray, nor to fast in an ostentatious manner; and in connection with this excellent advice he teaches them the short prayer which has become so famous under his name. The clauses of this prayer may be worth some consideration. It begins with a formula of adoration addressed to "Our father in heaven." Then follows a petition full of meaning to Jesus and those to whom he imparted it, but of little or no signification in the mouths of the millions of modern Christians who daily repeat it: "Thy kingdom come." Jesus hoped, and his disciples caught the hope, that God's kingdom would come very soon; and this prayer was a request for the early realization of the glories of that kingdom. Those who then employed it believed that at any moment it might be granted, and that at no distant period it certainly would be granted. "Thy will be done, as in heaven so also on earth;" a clause embodying the popular conception of another region in which God's will is perfectly obeyed, while here it is met by some counteracting influence. "Give us this day our daily bread," for beyond the daily provision they were not to look; a doctrine which we shall notice shortly. "And forgive us our debts" (or, in Luke, our sins) "as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." Passing over the singular conception of God as leading men into temptation, let us rather notice the preceding petition, on which Jesus himself has supplied a commentary, that we may be forgiven, as we forgive others. In reference to this he tells his hearers, that if they forgive men their trespasses, their heavenly father will forgive theirs; and that if they do not thus behave, neither will he. A kindred doctrine is laid down in the beginning of the next chapter, where he tells them not to judge, that they may not be judged; that with what measure they mete, it shall be measured to them again. And this illustrated in another place by the parable of the servant who, having been excused from the immediate payment of a large debt by his master, refused to excuse a fellow-servant from the payment of a small one; whereupon his master flew into a passion, and "delivered him