Page:Sermons on the Lord's Prayer.djvu/9



No apology seems necessary for offering to the Church a volume of sermons on the Lord's Prayer. A form of words, which is so often repeated both in public and private, ought certainly to be well understood: otherwise, there is danger, from frequency of repetition, of its becoming a mere form. But if, on the other hand, when the Prayer is uttered, there are clear and full ideas in the mind of the meaning of every part of it,—and if, at the same time, the utterer, not allowing his thoughts to wander, endeavors to put life and feeling into the words he is saying, he will find an answering life flow down from heaven, and give a blessing to the prayer.

Two series of Sermons have, indeed, already appeared, in the New Church, on this subject,—the one by the Rev. John Clowes, of Manchester, and the other by the late Rev. Henry A. Worcester, of Bath, Maine, United States. But the latter work is