en may do their duty where God
has put them. That those who, like the heathen, do not know their
duty, may be taught it; that we who do know it, may have strength to
do it.

And therefore it is that the Catechism teaches us the need of
prayer, immediately after making us confess our duty; and therefore
it is that it begins by teaching the Lord's Prayer, because that
prayer is the one, of all prayers which ever have been offered upon
earth, which perfectly expresses the duty of man, and man's relation
to Almighty God.

It is throughout a prayer for strength. It confesses throughout
what we want strength for, to what use we are to put God's grace if
He bestows it on us. Our delight in the Lord's Prayer will depend
on what we consider our duty here on earth to be.

If we look upon this earth principally as a place where we are to
pray for all the good things which we can get, our first prayer will
be, of course, 'Give us this day our daily bread.'

If we look at this earth principally as a place where we have a
chance of being saved from punishment and torment after we die, then
our first prayer will be, 'Forgive us our sins.' And, in fact, that
is all that too many of our prayers now-a-days seem to consist of,--
'Oh, my Maker, give me. my daily bread. Oh, my Judge, forgive me my
sins.' Right prayers enough, but spoilt by being taken out of their
place; spoilt by being prayed before all other prayers; spoilt, too,
by being prayed for ourselves alone, and not for other people also.

But if we believe, as the Bible and the Catechism tell us, that we
and all Christian people are God's children, members of God's
family, set on earth in God's kingdom to do His work by doing our
duty, each in that station of life to which God has called us, in
the hope of a just reward hereafter according to our works, then our
great desire will be for strength to do our duty, and the Lord's
Prayer will seem to us the most perfect way of asking for that
strength; and if we believe that we are God's children and He our
Father, we shall feel sure that we must get strength from Him, and
sure that we must ask for that strength; and sure that He will give
it us if we do ask.

But if His will is to give it us, why ask Him at all? Why pray at
all, if God already knows our necessities, and is able and willing
to supply them?

My friends, the longer I live, the more certain I am that the only
reason for praying at all is because God is o