first
learned what to believe: and to-day have learned to call on him in
whom ye have believed.

The Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, hath taught us a prayer; and
though he be the Lord himself, as ye have heard and repeated in the
Creed, the Only Son of God, yet he would not be alone. He is the
Only Son, and yet would not be alone; he hath vouchsafed to have
brethren. For to whom doth he say, "Say, Our Father, which art in
heaven?" Whom did he wish us to call our father, save his own
father? Did he grudge us this? Parents sometimes when they have
gotten one, or two, or three children, fear to give birth to any
more, lest they reduce the rest to beggary. But because the
inheritance which he promised us is such as many may possess, and no
one be straitened, therefore hath he called into his brotherhood the
peoples of the nations; and the only son hath numberless brethren,
who say, "Our Father, which art in heaven." So said they who have
been before us; and so shall say those who will come after us. See
how many brethren the only son hath in his grace, sharing his
inheritance with those for whom he suffered death. We had a father
and mother on earth, that we might be born to labors and to death;
but we have found other parents, God our father and the Church our
mother, by whom we are born unto life eternal. Let us then consider,
beloved, whose children we have begun to be; and let us live so as
becomes those who have such a father. See, how that our Creator hath
condescended to be our Father.

We have heard whom we ought to call upon, and with what hope of an
eternal inheritance we have begun to have a father in heaven; let us
now hear what we must ask of him. Of such a father what shall we
ask? Do we not ask rain of him, to-day, and yesterday, and the day
before? This is no great thing to have asked of such a father, and
yet ye see with what sighings, and with what great desire we ask for
rain, when death is feared,--when that is feared which none can
escape. For sooner or later every man must die, and we groan, and
pray, and travail in pain, and cry to God, that we may die a little
later, How much more ought we to cry to him, that we may come to
that place where we shall never die!

Therefore it is said, "Hallowed be thy name." This we also ask of
him that his name may be hallowed in us; for holy is it always. And
how is his name hallowed in us, except while it makes us holy? For
once we were no