ils of conduct, but it is
my business to say--take this prayer for a test, and if you dare not pray
it over what you do in earning your living, ask yourself whether you are
not rather earning your _death_.

Then the prayer is a pledge of thankful recognition of God in our
blessings.

Ah! dear friends, are we not all guilty in this? How utterly heathenish
is our oblivion of God in our daily life! How far we have come from that
temper which recognises Him in all joys, and begins every new day with
Him! Daily mercies demand daily songs of praise. His love wakens us
morning by morning. It follows us all the day long with its fatherly
benefits. It reveals itself anew every time He spreads our table, every
time He gives us teaching or joy. And our thanksgiving and consciousness
of His presence should be as constant as are His gifts. 'My voice shalt
thou hear in the morning.' 'They walk all the day long in the light of
Thy countenance.' 'I will both lay me down in peace and sleep.' 'They
ate their meat with gladness and singleness of heart.'

II. The union with our brethren in our prayer.

'Give _us_.' The struggle for existence is represented by many as the
very law of human life. The fight for bread is the great antagonist of
brotherly regard for our fellows. Trade is said to be warfare; and then
others starting from that conception that one man's gains are some other
man's losses, proclaim with undoubted truth on these premises 'property
is robbery.' But surely this clause of our prayer teaches us a more
excellent way. We are not to be like stiff-necked men who fight with one
another for the drop of brackish water caught in the corner of a sail,
but we are to be as children bowing down together before a great Father,
all sitting at His table where nothing wants, and where even the pet
dogs below it eat of the crumbs.

The main thing is to note how our Lord teaches us here to identify
ourselves with others, to make common cause with them in our petition
for bread. He who rightly enters into the meaning of this prayer, and
feels the unity which it supposes, can scarcely regard his possessions
as given to himself alone, or to be held without regard to other people.
We are all one in need; high and low, rich and poor, we all hang on God
for the same supplies. We are all one in reception of His gifts. Is it
becoming in one who is a member of such a whole, to clasp his portion in
both his hands and carry it off to a corner w