Alexandrian philosophy, which is chiefly to blame for the association of the abstract and empty idea of self-existence and absolute being with a name which was intended to be full of love, and pity, and tenderness. Then as to the name of "Jesus," while the sweetness has never been crushed out of it, as it has been out of the rich and precious Old Testament name, yet it has not been so closely identified with the Divine Being as it ought to have been. In their zeal for personal distinctions in the Holy Trinity, theologians have been too often tempted to forget such passages as these-"No man cometh unto the Father but by Me," "I and my Father are One," "I am the Truth," &c.; and so they have attempted to unfold a knowledge of God apart from His Son Christ Jesus; that is to say, a knowledge of God apart from that Name by which He has made Himself known to us. The consequence has been that Christian people have not been fully taught to think of Christ when they pray, "Hallowed be Thy Name." The name of "Jehovah" they may think of; but they are apt to think of it after the fashion of the translators of the Septuagint rather than after the fashion of saints of old, whose souls were filled with rapture as they thought of it, leading them to break forth. in such a song of praise as this: "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid; for Jehovah, Jehovah is my strength and my song; He also is become my salvation." The name of Jesus, it is sometimes said, does not occur in the prayer at all; whereas if we would think of what Christ has Himself said as to His relation to the Father, we could not fail to see that when we pray, "Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name," we are praying for the glory of Christ.

The substance of the name "Jehovah" in the Old Testament is Love; the substance of the name Jesus "

in the New Testament is Love; and when the apostle John says "God is Love," he is summing up the name of God as revealed both in the Old Testament and the New, and verifying what had been said of old, when the richness of its meaning was first unfolded: "This is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations." Accordingly, when we pray, "Hallowed be Thy Name," we pray that God may be known to all men as a loving Father; that He may be known as revealed in "Jehovah, Jehovah God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty;" that He may be known as revealed in Christ as the Father, Friend, Helper, Comforter, Saviour of mankind. Who that has learned to know Him in this blessed character could fail to be filled with enthusiasm for so grand an object? Observe how real and tangible it is. All around us there are those who think of God in no other light than as mere Force, or stern Law, or abstract Essence; or, again, as an arbitrary Ruler, or a cruel Tyrant, or an omnipresent Eye; and far away there are those who have never heard the name of Christ at all, and have never had any opportunity of becoming acquainted with a Father in heaven. Oh! surely it should make our hearts burn within us to think how our loving Father is misrepresented and misunderstood, how He is traduced and maligned, how He is disowned and denied all around us, and how many there are that do not know His blessed Name at all; and when we think of all this, it is with no effort that we struggle up as after some abstract or intangible good, which we ought to desire, but cannot realise, but with a resistless enthusiasm which carries our whole nature with it as we pray, "Our Father, Hallowed be Thy Name."

This is the best channel in which personal enthusiasm for God and for Christ may flow. We would say nothing to disparage such outpourings of personal devotion as find expression in many of our modern' hymns; and yet there is a danger of being carried away in the direction of something like sentimentalism, by which we mean the outflow of feeling without consequent action. The form of this petition guards us against any danger there may lie in this direction. "Hallowed be Thy Name" does not translate itself nearly so readily into utterances of personal endearment as it does into such a grand and manly enthusiasm as that of "the sweet singer of Israel" when he cried: "His name shall endure for ever; His name shall be continued as long as the sun; and men shall be blessed in Him; all nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things; and blessed be His glorious name for ever; and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and Amen." This first petition should by all means have as its animating spirit intense personal enthusiasm for Christ; but this fervour will not narrow itself to the mere personal relation of the saint to his Saviour, but will go out, with a grand sweep of missionary enthusiasm, to the very ends of the earth, according to the true suggestion of the paraphrast—

"For ever hallowed be Thy Name

By all beneath the skies."

The second petition has suffered somewhat in the same way as the first. Some think of "the kingdom of heaven," of which our Saviour is so constantly speaking, as if He meant a kingdom in heaven, whereas He makes it as plain as language can make it that He is speaking of a kingdom which He has come to establish on the

earth; the expression "of heaven" referring not to its geography, but to its heavenly nature. And others, though recognising that the reference is to the earth, have nevertheless allowed themselves the habit of looking forward to some grand demonstration in the future, forgetting what our Lord was so careful to teach, that the kingdom of heaven of which He spoke came not with observation, and that, instead of expecting to be able to say, "Lo here!" or "Lo there!" His disciples should recognise it as already established, and having its sphere in the hearts of men. When our Saviour teaches us to pray "Thy kingdom come," He is not leading our thoughts away from the present, away from the sphere of our own proper activity and hourly interest; He is teaching us to pray for a kingdom which is as much a present reality, and as little in the clouds, as the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; for a realm whose concerns are as definite and as practical as those of the urgent politics of the day, and infinitely more important and farther reaching. It is a prayer the answer to which we should watch for day by day and hour by hour, not only in the subjection of our own wills to the blessed sway of the "King of kings," but in the growing consecration of believers, in the conversion of sinners, in the overthrow of tyranny and all iniquity, in the amelioration of human sorrow and suffering, in the progress of enlightenment amongst the people, in the dissipation of the fogs of doubt and the darkness of infidelity, and above all in the progress of "the Gospel of the kingdom" in all lands. True indeed, the eye of the Christian's hope should always be fixed upon the goal; we should look through all confusions of the present to the great future, when Christ Himself shall come in the clouds of glory; but while our eye is fixed upon that point in the future, our thoughts

and our energies should be occupied with the work He has given us to do in the time now present; and so our prayer will not only be a missionary prayer, but an impelling motive to a truly missionary life, the devotion of heart, and soul, and strength, and property to the advancement of "the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

The third petition is not essentially different from the second, as the second is substantially equivalent to the first. They all express desires for the glory of God upon the earth; but though, so far as the main thought is concerned, there is a threefold repetition, it is no vain repetition, it is an intentional repetition, a repetition which teaches us what a Christian man's first desire and prayer should be, and what his life and highest ambition. should be. Besides, there is a manifest order and progress of thought. The three petitions represent a continuous process, leading on to the regeneration of universal society. To this great and blessed end it is necessary, first, that the Name of the Father, of "God in Christ," be known and hallowed. The result of this will be His enthronement in human hearts, i.e., the coming of His kingdom. And as the result of His enthronement in human hearts there will be universal obedience in human life, and so the will of God will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The first is a prayer that the blessed "Sun of Righteousness" may shine on all mankind; the second, that under His shining life may everywhere spring up; the third, that this life may reach its full maturity on earth as in heaven, where the Sun of Righteousness is never darkened and never sets. Nor is it a mere fancy that recognises an implicit reference to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in the threefold prayer for the Divine glory. In the first petition we think of the Father, revealed in