wanderer, for the shipwrecked sailor, for sick persons, for feeble
infants, that God would send help to them who cannot help
themselves, and soften our hearts and the hearts of all around us,
that we may never turn our faces away from any poor man, lest the
face of the Lord be turned away from us.

So far we have been praying to our Heavenly Father, first as a
Father, then as a King, then as an Inspirer, then as a Giver; and
next we pray to Him as a _For_giver--'Forgive us our trespasses.'
We have been confessing in these four petitions what God's goodwill
to man is; what God wishes man to be, how man ought to live and
believe. And then comes the recollection of sin. We must confess
what God's law is before we can confess that we have broken it; and
now we do confess that we have broken it. We know that God is our
Father. How often have we forgotten that He is a father; how often
have we forgotten to be good fathers ourselves.

We are in God's kingdom. How often have we behaved as if we were
our own kings, and had no masters over us but our own fancies,
tempers, appetites! We are to do His will on earth as it is done in
heaven. How have we been doing our own will!--pleasing ourselves,
breaking loose from His laws, trying to do right of our own wills
and in our own strength, instead of asking His Spirit to strengthen,
and cleanse, and renew our wills, and so have ended by doing not the
right which we knew to be right, but the wrong which we knew to be
wrong. God is a giver. How often have we looked on ourselves as
takers, and fancied that we must as it were steal the good things of
this world from God, lest He should forget to give us what was
fitting! How often have we forgotten that God gives to all men, as
well as to us; and while we were praying, give _me_ my daily bread,