All about him shadow still, but, while the races flower and fade,
Prophet eyes may catch a glory, slowly gaining on the shade,
Till the people all are one and all their voices blend in a choric
Hallelujah to the Maker, ‘It is finished; man is made.’”
Fellow laborers with God in truth we are. Prayer ends in labor and labor ends in prayer. But it is not a cry for miracle. It is an inward effort at co-operation.
There is a beautiful mingling of the great and the little, the cosmic and the personal. The universal sweep of Divine ends does not swallow up, or miss, the needs of the concrete individual. While the spiritual universe is building, men must have daily bread and they must constantly face the actual present with its routine and monotony. Here again prayer is no miraculous method of turning stones into bread. It is no easy substitute for toil. It is the joyous insight that in the avenues of daily toil, God and man are co-operating and that in very truth the bread for the day is as much God given as it is won by the sweat of brow. The recently discovered “saying of Jesus” best interprets this prayer. “Wherever any man raises a stone or splits wood, there am I.” He consecrates honest toil.
Next we come to the profound word which shows how completely our lives are bound together in organic union, above and below: “Forgive us as we forgive.” What a solemn thing to say. Dare we pray it! And yet few words have ever so truly revealed the nature of prayer. It is, one sees, no easy, lazy way to blessings. Once more, it is co-operation. Forgiveness is not a gift which can fall upon us from the skies, in return for a capricious request. The blessing depends on us as much as it does on God. A cold, hard, unforgiving heart can no more be forgiven than a lazy, slipshod student can have knowledge given to him. Like all spiritual things, forgiveness can come only when there is a person who appreciates its worth and meaning. The deep cry for forgiveness must rise out of a forgiving spirit. It is always more than a transaction, an event. It is an inward condition of the personal life, and the soul that feels what it means to love and forgive is so bound into the whole divine order that love and forgiveness come in as naturally as light goes through the open casement, or the tide into an inlet.
The next word is surely to be thought of as a human cry: “Take us not into testing.” It is the natural shrinking of the tender, sensitive soul, and it is the right attitude. Most of us know by hard experience that trial, proving, testing, yes, even actual temptation, have a marvelous ministry. No saint is made in the level plain, where the waters are still and the pastures green.
“Never on custom’s oilëd grooves