CHAPTER IV THE LORD'S PRAYER: THE PETITIONS AND THE PETITIONERS HAVING examined the points of likeness and difference between my own and the old conception of the power addressed in the Lord's Prayer, I may be permitted to assume that my reader is willing, at least for argument's sake, to grant the expediency of turning the reverent attention of the people systematically to all the good in the world as the source of redemption. I may further assume his assent to the necessity of direct addresses to this power, expressive of praise and gratitude, and of petitions for blessings. Furthermore, if we were now to find upon analysis that the petitions contained in the Lord's Prayer, and the characteristics implied in it as inherent in the suppliants, were the very ones which, if it were used as the national supplication, would best train the minds of the people to social service, we should be constrained to retain for it its ancient pre-eminence in the Prayer Book. Let us, then, consider every detail of it which can have any bearing upon the question before us. 1. Are the first two words of the Lord's Prayer the most suitable as an appellation for a deity identical with human goodness? Like the word God itself, the word Father points to no quality inherent in the being designated; it is a relational term; that is, it refers only to some connection between the power indicated and human beings. A father is primarily one by whom a human being's body is begotten, and secondarily and commonly one by whom both body and mind are, at least in part, supplied with the means of development. One might reason, then, that legitimately a figurative use of the word would be its application to any thing or idea which was an active factor in bringing into existence and sustaining, in another being, any quality or aspect. But this is not all. Dependence upon its father for its nature and nurture arouses in the consciousness of a child, either spontaneously or upon inculcation, a sense of indebtedness, gratitude and reverence, and an active opening of its heart to the father and a direct asking for advice and help. Accordingly, a full figurative use of the word Father would appropriately apply it to any being towards which we look in gratitude, reverence and hope, because we have derived from it our nature and nurture. Undoubtedly the Greeks called Zeus "Father" because their conscious attitude towards him was like the attitude of a child to its parent, and the grounds for their attitude were similar to a child's. Was not this the whole reason, also, why the Christians called their God "Father"? If, however, it now turns out that the Christian God is all the good in man and nature, analogy renders the epithet more appropriate than ever before. For each individual human being, all the stored-up good in the world is the begetter both of his body and soul. The body is due to the sumtotal of all the lifeward influences in the universe, and not simply to the one human being specified as Father. As to his physical nurture, also, how could the child even live, if all other means in the universe were withdrawn except those provided by the parent? And will a man who has grown conscious of his dependence upon all beneficent influences, and who is moved to gratitude towards all immanent good, limit the denotation of the term father to one human being? The more one synthesises the elements of the case, the more one begins to feel that to call all the good in the world "Father" is not so much the transference of a term by poetic analogy as the literal and scientific extension of it; and in the fact that faith in the immanent good is immune from the weakening effects of philosophic scepticism and is justified by experience, we have one more ground for calling the good in the world our Father. Indeed, had Greek and Jew and Christian never designated their deities in this manner, we should none the less be constrained now to appropriate the term. Although the statesmen of the next generation may sweep the Bible from our schools and turn against the customs of the Church, they will be compelled by the interests of the State and by inner truth to teach not only the young but adults to revere human goodness and all that tends towards it, as a child reveres a father, and therefore to call it "Father." 2. Those who accept the Lord's Prayer in the ordinary way, as if its full meaning were patent to the casual listener the first time he hears it, may think that in the clause which immediately follows the words "our Father" is to be found an utter refutation of the proposition that the prayer was really addressed to a divinity identical with the good in man on earth. For does not the prayer itself, at the very outset, distinctly say that it is addressed to a being that is in heaven? And is not heaven a term that clearly points away from anything on earth? Indeed, in the third petition of the prayer, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," heaven is set over-against earth in a way Let us analyse any situation that could give rise to a supplication for help to the good in man. The very fact that one is moved to pray implies a discontent with one's actual conditions, inward or outward, and also a standard on the part of the petitioner, in comparison with which he becomes aware by how much the actual falls short of his ideal. When he petitions, he is really asking that what he sees in his vision of the Perfect shall be embodied as fact in actual life-in his own or that of others. The Perfect - the Good-exists only as yet in the moral imagination. At least it is an abstraction, an ideal construction from mere hints found in the concrete fullness of life. So, too, the tendencies that make for its ultimate embodiment constitute an abstraction; they are distinguished and unified in thought, but in experience are not separated from counteracting forces nor organically bound together. If, then, the Perfect and the forces that favour it are to be called "our Father," we must admit that he exists only in the ideal realm of our imagination, and we must qualify our speech in such a way as to indicate that he does not rule in fact as he does in moral right. He is our Father “in heaven" only. The contrast between what ought to be and what is, together with the sense that what ought to be is no mere figment of fancy, but is the soul of the actual, is so vital that we could not omit it from any compendious statement of personal and national idealism. In praying to the good in man we should need to say: "Thy will be done in actual life as in our moral vision we see that it ought to be done." If we turn to consider the use of the word "heaven in secular and religious literature in general, we discover that it refers to an ideal state of society as contrasted with actual families, cities and nations. We detect that only a lack of poetic imagination has caused men to interpret the Bible use of the word heaven to mean a real "other world," a different order of actual existence, literally removed in time and space from human life on earth. But, as I have said, a knowledge of how the human mind expresses itself in general will correct this blunder. Great minds always borrow directly from physical objects and relations words to express moral factors and connections. They, for instance, use the word heaven to mean the inner sky of the moral vision. They must either speak thus figuratively or say nothing to convey their meanings and emotions. Universally, that which is counted desirable, admirable, worthy and perfect is designated as high, and that which is contemptible and despicable as low. What is above us means what is morally not yet attained; and when we speak of a man's having "high" standards we do not even feel the figurativeness of the words. The high is altogether associated in literature with what is joyful, innocent, pure and rarely attained; and the low with the opposite. Not only is this use a psychological necessity of speech, but its justification is embedded in the physical sensations associated with moral moods. Prior to any conscious thought or use of language as a system of signs for communicating ideas, is the spontaneous holding of the head high when hope abounds and a distant goal fixes and tones the spirit. On the other hand, equally radical in |