Yes, my friends, when we say, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ we do indeed honour God and the name of God.  We declare that He is Love, that He is The Giver, The absolutely and boundlessly generous and magnanimous Being.  And what higher glory and honour or praise can we ascribe, even to God Himself, than to say that of Him?  Next, we pray not for ourselves only, but for our neighbours; for England, for Christendom, for the heathen who know not God, and for generations yet unborn.  We pray that God would so guide, and teach, and preserve the children of men, as to enable them to fulfil in every country and every age the work which He gave them to do, when He said, ’Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it.’  We know that our Father has commanded us to labour.  We know that our Father has so well ordered this glorious earth, that whosoever labours may reap the just fruit of his labour; therefore we pray that God would prosper our righteous plans for earning our own living.  We pray to Him not only so to order the earth that it may bring forth its fruits in due season, but that men may be in a fit state to enjoy those fruits, that God may not be forced for their good to withhold from them blessings which they might abuse to their ruin.  But we pray, also, ‘Give us:’  not me only, but us; and therefore we pray that He would prosper our neighbour’s plans as well as ours.  So we confess that we believe God to be no respecter of persons; we confess that we believe He will not take bread out of others’ mouths to give it to us; we declare that God’s curse is on all selfishness and oppression of man by man; we renounce our own selfishness, the lust which our fallen nature has to rise upon others’ fall, and say, ’Father, we are all children at Thy common table.  Thou alone canst prosper the richest and the wisest; Thou alone canst prosper the poorest and the weakest; Thou wilt do equal justice to all some day, and we confess that Thou art just in so doing; we only ask Thee to do it now, and to give us and all mankind that which is good for them.’

Thus we pray not for this generation only, but for generations yet unborn; not for this nation of England only, but for heathens and savages beyond the seas.  When we say, ‘Give us our daily bread,’ we pray for every child here and on earth, that he may receive such an education as may enable him to get his daily bread.  We pray for learned men in their studies, that they may discover arts and sciences which shall enrich and comfort nations yet unborn.  We pray for merchants on the seas, that they may discover new markets for trade, new lands to colonize and fill with Christian men, and extend the blessings of industry and civilization to the savage who lives as the beasts which perish and dwindles down off the face of the earth by famine, disease, and war, the victim of his own idleness, ignorance, and improvidence.

And all the while we are praying for the widow and the orphan, that God would send them friends in time of need; for the houseless 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.