The Christian doctrine of property does not seem to be communism.  You have your property.  It is your own.  You have the power, and as far as law is concerned, the right, to do with it none but selfish acts.  You have it, but you are not an owner—­only a steward.  You have it, but you hold it not for your own sake, but as a trustee.  You have it as a member of a family, a great community.  You have it that you may dispense to others, you have it that you may help to multiply the bonds of affection to benefactors and of love to the great Giver.

And this liberality is founded, according to this petition, in our common relation to God.  We do not want charity—­we want justice.  The needy cannot enforce their claims, but their cry enters into the ears of the Lord, and what is withheld from them is ‘kept back by fraud.’  The Bible always puts benevolence and liberality on the ground of their being a debt.  ‘Withhold not good from him to whom it is due.’

So how, beside this prayer, does it look to see two men who have united in it, the one being Dives clothed and faring sumptuously, and the other Lazarus with scraps for his food and dogs for his doctors?  There is many a contrast like that to-day.  All I have to say is—­that such contrasts are not meant as the product of Christianity and civilisation and commerce for eighteen hundred years, and that one chief way of ending them is that we shall learn to feel and live the true communism which traces all a man’s possessions to God, and feels that he has received them as a member of a community for the blessing of all, even as Christ taught when He bid us say, ‘Give us our daily bread.’

III.  The prayer for bread for to-day.

This carries with it precious truths as to the manner of the divine gifts and the limit of our cares and anxieties.

God gives not all at once, but continuously, and in portions sufficient for the day.

As with the manna fresh gathered every morning, so all our gifts from Him are given according to the present exigencies.

Note the beauty and blessedness of this method of supplying our wants.  It gives to each moment its own special character, it gives to each the glory of having in it a fresh gift of God.  It binds all together in one long line of brightness made up of an infinite number of points, each a separate act of divine love, each a glittering sign of His presence.  It brings God very near to all life.  It draws us closer to Him, by giving us at each moment opportunity and need for feeling our dependence upon Him, by bringing us once again to His throne that our wants may be supplied.  And as each moment, so each day, comes with its new duties and its new wants.  Yesterday’s food nourishes us not to-day.  To-day’s strength must come from this day’s God and His new supplies.  And thus the monotony of life is somewhat broken, and there come to us all the fresh vigour and the new hope of each returning day, and the merciful wall of the night’s slumber is built up between us and yesterday with its tasks and its weariness.  And fresh elastic hopes, along with renewed dependence on God, should waken us morning by morning, as we look into the unknown hours and say, ‘Give us this day our daily bread.’