“Thy kingdom come.”  No heavenly kingdom can ever be “let down” to the earth.  The earthly must become developed and interpenetrated by the spiritual, and thus be lifted up into an harmonious co-relationship with the Divine.

“Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”  There is but one will; so make it known to us that we may realize out [Transcriber’s note:  our?] at-one-ment with the Divine, even as do the “angels in heaven.”

“Give us this day our daily bread.”  “The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.” (Make us partakers of thy bounty, that our bodies may have needed nourishment.  Illuminate our spiritual understanding that we may take to ourselves each day such spiritual food as we are best fitted to appropriate and use.)

“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”  Up to this point there is simply suggested the personal relationship between the petitioner and the Being to whom he prays; but into this phrase quite another element is introduced—­a new factor; forgive us, as we in turn forgive our enemies.  This puts upon one who utters these words the responsibility of answering his own prayer, or of making the conditions whereby he shall be forgiven and accepted, that thus may be established the eternal vibrations that bind the very lowest to the Highest.

“And lead us not into temptation;” i. e., graciously protect us from following the devices of our own ignorance; but if we willfully go our own way, and are overcome with grief and disappointment because of our misdoing, “deliver us from [the] evil” consequences thereof, by inspiring our minds with courage to bear our pains and penalties with true heroism, and teach us through our experiences wherein lie our highest growth and wisdom for all our future lives.  “For thine is the kingdom, and the power” to create and destroy, “and the glory.” (All things begin and end in God.) “Forever and ever.  Amen.”

Jesus had undoubtedly learned the pure ethics of this all-embracing appeal.  Principles are unchanging; but, as the law of evolution carries each succeeding representation of the underlying facts of spiritual science ever higher in the ascending series, on the spiral pathway that leads to the kingdom of God, so in each is embodied a more advanced phase or externalization of such facts.  The revelations vouchsafed to the world through the teachings of Confucius, Buddha, and other saviors of men appealed only to the intellect.  Jesus was the first to announce to the heart-hungry that “God so loved the world” that he sent one of his best beloved sons to bear witness to his own eternal love, and to show how all may become participators in its boundlessness.

The potency of prayer corresponds to the power of the thought or to the exalted aspiration of the soul projecting it.  There are some who, seeking divine aid, are too weak in this respect to realize any special results, while the prayers of others ascend as on the wings of eagles.  This attitude of the soul is not to be confounded with the “communion of saints.”  Communion indicates the existence of a degree of equality which, in the relation of finite man with his Maker, cannot be.