Have they ever taught "Thy will be done," as it should be--1. In our own sanctification; 2. In understanding that will, and doing it, and striving to get it done (knowing their duty and doing it, and it alone)? The remarks about the mediatorial (absolving-from-punishment) and the pastoral (purging-from-sin) functions of a "pastor," seem to me quite admirable. The end of the Letter is subsequently amplified, Letter X. Letter IX.--"Give us this day our daily bread." Yes, but we must work for it. "The man that will not work, neither shall he eat." A cardinal point with Ruskin: "But if you do" (_i.e._, wish for God's kingdom), "you must do more than pray for it, you must work for it" ("Crown of Wild Olive," p. 56). And the clergyman has to teach (Letter IX. goes on) what that work is and how it is to be done; and the life, to which their teaching should lead, is one "moderate in its self-indulgence, wide in its offices of temporal ministry to the poor," in the absence of which, prayer for harvest is mere blasphemy. For the spiritual bread is the first thing, and a clergyman's first message, "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." Letter X.--"Forgive us our trespasses." The explanation of trespasses, and substitution of _debts_ for it, is admirable ("Dimitte nobis _debita_ nostra"), and admirably illustrated by the sins of omission being condemned in Christ's judgment,--"I was hungry, and ye gave Me no meat." The remarks on the "pleasantness" of the English liturgy recall those on the avoidance of unpleasantness by the English clergy in Letter VIII. I pass over the notes on the advantage of "forms of prayer," and come to the end of Letter X. and Letter XI., which go together, and say practically, Pray honestly or not at all. "Faithful prayer implies always correlative exertions;" "dishonest prayer is blasphemy of the worst kind." "Crown of Wild Olive," p. 55, again: "Everybody in this room has been taught to pray daily, 'Thy kingdom come.' Now, if we hear a man swear in the streets, we think it very wrong, and say he 'takes God's name in vain.' But there is a twenty times worse way of taking His name in vain than that. It is to _ask God for what we don't want_. He doesn't like that sort of prayer. If you don't want a thing, don't ask for it; such asking is the worst mockery of your King you can insult Him with; the soldiers striking Him on the head was nothing to that. If you do not wish for His kingdom, don't pray for it." In fact, prayer is worse than useless if not sincere, and it is insincere if not carried out in the life of the "pray-er." Thus, "One hour in the execution of justice is worth seventy years of (insincere) prayer" (Mahometan maxim, "Crown of Wild Olive," p. 49).