blessing had to be wrung out of the hands of God. “I would fill my mouth with arguments,” as if nothing were to be had from God except by hard and importunate pleading. “Fill your mouth with arguments?” What need is there for that? Go to Him and call Him “Father”—that is all the argument you need. Brethren, we receive not, because sometimes we ask amiss. The old book says that according to our faith it shall be done unto us. We have received little, because our faith has been so little. We have treated God as if He were close, economical, niggardly. This word “Father” is here to teach us confidence, trust, faith, holy boldness; to inspire us with that perfect love which casteth out all fear. Let us go to God in the childlike spirit of a simple trust; let us use this golden key to His great treasure house, which He has placed in our hands; when we pray, let us say “Father,” and we shall find that before we call He will answer, and while we are yet speaking He will hear. “Father,” that is how the prayer begins in Luke’s version. That glorious word stands alone in all its royal simplicity. Matthew in his version expands that into “_Our_ Father, which art in heaven.” “_Our_ Father!” No word in this old book is meaningless, and this little word “our” gives us a glimpse of the splendid truth. It is not the singular, but the plural possessive pronoun that our Lord bids us use, not “_my_ Father,” but “_our_ Father.” Of course it is legitimate to use the singular pronoun “my,” and say “MY Father.” There come times when, with a great rush of feeling, we realise that God loves us as individuals, and then we take refuge in the first person singular, just as Paul did when he said “The Son of God loved ME, and gave Himself for ME.” In fact, religion never becomes real and vital until it becomes individual and personal, until we can say like Thomas, “_My_ Lord and _my_ God.” But in this prayer Christ would have us think not simply of ourselves, but also of others—not simply of blessings peculiar and personal, but of blessings shared. So we are to say, not “_my_ Father,” but “OUR Father,” and by doing so we have linked ourselves to all others who pray this prayer. “_Our_,” that is the pronoun of partnership. We have said “OUR Father” in this church this morning, we have confessed that we have the _same Father_. But people who are the sons and daughters of the one Father must be brothers and sisters the one to the other. So that when we said “_our_ Father,” we did more than simply proclaim God’s Fatherhood—we proclaimed our BROTHERHOOD. And I will not confine myself to this congregation. It is not simply the brotherhood of those of us who meet week by week in this Congregational Church that we proclaimed when we said “our Father,” we proclaimed the _brotherhood of the race_. Not my Father simply, but OUR Father—for He is the Father of all! The great truth of the Fatherhood of God implies the correspondingly great