My exposition of the Lord’s Prayer brings me this morning to speak a few simple words upon the two great fundamental facts of the Gospel—man’s need of forgiveness, and God’s willingness to bestow it. The petition immediately preceding this one is the prayer for daily bread. We are absolutely dependent upon God for our very existence; so our Lord teaches us to ask God for the food—the material bread that is to sustain our physical life from day to day. But “man shall not live by bread alone.” There is another hunger than hunger of the body—there is a hunger of the soul; and what the soul hungers for is pardon, forgiveness, and the peace forgiveness always brings. So when we have prayed for bread we have not come to an end. We have another prayer to offer. We have a larger request to make. We have a greater boon to ask—“Give us this day our daily bread, AND forgive us our sins.” The question has often been asked, “Is life worth living?” By some the question is answered without reservation in the affirmative, by others in the negative. For myself, I am not prepared to answer either “Yes” or “No.” My reply would be, “It all depends.” Life, it seems to me, is not worth having if it be not lived in the sunshine of God’s smile. Life is not worth having if God’s face is turned away from us. Life is not worth having if our sins interpose themselves like a black frowning cloud between us and the Eternal Light. To make life worth living, life must be made happy and blessed and peaceful, and before life can be made happy that barrier of sin must be removed, and we must walk in the light of God’s countenance. The prayer for bread is a prayer for _life_—for mere _existence_. But mere existence may be a doubtful boon. To some the prolongation of life simply means the prolongation of misery. Why should men pray for the continuance of a life which is radically wretched? There are multitudes in our world more inclined to pray for swift death than for long life. They say, with Charles Kingsley, “The sooner it’s over, the sooner to sleep.” No, it is not mere life, it is not life at any price, but it is the blessed, the peaceful life we want. So we go on to pray for a gift greater far than the gift of bread; we go on to pray for that which alone can make life tolerable, welcome, really worth living; we go on to pray for mercy, pardon, reconciliation, peace. “Father, forgive us our sins.”