sensibility at all, his sin will appear hateful to him, not so much because it has brought disgrace and loss of liberty to himself, but because away at his home a mother’s heart is well nigh broken with shame and grief. That will be the keenest stab of pain such a lad will suffer. It is the picture of his heart-broken mother that will make him loathe and despise and hate his sin. It is then we shall see the hatefulness of sin, when we occupy David’s standpoint, and say, “Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned.” Even though sin entailed no loss to the sinner, involved no penalty, brought with it no curse, it would remain still utterly loathsome and hateful if we only realised that every sin of ours caused grief and pain to the heart of the eternal God, our loving Father in heaven. Now that is the point of view from which sin is regarded in this prayer. It is _against God_! Matthew uses the word “_debt_.” As Dr. Morison says, “When we sin there is something in our act for which we become _liable_ to God. Formerly He had a claim upon us; now He has a claim _against_ us.” The sins of our past history are included in this word “debt.” They have not done with us, though we try to persuade ourselves that we have done with them! Ah! what a relief it would be if we could only be sure that sin when once committed was over and done with for ever! But it is not so! These sins of ours enrol themselves in a great book of accounts; not one is omitted; not one is overlooked; not one is forgotten. Do we try to persuade ourselves that somehow or other the sins of the past have been lost sight of? Do we try to flatter ourselves that they have been buried in the dust of the years? That is a vain hope. There are no mistakes, no omissions in the eternal account books. The ink of those books never fades. There every sin is enrolled. There you see them—a long, black, damning list. That is your DEBT. Sins of commission—the evil words we have spoken, the evil deeds we have done, they are all there. Sins of _omission_ are there as well. In fact, I fancy that it is to sins of this class that the word “debt” specially points. “Debt” is something we OWE. In relation to God it is something we owed to Him and failed to pay. So it stands here for the many things we ought to have done, which we have left undone.