And, before we study these passages, let me ask you to notice how simply our Lord does always regard human life as bound to move in these three directions. There is our duty to God. That He puts first, not to be merged in our duty to our neighbour. There is our personal duty to God as a person, and it is the first and chief commandment to love the Lord our God. Then there is our duty towards our neighbour; and then, also, there is our duty towards ourselves. “Thou shalt love thy neighbour――as thyself!” Our duty towards ourselves is, in a word, to make the best of ourselves. Each one is an instrument, divinely created by God, with that sum total of faculties which the Bible calls his life or soul. Well, he is to make the best of himself. Considered as a spiritual being, capable of right spiritual activity, each man is to love himself and his neighbour and God; himself, by bringing his whole being into good order and efficiency, which cannot be without fasting or the subdual of the flesh to the spirit: his neighbour, by considering his true interests like his own, which cannot be without almsgiving or actual gifts out of his substance to supply the other’s needs: and God, which cannot be unless he deal with Him as a person by way of actual personal requests in prayer. And in each direction he is to seek only the praise of God. ALMSGIVING “When therefore thou doest alms, sound not a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee.” Our Lord is clearly using a metaphor. We cannot suppose that the Jews, when they went to give alms, caused their own trumpet to be blown in a literal sense; and in the same way, when our Lord speaks of the left hand not knowing what the right hand doeth, it is clearly a metaphor; but a metaphor vividly descriptive. For what our Lord is here forbidding is obviously ostentation in doing good.