Even in this passage may be found a suggestion to the same purpose. “What man is there of you,” asks our Lord, “who, when his son asks a loaf or a fish, will give him”――something that looks like what he has asked for, but is in fact wholly useless or noxious? If then human fathers are to be relied upon in this way, much more is our heavenly Father to be relied upon to give good things to them that ask Him. But there is a converse to that statement. If a son asks for something harmful, what will a wise father do? Not give him what he asks for, but give him according to his request as it is interpreted by his own larger wisdom. So it is with God. He must hear and answer prayers, not simply as they are ignorantly offered, but as interpreted for our good in accordance with His wise purposes. Roman Catholics and Anglicans and Eastern Christians and Nonconformists may be praying for unity among Christians, each according to their own preconceptions. God will be attentive to the good-will of their prayers: they will not, as has been suggested, “neutralize one another:” for God will answer them according to His own wisdom. Very suggestive then is the version of this saying of our Lord which is given by St. Luke: “Shall not your Father which is in heaven give”――not good things, but――“the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?” It is often said, we know, that the Sermon on the Mount contains no dogmas, no doctrines. But it implies, in a remarkable way, two cardinal Christian doctrines: the Godhead of Christ and the “fallen” state of man. The Godhead of Christ, as has been and will again be noticed, is involved in the authoritative tone in which He speaks. And a significant expression in this paragraph is unintelligible unless all men, even the best, may be assumed to be sinful. For our Lord is talking about good parents who will do their best for their children: yet He says “If ye, _being evil_.” Now, I do not know any words which could more forcibly imply――all the more forcibly because incidentally, or by the way――that our Lord thought of us all as having something evil and corrupt in our nature as it is; so that every one of us needs regeneration and conversion, in order that we may become what our Lord would have us. The intimation seems to me to be indeed the more emphatic because, as I say, it is uttered by the way. “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more....” Finally, on these considerations of the divine goodness, our Lord bases our duty towards our fellow-men. “Therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law and the prophets.” Our conduct towards our fellow-men is to be the reflection of that benevolence which we have learned and experienced in our own relations to God. In the maxim in which our Lord expresses our social duty there are several points which require notice.