This is the text which I have chosen to-day, because I think it will
help us to understand the end of the Lord's Prayer, which tells us
to say to our Father in Heaven, 'Father, Thine is the kingdom;
Father, Thine is the power; Father, Thine is the glory.'

The man who wrote this psalm had been looking up at the sky,
spangled with countless stars, with the moon, as if she were the
queen of them all, walking in her brightness.  He had been looking
round, too, on this wonderful earth, with its countless beasts, and
birds, and insects, trees, herbs, and flowers, each growing, and
thriving, and breeding after their kind, according to the law which
God had given to each of them, without any help of man.  And then he
had thought of men, how small, weak, ignorant, foolish, sinful they
were, and said to himself, 'Why should God care for men more than
for these beasts, and birds, and insects round?  Not because he is
the largest and strongest thing in the world; for I will consider
Thy heavens, even the work of Thy hands, the moon and the stars,
which Thou hast ordained, how much greater, more beautiful they are
than poor human beings.  May not glorious beings, angels, be
dwelling in them, compared to whom man is no better than a beast?'

And yet he says to himself, 'I know that God, though He has put man
lower than the angels, has crowned him with glory and honour.  I
know that, whatever glorious creatures may live in the sun, and
moon, and stars, God has given man the dominion and power here, on
_this_ world.  I know that even to babes and sucklings God has given
a strength, because of His enemies--that He may silence the enemy
and the avenger; and I know that by so doing, God has set His glory
_above_ the heavens, and has shown forth His glory more in these
little children, to whom He gives strength and wisdom, than He has
in sun, and moon, and stars.'

Now how is that?  The Catechism, I think, will tell us.  The
Doxology, at the end of the Lord's Prayer, will tell us, if we
consider it.

If you will listen to me, I will try and show you what I mean.

Suppose I took one of your children, and showed him that large
bright star, which you may see now every evening, shining in the
south-west, and said to him, 'My child, that star, which looks to
you only a bright speck, is in reality a world--a world fourteen
hundred times as big as our world.  We have but one moon to light
our earth; that little speck has four moons, each of them larger
than ours, which light it by night.  That little speck of a star
seems to you to be standing still; in reality, it is travelling
through the sky at the rate of 25,000 miles an hour.'  What do you
think the child's feeling would be?  If he were a dull child, he
might only be astonished; but if he were a sensible and thoughtful
child, do you not think that a feeling of awe, almost of fear, would
come over him, when he thought how small and weak and helpless he
was, in comparison of those mighty and glorious stars above his
head?

And next, if I turned the child round, and bade him look at that
comet or fiery star, which has appeared lately low down in the
north-west, and said, 'My child, that comet, which seems to you to
hang just above the next parish, is really eighty millions of miles
off from us.  That bright spot at the lower part of it is a fiery
world as large as the moon,--that tail of fiery light which you see
streaming up from it, and which looks a few feet long, is a stream
of fiery vapour, stretching, most likely, hundreds of thousands of
miles through the boundless space.  It seems to you to be sinking
behind the trees, so slowly that you cannot see it move.  It is
really rushing towards us now, with its vast train of light, at the
rate of some eighty thousand miles an hour.'  And suppose then, if,
to make the child more astonished than ever, I went on--'Yes, my
child, every single tiny star which is twinkling over your head is a
sun, a sun as large, or larger than our own sun, perhaps with worlds
moving round it, as our world moves round our sun, but so many
millions of miles far off, that the strongest spy-glass cannot make
these stars look any larger, or show us the worlds which we believe
are moving round them.'

Do you not think that just in proportion to the child's quickness
and understanding, he would be awed, almost terrified?

And lastly, suppose that to puzzle and astonish him still more, I
took a chance drop of water out of any standing pool, and showed him
through a magnifying-glass, in that single drop of water, dozens,
perhaps hundreds, of living creatures so small that it is impossible
to see them with the naked eye, each of them of some beautiful and
wonderful shape, unlike anything which you ever saw or dreamed of,
but each of them alive, each of them moving, feeding, breeding,
after its kind, each fulfilling the nature which God has given to
them, and told him, 'All the whole world, the air which you breathe,
the leaves on the trees, the soil under your feet, ay, even often
the food which you eat, and your own flesh and blood, are as full of
wonderful things as that drop of water is.  You fancy that all the
life in the world is made up of the men and women in it, and the few
beasts, and birds, and insects, which you see about you in the
fields.  But these living things which you do see are not a
millionth part of the whole number of God's creatures; and not one
smallest plant or tiniest insect dies, but what it passes into a new
life, and becomes food for other creatures, even smaller than,
though just as wonderful as itself.  Every day fresh living
creatures are being discovered, filling earth, and sea, and air,
till men's brains are weary with counting them, and dizzy with
watching their unspeakable beauty, and strangeness, and fitness for
the work which God has given each of them to do.'

And then suppose I said to the child, 'God cares for each of these
tiny living creatures.  How do you know that He does not care for
them as much as He does for you?  God made them for His own
pleasure, that He might rejoice in the work of His own hands.  How
do you know that He does not rejoice in them as much as in you?
Those mighty worlds and suns above your head, which you call stars,
how do you know that they are not as much more glorious and precious
in God's sight than you are, as they are larger and more beautiful
than you are?  And mind! all these things, from the tiniest insects
in the water-drop, to the most vast star or comet in the sky, all
obey God.  They have not fallen, as you have; they have not sinned,
as you have; they have not broken the law, by which God intended
them to live, as you have.  The Bible tells you so; and the
discoveries of learned men prove that the Bible is right, when it
declares that they all continue to this day according to His
ordinance; for all things serve Him; that sun, and moon, and stars,
and light are praising Him; that fire and hail, snow and vapour,
wind and storm, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all
cedars, beasts and all cattle, worms and feathered fowl, are showing
forth His glory day and night; because He has made them sure for
ever and ever, each according to its kind, and given them a law
which shall not be broken; for all His works praise Him, and show
the glory of His kingdom, and the mightiness of His power, that His
power, His glory, and the mightiness of His kingdom might be known
unto the children of men.

And you!--They keep God's ordinance, and you have broken it; they
fulfil God's word, you fulfil your own fancies.  They have a law
which shall not be broken, you break God's law daily.  Are not they
better than you?  Is not, not merely sun and stars, but even the
meanest gnat which hums in the air, better than man, more worthy of
God's love than man?  For man has sinned, and they have not.'

Do you not think that I should sadden, and terrify the child, and
make him ready to cry out, 'Whither shall I flee from the wrath of
this great Almighty God; who has made this wondrous heaven and
earth, and all of it obeys Him, except me--I a rebel against Him who
made and rules all this?'

My friends, I only say, suppose that I spoke thus to your children.
For God forbid that I should speak thus to any human being, without
having first taught him the Lord's Prayer, without first having
taught him to say, 'I believe in Jesus Christ, Very God of Very God,
who was born of the Virgin Mary, and took man's nature on Him;'
without having taught him to say, 'Our Father which art in heaven,
Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and
ever, Amen.'  So it is, and so let it be:  for so it is well, and so
I am safe, sinner and rebel though I be.

I would not say it, unless I had taught him this; for then I should
be speaking the Devil's words, and doing the Devil's work:  for
these are the thoughts of which he always takes advantage, whenever
he finds them in men's hearts; because he is the enemy who hates
men, and the avenger who punishes them for their bad thoughts, by
leading them on into dark and fearful deeds; because he is the
Devil, the Slanderer, as his name means, and slanders God to men,
and tries always to make them believe that God does not care for
men, and grudges them blessings; in order that he may make men dread
God, and shrink from Him into their own pride, or their own carnal
lusts and fancies.

These are the thoughts of which the Devil took advantage in the
heathen in old times, and tempted them to forget God--God, who had
not left Himself without a witness, in that He gave them rain and
fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with food and gladness--God,
whose unseen glory, even His eternal power and Godhead, may be
clearly seen from the creation of the world, being understood from
the things which are made--God, in whom, as St. Paul told the
heathen, they lived and moved, and had their being, and were the
offspring of God.  This--that man is the offspring of God, and has a
Father in heaven--is the great truth which the Devil has been trying
to hide from men in every age, and by a hundred different devices.
By making them forget this, he tempted them to worship the creature
instead of the Creator; to pray to sun and moon and stars, to send
them fair weather, good crops, prosperous fortune:  to look up to
the heaven above them, and down to the earth beneath their feet, in
slavish dread and anxiety:  and pray to the sun, not to blast them
to the seas, not to sweep them away; to the rivers and springs, not
to let them perish from drought; to earthquakes, not to swallow them
up; ay, even to try to appease those dark fierce powers, with whom
they thought the great awful world was filled, by cruel sacrifices
of human beings; so that they offered their sons and their daughters
to devils, and burned their own children in the fire to Moloch, the
cruel angry Fire King, whom they fancied was lord of the earthquakes
and the burning mountains.  So did the Canaanites of old, and so did
the Jews after them; whensoever they had forgotten that God was
their Father, who had bought them, and that the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, throughout heaven and earth, were His, then at
once they began to be afraid of heaven and earth, and worshipped
Baalim, and Astaroth, and the Host of Heaven, which were the sun and
moon and stars, and Moloch the Fire King, and Thammuz the Lord of
the Spring-time, and with forms of worship which showed plainly
enough, either by their cruelty or their filthy profligacy, who was
the author of them, and that man, when he forgets that heaven and
earth belong to his Father, is in danger of becoming a slave to his
own lowest lusts and passions.

And do not fancy, my friends, that because you and I are not likely
to worship sun and moon and stars as the old heathen did, that
therefore we cannot commit the same sin as they did.

My friends, I believe that we are in more danger of committing it in
England just now than ever we were; that learned men especially are
in danger of so doing, because they know so far more of the wonders
and the vastness of God's creation than the heathens of old knew.

But you are not learned, you will say:  you are plain people, who
know nothing about these wonderful discoveries which men make by
telescopes and magnifying-glasses, but use your own eyes in a plain
way to get your daily bread, and you feel no such temptations.  You
believe, of course, that the kingdom and power and glory of all we
see is God's.

Yes; but do you believe too that He whom people are too apt to call
God, just because they have no other name to call Him, is your
Father?  That it is your Father's will which governs the weather,
which makes the earth bear fruit and gladden the heart of man with
good and fruitful seasons?

Alas, my friends, if we will open our eyes, see things in their true
light, and call things by their true name, we shall see many a man
in England now honouring the creature more than the Creator;
trusting in the seasons and the soil more than he does in God, and
so sinning in just the same way as the heathen of old.

When people say to themselves, 'I must get land, I must get money,
by any means; honestly if I can, if not, dishonestly; for have it I
must;' what are they doing then but denying that the kingdom, the
power, and the glory of this earth belong to the Righteous God, and
that He, and not the lying Devil, gives them to whomsoever He will?

When people say to themselves (as who does not at moments?) 'To be
rich is to be safe; a man's life does consist in the abundance of
what he possesses;' what are they doing but saying that man does
_not_ live by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God, but
by what he can get for himself and keep for himself?  When they are
fretful and anxious about their crops, when they even repine and
complain of Providence, as I have known men do because they do not
prosper as they wish, what are they doing but saying in their
hearts, 'The weather and the seasons are the lords and masters of my
good fortune, or bad fortune.  I depend on them, and not on God, for
comfort and for wealth, and my Heavenly Father does _not_ know what
I have need of?'  When parents send their girls out to field-work,
without any care about whom they talk with, to have their minds
corrupted by hearing filthiness and seeing immodest behaviour, what
are they doing but offering their daughters in sacrifice, not even
to Moloch, but to Mammon; saying to themselves, 'My daughter's
modesty, my daughter's virtue, is not of as much value as the paltry
money which I can earn by leaving her alone to learn wickedness,
instead of keeping watch over her, if she does work, that she may be
none the worse for her day's labour.'

I might go on and give you a thousand instances more, but they all
come alike to this; that whensoever you fancy that you cannot earn
your daily bread without doing wrong yourself, or leaving your
children to learn wrong, then you do not believe that the kingdom,
the power, and the glory of this earth on which you work is your
Heavenly Father's.  For if you did, you would be certain that gains,
large or small, got by breaking the least of His commandments, could
never prosper you, but must bring a curse and a punishment with
them; and you would be sure also, that because God is your Father,
and this earth and all herein is His, that He would feed you with
food sufficient for you, if you do but seek first His kingdom--that
is, try to learn His laws; and seek first His righteousness--that
is, strive and pray day by day to become righteous even as He is
righteous.

Yes, my friends, this is one meaning, though only one, of St. John's
words, 'This is the victory which overcometh the world, even our
faith.'  We all see the world full of pleasant things, for which we
long; of necessary things, too, without which we should starve and
die.  And then the temptation comes to us to snatch at these things
for ourselves by any means in our power, right or wrong; like the
dumb animals who break out of their owners' field into the next, if
they do but see better pasturage there, or fight and quarrel between
themselves for food, each trying to get the most for himself and rob
his neighbour.  So live the beasts, and so you and I, and every
human being shall be tempted to live, if we follow our natures, if
we forget that we are God's children, in God's kingdom, under the
laws of a Heavenly Father, who has shown forth His own love and
justice, His own kingdom, and power, and glory, in the person of the
Lord Jesus Christ.  But if we remember that, if we remember daily
that the kingdom, and power, and glory is our Father's, then we
shall neither fear storms and blights, bad crops, or anything else
which is of the earth earthly.  We shall fear nothing of that kind,
which can only kill the body, but only fear the evil Devil, lest, by
making us distrust and disobey our Heavenly Father, he should, after
he has killed, destroy both body and soul in hell.  And as long as
we fear him, as long as we renounce him, as long as we trust utterly
in our Heavenly Father's love and justice, and in the love and
justice of His dear Son, the Man Christ Jesus, to whom all power is
given in heaven and earth--then out of the youngest child among us
will God's praise be perfected; for the youngest child among us, by
faith in God his Father, may look upon all heaven and earth, and
say, 'Great, and wonderful, and awful as this earth and skies may
be, I am more precious in the sight of God than sun, and moon, and
stars; for they are things:  but I am a person, a spirit, an
immortal soul, made in the likeness of God, redeemed into the
likeness of God, sanctified into the likeness of God.  This great
earth was here thousands and thousands of years before I was born,
and it will be here perhaps millions and millions of years after I
am dead; but it cannot harm _me_; it cannot kill _me_.  When earth,
and sun, and stars are past away, I shall live for ever; for I am
the immortal child of an Immortal Father, the child of the
everlasting God.  These things He only made:  but me He begot unto
everlasting life, in Jesus Christ my Lord.  I seem to depend on this
earth for food, for clothing, for comfort, for life itself:  and yet
I do not do so in reality; for man doth not live by bread alone, but
by _every_ word which proceeds out of the mouth of God my Father.
In Him I have eternal life:  a life which this earth did not give,
and cannot take away; a life which, by the mercy of my Father in
heaven, I trust and hope to be living when sun and earth, stars and
comets, are returned again to their dust, and blotted from the face
of heaven.  For the kingdom, the glory, and the power of this world,
and all other worlds, past, present, and to come, belong to Him who
spared not His only-begotten Son, but freely gave Him for us, and
will with Him freely give us all things.'

And thus, my friends, may God's praise be perfected out of the mouth
of any Christian child, when He declares that God put man a little
lower than the angels only to crown him with the glory and worship
of having the only-begotten Son of God take man's nature upon Him,
and walk this earth as a man, and live, and die, and rise again as a
man, that so He might raise fallen man again to the glory and honour
which God appointed for men from the beginning, when He said, Let us
make man in our image, after our likeness:  and let them have
dominion over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the air, and the
beast of the earth; and be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the
earth and subdue it.