Love will not grow in our hearts without deep, unseen communion with the Spirit of Love, who is God. To dwell reverently on the Infinite Love; to keep in one's heart a sacred place where His holy name is adored; to eagerly seek for Love's coming in our own hearts, in the hearts of all men, and in all the affairs of the world; to gratefully receive all material blessings as gifts for use in Love's service; to beseech for ourselves and bestow on others that forgiveness which is Love's attitude toward our human frailties and failings; to fortify ourselves in advance against the allurements of sense, and the base desire to gain good for ourselves at cost of evil to others; to remember that all right rule, all true strength, all worthy honour inhere in and flow from Love, and Love's Father, God,--to do this day by day sincerely and simply without formality or ostentation,--this is to pray, and to insure prayer's inevitable answer--a life through which Love freely flows to bless both the world and ourselves.
"And when ye pray, ye shall not be as the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have received their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thine inner chamber, and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret shall recompense thee. And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them; for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him. After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
Our only ground of assurance that Love forgives us is our loving forgiveness of others. In the light of that fact of experience it is easy and obvious to believe that the Father whose children we are, is not less loving and forgiving than we. If we restore to our esteem and friendship those who have wronged us, then we are sure that Love at the heart of the Universe, Love in the Father, Love in all the Father's true children, fully and freely forgives us. If we have this experience of our own forgiveness of our fellows, we know that Love would not be Love, but hate, God would not be God, but a devil, if any sincerely repented wrong or shortcoming of which we have been guilty could remain unforgiven.