With these glorious prospects before us, O Lord, endow us with contented and resigned spirits to whatever Thy providence shall see fit to order, to ordain, to arrange, or to permit. In this season of comparative torpor and sterility, may we be enabled to exercise our minds on the mutability of human life; and seeing that nothing in this world is stable, may we so exercise our affections and thoughts in the contemplation of Thy Word of truth, and in the practice of a life of holiness and use, that when the winter of our natural existence is past, we may enter upon the enjoyment of an eternal spring in heaven.
Lord, we desire to commit ourselves to Thy gracious keeping. May parents and children, masters and servants, and all the souls composing this household, in deep and devoted gratitude acknowledge that Thou hast dealt bountifully with them, that Thy goodness and mercy has followed them. And may we and all mankind unite in praising Thy Name, and glorifying Thy goodness. Let the name of the Lord be magnified. Amen.
Our Father, etc.
FRIDAY MORNING.
ALMIGHTY Lord and Saviour, we thank Thee that Thou hast so abundantly supplied us with the symbol of Thy truth, water, and we pray Thee, enable us to contemplate its uses, that we may ever behold it as a symbol of that purifying power, which so essentially contributes to the work of our regeneration. In the support of our natural existense, how important is the element of water! Without it we must inevitably have perished; for though we have the salubrious air, the riches of the earth, the warmth of fire, without water we would not exist; and how wonderful are the changes and the combinations of which it is susceptible. It is indeed a type of Thy wisdom which is infinite. Thy truth extends to all generations; and Thou hast given to its symbol a power of such wonderful elasticity and expansion, that it can be raised into the loftiest parts of the atmosphere, and pour forth its vitalizing properties in the minutest portions. Thou canst etherealize it to the greatest purity, until, as the dew of Hermon it descends on the monutains of Zion, commanding the blessing, even life for evermore: it gives life and odour to flowers, life and verdure to plants, life and cheerfulness to man. And yet how little do we appear to value it! Its supply is so constant that we appear to know not how awful to us would be its cessation.
O heavenly Father, help us to show a more becoming sense of gratitude for all Thy temporal blessings, and help us so to apply their uses for the instruction of our souls that nothing may pass by us unheeded. May Thy truth, of which water is the symbol, irrigate the soil of our understandings. May Thy truth purify our affections from evil. May Thy truth discover to us, and set us free from, error and falsehood. May Thy truth be in us a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. May we pray as constantly for our portion of living water as of living bread, and may we realize the Divine benediction—"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." Amen.
Our Father, etc.
