Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/300

Our Father, we pray thee that we may use the blessings thou hast given us, and never once abuse them. We would keep our bodies enchanted still with handsome life, wisely would we cultivate the intellect which thou hast throned therein, and we would so live with conscience active and will so strong that we shall fix our eye on the right, and, amid all the distress and trouble, the good report and the evil, of our mortal life, steer straightway there, and bate no jot of human heart or hope. We pray thee that we may cultivate still more these kindly hearts of ours, and faithfully perform our duty to friend and acquaintance, to lover and beloved, to wife and child, to neighbour and nation, and to all mankind. May we feel our brotherhood to the whole human race, remembering that nought human is strange to our flesh but is kindred to our soul. Our Father, we pray thee that we may grow continually in true piety, bringing down everything which would unduly exalt itself, and lifting up what is lowly within us, till, though our outward man perish, yet our inward man shall be renewed day by day, and within us all shall be fair and beautiful to thee, and without us our daily lives useful, our whole consciousness blameless in thy sight. When new blessings are born to us in the body, when kindred souls are born out from the body to the kingdom of heaven, may we accept thy varying dispensation, which on the one hand gives and on the other takes away, and still triumphantly exclaim, It is thy hand, God! Yea, so may we live on earth that our daily toil shall renew a right spirit within us, that the temptations of business shall open the eye of our conscience that we may see justice and conform our will thereto, and our heart grow warmer and wider every day, and our confidence in thee so firm and absolute that it cannot change and will not be afraid. Father, help us to know thee as thou art, to understand thee as thou revealest thyself in this world that is about us, as thou hast spoken through mightiest men in other days, and still more to read that older as that newest Scripture ever written on our soul, that we may know thee in thine infinity, perfect in thy completeness, and complete in thy perfections. And whilst we know thee and love thee, may we overcome every fear of chance or change, every fear of dis-