The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 02/Theodore Parker's Prayers/Prayer 13
XIII.
MARCH 15, 1857.
O thou Infinite Power, whom men call by varying names, but whose grandeur and whose love no name ex- presses and no words can tell; thou Creative Cause of all, Conserving Providence to each, we flee unto thee, and would seek for a moment to be conscious of the sun- light of thy presence, that we may lift up our souls unto thee, and fill ourselves with exceeding comfort and surpassing strength. We know that thou wilt draw near unto us when we also draw near unto thee. Father, we thank thee that while heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thine all-transcendent being, yet thou livest and movest and workest in all things that are, causing, guiding, and blessing all and each.
We thank thee for the lovely day which thou pourest down on the expectant world, giving the hills and the valleys a foretaste of the spring that is to come. We thank thee for the glories thou revealest to the world in darkness, where star after star travels in its far course, or to the human eye is ever fixed, and all of these speak continually of thy wisdom and thy glory, and shine by thy love's exceeding, never-ending light.
We bless thee for the love which thou bearest to all the creatures which thou hast made. We thank thee that we know that thou art our Father and our Mother, and tenderly watchest over us in manifold and secret ways, bringing good out of evil, and better thence again, leading forward thy child from babyhood to manhood, and the human race from its wild estate to far transcending nobleness of soul.
Father, we thank thee for the vast progress which mankind has made in the ages that are behind us. We bless thee that truth is stronger than error, and justice breaks down every throne of unrighteousness, and the gentleness of love is far stronger than all the energy of wrath, and so from age to age gains the victory over the savage instincts of wild men. We thank thee for the great men and women whom thou in all times hast raised up, the guides and teachers unto humbler-gifted men. We thank thee for the philosophers who have taught us truth, and for the great poets who have touched man's heart with the fire of heaven and stirred to noble deeps the human soul. We bless thee for those expounders of thy law whose conscience has revealed thine ever live ideas of justice, and who have taught them to men. We bless thee for those warm-hearted champions of mankind whose arms of philanthropy clasp whole nations to their heart, warmed with the noble personal life of such. Yea, we thank thee for those of great religious sense, who have taught mankind truer ideas of thee, and wisely guided the souls of men, thereby controlling passion and leading thy children in paths of pleasantness and of peace. We thank thee that in no land hast thou ever left thyself without a witness, and while material nature proclaims thy glory, and day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth forth thy praise, that our human nature still more largely proclaims thy greatness and thy goodness, and the presence of thy providence, watching over all. We thank thee for the goodly fellowship of prophets in all lands, and called by many names; for the glorious company of apostles, speaking in every tongue, and the noble army of martyrs, whose blood, reddening the soil of the whole world, has made it fertile for noble human purposes.
And, while we thank thee for these, we bless thee also for the unrecorded millions of men of common faculties, who were the human soil whereon these trees of human genius stood, and grew their leaves so shady and so green, and their fruit so sound and fair. O Lord, we thank thee for the humble toiling millions of men who earnestly looked for the light, and finding walked therein, passing upward and onward towards thy kingdom, blessed by thee.
We thank thee for all the triumphs which mankind has achieved, by the few of genius or the many who have had faithful and earnest souls. We thank thee for all of truth that is demonstrated in science, for all of beauty that is writ in poetry or stamped on the rock by art. We bless thee for what of justice is recorded in books, or embodied in institutions and laws. We thank thee for that philanthropy which begins to bless the world, and here in our own land achieves such noble works. And we thank thee for what we know of true religion, of the piety that warms the innermost heart, and the morality which keeps the laws which thou hast writ.
We bless thee that in this land all men are free to worship thee as they will, or to close their eyes and look not at thine image, no human scourge laid on their earnest flesh. Father, we thank thee for the great religious ideas which have sprung down from heaven in our own day, unknown to ancient times, and for the light which they shed along the path of duty, in the way even of transgression, and for the glorious hope which they enkindle everywhere.
And while we thank thee for these things, we pray thee that we may walk faithful to the nature thou hast given us, and the light which has dawned down from heaven all around. Father, we thank thee for the power of gratitude which thou givest to thy children, for the joy which men take in favours received from the highest or the humblest of the earth, and the far exceeding delight which comes to our soul from the consciousness of receiving blessings from thyself, who givest to mankind so liberally and upbraidest not, nor askest ever for our gratitude, but still art kind even to unthankful and to wicked men.
Father, we bless thee for such as love us and those whom we love in the varying forms of affection, thanking thee for the sacramental cup of joy in which thou givest the wine of life to all of thy children, humble or high.
Father, when we suffer in our hearts, when our houses are hung with blackness, and the shadow of death falls on the empty seat of those dear and once near to us, we know that there is mercy in all that thou sendest, and through the darkness we behold thy light, and thank thee for the lilies of Solomon that spring out of the ground which Death has burned over with his blackness and sprinkled with the ashes of our sorrow.
We remember before thee the various temptations with which we are tried, praying thee that in the hour of passion the youth may be strong and find himself a way of escape from its seductive witchery ; and in the cold and more dangerous hour of ambition, when the maturer flesh so often goes astray, we pray thee that we may turn off from covetousness, from desire of power and vainglory amongst men, and keep our souls clean and un-
dented in the midst of a world where sin and wickedness
walk in the broad day. Father, within our soul may there
be such an earnest and strong love of the qualities of thy being that we shall keep every law which thou hast writ on our sense or in our soul, and do justly and love mercy and walk manfully with thee, doing our duty with nobleness of endeavour, and bearing such cross as time and chance, happening to all, may lay on us. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.