The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 02/Theodore Parker's Prayers/Prayer 16
XVI.
JUNE 14, 1857.
O thou Spirit who art everywhere, and watchest over us in darkness and in light, we flee unto thee, and for a moment would mingle our spirits with thine, remembering our weakness, and also our strength, rejoicing gratefully in the good things thou hast given us, and lifting up manly aspirations towards thee, who every joint supplieth and quickeneth our soul, and seeking consciously to attain to a greater excellence than we have yet achieved here on earth. We would spread out our lives before thee, remembering our trials, our transgressions, our joys, and our sorrows, and any little triumph which we may have gained; and from these things we would gather up the materials to light our sacrifice, that its flame may go up before thee, incense from the altars of earnest hearts. May the spirit of prayer guide us in our devotions, that we may be quickened by the dew of thine inspiration and warmed by the daylight of thy providence, so that we may bloom into beauty and bear fruit to perfection in our mortal life.
We thank thee for thine infinite care and the providence which thou exercisest over every great and every little thing; for thine higher law which rules the ground underneath our feet, and whereby the most ancient heavens are fresh and strong. Lord, thou hast numbered the hairs of our head, and not a sparrow falleth to the ground save by thine infinite providence, blessing the hairs which thou hast numbered and caring for the sparrow in its fall.
Our Father, we thank thee for the world thou hast placed us in. We bless thee for the heavens over our head, burning all night with such various fire, and all day pouring down their glad effulgence on the ground. We thank thee for the scarf of green beauty with which thou mantlest the shoulders of the temperate world, and for all the hopes that there are in this foodful earth, and for the rich promise of the season about us on every side.
We thank thee still more for the nature which thou hast given us, for these earthen houses of the flesh wherein we dwell, and for this atom of spirit, a particle from thine own flame of eternity which thou hast lodged in the clay.
We thank thee for the large inheritance which has come down to us from other times. We bless thee that other men laboured, and whilst thou rewarded them for their toil, that we also have entered into the fruit of their labours, and gather where we have not strewed, and eat where we toiled not.
We thank thee for the noble institutions which other days have bequeathed unto us. We thank thee for those great and godly men, speaking in every tongue, inspired by thy spirit, whom thou raisedst up from age to age, bearing witness of the nobleness of man's nature, and the nearness of thy love towards all the sons and daughters of men,—their life a continual flower of piety on the earth, drawing men's eyes by its beauty, and stirring men's souls by the sweet fragrance of its heavenly flame. Most chiefly would we thank thee for him who in an age of darkness came and brought such marvellous light to the eyes of men. We thank thee for the truths that he taught, and the glorious humanity that he lived, blessing thee that he was the truth from thee, that he showed us the life that is in thee, and himself travelled before us the way which leads to the loftiest achievements.
We thank thee for those whose great courage in times past broke the oppressor's rod and let the oppressed go free. And we bless thee for the millions of common men, following the guidance of their leaders, faithful to their spirit, and so to thee, who went onward in this great human march, in whose bloody footsteps we gather the white flowers of peace, and lift up our thankful hands to thee.
Father, we thank thee for the men and women of great steadfastness of soul in our own times not less, who bear faithful witness against iniquity, who light the torch of truth and pass it from hand to hand, and sow the world with seeds whence in due time the white flowers of peace shall also spring. We thank thee that thy spirit is not holden, but that thou pourest it out liberally on all who lift up earnest hearts unto thee. We thank thee for the great truths which are old, and the new truths also which are great, and for the light of justice, for the glories of philanthropy, which human eyes have for the first time in this age beheld. Lord, we thank thee that the glories which kings and prophets waited for have come down to us, and thou hast revealed unto babes and sucklings those truths which other ages yearned for and found not.
O thou who art Father and Mother to the civilized man and the savage, who with equal tenderness lookest down on thy sinner and thy saint, having no child of perdition in thy mighty human family, we remember before thee our several lives, thanking thee for the joys that gladden us, the work which our hands find to do, the joy of its conclusion, and the education of its process.
We are conscious of our follies, our transgressions, our stumblings by the way-side, and our wanderings from the paths of pleasantness and peace. We know how often our hands have wrought iniquity, and ourselves have been mean and cowardly of heart, not daring to do the right which our own souls told us of; and we pray thee that we may suffer from these things, till, greatly ashamed thereof, we turn off from them and live glorious and noble lives.
We thank thee, O Father, for those who make music about our fireside, whose countenance is a benediction on our daily bread, fairer to us than the flowers of earth or the stars of heaven. We thank thee for those newly born into this world, bringing the fragrance of heaven in the infant's breath; and if we dare not thank thee when our dear ones are born out of this world, and are clothed with immortality, yet we thank thee that the eyes of our faith can follow them still to that land where all tears are wiped from every eye, and the only change is from glory to glory.
We thank thee for the joy and satisfaction which we have attained to in our knowledge of thee, that we are sure of thy perfection, and need not fear anything which man can do unto us. Yea, we thank thee that, through red seas of peril, and over sandy wastes of temptation where no water is, the pious soul still goes before us, a light in the darkness, a pillar of cloud by day, to guide us to the rock that is higher than we, and to place our feet in a large place, where there are fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore.
O thou who art infinite in thy power, thy wisdom, and thy love,—who art the God of the Christian, the Heathen, and the Jew, blessing all mankind which thou hast made to inhabit the whole earth,—we thank thee for all thy blessings, and pray that, mindful of our nature and thy nearness to us, we may learn to live to the full height of the faculties which thou hast given us, cultivating them with such large and generous education that we shall know the truth and it shall make us free, that we may distinguish between these ever-living commandments of thine and the traditions of men, that we may know what is right and follow it day by day and continually, that we may en- large still more the affections that are in us, and travel in our pilgrimage from those near at hand to those needing our help far off, and so do good to all mankind, and that there may be in us such religious trust that all our daily work shall be one great act of service and as sacramental as our prayer. Thus may we be strengthened in the inner man, able at all times to acquit us as good soldiers in the warfare of life, to run and not be weary, to walk and never faint, and to pass from glory to glory till we are transfigured at last into the perfect image of thy spirit. Then, when thou hast finished thy work with us on earth, when the clods of the valley are sweet to our weary frame, may our soul go home to thee, and so may we spend eternity in the progressive welfare which thou appointest for thy children. And here on earth may the gleams of that future glory come upon us in our mortal life, clearing up the difficult paths and strengthening our heart when it is weak within us. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.