The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 02/Theodore Parker's Prayers/Prayer 21
XXI.
JANUARY 31, 1858.
Our Father who art in heaven, and on earth, and everywhere, we know that thou rememberest us, for we stand for ever before thy throne, and thou needest not the psalm of our lips nor our heart's ascending prayer to stir thy love towards us, but sometimes in our weakness do we dream that thou needest to be entreated, and so ask thee to draw nigh to us; but we know it is for us to draw near to thee, who art ever present with us, about us, and above us and within. thou Perpetual Presence, we thank thee for thy loving-kindness and tender mercy, in the consciousness of which we would spread out in our memory the recollection of our daily lives, the wrong deeds we do, the joys we delight in, the duties that are hard to be done, and the high hopes that kindle heaven within our heart ; and while we muse on these things for a moment, we would so adore and worship thee in our prayer that we may serve thee always in our daily life.
Father, we thank thee for the material world which thou hast placed all around us, underneath, and overhead. We thank thee for the sun, which across the wintry land pours out the beauty of the golden day, checkering the year with exceeding loveliness. We thank thee for the night, visited with troops of stars, and for the moon which walks in brightness from the East to the West, gladdening the eyes of wakeful men. We thank thee for the wondrous use there is in this material world, which feeds and shelters with house and raiment our mortal flesh, which is kind with medicines to our various ailments, and furnishes manifold tools for our toil and thought.
We thank thee for the greater world of spirit, whereof thou hast created us in thine own image and likeness, vested with immortality, having here a foretaste of everlasting life. We thank thee for our body, so curiously and wonderfully made, and for the spirit, which far transcends this vast material world. We thank thee for the mind, which loves use and beauty and truth; for this conscience which would know right, and the overmastering will which would do it all our days. We bless thee for the affections, which join us to some particular bright star, or tie us to some pleasant nook of earth ; which ally us with the animals about us, and most tenderly do find their home in father and mother, in lover and beloved, husband and wife, parent and child, and all the sweet companionships which gladden our earthly loving heart. We bless thee for the feeling infinite, the religious soul which thou hast planted in us, of higher kinship than the mind, the conscience, or the earthly affections ; yea, we thank thee for this soul, which without searching can find out thee, and hold communion with thee at our own sweet will, receiving blessed inspiration from thy presence, which is not to be put by.
We thank thee for the relation which thou hast established between that world of matter which is without us and this world of spirit which is within ; and we thank thee that while material nature furnishes food and shelter, instruments and healing to our mortal flesh, it likewise furnishes far higher things to mind and conscience, and to heart and soul. Yea, we bless thee that thou hast made all things work together for good ; that while we are striving with prayer and toil for daily bread, thou givest us also the bread of life, and feedest us with spirit's food, and so nursest us upward till we grow to the measure of the stature of a complete and perfect man. Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him? Thou hast created him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour and immortality, and hast put all things underneath his feet.
We remember our daily lives before thee, the wrong things which we have done, and the unholy thoughts and evil emotions which we have not only suffered in our hearts but cherished there. We pray thee that thou wilt chasten us for these things, and we may suffer and smart therefor till we turn from every wrong, and with new life efface the scars of ancient wickedness wherewith we have stained and deformed our consciousness.
We remember before thee the special blessings thou hast given, and while we would not forget thy hand, which feedeth us for ever and for ever, we would let our hearts, when filled with gratitude to thee, run over with their loving-kindness and tender mercy to mankind, till our hands also are filled with good deeds, whereby we hold communion with our brother-men.
We remember the stern sorrows which thou givest us, the cup of bitterness ofttimes pressed to our lips, the trials which await us in our business and perplex our understanding; we remember the sorrows which stain our eyes with tears when thou changest the countenance of our dear ones, and lover and friends are put far from us, and our acquaintance into darkness. Father in heaven, Mother on earth and in heaven too, we thank thee that we know that it is unto brightness, and not darkness, that thou ferriest our acquaintance over, carrying our dear ones into thine own kingdom of heaven. We thank thee for the spirits of just men made perfect already, and for those whom, in infinite progression, thou leadest forward from the stain of earthly sin to that purity and perfection which the eye hath not seen, nor the ear heard, nor our human hearts but poorly, dimly felt.
Father, we thank thee that while earthly things perish and pass away, and we know not what a day shall bring forth, we are sure of thine infinite power, wisdom, justice, and love, and when our mortal decays and passes down to the sides of the pit, and the clods of the valley are sweet to our perishing frame, we thank thee that we still feel thy presence as not to be put by, and the calm still voice of thy spirit pleads with us, teaching of duty and assuring us of its infinite reward.
O Father in heaven, we will not ask thee to work a miracle and draw nigh to us, thou who art ever living in our life and moving in our motion, and yet transcending time and space. But we pray thee that there be such action of our noblest part that we shall think truth, that we shall know right and will it all our days, that we shall love things given us to love, and grow in our affection stronger and stronger to our brother men, closer and closer knit ; and may there be such action of our soul that we shall know thee as thou art, and live with a perpetual income of thy spirit to ourselves, even in our sleep thou giving to thy beloved, and we receiving from our Father and our Mother, whose warmth shall make us warm, whose life is our living. Day by day we pass from the glory of a good beginning to the greater glory of a noble end, and when at last thou hast served thyself with our mortal bodies, may we lay them in the dust, whence these garments of the soul were taken first, and clothed with immortality, fly upwards, onwards unto thee. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.