The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 02/Theodore Parker's Prayers/Prayer 27
XXVII.
APRIL 18, 1858.
O thou who art present everywhere, we know that we need not ask thee to remember us, for thou hast us in thy holy care and keeping by day and by darkness, and art the presence at our fire-side and about our path, watching over our rising up and our lying down, and acquainted with all our ways. In our weakness we flee unto thee, seeking to draw near thee, to know thee as thou art, and worship thee with what is highest and best within our soul. Conscious of thy presence about us and within, and mindful of thine eye which is ever upon us, we would remember the things which make us glad, or fill us with sadness; we would think over the good deeds which beautify our soul, and the ill things which are the deformity of our spirit; and while we muse on these things, may the fire of devotion so burn in our heart that from the momentary worship of our prayer we may learn to serve thee in our daily life through all our years. May the meditation of our heart bring us nearer unto thee, and the words of our mouth carry us up and on in the great journey of our mortal life.
Father, we thank thee for this material world above us, and about us, and underneath, wherein thou hast cast the lines of our earthly lot in exceeding pleasant places. We thank thee for the stars which all night in their serene beauty speak of thee, where there is no voice nor language, yet the speech of whose silence is felt by longing, hungering, and impatient souls. We thank thee for the sun, which pours out the golden day to beautify the sky, and to bring new growth of plants, and life of beast and bird, and many a creeping thing upon the ground. We thank thee for the presence of Spring with us, for this angel of growth, who weeks ago put the green oracle of the prophetic grass by every watercourse, rippling its psalm of life before the sight of men, and who now has cast his handsome garment on our plains, and whose breath swells the buds in many a vale and on many a hill, and draws the birds with their sweet music once more to our Northern land. We thank thee for the seed which the hopeful farmer casts already into the genial furrows of the ground, looking to thee, who art the God of seed-time, for the harvest's appointed weeks.
We thank thee for the human world which ourselves are; we bless thee for the large nature with which thou hast endowed us, giving us the victory over the ground and the air, making every element to serve us, and the great sun by day to measure out our time, and distant stars by night to keep watch over our place, letting us know where 'tis we stand upon thy whirling, many-peopled globe. We thank thee for the large measure of gifts, the many talents wherewith thou enrichest this soul of man, which thou createdst nobler than the beasts that perish, and giftedst with such power immense, and such immortal hope.
We thank thee for the joys of our life, our daily bread which imports strength into our bodies, the nightly sleep which brings tranquillity, recruiting us from toil past, and strengthening us for duties that spread out before.
We thank thee for the mortal friends that are around us, for the dear ones who are bone of our bone or spirit of our spirit, whom we put our arms about and fold to our heart, a gladsome sacrament to our bosom, a serene blessedness to our earthly mortal soul. We remember the new ties which join us to the world, little Messiahs born into human arms, and we thank thee for the tender ties newly knit which join the lover and his beloved, the bridegroom and the bride, and all those sweet felicities wherefor the heart, marrying itself to another, before thee pours out its natural psalm of grateful joy. We thank thee for these dear affections, whereby the earth blossoms like a rose, and far-reaching philanthropies go out to bless the distant world, counting mankind our kith and kin. We bless thee for this deep religious faculty which thou hast given us, which through the darkness of earth looks upward to thine exceeding light, the star whose sparkle never dims, but shines through every night adown upon the human soul.
We thank thee for the duties thou givest us to do, our general toil by fire-side and street-side, on land or sea, or wheresoever thou sendest us to run for the prize of thine own high calling. Yea, we bless thee for trials which are not too severe for us, and for the burdens which thou layest on our manly or womanly shoulders, that for others' sake and for our own we may bear them nobly and well.
O Lord, in the light of thy countenance, how many wrong things spring up to our consciousness, and we must needs stain our prayer with some tear of penitence for an error committed, an evil deed, or some unholy emotion which we have kept within our soul. We will not ask thee to forgive us and remove from us the consequence of wrong; we know that so doing thou wouldst rob us of our right;—but we pray thee that we may learn to forgive ourselves, and with new resolution dry up every tear of penitence, and fill those footsteps which we have made in ancient error with new and manly, womanly life, bearing us farther forward in our human march.
We remember before thee the sorrows with which thou triest us, how often we stoop us at the bitter waters and fill our mouths with sadness, and if we dare not thank thee for these things, if we know not how to pray thee about them as we ought, we yet thank thee that we are sure that in all these things thou meanest us good, and out of these seeming evils still producest good, making all things work together for the highest advantage of thine every child, with whom thou hast no son of perdition and not a single castaway. We thank thee for that other, that transcendent world, beyond this globe of matter and this sphere of present human consciousness. We thank thee for that home whereinto thou gatherest the spirits of just men made perfect, and for our dear ones who have gone thither before us, and bless thee that they are still not less near because they are transfigured with immortal glory, and have passed on in the road ourselves must also tread. We thank thee for not only the hope, but the certain consciousness of immortality that is within our soul, giving us light in our darkness, hope when else we should despair; and when we are bowed down and go stooping and feeble, with failing eyes and hungering heart, we thank thee that we can lift up our countenance towards that other world, and be filled with joy and gladness of heart.
Our Father who art in heaven, we thank thee for thyself,—the materiality of material things, the spirituality of our spirit, the movingest thing in motion, the livingest of life, the all-transcending in what is transcendent. O thou, who art our Father and our Mother too, we thank thee for thy providence, which is over all thy works in this world, material, or human, or transcendent; yea, for the infinite love which thou bearest to everything which thou once hast borne.
We pray thee that we may know thee as thou art, in all thine infinite perfection of power and wisdom and justice and holiness and love, and knowing, may have within us that perfect love of thee which casts out every fear. May there be in our soul that warming strength of piety which shall give us the victory in our trial, making us strong for public or for unseen crosses that are laid upon our shoulders, and winging us with such strength that out of sorrow we shall fly towards thee, going through the valley of weeping, and coming off with not a stain upon our wings and no tear-drop in our eye. May there be in us such love of thee that we shall love every law which thou hast writ on sense or soul, and keep it in our daily lives, inward and outward, till all within us be beautiful, till our outward conduct be blameless, and we make every day thy day, all work sacrament, and our time a long communion, with use to our brothers, and with calmness, trust, and love to thee. So on earth may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done here and now as it is in heaven, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever.