The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 02/Theodore Parker's Prayers/Prayer 36
XXXVI.
JULY 18, 1858.
O thou Infinite One, who art the perpetual presence in matter and in mind, we flee unto thee, in whom we live and move and have our being, and for a moment would hold thee in our consciousness, that from the morning worship of our Sabbath day we may learn to serve thee all the days of our lives, strengthened thereby and made blessed.
We thank thee for the great world of matter, whereof thou buildest our bodies up, and whence thou feedest them continually from day to day. We thank thee for the fervent heat of summer, wherewith thou providest the food for cattle and for men, and satisfiest the wants of every plant; and we thank thee for the rain which in its season thou sheddest down on meadows newly mown, to call up new harvests where the farmer has already gathered one. We thank thee for the blessing of heat and of moisture, thy two great servants which so mysteriously create this vegetable world. We thank thee for the harvests grown or growing still out of the ground, and greatening and beautifying on many a tree. We thank thee for the bread of oxen and of men, which human toil by thy laws wins from out the ground, which thou feedest from the sun and the waters from thine own sweet heavens.
We thank thee that while thus thou ministerest unto us things that are useful, thou givest us also the benediction of beauty, not only on our own bread, but on all the food wherewith thou satisfiest the wants of every living thing. We thank thee for the great gospel of nature which thou hast writ, and revealest continually in the heavens over us, in the ground under us, and in the air whereby both we and all things continually live.
We thank thee for that greater world of spirit whereof thou buildest up our several persons, for the vast capabilities which thou givest to us, the power to know, to feel, to will, to worship, and to serve and trust. We thank thee for the power of infinite growth which thou givest to thy child mankind, and impartest also unto each of us.
We thank thee for all the blessings which have come to us from the men of times past. We bless thee for the great whom thou hast gifted with large talents and with genius, whom thou sendest from age to age to be the leaders and the guides of thy children, marshalling us the way that we should go. We thank thee for such as have brought scientific truth to light, for those who have organized into families and communities and states and nations thy multitudinous children on the earth. We bless thee for all who have taught us truth, who have shown us justice, and have revealed thyself to us in all thine infinite beauty, and have taught us to live a blameless life of love. We thank thee for thy prophets, thy evangelists, who in every tongue have spoken to mankind, doing great service to the millions who are about them, waiting for such high instruction.
We thank thee for him whom in days long since thou raisedst up in the midst of darkness to establish light, and though mankind has worshipped our brother whom we ought but to follow and to imitate, guided by his light and warned by what was ill, yet we thank thee for the great truths he proclaimed in speech, and the noble life that he lived on earth, showing us the way to thee, telling us the truth from thee, and living so much of that life that is in thee and with thee for ever and ever.
And not less do we thank thee for men with talents no smaller in our own days, who likewise serve their fellows by telling truth and proclaiming justice, and living the calm, sweet life which is piety within and philanthropic love without. We bless thee for those whose gladdening feet print the earth with the benediction of their presence, for those whose toilsome hands do good continually to mankind, and ask no return, for those whose large mind carries the lamp which is to guide mankind from Egyptian darkness to a large, fair place, where they shall dwell together in gladness and in peace ; and for such as reveal to our consciousness the great truths of thine infinite goodness, power, and love, and who incarnate them in life,—Lord, we thank thee for these, the prophets and apostles, the sages and the saints of our own day, called by whatever name, and wherever the lines of their lot be cast.
We remember before thee thine own infinite perfection, and while we thank thee for the world of matter and the world of spirit, which are thy gifts, still more do we thank thee for thyself who art the giver, folding in thy bosom other worlds of matter which we know not of, and worlds of spirit whereof we dimly learn, and whereunto with continual yearning our spirit would ascend. We thank thee for thy providence which, mid many a dark day that seems to us Egyptian night, marks the lintels of every door, and broods over every land, and with thy love comes into every household, great or small, and never departs thence, but leaves thy blessing ever fresh and ever new.
We remember our lives before thee, our several joys that we thank thee for, and yet know not how to thank thee as we ought. The sorrows thou givest us,—we dare not praise thee for them, but in their darkness and their cloud, we still thank thee that thy light comes through the darkness, and thy hand is underneath the cloud, leading us forward through them to better and more glorious things.
We remember our daily duties, how hard they often are, and we pray thee that we may use the noble faculties thou hast given us so as to bear every cross which must needs be borne, and grow greater by suffering what we needs must endure, and doing what thou commandest as our duty, and so being what tnou wouldst have us be. Father we pray thee that in us there may be such knowledge of thee, such love towards thee, and such trust in thee, and such a noble pious life in ourselves, that we shall bring every limb of our body and our spirits' every faculty into thy service, and so outwardly, not less than inwardly, live lives that are as fair as the lilies of the stream or the stars of heaven, and so be blameless and beautiful and acceptable in thy sight. Thus may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.