The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 02/Theodore Parker's Prayers/Prayer 37
XXXVII.
JULY 25, 1858.
Our Father who art in heaven, and on earth, and everywhere, we flee unto thee, and for a moment would be conscious of thy presence, and in the light of thy countenance would we remember our joys and our sorrows, our duties, our transgressions, and our hopes, and lift up to thee the glad psalm of gratitude for all that we rejoice in, and aspire towards the measure of a perfect man, and so worship thee that we shall serve thee all the days of our lives with a gladsome and accepted service. So may the prayer of our hearts be acceptable unto thee, and come out in our daily life as fair as the lilies and lasting as the stars.
Our Father who art everywhere, and givest to thy creatures liberally and upbraidest not, we thank thee for the world of matter over our head and under our feet and about us on every side. We thank thee for the serene and stormy days wherewith thou equally givest thy sacrament of benediction to all things that are. We bless thee for all which the summer has thus far brought forth, for the great harvests of use which have grown alike for the cattle that serve and for imperial man who commands the things that are about him and above him and underneath his feet, and for the beauty wherewith thou broiderest every field-side and road-side, and clothest the bosom of the stream, which blossoms with fragrant loveliness. We thank thee for the great psalm of creation, where day by day, when there is no voice nor language, star speaketh unto flower, and flower speaketh unto star, and the ocean proclaims to the sky the power, the order, the mind, the loving-kindness, and the tender mercy of thy spirit, dwelling in every great and every little thing.
We thank thee for this human world whereof ourselves are a part, for the vast faculties which thou hast given us. For the fair bodies, the crown of creation, so curiously and wonderfully made, with senses which take hold of each material thing and feed thereon, converting its use and its beauty to means of human growth, we thank thee, and for this great power which thou givest us, feeding alike on truth and beauty, gaining the victory over material things, making the ground, the winds and the waters, the stars and the very fire of heaven, to serve our various needs. We thank thee for this great moral power, wherebyour conscience comes into accord with thine, and we know thy justice and make it our human rule of conduct, making ourselves useful to each other and acceptable to thee.
We thank thee for these generous affections which, un- selfish, reach out their arms to father and mother, to kinsfolk and friend, to lover and beloved, husband and wife, parent and child, and all the great relationships wherewith the world is full. We thank thee for the greatening power of charity, which transcends the bounds of family and kindred blood, of acquaintance and congenial soul, and goes for ever loving on, careful for those who are cast down, and seeking to bless with light those who are sitting benighted in the corners of the earth, to strike the fetters from the slave, to give knowledge to the ignorant, and to teach virtue and piety to men that are bound together in their sins, in nowise able to lift themselves up.
Father, we thank thee that we know thee ; we bless thee for this great religious faculty, whereby we turn this world of matter and the world of soul into one great accordant psalm, and even the voices of the beasts that perish come to our ears full of religious melody, reminding us of thy providence, which is kind and large not only to angels and to men, but to the meanest thing which serves thy purpose in the world.
Father, we thank thee for that transcendent world, em- bracing the earth of matter and the humanity of men, that world of spirits which thou thyself inhabitest, and whereunto thou drawest thy children from year to year, as thine angel strikes off the fetters of our flesh, and clothes us with immortality. Father, we thank thee for our dear ones who have gone before us, where the mortal eye sees them not, but where the human heart knows it is well with the child, and that thou stillest the agonies of father, husband, wife or lover, with thy sweet beneficence, and art kind and merciful alike to thy saint and thy sinner. We thank thee for that other world which draws our eyes through our tears and our darkness and fills us with hope. We bless thee for thine own infinite perfection, that we can rest under the shadow of thine almighty power, thine all knowing wisdom, thine all-righteous justice, and thine all embracing love, which never end. Lord, our Father and our Mother too, we know that we need not ask any good thing from thee, nor in our prayer beseech thee to remember us, for thou lovest us more than we can love ourselves, and art more desirous of our infinite welfare than we for our prosperity a single day.
We pray thee therefore that ourselves may be faithful to all the gifts which thou hast given us. Remembering thine infinite love and thy tender providence, may we put away all fear from us, and shaking off every particle of superstitious dust, may we open our souls to that glorious love which shall not be ashamed, but constrains us to keep every law which thou hast writ for us. So knowing thee and trusting thee, may we never think meanly of the nature thou hast given to us, but use these bodies as the vessels which hold the precious treasure thou hast poured therein, and with our mind and our conscience and our heart and our soul may we serve thee daily by that worship in spirit and in truth which alone achieves the great end of human destination. So using ourselves, may we wisely use the world of matter that is about us, and by our daily toil not only house and clothe and feed and medicine our flesh, but by the process thereof instruct our intellect and enlarge our conscience, fertilize our affections, and magnify this religious power that is in us. So day by day may we serve thee with perfect service, and when thou hast finished thy work with us, then, triumphant, may we journey home to be with thee, to know thee as ourselves are known, and pass from glory to glory for ever and ever, entering into those joys which the eye has not seen, nor the ear heard, nor the heart of man completely known. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.