Page:The Book of Family Worship.pdf/246

 blessings are showered down in rich profusion upon us, and we cannot but behold them; but the blessings we belold are as nothing to those which are hidden. O help as to become more and more grateful. Help us to serve Thee with more willing spirits. Grant that this day may be spent faithfully in Thy service, and in those acts of duty which devolve upon us in our present station in this life. Amen.

Our Father, etc.

LORD Jesus Christ, the fun of righteonsness; when we behold the sun of this world, and feel his fervent heat—when we behold the moon walking in brightness, bring to remerabrance, we beseech Thee, the fervency of Thy divine love, the brightness and purity of Thy divine truth; and let Thy love be as a sun, set in the centre of our affections, and Thy truth, deriving all its light and brilliance from Thy love, be as the moon in the centre of our understandings, and do Thou reign within our souls, so that there may be none of the false heat of self-love, nor the lumen of self-derived intelligence, to take from the glory and brightness of thy love and wisdom. Bring all our affections into attraction with the sphere of Thy goodness, and all oar thoughts into attraction with the sphere of Thy truth, so that our wills and understandings may become an epitome of Thy true Church, in which there is no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for Thy glory. O Lord, shall light it, and the luminary thereof shall be Thy glorified humanity. Lord, instruct us, we beseech Thee, in the necessity of submitting to those vicissitudes which tend to purify us and advance us in the regeneration.

Never may we mnrmur when change is permitted to come upon us, for it is impossible that Thy providence can fail in adapting our day to our strength. When health and joy and affluence shed their brilliance around our path, may we rejoice with trembling. When sickness and sorrow and penury visit us, may we know that there is some advantage designed for us, which our shortsightedness alone prevents us from discovering. In our prosperity may we rejoice, in our adversity consider, and in all states pray that Thy will may be done. Amen.

Our Father, etc.

LORD Jesus Christ. Thy divine command is, "Do good, hoping for nothing again," We pray Thee, therefore, while Thy people are engaged in dispensing Thy beneficence, give them to perceive the sin of arrogance or self-merit: keep them in humility, and grant that they may be led to feel how great is the reward of disinterestedness, giving, not to receive as much again, but to imitate Thee; that they may be the children of their Father which is in heaven, who causeth His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on tho just and on the unjust. But while we adore Thee for all the temporal benefits showered down upon us, of which Thou makest man Thy appointed medium, we desire