Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/275

Rh thou callest us may our lamps be trimmed and burning, our loins girt about, our feet ready sandaled for the road, and our souls prepared for thee. Thus may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Infinite Spirit, who art present where two or three are gathered together, and who with all thine infinite perfections encampest about each solitary soul, we would draw near unto thee, who art never far from any one of us, and in thy presence gird up our souls and worship thee with such communion and income of spirit in our morning prayer that we shall serve thee all our life, bearing with patience our daily cross, and reverently doing with strength the duties thou givest us to do. May we worship thee who art Spirit, with our spirit and the truth of every faculty; and wilt thou, who seekest such to worship thee, accept the psalm of our lips and the aspiring of our heart. O thou Infinite One, we thank thee for the winter with which thou hast overcast the world, for we know that in every flake of snow thou sheddest from the heavens thou hast a benediction writ for all mankind, could our eyes but read the lustrous prophecy so curiously announced.

We thank thee that thou givest to mankind, in our body and in our soul, the power over these material things that are about us. We thank thee that in the midst of the winter's snow we can build us our pleasant habitation, and have a perennial summer all safe from winter's desolating frost. We thank thee for the large power thou hast given us to make even the storms serve the voyage of our life, and to use the very ice of Northern realms as the servant of man's pleasure and the handmaid of his health. Father, we bless thee for the wondrous faculties which thou hast treasured up within the frame of man.

We bless thee for all periods in our life. We thank