Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/279

Rh differs from man, for her transcendent mind which anticipates his slower thought. We bless thee for her generous instincts of morality, of loving-kindness and tender mercy, and that deep religious power of intuition whereby she communes with thy spirit face to face, and knows thee and loves thee with an exceeding depth of noble heart. We thank thee for the great and lustrous women of other times and our own age, who spoke as they were moved by thy spirit, or who, with lives more eloquent than speech, ran before the world's great prophets and redeemers, smoothing the pathway which rougher feet were yet to tread, and shedding the balsam of their benediction on the air which mankind was to breathe. We bless thee for the noble and generous women in our own day, engaged in the various callings and lots of human life. We thank thee for those who relieve the sick, who recall the wandering from the way of wickedness, who smooth the pillow of suffering, who teach and instruct those that are ignorant, who lift up such as are fallen down, and overtake the aged or the juvenile wanderers who are outcasts from the world. Father, we thank thee for all these blessings which thou givest to the world in this portion of humanity. We bless thee for those noble and generous emotions which thou hast placed within the soul of man, for the continual progress which they are making, and the certainty of their triumph at last over all malice, and wrath, and hate, and everything which makes war on the earth. We thank thee for the far-reaching love that goes out towards those who need the assistance of our arm, and for that feeling, stronger than the earthly interests of the body, which leads us to forgive every wrong which our brothers trespass against us.

We bless thee for the religious faculty which thou hast placed here within us, that in our darkness it gives us something of morning light, and, when other things fail and pass away, it breaks through the clouds, and looks up to thine own kingdom of eternal peace, and there finds comfort and rest for the soul. Lord, we thank thee that thereby thou art to us exceeding near, strengthening us in our weakness, enlightening in our ignorance, warning in temptation; and, when we go stooping and feeble, our faces bowed down with sorrow, we thank thee that in the midst