Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/288

42 the farmer's slow-ascending corn. We thank thee for the promise of the season, silent or musical, in all the tenants of the sky, and for the prophecy which begins to blossom from many a tree, foretelling the glories of summer, and the appointed weeks of harvest, which are yet to come. We thank thee for the ground under our feet, the great foodful earth, and the heavens above our head, and for the whole universe of worlds which thou hast created, and sustainest with thy presence, filling all things with life, and enchanting the whole with order and beauty and love. We thank thee that by ways which as yet we know not, thou bringest many things to pass, and makest all this globe of lands, and these heavens, and the secret forces which are hid everywhere in ocean, land, and sky, to serve the great purposes of human-kind. We thank thee for the meaning that is concealed in every stone, or which flames out in the flowers of the field or the stars of heaven, teaching wisdom to all of thy thoughtful daughters and thy sons. Father, we thank thee for the revelation which this outward world of nature makes of thyself, that above us and about us there is continually thy presence, which shines in the stars of night, and moves in the wind by day, and grows in the grass, and all things doth pervade.

We thank thee that thy providence watches over all, the world of matter and the world of conscious life ; that thou orderest all of our movements, and from the beginning understandest the well-prepared end, making all things work together for thy final purpose of eternal good.

We thank thee for the noble nature which thou hast given unto man, making us the master over things underneath our feet and above our head, and placing the elements in subjection to us all around.

We thank thee for the triumph of truth over error, to us so slow, to thyself so sure. We bless thee for every word of truth which has been spoken the wide world through, for all of right which human consciences have perceived and made into institutions.

We thank thee for that love which setteth the solitary in families at the beginning, and then reaches wide arms all around, and will not stay its hold till it joins all nations and kindreds and tongues and people into one great