Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/296

50 may suffer from these things, till, greatly ashamed thereof, we turn off from them and live glorious and noble lives.

We thank thee, O Father, for those who make music about our fireside, whose countenance is a benediction on our daily bread, fairer to us than the flowers of earth or the stars of heaven. We thank thee for those newly born into this world, bringing the fragrance of heaven in the infant's breath; and if we dare not thank thee when our dear ones are born out of this world, and are clothed with immortality, yet we thank thee that the eyes of our faith can follow them still to that land where all tears are wiped from every eye, and the only change is from glory to glory.

We thank thee for the joy and satisfaction which we have attained to in our knowledge of thee, that we are sure of thy perfection, and need not fear anything which man can do unto us. Yea, we thank thee that, through red seas of peril, and over sandy wastes of temptation where no water is, the pious soul still goes before us, a light in the darkness, a pillar of cloud by day, to guide us to the rock that is higher than we, and to place our feet in a large place, where there are fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore.

O thou who art infinite in thy power, thy wisdom, and thy love,—who art the God of the Christian, the Heathen, and the Jew, blessing all mankind which thou hast made to inhabit the whole earth,—we thank thee for all thy blessings, and pray that, mindful of our nature and thy nearness to us, we may learn to live to the full height of the faculties which thou hast given us, cultivating them with such large and generous education that we shall know the truth and it shall make us free, that we may distinguish between these ever-living commandments of thine and the traditions of men, that we may know what is right and follow it day by day and continually, that we may en- large still more the affections that are in us, and travel in our pilgrimage from those near at hand to those needing our help far off, and so do good to all mankind, and that there may be in us such religious trust that all our daily work shall be one great act of service and as sacramental as our prayer. Thus may we be strengthened in the inner man, able at all times to acquit us as good soldiers in the