Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/299

Rh loftier and more aspiring powers. We thank thee for this conscience, whereby face to face we commune with thine everlasting justice. We thank thee for the strength of will which can overpower the weakness of mortal flesh, face danger and endure hardship, and in all things acquit us like men.

O thou who art the King of Love, we thank thee for these genial affections which knit us to our kind. We bless thee for the love which sets the solitary in families, which makes one of twain, and thence many more, born from love, and growing up to kindred love again. We thank thee for the kindly sentiment which brings to pass the sweet societies of friendship, of kinsfolk and acquaintance, the joy of neighbourhoods, the wide companionship of nations; and for that philanthropy, which, transcending the narrow bounds of individual life, of family, kinship, neighbourhood, and nation, goes round the world, looking for the ignorant to teach them, for the needy to fill them with bread, and for the oppressed to set them free.

O thou Infinite One, who hast poured out treasures more golden yet, we thank thee for this religious sense, whereby we know thee, and, amid a world of things that perish, lay fast hold on thyself, who alone art steadfast, without beginning of days or end of years, for ever and for ever still the same. We thank thee that amid all the darkness of time, amid joys that deceive us and pleasures that cheat, amid the transgressions we commit, we can still lift up our hands to thee, and draw near thee with our heart, and thou blessest us still with more than a father's or a mother's never-ending love.

O Lord, we thank thee for these bodies, we bless thee for this overmastering soul, which only quits the flesh to dwell with thee in greater and more glorified magnificence for ever and for ever. We thank thee for those of past times or our own day who have brought to human consciousnesss the greatness of our nature, the nearness of thy presence, and the certainty of thy love. We bless thee for those whose words have taught, whose living breath still teaches us wiser desires, simpler manners, grander truths, and loftier hopes, and chiefliest of all for those whose lives reveal to us so much that is human that we clap our hands and call it divine.