Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/303

Rh life be blameless and beautiful, holy as a sacrament, and a continual service unto thee. May there be such confidence in thee, such love of thee, and such fidelity towards thee, that we shall bring down every high thing which exalts itself, and make every member of our body and every faculty of our soul to serve thee in our joy, and serve thee in our toil, and even in our sorrow and our sighing to serve thee not the less.

Our Father, who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, who blessest all of thy children, we remember before thee the great country in which thou hast cast the lines of our lot. We thank thee for the broad land thou hast given us, the mighty seas which are tributary to our thought; we bless thee for the vast multitude of people, and the great riches which our hands have won from the soil under our feet, from the waters that are round us, from the air that is over our head, and the mines which are hid in the bosom of the ground.

We remember before thee the days of our small things, and we thank thee for those pilgrims who were moved with such greatness of piety that they refused to obey the wickedness of men. We thank thee that thou sustainedst them when they went from their own land, that thou wert with them in all their perils, and didst bring them out of deep waters and plantedst their feet here in a large place. We thank thee for the vine which here our fathers planted where they hewed the wilderness away ; we bless thee that they tended it with their prayers, and watered it with their tears, and defended it also with their blood. We thank thee for those patriots who drew the sword in the day of extreme need, who put to flight the armies of the aliens, through whose wounds we are healed, and whose blows, smote by their right hand, have wrought for us our political redemption. Father, we thank thee for the women whose valiant eyes looked on and encouraged the hardier flesh of father, brother, husband, lover, or son.

And now, Lord, we bless thee for the fair institutions which they founded here. We thank thee for what of freedom we enjoy in the state, for all of education which comes from wide-spread schools, for the instruction which the unbridled press furnishes for all. We thank thee for what of justice is made law, for all of right which has be-