Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/310

64 fallen as an inheritance to our lot, we may run over with loving-kindness and tender mercy to our fellow-men.

O Lord, we remember the sorrows with which thou triest us, which make our eyes run down with tears, and we pray thee that there may be in us such serenity of trust in thy providence that every tear shall be changed to a far-prospecting glass, whereby distant glories shall be brought near, and things seemingly small shine out in their real grandeur before our eyes, and ourselves be comforted even by the affliction thou givest us, and grow strong by what else would weaken heart and soul.

We pray thee that there may be in us a pure and blameless piety, which, knowing thee in thine infinite perfection, loves thee with all our understanding and our heart and our soul; and so loving thee, may we keep every law which thou writest on our material bodies, or in our spiritual soul, and live blameless and beautiful in thy sight, doing the duties of time, yet conscious of eternity, and so in a little time fulfilling a great time, and journeying ever forward and upward, till we are transformed into that perfect image of thyself, when thy truth is our thought, thy justice is our will, and thy love is the law of our daily life, as we go from glory to glory. So lead us forward through the varying good and ill of this life, and, at last, when we have finished our course on earth, and the clods of the valley are sweet to our perishing flesh, then wilt thou clothe us with the garments of immortality, and take us to thyself, ever in an ascending march to go higher and higher in those glories which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived of in its highest golden dream. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.