Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/316

70 honest purpose looks up and seeks after thee. We thank thee for all truth which we have learned of thee, for every emotion of pious gratitude and holy trust which has sprung up within our heart; and if we have achieved any elevation of character and done any good deeds in our lives, we thank thee, who givest to us all in our nature so liberally, and demandest of us only the duties which our strength is equal to, and which raise us to greater and greater powers of strength by the doing thereof.

We remember before thee our own daily lives, thanking thee for the reward which comes as the result of our toil. We bless thee for the friends near and dear, by whatsoever name they are called, still bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, or spirit of our soul. We thank thee that in our sorrows thou art an ever-present help, not far from us, but exceeding near, and the thought of thee not only confirms us for our duty, but refines us till we are able to bear the exceeding sorrows oft laid on us. We bless thee for the glorious hope which spreads out before us, for the consciousness of everlasting life which comes as the innermost fact of our inward soul. We thank thee that in a world where things deceive our expectations, we are sure of thee, and certain of thy loving-kindness and thy tender mercy, and the infinite heaven which spreads out before us. We pray thee that there may be in us such knowledge of thee, such love and trust in thee, that all our days we shall serve thee with blameless and earnest work. May we do the duties thou givest to be done, and bear any crosses laid upon us, in such manly and womanly sort, that by toil and suffering we shall grow wiser and better every day. Help us to distinguish between the commandments of erring men and the everlasting commandments of thy law, which thy spirit writes on the world of matter and publishes in this world of spirit. Day by day may we grow wiser and juster, stronger in our righteous will, more loving in our affections, while our emotions towards thee become continually more and more beautiful, and blessed still the more.

We remember thee before all men, our brothers everywhere, and pray thee that by our truth and our lives we may do something to lift the cloud of darkness which blinds men's eyes, and to strike off the fetters which chain