Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/328

82 Remembering all these things, we would pour out our psalm of gratitude to thee, kindling a reverence and love within our heart. We remember before thee the duties thou givest us to do, and, howsoever hard, pray thee that we may stir ourselves to be equal to our task. We would not forget the sorrows that are laid upon us, the disap- pointments, the bereavements, and afflictions, which the mortal eye of man beholds, and those dearer and worser which only thy sight sees in our heart, knowing its own bitterness ; and we pray thee that we may strengthen our- selves mightily for these things, and be made wiser and better within by the sorrows which we endure, which He patent to the world, or are hid in the recesses of our secret soul. Of earthly things we know not how to pray thee as we ought, seeing as through a glass darkly, and not knowing whether poverty or riches, whether disaster or triumph, shall serve thy purpose best and make us noble men. But whatsoever of these things we have, whether thou gildest our pathway with the sun of sereneness, or thunderest before our face, holding the blackness of darkness over us, yet give us the noble mind which loves the truth, the conscience which though it trembles as it lowly lies looks ever to the right, the affection which makes us spend and be spent for the good of others,—give us these things, and crown these virtues with sweet loving-kindness and faith in thee which need not be ashamed.

O thou who art our Father and our Mother, may we know thee as thou art, as thou revealest thyself in the clear depths of our soul, and knowing thee, may we love thee with all our understanding and our heart, with our strength and our soul; and making it all blameless in our inner man, may our outward life be useful also, full of beauty, and welcome in thy sight. So here on earth may we have a foretaste of thine heaven, and fly upwards towards thee, transfiguring ourselves by constant growth into thine image, till, finishing thy work with us on earth, thou layest our bodies in the grave, and to thine own home takest our spirits, to be with thee for ever and for ever. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever.