Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/339

Rh its peace. So may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Infinite Presence, who livest and movest and hast thy being in all things that are above us, and around us, and underneath, for a moment we would feel thee at our heart, and remember that it is in thee we also live and move and have our being. Conscious of thy presence, we would look on our daily lives, that the murmur of our business, and the roar of the streets, and the jar of the noisy world, may mingle in the prayer of our aspiration, and our devout soul may change it all into a psalm of gratitude and a hymn of ever- ascending prayer. May the meditations of our hearts and the words that issue thence draw us nearer unto thee, who art always above us and about us and within. We bless thee for the material world, wherewith thou environest us beneath and about and overhead. We thank thee for the night, where thy moon walks in brightness, pouring out her beauty all around, with a star or two beside her; and we bless thee for the sun, who curiously prepares the chambers of the East with his beauty, and then pours out the golden day upon the waiting and expectant ground. We thank thee for the new life which comes tingling in the boughs of every great or little tree, which is green in the new-ascended grass, and transfigures itself in the flowers to greater brightness than Solomon ever put on. We thank thee for the seed which the farmer has cradled in the ground, or which thence lifts up its happy face of multitudinous prophecy, telling us of harvests that are to come. We thank thee also for the garment of prophecy with which thou girdest the forests and adornest every tree all round our Northern lands. We bless thee for the fresh life which teems in the