Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/344

98 rain thou sheddest down from heaven, abundant in its season, and the genial heat thou minglest with the air and earth, changing these seeming dead organic things to vegetative growth. We bless thee for the animated world of living things that feed upon the ground, that wing the air with their melodious beauty, or that sail unseen the depths of the sea. We thank thee for all this varied flock of speaking and of silent things which thou hast breathed upon with thy breath of life. We thank thee that from day to day thou spreadest a table for every great and every little thing, that thou feedest the fowls of heaven, and carest for the beasts of the earth, the cattle and the creeping things, taking care of oxen, and having thine eye on all the many millions of creatures which thou hidest in the waters of the sea, where thou feedest them with thy bounty, housing, and clothing, and healing all.

We thank thee for this great human world which thou hast superadded to this earth, and air, and sea. We thank thee for the mighty capacities which thou hast given us for thought and toil, for use, and beauty's sweeter use, for duty and all the manifold works of mortal time. We bless thee for the eye of conscience which thy sun of righteousness doth so irradiate with healing in his beams, and we thank thee for this blessed power of affection which makes twain one, and thence educes many forth, and joins all in bonds of gladness and of love. We thank thee for this uplifted and uplifting soul of ours, whereby we know thee, our Father and our Mother, and have serene delight in thy continual presence and thy love.

Father, we thank thee for that transcendent world near to the earth of matter and the soul of man, wherein thou dwellest, thou and the blessed spirits thou enclosest, as the sea her multitudinous and her fruitful waves.

Father, we thank thee for thine own self, for thy fatherly loving-kindness, for Miy motherly tender mercy, which are over all thy works, breaking their bread to the humbler things that are beneath us, and feeding us not less with bread from heaven, even the spiritual food which is our soul's dear sustenance. We thank thee that when we slumber and when we wake, when we think of thee, and when our minds are on the cares of earth, or the joys of friendship, thou hast us equally in thy care, brooding over