Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/346

 who art always near to us, we in our consciousness would for a moment draw near unto thee, and, feeling thee at our heart, would remember the circumstances of our daily lives, the joys we delight in, the sorrows we bear, the sins wherewith we transgress against thee, the grave, and solemn, and joyous duties thou givest us to do.

O thou who givest to mankind liberally, we thank thee for the world of matter wherein thou hast placed us, for the heavens above our head, for the stars that burn in perennial splendour, though the misty exhalations of the earth may hide them from our sight. We bless thee for the sun which above the clouds pours down the light, and creates a world of beauty, ere long to be opened to our mortal sense. We thank thee for this great foodful ground underneath our feet, now garmented with such loveliness, and adorned with the manifold radiance of thy loving-kindness and thy tender mercy. We thank thee for the grass everywhere growing for the cattle, and for the bread which the farmer's thoughtful toil wins by thy providence from out the fertile ground. We thank thee for the seed he has cast into its furrows, and the blade piercing the earth with its oracle of promise, foretelling the weeks of harvest which are sure to follow in their appointed time. We thank thee that in the cold rain from the skies, thou sheddest down the unseen causes of harvests both of use and of beauty which are yet to come.

We thank thee for the love with which thou givest thy benediction to everything which thou hast made. Thou pasturest thy clouds on every ocean field, thou feedest thy mountains from the breast of heaven, thou blessest the flowers on a thousand hills, thou suppliest the young lions when they hunger from lack of meat, thou clothest the lily with beauty more than queenly, and through all these outward things that perish thou speakest of thine infinite providence, which watches over every