Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/358



Infinite One, who art the perpetual presence in matter and in mind, we flee unto thee, in whom we live and move and have our being, and for a moment would hold thee in our consciousness, that from the morning worship of our Sabbath day we may learn to serve thee all the days of our lives, strengthened thereby and made blessed.

We thank thee for the great world of matter, whereof thou buildest our bodies up, and whence thou feedest them continually from day to day. We thank thee for the fervent heat of summer, wherewith thou providest the food for cattle and for men, and satisfiest the wants of every plant; and we thank thee for the rain which in its season thou sheddest down on meadows newly mown, to call up new harvests where the farmer has already gathered one. We thank thee for the blessing of heat and of moisture, thy two great servants which so mysteriously create this vegetable world. We thank thee for the harvests grown or growing still out of the ground, and greatening and beautifying on many a tree. We thank thee for the bread of oxen and of men, which human toil by thy laws wins from out the ground, which thou feedest from the sun and the waters from thine own sweet heavens.

We thank thee that while thus thou ministerest unto us things that are useful, thou givest us also the benediction of beauty, not only on our own bread, but on all the food wherewith thou satisfiest the wants of every living thing. We thank thee for the great gospel of nature which thou hast writ, and revealest continually in the heavens over us, in the ground under us, and in the air whereby both we and all things continually live.

We thank thee for that greater world of spirit whereof thou buildest up our several persons, for the vast capabilities which thou givest to us, the power to know, to feel, to will, to worship, and to serve and trust. We