Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker Sermons Prayers volume 2.djvu/361

 Our Father who art in heaven, and on earth, and everywhere, we flee unto thee, and for a moment would be conscious of thy presence, and in the light of thy countenance would we remember our joys and our sorrows, our duties, our transgressions, and our hopes, and lift up to thee the glad psalm of gratitude for all that we rejoice in, and aspire towards the measure of a perfect man, and so worship thee that we shall serve thee all the days of our lives with a gladsome and accepted service. So may the prayer of our hearts be acceptable unto thee, and come out in our daily life as fair as the lilies and lasting as the stars.

Our Father who art everywhere, and givest to thy creatures liberally and upbraidest not, we thank thee for the world of matter over our head and under our feet and about us on every side. We thank thee for the serene and stormy days wherewith thou equally givest thy sacrament of benediction to all things that are. We bless thee for all which the summer has thus far brought forth, for the great harvests of use which have grown alike for the cattle that serve and for imperial man who commands the things that are about him and above him and underneath his feet, and for the beauty wherewith thou broiderest every field-side and road-side, and clothest the bosom of the stream, which blossoms with fragrant loveliness. We thank thee for the great psalm of creation, where day by day, when there is no voice nor language, star speaketh unto flower, and flower speaketh unto star, and the ocean proclaims to the sky the power, the order, the mind, the loving-kindness, and the tender mercy of thy spirit, dwelling in every great and every little thing.

We thank thee for this human world whereof ourselves are a part, for the vast faculties which thou hast given us. For the fair bodies, the crown of creation, so curiously and wonderfully made, with senses which take hold of each material thing and feed thereon, converting its use and its