The Collected Works of Theodore Parker/Volume 02/Theodore Parker's Prayers/Prayer 18
XVIII.
JULY 5, 1857.
Our Father who art in heaven, and on earth, and everywhere, who dwellest not only in houses made with hands, but hast thy dwelling-place wherever a human heart lifts up a prayer to thee, we would flee unto thee, and, gathering up our spirits from the cares and the joys and the sorrows of life, would commune with thee for a moment, that so we may be made stronger for every duty and more beautiful in thy sight. May thy holy spirit rest upon us, and pray with us in our morning prayer, teaching us what things we should ask, and how to pray thee as we ought.
O thou who art everywhere, and fillest all the world, we thank thee for the freshness and beauty of this summer's day. We thank thee for the fair broad world wherein thou castest the lines of our earthly lot, for the sky above us, burning all night with starry fire, for the splendour which gladdens the gates of morning and of evening, and the beauty which by day possesses the heavens with its serene presence, adorning the figure of every cloud. We thank thee for the ground under our feet, for the green luxuriance that is spread on all the hills and fields, for the rich harvest now yielding to the mower's scythe, to be swept into his crowded barns ; and that other harvest, a wave- offering of bread for man, or which hangs abundant, growing or ripening, from many a tree all round the land. For these things we bless thee, remembering it is thou who fulfillest the wants of every living thing, opening thy hand and satisfying thy children with needed bread. We bless thee likewise for the beauty which unasked for springs up by the way-side, and broiders every human path, or which thou givest us the power to produce from out the cold hard ground. We thank thee for the lilies and the roses which grow obedient to the gardener's thoughtful call, beautifying the fields and adorning many a house; and bless thee for thy loving-kindness which scatters wild roses along every rural path and about the margin of many a pond, and on the borders of every sluggish stream plants thy lilies, wherewith the enamoured water, pausing in the beauty of its course, wantons, as it were, upon its handsome shores. thou Infinite One, we thank thee that thou revealest thyself not only in books writ with human pens, but in all the stars above, in every blade of grass, in every fruit and flower which the gardener's thoughtful care produces from the ground, or in these, the roses and lilies which thy beneficent hand profusely scatters by many a pond and long-lingering stream.
We remember before thee our own lives, and thank thee for these bodies so hopefully and wonderfully made, and these overmastering souls which enchant a handful of dust into living, thinking, and worshipping frames of matter, that are so animated with heavenly life. We bless thee for our daily work which feeds and clothes our bodies, and, though we ask it not, which instructs our understanding, and elevates our earnest conscience and heart and soul.
We remember before thee those that are near and dear to us, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, whose very presence is a joy, and whose recollection is a blessing to our heart. Lord, we remember before thee those whose flesh the grave hides from our eyes, but who are still life of our life, soul of our soul, those who have ceased from their labours and have gone home to thy more intimate presence, rejoicing, and advancing from glory to glory.
We remember before thee the trials thou givest us, and the temptations, often too strong for us to bear, and we pray thee that we may rouse up every noblest faculty in us, and so live that though our outward man should perish, the inward man may be renewed day by day, advancing towards the measure of the stature of a perfect man. Father who art in heaven, Mother who art near us al- ways, we pray thee that there may be such religious faithfulness in us that not only the prayer of our Sunday morning shall be acceptable to thee, but all the work of our daily life be blameless and beautiful, holy as a sacrament, and a continual service unto thee. May there be such confidence in thee, such love of thee, and such fidelity towards thee, that we shall bring down every high thing which exalts itself, and make every member of our body and every faculty of our soul to serve thee in our joy, and serve thee in our toil, and even in our sorrow and our sighing to serve thee not the less.
Our Father, who art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, who blessest all of thy children, we remember before thee the great country in which thou hast cast the lines of our lot. We thank thee for the broad land thou hast given us, the mighty seas which are tributary to our thought; we bless thee for the vast multitude of people, and the great riches which our hands have won from the soil under our feet, from the waters that are round us, from the air that is over our head, and the mines which are hid in the bosom of the ground.
We remember before thee the days of our small things, and we thank thee for those pilgrims who were moved with such greatness of piety that they refused to obey the wickedness of men. We thank thee that thou sustainedst them when they went from their own land, that thou wert with them in all their perils, and didst bring them out of deep waters and plantedst their feet here in a large place. We thank thee for the vine which here our fathers planted where they hewed the wilderness away ; we bless thee that they tended it with their prayers, and watered it with their tears, and defended it also with their blood. We thank thee for those patriots who drew the sword in the day of extreme need, who put to flight the armies of the aliens, through whose wounds we are healed, and whose blows, smote by their right hand, have wrought for us our political redemption. Father, we thank thee for the women whose valiant eyes looked on and encouraged the hardier flesh of father, brother, husband, lover, or son.
And now, Lord, we bless thee for the fair institutions which they founded here. We thank thee for what of freedom we enjoy in the state, for all of education which comes from wide-spread schools, for the instruction which the unbridled press furnishes for all. We thank thee for what of justice is made law, for all of right which has be come the common custom of the people, for the happiness which has ensued to us all.
But, Lord, with shame and weeping, we lament the sins which thy people have committed against thee; that, with all the blessings of other days gathered in our arms, with all the strength of holy institutions and of great ideas enlarging our consciousness, we are still a people so proud and so wicked, who tread thy law underneath unholy feet. Father, we mourn that we have trodden the needy down to the ground, that we have broken the poor to fragments and ground them to the dust, and on the day of the nation's jubilee we mourn that the hands of millions of men are chained together, and their minds are fettered by ignorance. Yea, Lord, we take shame and confusion of face to ourselves that we suffer this monstrous sin to linger in the midst of us, making the nation's face gather blackness in its walk on earth. We mourn that our rulers are base, and the prayer of the people has become an abomination before thee, because of our wickedness and the oppression with which we have tortured the weakest of men. We will not ask thee to save us in our sins, to free us from the consequence of wrong, while we fold the evil in our mistaken arms, but we pray thee that we may be afflicted in our basket and store, that our great men may be vanity, and our governors a lie, till we repent of our wickedness and put away the evil from the midst of us.
O thou Infinite One, who hast given us strength proportioned to our need, we pray that we may use the faculties thou hast given us to overcome the evil that lies before us in our path. May our minds devise the right way, our conscience point to us the justice which we should follow, and our hands work out our own redemption, even as thou commandest in every bone of our body and every faculty of our soul. So may we serve our nation better even than our fathers, the patriots or the pilgrims, being faithful to the light of our day and generation, and walking whither thou wouldst have us to go. So may light come forth, and beauty and holiness cover the whole land, and peace and joy and righteousness be the possession of us all. Thus may thy kingdom come, and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.