Prayers for public worship

m

BV 210 .S46 1885

Service, John.

Prayers for public worship

PRAYEES FOE PUBLIC WOESHIP.

PRAYERS

FOR

PUBLIC WORSHIP.

BY THE LATE

JOHN SEEVICE, D.D.,

MINISTER OF HYNDLAND ESTABLISHED CHURCH, GLASGOW.

LIBRARY OF PRINCETON

APR 4 2002

THEOLOQOLSEMINARY

MACMILLAN AND CO.

1885.

GLASGOW: ROBERT MACLEHOSE,
Printer to the University.

PEEFATOEY NOTE.

The singular influence acquired by the
late Dr. Service as a religious teacher was
thought by many members of his con-
gregation to be due to some extent to an
unusual combination of qualities in his
sermons and in the prayers which he com-
posed for public worship. The fearless
frankness with which he gave expression
to unpopular views, and opposed beliefs
widely entertained in the Churches, when
he held them to be dangerous, was in dis-
tinct, though perhaps only in apparent
contrast to the deep reverence and all-

prefatory IFlote-

embracing charity which characterized his
prayers.

It has been thought, therefore, that to
present these prayers in a collected form
may gratify many of his friends, and may
show more clearly the range and character
of his teaching. He wrote them out with
extreme care, and it is plain that he at-
tached great importance to the adequate
expression of the feelings by which he
thought a Christian congregation should be
animated. It is, however, difficult to pre-
sent these prayers in such a form as he
himself might have chosen. They are
nowhere arranged for particular days of
the month, for morning or evening service,
or for special Church occasions. As he
thought them suitable he was accustomed

Ipretator^ Mote.

to select portions of one prayer, and com-
bine them with parts of others.

The two friends to whom the arrange-
ment and selection of the contents of this
volume is due — the Eev. William Muirhead
and the Very Eev. Principal Caird — have
not felt themselves at liberty to make
modifications in the manuscripts further
than by the omission of a few passages
repeated in different prayers.

No other form of religious composition
can be made so conventional as this, but
there is, perhaps, none in which a religious
teacher can give truer expression to his
deepest thoughts about man and God, and
to his best hopes and aspirations. It is
hoped that in the perusal of this little
volume many readers may feel their own

IPretator^ 1Rote»

spirits drawn into more intimate fellowship
with Him whom its writer served. By
personal friends and by the members of his
congregation it will be welcomed as the
heartfelt and solemn expression of those
central truths of the Christian Eeligion in
which Dr. Service most surely believed.

viii

PEAYEES FOE PUBLIC WOESHIP.

Blessed and Eternal Lord, whom no man
hath seen or can see, but who art nigh
nnto all that call upon Thee, grant us Thy
grace that withdrawing our thoughts from
that which is seen and temporal we may
enter into fellowship with Thee through
Jesus Christ. We bless Thee and praise
Thee, Lord and King of all, for the sphere
of work and duty in which our common
life is passed, for the toil which through-
out the week makes rest sweet, and the
rest which renews our strength for toil.
We bless Thee and praise Thee for the

IPrai^ets tor [i.

rest and quiet of this day, and for the
blessings and opportunities which it brings
to us as spiritual beings. We thank
Thee that Thou openest Thine hand and
satisfieth the desire of everything that
liveth. We bless Thee that Thou who
hast given us life without end dost give
us the means of grace to strengthen and
purify it.

Lord God, holy and just and good, be
merciful to us and pardon us who have
sinned against Thy holiness and justice and
goodness. Against Thee, Thee only have
we sinned. Light hath come into the
world ; we being evil have loved the dark-
ness rather than the light. We have
known what is good, and what the Lord
doth require of us, and in regard to our
sin both of neglecting to do Thy will and
of transgressing Thy holy commandment,

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we are without excuse. Thou hast given
us faculties to be used and time to be spent
for Thy glory and the good of our fellow-
men. Thou hast thus purposed to make us
heirs of eternal life, but we have used Thy
gifts vainly and misused them sinfully, and
have brought ourselves near to the gates of
death. Thy glory, King Eternal, and Thy
blessedness is to do good, to bless and save.
In all the darkness and misery of the world,
in the sorrows of the poor and needy, in
the desolation and distress of the friendless
and forsaken and outcast, Thou grivest us
from day to day the opportunity to share
Thy blessedness and Thy glory. But in
our blindness we have preferred the vain
and fleeting pleasures of sense and selfish-
ness, saying to ourselves. What shall we eat
and what shall we drink, and wherewithal
shall we be clothed ? Our knowledge is

prai^ets tor

Ignorance, for it has served to hide Thee
from our view. Our religion is selfish-
ness, for we have sought in it chiefly our
own well-being here and hereafter. Our
life is vanity and our work folly, for we
have not lived for Thee nor wrought our
work in Thee. Forgive us, 0 Lord, all this
our sin and blindness. Forgive us, that
Thy works declare Thy glory, and we have
not rejoiced in beholding it. Forgive us,
that in Jesus Christ Thy grace has been
revealed to us and we have not welcomed
it nor desired it.

God of all grace, who didst in tlie fulness
of time send forth Jesus Christ, born of a
woman, made under the law, that He might
fulfil all righteousness in a life of povert}-,
humiliation, and suffering, inspire us by
Thy grace, quicken us by Thy spirit to love
righteousness as our only life, so that He

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may not have lived in vain nor died in vain
for us, but that He may live in us and
we in Him to the glory of Thy holy name.

Blessed God, who didst cause the light to
shine out of darkness at the first, and hast
turned again the shadow of death into the
morning, we praise and bless Thee for all
that the light reveals to us, for the beauty
and glory of Thy w^orks in the heavens
above and the earth beneath, for the works
which thou hast given to man strength and
skill to plan and to perform, for the place
which is endeared to us as the place of our
birth, and for the place in which we enjoy
the comforts and pleasures of home and
friendship. We bless Tliee that day by
day Thy goodness is manifested to us in all
the arrangements of jSTature and all the
events of Providence, and that, as for the
good most truly and perfectly, so for all Thy

praters for [i.

creatures assuredly and at last, all things
work together for good and all things are
ordered to bless. We bless Thee for the
innumerable precious gifts with which Thou
hast enriched our lot in this our native
land, f(jr tlie memories with which it is
stored of the great and good who have
lived in it and toiled for it and died for
it, for the liberty which is its boast, and
the peace and prosperity which are its
ancient heritage. The Lord hath been
mindful of us and He will bless us. Give
thaidvs unto the Lord for He is good, for
His mercy endureth for ever. 0 Thou
who art the soul of our souls, and the life
of our lives, in whom we live and move
and have our being, w^e bless Thee for Thy
goodness and patience in prolonging our life
and givinii: ^^s food and raiment; and we

thank Thee tliat along with those things

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which are required for the sustenance of
our life, Thine hand is opened to bestow so
many that contribute to our happiness.
We thank Thee far our friends and old
acquaintances, for all who rejoice in our
joy and grieve in our grief; and as for these,
so also we thank Thee for all whom we
love and for all who commend themselves
to our hearts as objects of regard or pity.

We bless Thee, 0 Lord, for Jesus Christ ;
we thank Thee for His life and death, for
His work and sacrifice, for the contradiction
of sinners which He endured to establish Thy
kingdom upon earth, for the blessings which
are heaped upon His name through all
generations. May we who know His name
and call Him Lord, obey His voice and
follow His example ; may we be ready to
forgive, to pity, to bless those that curse us
and to return good for evil.

Iprapers tot [i.

Almighty God, whose days are without
end, whose mercies cannot be numbered,
grant that our few days upon the earth
may not be also evil, but that they may be
spent in praising Thee and glorifying Thy
name. Let the people praise Thee, Lord, let
all the people praise Thee. Known unto Thee
are our temptations, our infirmities, and
l)esetting sins. Help us to overcome them
in Thy strength by a patient continuance
in well-doing. What feeble desires we
have after the life divine of truth and good-
ness. Thy mercy has bestowed ! Be pleased
to strengthen and quicken them by Thy
grace that we may run and not be weary in
the way of righteousness and peace. May it
please Thee, Eternal King and Lord, to accept
our worship and to pardon our unworthi-
ness. Not as we ought but as we are able,
we bless Thee, we adore Thy majesty. As

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those that wait for the morning, we wait
for Thee and Thy salvation. Deny us
not Thy grace, but when we seek to
draw near to Thee, draw near to us, and
cleanse us by Thy purity, and enlighten
us with Thy light, and save us with Thy
salvation.

0 Thou who gTaciously acceptest the in-
tercessions of Thy children on earth, inspire
the ministers of Thy gospel with love of the
truth as the power of God unto salvation,
and grant that all the members of the
Church universal may be joined together in
the bond of a living faith. May we know
the blessedness of communion witli each
other in the rites of a reasonable and
sincere worship, and in mutual acts of
charity and sympathy and kindness. 0
Thou who orderest our steps, yet not so
that we are never in difficulty or in danger,

praters for [i.

gTant us that light of Thy Spirit which is
a light unto our feet and a lamp unto
our path, that we may persevere in the
ways of godliness, and that henceforth
and at length we may enjoy a fuller com-
munion than we have yet enjoyed with
Thee and with Thy Son Jesus Christ.

Almighty God, who rulest among all
nations, and governest by princes as Thy
servants, we pray for Thy blessing on our
beloved Queen. Let Thy wisdom be her
guide. Thine arm her strength ; let justice,
truth, holiness ; let peace, love, and light
flourish in her day ; direct all her counsels
and endeavours to Thy glory and the welfare
of her people. And together with her, bless,
we beseech Thee, the Eoyal Family, that
they all, ever trusting in Thy goodness,
protected by Thy power, and crowned with
Thy mercy, may live in peace, gladness,

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and honour, and after long and happy lives
upon earth, may enter into life everlasting,
revealed by Jesus Christ our Lord.

We give Thee thanks, Lord God most
holy, and praise Thy glorious Majesty for
all the graces and virtues Thou has wrought
in Thy servants who have departed this life
in Thy faith and fear, and have entered
into their rest. We thankfully remember
in Thy presence, who art the beginning and
the end of all lives, their worth and good
example, and we rejoice in the thought that
they have not ceased to be, but have yet
experience of Thy mercy and grace, where
Thou art more clearly revealed than here to
souls that love Thee and long for Thy
salvation. May we so remember them
that we may emulate their goodness, and
finally have fellow^ship with them and with
Thee in the kingdom that cannot be moved.

Iprapers tor [i

Father of mercies, hope and desire of all
whom Thou hast made, even of those that
know not Thy name, we remember before
Thee the helpless and outcast, the sick and
the sorrowful, the tempted and the dying,
beseeching Thee to hear us when we make
mention of Thy loving-kindness and hope
for it for them all.

Almighty God, our portion and our hope,
who turnest not aw^ay the soul that seeks
Thee, we beseech Thee to incline Thine ear
unto us, who now make our prayers and
supplications unto Thee, and grant that
those things which we have asked faith-
fully, according to Thy will, we may obtain
effectually, to the relief of our necessities,
the setting forth of Thy glory and the
advancement of Thy kingdom in our hearts
and in all the world.

Our Father, &c.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation,
whom shall I fear ? The Lord is the
strength of my life, of whom then shall
I be afraid? One thing have I desired
of the Lord and tliat will I seek, after
that I may dwell in the house of the
Lord all the days of my life to behold
the beauty of the Lord, and to enquire in
His temple ; for in the time of trouble
He shall hide me in His pavilion, in the
secret of His tabernacle He shall hide me,
He shall set me upon a rock. When
Thou saidst, Seek ye my face, my heart
said unto Thee, Thy face, Lord, will 1
seek.

0 Thou who art everywhere present
in heaven and earth, and art the life of
all that live, we beseech Thee who art

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praters for [n.

near to us to enable us to draw near
to Thee and to feel that Thou art near.
Though we cannot flee from Thy Spnit
or go from Thy presence, and cannot be
where Thou art not, yet m our pursuit
of vanity and love of evil we have erred
and strayed from the l)lessedness of feeling
Thy presence and grace, and we beseech
Thee to grant that however we may have
departed from Thee we may now seek
Thy face, and seeking may find Thee. It
is Thy presence in them which makes the
])eauty and glory of the heavens above
us and the earth beneatli us ; it is Thy
presence in us whicli makes us conscious
of ourselves and of Thy works. May
Thy presence in us this day and all our
days insj)ire us with the life divine of
righteousness and goodness.

We bless Thee for the Church of Christ

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and all the means of i^a^ace which it yields
us, and for this day of rest and quiet on
which we, with so many who love the
Lord Jesus Christ, offer our prayers to
Thee. We thank Thee that on this day
dedicated to Thy worship, we are reminded
of our fellowship with all men in the Gospel
of Thy grace, and of Thy goodness to us
and to them in making us heirs witli them
of Thy boundless pity. We bless Thee
that as we lift up our voices to Thee this
day to thank Thee for Thy goodness to us,
we can feel that over half the world there
are multitudes who, along with us, have
entered into Thy courts, and gathered them-
selves together to laud and bless Thy name,
that their faith is our faith, their hopes
are the liopes which cheer and comfort us,
their prayers for the coming of Thy kingdom
the prayers which we desire to offer.

prapers for [n.

Blessed and eternal Lord, whose glory
it is to exalt the humble and to pardon
the contrite, be gracious and merciful to
us, and by Thy grace enable us to feel
how much reason we have in Thy presence
to be humble and to be contrite. We are
glad that Thou who knowest all things
knowest all our sins, for we know that
Thou art good beyond our hope, and we
can joyfully trust ourselves to Thy com-
passion. But while we rejoice that Thou
knowest us altogether, and that our sins
and iniquities are not hidden from Thee,
we stand in awe and fear in Thy presence
when we recall to mind how many and
grievous they are. We bless Thee for any
faithful and honest and useful work which
we have been enabled to do, whether for
wages or goodwill. We confess that most
of our lives has been spent in idleness, or

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in doing nothing that was good or useful.
We thank Thee for any desire we have
felt and any effort we have made to be-
friend and help any of our fellow-men, for
any feelings of friendship and love that we
have had towards them. We acknowledge
the sin of our hardness of heart, in that we
have been so often and so much indifferent
to the good of our brethren. We bless Thee
for any wise use we have made of any of
Thy gifts. We confess that we have used
none of them as we ought. We thank
Thee for any feelings of hope and thank-
fulness towards Thee we have experienced,
for any gratitude towards Thee for giving
us prosperity or succouring us in sickness
or redeeming us from the death of vanity
and sin. But we confess that these feel-
ings have been but momentary and tran-
sient, and that Thou who art present with

praters tor [n.

us in mercies and benefits innumerable hast
been to us as one absent or unkind. The
good that we would that we do not, and
the evil that we would not that we do.
Forgive us this our folly and vanity and
sin, and in Thy mercy incline our hearts to
the love of that which is good.

0 Thou whose glory fiUeth heaven and
earth, yet is above all revealed to us Thy
creatures, in Thy kindness to the evil and
unthankful of our race, we desire to join
with this confession of our evil, thanks-
giving for Thy goodness. Because we are
evil, and because to us even Thy severity
is kindness and Thy judgments are mercies,
we in our lives, above all Thy creatures and
all Thy works, declare Thy glory. Whether
we give or withhold our worship. Thou
art glorified in that we live. But we desire
as Thy children to worship thee. "We bless

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Thee for the varied experience Thou hast
given us in uniting in us body and soul.
We bless Thee for the experience which we
thus have of bodily and mental enjoyments,
of mingled good and evil, of passions which
enrich, and reason which guides our lives,
of change without us and within us of
which there is no end. We thank Thee for
the experience with which we are thus
gifted of a progress from youth to age, for
life which is thus enriched with various
good, for blessings and enjoyments which
are thus enlarged by recollection of the
past and by hope of the future.

We bless Thee for the good which is
common to all liuman life. We thank Thee
for the higher and greater good which men
enjoy who live not unto themselves but
unto Thee. We bless Thee for daily bread,
and for the strength to toil by which we

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praters tor [n.

earn the sweetness of rest. We bless Thee
that we know that He that keeps us
slumbers not nor sleeps, but when we sleep
or when we wake cares for all our race. We
thank Thee for those powers and faculties
of mind by which we know that we are and
that Thou art, and we thank Thee for that
light of science and of reason by which we
know that Thou art the rewarder of them
that diligently seek Thee. Be Thou our
Shepherd, and we shall not want.

0 Thou who art the Fountain of life, we
bless Thee for Jesus Christ, the life and the
light of men, by whom there has been added
to our few days upon the earth the inherit-
ance of life everlasting ; through whom our
darkness is turned to light, in whom, though
we see not yet all things reconciled unto
Thee, we enjoy the hope that all flesh shall
see it together, and seeing it, shall rejoice

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in Thee and glorify Thy name. We thank
Thee tliat we have not an high-priest which
cannot be touched with a feeling of our in-
firmity, but One who was in all points tried
like as we are, yet without sin. We bless
Thee that the name which we name in Thy
presence, and by which our confidence in
Thy fatherly goodness is sustained, is the
name of the Holy and Perfect One, who
was a stranger only to guile and envy and
wickedness, and not to any of our weak-
nesses or sorrows or temptations, who,
though He were a son, yet learned obed-
ience by the things which He suffered.
We bless Thee for tlie poverty of that life
of which the only wealth was love for Thee
and for mankind. We bless Thee for the
suffering and persecution which attended its
course, and which brought to light its per-
fect peace and its heavenly glory. When

praters tor [n.

we come into Thy presence and offer our
prayers to Thee in the name of Thy well-
beloved Son, we know that we do not need
to plead with Thee for mercy to pardon
us, or for grace to help us ; we know also
that our infirmities and our unworthiness
hinder not our communion with Thee, but
bring near Thy fulness to our necessity.
We bless Thee that through our great
High-Priest, once a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief, we have this con-
fidence towards Thee, the Highest, and this
sense of fellowship with Thee by faith,
though with our eyes we cannot behold
Thee.

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III.

Blessed Lord, who art near iis when we
think not of Thy presence, and art always
near us to bless us, we pray that we may
be enabled by Thy grace to draw near to
Thee and feel that Thou art near. In this
earthly darkness in which our spirits dwell,
and in which we see Thee not, we desire to
hold fellowship with Thee who art light,
by faith beholding Thy glory, by faith as-
sured of Thy goodness. In token of Thy
eternal grace Thou causest the sun to shine
so that our eyes are gladdened with all the
beauty of the earth and sea and sky ; may
the better light of Thy grace enlighten our
minds so that we may behold Thee, the
maker of them all, and with all saints com-
prehend Thy love, how it passeth know-
ledge.

2?,

prapers tor [m.

We remember before Thee, Thou holy
and perfect One, our sins and the sins of
our fathers and of all our race, how we with
them have ever been unfaithful to the light,
which Thou hast caused to shine in the
world, and unthankful for the good which
Thou hast caused to abound in it. By our
example and our negligence, by our prefer-
ring our own ease and comfort to the good
of others and Thy glory, evil abounds where
we are, evil which is our sin and shame.
AVhile all Thy works praise Thee, the world
in which we are appointed to work, in its
abounding evils and miseries, is our condem-
nation. All that we have is Thine. Eeckon
not with us as to Thy gifts ; in Thy pre-
sence. Lord of all, we are unprofitable ser-
vants. We have taken Thy talents and
used them at our pleasure, or liidden them
in the earth, as if Thou wert a liard task-

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master, reaping where Thou hadst not sowed,
and gathering where Thou hast not strawed.
As the heavens declare Thy glory, the earth
which Thou hast given to man is a witness,
in all its darkness and misery, of the vanity
and sin of which we are all partakers. We
acknowledge our part in the abounding evil
of the world. We with our fathers, and with
all our race have sinned, and loved false-
hood, and hated truth and righteousness ;
hated the light, and loved the darkness
rather than the light. And we confess that
evil abounds in our lives and in all the
world. Thou knowest how often we have
been careless of duty, how much we have
harboured in our thoughts of that which is
impure and evil, how often we have spoken
unkind words, and done unkind and ungene-
rous deeds, how often we have been pleased
with unworthy hopes, and been filled with

praters for [m.

base and foolish fears. Thou knowest how
weakly we have feared, and shrunk from
reproach and suffering in a good cause, and
how unworthily we have yearned after and
hoped for other good than to be righteous,
and to know the peace of the man that
pleaseth the Lord aright, and delighteth
greatly in His commandments. We thank
Thee that the way of transgressors is hard,
and that never when we have walked in it
have we found it to be good. May the
experience which we have thus had of evil
deepen in us the longing which Thou hast
created in us after Thee, the perfect truth
and righteousness and love. Out of the midst
of vanity and folly and evil, we cry unto
Thee. 0 living God, our heart and our flesh
crieth out for Thee.

Maker and Preserver of all, in whom all do
live, we thank Thee for this gladsome and

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glorious world which Thou hast given us for
a dwelling-place, for our portion in it where
life is varied by the varying year, where
pestilence is only by man's neglect, and
where temperate seasons admit of toil by
day and refreshing sleep by night. We
thank Thee for that larger and better world
of spirit of which Thou hast also made us
the inhabitants, in which Thou hast given
us eyes to see and hearts to feel, in which
Thou art Lord and we are Thy servants and
Thy children. We bless Thee that in this
larger world than that which is seen we
have converse and fellowship with ages past
and generations to come, with l)rethren w^ho
are with us in the flesh, and with friends
who have gone from us and are with Thee.
We thank Thee for all whom Thou hast
raised up and gifted to be workers for Thee
and for their fellow-men, to give sight to the

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blind, bread to the hungry, succour to the
afflicted and friendless ; for all who have
had hearts, to rejoice in the joy of others
and grieve in their grief, and themselves
burdened, to carry the heavier burdens of
the children of sorrow. For all such whom
Thou hast given to the Church of Christ, to
our country, to mankind, for every friend of
the fatherless and the widow, every helper
of the weak and weary and outcast, for
every lover of his kind, and every worker
for the public good, and every reformer of
that which is old and evil in our age and in
every age, in this land and in all lands, we
praise Thee, we bless Thy name. Thou hast
given us gifts of men, great in intellect,
greater still in heart, by whom our captivity
has been led captive, our life ennobled and
enriched, our faith in Thee and in Thy eter-
nal empire established and confirmed. We

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bless Thee for them all, for all of them
known to us and for all unknown. We bless
Thee for all that by Thy grace they have
done for the Church to which we belong, for
the country of our birth, for our brethren
whose earthly lot is poorer than ours, for
the success which has crowned their labours,
for the example of faith and patience and
courage and charity which they have left
behind them.

We bless Thee, merciful Father, for Jesus
Christ, for the fulfilment in Him of the hopes
of ages and generations before His day, and
for the continual increase of His influence
in the world, since He came to His own and
His own received Him not. We bless Thee
that the ages which know His name and re-
ceive His testimony concerning Thee, the
Father of all, call the peacemakers blessed,
and reverence truth and purity and good-

praters tor [m.

ness in the lives of small and great. We
thank Thee for the assurance that has been
given to us by the increase of His govern-
ment that it shall have no end, that we in
our time, as others in ages past, have only
seen the dawn of the better day for all man-
kind in which all nations shall call Him
blessed.

May the Spirit of Christ dwell in us richly
through faith to make us Thy children, as
He was Thy well-beloved Son. May we be
His disciples not in word only, nor only by
the outward ties of Church or country or
profession of faith, but by doing the will of
God from the heart.

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IV.

Almighty God, whom no man hath seen,
but who art everywhere present, and m
this sinful world present always to bless
and save, to Thee shall all flesh come.
Thou givest us rest this day from common
work and toil, from our ordinary occupa-
tions and week-day cares, and we desire to
come to Thee as children unto a Father,
that we may enjoy here in Thy house a
higher and fuller sense of Thy presence
and grace than is common in our common
lives. The Lord is nigh unto all that call
upon Him, to all that call upon Him in
truth ; He also will hear their cry and
will save them. We are sure that Thou
wilt hear us, sure also that what is best
for us Thou wilt freely give us. Grant,
Lord, that we may desire above all not

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prapers tor [iv.

Thy gifts but Thyself, and may seek Thy
face with all our heart.

Father, who hast made the world beauti-
ful, and hast given us faculties and powers
to enjoy its beauty, we know that Thou
art Thyself more to be desired than all
Thy works. None of them, nor all of them,
satisfy us or fill up the measure of our
desires and hopes. In the enjoyment of
them, and much more in the midst of
changes which affect them, we are filled
with a sense of vanity and disappointment
and unrest. Thou alone, infinite and eternal
Eighteousness and Love, art our portion and
inheritance. To Thee shall all flesh come.
0 Thou that hast breathed a spirit into
man, and hast given us understanding and
knowledge, in Thee and Thee alone can we
find rest for our souls. 0 satisfy us early
wdth mercy and show us Thy salvation.

32

iv] public Morsbip,

There is forgiveness with Thee, 0 Lord,
that Thou mayest be feared, and plenteous-
ness of mercy that Thou mayest be sought
unto. We come to Thee and seek Thy
face, that our sins which are many may
be forgiven us, and that even as sin hath
abounded in us, Thy grace may much more
abound. 0 Thou who preventest us with
the blessings of goodness and extendest
Thy mercy where it is not welcomed or
desired, who art kind even to the evil
and unthankful, we do not need to entreat
Thee to pardon us, but we beseech Thee,
enable us by Thy grace truly to repent
of our sins, so that Thy pardon may
cleanse and Thy redemption save us. We
remember before Thee this day, when we
seek Thy presence, our past lives, how
full they have been of mercies and benefits,
and how empty of gratitude and of good deeds,

praters tor [iv.

how much we have received and how little
we have given, in how many ways we have
been taught of Thee and how little we have
learned except folly, how many opportuni-
ties we have had to become purer and
better and wiser and happier, and how little
we have profited by them, how many of
them we have not used at all. We recall
to mind how much our religion has been a
name, our worship a form, our duty a hard
task, our life a vain show ; we remember
how fondly we have clung to earthly
pleasures and satisfactions, and how dull
has been our sense of the beauty of holiness
and the divinity of goodness. We remem-
ber and we confess how like our lives have
been to those of the vain multitude, without
God and without hope in the world, and
how unlike the life of Him who, to save
us by His example, was holy and harmless

IV.] public Morsbip,

and iiiidefiletl and separate from sinners.
We remember these onr sins ; we desire
to remember tliem ^vith a godly sorrow.
Lord, be mercifnl to us, and from all our
hardness of heart, from all our unbelief
and vanity and earthliness be pleased to
deliver us.

We thank Thee for Tliy unending benefits
and Thy boundless pity. Day and night
alike declare Thy glory, and in our lives
the light and the darkness, prosperity and
adversity, joy and sorrow, are witnesses of
Thy love. We bless Thee that while sin and
folly and ignorance and superstition, and all
the evils of which men are guilty, and by
which tliey are oppressed are temporary in
their nature. Thou thyself, infinite in good-
ness, boundless in mercy and truth, art for
ever — light in the midst of darkness, order
and beauty in the midst of all trouble and

85

©raiders tor [iv.

confusion. We thank Thee that out of
seeming evil Thou still bringest forth good,
and that as the rains from heaven water
the earth and return not whence they came
without effect, so all Thy dealings with our
race tend to the coming of Thy kingdom
and the prevalence of righteousness and
truth. We bless Thee for the good which
befell men in past times and which we in-
herit from tliem ; we bless Thee that in our
days we see how evils of past times have
by Thy care and providence been turned to
fijood. Our fathers suffered not in vain for
themselves or us, but what they sowed in
tears we reap in joy. Great and good men
lived and toiled in past ages, and we have
entered into their labours. For the best
who live now, for Thy chosen servants in
this generation and in all generations to
come, the common work and toil and suffer-

IV. 1 public Morsbip.

ing of common men have stored the world
with good. We bless Thee, Lord of all,
that Thy glory and our good are still
the same, and that Thou art great, and
that Thy kingdom and glory shall have no
end.

We bless Thee, Lord, for liealth, for the
comforts of home, for the joys of kindred
and acquaintance, for all the unnumbered
mercies with which our lot is enriched and
blessed. We thank Thee for ability to
work and earn our daily bread by daily
toil, for toil which makes rest sweet and
rest which refreshes us for toil, for the
varied exj^erience of liuman life and its
progress from youth to age. We thank
Thee for the rain and the sunshine which,
in their season, cause the earth to bring forth,
and for the constant influences of goodness
by which summer and winter, seed time

praters for [iv.

and harvest, keep their unfailing order, and
yield us their unfailing treasures.

We bless Thee and praise Thee above all
for what Thou hast done for us and in us
in giving us reasonable souls and revealing
to them through Jesus Christ Thine own
eternal grace and glory. We know in part
and prophesy in part, and see through a
glass darkly, but we bless Thee that we
know that Thou art, and that Thou art the
Eewarder of them that diligently seek Thee,
rich in mercy to all that call upon Thee.
Blessed be Thy name we are not left alone
in this world of myster}', but have Thee be-
side us, a light to lighten our darkness, an
Almighty arm on which to lean in weakness,
a very present help in trouble. We thank
Thee for Jesus Christ, for the nearness with
which we have been brought to Thee in
Him, for the new and living way into Thy

38

IV.] public Morsbip.

presence which He has opened for us, for
that newness of life which comes to us
through Him, and that eternal life which
is by Him to as many as believe on His
name.

Grant, blessed Lord, that having these gifts
and benefits we may live to show forth Thy
praise, living not unto ourselves but unto
Thee. It is Thy world in which we live,
may we work Thy work while we are in it.
It is Thy bounty that nourishes our life,
may we dedicate our life wholly to Thee.
May we so live that every day, according
to Thy will, we may grow wiser and better
and nobler, more full of the spirit of charity
and brotherliness, and more free from envy
and guile and greed. Every day may we
seek to learn some new truth, to gain some
new view of Thy glory and Thy grace, and
to attain some new virtue and nobleness.

praters tor [iv.

While all things in heaven and earth and
in our mortal bodies change from day to
day, may there be increased in our souls the
righteousness of Christ, so that when the
earthly house of our tabernacle is dissolved
we may have a building of God, an house
not made with hands eternal in the heavens.

40

public Morsbtp*

V.

Praise waitetli for Thee, 0 God, in Sion ;
and unto Thee shall the vow be performed.
0 Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall
all flesh come. Iniquities we confess pre-
vail against us, but as for our transgressions
Thou wilt purge them away. Blessed is the
man whom Thou choosest and causest to
approach unto Thee that he may dwell in
Thy courts. In the keeping of Thy com-
mandments there is great reward ; in the
submission of our will to Thy will is all
our strength and health and safety and
happiness. It is not in man that walketh
to direct his steps aright. Thy Word only
is a light unto our feet and a lamp unto
our path. Send forth Thy light and Thy
truth, and let them lead us and guide us
unto Thy holy liill and unto Thy tabernacle.

praters for [v

How amiable are Thy tabernacles, 0 Lord
of hosts ; our soul longeth for the courts of
the Lord, our heart and our flesh crieth out
for the living God.

Almighty and Eternal God, who art not
worshipped of men's hands as though Thou
neededst anything, seeing Thou givest unto
all life and breath and all things, yet who
hast commanded all men everywhere to
pray and not to faint, to whom it is a
good thing to give thanks, from whom
Cometh down every good and perfect gift,
help us by the recollection of all Thy good
gifts, help us by the gift of Thy good Spirit
acceptably to worship Thee through Jesus
Christ. 0 Thou who hast again permitted
us to enter Thy gates with praise and Thy
courts with thanksgiving, grant us now also,
we beseech Thee, access unto the throne of
the heavenly grace, that in lowliness of heart

public Motsbtp*

and mind, yet in the full assurance of faith,
we may make our requests known unto
Thee.

If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves and the truth is not in us. If
we confess our sin, Thou art faithful and
just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. O Thou who
hast made all things for man and man for
Thy glory, we desire to feel and to acknow-
ledge the sinfulness of lives of which often
the least part has been re^'erence for Thy
eternal righteousness and truth and good-
ness. Other gods ha\'e had dominion over
us. Other blessedness than a heart at
peace with Thee, other gain than content-
ment with Thy will, other good than ex-
perience of Thy loving-kindness to them
that fear Thee, have turned our affections
away from Thy service to the service of

IPrapcts tot [v.

vanity and sin. There is none that cloeth
good and sinneth not. Enter not into
judgment with Thy servants ; in Thy sight
shall no man living be justified. Much of
our doing has been wrong-doing ; the best
that we have thought and purposed has
come miserably short of the righteousness
which is by faith in Thee as good and in
goodness as our only life. Our own hearts
condemn us in the recollection of evil that
we have done, in the knowledge of good to
which we have never struggled to attain.
We who have received by Jesus Christ the
spirit of truth and righteousness, are con-
denmed in Thy sight as being of the world
whicli knew Him not. Have mercy upon
us, 0 Thou who lovest to have mercy and
to forgive. Be merciful to us, miserable
offenders.

Almighty and Eternal God, whose is the

v.] ipublic Morsblp.

day and the night and all things seen and
nnseen, in whom and for whom and by
whom are all things, blessed be Thy holy
name. All Thy works praise Thee. From
all Thy vast dominion, which is for ever
and ever, from every corner of Thy king-
dom, of which there is no end, adoration,
praise, thanksgiving ascend to Thee con-
tinually as the voice of many waters. By
Thy power created, by Thy wisdom fash-
ioned for their use and place, by Thy
goodness preserved in being, all Thy crea-
tures and all Thy works show forth Th}-
praise. Creator of the ends of the earth,
who faintest not, neither art weary ; Father
of the spirits of all flesh, in whom all live,
for Thy glory are we made conscious of
ourselves and of Thy works ; in these our
bodies and our souls, we are the living to
praise Thee. From Thee we came at our

45

prai^ers for [v.

birth, to Thee we return at our death ; all
that we are is Thine, and Thine in us, and
in all that we have and hope for is Thy
praise and glory. Whether we live we
live unto the Lord, whether we die we
die unto the Lord. Xo man liveth unto
himself, no man dieth unto himself. Grant
that in our life and in our death, in all our
ways and works, we may seek to glorify
Thy name. Our souls would magnify the
Lord, our spirits would rejoice in God our
Saviour. Let the people praise Thee, Lord,
let all the people praise Thee.

For wliat our eyes liave seen and our
ears have lieard of the word of life, for all
that righteous men and good men before
our day saw of Thy mercy and faithfulness,
for the promises which they received as
from heaven, for the hopes in which they
rested, and with which they were com-

v.] public Morsbip*

fortecl, of good in store for all mankind,
for the fulfilment of these promises and
the communication of these hopes to all
in every age and every place who have
believed in Thy name or sought to ac-
quaint themselves with Thee, we praise
and bless Thee. 0 Shepherd of a chosen
race, who didst lead Thy people like a
flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron,
we bless Thee that Thou hast led all people,
though they have not known it ; in mercy
and in faithfulness guiding the nations by
a way they know not into a better country
of peace and light, even an heavenly.
Wandering, Thou hast reclaimed us ; lost,
Thou hast found us; sick and captive, Thou
hast visited us ; sunk in wretchedness and
misery, Thou hast cast Thy cords of love
about us, and set our feet upon a rock,
and established our goings, and put a new

praters tor [v.

song into our mouth, eA'en praise unto our
God. Blessed be the God and Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath begotten
us again to a living hope ; to an inherit-
ance in His grace which is incorruptible
and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.

As heirs of an incorruptible inlieritance,
having in us a good hope of eternal life,
grant that we may purify ourselves from
all that is base and evil, even as Christ was
pure, and that w^e may be workers with
Him for the diffusion among mankind of
the blessedness of the pure in heart, for
whom is the vision of God. Forasmuch
as we have not been redeemed with cor-
ruptible things, as silver or gold, from our
vain conduct received by tradition from
our fathers, but with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and
without spot, may we not be content with

V] public Morsbip.

any fashion of goodness less pure and
perfect than His, may we be the sons of
God without rebuke, unworldly because
we love Thee, unselfish because Thou hast
loved us.

praters tor [vi.

VI.

0 God, we would be thankful unto Thee
and praise Thy name, not as those who
know Thee only in Thy might, but as those
to whom there has been revealed something
of the exceeding riches of Thy grace and
mercy. We desire to thank Thee, whose
glory filleth heaven and earth, for the glory
which is Thine in ordering our lives so that
it is Thy good and not our evil which
prevails in them at last. We cannot forget
in Thy presence their shortcomings, errors,
sins ; their poverty of that which is true
and noble, their abundance and variety of
ills and miseries, which are the signs of
their disorder and unrighteousness. We
thank Thee that it is not the evil in them
which is ours, but the good in them which
is Thine, that is preserved for increase.

VI] Ipublic Morsbip.

O Thou who art the Father of all men,
who art no respecter of persons, we tliank
Thee for Thy loving-kindness and tender
mercy which are over all tJiy works, not
only as we have heard of it from our fatliers,
but also as we see it and know it in the
issues of our lives and tlie lives of those who
live with us. We thank Thee that Thou
causest the sun to shine on the evil and on
the good, and sendest rain on the just and
on the unjust. We bless Thee that with
fatherly care and watchfulness and love,
Thou that seest all dost watch for all to
bless them and save them, that Thou
lovest Thy saints and art the Friend of
sinners. We thank Thee for the provid-
ence which is over everything Thou hast
created to make it all speak of Thee to
every ear that hears. We bless Thee for
the rain which waters the earth, for the

IPrapers for [vi.

flowers which beautify it, for the song of
birds, and for all the innocent gladness
which is stored for man and beast in this
dwelling-place of Thine. "We bless Thee
that while the heavens last they declare Thy
glory, while the earth abides it publishes
Thy praise, while the soul of man is
conscious of itself it is conscious of Thee ;
and that thus where we dwell Thou
dwellest, and manifestest Thyself to all
the sons and daui^diters of men. We thank
Thee that in the midst of darkness of
our making Thou art ever, by an older
Creation, present to lighten the steps of
erring generations. We thank Thee that out
of seeming evil Thou still educest good, and
better thence again, in a fulness of which
Thy thoughts, and not ours, are measures.
We thank Thee that even the wrath of man
is made to serve Thee, and the remainder of

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VI.] public Morsbip.

wrath Thou dost restram, makmg all things
work together at last for good. We thank
Thee that Thou carest for us all, that in our
hours of gladness it is the hand which made
us as we are, and o^ave us the faculties we
have, that makes our cup of happiness run
over. We thank Thee that Thou art with
us in our days of hardship and suffering
and sore temptation and calamity, that
when our own hearts cry out against us
Thou art greater than our hearts, and,
understanding all things, blessest us in
secret ways; and when we are cast down
and hope dies within us, Thou art still with
us and leadest us from strength to strength
to make Thy strength perfect in our weak-
ness. We remember the sorrows with
which we are tried, to be thankful to Thee
that they are not meant to crush us, but to
build us up in newness of life. We

53

praters for [vi.

remember those who were clearer to us
than our own souls, from whom it was the
bitterness of death to part, in whose death
we entered into the Valley of the Shadow
of Death — we remember them before Thee.
We bless Thee that they were given to us,
and we cease from murnuiring that Thou
hast taken them away. We remember
before Thee their immortality and ours, and
we bless Thee for the kingdom of light and
life overarching the darkness in which they
are hid from our sight. In the days of our
sorrow, and in all our days, may we, young
and old, have a sense within us of this
spiritual kingdom in which the living truly
live, and in which the dead are alive unto
Thee. May it please Thee, Heavenly Father,
to give ear to our thanksgivings and our
supplications, and to grant that we may be
thankful unto Thee and praise Thy name.

VII.] public Morsblp*

VII.

Almighty God, who didst in the beginning
create the heavens and the earth, and hast
established righteousness by a law in all
that Thou hast made, we thank Thee for
this day, which reminds us of Him who
was delivered from the bondage of death
through the power of an endless life, in
order to turn every one of us away from
his iniquity and to give us the gift of
eternal life. We thank and praise Thee
this day. Lord of all, for Him, who, coming
in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned
sin in the flesh, and having died unto sin
once, now dieth no more, but is exalted a
Prince and a Saviour to give repentance
unto Israel and the remission of sin; by
Whom, in regard to our faith in Thy right-
eousness and our trust in Thy grace, all old

prapers for [vn.

things have passed away and all thmgs are
becoming new. May we as those who are
alive from the dead, as those who are re-
newed in the spirit of their minds, this day
worship Thee and glorify Thy name. Our
souls would magnify the Lord, and our
spirits would rejoice in God our Saviour.
For He that is mighty hath done great
things for us, and holy is His name.

Blessed Lord, who hast made the Sabbath
for man, and hast divided between us and our
common work and care by one day in seven,
w^e thank Thee for all the opportunities and
advanta<>-es which it cjives us for brinoino:
our work and care into harmony with Thy
eternal will. Grant that we may be in the
Spirit on the Lord's day. May it please
Thee, Father of mercies and God of all grace,
to keep our hearts and minds this day, that
as He who was Thy well-beloved Son

56

vii] public Morsbip^

turned the earthly Sahbaths to the glory of
the Highest by deeds of love and sympathy
towards sinners and sufferers of mankind,
we also, who profess to be His disciples,
may worship Thee and glorify Thy name by
using the opportunities which this day gives
us, not only of repeating His words, but of
following His example. O Thou, to whom
feasts and fasts and Sabbaths without love
are an abomination, may Thy grace, through
the example of Christ, help us more and
more to dedicate our Sabbaths and all our
days to the work which Thou hast given us
to do of communicating to others the good
which we have received, and helping the
kingdom of Thy truth and love to come in
all the world as it has come among us.

Father, we thank Thee for the privilege
which we this day enjoy of coming to Thy
throne of grace with the burden of our

57

Iprapers for [vn.

shortcomings and sins. Another six days
have passed in which we have had oppor-
tunity to gather experience of Thy goodness
and to work for Thee as those who know
that Thou art good. In these days, as in all
our days, we acknowledge that we have been
unprofitable servants. Temptation has come
to us, that we might overcome evil with
good, but we have been rather overcome of
evil. Thou hast loaded us with Thy benefits,
that through them Thy salvation might be
always nigh unto us, and the tokens of Thy
presence and grace keep our faith from
failing ; but we ha\'e received them un-
thinkingly and used them and loved them
selfishly, and the good that was in them
has been changed by us to that which is
vain and evil. We, who are called in
Christ Jesus to a heavenly life, acknowledge
the worldliness of our lives. We have been

38

vii] public Morsbip.

careful and anxious about many things for
which those who are worldly are most
anxious and careful. But He w^hom we
call Lord, and who is the manifestation of
Thy invisible glory, has presented Himself
to us in the poor and sick and erring and
ignorant and unworthy of our kind, and we
have not been ^iad or willinGj to minister
unto Him in them. He who once came
unto His own has thus come again, and
we, like others before us, have not received
Him. Have mercy upon us, and help us to
bless Thee, that the light which is in us has
thus been shown to be darkness.

Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ, wdio art reconciling the world unto
Thyself through Him, we pray that Thy
mercy may be upon us as Thou hast made
us to know Thee and to hope in Thee. 0
Thou who hast been revealed to our thought

59

praters for [vn.

and our liope not alone as ready to forgive
but as mighty to save even unto the utter-
most, who art the Saviour of all men,
especially of all that believe, grant us the
aid of Thy spirit that steadfastly trusting in
Thy goodness to us and to all men we may
as Thy creatures worship Thee, and as Thy
children love Thee. As we cannot worship
Thee or stand in Thy holy place, pretending
to have clean hands and a pure heart, we
would offer, if we could, the sacrifice of
thanksgiving as those who know the mercy
of the Lord, how it is from everlasting to
everlasting upon them that fear Him, and
who are assured of tlie love and pity which
pass understanding. We bless Thee for
those bounties of Thy providence, which are
to us tokens of Thy grace, and for those
benefits of lil)erty, enliglitenment, and
security in a Christian land, which Thy

VII. ] public Motsblp^

mercy has made to us as common as the
things that supply our bodily wants. We
acknowledge Thee to be the Lord. We
bless Thee that we know, that we are
taught by our experience of good and evil
in the world, that Thou dost rule only to
bless. We thank Thee for all that we enjoy
as Thy gift — for our friends as made dear to
us by Thy friendship for us ; for our health
as preserved by the care which suffers not
a sparrow to fall to the ground ; for our
wealth in all that is the real good of life as
lent to us from Thy treasury ; for work and
rest, for day and night, for life and death
as all devised by Thee, and appointed and
administered by Thee for our good and the
good of all that live and breathe. We
would be thankful unto Thee, and praise
Thy name.

61

praters tot [vm.

VIII.

Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord
God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways,
Thou Kmg of Saints ; all Thy works praise
Thee and Thy saints bless Thee.

0 Thou, who art not worshipped of men's
hands, as though Thou needest anything,
seeing Thou givest unto all life and breath
and all things, we remember in Thy presence
that Thou art glorified whether we give or
withhold our worship, for Thou hast made
all and preservest all, and in the being and
preservation of all Thou dost record Thy
praise. Heaven is Thine, the earth also is
Thine, and all that live therein are the
living to praise Thee. As having received
from Thee intelligence to know that Thou
art, and hearts to worship Thee because
Thou art good, we desire to mingle the

62

viii] public Morsbtp*

voice of our praise and thanksgiving with
the voices of all Thy worshipping creation
and with the songs of the just made perfect
through their faith. Holy is the Lord God
Almighty ; the whole earth is full of His
glory.

Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful
of him, or the son of man that Thou visitest
him ? 0 Thou, whose nature and whose
glory it is to regard with kindness and
patience and pity the meanest thing that
lives, without whose knowledge a sparrow
falleth not to the ground, we adore Thy
mercy and goodness in caring for us and
visiting us, who being made in Thine image,
and placed in the seat of dominion over
Thy works, have often made ourselves less
than the least of Thy creatures through our
vanity and sin. Not alone because man is
frail, and Thou hearest his cry for help

63

Iprapers tor [vm.

when lie is in extremity, but above all
because man is vain and vile, and yet Thou
dost not turn away Thy compassions from
him, but in open and secret ways most
manifold art his help and succour, his
refuge and fortress, we bless Thee, we adore
the eternal love and grace.

Almighty God, who in the beginning didst
cause the light to shine out of darkness,
shine into our hearts to give us the light of
the knowledge of the glory of God in the
face of Jesus Christ. Thou that dwellest in
the light, and art found only of those that
seek Thee in the light, enable us through
Him whom Thou hast given to be the light
of the life of men, to seek Thee and find
Thee. Help us to put away from us the
works of darkness and the darkness which
is in our hearts through our evil works, and
as children of the light and of the day to

64

vni.] public Morsbip.

come unto Thee that our deeds may be
made known.

Blessed and merciful Lord, whose name is
holy, from whom the darkness cannot hide,
to whom the light cannot reveal, to whom
all things are naked and open, we come to
Thee to acknowledge and confess our evil
works, our cold hearts, our unprofitable
service. We will arise and go unto our
Father, and will say to Him, " Father, we
have sinned, and are no more worthy to be
called Thy children." We bless Thee for
the love and pity which assure us that we
cannot come to Thee in vain. 0 Thou who
knowest us better than we know ourselves,
to whom the guilty thoughts and deeds that
we keep from the knowledge of others do
not need to be confessed, who hast marked
and known all our unthankfulness for
mercies, our slothfulness in duty, our

prapers tor [vm.

selfishness in enjoyment, our impatience
in trouble, our vanity and blindness and
ignorance and unbelief, we bless Thee that
Thou dost permit us to call upon Thee and
acknowledge our sin, having this faith
toward Thee, that, if we confess our sin.
Thou art faithful and just to forgive us our
sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteous-
ness.

Blessed God, Father of our spirits, cleanse
us from earthly dross and vileness, from
uncleanness, from the love of the world and
the love of self, and from the stain of
habitual transgressions. We are Thy chil-
dren, and these our sins hide from us the
light of Thy countenance ; we are Thy
servants, and they hinder us from doing Thy
work; we are members one of another, and
they make us the enemies one of another.
By them we offend Thee, by them we injure

66

vin.] public MotBblp*

our own souls and tlie souls of others. Be
merciful to us, and from these and all our
sins deliver us.

Gracious Lord, who hast so manifested Thy
unspeakable mercy in the coming of Jesus
Christ, that though we have sinned we
might not despair, and though we suffer
we might not perish, let His example
instruct us, and His life save us, and His
death quicken us, so that we may depart
from evil and do good, so that we may die
unto sin and live unto righteousness, and
even while we fear because of our sin we
may yet more rejoice because the abundance
of Thy grace has been manifested through
sin.

Lord, have mercy upon us through Thy
loving-kindness declared to us by Jesus
Christ. Hear us, 0 Lord. Grant us Thy
peace.

67

IPra^ers for [ix.

IX.

Blessed Lord, who hast given us this day
of rest and quiet for the offering of our
prayer and thanksgiving unto Thee, for the
reading of Thy Word, and for communion
one with another, as Thy children we desire
to bless Thee for this day and for all our
days, for this life and for that which is to
come, and for all Thy benefits and gifts.
We thank Thee that in compassion for our
weakness Thou, who art more glorified by
our works than by our words, dost permit
us to rest from work this day, and to seek
in the ordinances of Thy house Thy mercy
to pardon and Thy grace to help us.

It is a good thing to give thanks unto
the Lord, to show forth His loving-kindness
in the morning and His faithfulness every
nisht. Thou art our God and we will

IX.] public Morsbtp*

praise Thee, our Saviour and we will bless
Thee, our Father and we will be glad in
Thee. We bless Thee for Thy goodness to
us and all men, for all those benefits which
make life blessed, and for all those mercies
which alleviate its ills. We bless Thee for
our country and our friends, for teachers
who teach knowledge, and workers who are
examples of faith and patience and noble-
ness. We bless Thee for the hopes with
which Thou hast comforted us and all men
under the present evil of our lot and the
present miseries of the world. We bless
Thee for the Gospel and for Him who is
the Author and Finisher of our faith, by
whom we know that Thou art love, and that
all things work together for good to them
that love Thee. Thou art good and doest
good ; it is Thy glory to be kind even to the
evil and unthankful. Thy mercies are

praters for [ix.

heaped upon the undeserving, and upon
them that deserve ill Thou bestowest good.
Give thanks to the Lord for He is good, for
His mercy endureth for ever. The Lord is
good unto all, and His tender mercies are
over all His works.

0 Thou who hast given us life and
breath, and all things, and requirest from
us — not alone for Thy glory, but for our
good — a right and thankful use of all Thy
gifts, this day instruct us how to live ; teach
us so to pass through the things that are
seen and temporal, that we may not finally
lose the things that are eternal. 0 Thou
who art the only Life, whom to know is life
everlasting, who hast been the home and
dwelling-place of all those who in Thy faith
and fear have been pilgrims and strangers
upon the earth, may Thy Spirit help us this
day to know and to believe Thy promises,

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IX.] public Motsbip.

that we also may look for a city which hath
foundations whose builder and maker is
God ; that, turning from vanity and sin to
righteousness and love, and from the world
to Thy blessed service, we may find rest to
our souls. Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed upon God. There
is no w^ant to them that fear Thee. In all
the troubles and temptations of this life may
we have greater than earthly power to help
us; in grief may we have better than earthly
solace to comfort us ; in sickness and the
hour of death may we have better than
earthly support on which to lean — in life
and death may we be Thine and rest our
souls on Thee.

Help us to be grateful to Thee for all
those gifts and benefits which bring gladness
to our hearts, and enable us to be thankful
to Thee for all those privations and griefs

prapers tor [ix.

which cause us to turn to Thee for help.
The Lord is the portion of our souls. He
only is our Eock and our Salvation. He is
our defence, we shall not be greatly moved.
Glory be to the Father.

X.] public Morsbtp^

X.

Blessed Lord, who art worshipped of all
the host of heaven, and art exalted above
the thoughts of all Thy creatures whether
in heaven or earth, we bless Thee that Thou
dwellest with him who is of a humble spirit
and dost not despise the sighing of the con-
trite in heart. We thank Thee that while
we know in part and believe in part, and
our worship is but a poor endeavour to
come into Thy presence and be conscious of
Thy majesty and goodness. Thou art pleased
by necessity of our nature to require our
worship. Let the people praise Thee, Lord,
let all the people praise Thee. In our
blindness and ignorance we have often
sought other help than Thine in trouble,
other blessing than Thy favour in prosperity,
other strength than Thy grace in temptation

73

prapers for [x.

and trial. But Thou art all our salvation
and desire, and we desire to come to Tliee
and taste and see that Thou art good.
There be many that say, Who will show us
any good? Lord, lift Thou upon us the
light of Thy countenance.

Almighty God, who knowest that we
with our fathers and with all our race have
sinned and done evil, help us to believe in
Thy forgiving grace, that we may come to
Thee with the sacrifice of a broken and
contrite heart, and be accepted with Thee
and cleansed from our sin, and saved from
our iniquity. Forgive us, 0 Lord, most
merciful and gracious, the sin of which our
hearts accuse us. Pardon the evil deeds
and the vain and impure thoughts that rise
up to condemn us in the presence of Thy
light and truth. Forgive us that greater
unrepented sin in which we have lived,

^•] public Morsbtp.

when we have lived without God in the
world, forgetting Him who has made us and
preserved us, despising Him that bought
us, and lightlv esteeming the Eock of our
Salvation. Forgive us, 0 Lord, those
many days and years of our life in which
our hearts have been visited by no thought
of Thee, no reverence for Thy greatness, no
gratitude for Thy love. Forgive us those
many days in which we have been dead
even while we lived, in which we have been
careful and anxious about our own comfort
and ease and pleasure, and have despised
others both in their griefs and joys. For-
give us that we have feared to die and meet
Thee in judgment, and have not been
ashamed to live, in defiance of Thy will, a
vain and evil life. Forgive us that we have
been shown the way of life in Christ Jesus
and yet have chosen the way of death, pre-

IPta^ers tor [x.

f erring the company of vain persons to
fellowship with Thee in love and truth.

0 give thanks unto the Lord for He is good,
for His mercy endureth for ever. We will
bless the Lord at all times, His praise shall
continually be in our mouth. Blessed be
Thy holy name, 0 Lord, for Thy goodness
in giving us life and preserving us in being,
in supplying us with food and raiment, and
making us members of that whole family in
Heaven and in earth who are named with
the name of Christ, and to whom Thou hast
given powers of reason and the knowledge
of Thy existence and Thy goodness. We
thank Thee for Thy goodness to us and all
men in causing enlightenment and happi-
ness continually to increase in the earth,
and in causing barbarism and cruelty to be
displaced by the blessings of civilization and
peace. We bless Thee that as all the ar-

76

^ ] public Morsblp.

rangements of nature are adapted to secure
man's bodily welfare, so also all the arrange-
ments of providence tend to advance his
intelligence and to enrich his spiritual well-
being. We thank and praise Thee that the
evils which befell nations and classes in past
times have, by Thy care and providence,
been turned to good, so that we reap in joy
what former generations sowed in tears.
The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting
to everlasting upon them that fear Him,
upon them that hope in His mercy. We
bless Thee for the freedom and peace and
prosperity which we enjoy in this favoured
land ; for all those institutions and agencies
which have for their end and aim the good
of the whole body of the people ; for all
those public workers and benefactors whose
lives are devoted to the public service. We
thank Thee for the wisdom of our teachers.

praters tor [x.

for the uprightness of our judges, for the
integrity of our statesmen and lawgivers,
and above all we thank Thee for all those
who in various ranks of life are examples .of
Christian faith and patience. We thank
and praise Thee that though wars have not
yet ceased many are the nations that love
peace and long for the day of universal peace.
We bless Thee and praise Thee that our own
nation and many neighbouring nations en-
joy the blessings of settled government and
religious freedom, and that there are signs
among them all of the coming of Thy
kingdom. We bless Thee, Lord of all, for
the lot that has been assigned to us among
the things that are seen, for our discipline
in the knowledge of things unseen and
eternal. We bless Thee for all the com-
forts and enjoyments which tempt us to
desire prosperity and abundance. We

X.

public Morsbtp.

bless Thee for the admonition which there
is in trouble and adversity. The Lord is
good unto all, and His tender mercies are
over all His works. Above all we thank
Thee for whatever grace Thou hast given
us to desire Thy favour as better than
life, for any desire we have felt to resist
sin and to attain salvation, for any warmth
of friendship or of love we have experienced
in our hearts. We bless Thee for Him by
whom grace and truth have come afresh
to mankind, in whom all old things are
passed away, and all things are become
new. Thanks be unto God for His un-
speakable gift. Blessed be the God and
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

0 God, whose mercies cannot be num-
bered, whose love passeth understanding,
be merciful to us Thy servants and increase'
our faith that these things which we have

79

prapers tor [x.

only heard with our ears concerning Thy
mercy we may truly believe with our
hearts. "We know in part and prophesy
in part concerning Thee, who art the
perfect goodness and truth, but even as
Thou art good, teach us to love Thee, as
Thou art kind and pitiful, help us to trust
Thee, that our lives may abound in the
comfort of Thy friendship and favour.

^^ ] public Mor5bip.

XI.

Holy is the Lord God Almighty, the whole
earth is full of His glory. Let the people
praise Thee, 0 Lord, let all the people praise
Thee.

0 Thou who in Thy perfect holiness as
in Thy boundless mercy art ever nigh unto
us, and who dost by Thy presence in the
world and in our hearts convince us of sin,
while Thou dost claim us as Thy children,
grant that we may come to Thee as unto
a Father with love and confidence, but also
because we are unworthy and sinful, with
lowliness of heart and mind, offering unto
Thee the sacrifice of a contrite and broken
heart. A broken and a contrite heart, 0
God, Thou wilt not despise.

Be pleased, 0 merciful Father, to free us
from vanity and ignorance, from the do-

praters tor [xi.

minion of selfishness and the curse of un-
belief, that we may know ourselves as Thou
knowest us, and know Thee as Thou art
revealed to us in Christ Jesus, so that we
may truly repent and turn to Thee and find
mercy with Thee and obtain life, even life
eternal in Thy favour and grace. Let the
wicked man forsake his way, and the un-
righteous man his thoughts, and let him
return unto the Lord, and He will have
mercy upon him, and to our God, for He
will abundantly pardon. If we say we
have no sin we deceive ourselves and the
truth is not in us, but if we confess our
sins. Thou art faithful and just to forgive
us our sins and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. 0 Thou whose faithful-
ness is in the heavens and whose mercy
reacheth unto the clouds, with whom there
is forgiveness that Thou mayest be feared

82

XI] public Motsbip,

and plenteous mercy that Thou mayest
be sought after, we thank Thee that this
day we are permitted to seek Thee within
the courts of Thy house, and to confess the
sin and unworthiness of all our daily com-
mon life. Thou art manifesting Thy good-
ness to us from day to day in calling us to
labour with the morning light, in giving us
rest at night, in appointing to us our share
of work and care and temptation and sorrow;
for in all this Thou art giving us opportunity
to serve Thee and glorify Thee, but in all
this we confess we are unprofitable servants.
The good that we would do, we do not.
And not alone do we offend Thee who art
good by neglecting to do good, but we deny
Thy presence and despise Thy grace by
our lives of vanity and our doing of evil-
Our impatience in trouble, our weakness in
temptation, our selfishness and ingratitude

IPrapers for [xi.

in prosperity, 0 Lord, forgive us. Forgive
us also for Thy great mercies' sake all
that we have thought impurely or un-
charitably, all that we have done unjustly
or unkindly, all that we have desired or
hoped for selfishly or ungodly. Forgive us
the sin which clings to us from our earlier
years, and the sins which in our weak
hearts are nourished and strengthened by
our present temptations.

Gracious and merciful God, who hast
called us to newness of life in the revela-
tion of Thy mercy in Jesus Christ, forgive
us our unchristian selfishness and sloth, our
carefulness and anxiety for many things
that are pleasing to ourselves, our negli-
gence in regard to much that is necessary
for others ; forgive us our doubts and fears
and unbeliefs regarding Thee, our coldness
and indifference in regard to our brethren.

84

XI.] ipubltc Morsbtp.

Save lis from all our guilt and blindness,
from our vanity and worldliness, and keep
us as those that are alive from the dead to
live unto Thee.

Praise waiteth for Thee, 0 God, in Sion;
and unto Thee shall the vow be performed.
Iniquities we confess prevail against us ;
but as for our transgressions, Thou shalt
purge them away. We praise Thee, Lord
and Maker of all, for life and breath and
all things, for those powers and faculties of
mind with which Thou hast endowed us,
and by which Thou hast made us heirs of
the wealth and beauty of the world that
now is and of the grandeur and mystery
of that which is invisible. We thank Thee
for those affections by which we are united
to our kind, and by which we may be drawn
to Thee, for all we love and all that love
us, for the reward of food and raiment

85

ptapetB tor [xi.

which is given for our daily toil, and for
all the return of sweetness and enjoyment
which we receive from any obedience to
Thy will and any effort to know Thee in
Thy works, for day and night, for work
and rest, for youth and age, for life and
death and all the changes of this life, and
for the unchanging goodness which under-
lies them all and orders them all for our
good and the good of all men.

King eternal, immortal, invisible, whose
kingdom ruletli over all, we bless Thee that
Thy kingdom is not force but goodness.
0 give thanks unto the Lord, for He is
good, for His mercy endureth for ever.
Let the people praise Thee, Lord, let all
the people praise Thee. Blessed be the
most high God, our Father! Thy thoughts
are not our thoughts, nor Thy ways our
ways ; Thy mercy is not limited to persons

8G

XI.] ipubltc Morsbip,

and to races, but compreliendeth all that
live and. breathe. Blessed be Thy name;
Thy glory is shown and Thy kingdom
established and advanced, not in destroying
and punishing our guilty and feeble and
blinded race, but in saving and blessing
them, leading men and nations by a way
that they know not to a land of security
and peace. 0 Thou that didst lead Joseph
like a flock. Thou hast been the Guide and
Saviour of all men in all generations, their
sure defence in trouble, their light in dark-
ness, their life in death. 0 that men would
praise the Lord for His goodness, and for
His wonderful works to the children of
men !

God of all grace, who hast revealed Thy
mercy to us and in us, that we might be
redeemed from the service of vanity and
abound in love toward Thee and toward

87

praters tor [xi.

one another, grant us grace to praise Thee,
as with our lips so also with our lives.
Teach us to find in the commonest work
of our daily lives opportunity to serve Thee
and a divine call to be children of the
Highest. Help us, after the example of
the holy and the just One, who fulfilled
all righteousness in a life of poverty,
humiliation and pain, to be Thy children
and servants in the midst of earthly toil
and temptation, in the duties of home, in
all our relations to our kind, in prosperity
and adversity, in life and death. Teach us
after His example to be kind even to the
evil and unthankful ; to lend, hoping for
nothing again ; to do good without hope
of reward. Help us, looking to Him and
following Him, to be temperate in abund-
ance, cheerful in trial, patient and resigned
in tribulation and in the hour of death.

XI.] public Morsbtp.

Thou who art the life, teach us to live;
Thou who hast loved us and redeemed us,
help us by Thy grace to live by love, that
death may not have dominion over us ; but
that the life which we now lead in the
flesh being led by faith in Christ, we may
share His resurrection and come at last
whither He is o-one.

Iprai^ers for [xn.

XII.

Almighty and Everlasting God, whose per-
fections are revealed in heaven and earth
and in the souls of men created by Thee,
and above all in Jesus Christ, we desire, as
those to whom not only Thy power and
greatness but also Thy love and goodness
have been made known, to adore and bless
Thee. Not as we ought, but as we are
able, we lift up our souls to Thee and
bless Thy holy name for what Thou hast
made us, and for what Thou art, for
the love which Thou dost manifest to all
Thy creatures, and for the boundless un-
exhausted grace and mercy which is Thy
nature and glory.

All this vast universe in which Thou hast
given us a dwelling-place is the witness of
Thy power and greatness ; day unto day

90

xii.] public MotBbtp*

uttereth speech, night unto night showeth
knowledge of Thee. All Thy works praise
Thee, and we desire that, as they in their un-
conscious beauty and grandeur declare Thy
glory, so our hearts and our lips may speak
of Thy goodness and tell of Thy wondrous
works. Thou art in heaven, and art every-
where present in the earth ; and the world,
because it is full of Thee, is full of beauty
and glory ; dwell also in our hearts that we
may be like Thee, and manifest something
of Thy beauty, of Thy holiness and goodness.
Our souls would magnify the Lord, and our
spirits would rejoice in God our Saviour.

Gracious and merciful Lord God, we
thank Thee that while the knowledge of
Thy perfections convinces us of sin, we are
encouraged by that knowledge to confess
our sin, and are assured by it that if we
confess our sin, Thou art faithful and just to

91

Iptai^ers for [xn.

forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. Tliou hast placed our sin,
even our secret sin, in the light of Thy
countenance. Thou hast brought to light
in Jesus Christ at once all Thy goodness
and all our evil, all Thy perfection and all
our infirmity and unworthiness. By the
revelation of Thy love toward us Thou hast
manifested our selfishness, by the manifes-
tation of Thy perfect goodness Thou hast
revealed our vanity and sin. Even as we
learn to know Thee more truly in Thy
works and in Thy Word, and are more
assured of what is most certain in our
knowledge of Thee ; even as the fear of the
Lord is increased in the earth, and supersti-
tion and misbelief are displaced by light
and knowledge, so do we learn to feel how
poor and miserable are our best endeavours
to serve Thee, and how great is the sum of

XII. ] public Morsbip*

our unprofitableness and our evil. Lord,
we believe; help our unbelief. Eeveal to us,
we beseech Thee, more clearly and fully
Thy perfect truth and Thy glorious right-
eousness, that we may not be misled by
false and worldly views of justice or right,
but that we may truly know and entirely
love that which is good and true, and shrink
from all that is base and evil. Thus be
pleased to convince us of sin ; thus enable
us to repent of that evil which we still love,
and of that vanity to which we still cling.
We acknowledge that even now our own
hearts condemn us. We have known what
is good and what the Lord hath required
of us, but sometimes in weakness, often in
wilfulness, we have spoken that which was
insincere and untrue, done that which was
unjust and unkind, denied Thy grace striving
with us, yielded to the tempter tempting

Iprai^ers tot [xn.

us to evil. We confess, Lord, before Thee
those many sms of which, in the course of
our lives, our consciences have accused
us, but which are now forgotten by us.
We remember those great sins which, be-
cause they were great and heinous, we
cannot forget. We know that whether we
remember or forget them their wages is
death till we repent of them and turn
from them. Save us, 0 Lord, from these
and from all our sins. Deliver us from
evil, and from the vanity of a life empty of
Thy grace. Hide Thy face from our
trespasses and remember not our trans-
cessions.

XIII.] public Morsblp.

XIII.

0 Thou who art the God and Father of
all men, we bless Thee for Thy goodness
to all, for the providence which watches
over all nations, and the love to which
every individual of our race is dear and
precious. We thank Thee for the steadfast
order and the unfailing beauty of nature,
for the earth bringing forth abundantly its
yearly harvest, and the sea yielding its
treasures to the dwellers on its shores,
and affording a highway to nations, and for
the heavens above us filling our souls with
awe and wonder. As in the reviving life of
spring, so also in the fulness of autumn
we desire to trace Thy hand and to
acknowledge Thy goodness. We thank
Thee for the bread of life which cometh
down from heaven whereof if a man eat

95

praters tor [xm.

he shall never die, for that eternal harvest
of grace and truth which has been given
to us in the fulness of time in Jesus
Christ. We bless Thee for all who have
laboured and striven to gather souls into
Thy garner, and to cultivate in them the
fruits of the spirit, which are love and
peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. We
bless Thee for the increase which has been
given to their labours. We bless Thee
that by the labours of the apostles and
martyrs and missionaries and preachers and
teachers who lived and died in faith, we in
our time and in our country, and millions
more of the human race along with us,
are enriched with the fulness of God,
filled with hope towards Thee and confi-
dence in Thy purpose of mercy towards
all mankind. We thank Thee for Thy
goodness to them in giving them nobleness

96

'^^"•] public Morsbtp.

to labour for Thee, and for Thy goodness
to us in making us heirs of the good for
which thej laboured.

0 Thou who art about us to bless us,
and who orderest all our steps, we thank
Thee for this life, and all its blessings
and trials and temptations. We thank
Thee for the peace and comfort which
it gives us in every condition and in every
place to feel that Thou art near us, and
that Thou art good, and that even our
evil cannot change Thy purpose of grace
and mercy toward us. We bless Thee for
all the sweetness which is infused into the
bitterest hours of our life by the sympathy
of our kind, and for the cheerfulness which
is lent to the hour of death, by the know-
ledge that Thou art for ever and Thy years
and Thy grace shall not fail. For Thy
Son, Jesus Christ, we bless Thee, in whom

praters tor [xm.

Thou hast made Thy goodness known to
us, and by whom Thou art imparting Thy
goodness to men ; by whom a new heaven
has been revealed to us, and through
whom all things are being made new on
earth. We thank Thee for all that His
life has done to make our life better and
happier, and for the life to come of glory
and honour which He has brought to light.
0 Thou whose mercies cannot be num-
bered, whose perfections cannot be uttered,
grant that we may be enabled by Thy
grace so to use all Thy mercies that we
may be changed more and more into Thy
likeness, and that our imperfection may
put on tlie image of Thy glory. Help us to
know and to believe with open heart and
mind what is revealed of Thyself in Thy
works and in Thy word, and to distinguish
between the letter which killeth and the

XIII.

public TKIlorsblp,

Spirit which maketh alive, between the
commandments and traditions of men and
Thy ever-enduring law, and give us faith
and patience to do according to what we
know. May we account our days oppor-
tunities to serve Thee and know Thee.
May we who know that Thou art good
account it our meat and drink to do Thy
will. Help us, as good soldiers of Jesus
Christ, to be steadfast in striving for what
is right, and in searching for the truth,
and in doing what is good and kind.
Strengthen us by Thy might to live not
unto ourselves but unto Thee, and to walk
as pilgrims and strangers, looking for a
city whose builder and maker is God.

0 Thou without whom nothing is good
or profitable, be pleased to shed abroad Thy
love in our hearts, and teach us Thy fear,
and to Thee the Father be glory for ever.

prapers tor [xiv.

XIV.

0 God, wlio hath commended to our
hearts as Thnie the words which were
spoken by Christ, that except we become
as Httle children we cannot enter into the
kingdom of heaven ; give us a meek and
childlike spirit that we may seek to know
Thy truth, and strive to do Thy will, and
may enter into Thy rest. May it please
Thee of Thy great mercy, ministering grace
to us in the time of our temptation and
our failing purpose, to enable us to strive
against the spirit of pride and envy and
selfishness which is in us and in the world,
and to overcome what is evil in ourselves
and in the world by faith in Thee, who art
good, and doest good always.

Father of Light, the entrance of whose
Word giveth light, grant that as children

100

XIV.] public Morsbtp*

of the light and of the day we may come
unto Thee that our deeds may be made
known. May we come unto the light that
our evil deeds, our deeds and thoughts of
vanity and sin may be made known, that
we may see them as Thou seest them, and
know the evil of them as it is known to
Thee. May we come unto the light that all
our deeds may be made known, that we may
feel that none of them are insignificant or
fruitless as regards good and evil, but that
all of them are evil or good, and serve to
advance Thy kingdom in our hearts and in
the world, or to hinder its coming. May
we come unto the light that the deeds
which in our conscience Thou hast com-
manded us to do may be made known,
that we may feel that they are not com-
manded because Thou art the master of
all men, but because Thou art every man's

101

praters tot [xiv.

friend, not because they are burdensome to
flesh and blood, but because to the spirit
they are life and peace. In Thy light
may we see light. May the light which
lighteneth every man that cometh into the
world so increase and rule in our souls
that we may love truth for its own sake,
and strive after righteousness as salvation
and eternal life ; and that we may shun
all the works of darkness, all falsehood
and hypocrisy and unrighteousness, not as
forbidden only but as hateful, not alone as
condemned, but as condemnation and misery
and death. The wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus
Christ our Lord. 0 Thou who hast given
us in Christ a Saviour, who is the Life and
the Light of men, grant that we his dis-
ciples and followers may be children of
the light and of tlie day, seeing, as in the

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xiv] public Morsbip,

day that Thou orderest the world in right-
eousness, and givest peace to men only along
with grace to do Thy will ; assured by the
shining of the Sun of Eighteousness within
us that godliness with contentment is great
gain, that Thy yoke is easy and Thy bur-
den light, that Thy commandments are true
and righteous altogether, more to be desired
than gold, yea, than much fine gold.

Drive away by the light of the gospel
the darkness which lingers in our minds,
the unbelief and selfishness and supersti-
tion which find refuge in their darkness.
0 Thou who hast established a kingdom
upon earth which cannot be moved, and
hast by Jesus Christ revealed it to us, grant
that what was hid from ages and from gene-
rations of its greatness and its glory and its
constant progress, may be manifest to us.
Enable us by Thy grace to l^ehold Tliy

. 103

IPra^ers tor [xiv.

kingdom extending itself in the world by
means of all events and by all experience
of Thy creatures; and help us to strive and
labour that it may come everywhere, and
be finally perfect in the salvation of all
our race. There be many that say, Who
will show us any good ? Lord, lift Thou
upon all mankind the light of Thy coun-
tenance. Satisfy us early with Thy mercy.
Show us Thy salvation. When we are
troubled and perplexed by the evil in our
own hearts, from which we cannot be
wholly delivered in this life, when we are
in despair of the world at the sight of the
abounding misery and sin and death for
which there is no redress or cure, be Thou
our hope, be Thy kingdom our confidence.
Show us Thy salvation still hasting to its
accomplishment, show us Thy light slowly
dispersing the darkness, thy grace still over-

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XIV.] public Morsbtp.

coming iniquity and strife and wrong, Thy
good, which is good indeed, still brought
out of our evil. Lord, we believe ; help our
unbelief. We believe in Thy mercy and
grace towards some men ; help us to be-
lieve in Thy goodness and loving-kindness
towards all men. We believe that Thy
will concerning some men is that they
should be saved ; help us to believe that
Thy will and purpose concerning all men
is that they should not die, but live. Grant
this for Jesus' sake.

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praters for [xv.

XV.

Almighty God, who art the Saviour of all
men, especially of all that believe, who in
evil times of the Church of Christ didst
minister comfort to the souls of suffering
believers in the hope that He who came
once in great humility should come again
to reign and govern among men — we bless
Thee for the consolation which is given to
us under the adversities of our lot and
under tlie present miseries of the world by
the progress of his rule and influence. We
thank Thee for all we see of Thy purpose,
not by might but by the secret operation of
Thy Spirit, to put all things under His feet,
and through Him who came from the God
of Peace to reconcile all things on earth to
Thee. While still we see in part and pro-
phesy in part of the coming of Thy king-

XV.] ipubltc Morsblp.

(lorn, may we, in the light of the gospel of
glad tidings which are for all mankind, look
forward to a time and believe in it and long
for it, when the evil of the world that now
is being consumed as if by fire, good shall
be where e\dl was ; when to better minds
and purer hearts all old things shall have
passed away and all things shall be made
new ; when righteousness and truth and
peace and innocent delight shall abound,
as now iniquity and inhumanity and relig-
ion which is a cloak of covetousness ; when
all men shall confess that the Crucified One
is anointed and glorified to the glory of God
the Father. Merciful Father, whose will is
our salvation, hasten the coming of that
time by our lives who now live, and by our
work and suffering who now labour and
endure. This grant for Jesus' sake.

Enlighten us by Thy light, our Father,

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prai^ers tor [xv.

in all that concerns the truth of Thy nature
and Thy will. Drive away by Thy light
not only the darkness which is in us by
nature, but that darkness which is spread
abroad from man to man, and that light
which was light to other ages and has be-
come darkness. If the light that is in us
be darkness, how great is that darkness.
May we fear to attribute to Thee, Eternal
Mercy and Righteousness, anything of our
own selfishness or waywardness or evil or
disregard of perfect truth and justice ; and
may we humbly seek to know Thee as
Thou hast revealed Thyself in Him who
has revealed Thee as our Father. May we,
laying aside what we have vainly learned
or imagined of Thy nature, learn to worship
thee in spirit and in truth as Eternal Truth
and Goodness. With all saints, with all
whose experience has been of other than

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XV] ipubltc Morsbip.

earthly good, who have tasted and seen
that Thou art good, who have discovered
that Thy judgments are blessings, may we
attain to the assurance that Thy love pas-
seth knowledge and is great beyond our
belief or hope, that it is not limited by
man's thoughts of it, but is more and
greater than can be measured. Thy mercy
is in the heavens. Thy faithfulness reacheth
unto the clouds, Thy righteousness is like
the great mountains, Thy judgments are
a great deep. 0 Lord, Thou preservest man
and beast. How precious is Thy loving-
kindness, 0 Lord, therefore the sons of
men put their trust under the shadow of
Thy wings. They shall be abundantly sat-
isfied with the goodness of Thy house, and
Thou shalt make them to drink of the rivers
of Thy pleasures. For with Thee is the foun-
tain of life ; in Thy light shall we see light.

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praters tor [xvi.

XVI.

Almighty and Eternal, hidden from all eyes,
but near to all human hearts in all their
necessities and all their hopes and fears,
this day, when the bustle of our ordinary
life is hushed, may we draw near to Thee
and find that our true life is in Thee.
Because so much of our life is lived in that
wliich is outward and changeable, our
thoughts of Thee are often and too much
as if Thou wert a God afar off, unknown
and unfelt, as Thou art unseen and un-
sought. But in all that Thou hast made
us to be and know and feel, in all our
experience of life, Thy thought is revealed
to our thought, and in the revelation of
Tliyself we desire to feel that Thou who
art a Spirit art ever present to our spirit.
May we know Thee as the Source and

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XVI.] public Morsbtp.

Fountain of all our love and hope and

gladness, and of all that varied enjoyment

which makes us cling to life, and of that

trust and confidence in the working of One

who is invisible for the good of all, by

which we are strengthened and supported

to bear its ills. Whatever any of our race

have thought and felt and known, so that

they have been conscious of a life within

them, not limited by sense and time, but

going beyond and above the bounds of time

and sense, has been from Thee, and is

to them and us a most sure word of

testimony concerning Thee. Thou hast

never left Thyself without a witness among

men ; and this testimony, which Thou dost

give of Thy existence and nature and will

in the thought and feeling of mankind, is

that witness, which is greatest and best and

surest of all. In this, we desire to feel
111

IPrapers tor [xvi.

Thou art ever nigh to us, and we to Thee ;
present, indeed a very present help in
trouble, when our hearts cry aloud for
Thee; but present also and equally in that
joy in Thy works, and in that delight in
Thy gifts in which too often we are for-
getful to name Thy name, and to utter
Thy praise.

The heavens declare Thy glory, the firma-
ment showeth Thy handiwork, day unto
day uttereth speech of Thee. Still more, in
the constant working of the heart and
thought of man, working to one end — to
reveal in all that is without us and in our
lives and in our hearts an order which is
eternal and which is good, more lasting
than the hills, more unsearchable than the
foundations of the deep — in all this, more
than in all else. Thou art a present God and
not one afar off'. What men in past times

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XVI .] public Morsblp,

and belonging to other races than ours have
thus learned of Thee, we desire to accept
and value as from Thee. May no wilful-
ness or prejudice or carelessness or supersti-
tion hinder us from welcoming or enjoying
these Thy most precious gifts given at sun-
dry times and in diverse manners and
among all peoples. May we have under-
standing and wisdom to value and to
use that which is thus given us from day
to day as a revelation of Thy thought
to our thought in our own experience
of life and of the world. Thus having
fellowship and communion with Thee, the
Father of all, not less truly and directly
than any of Thy gifted children, who have
spoken in Thy name and testified of Thy
might and glory and grace, may we be free
to enjoy all that is good in our earthly lot
without fear or distrust or taint of super-

H 113

praters tor [xvi.

stitious scruples, and when our desires and
passions conflict with reason and conscience
may we thus learn to bow to a judgment in
ourselves which is truly Thine.

Lord of Light and of all that the light
reveals, Lord of all men and of all hearts
and lives, as children of Thine, not ignor-
ant of Thee, though not perceiving Thee
by sight or hearing, may we, as our days
pass swiftly away, grudge the light of
every day in which we are not more con-
scious than before of all the beauty and
glory of Thy works in the heavens above us
and in the earth beneath us. Still more
may we grudge the loss of every day in
which we are not more alive than before to
the fact that in our hearts, in all the
experience and thought and feeling of us
and of all mankind, the Father of all is
present to all, a light to lighten our dark-

XVI.] public Morsbip.

ness, a shepherd to lead us and feed us in
green pastures and by living streams.

O Thou who dwellest not in temples
made with hands, but art nigh unto all that
call upon Thee, and dost find Thy chosen
dwelling-place in pure and lowly hearts,
grant that our communion with Thee the

o

Father may be through Thy Son Jesus
Christ, and through the experience of Thy
grace to all the children of God. Though
Thy presence in the world and in the
experience of all Thy rational creatures is
without variableness, and that which it has
been, it is and shall be, yet we in our blind-
ness and dulness of spirit need to seek for
it. In the ordinary changefulness of all
that is without us Thy presence is veiled
from sight, and still more is it withdrawn
from us in the unordered experience of our
lives and in the movements of the spirit

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praters tot [xvi.

within us. Wliere we are ignorant of Thy
works and of Thy ways. Thy presence is
hidden from us as in darkness; and it is
hidden from us as in light, in what we
know of the things that Thou hast made — in
all our knowledge, science, and wisdom. It
is high, Most Mighty ! we cannot attain unto
it. Thou who art in all and through all,
by whom all things were and are — the light
as well as the darkness, the mystery and
sorrow of our lives as well as all their
satisfaction and enjoyment — Thou who art
the cause of all causes and source of all life
and being, art beyond our thoughts of Thee,
even the highest of them, as far as heaven
is above the earth; and it is at the best
only the shadow of Thy presence of which
we can be conscious, when we look to that
marvellous order which is without us, and
when we think of the unresting world of

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XVI.] public Morsbip,

thought and feeling within us. Canst thou
find out the depths of God, canst thou find
out the end of the Almighty ? It is as high
as heaven, what canst thou do ? deeper than
hell, what canst thou know ? The measure
thereof is longer than the earth, and broader
than the sea. In the light of Thy coun-
tenance we live, while we live, and in that
light all Thy works stand fast and rejoice
together; but Thou art a God that hidest
Thyself, so that none may see and live.

Therefore we bless and praise Thee, this
day and all our days, that our communion is
with Thee the Father through Jesus Christ
Thy Son, and through all the favoured ones
of our race in whose spirit, as in His, Thy
Spirit has had a dwelling-place. By Thy
Spirit working in Him and in them the life
that is divine and eternal, they have been
chosen and separated from their kind to

117

Iptapers tor [xvi.

receive blessing and honour and praise from
us, who are still too much of the earth
earthly, and are enslaved in the lower life
of sense against which they struggled and
over which they were victorious. To Him
and to them, we bless and praise Thee, it
was given to see in our life, more than in
the heavens above or in the earth beneath.
Thy presence may be seen and felt turning
all that seems poorest and meanest in the
conditions of the most despised existence
into greatness and beauty and glory. We
desire that their thoughts of Thee and of
the world and of the life of man may be
our thoughts, that their aims and purposes
and endeavours may be ours ; that we may
have communion and fellowship with them
in the desire to live not unto ourselves but
unto Thee, and so to escape from the bond-
age of sense and live for ever in the larger

118

XVI.] public Morsbip-

life of the spiritual and divine. Thus, 0 our
Father, we bless Thee that it is possible for
us to have communion with Thee through
fellowship with them. Evermore give us
of the bread of this fellowship and com-
munion that in it we, who see Thee not,
and are troubled often because Thy presence
is veiled from us, may have experience of
peace in the thought of Thee, which the
world cannot give and cannot take away.

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praters for [xvn.

XVII.

We will say of the Lord, He is our God, our
refuge in Him will we trust. 0 Thou eter-
nal, who to our minds dwellest as if in
heaven rather than upon earth, because evil
is in the world by sin, but who art present
everywhere, as in heaven so also upon earth,
to be a help in trouble and light in dark-
ness to the children of men, may we feel
Thy presence with us now and here in
thoughts of Thee which are free from doubt
and full of peace and gladness. As we rest
from work this day may we live the life of
thought and feeling where it is best and
purest in Thy presence, conscious of Thy
being and Thy love.

0 Thou most High, it is a good thing
to give thanks unto Thy name, to show
forth Thy praise in psalms and hymns and

120

XVII.] public Morsbtp.

spiritual songs. Yet would we not forget
that still more acceptable is it with Thee,
what time we know anything of the deep
shadow and mystery in which our life is
wrapped, to commune with our own hearts
and listen to Thy voice speaking in them and
telling us to be still and know that Thou art
God. We, as we may and ought, laud and
praise Thy name for all that has made life
gladsome to us, and to all we love, and
to the whole race of man, of which the
smallest part is that which has not tasted
and seen that Thou art good. But for tri-
bulations also would we bless Thee, 0 God.
That which is often beyond our strength.
Thou knowest. Father of mercies, God of
all grace and consolation — is to be thank-
ful to Thee and to praise Thy name for the
things which are to us and to our kind not
joyous but grievous, to feel no doubt of Thy

IPra^ers tor [xvn.

goodness, no suspicion of Thy loving-kind-
ness. We bless Thee that our hearts, wit-
nessing for Thee and of Thee, assure us that
this which is often so much beyond our
strength is not what Thou dost require from
us or expect from us ; but that it is, that in
all the troubles and sorrows of this life, as
in all its hours of gladness and of mirth,
our thoughts should be of Thee as one who
like as a father pitieth His children, pitieth
them that fear Thee, who is most mercifully
as well as most justly to the pure pure, and
to the froward froward. 0 Thou who art
the beginning and the end of all things,
life of all that lives, source of all true and
blessed life for man, that which is known to
Thee altogether of the issues of our life in
its sadness and in its gladness, is but little
intelligible to us. Here when above all we
wish to see Thee, we see Thee not, and have

122

XVII.] ipubllc Morsbtp*

to walk by faith, our faith being often made
weak by the darkness which is all around
us. May it be enough for us to feel here
in this darkness of our lives that there is
hope and comfort for us in that which all
our earthly adversity and sorrow is able to
do for mankind, in turning their thoughts to
One over all, with whom evil cannot dwell, of
whose government there shall be no end but
universal order and peace and blessedness.

That these thoughts and feelings may
be deepened in us and strengthened, we
rest this day from work, and we come
together to worship Thee and to praise
Thy name. May the desire of our hearts
be granted to us, so that we may feel that,
even for the sad and weary and sorrowful
of mankind, in Thy presence there is fulness
of joy, at Thy right hand there are pleasures
for evermore.

123

Iprapers tor [xvin.

XVIII.

0 Thou who art the hearer and the an-
swerer of prayer, to whom all flesh come in
all their longings after things spiritual and
divine, who art no respecter of persons in
regard to any of Thy best gifts, but .who
givest unto all men liberally and upbraidest
not, may it please Thee to give us with all Thy
gifts and benefits a heart right with Thee to
discern and to feel the value of Thy bene-
fits and gifts. While we desire and hope
and seek for blessings and enjoyments for
ourselves and others, which are given but to
the few, or which Thy providence or our
weakness has placed beyond our reach, we
are tempted to neglect and to undervalue
sources of enjoyment and of blessedness
which lie near to us and are open to us.
We beseech Thee, Father of mercies, to save

XVIII.] public Morsbip*

us from this blindness and folly. We desire
so to be informed by Thy light and guided
by Thy grace that we may not in invoking
from Thee rare and v^onderful mercies judge
ourselves to be unworthy because unmind-
ful of blessings and benefits Thou hast
freely bestowed upon us. In asking from
Thee, and looking to Thee for gifts of grace
and piety, and with them experience of
gladness and of peace, may we not be for-
getful to avail ourselves from day to day of
the opportunity to gladden our lives and in-
crease their store of enjoyment, by min-
istering of our abundance to the need
of others. May we not in looking and
hoping for the blessedness of the just
made perfect through their faith, forget to
learn something by trial and experience of
the blessedness of being kind, like Thee, to
the just and to the unjust. It is good and

125

ptapers tor [xvm.

profitable for us, God of our fathers, to take
pleasure in and to learn wisdom from the
study of Thy dealings with men of old, whose
fathers, as they believed, walked closely with
Thee and heard Thy voice ; yet may we not
so value this study, or engross ourselves in
it, or superstitiously judge it, as to take no
thought or pleasure in the present experi-
ence of our nation and other nations, to
whom Thou art, as to Israel, God and Father
and Shepherd and Guide. What time has
brought to us, especially in the words of
prophets and saints, of promises of good for
all our race — great and precious promises
going beyond this life into another and
larger and better — we cannot fondly enough
cherish or thankfully enough accept and
welcome. Yet, 0 Lord, be pleased to grant
that we may not fail, in dreaming of the ful-
filment of those promises and of a distant

XVIII.] ipubltc Morsbtp*

heaven foreshadowed in them, to see and feel
how much of heaven Thou hast given here
and now to the seeing eye and to the un-
derstanding and loving heart — in the study
of nature and of the life of man — in a mind
cultivated to the enjoyment of art and litera-
ture— in homes in which gentleness and
refinement reflect divine order and cause
heavenly peace to dwell — in the observation
of the coming of Thy kingdom in the pro-
gress of men and nations. We desire that
Thou wouldst not suffer us in our blindness
to neglect and disregard these purer and
nearer sources of blessedness which Thy
mercy has provided for us. May we
rather thankfully accept them and use
them for our advantage and to Thy
glory.

Thou hast not, in these times of ours more
than in ancient times, raised up and gifted

127

praters tot [xvni.

men to be teachers of truth and wisdom — to
give sight to the blind in regard to what is
beautiful and good — to be discoverers and
guides in the paths of knowledge and science
— only that we should rebuke them in Thy
name, or that we should by our indifference
or contempt reject Thy gifts to us in them.
May we not desire wealth, or pursue it, or
seek it from Thee, as if it were to be com-
pared with that which Thou hast given to
these men to give to us. Above all, we pray
that, having a grateful sense of how much
Thou hast given us here in sources of
blessedness which are near us and open to
us and that are pure and lasting, we may
desire to open them to the many to whom
they are shut; so that their life, made dull
and wretched by ignorance and superstition
and fanaticism and sensuality, may be ele-
vated and purified and ennobled ; and thus

128

XVIII.] ipublic Morsbip*

in seeking to help Thy kingdom to come
npon earth, may we share Thy blessedness
and know Thy peace.

129

Iprai^ers tot [xix.

XIX.

Father of all, whom to know is life ever-
lasting, we give Thee thanks and praise
that through Jesus Christ Thy name is
known in all the earth. We bless Thee
that there is felt among them that know
Thy name the bond of a spiritual com-
munion and fellowship. That Thou hast
never left Thyself without a witness among
men, that this voice has been heard speak-
ing as from heaven in the hearts of men,
and in the words of the wise and good
and true of all lands and all times, we
praise and bless Thee. But, above all, we
desire to bless Thee that having spoken
unto us by a Son, whose words are to us
a message of reconciliation and of peace,
many have heard and known Thy voice,
and in their hearts and in their lives

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xix] public Morsbip.

have turned to Thee to seek Thee as His
Father and their Father. For as many
as have thus been of that fellowship and
communion in which we this day rejoice
we praise and Ijless Thee. We thank
Thee for all the work which they have
done, and all the suffering which they
have endured to establish Thy kingdom
upon earth, to undo the work done by
the evil and untliinking of our race, and
to redress the evil done and the suffering
caused by them. We bless Thee for what-
ever grace was given to them through
the revelation of Thy mercy to mankind
in Jesus Christ to live lives adorned with
patience and noljleness and self-sacrifice.
And we desire to be of one mind with
them all, that our communion and fellow-
ship may be as theirs was in this earthly
life with Thee, the Father, through Jesus

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praters for [xix.

Christ. As belonging to this communion
in which there is named tlie name of Jesus,
we remember with thankMness the de-
parted who still live with us and for us
in their works and words, our friends who
have gone from us and are with Thee,
and all who now live and are living as
we desire to do not unto themselves but
unto Thee. May grace, mercy, and peace
be upon them all. By whatever name
they are named, may the spirit of Jesus
dwell in them by faith to make them
Thy children and brethren one of another.
May the blindness be removed which, while
it is day, causes any of them to walk as
in the night, considering not the things
that make for peace. May strife and di-
vision which mar this communion give
place in it to goodwill among men and
peace on earth.

XIX.] public Morsbtp*

Deny us not tliat grace which in this
communion and fellowship has been given
to many whose faith we desire to follow,
in whose footsteps we desire to walk.
Malvc us followers of all them who through
faith and patience now inherit the promise.
Whatever men have known and felt of the
satisfaction and peace of being reconciled
to Thee, and of doing Thy will here as it
is done in heaven, we also may feel in
this communion. To the same ministry
we are called, Our Father ! in which they
have served whose names and deeds and
lives we remember with reverence and love.
In our daily work, and while we are beset
by the cares and troubles and temptations
of daily life, we also like them may be
Thine, and know the peace of God which
passeth all understanding. ]\iay we. Our
Father ! through Thy grace ministered to

praters for [xix.

us in these our acts and hours of worship,
and in all the discipline of this earthly
life, be so inspired and guided that this
our high calling in Christ Jesus may not
be in vain for us, but that we too, while
our day is, may work the work which is
given us to do, and receive in doing it
the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ.
Our Father who art reconciling the world
unto Thyself in Jesus Christ, suffer us
not, because of the evil that is in the
world through unrighteousness, to be un-
mindful of his example, or to be unthankful
towards Thee for all that He did and
suffered to bring the world to Thy light and
Thy light to the world. Evermore in this
earthly darkness may the light which is
in Him be to us a light to lighten our
darkness, wdthin us and about us. May
He not have lived in vain or died in vain

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xix] public Morsbip^

for us, but grant that we may live after
His example to the praise of Him who
has called us out of darkness into his
marvellous light. And may the light which
we share, and in which we desire to re-
joice, be spread abroad over all the earth,
that all who are of the night and of dark-
ness, and whose lives are bound in misery
and superstition through error and sin, may
be delivered from the bondage in which
they are held, and rejoice in Thy salvation.

praters tor

[xx.

XX.

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised,
and His greatness is unsearchable. Our
thoughts cannot reach unto Thee, Eternal !
but are bounded by the shadows in which
we dwell, of things that Thou hast made
and that are a part of the mystery of Thy
being and of ours. But with the desires
of our hearts we may come to Thee, and
through them in part know Thee even
as we are known. 0 Thou that hidest
Thyself from the search of those that seek
Thee in the heavens above and in the
earth beneath, but who art nigh unto every
one of us, and art found by those who look
for Thee in a pure and humble heart — may
we have grace and wisdom in this our
worship to commune with our own heart
and be still — not to speak unto Thee as

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XX.] public Morsbtp..

if Thou neededst that we should tell Thee
what is in us, but to listen to Thy voice
speaking to us in the reasonable soul with
which Thou hast endowed us. All our
knowledge that is by Thy favour to us
the children of men continually increased,
deepens only by its increase our conscious-
ness of ignorance concerning Thee, the First
and the Last, the Beginning and the End, by
Whom and for Whom all things were and
are. Thy gift to favoured generations of
service which is their best possession and
tlieir glory, brings us not near to Thee,
magnifies not to our minds the mystery of
Thy being. Only, O Lord, our own hearts
bear witness to us of Thee, and speak to us,
as with Thy voice, of what Thou art. We
know and believe that which they have to
tell us of Thee — that One there is whom
we see not, by whom all that is seen

137

praters tor [xx.

and we ourselves, have a being, and that
all we desire or dream of greatness and
goodness, He is. What we cannot know
they teach us to hold as most certain of
all that we think concerning Thee — that
Thou, who art the Father of all, dost with
fatherly pity and mercy behold and bless
all that Thou hast made. We bless Thee
that this revelation of Thyself is made
within us, that so the darkness without
us should not overwhelm us. For the
certainty with which this revelation of
Thyself in our hearts comes to us we
praise Thee and bless Thee: it is our
comfort in the time of trouble, our safety
in the day of temptation. We bless Thee
that not the evil of the world, nor that of
which we are conscious in ourselves, can
drive away from our hearts the haunting
thought of Thee, as Thou art known and

XX.] public Morsbip.

manifested in the intelligence of Thy rational
creatures better than in the most glorious
of Thy works. May it please Thee to
grant that we may learn by experience of
life, and of what its good and its evil are,
to delight ourselves in Thee more and more,
as Thou art ever present and ever gracious
to thought and feeling that are turned to
Thee. Our heart and our iiesh crieth out
for Thee.

praters tov [xxi.

XXI.

God of all grace, light of all our seeing, giver
of every gift of understanding and know-
ledge, we bless and praise Thee for these
Scriptures of a favoured race in which we
have received from Tliee that wisdom which
is able to make us wise unto salvation.
We desire to render unto Thee thanks and
praise for the fulfilments of the promise in
which the fathers of that race believed —
that in their father and his offspring all
the nations of the earth should be blessed.
As Thou hast given to communities gifts
of men, jjjreat in intellect and sreater still
in heart, to be the founders in them of
higher and better life, so hast Thou given
to the world races to whom the world has
owed salvation from some of its worst evils,
and a marvellous increase of the highest

140

XXI ] public Morsbip.

good. We reniem])er, as we read these
Scriptures, which come to us from one
such race of men, how much we owe to
Thee in that which we owe to them. The
errors and sins and follies of which
they were guilty, and which they have
recorded in these Scriptures for a testi-
mony against themselves, have by Thy
mercy long ago ceased to l)e known by
their effects among children of men.
They suffered for them, as was meet, and
we have not now to fear the shame and
sorrow which they involved. But we are
the inheritors of that good which they
achieved by their virtues, when other races
were sunk in ignorance and sensual dulness,
to which the thought of Thee and of right-
eousness as Thy sceptre was strange and
alien. To that one race, what concerned
the worship and service of the Eternal,

141

Ipra^ets tor [xxi.

whose name is holy, was more than the
glory of war or gain of trade. Age
after age, broken only by human frailty,
the life that was lived by the race of Israel,
Thy chosen, was life eternal and divine.
By that life, thanks and praise be to Thee,
Jehovah, God and Father of Jew and
Gentile ! the life of mankind has been en-
riched for all fj^enerations with thouoht,
experience, knowledge of things spiritual,
in the inheritance of which from one nation
all nations are blessed in one. We thank
Tliee for examples of worth and nobleness
which were the Hower of that marvellous
national existence in God and for God; and
we bless Thee for the incomparable treasures
of song and prophecy, of imperishable truth
concerning Thee and concerning man's life
in Thee which were its final outcome, and
in which it fulfilled its course and destiny.

XXI.] public Morsbtp.

We desire to profit by these Scriptures
which record the virtues and the sins of
one people so that we may, with the wisest
of their wise and good and great, count
righteousness and justice as the most sacred
and most weighty of all interests to all
peoples and all nations, and that we may
honour worth more than wealth or might or
rank. We thank Thee for the treasures of
religious truth and wisdom which have been
preserved to us in tlie recorded thought of
peoples who to Jew and Christian have
been heathen and strangers. Thou hast
never left Thyself without a witness among
men. It is Thy spirit which giveth us
understanding. We bless Thee for truth,
wherever it has been spoken or known or
welcomed as Thy gift to the children of
men. We thank Thee above all for Jesus
Christ, by whom in regard to Thee, and our

143

praters tor [xxi.

life in Thee, our darkness is turned to light.
Be pleased to grant that as children of the
light and of the day we may come unto the
light that our deeds may be made known,
and that what we do we may do to Th}'
glorv.

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XXII. ] public Morsblp.

XXII.

Unto Thee, 0 Lord, we lift up our eyes, and
the desire of our hearts is to be conscious
that where we are Thou art, and that in Thy
presence there is fulness of joy. There be
many that say. Who will show us any good ?
Lift Thou on us the light of Thy countenance.
In our lives, as in all besides of Thy bound-
less dominion, Thou createst darkness and
commandest light to break forth ; the dark-
ness and the light are both alike to Thee.
In our search after happiness and in our
desire to avoid want and suffering, we
have erred and strayed from Thy presence
into darkness ; and now we would return to
Thee to seek the light of Thy face — believing
that Thou hast never said unto any, Seek
ye My face in vain — knowing that Thou
hast never failed to be to souls that loved

K 145

praters tor [xxn.

Thee help and stay and guide and exceeding
great reward. With life Thou hast given
us the desire of life, never to be satisfied, so
that the good which we have enjoyed in it,
and which we now have, seems poor and
vain and empty compared with the better
and greater which lives in our thoughts,
and is not found by us in the world. May
we not be hindered by all the failure of our
lives to find good from striving after some-
thing better and higher. May we not be
hindered by our errors, our griefs, and vexa-
tions in past days, from struggling now
towards happiness and peace. And thus
may we who have wandered from Thee
return to Thee again. Thou Source of all
life and blessedness. Beginning and End of
all lives, open Thou our eyes that we may
behold wondrous things in those things that
are common in our common lives — in all the

146

XXII.] public Motsbtp.

want which we feel, and all the sorrow we
endure, and all the pain we fear — in the rich
man's wealth and the poor man's toil, and
the wise man's knowledge — in the gladness
of youth, in the sweetness of love and friend-
ship in the scorn of life of a few men, and

the dissatisfaction with life of all men. We
are of little faith, 0 Lord Most High! and
that which the wise and good have written
for our learning — that which many pro-
phets and righteous men have testified
to us concerning righteousness and good-
ness as man's true life and Thy will,
comes often to us as a sealed book, and
concerning it we doubt and question and
cannot be satisfied. But in these common
things in common lives. Thou, living God 1
art revealing to us the Invisible and Eternal
Spirit, which no man hath seen or can see;
so that our spirit may have fellowship with

147

praters tor [xxu

Thee, and know that Thou art, and that
Thou art a re warder of them that diligently
seek Thee. May we look into this revela-
tion of Thyself, and inquire diligently into
it. May we be instructed by it how to live.
May we learn from it to redeem the time,
counting the time past of our life sufficient
to have wrought the will of the flesh, and
thinking that now it is high time to awake
out of sleep. Thou who art better and kinder
than any who have loved us and cared for us
upon earth. Thou who hast loved us and cared
for each of thy children by making all the
love and all the life of all our kind to con-
tribute to the good of each — grant of Thy
great mercy that we learn to love Thee by
learning from our lives what Thou art and
what is Thy will concerning us — by taking
heed to that which we are taught in our
hearts by failure and success, by want and

148

XXII.] public Morsbtp.

abundance, by joy and sorrow, by sin and
suffering. Thou who art good, and who
turnest evil to good, hast shown us what is
good in giving us good and the shadow of
evil with it. In this thou hast given to thy
chosen ones opportunities to live a heavenly
life and to enjoy blessedness upon earth ;
as He who was rich, for our sakes became
poor, and yet had all things. May we be
thus followers of all those who, through faith
and patience and enlightenment in things
divine and eternal, have inherited here in
this life the promises of these things. Grant
us this grace, for Jesus' sake.

praters tor [xxm.

XXIIT.

King Eternal, whose glory it is to be
loved of all thy creatures made capable of
knowing Thee; who art great in goodness and
greatly to be praised ; we come to Thee with
confidence as children to a father, believing
that Thou art more willing to give, than
we to ask, the things that are needful for
us. How shall we come before the Lord ?
With what sacrifice shall we bow our-
selves before Him ? We will bring unto
Thee, Most High, as our hearts teach us,
and as tlie best and choicest of Thy
saints and servants have taught us, the
desire that Thou wouldst have compassion
upon us and upon all men — that Thou
wouldst make Thy way known in the earth,
and Thy saving health among all nations.
Hast Thou not said by the mouth of the

150

XXIII.] public Morsbtp,

Holy and Blessed One, in whose name we
are called, Ask and ye shall receive, seek and
ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened
unto you? May we, our Father who art in
heaven, and who dwellest also upon earth!
with wonder and adoration acknowledge
Thee in Thy works, and see and confess that
Thy greatness is unsearchable. Deepen by
all our knowledge the mystery of life and
being for us, that in the shadow of this
mystery the light of Thy glory may shine in
upon us more and more, and that ever as
day and night in our fleeting lives revolve,
and we are brought nearer to the end of our
existence here below, we may more and
more truly and heartily, with all Thy works,
praise Thee. But by what Thou dost re-
veal to our hearts of Thy goodness we are
taught that what the Lord doth require of
us as worship and sacrifice and praise and

151

Iprapers tor [xxm.

blessing is, above all, that we should trust
in Him as good, and without wrath and
doubting lift up our empty hands to Him
that they may be filled.

We call to mind what we have known
and felt and heard of the sorrow and
suffering and weariness and want of man-
kind. Thy kingdom come, as in heaven,
so also upon earth. We pray for the sick
that they may be healed through suffer-
ing; for the sorrowful that they may be
purified through sorrow; for the wretched
and miserable and outcast, that their wrongs
may be righted and their misery relieved ;
for all who are wounded in their affections
and broken in their hearts, that as their day
is so may their strength be ; for all who are
in this earthly darkness bewildered by the
shows of things and led astray into folly
and vice and sin, that by the mercy of

162

XXIII.] public MorBbtp^

the Highest they may be led into the
way of righteousness and peace. May our
nation and all the nations upon earth learn
the wisdom to be friendly, to love right-
eousness, to prefer industry and peace to
war and bloodshed. Grant to our nation
and to all nations, in kings and princes and
rulers, the rule of the wise and good and
great. Bless our Sovereign the Queen, in
making her a blessing in her wide empire
to many nations and peoples and tongues,
by giving to her Government the glory of
promoting among them enlightenment and
industry and peace.

Our Father, who art in heaven, whose
glory it is to give always more and better
than we can ask or think! in all our weak-
ness in this life minister to us courage and
hope ; in all temptation give us grace to suf-
fer and be strong ; in all sorrow may we be

153

praters for [xxm

patient and hope to the end for the grace of
the Highest yet to be revealed to us and all
men. May we, in all experience of the
vanity of earthly things, have bread to eat
which the world knoweth not of in the as-
surance that the purpose of the Lord from
everlasting to everlasting is our salvation
from sin and sorrow. Grant us this grace,
for Jesus' sake.

XXIV.] public Mot6btp»

XXIV.

BUEIAL OF THE DEAD.

The Lord is merciful and gracious.

0 Thou who art the Beginning and the
End of all lives, in whom the living live
and the dead sleep, grant that we in the
presence of death may feel that our true
life is in Thee. Thou who hast made us
as we are made, to love life and to grieve
and suffer in the presence of death, be
near to us when we call upon Thy name,
feeling in that presence we have no help
save in Thee alone. It is our comfort
and consolation in turning our hearts to
Thee, when they are made heavy by sorrow,
that Thou art greater than our hearts
and knowest all things, that our grief
when it is too great to be uttered, and

Iprapers tov [xxiv.

our need when it is more and deeper than
we know or can express, is what Thou
knowest altogether. If, Lord, it seems to
us when we need Thee most, and Thy help is
most to be desired for our relief, that Thou
art farthest away from us and we are most
left to ourselves; if the burden of life has
thus, through our weakness, to be borne
by us often without that help which it is
Thine to give, do Thou, most merciful, have
compassion upon us, be near to us to keep
us even when we have not strength to call
upon Tliy name.

It is Thy hand, Father Almighty, which
has fashioned the ties that bind us one to
another in love and friendship, and when
these ties are broken by death, that which
we have to suffer is known to Thee and
Thee alone. May we come to Thee as
children unto a father, asking from Thee

156

XXIV.] public Morsbip*

for a childlike confidence to make our re-
quests known unto Thee, remembering that
like as a father pitieth his children, so the
Lord pitieth them that fear Him. We
desire to feel though we cannot know that
Thy will in trouble and affliction, even the
greatest of all, is not to punish us but to
bless us, that alike in all that we are born
to suffer in our affections and in all the
happiness and enjoyment that we derive
from them, the pity and goodness of the
Highest are manifested and expressed.
When we shrink, as w^e do now, from the
painful part of the discipline of this life,
when our grief is heavier than we can bear,
when all that is best and sweetest in the
gift of life is withdrawn from it by Him
who gave it, when our strength is proved
to us to be weakness, in our weakness be
Thy strength perfected, and may we lean

157

praters for [xxiv.

upon it and feel that Thou art a very
present help in trouble. We desire in our
darkest hours to trust Thee, and against
doubts and fears that test us and perplex
us, to cling to the belief that all is for the
best, not meant to crush us or to extinguish
our hopes and desires for those we love and
for ourselves, but to work out for them and
for us good beyond our belief and hope.

When our faith is weak and heart and
Hesh faint and fail, good Lord, have mercy
upon us ; in Thy mercy remember us, in-
clining us to remember Thy mercy ; in Thy
pity visit us, that in the thought of Thy pity
we may be saved from despair of ourselves.
Most merciful Father, seen of no creature
Thou hast made, but near to all that live
and in all that lives, we who see Thee not,
and only dimly reason of Thy existence
and Thy ways, are made subject to doubt

XXIV.] public Morsblp.

and fear in being made subject to death
and the sorrow which is by death. Tliou
knowest how hard it is for lis to assure
ourselves, when those we love better than
life are taken from us, that we are not
forgotten or disowned by Him that made
us, that our loss is not all loss, and our
suffering and anguish not all vain and
fruitless. Our affections cling to that
which is earthly and familiar to us, so
that it is hard for us to think and feel
that our beloved dead, whose faces we
shall no more behold, are still with Tliee,
and that for Thee and in Thy presence and
Thy dominion, death hath no more dominion
over them.

Lord, have mercy upon us, and when our
faith is thus weak and faltering increase
our faith. Where the witness of Thyself
which Thou hast given to men is most

159

praters for [xxiv.

precious and most needful, may we seek
it and find it not only in the experience of
Thy saints and servants in past ages, but
in our own hearts fashioned by Thee, and
in our own lives ordered by Thee. Like
as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord
pitieth them that fear Him. Even as we
are moved by pity for the weak and down-
cast and sorrowful, so our hearts assure us
it must be that He who is the highest of
all must be the best of all, pitiful and
compassionate beyond our belief and hope
to all that lives and breathes. Grant, our
Father, that we may in all trouble that is
darkest and deepest finil in this revelation
of Thyself within us, Thy consolation
ministered to us, and Thy light lightening
our darkness.

Help of all the sorrowful. Comforter of
all that mourn, we remember in Thy pre-

XXIV.] ipublic Morsbtp^

sence those whose share in the sorrow
which we feel this day is heaviest and
sorest. Comfort by the sympathy of
friends, and much more by Thy grace —
comfort and support one whose heart is
made sorrowful with a great sorrow for
the loss of a kind and faithful husband.
We commend to Thy care children too
young to know the calamity that has be-
fallen them, beseeching Thee to be their
Father and Friend and Saviour, and to
raise up for them friends of their youth
and of their later years, who, in remem-
brance of the dead, will be to them guides
and helpers. We remember in Thy pre-
sence all the sorrow of the present moment
and the present occasion. We remem-
ber the sorrow of friends who have lost
one near and dear to them, most worthy
of their love — friends who regret the

praters tor [xxiv.

loss of one esteemed by them and loved
for his manliness, generosity, and truth —
friends and acquaintances who must miss
henceforth from the scenes of busy life one
whose part in them was always honourable
and dutiful. We remember, too, the sorrow
of friends associated with him in public
religious duty and observance. Consecrate
the sorrow for all of us who have part in
it, and grant that even what is darkest and
most mysterious in it, may be not without
profit in showing us and opening for us the
])ath of life. May we in tlie wreck and
ruin, always come or coming, of that which
is seen and temporal, learn not only to bear
what cannot be avoided of grief with pa-
tience, but to set our affections more and more
upon that which is unseen and eternal.
Grant that, seeing how this earthly life of
ours in all that is outward of it, is liable to

162

XXIV.] public Morsbip*

change and dissolution, we may be moved
by Thy grace to live not unto ourselves, or
only with a view to the life that now is,
but unto Thee ; and that Thy kingdom may
come, as in heaven so also upon earth.
Teach us to number our days that we may
thus apply our hearts unto wisdom.

We remember in Thy presence, now and
here, all the children of sorrow — above all,
those whose sorrow like ours this day is
for the dead, concerning whom their souls
refuse to be comforted. In the darkness
and mystery in which their lives are
shrouded by this sorrow, may light arise
for them and shine upon them from the
sympathy of their kind, much more from
what the Spirit which Thou hast given
to man witnesses to itself of One, the Be-
ginning and the End of all things, the First
and the Last, whose tender mercies are

163

prapers for [xxiv.

over all His works, who knoweth our frame,
who remembereth that we are dust.

As in our experience of the world, the
mystery and the darkness belonging to it
are greatest and deepest in the presence of
death, by which useful and upright lives are
cut short and their aspirations and purposes
left unfulfilled — as the yearnings and affec-
tions that go out from us towards such lives
are the strongest and deepest of our nature
— so our hearts above all things refuse to
think that their end is only to be remem-
bered by us as having come to nought.

In this may the children of sorrow find
comfort for themselves, as in a revelation
through human hearts of the pity and
loving-kindness of the Highest.

To one in whose sorrow we are made
sorrowful there has come experience of

164

XXIV.] public Motsbtp.

calamity the greatest and sorest that human
heart can feel.

We who mourn for a friend taken from
us in the vigour of his gifted manhood, and
for a useful and honourable life untimely
ended, remember in Thy presence her
unutterable grief, and to Thy fatherly mercy
and compassion we commend her in her
desolation and misery for protection and for
consolation, of which Thou alone hast that
to bestow which is needful for her.

Though life may not ever be again for her
what it has been, yet may the experience
which has been that of Thy children in all
time, in all earthly tribulation and calamity,
be shared by her also, by submission to Thy
will being found to be the best of this life,
and the assurance and foretaste of another
and a better.

May she be led by her experience of life,

165

Iprapers for [xxiv.

on which the shadow of death has fallen, only
more firmly and truly than ever to believe
and trust that Thou who canst do all things
wilt not suffer anything evil in the experi-
ence of any of Thy creatures to have any
end but to be turned to good.

With this comfort, comfort her heart and
the hearts of those who share with her a be-
reavement so heavy to be borne. With this
comfort, comfort their hearts in Jesus Christ.

May He be to them indeed the Eesurrec-
tion and the Life. From the fleeting and
often painful life of sense may they with
Him rise to newness of life, in the thought
of Thy will concerning them and all man-
kind being that they should be saved from
sin and sorrow.

May the fatherly pity of the Highest,
revealed by Jesus Christ, comfort them and
touch their hearts with a childlike faith and

166

XXIV.] public Morsbtp.

hope, so that as the Perfect One who knew
no sin and much sorrow here upon earth
was comforted of His Father in all tribukr
tion, so they also may be strengthened and
supported to bear calamity with resignation
and with hope.

From the example of a life in the courage
and manliness of which we have rejoiced,
and for the end of which we now sorrow,
may we learn to work while it is called
to-day. We thank Thee and praise Thee
for every useful and noble life which has
been lived upon the earth, and specially for
this one, the end of which is for us, and for
many, an unexpected and irreparable loss.
Teach us to number our days, as in such
lives the days have been numbered by the
best and worthiest of our race, that we may
apply our hearts as they did unto wisdom,
and may help as they have helped to

167

praters for public Morsbip. [xxiv.

advance the coming of Thy Kingdom. Thy
Kingdom come, 0 Lord, as in heaven so
also upon earth, that living in Thee and for
Thee we and all men may be delivered from
the power of sin and death, and know by
all our experience, both of joy and sorrow,
that in Thy favour there is life, that Thy
loving-kindness is better than life. Thou
wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind
is stayed on Thee. In sickness and the
hour of death may we have better than
earthly support on which to lean ; in life and
death may we be Thine and rest our souls on
Thee. Be Thou our Shepherd and w^e shall
not want, our succour and we shall not fail,
our life and we shall not die. No man
liveth unto himself — no man dieth unto
himself Whether we live may we live
unto the Lord — whether we die may we die
unto the Lord. Amen.

168

THE END.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

S e r m 0 n 6 .

With Prefatory Notice and Portrait. Crown Svo. 6s.

" The reader not already acquainted with Dr. Service's writings
will he surprised here to find some very different from what he is
wont to associate with the pulpit discourses of the Church of Scotland.
There is much earnestness and thoughtfulness in Dr. Service's
sermons." — The Academy.

' ' Those who knew Dr. Service will value the book as helping them
to recall something of that nameless charm — the invariable accom-
paniment of true genius — which made his words so winning whether

sjioken from the pulpit or in private talk Such as did not

know him will now, to some extent, be put in the position of being
able to understand why Dr. Service was so loved and is still so
lamented." — Glasgow Herald.

" A reall}' remarkable volume of sermons." — Literary Churchman.

' ' There are many fine features of the Gospel ministry in these
sermons — fearless honesty, profound faith, a large humanity, and an
unconquerable hope for man. There is not a sermon which does not
evince the author's profoimd sympathy with the poor, and his sense
of the wrongs imposed on them by the conditions of modern society.
. . . . The sermons are full of quaintness, humour, and subtle
thought, reminding us frequently of the ' Essays of Elia ' ; but fine
humanity is their prevailing spirit We prize the ser-
mons, and shall often recur to them for impulse and instruction." —
Nonconformist.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LOXDOX.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Sal\?ation 1bere anb Ibeteatter :

Sermons and Essays. By John Service, D.D., late
Minister of Inch. 4th Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s.

"We believe that never, since the literary splendour of the Scottish
Church, in the middle of the last century, has it produced so many
genuine fruits of learning and piety as at the present time. There
are several names that might be cited, but we will confine ourselves
to two volumes, those of Principal Tulloch and Mr. Service, which
have lately appeared, and which in boldness of thought, and depth
of insight into the real wants of the time, have not, we venture to
say, been sm-passed by any corresponding volumes that have appeared
for the last ten years south of the Tweed. To those who think the
Church of Scotland is bound up in a narrow Calvinism, it must be a
surprise to find its chief pastors filled with a spirit which Jeremy
Taylor would have honoured, and Schleiermacher would have wel-
comed, which Coleridge would have envied."— The Times.

" We have enjoyed to-day a rare pleasure, having just closed a
volume of sermons which rings true mettle from title-page to finis,
and proves that a new and very powerful recruit has been added to
that small band of ministers of the Gospel who are not only abreast
of the religious thought of their time, but have faith enough and
courage enough to handle the questions which are the most critical,
and stir men's minds most deeply, with frankness and thorough-
ness."— Spectator.

" Among the vast number of religious piiblications there are a few
only which stand out prominently above the throng, attracting atten-
tion by any freshness of the expressions, originality in the thought,
or by the clear light which they throw on obscure although familiar
questions. Seeing that such volumes are scarce, it is the more need-
ful that notice should be directed to them when they appear. A book
which condenses much sound thinking in small bulk, and is manly
in tone, liberal in sentiment, and full of healthy teaching."— -Scotsman.

"There is no subject treated by Mr. Service in which we do not
recog-nize a fresh and vigorous mind. He is always interesting. The
volume is one which cannot fail to interest itself to all who seek to
preserve amid the controversies and confusions of the time a faith to
which they can cling, and by which they can live pure and manly
lives. If the Church of Scotland can afford to keep such a preacher
in such an obscure country parish, she must be richer in men and
genius than any other denomination of Christians with which we
happen to be acquainted." — Glasgoiv Herald.

" This is one of the few volumes of untheological discourses that is
both readable and well worth reading."— C'/m/.vcA Revieic.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LONDON,

r iniP 01 290 8515

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