Delight in Creation and Charity at Home

ALMIGHTY GOD, one who wrote of old said that Thou tookest pleasure in all Thy works, And we are lost in wonder at their amazing beauty, their wondrous order, their awful structure, their marvellous growth, their swift decay, their constant spirit.

Lord God! we wonder not that Thou takest pleasure in Thy works. Marvellous they are, and that our souls know right well. Wondrous are the shining heavens, wondrous the lights the eye of man can behold! When we study the seeming fixed stars and behold these flying worlds that make night marvellous, we wonder not that Thou takest pleasure in Thy works.

Lord God! look upon us in mercy, while we speak in mournfulness of how hard it is for us to take pleasure in our own works—so well begun, so evilly finished. Yet, Lord God, Thou hast given us to feel and to behold things so lovely and of such good report, that we have pleasure therein. We behold the little babe, with its wondrous beauty, its inquiring eyes, through which the soul looks out upon a world all so strange, and we feel pity, and love, and tender awe. Lord God! Thou hast given us to feel charity and mercy; Thou hast lighted within us that awful light of conscience, dim whilst passion prevails, silent whilst sin is a-doing, bright shining in the dark, clear speaking in the hours of bitter repentance. For this stirring voice, and this spiritual light, we give Thee thanks: they pledge us to Thee, and Thee to us: they are Thine.

We are akin to all things beneath us; we shape the life of the things around us; yet have we a strange power of mounting which they know not; for the trees of the forest are as they were, and the stars of heaven know no changing. But Man, Thy child, changes and passes on, and, standing in this wide world, asks strange questions of what Thou hast made; and so we know him to be Thine. O Lord our God! wake in us a deep sense of the highest life of Man. Let us not lose ourselves in the life which we share with all things, but strive to be citizens of Thy holy city. All powers of intellect may we gather, all powers of knowledge may we search for, all powers of genius may we be moved by; but above all things make plain to us the beauty of what is right, the beauty of what is tender and true. May we love what is lovely, and hate the sinfulness of sin; detest all crookedness, and love all straightforwardness of purpose. Forgive those of us whose tempers are crooked, whose selfishness spoils the life of the house. Pity those whose tongues are tipped with scandal, whose hearts are soured by jealousy and envy, which kill love, and make crooked the spirit. Into our hearts and homes bring the spirit of charity and joy in God, and the simple faith, faith in the all-wisdom, all-mercy, all-lovingness of God.

So, like quiet children, may we do our day’s work, and take such pleasure as the setting sun shall give to us, until the time when the vineyard-gate shall close for us, and the morning bell shall call us no more to this world’s toil; then may we lie down to sleep the sweet sleep of the labourer trusting in Thee to grant us the life everlasting.

Of Thy great mercy make clear to all of us Thy truthfulness, that we may love Thee; and cure us of that sad weakness of giving way when the storm comes and the day is dark. Lord! Thou makest shadow because Thou hast caused light. Lighten our darkness, we beseech Thee; let no calamity too much overshadow us; for beyond all these fitful shadows there is the joy of heaven. In this we will be confident, the cloud will pass, sorrow will cease, and all shall be well.

So love us that we may love Thee, so guide us that we may come to Thee, so forgive and comfort us that we may live in Thee, and so live in us that we may never die. Of Thy mercy hear us, through Jesus Christ our Lord.—AMEN.