Light, Renewal, and Justice for the Nation

ALMIGHTY GOD! it is a joy to us to know the great names the ancients gave Thee. We know them all to be most blessed names. Nothing they said of Thee in their best hours, or deepest thoughts, but we find it true.

They called Thee Fountain of Light. We know Thee to be such. Be such to us this day. We have no light in ourselves. The Light is Thine, the Life is Thine, and the world doth waste that light, and work doth take the life away from us.

We have worked another week. To some of us our labours have been hard. Some have done heavy duties, faithfully and well. Many of us have done what we should not; have laboured not wisely, have fallen into sin. Our work and waste, our sins and straits, have all taken life out of us. O Lord! send us Thy Life. Shine upon us to-day, with the light that knows no darkness. O Lord! we come up empty to Thee, that Thou mayest fill us. All we do doth waste us; every hour runs a sand more to our death. When we would do that which is right, we are weak; when good we would do, evil cometh; our strength is spent in our struggles. As with the men of old, when they healed, virtue went out from them, so is our strength worn away even in Thy service. We have sought our own strength, trusted in our own power, and they have failed us. We are altogether weak; weak in body, weak in soul, weak in will. The body tries, the will is feeble, the soul is faint. We mean well, but fail in the doing. Teach us, O Lord, to love good, to hate evil. At times we are brave, at others cowardly; make us strong in Thy strength. Fountain of Life, we come to Thee. Fill us this day with Thy might, fill the soul with Thy strength; make our wills strong, and making them so,—to be Thine.

Fill our hearts with love this day, with Thine own great Love fill them; make them full of the love of others.

The heart of man, O Lord, is a mighty deep; but Thy great love is infinite. Oh give us the light that knows no darkness; a light to read the law of life, to see the joys of righteousness. Let us ponder on the grand old words—

"In Thy light we shall see light."

Lord, when we go from Thy light, we have but darkness; when we step out of the sunshine of Thy law and countenance, then we see the creeping unclean things, sin, iniquity, death. In Thy bright light we see nought that is foul; but a glorious testimony, a holy communion, a lovely life, a blessed immortality. In Thy light we see not the evil birds of night; but the sweet dove of the Holy Ghost, the olive branch, the palm tree. In that light we see Thy marvellous love, Thy might, Thy mercy, Thy carefulness, even to the sparrow that falls not without Thy heeding.

O Lord! in the olden time, men said Thy tender mercies were round about them as a safe mountain. Be a mountain unto us. Be a screen from the fiery sun, a shelter from the bitter winds, forth from Thee let the sweet streams flow that bring fruitfulness and healing. We are weak and would be strengthened; exposed, and would be sheltered; weary, and seek to drink at Thy streams; weak, and would repose us on Thy love.

O Lord God! we do bless Thee for Thy great gift of the Gospel to all the world, giving Thee thanks that Thou didst break down the middle wall of partition that separated Jew from Gentile, and all from God. If we have raised any middle wall of partition; if where Jews had sacrifices, we have man's doctrines, and have raised the vain divisions of sects and parties, send again some apostle of might and power, to preach unity to the Church; teach us the spirit that was in Christ; and that all who fear that name, and serve Thee in that name, have but one faith, and one Shepherd alone.

O God! hear our prayer for our dear land. Raise up prophets that shall lift up their voices and spare not. Send some true Son of Consolation to us. Make our rulers greater, deliver us from fools, save us from the frivolous. Look on the people, their evil ways, their many sins, their manifold temptations. Take them into better paths, pardon their iniquities, make their means of misdoing less. Bless the poor in these hard days, bless the rich with a bountiful spirit. Breathe into us the true patriotism, the true love of our land. Almighty God! send forth Thy peace, if it be Thy pleasure. Close these troublous wars, and give us peace; but send us only that peace that cometh after justice, the peace that followeth righteousness. Send Thy awful pioneers first, justice and truth; send justice before peace, like John the Baptist before Thy Christ. And then, when right and justice have done their work, and gone their way, send blessed peace, with glorious joy and holy hope. Teach the world that while folly sits in high places, and knavery rules, there can be no hope of a blessed and lasting peace.

Wake the nation up, O Lord, to know the true greatness of peoples; that it is not in wealth and pomp that its grandeur lies; that not the merchandise of Tyre, the riches of Sodom, the might of Gomorrah, the pomp of Rome, the palaces of Greece, the splendour of Assyria, could save them from going down to destruction;—that it is not the multitude of the people, the greatness of their wealth, the extent of their dominions;—but holiness and purity, house life and Church life, holy, divine, and true, that can save the life of a Nation.

O Lord! in weary days let Christ's name be more known. In sad hours hear the prayers of those that desire deliverance from sickness. Receive the thanksgiving of those that bring to Thee the vows and the hopes, the repentance and the desires they made in times of sickness and distress. Let them know strength again as they again go among the living. Make them strong in Thy strength.

O Lord God! forgive our sins, be with us in our temptations, be merciful to us, and make us merciful to one another.

We ask it in Christ's name.—AMEN.