For Rain

—Are there any of the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Art not Thou he, O Lord our God? Therefore will we wait upon Thee, for Thou hast made all these things.

Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it: Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God which is full of water. Thou makest it soft with showers; Thou blessest the springs thereof. Thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side.

We have been made to feel the worth of this blessing by the want of it; and it would be easy for Thee to continue the privation, till the heavens over us were brass, and the earth under us iron; and the husbandman be ashamed for the wheat and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished, and because joy is withered away from the sons of men.

But, O deal not with us after our desert. Turn not a fruitful land into barrenness. Command thy rain to descend. Cause thy grass to grow for the cattle, and herbs for the service of man, and bring forth food out of the earth.