We Thank Thee
For mother-love and father-care,
For brothers strong and sisters fair,
For love at home and here each day,
For guidance lest we go astray,
Father in Heaven, we thank Thee.
For this new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food, for love and friends,
For everything His goodness sends,
Father in Heaven, we thank Thee.
For flowers that bloom about our feet,
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet,
For song of bird and hum of bee,
For all things fair we hear or see,
Father in Heaven, we thank Thee.
For blue of stream and blue of sky,
For pleasant shade of branches high,
For fragrant air and cooling breeze,
For beauty of the blooming trees,
Father in Heaven, we thank Thee.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson.
I Am An American
(At the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument)
When honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered round it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is connected, there shall rise from every youthful breast the ejaculation, “Thank God, I—I also—am an American!”
—Daniel Webster.
Reverence
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
Forgive our feverish ways.
Reclothe us in our rightful mind;
In purer lives Thy service find,
In deeper reverence, praise.
—John G. Whittier.
Alternate Reading: Acts 22:1-29.