O God my Father, I am Thine; save me, for I have sought Thy commandments.
I am Thine--not merely Thy creature, O God--the very birds, and bees, and
flowers are that; and do their duty far better than I--God forgive me--do
mine.
I am Thine--not merely Thy child--but I am Thy school child. O Lord
Jesus Christ, I claim Thy help as my schoolmaster, as well as my Lord and
Saviour. I am the least of Thy school children; and it may be the most
ignorant and stupid. I do not pretend to be a scholar, a divine, a
philosopher, a saint. I am a very weak, insufficient scholar, sitting on
the lowest form in Thy great school-house, which is the whole world, and
trying to spell out the mere letters of Thy alphabet, in hope that
hereafter I may be able to make out whole words and whole sentences of
Thy commandments, and having learnt them, to do them. If Thou wilt but
teach me Thy statutes, O Lord, then I will try to keep them to the end;
for I long to be on Thy side, and about Thy work. I long to help, be it
ever so little, in making myself better, and my neighbour better. I long
to be useful, and not useless; a fruit-bearing tree, and not a noxious
weed in Thy garden; and therefore I pray that Thou wilt not cut me down
or root me up, nor let foul creatures trample me under foot.
Have mercy upon me, O Lord, in my trouble, for the sake of the truth
which I long to learn, and for the good which I long to do. Poor weak
plant though I may be, I am still a plant of Thy planting, which is
struggling to grow, and flower, and bear fruit to eternal life; and Thou
wilt not despise the work of Thine own hands, O Lord, who died that I
might live? Thou wilt not let me perish! I have stuck unto Thy
testimonies. O Lord, confound me not!
Amen.