Our guard is relieved, the service of the day is over, and the hour come
to rest. We resign into Thy hands our sleeping bodies, our cold hearths
and open doors. Give us to awake with smiles, give us to labour smiling.
As the sun returns in the east, so let our patience be renewed with
dawn; as the sun lightens the world, so let our loving-kindness make
bright this house of our habitations.
*****
Blind us to the offences of our beloved, cleanse them from our memories,
take them out of our mouths for ever. Let all here before Thee carry and
measure with the false balances of love, and be in their own eyes and
in all conjunctures the most guilty. Help us at the same time with the
grace of courage, that we be none of us cast down when we sit lamenting
amid the ruins of our happiness or our integrity; touch us with fire
from the altar, that we may be up and doing to rebuild our city.
*****
We beseech Thee, Lord, to behold us with favour, folk of many families
and nations gathered together in the peace of this roof, weak men and
women subsisting under the covert of Thy patience. Be patient still;
suffer us yet a while longer;--with our broken purposes of good, with our
idle endeavours against evil, suffer us a while longer to endure, and
(if it may be) help us to do better. Bless to us our extraordinary
mercies; if the day come when these must be taken, brace us to play the
man under affliction. Be with our friends, be with ourselves. Go with
each of us to rest; if any awake, temper to them the dark hours of
watching; and when the day returns, return to us, our sun and comforter,
and call us up with morning faces and with morning hearts--eager to
labour--eager to be happy, if happiness shall be our portion--and if the
day be marked for sorrow, strong to endure it.