The collect for to-day is a very beautiful one.  There is something musical in the sound of the very words; so musical, that it is sung as an anthem in many churches.  Let us think a little over it.  ’Grant, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace; that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind, through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.’  That is a noble prayer; and a prayer for each and every one of us, every day.  I say for every day.  It is not like the fifty-first psalm, the prayer of a man who has committed some black and dreadful crime; who fears lest God should take his Holy Spirit from him, and leave him to remorse and horror; who feels that he needs to be utterly changed, and have a new heart created within him.  It is not a prayer of that kind.  It is rather the prayer of a man who is weary with the burden of sinful mortality; who finds it very hard work to do his duty, even tolerably well; who is dissatisfied with himself, and ashamed of himself, not about one great fault, but about many little faults; and who wants to be cleansed from them; who is tempted to be fretful, anxious, out of heart, because things go wrong; and because he feels it partly his own fault that things go wrong; and who, therefore, wants peace, that he may serve God with a quiet mind.  Now then, dear friends, did I not speak truth, when I said, this is a prayer for every one of us, and for every day?  For which of us does his duty as he ought?  I take for granted, we are all trying to do our duty, better or worse:  but I take for granted, too, that the more we try to do our duty, the more dissatisfied with ourselves we are; and the more we find we have sins without number to be cleansed from.  For the more we try to do our duty, the higher notion we get of what our duty is; the more we do, the more we feel we ought to do; and the more we feel that we leave undone a great many things which we ought to do, and do a great many things which we ought not to do, and that there is no health in us:  but a great deal of disease and weakness;—­disease of soul, in the way of conceit, pride, selfishness, temper, obstinacy; weakness, in the way of laziness, fearfulness, and very often of sheer stupidity; we do not see, or rather will not take the trouble to see, what we ought to do, and how to do it.  And therefore, we must be, or rather ought to be, dissatisfied with ourselves; and our consciences accuse us when we lie down at night, of a hundred petty miserable mistakes, which we ought to have avoided.  We are continually knowing what is right, and doing what is wrong, till we get deservedly angry with ourselves; and think at times, that God must be deservedly angry with us; that we are such poor paltry creatures that he can only look on us with dislike and contempt:  and even worse; that, perhaps, he does not care to see us mend; that our struggles to do right are of no value in his eyes:  but that he has sternly left us to ourselves, to struggle through life, right or wrong, as best we may; and to be punished at last, for all that we have done amiss.