Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 281, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1915 — GIVE GOD THANKS [ARTICLE]

GIVE GOD THANKS

Especially at This Time His Children Should Not Fail to , Show Gratitude. "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Psalm 103:1-2. The Feast of Tabernacles, which was the Jewish thanksgiving festival by divine appointment, may suggest to us in large part the spirit and manner in which our national Thanksgiving day can be must fittingly observed. The people were directed to turn aside from their accustomed secular pursuits and devote the time being to celebrating the goodness of God in grateful and joyful recognition of all that he had done for them. It was a religious feast, but had its social features, which were also of beneficial effect. It was intended to specially impress upon the minds of the Israelites a proper sense of God’s gracious dealings with them, and to call forth their gratitude in consequence. He had kindly cared for them, had brought them into the pleasant and fertile land. He had promised them, and had given them bountiful harvests; and it was a good thing for them to have an annual thanksgiving feast during which to recall his blessings to them and praise his great goodness. They would thus be moved to ascribe to him the many benefit® they enjoyed and to express their feeling of obligation and gratitude to him.

Ingratitude is a great sin and a very common one. There is too much of a disposition to forget that all our blessings come from God. There is also an inclination to dwell upon the seeming evils and disadvantages of life. It is eminently fitting, therefore, that we should pause at times in the midst of our worldly cares and occupations, and review the mercies of God toward us and see how much reason and occasion we have for gratitude to him. Thank Him for Gifts. Thank God for your being and for all the mercies with which he has crowned your lives. Thank him for your homes and their comforts, for health and friends, for sustaining grace under trouble and deliverance from evil, for the privileges and blessings of his Gospel and his church, for this highly favored land in whose pleasant places your lines are cast, for abundant harvests and the large measure of prosperity that has attended us as a people. Thank him, too, for the trials and sufferings that have come upon you, and which under his directing hand have Issued in some fonp of good. “Men are prone to thank God for those prosperities of vine and mead and shop and ship which made life easy and comfortable; but they are rarely grateful for those happenings which make life difficult and great ... A man is specially and divinely fortunate, not when his conditions are easy, but when they evoke the very best that is in him; when they provoke him to nobleness, and sting him into strength; when they clear his vision, kindle his enthusiasm, and inspire his win” _ .

Another purpose that the Thanksgiving Feast of Tabernacles subserved was that it taught the supreme Importance of spiritual realities. It directed attention to that which is higher and better than that which pertains exclusively to the woHdly life. The people were to turn their thought for a while specially to God and his goodness and his worship. They w.ere to remember that true life is found in the way of righteousness, in useful service for the glory of God and the good of man. Our thanksgiving must have its true counterpart in thanks living. We must give the chief place to spiritual and eternal things. This will make life what It is designed to be. Home the Foundation of AIL The Feast of Tabernacles afforded an opportunity for the reunion of families and friends and for social intercourse. In keeping with this is the character of pur Thanksgiving day. It is a time for the social gathering together, In the old homestead or elsewhere, of the various members of the famfly, old and young. The home Is a divine Institution. It is at the foundation of good government and national prosperity. Religion makes the home what it ought to be. In proportion as Christian precept is heeded, the home becomes a place of hallowed affection and sweet and holy and elevating Influence. “Moral decay In the family is the inevitable prelude to public corruption.” The safety and welfare of the nation depend upon the purity and sanctity of the domestic ties. This is the practical significance of our national Thanksgiving festival, and If we lay to heart the great truths and lessons for which it stands, they will help to qualify us for the faithful discharge of our duty to God and to our country, to our neighbor and ourself.—Rev. John Brubaker, P- D.