Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 243, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 October 1917 — QUALITY OF THANKFULNESS [ARTICLE]

QUALITY OF THANKFULNESS

It Is Overwhelming When OneFThlnka of What God Has Done for Us and Given Us. Oh! for words to express that which is inexpressible: The unspeakable mercy and goodness of our God, the depths of his love, the heights of his glory, the length and breadth of his patience! Human mind cannot comprehend It, mere words cannot tell of it. Yet —there are times in our life when, reviewing all that" God has done for us, weighing, as it were, his tender, forgiving, inexhaustible love with our own utter unworthiness of even “the least of his mercies,” we feel we must use his precious gift of a clear mind to proclaim, as best we can, the goodness of our God. Not on our sinfulness would we dwell at such a time; on him alone would we look, to him our hearts be raised in a very paean of love and thankfulness. We have given ourselves, our souls and bodies, to looking back on the years spent in his loving service, we stand amazed at what has been given to us to accomplish for him. Can there be pride in our hearts! How could there be? Do we not know that of ourselves we could have done nothing? Do we not know also that they who came in at the ninth or,at the eleventh hour cannot possibly accomplish as much as those who have borne the burden and the heat of the day? Pride? God forbid! Thankfulness, intense thankfulness that he has called us ere it was too late and had given us a foretaste of his own diving self-sacrificing love. Dimly as yet—for how could we beat the dazzling light of a full revelation! he reveals to us the secret of his love: The life of loving service, the joy of giving, love forgiving, love guiding, love compelling and —O Lord, what is man that thou art so mindful of him?—with heart bursting with thankfulness we realize at last the wondrou* truth: That he has made for us himself and that, whatever betide, we are his, with all eternity before us to learn to love and serve him, our Lord God, our Creator. Redeemer, and Guide.-* Zoar. >■ . •J