"In Everything Give Thanks."
PERHAPS there is no command in the Bible that puts Christians more to the test than this. Life at best has much work and many burdens. By far the majority in the world, whether in the pulpit or the pew, the shop or the home, labor early and late with little compensation. For the mother it is the old round of daily care, the turning of dresses inside out, planning, hoping, working after the children are asleep; for the father it is the constant work at the bench, on the farm, or over the counter, amid the wearing competition of business, till the brain whirls and he longs for a place where he can sit alone for a moment and commune with himself. Life is not the rosy thing he looked out upon when he was a boy. He hardly finds time to look at a paper to see what the great busy world is doing around him. He is trying to do his duty. But is he giving God thanks? Is life a psalm of praise to him? Is he thankful for each day with its dark hours and struggles? Perhaps we are in work that is thoroughly uncongenial as well as confining; and yet do we carry a merry heart that doeth good like a medicine? Perhaps we are with those who fail to appreciate our ability or effort. We find the world grasping and each one living for himself. Others step in to fill the places we hoped to obtain. Sickness, death even, comes to those who are dear to us; yet do we take all as from one who knows the end from the beginning, and do we in everything give thanks? We are perhaps conscious of having made a failure on some public occasion where we had hoped to do ourselves great credit. Are we content to leave this with God if we have done our best? It is easy to be thankful for the successes of life, but it is poor Christian living that is not thankful amid its ills. What a world this would be if Christians lived up to this high privilege, command even, to be constantly thankful. In such a state of mind there is no gloom, no fault-finding with the place where God puts us; no irritability, no envy that another has succeeded, no distrust, but sunshine and peace and hope. Let us take this for our motto, for one week at least; "In everything give thanks." It will be a short, blessed week, and God will be honored.—Congregationalist.