Be Ye Thankful by Mrs. I. H. E.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 30, 1916

Be Ye Thankful

By Mrs. I. H. E.

GRATITUDE is an attribute of the heart, not an incident of the life. It is not dependent upon nor affected by circumstances and conditions. The virtue of gratitude may be, and often is, seen in its fullest flower in crushed and broken hearts, in lives that know the depths of toil and poverty and affliction; while very many who, enjoying health and ease and surrounded with material comforts and advantages, are discontented and ungrateful.

“Some murmur when the sky is clear, And wholly bright to view, If but one speck of dark appear In their broad heaven of blue; And some with thankful love are filled If but one streak of light, One ray of God’s good mercy, gild The darkness of their night.”

I like the spirit of that blind girl of Drumtochty of whom Ian Maclaren tells: “If I dinna see,”—and she spoke as if this was a matter of doubt, and she were making a concession for argument’s sake,—“there’s nae body in the Glen can hear like me. There’s no a footstep of a Drumtochty man comes to the door but I ken his name, and there’s no voice out on the road that I canna tell. The birds sing sweeter to me than to anybody else, and I can hear them cheeping to one another in the bushes before they go to sleep. And the flowers smell sweeter to me,—the roses and the carnations and the bonny moss rose,—and I judge that the oat cake and milk taste the richer because I dinna see them. Na, na, ye’re no to think that I’ve been ill-treated by my God; for if he didna give me ae thing, he gave me mony things instead. And mind ye, it’s no as if I’d seen once and lost my sight; that micht ha’ been a trial, and my faith micht have failed. I’ve lost nathing; my life has been all getting.”

The Blight of Ingratitude

Ingratitude chills the soul. It is sharper than a serpent’s tooth in the heart of a devoted father. How he longs for one word of appreciation and affection, one syllable revealing gratitude and love! Freely he has given his life for his son, counting no service too hard, no self-denial too great; and he asks so little now. No wonder he is grieved by neglect and unthankfulness.

And we are children,—children of our heavenly Father, dependent upon his favor for life itself and the means of sustaining it, for the invigorating sunshine and restoring showers, for sight and hearing and taste and smell. All these daily benefits that we have come to call “common” only because we know them so well, and because we have not learned their preciousness by being deprived of them, are his gift. So, too, is our hope of heaven, bought at so great a price.

Not One Came Back

The editor of the Woman’s Home Companion for November tells a remarkable story of self-sacrifice and ingratitude:—

“The ‘Lady Elgin’ was sinking.

“Some of you can think back fifty-six years and remember that disaster. The song ‘Lost on the Lady Elgin’ was often sung in your youth.

“It was a chilly evening in early September. The ‘Lady Elgin,’ brilliantly lighted, and full-loaded with happy excursionists returning to their homes, stopped suddenly, shuddered like a stricken thing, and began slowly to go down.

“There was no wireless in those days, but none was needed. The ‘Lady Elgin’ had almost reached Chicago; she lay only a few hundred yards off the shore, at Evanston. A thousand pairs of eyes were fastened on her from the shore; a thousand voices raised their cry of terror and alarm.

“Only a few hundred yards, yet it might as well have been miles! The

ship’s small boats could not possibly live in such a sea. The ‘Lady Elgin’ was sinking, sinking fast. Before help could put out from Chicago, she would be gone. And the crowds upon the shore watched her, powerless to help.

“But not all of them were helpless. Two brothers, students in the theological seminary at Evanston, plunged through the crowd, a rope in their arms.

“Nat, the elder, a powerful man and a trained swimmer, fastened the rope about his waist and leaped into the waves. Inch by inch he fought his way through until at last he reached the ship and climbed aboard. A moment later he plunged back again with a woman in his arms. The crowd hauled him in, choking, cold, but still strong.

“Again he plunged in, and again, and again. Seventeen women and children he brought to shore, one after the other. At last flesh and blood could stand no more. He sank to the ground exhausted.

“Yet still the cries rang in his ears. After a bit he raised himself, and again plunged in. Again they pulled him back to shore with another human life.

“Twenty-three human lives Nat Spencer saved before his strength entirely left him. Then they carried him away to his bed, exhausted, sick, and almost out of his mind.

“It was many weeks before he left that bed. Most of the time he was delirious. The twenty-three whom he had saved had scattered to their homes. The bodies of the three hundred who were lost had been tossed up by the sea; the nation had begun to forget the tragedy.

“But the twenty-three whom he had saved, surely they did not forget. Surely they were grateful.

“This is the simple, solemn truth about those twenty-three: Not one of them ever came back to thank Nat Spencer for what he had done. Not one of them even wrote him a letter.

“Nat Spencer went out into life an invalid, having given the strength of his youth for twenty-three human beings who did not so much as say ‘Thank you.’”

We are amazed and horrified at the story; yet are we not in danger of the same carelessness, the same ingratitude, toward God? Daily we ask his blessings, hourly and moment by moment we receive from his hand; yet how often we neglect to give thanks! and when we do, is it not frequently a matter of the lips, and not of the heart?

“It is a good thing to give thanks”—good for us, and good for those who hear. It is a wonderful thought that God takes note of his child’s gratitude and the expression of it; that he is pleased to hear our feeble note of praise and thanksgiving in all the wonderful chorus that rises to his throne. We should remember, too, that our failure to express gratitude, to speak of God’s goodness and acknowledge his benefits, while it may grieve his heart of love and may influence others to coldness and indifference, harms ourselves most of all. Without the exercise of this grace “our souls will shrivel, and we shall become craven, even beastly.”

Things to be Thankful For

The first Thanksgiving Day wears a wonderfully romantic halo in the distant years; but the fact is that the Pilgrim fathers and mothers were thankful for very ordinary things. They had passed through such sorrows and hardships as few of us can know. Now they gave thanks, in a public way, for the prospect of plain food during the long, cold winter ahead, for shelter for their families, and, as has been well said, “for the privilege of giving thanks when and how they wished.”

“We should, first of all, be thankful ‘that there is Somebody to thank.’” An impersonal world, even impersonal bounties, would be a chilling thing. Dr. Alexander Whyte says that when he was a child he received a lesson that he never forgot. At a flower show held in his native town, a noted man had been chosen to make the opening speech. As he was closing, he pointed to the beautiful display, and said, “The best of it all is this, that our heavenly Father made them all.” The gifts without the Giver would mean little; far more to be desired than all “material gifts, bountiful and wonderful as they are, is the Giver himself.”

We should be thankful for love,—the Love that upholds the universe, and the dear human love that is set as a light in countless homes, illuminating the shadowy places, and cheering and blessing all who come under its influence.

We should be thankful for work and the power to accomplish our task. For work is one of the blessings brought out of Eden, and only when it is perverted or used to crush others does it become a curse.

We should be thankful for our membership in God’s great family on earth, and our high calling to be laborers with him in extending his kingdom. Remembering that his love reaches out to all, we should love one another, help one another, and pray for one another. Thus will our thanks-giving become “thanks-living.”

“In everything give thanks,” says the apostle. The editor of the Sunday School Times relates this incident: “It was unusual to hear a Christian woman in prayer recently thanking God that we have the privilege of greeting one another by the cordial handshake. She had been a missionary to lepers. Some of her friends have no hands. Others dare not touch the hands of one that is free from leprosy. Missionaries to the lepers have a keen sense of things to be thankful for.” And so shall we, if we take a little time to think about our daily blessings, and to observe how even those things that seemed ill and hard to bear have worked out to our good under God’s blessing.

“In everything give thanks”— “For grief unsuffered, tears unshed; For clouds that scattered overhead; For pestilence that came not nigh; For dangers great that passed us by; For sharp suspicion soothed, allayed; For doubt dispelled that made afraid; For fierce temptation well withstood; For evil plot which brought forth good: For weakened links in friendship’s chain That, sorely tested, stood the strain; For harmless blows with malice dealt; For base ingratitude unfelt; For hatred’s keen, unuttered word; For bitter jest unknown, unheard; For every evil turned away, Unmeasured thanks we give today.”

It is a good thing to have a special day for the giving of thanks, and to consider the real purpose of the day. It is still better to remember that gratitude is an everyday grace, and to endeavor to keep it bright and fresh and glowing by constant use.

MRS. I. H. E.