IT is always well to give thanks to the Giver of all good. His mercies are ever new, ever fresh. His fountain of life is ever flowing, and
“Manna from heaven falls
Fresh every eve.”
The common sunshine and common rain, the common air and common earth, and all the dear, great, common blessings we enjoy come perennially and continuously from the bountiful hand of our God. Therefore, thank God, the Giver of all.
THANK GOD for the common salvation through Jesus Christ. “He died for all.” By virtue of the salvation purchased by Jesus Christ has come every good thing which this world knows. If He had not given Himself, the world would have rolled on to hopeless night and destruction. But Christ “gave Himself” “to seek and to save the lost.” And thus He made it possible for the lost ones to be saved; for the slaves of sin to become the free children of God; for the lovers of lust to become princes in purity, victors over vice. Thank God for this great salvation, and tell the glad news to every soul. Jesus Christ is the Saviour of sinners, at all times, under all circumstances.
The autumn of the year in our northern clime calls to mind special evidences of God’s goodness in abundant harvests. Mrs. Hemans sings:—
“Now autumn strews on every plain
His mellow fruits and fertile grain;
And laughing plenty, crowned with sheaves,
With purple grapes and spreading leaves,
In rich profusion pours around Her flowing treasures on the ground.
O! mark the great, the liberal hand,
That scatters blessing o’er the land;
And to the God of nature raise
The grateful song, the hymn of praise.”
And out of this recognition of God’s goodness have grown the public thanksgiving days in all Bible lands. They are proper acknowledgments to the great Provider of all our blessings.
BUT thanksgiving must be voluntary to be accepted. No one honors God by a mere formal acquiescence in an ancient custom, or the keeping of a holiday or holy day because ordered by State proclamation. No State document adds one whit of fragrance to a people’s hymn of praise, unless the heart of the people be in it. If the life and purpose of the nation be against the spirit of the day, the proclamation becomes abomination. Neither is the day honored by selfish feasting and gluttony. It is good to gather the children and grandchildren in family reunion around the old table, and with thankful hearts for God’s preserving mercies recall His goodness and praise Him together. But it is better to be so thankful that our hearts shall go out to those who are in need. Jesus has given us the true rule in the following: “When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsman, nor rich neighbors; lest haply they also bid thee again, and a recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, bid the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed: because they have not wherewith to recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed in the resurrection of the just.” Luke 14:12–14. Such observance of Thanksgiving Day will bear fruit in abundant blessings perennially.
BUT the harvest does not always bring thanksgiving. It depends on the sowing. There will be many a shiftless, lazy, idle one who will come down to this Thanksgiving, 1903, with no joy of heart, no harvest to our store, because there has been no sowing. Such ought to give thanks to God that life is spared, and begin now, in His strength, to sow for prosperity.
OTHER some have been sowing all the year to sin, to self-indulgence, to intemperance, to vice, to crime, to hatred; they will reap a plentiful crop of corruption, degradation, pain, suffering, and remorse. Let these, too, make this a time of thanksgiving by turning from2their slavery to the freedom of Christ Jesus. “If therefore the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” And in true freedom there is cause for thanksgiving.
