p. 3 | THANKSGIVING by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, Cal. · Nov 29, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 48.

THANKSGIVING.

By Editor

"It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto Thy name, O Most High; to show forth Thy loving-kindness in the morning, and Thy faithfulness every evening." Such expressions as this make our one-day-in-the-year of national thanksgiving, with its varied demonstrations of self-gratification, seem decidedly insufficient. Nevertheless "it is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord" even for one day.

If the people all over the land would really engage in thanksgiving for one day, it would open the way for the Spirit's work upon hearts to an extent never before known. There would be a humiliation of heart before God, a confession of sin, a righting of wrongs, a restitution of ill-gotten substance, a breaking of yokes and shackles, a reconciling of enmities, and a general outburst of charity for all men, such as the country never has experienced. All these things are involved in true thanksgiving on the part of a sinful people.

THANKSGIVING means much more than a slaughter of turkeys, with gambling for their carcasses, a popping of corks, a gormandizing dinner, a night of revelry, and a busy day for the guardians of the peace—all to be followed by a day of physical debility and feelings of anything but thanksgiving. It means more than a general relaxation of business restraint, a day of jubilation, a day composed of two parts religious meetings—in which we have much of self-praise for what we have accomplished in the past year—to ten parts sensual pleasure, and the whole spiced with debauchery.

THE thirtieth day of November will give the people of these United States an opportunity to express their ideas of what thanksgiving means to them. We offer a suggestion, taken from the ninety-fifth psalm: "O come, let us sing unto the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with psalms.

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. O come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker."

THE President's proclamation, which appears on page 7 of this paper, is a good expression of the idea of a thanksgiving day; it is the best that has been issued for many years by any executive. It is true that no nation has more, or as much in some respects, to be thankful for than the United States of America; yet no people ever were more prodigal of the gifts of God than those of this highly-favored land. We have been even reckless of our fertile lands, in allowing them to pass into the hands of greedy speculators; wasteful of our protecting forests; neglectful of our great water ways, allowing them to become obstructed in various ways; we have become careless of our natural rights, yielding them to capitalists and politicians; and we have become especially regardless of our civil and religious liberties, which are rapidly passing from us by default of the people in the matter of zealously guarding them. In all this we have shown a spirit of unthankfulness, by manifesting a lack of appreciation.

IN a general way the President's proclamation gives us a comprehensive suggestion for thankfulness.

We would not discount it in the least, but would add the injunction of the apostle Paul, "In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." As people in general "walk by sight," they have no idea of thankfulness excepting for things that appear to the natural eye. It requires the eye of faith to appreciate the goodness of God in the as yet unseen things manifested through His Word. With a belief of His promises we may see grounds for thankfulness that far exceed the transitory evidences of temporal prosperity.

WHEN fleeing from Egyptian bondage, the children of Israel sang a song of thanksgiving

after passing the Red Sea which they might just as well have sung on the other side of the sea, before the waters gave any sign of opening. The victory of faith is just as sure in the prospective as in the retrospective; and the thanksgiving of faith is not confined to the year's retrospect, it looks forward to the far greater things involved in the unfailing promises of God. Such a spirit of thankfulness will show forth the loving-kindness of God every morning, and His faithfulness every evening.

TRUE thanksgiving also implies rendering what is due to God. "Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the Most High; and call unto Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me." Ps. 50:14, 15. Surely there is before the people of this nation a day of trouble, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. There is trouble before all the world. Will not the eye of faith look forward to this time and prepare for it by rendering to the Lord His due, and rendering thanks for the promise of deliverance in that time?

WE most heartily desire that the people of this great country may have an enlarged appreciation of true thanksgiving on the coming day set apart for that purpose. May it be more than a mere festival, in which the temporal gains of the past are enumerated. May our thanksgiving reach forward to the glorious possibilities for those who trust in the Word of God. Let us all "enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise; be thankful unto Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting; and His truth endureth to all generations." G.