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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 23, 1902)
Gratitude and Its Expression Thanksgiving Thoughts Written for The Hee by Newton M. .Mann. Pastor of Unity Church, Omaha "He ye thankful. "-Col. 3:15. "A thankful heart Is not only the greatest virtue. It Is the parent of all the other virtues." Cicero. "Wo render heartfelt and solemn thanks to the tilver of Good; and we seek to praise Him. not ly words only, hut by deeds liy the way In which we do our duty to ourselves and to our fellow men." President Koosevclt. 1 1 11 ougnt to Dear direct It I proportion to the bounty received. I .. . 1. 1 i - 11 , iy i ms rule we siiouoi lit" more thankful than our fathers, for in comparison we are in almost jklm, ...... .1 .. 1 1 .. .......... ..I t.. nij tnfri i niiuili I lilil.t i it I , u eu. ii f are living In a brighter world. n world grown more hospitable to man; life has acquired an Inttrcst and a security il had not in previous centuries, and there conies with It a large liberty which makes It sweet and dear. Amelioial ions h ive taken place under the eyes of those now living, of great Importance, which it would take Ions to enumerate. Hut especially when the present is contrasted with a somewhat earlier time than we can per sonally recall does our advantage stand out prominently. At the time of its dis cov ry this continent was called a New World; since that time other discoveries and a great intellectual and moral advance have made it a new world that greets our eyes whatever continent we stand on. What unsight lincss has been put away! What, fell diseases have been overcome! What oppressions have been abolished! The forces of nature have been harnessed to do the service of man, to make what he requires, to run on his errands, to b.'ar him over the earth, to bring hlni the products of remotest lands and news from all parts, even from the skies. At the beginning of this brief period the child born into the world might well in most cases be commiserated. Ho was almost sure to find It an uncomfortable place. He ran the gauntlet of a thousand destroyers, elemoiual, bestial and human, that left him small chance of getting so far as maturity; and, if by rare good luck ho did arrive at that stage, ruthless and vengeful forces often kept nagging at his heels. The current doctrine was that this is an accursed world, and that doctrine was brought home to a groat many people In a manner calculated to leave no doubt of its truth In their minds. Not content with teaching that unbelievers and heretics would be burnt up In the next world, the hurch anticipated the doom and had the. Juirning begun in this world. So the demons reached up from below and made the blooming earth a sort of annex to the Infernal regions. The ordinary life of man even so recently as the fifteenth or the sixteenth century was so poor In privilege and enjoyment as to make It a doubtful boon and excuse almost any lack of grati tude for existence. Even the fortunate class who had something to enjoy, and wh escaped suspicion of unbelief or heresy, were yet so harassed with apprehensions about their lot In the world to come as to cast a fearful shadow on the world that now Is. For us now all is changed. The inward and the outward world have both been revo lutionized. On the material side we see the most astonishing accumulation of wealth, which, however unequally distributed, is the world's property, and goes inevitably, for the most part, to augment the general good. The people, who have come to rule, make large provision for themselves. Schools, libraries, parks, museums holding the choicest treasures of art, are free as the sir, ard many a precious privilege for which we pay a trifle so outvalues the payment as to be practically gratuitous. Except for criminals, who still prowl, and occasional wars, we are not living in terror of one another; there is no more torture, no more persecution for opinion's sake. Thought is out of its shackles; speech knows no other restrictions than the natural laws of pro- fol all that doctor. Several received yilfti (o remit VCE upon a time, relates Medical Talk, a very nervous man called on his physician and asked him for medical advice. "Take a onic, and dismiss from your mind tends to worry yc u," said the months afterward the patient a Mil from the physician asking 1S, and answered It thus: Dour doctor. I hav taken a tonic and your advice. Your bill tends to worry me, and so I dismiss it from my mind." Moral Advice sometimes defeats its giver. instructing a t lass of the circulation of the I'rc.f. was school boys about blood. "Can you tell me," .said he, "why it is that if I were to stand on my head there would be a rush cf bb od to my head, and that there is no rush of blood to my feet when I stand upon them?" For a moment th re was silence, and then a boy answered: "It's because your feet are not empty, sir." Augustus K. Sloan, ox-president of the j I- w ri i a n.i'ii" .u i iuii nun ..w.iii, ui i iaii-, was riding up town -n a Broadway car, tays the New York Times, when a smartly dressed and handsome young mis-i came In. The car was quite crowded, and the young woman stood for a minute lo .king about or a seat. Just as she gave up hope and. prlety. So there is a new outlook on the world; creation m cms more home like. Nature robes herself in a beauty ineffable, and the heart of man at its best flowers into a benignity that hints of an infinite ten derness enfolding th" universe. If we see not well into the be yond, at least that lugubrious vision of a burning, bottom It ss pit , swarming with fiends whoso oc cupation Is the tor ment of human souls t hrough endless ages. Is gone out of mind, shelved with rack and thumbscrew in museums of theolog. itul vagaries. Surely we have occasion for a large measure of gratitude. This we must all fcil, what ever our faith or lack of faith. How shall wc show our gratitude? As to that opinions are likely to differ, as we know the practice of mankind differs the world over. But It will be interesting to inquire whether there is not some one mode of expression the fitness of which will be generally recognized. Is there not some one way in which we do all give thanks? If such a way can be found we shall have one foundation for the universal church, the church that is to be, and all discoveries looking in that direc tion are of profound Import in these days. Some of us naturally look to (he existing exercises of public worship as constituting the appointed means of voicing the sense of gratitude, but unhappily there la no one of these orders of worship that meets the needs of all minds, and most of them, it must be said, make little account of what has most brightened life In our time. From this point of view the formal ex pressiou of thanks one commonly hears in church is remarkable. It goes on the assumption that pretty much all there is to be thankful for took place more than eighteen hundred years ago. Almost every thing the people In their hearts are really rejoicing over Is Ignored the great oppor tunities afforded by the age, the lights of science, the glory of art, the social enjoy ments ever at hand. J - " i I in mil il n iu ui 11, r 1 """' ' ' (7 "The freer step, the fuller breath, the wide horizon's grander view." One hears the same psalms, much the same hymns and prayers, as were heard a thousand years ugo. Hut we are living in a new age, and the gratitude we fool, what ever we may say, is most of all precisely for the advantages this present time haj over the old time. If we are so far sincere as to say what we feel these advantages will he the prominent features of our verbal thanksgiving, the burden of our prayers and our hymns. Our thankfulness is apt to be most in evidence when we have escaped as by a miracle an impending affliction, such as the loss of a dear friend. The feeling then NEW TON M. MANN, PASTOR I'NITY 111 litCII is heightened with most people by the belief that there has bi en a special divine interposition calling for special recognition. Gratitude thus awaken d is. however, sub ject to this serious dt a .-. back : I lie wiser we get the less likely we are to manifest it, spicial providences becoming to the growing mind an ever decreasing quantity. A devout thankfulness which Is to stand fast must have Its motive in all. the com mon as well as the uncommon blessings of life. An indubitable general rrovidence there is. which is to bo thought of as in cluding whatever beneficent agencies con tribute to our well-being. Some of the principal of these agencies are our fellow men, to whom it is permitted us, as far as we know them, to express our I banks di rectly; but I lie multitude of our human servitors we do not know, and in our thought they are rightly merged in the one gracious I'rovldence toward which our sense of gratitude instinctively turns. The benefactors whom we call by name, the helpers of all ages who have directly stimu lated us, form to our mind a sari of cal endar of saints, specific, personal Instru mentalities of God's providi nee toward us. As they come vividly to our thought we thank them for their contribiuion to our welfare; and this worship of saints is n t displeasing to the Eternal, we may be sure, since it, too, merg s in worship of the Universal rrovidence. Now, this adoration of our saints, of the persons to whom we feel ourselves most Indebted, the thinkers, the poets, the moral heroes who have In spired us how does il express itself? Not ordinarily by direct address, though I have hear I it said of as great a Christian scholar a s Schlcicrmachcr I hat, rising from a reading of 1'lalo, he was sometimes heard lo say in all solemnity : "O sancte S rale, o r a p r o nobis!" (O h u 1 y Socrates. ray for us' I Wo usually honor (hose who have most served us by simply speaking It e lent ly of I hem. by retailing their words and deeds, by m u c li i cadiiig o f their books; for, as George Macliouald s iys, "lo rt c ivo hones-ly is the best I batiks for a good thing." And do we not here come upon l he n.it ura I and uni versal way of ex pressing gratitude? We may go furl her, but is II not lo the pi i ll of our uai ur.il tiess? Is there not something strained and grotesque In al most every i Hurt lo put iu words one's thanks lo the Giver of All Good? Few, I fancy, ever do it, but surely Ibis does not me in that there are f o w grateful hearts, the men gen- rally are enjoying 111 In un les of rrov idence with no rec ognition of Indebt edness to a Tower beyond themselves. In the very enjoy ment of n gift there is gratitude; in fact, our glad ness to receive ft good thing, and the use wo make of It, are a far better measure of our gratitude than anything we can possibly say We formally thank people for trifling favors, because it is polite to do so; In case of more substantial service, for the additional reason that we would leave them in no doubt of the gratitude we feel. But nut ly It Is not on these grounds that formal thanks are rendered to God. He certainly is not In doubt what our feel ings are at any time and It can hardly be thought that our relations to him are subject to any rules of mere etiquette. Indeed fi mini thanksgiving, uttered In rrivnte disagreeably associates Itself with the habit some persons have of talking to themselves. Where there Is a company, large or small, the situation Is changed; one video may I hen iu a manner speak for nil hearts. Hut even In such rase the general disinclination to this exercise re mains Hie same; in Protestant circles It Is mostly left to the minister, and ho, as I said before, ly a strange ineptitude Is not apt lo be much impressed by any gift of God made in the last eighteen hundred years. Our formal piety is indeed decidedly wooden. The prayer book Is a resource in keeping up a habit of devotion, but It scarcely speaks for the things that mo mently touch one's life and fill the heart with Joy the brighlmss of the day, the kindness we have Just done or received, the last book wo have read, the frt'Bh signs of success in some worthy enter prise, the letter that has Just como from a loving soul. The prayer book is a mock- Gleanings From the Story Tellers' Pack with a settled look about her mouth, wa.-t reaching for a strap. Mr. Sloan arose, and. touching the young woman lightly on, the arm, offered her his seat. The young woman slid into the proffered place daintily, and, turning to Mr. Sloan, said: "Sir, you are a Jewel among men." "I beg pardon, young lady," said Mr. Sloan, quickly, touching his hat. "I am but a Jeweler, and I have lust set a Jewel." The youth had ndopled the pompadour method of combing his hair ami his father didn't like it, reports the Brooklyn Eagle. The latter had an idea that there was only one sensible and manly way to comb the hair, and that was to part it on the side either side. Everything else was dudish and affected in his opinion. Only a woman was privileged to take liberties with old es tablished methods. "Young man," he Baid, as he looked the youth over, "you look like a fool." There was no discussion, and shortly thereafter an old friend of the family came in. "It's startling," he said, by way of pleas en t co-nment, ' how much you rei-einble your father." "So he's Just been telling me," answered the youth. The old gentleman looked hard at his son for a moment. "Well," he conceded at last, "I guess your brain hasn't been affected by your fool notions of hair dressing as yet." Magistrate Brann is an Irishman, and in tensely proud of his lineage, reports the New York Times. It is one point upon which it is not safe to chaff him. He cent ly a number of boys who had been ar rested for some petty offense were taken before his honor. Among them was one whose speech and general appearance stamped him as Italian. Somebody had toll the boy to give an Irish name and tell his honor he was Irish. "What's your name?" he asked. "Mickey da Casey." ri plied the youngster, amid a roar of laughter. "I'm Irish." "Oh, it's Irish you are, are you?" smil ingly replied his honor. "Well, so am I. and I'll Just fine you flu for insulting an honorable race." F. J. Car.'nody, newspaper correspondent, who was secretary of the republican con gressional committee in the Minneapolis district, tells some stories characteristic of the Swedes In politics "It is marvelous how the Swedes nick to the nun of their own nationality," says he. "I met a Swede during Ihe campaign In a street car. 'How did you vole for mayor at the last elec tion?' I Inquired. "'John Kind is already ileeied.' was the epigrammatic reply given inc. "They were telling arnuiiil Minneapolis before ihe election," added Mr. Carmody, "regarding another Swede, who exclaimed boastfully that John I.ind was 'a lia'l big man.' " 'Ho you think he is bigger than George Washington?' this Swede was asked. " 'Oh, ya, John I.ind one ha'l big man.' " 'Bigger than Abraham I-lnooln ?' " 'Oh, ya." "'Bigger than Teddy Koosevclt?' " 'Ya.' " 'Well, then, I suppose you think ho is bigger than God Almighty?' persisted the interrogator, angered at Ibis laudation of a democratic candidate for congress. " 'Wal, rejoined the Swede, shrewd enough, in spite of his apparent ingnorance, to (odd his own In a political discussion, 'John I.ind be still a young man.' " Senator Iiipew. while acting as president of the N w York Central road, was ap proached for a pass lo Syracuse three years in succession by a man with the same pitiful tale of a mother's illness and Ihe string desire of the applicant to see her once again. Through his sympathetic nature he had yielded each year, but upon the list occasion with the admonition that the applicat ion should never be re newed. Mm h lo h:s sur rise, upon enter ing his office one morning the following year, he found ihe applicant, with identi- ery as we open II flushed with these dear delights. in that moment we have no words, nor d we feel the need of words to till the good tod how bountiful he Is to us and how grateful we arc. It seems that ho must understand all that without being told. If we are silent, tl Is not that we are uinlevoul or unthankful, rather, per haps, that our gladness and our gratitude are too great for words. So with our sup plications, they seldom liud it Voice. The inexilahle Httitude of many a really dexout soul In these days is well expressed In Coleridge's met nut of his own devotional custom, or lack of custom. The very reti cence which he confesses is of the essence of worship: "lire on my bid toy limbs I lay Il hath tioi l it n t i MM- lo pray Willi moving lips and In liili-il knees: Hut silently, by slow degrees. My spirit 1 lo l.ove compose. In humble trust mine eyelids close With reverential resignation: No w ish conceived, no Ihouulil express '. (inly :l sense of siippilea I inn ; A sense o'er all my soul Impressed That I am weak, ot not noblest, s'lnce In me, round me, cm r w lo re. I'.leiinil Strength and Wisdom arc." Tl.c same sentiment is met with al the close of one of Ijinuart Ine's sweetest Inmns where, after recalling some of Ihe n.ore striking situations Inviting lo a com munion of the human soul with Ihe Soul of all things, he says: Seldom upon lips of mine, Father, rests thai name of thine -I loop w ithin my Inmost breast. Ill the secret pi. lee of lllllld. lake nil awful presence shrined. Ii til the dread Idea rest ' Emerson quotes a great religlousleader as saying: "There are two things which 1 abhor the learned iu his Inlldelil ies and Ihe fool in his devotions." ami adds, speak ing ft r himself ami for us: "Our times are Impatient of both and specially of the last." The grateful and gla I enjoyment of life and lis Messing Is the natural way of returning thanks. Making a good use of Hi" bounties tf l'riivldence and finding pleasure In them: laklng things as they come and striving to better and brighten them; Interpreting nature's bounty of human experience Into mani festations of beneficence this is the natural oxpresslt n of I haukf illness, of which we may even imagine we see some trace In the lower orders or lite. In birds anil beasts and insects. Much of this lower lift Is transitory, ephemeral, but while it lasts it is like a burst of Joy, as though ten thousand eager voices were trying to say. "I am glad to be alive!" It is this phase of nature which has seemed to devout and sym pathetic souls a kind of worship, the rap turous spirit of living things voicing lis gratitude into all ears and before all eyes. I am not saying but that man may do more than this; he certainly will have, what other creatures probably have not, a distinct consciousness of gratitude in his Joy; but gladness he must have or he can not be grateful. And this gladness, this Joy in the gifts of God, Is Just tho one mode of thanksgiving that Is universal, run ning through all sects and beyond nil seels. It Is the paean of praise nscending from every happy living thing. A good laugh has more of thankfulness in it than many a solemn prayer. Tho universal worship Is formless; It Is tho unspoken sentiment of the rait and ex pectant soul, tho fooling of awe anil adora tion, of dependence mid gratitude from which no one escapes who Is not blind to tho deepest meaning of the world. He who best perceives anil feels the truth of things Is ever tho most devout, for, to begin with, he will bo most thankful, and, as the noble Roman said, "A thankful heart Is not only the greatest virtue, it Is the parent of all tho other virtues." Thou who bant given so much to me. Give iimi thing more, a grateful heart, Not thankful when it plcascth mo. As If Thy blessings had spare days. Hut such it heart whose pulse may bo Thy praise. NEWTON M. MANN. oally the same recital. "How dure you como hero ngaln with that old story?" he exclaimed. "Why, Mr. Depcw," blandly replied tho applicant, "I thought that you were fond of old Htoric." The cloud fell from- Chauncey'B face, a smile overspread his features, which re mained until the pass was signed and handed over to the applicant. A Joint committee of the recent session of the Louisiana legislature visited the state penal farms at Angola and Hope, according to a story In the New Orleans Picayune, fur the purpose of reporting on the work done by the board of control. The members of the committee spent some time talking with the negro convicts, and presently one of the negroes recognized a member of the committee, who Is a rising young lwyers not a thousand tuileo from New Iberia. "You know Mr B ?" Inquired one of the men. "Yaas, Bah, I knows Mr. B well. He's de one dun Bent me heah," replied the darky, with a gr'n spread all over his face. The man had not heard of Mr. B officiating as a prosecuting attorney, and wanted to know how he came to send the convict there. "He wuz man lawyer, sah."
