Editorial November 23, 1912 Issue

THANKFULNESS AND THANKSGIVING

Annie M. Knott

At this season of the year the word Thanksgiving is often heard among American people, and the sentiments associated with the name are without doubt many and varied. We have been accustomed, as a people, to express our gratitude for "peace and plenty," to put it briefly, whether we as individuals were always ready to analyze our own deepest feeling and to be sure that we were truly thankful for being in conscious possession of the treasures "reserved in heaven" for us, to quote St. Peter. In Christian Science we learn to be profoundly thankful for the knowledge that no person, place, or circumstance can rob us of that which God has provided for us. If the reverse of this were true, then indeed evil would be more powerful than good, but Christian Science teaches that good is omnipotent and that evil has only the power accorded to it by mortal belief (our own, or that of others), and that its seeming show of "brief authority" is but for a day.

Our revered Leader presents a keen and searching analysis of gratitude in the chapter on "Prayer" with which Science and Health begins. Among other things she says "gratitude is much more than a verbal expression of thanks. Action expresses more gratitude than speech" (p. 3). This leads one to think of the man who went up to the temple to pray, and who thanked God that he was "not as other men," or even as the humble publican who stood near him. We smile at the arrogance and blindness of the Pharisee, as we read the Master's parable, but there would be little excuse for the Christian Scientist who could so yield to the promptings of personal sense, because we are often reminded that we should never attempt to measure our progress by the status of any mortal, high or low, but by the divine demand, "Be ye therefore perfect," and to yield loyal obedience to this calls for unceasing watchfulness on our part, as individuals and as a nation, "lest we forget" what we owe to God, to our country, and to our fellow men.

At the old seaport town of Gloucester, Massachusetts, a bronze tablet on the face of a great rock overlooking the harbor, commemorates a strange event in the early history of the nation. The tablet tells of the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony in 1623. Then we read: "Here in 1625 Governor Roger Conant by wise diplomacy averted bloodshed between contending factions—one led by Miles Standish of Plymouth, the other by Captain Hewes." It is scarcely possible to think of such an outburst of enmity between men whose aims were so high and whose efforts so self-sacrificing, men who had not forgotten to give thanks to God amid trials such as only heroic natures could endure, thanks for the glorious ideal of civil and religious liberty which had sustained them in founding this great nation. Despite this discord, however, harmony soon prevailed and its foundations were laid broad and deep in the hearts of the people, for which the descendants of those good and great men—all the world indeed—may well give thanks.

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