Thanksgiving is, and ought to be, the deepest note in...

Thanksgiving is, and ought to be, the deepest note in real Christian faith and experience. If the church and the ministry have really a gospel to proclaim, the fact of that gospel is the deepest occasion for thanksgiving, and for an experience that, whatever it asks, or whatever it gives, begins in thankfulness and gratitude to God.

This was the deepest note in Paul's experience. As a sort of introduction and benediction in all his prayer and praise there burst forth his constant expression of gratitude: "Thanks be unto God lor his unspeakable gift"!

This dominated all his approach toward life, his attitude toward God and man. Beyond all that he could give to God was what God had given him. Beyond all that he could do for his fellow-men was what God had done for them and him. Basal in all Paul's religion, calling forth his gratitude and devotion, inspiring him to service, was the gift of God's love —the fact which made the gospel, and that established the hope of redemption.

And this experience, however they might differ from him in temper and expression, the other disciples shared with Paul. "We love him, because he first loved us," was the typical expression of their attitude toward God in Christ. Thanksgiving was in every sense in their experience the basal fact in their response to God's grace, and the true motive toward thanks-living.

It must be so in our experience if our religious life would have depth and vitality. Have we anything to be thankful for? If not, the gospel lies outside of our experience, as a theory, or an ethic, or a hope, but not as a foundation fact— the surest fact in the universe. It is the discovery of God's grace and the impulse of thanksgiving that makes all the difference, that lifts men above the temporal and temporary into the realm of eternal values, that imparts the power to sing songs in the night, and that enables men to thank God and take courage in the midst of persecution and loss. It is one thing to see life's values from the positive side, instead of from the negative...; but even beyond this positive side in our immediate environment and experience is the ultimate environment of life in the all-embracing love of God, incarnate in Jesus Christ, and perpetuated for men in the gospel concerning Jesus....

It is only as we come face to face with that supreme fact that we can be truly thankful for life's lesser things. It is a thankfulness which loves and shares, which enlarges the soul and the vision where all selfish satisfaction narrows and contracts. To be thankful for what we have that others have not is a danger that marks us as capable of being or becoming spoiled children. But to look up to God as our Father, in an overflowing of gratitude for His fatherhood, draws us near to our fellow-men as it draws us near to the divine, and touches all human experience of loss or gain, of sin or salvation, of want or plenty, with a new sense of communion and response....

And what is true of an individual applies equally to the nation. There is no place in national thanksgiving for pride and boasting. The fatter we wax in prosperity the deeper the need for humility and the quest of prayer. The measure of a nation's bounty is not the fullness of its bins and coffers, but the measure in which its bounty partakes of the purposes of a gracious God.

In knowing as a nation how much God has given we may learn as a nation how much we may give—in love and service, which are the counterpart of thanks.

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