Editorial November 24, 1945 Issue

For This We Thank God

Paul Stark Seeley

After a perilous voyage of sixty-five days from England, the Mayflower dropped anchor in Plymouth harbor on a cold December day in 1620. The Pilgrims numbered a few more than one hundred. Bravely they set about building their log cabins to protect them from the rigorous winter, probably little realizing the trials before them. When the long winter ended and spring came, this intrepid band, whose chief insistence was separation between church and state, had lost more than half its number.

But facing the future with hope and faith, they prepared the land, planted the seed, and when the sorely needed harvest was theirs, they resolved to return thanks to the one Giver of good. Thus was established the first New England Thanksgiving Day. That was more than three centuries ago. What momentous changes have taken place in human thought since that autumn of 1621!

In the hinterland of the coastal area where the Pilgrims, and soon afterward the Puritans, established their colonies, their descendants settled. Among these were ancestors of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy.

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