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Worth Womans While
A Thanksgiving Prayer.
I thank you for the harvest, Lord, that you have
given me,
For sheaves of dear ones tied about with love and
constancy,
And peace of home that fills my doors with bless
ings manifold;
(For duty to poor hungry souls who stand out in
the cold);
I thank you for the harvest, Lord, so far beyond
faith’s ken—
May I have grace to plant hope’s cheer in other
lives—Amen.
—Edith Livingston Smith.
What We Are Thankful For.
Have you thought what most of all is yours to
be thankful for at this thankful season?
There are so many things. However poor in
material possessions any of us may seem to be when
we stop and count them up, there are so man;
goed things to bless our lives and give brightness
and comfort to everyday living. We, each of us,
can cite readily enough the joys and comfor s
nearest to us, those that seem individually our own
—but what of the universal blessings? Those that,
like the sunshine and the rain and the glory o<:
field and wood, we share in common with all and
so are hardly aware of? That we do not even
coant?
It is even so. We are so accustomed that only
when they are temporarily withdrawn do we take
lofire. If the clouds obscure the sun for too lon*
a time then we are mindful of what it was when
we had it; or if the long drought shrivels the
leaf of vegetation and burns out the crops so that
there is no harvest we remember then how blessed
ver-3 the storms in their season. So pressing are
material cares that the green of out-of-doors, the
gold and the crimson, are all swept away by bleak
and drear winter, or we have even to be trans
ported to some arid plain or desert before we
realize the great wealth of beauty that was spread
for us.
This setting apart of a day on which to be grate
ful and to render thanks is a good thing, for it
makes us take inventory. We count up, and are
amazed at our. stock in hand and the little we have
paid on it. We are moved to shame, to wish to
do better, and an immediate and active gratitude.
And of all the things to be thankful for, one
would seem to be foremost and above all—that is,
the universal kindness of humanity and the cer
tainty with which we can count on it. No mtn
or woman ever met the world with faith and ex
pcctancy and found it anything but kind. Cer
tainly we get what we are looking for. If ours
is the attitude of trust and confidence humanity
will not disappoint us with harshness or unre
sponsiveness.
How miserable is the heart that looks on the
world with suspicion and distrust, how narrow it
becomes, how friendless it feels, and alone! Bet
ter, infinitely better, to trust and be disappointed,
to meet our fellow creatures with feelings of con
fidence and generous faith even though they be un
worthy—the most unworthy are seldom so far so
that they do not make an effort to appear what they
are given credit for. Nothing so appeals as the
trust that takes goodness for granted, nor ques
tions.
' The world is a good place. The universal heart
is kind; and realizing it what greater cause could
wc have for thankfulness? What more, with all
the beneficence of heaven, is needful that life be
hc'ppy and blessed?
. “It is a good thing to give thanks unto the
Loro,” says the psalmist. Ay, and a good thing
it is to count our blessings, to realize what and how
The Golden Age for November 29, 1906.
By FLORENCE L. TUCKER.
many they are; to cultivate more and more the
habii of thankfulness—and to believe in the kind
ness of the world.
President Lincoln’s Proclamation.
“Abraham!” called a voice scarcely audible.
The speaker lay on her humble cot, dying. The
jonng wife of a pioneer backwoodsman, she was
sacrificing her life to its vicssitudes. The pioneer’s
“shack” was without windows, and its doors stood
epen to the sunlight, w r hich danced on the floor
of trampled earth. It contained a few stools made
of roughly-hewn boards, but no chairs; a few
dishes, but no cupboard.
Without the restless wings of the woodbirds
glimmered as they fluttered through the sun-flood
ed trees. A boy, almost destitute of clothing, who
had been watching them, answered his mother’s
call.
“What is it?” he asked, in a troubled voice, as
he hastened to her side.
She drew him into the loving folds of her feeble
arms, and said, in a voice weak and tremulous, yet
still thrilling with a mother’s love and hope:
“I am going to leave you, Abe—and—oh, how
hard it is to pait from you! How beautiful it is
outdoors! It is beautiful wherever God is, and I
am going to meet Him in a brighter world than
this. I learned to love Him at the old camp-meet
ings, and I want you to learn to love Him, too.
“I have not had much to make me happy,” she
continued, still more slowly, and with a heavy
s’gh, “I have not had a great deal to make me
happy—far less than some folks have had—
but my voice has never failed to rise in praise
whenever a feeling of thanksgiving has come lo
me.
“Abranam Lincoln, you have my heart. I am
thankful God gave you to us. Love everybody;
hinder nobody, and the world will be glad some day
that you were born. This is a beautiful world, to
the loving and believing. I am grateful for life;
for everything, but, more than all else, because
you have my heart.”
“But he can’t sing, Nancy!”
A tall pioneer in buckskin stood in the cabin
doorway. He saw death’s shadow in the sunligui
that fell on the floor. He had added a ripple of
laughter to his words, for he wanted to cheer
his wife even though she was passing from him.
The woman was silent. Thomas Lincoln approach
ed his wife’s death-bed. Then he repeated his
words, still more kindly:
“But he can’t sing like you, Nancy!”
“•The heart sings in many ways,” she replied,
very feebly. “Some hearts make other hearts
sing. Abraham may not have my voice, but he has
my heart, and he may make others sing. I am
going, now.”
The cool October wind rustled among the great
trees, causing their leaves to ripple like the waves
cl the sea, wimpling and dimpling under the whis
pering wind. The woman turned her head toward
the split logs that formed one of the walls of the
cabin. Nervously her fingers twitched the coverlet;
once she opened her eyes; once she said, softly, oh
so softly: “My Abraham!” Once she tried to
lift herself to see him; once—she trembled—and
then lay still.
“She’s gone, Ab’ram!”
The father and son made her coffin with their own
bands, and buried her under the trees. Poor lit
tle Abraham could say nothing. He had been used
to hardships, but this seemed more than he could
endure. Something seemed to be choking him.
He tried to look into his father’s face for sym
pathy but his tear-dimmed eyes only found it in
the newly-made grave.
It was a rude grave when it was finished. But
since then the people of Indiana have honored the
memory of its occupant. A monument lifts its
marble whiteness toward the sky, and pilgrims
going, now.”
kneel at its base, with prayers of thanksgiving.
But long before this, long before her motherhood
became sacred to the great nation, a ragged, hat
less boy sat on the grass-green mound and dreamed
and listened in memory to the songs she had
sung.
The battle of Gettysburg had been fought and
won, and on July 4, 1863, Abraham Lincoln, presi
dent of the United States, issued a proclamation
!c the people, which contained these memorable
voids:
“The President especially desires that, on this
day, He whose will, not ours, should evermore bo
done, be everywhere remembered and reverence 1
with profoundest gratitude.”
The heart of his mother had inspired him once
more.
Great crowds serenaded him at the White House.
Shouting multitudes swarmed over the green slopes;
Old Glory rippled in the breeze; and, afar, the
cannon of victory shook the magnolia-covered hills.
Lincoln looked out upon the sea of humanity.
His face was dark with sorrow and wrinkled with
care. Slowly it beamed with the light of love and
the warmth of human kindness. He began to speak.
The multitude ceased cheering.
“I sincerely thank God for the occasion of this
cdi.”
None but him heard in the words the tones of
that mother who was looking on him from the
home of the angels. It was the same tone that had
been heard so often in the shack cabin beneath
the flaming maples.
One day, while seated in his private office in
Washington, the past moved, panorama-like, be
fore him. He saw the wigwam of his father, the
far-stretching prairie, the oaks, the pines, and
the maples that surrounded his boyhood’s home;
the cot whereon his mother died. He could hear
her dying words anew. In the long remembered
tones of boyhood and youth that had come to him
like echoes of the recurrent minors of an anthem
sent heavenward; like soft, sweet notes of peace
ti enabling through the throbs of a mighty song' of
triumph—increasing its grandeur by
they came to him with the soul-compelling force
of a mother’s benediction.
Then he saw life. He saw the nation’s life in
his own. He heard the name of Lincoln ringing
everywhere. His mother’s heart seemed to have
gone into the hearts of the people, and the notes
vere notes of praise.
He must issue a thanksgiving proclamation. It
was imperative, for the war had already ushered
in the dawn of emancipation. It was issued on
October 3, in Gettysburg’s memorable year, just
about the anniversary of his mother’s death. It
gave new life to the old American custom that has
set aside the last Thursday in November as a re
spite in toil for a nation’s gratitude to be ex
pressed.
His mother’s heart beat in unison with his
when he wrote that proclamation, and his heart
was the heart of the people.
—Hezekiah Butterworth.
Thanksgiving.
Let us be thankful for the loyal hand
That love held out in welcome to our own,
When love and only love could understand
The need of touches we had never known.
Let us be thankful for the longing eyes
That gave their secret to us as they wept,
Yet in return found, with a sweet surprise,
Love’s kiss upon their lids, and smiling, slept.
And let us, too, be thankful that the tears
Os sorrow have not all been drained away,
That through them still, for all the coming years,
We may look on the dead face of Today., ,
—James Whitcomb Riley.