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6 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 We are so accustomed that only when they are temporarily withdrawn do we take lofire.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.