New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1877-11-29

WY SHOULD We GIVE THiNKSf
There is no common sense in setting apart
dav with special meaning and then stripping
it Of that meaning Yet how many Of US
woke tins morning with any definite idea about
THANKSGIVING, beyond that Of half holiday
from shop or Office and turkey and pumpkin
pies? Yet, really, we have so many chances
to stop work, and So many dinners to eat III
the course of the year, that if there be any
nobler thought or finer outlook be-
longing to the day, it would be good policy
in us to find it ont. Noble thoughts
and high outlooks over life are never too COM
mon in the market-place. The press and the
pulpit, of course, Try to set the matter III its
proper light before us; there will be a good
deal said and written to-day about the peace
within our borders and the enormous yield Of
this Summers crops, with which W are en-
abled to feed the world. Yet, candidly VIC
doubt whether any nearer Cor indeed preacher
will be moved out of his habituai temper OF
ingratitutdc or indifference by these sudden
appeals Mems souls cannot be brought up
with their bodies to give thanks by bell
tap. or by the almanac. Why should a surly
fellow who gruniblcs against greenbacks, the
Government and God all the year round, be-
lieve himself in Arcadia on the last Thursday
in November2 He doesn't do it. lle keeps
quiet for the children's sake perhaps sits dec
orously through the sermon, and glances past
the Thanksgiving article to the next column
He could put IN counter pleas enough if he
chose he could match our peace by records OF
furious Turk and fiery Russ slaughtered by the
thousands during the year; and starving
f-l of nm
prccedented crops by history of the strikes,
ETC., etc. The man who would compel him to
give thanks to God by dwelling on his per-
sona blessings, and ignoring the pain, the
misery, the downright evil in the world, he
rightly Judges to be fool, and a selfish fool.
If We would find basis for era titude it
must be by going below these darker phases
of life, not by passing blindly over them.
This man is happy who can thank God to-day
for giving him plentiful dinner and pleas
ant home his hungry neighbor Ia happier
that believes in God who is more to him
than food or raiment. This man sees all the
dear ones of his home about him to-day an
unbrokcn band, and, secure in good fortune,
is apt to be a little careless in recognizing
the Power that has kept them there
but his brother who has taken IN this last
year the wife of his youth, or the little
child that vas so dear to him, and laid them
down in that horrible wet gap IN the clay
which never uncloses for us call we ever so
loudly, believes in nameless Good which
holds him and his dead as notes in the sun
shine, and Notwithstanding surely shall
bring them together again. He knows in whom
he has believed. lie has something more to
L -. II.
In the same way, the man does well who
recognizes an Almighty Power in teeming
crops, prosperity and peace but the man who
perceives eternal sequences of order and law
working always for good under disaster and
DEATH is the wiser OF the two.
Now of course this habitual steady footing
on absolute good this longsightedness, is not
going to spring out of a solitary yearly
THANKSGIVING. 1t is a good deal matter of
temperament the ragged NeapOltan thanks
God and reoces because the sun shines and
the sky is blue {; his covenanting cousin would
like to make certain improvements in heaven.
1t is more a matter of education, which hint
we give to mothers to work out at leisure.
There are a good many of our readers who
have passed middle age, on whom tempera-
and pleasures have almost finished their work
The time of the year in winch Thanksgiving
is held has for them deeper significance than
for young people. Like the old earth itself,
they have gone through the season Of spending
and have reached that of exhaustion the
mother has given her bodily strength to her
children, the father has worked and toiled for
them; they are gray, sapless, weary; as they
look around the table to-day, in these young.
ardent lives about them, they detect the vigor
Of their own youth, the noble thoughts, the
character which cost them hard experience.
They gave them-gave them freely. For them
selves remain the chills of Winter and of death.
Only that7 The Earth also has given the
juices of its life freely at Gods bidding and
lies down to regain strength under its white
shroud. Beyond Winter and death there re-
mains for it new and rejoicing Spring.
TIE TRIAL At UILhESB1RRE