The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-12-04
THE SIN OF INGRATITUDE
Rev. G. w. Kent Speaks on Lessons
of Thanksgiving Day.

Rev. George W. Kent, pastor of the
South Unitarian church, preached an
interesting sermon yesterday morning
from the subject, THE new thankful
ness" in which he deal" to some ex-
tent with the smallness of the congre-
cations that attend the Thanksgiving
services and the reasons for it. He said,
in substance; Let us take the words
of Jesus for our text Ye shall be the
children of the Highest for He is kind
unto the unthankful and the evil"
ITO be kind to the unthankful de-
mands of us what indeed is godlike.
There is something so mean and re-
pulsive about ingratttude. 1t seems to
justify an end to kindness. In your own
experience when you have been your
truest and best, I know you have for
given injuries. You have let sins against
you of anger and unfairness, of cruelty
and carelessness be lost in a generous
forgetfulness. Willingly you have taken
up again the old affectionate relations.
But when you met ingratitude; some
times when you freely sacrificed your
self to save another and that one re-
ceived it all with cold and selfish in
difference or, worse than that, wronged
you in return without conjunction, ah,
) Ou Lell IT, by an elIOTI your rose dDONe
the desire to take vengeance on such
baseness, but you were done with such
one. AS for showing him any further
kindness, that seemed too much to be
expected of you.
Ours is accused of being a thankless
generation. Better almost any charge
be true than this. Let 1t be said of us
that we are passionate sensual, brutal
none of these would show US so hope
less of redemption as to have it true
that there is no response in us to kind
ness, that we have come to an insatiate
greed that grasps and grasps and never
feels it has enough for gratitude.
'It is true that both in our relations to
each other and our relations to God, in
society and in religion, there is nothing
like the giving of thanks there used to
be. The very language in which people
used to express their gratitude to one
another would sound gross and exag-
gerated on our lips today. And in re-
ligion, whereas thanksgiving used to
take up nearly half the time devoted to
it, the other half being occupied with
prayers for further favors, now days
religious feeling finds a largely differ
ent expression.
Thanksgiving day itself is ceasing
to be day of thanksgiving at all in
the old sense, and is coming to be a
home kept festival sanctified by a good
will that shares Gods bounty with the
poorest on that day.
Now l don't believe this means,
either in our relation to man or God,
that we are becoming the thankless
wretches 1t might seem and of which
we are charged. Nothing would make
me so despair of men as to believe this
But while we are bad enough for all
the practical purposes of shame and
sorrow and resolute repentance we are
not so bad as that
THE truth is that in cur relations to
each other and to God we haven't
changed in our affections, we have
changed in our relationship. The old
condition of society was that of noble
and dependent all the way down, from
the king to the slave it was dependence
upon favor; not justice, but privilege
what each mans superior let him have,
or do, or be. The only way to get prefer
ence was by patronage, to have king or
prince or earl or cardinal or bishop
graciously incline toward one. The only
way to gain another step was by being
properly grateful for what one had re-
ceived and humbly ask for more.
We've attained a better standing of
man to man, we have really gained
something of republican simplicity and
equality. Society with US is not sepa-
rated into superiors and suppliants;
we are comrades and co-workers. We
don't beg favors; we claim our rights
and liberties. Instead of the old con-
descensions we have mutual courtsy.
We have reason to thank each other
less and to love each other more. There
has gone out of our human relations,
out OF the relations between rich and
poor, and master and servant, and land
lord and tenant, and capitalist and la
borer, well nigh all the old sense of in
feriority and dependence; some rela-
tionships like that between noble and
plebeian, and bond and free, we have
done with altogether. Between par
ents and children something that was
almost servile in the old relationship
has disappeared.
IT think this changed relationship is
why we no longer have the old ac-
acknowledgement Of favors and eondes
tensions of patronage, the old thank
fulness for being allowed to live and
breathe and smile and call our souls
our own. There. doesn't seem to be so
much vociferous gratitude There
doesn't have to be among free men
dealing fairly by each other, but
there is vastly more of mutual honor
and affection. And as to-real apprecia-
ton of each others kind, simple. heart
felt gratitude, while the old sense of
desperate need and dependence has
gone out OF 1t and left it less emotions
al, I believe we feel 1t as genuinely as
men ever did.
Now very much the same expert
enee has befallen us in our religion as
in our social relations. We are out