Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1903-12-10

IS strengthened in the qualities OF faith,
patience, endurance, sympathy Manhood
is not best trained in school Of ease, but
in the stern university Of life's harder and
intenser experiences Not that the past
year has shielded you from adversely, are
you 20 be thankful today, but that, by
whatever lessons Jon have had, you have
advanced IN the school, and are stronger
and better man e Your failures have set
you patiently to the task Of trying to do
better, if Your endurance Of hardness has
made you a good soldier Of Jesus Christ
then you owe great deal to God for the
discipline Of life, which be knows 50 well
how to use for human good
4 writer has said: For all sweet and
pleasant passages in che great story Of life
men may we'll Thank God For leisure and
ease and friends may God make us trnly
aud humbly thankful. But our chief song
Of thanksgiving should always be for our
kinship with him, with all that such a re-
lation brings Of hardship, Of toll Of sacri-
fee, Of character
How much owest thou? Rut must
arrest the recital Of this inventory, not for
failure Of items, but for failure Of time.
might speak Of your health, which God
has mercifully preserved, and whose real
value you scarcely appreciate. / might
mention the perfect possession and use Of
your powers, eyesigbt hearing, limbs
strong and supple, no offending member to
mar the body. | might refer to your
homes, with their treasures of priceless
value. might recall your friendships,
your successes, your business prosperity
all these are items Of Gods merciful bene-
faction How much owest thou for all
these? | might enumerate your spiritual
blessings Your Bible, your Christian
feliowships, your training in Christian
home. your citizenship in Christian land.
Who can estimate the value Of these? and
yet, we often forget how deeply they are
woven into our best life. Deprivation is
sometimes the only real source Of our
knowledge concerning our blessings One
day Of blindness could alone teach us how
much our happiness and usefulness are de-
pendent on the light. II by some reversal
Of the great wheel Of Time, we could be set
back into the paganism Of thousand years
ago, with the memory Of what we had lost
kept clear, how inestimabIe in the re-
prospect would seem the blessings Of this
Christian age. Then would we realize, as
we do not now, how much we owe for
them
] might remind you Of yonr state as
sinner saved by grace. Saved What a
world of meaning there is in that word.
Saved! A man overheard in night storm,
lifting one despairiDg cry, then sinking
on e, and yet again. But behold, life
boat, lowered, manned, darting like sea
bird through the binding spray, and
strong arms snatch the struggling man
from the jaws Of death. Saved! What
word it is! What rush Of tumultuous
thought it awakens. And we who are the
believing people Of God can say it of our
selves today, can look out from the strong
ground of our assured faith and say,
Saved Yes thank God, we are saved
through Jesus Christ, from the guilt and
power of sin.n A glorious Being stands
beside us, in his hands precious ransom,
all the riches, all the raptures, all the
glories that were his before the world was,
yielded and sacrificed that we might be
saved. Oh is it not marvellous Thought
saved from sin and death and hell?
How much owest thou for all this? All
friends the liss of our Indebtedness to God
grows to infinite proportions. Here let US
pause, appalled, BY the magnitude Of our
as we'll as staggered by our
utter inability TO pay But blessed be
God, the debt is paid,
Jesus paid it all
All the debt owe
That does not mean, however, that we are
to be graceIess bankrupts, taking advan-
Bage Of God : generosity and making no re-
5urn.
How much do we owe2 We owe our
hearts love; we owe she free and glad SER
vice Of our lives, we owe the deep and +
gratitude Of our hearts. This is /
IL the pay that God asks. Love and graft :
Bude are the richest remuneration to human
hearts. and they are the same TO the heat
j CID. Therefore let US give unto God
Let us lift up hearts redol-
snt and beautiful with praise, let ms bril-; g
our grateful songs, our grateful hearts, our
grateful lives and say: Lord these are
but poor Offset for the debt we owe, but
they are thine and thine forever " Thanks
giving cannot be confined to one day, and
be true thanksgiving. Thanksgiving must
be as continuous as the blessings that call