The progressive farmer and the cotton plant., 1904-11-22
THANKSGIVING.

That is a very fine article, "The Deepest
Thanksgiving" which we are printing on page 6.
1t points out very clearly that we ought to be
thankful not only for the joys and pleasures of
life, but for it's times of stress and trial: just
as the oak, if it could, should give thanks not
only for the sunshine which blesses it's leaves,
but for the storms which root it deeper in the
earth and leave it the stronger for having met
their shock. The language of our author is worth
reprinting:
because God is love, every mans sins are pun
ished; because God is m~erciful, the easy road to
corruption is set thick with difficulties; because
God watches over them, men who have gone
astray are suddenly discovered in their iniquities;
because God will accept nothing ultimately but
the best in every human soul, the discipline of
life is searching, the burdens of life heavy, the
disappointments of life manifold. Because God
would make us like Himself, life is one long,
severe, ~exacting education. Because we are i'm.
mortal, we are never permitted to rest in mortal
conditions, to find satisfaction with mortal pos
sessions, to secure content in this mortal life"
1t is not hard for the thoughtful man to find
not only sermons in stones, music in running
brooks"-or just whatever it was Shakespeare
said-but also "good in everything" There is
not an event in our lives from which it is not
possible to extract some good-not a mistake
which may not teach US to avoid repeating it;
not a misfortune that may not give US deeper
sympathy for our fellows; not a struggle that may
not give us greater strength for some future
trial; not a sorrow that may not teach us humil-
ity and serenity.
But even these things, which though tenn
wool. And the sweetest things are the common
only incidents in our lives in which sorrow. is
only a thread or a figure and JOY the warp and
warp. And the sweetest things are the common
est. Fame and power and wealth are for the
genuises who are willing to pay the price-will-
ing to "scorn delights and live laborious days.
but what are these extraordinary honors beside
the common joys within the reach of almost every
one of us-health and love and the JOY of making
some nook of the earth brighter for our living in
it? There is a world of truth in the words of
John Richard Green as he wrote to a friend in
his old age, truth to which most of those who
have sounded all the depths and shoals of honor
would quickly give assent: "What seems to
grow fairer to me as life goes by, is the love and
peace and tenderness of it: not its wit and
cleverness and grandeur of knowledge, grand as
knowledge is, but just the laughter of little chill
dren and the friendship of friends and the coy
talk by the Preside and the sight of flowers and
the sound of music"
"And so"-in the language of Phillips Brooks
-"let us give thanks to God on Thanksgiving
Day. Nature is beautiful and fellow-men are
dear, and duty is close beside us, and He is over
us and in us. What more do we want, except to
be more thankful and more faithful, less COM
planning of our trials and our times, and more
worthy of the tasks and privileges He has given
us?"