The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-11-30
THANKsGIvING-ITS DUTY.


have we 20 be thankful for?
The question. with the average man
follows the thought.
Too apt is the mental reply to be
that "it hasn't happened"
In such blank Acknowledgement do
we admit our mercies-with a reserva-
ton.
There is no room in a real thanks
giving for negative resignation.
Signing is too often a begging of the
question, mixed with an egOtiStical
plea that il deserts had been more
adequate to worth. if luck" had fol-
lowed on endeavor there might have
been more cause for thankfulness.
AS it is, we are prone to discount
success and magnify failure. Contrite-
admit that it might have been worse.
That is poor Thanksgiving. Let
one look into his heart and he will
find that mercy out-weighs justice.
Even the most trivial success is tinSed
with a sense of unworthineSs. We
know ourselves hypocrites even in
our demands upon the world. Put the
question of relative opportunity with
any one of a dozen men that one knows
and contrast ones own achievements
and ones own success Herewith. The
result is humiliating or humbling:
the one, for lack of embracing oppor-
tunity, the other for grateful submits
sion to that kindly charity of environ
ment which unthoughtedly is called
chance
The sane thanksgiving is to be
thankful-for health, for the power to
work, for the ability to do. for the
privilege to help. After all the bus
mess of life is TO be =. man. 1t is
easy to earn the salary of, ones life
The lesson IS merely that the life
should be of importance to others and
not complete in itself. Like al phil
osophies of religion and all the dicta
of morals thanksgiving is dependent
on self-sacrifice. Only in giving can
gratitude be voiced. Otherwise it is
a hollow and 2 sounding thing.
We have so written because it seems
to us that the festival of the harvest
when the people pause to give thanks
has a spiritual, rather than a material
meaning. Material blessings are only
aids TO the real thankfulness. We
welcome them alike. thankful and un-
thinking among us. The bounty of
L, a w
magnificent liberality. To thank
heaven for such benefits is at the most
perfunctory: the test is to pass on the
gift with a spirit whose devoutness
recognizes its obligation to increase
the sum of human happiness.
In the pith of the matter we are but
agents of the wealth or the happiness
of which we imagine ourselves the
masters. And, in the eternal economy
of the soul do we achieve the more as
we distribute of the gladness that per-
chance has fallen to our lot.
In North Carolina the people have
every cause for thanks. The products
of the fields are bringing fair returns.
Material prosperity keeps open the
door of hope. Every man has oppor-
tunity to labor and to live. Measured
by the mushroom growths of metro
politan civilization. we are still a SIM
pie folk. having the old virtues, the
ld-time limitations to ambitions which
are open to every man to obtain
There is comfort and love and honor
waiting for their achievement. Peace
reigns and it's continuance seems as
sured. Filled barns, fields waiting to-
make their profit. assure to a people
who have fortunately not yet pro-
crossed to the point where they depend
upon the prOductiveness of others
rather than of their own a season of
progress.
At such a time, with glad hearts
and an increasing confidence, is it q
duty to give thanks by taking advant-
age of the opportunity not only to
absorb but to diffuse to the general
good and to impart to the particular
charity portion of that which. in the
inscrutable economy of natural devel-
opment, we have been made the hope
full if seemingly unworthy trustees.
THE CASE OF THE RUSSIAN JEW.