Los Angeles herald., 1905-11-27
SAYS MEN ARE SURROUNDED
BY UNMERITED BLESSINGS
SHOULD GIVE HOURLY THANKS
FOR GIFTS
Rev. William MeDermott Hughes Tells
His Hearers of the Higher concep-
ton Of Human Relationship Which
VIII Right All Social Wrongs

"St. Paul's Thanksgiving" was the
topic of Rev. William McDermott
Hughes, assistant rector of ST. Agnes
church, at the high mass yesterday
morning. Father Hughes took his text
from Col. Iii, 12:14, i'm which ST. Paul
gives thanks to God for Jesus Christ.
He said in part:
I'VE are surrounded on all sides by
the unmerted blessings of heaven; sur
rounded as a fish by the waters of the
sea. God made us; so we, ourselves,
ther are the first gift to ourselves. Our
life from moment to moment Is "A
further gift to us. God redeemed us
and this is the greatest gift; he bought
us back from slavery and the price paid
was his own Son. In the mercies of
God we live and move. But greater
than all the world is the gift of him,
whom the world could not contain, yet
who for our sakes inhabited human
flesh. For you and me he was laid
in manger, stretched on cross and
rests till the end of the world on our
affairs. For us he took on humanity
in order that we might put on divinity.
"The destiny appointed by nature for
man could not be above the natural.
A river cannot rise above its source.
But God can set man on higher level,
drawing him to heights above his own
the clouds. God has made man a par
taker of the lot of the saints says st.
Paul, and a partaker of the divine
nature according to the expression Of
st. Peter. Thus God is nearer to us
than a father and should be dearer
than a mother.
1.-THE brotherhood of mana much
abused phrase-ceases to be confused
and theoretical and becomes a most
.-x@1, t,eI,t,, ,tr,1,a
derstood in the true Christian sense.
Should Give Deepest Thanks
According to nature man is almost
equally brother to man and to the OK
But according to grace he is son of
God, fellow citizen of the saints and
partaker Of the nature of God. In this
conception of human relationship will
be found the true solution of social
evils. Here is the leveler of social in
equalities, not that a difference of tall
ent and development is destroyed, but
in the consciousness that before God
and his altar. all men are equal: the
rich are taught humility and the poor
forbearance, and both mutual charity.
"The doctrine of st. Paul and his
every ground of Thanksgiving, may be
summed up in the saying of the early
Christian fathers, that God became
man in order that man might become
God. But no bolder and no less true
than the saying of st. Peter, that we
are partakers of the divine nature.
"Yet 1t is to be feared that some
who call themselves Christians, even
Catholics, have never thought to thank
God for Jesus Christ. A poor waif who
lay dying in a hospital Of one of our
large cities, when one of the Sisters
of Charity bent over him and said:
God so loved the world that he gave
his only begotten son.
'The boy looked in wonderment into
the Sisters face and replied with his
dying breath: And 1 never thanked
him for it, He did thank him in that
last breath. but, oh how many regrets
on judgment day of those who never
once thanked God for Jesus Christi