The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1911-12-01

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considerable eX-
tent what we make them. Bible stu
dents should be philosophers-every-
one Of them. Why? Because the Wis
dom from above is the modest science and
best Instruction. AS St. Paul declares.
it tends to promote the spirit of Il
sound mind-and a sound mind is nee
essarily a philosophical one. Murmur-
ers and complainerS are not philOsO'
pliers, but the reverse. A sound mind
tells us to take things as they are. to
make the best of them rather than to
quarrel over them and find fault with
Divine providence and make ourselves
and everybody else in our environment
miserable.
True Christian people in every land
and under all conditions have found
plenty Of cause for thankfulness, even
though they have had their share, or
more, Of life's difficulties. Nor was this
thankfulness because they had master
ed the Divine philosophy and under
stood. the aohy and the a0herefore Of the
present reign Of sin and death. They
accepted their portion of life's joys and
sorrows by faith, believing that their
portion was measured to them by the
Lord and that full obedience and sub
mission, with cheerfulness, was their
duty.
Excuses For Unthankfulness.
We are ready to concede that the
world, awakening from the sleepy su-
perstitions of the past, can readily
find many excuses for declining to be
thankful. If we mention some OF
these it will not be by way Of endors-
ing them, rather to show the unthank-
full masses that we recognize their
viewpoint but do not agree with 1t.
We would point them to the better
course of thankfulness and proportion
ate happiness. To their complaint
that they have fewer and smaller
blessings than their more wealthy
neighbors, we remind them that the
poor of this favored land habitually
waste more than would make very
thankful some of the poor of other
lands.
we remind that under Divine bless
ing upon the soil and the Divine bless
ing upon human skill cOnveniences
and comforts have multiplied about us
so that the common people" OF our
land have home comforts and con-
veniences and educational facilities
and parks and libraries. well paved
and lighted streets and cheap trans
portation such as were not dreamed
of in our grandfathers' days, nor en-
loved even by the rich. Let us not
greediIy ask more along these lines
until we have fully appreciated pres
ent privileges and blessings and re-
turned thanks therefor.
But" says one. "our forefathers
were superstitiously thankful, and we
must avoid that. They gave thanks
to God for the sunshine and the rain.
We have learned that these are provi-
sions Of nature and we thank nobody
for them. Our forefathers thanked
God for escape from feudal slavery.
but we see that they should have re-
belled against feudalism and bought
their freedom with their own courage.
"Our fOrefathers thanked God. II
they were sick, that they did not die
and go to eternal torture. We are com
ing to the rationalistic idea that they
should have thanked their physician
for recovery from sickness and should
not have believed in an everlasting flu
ture of torture, because so far as we
can see that teaching is all humbug.
Intelligent people Of the world have
no more knowledge than ourselves re-
speeding future. We agree with
the college professors that our race is
progressing by an evolutionary law OF
nature, and that God has nothing to do
with it, and that there is no future
life for us except in the sense that we.
in the future. will be represented on a
higher plane of living, by our evoluted
children. You will perceive, therefore.
why we consider Thanksgiving Day a
piece Of medieval superstition"
Replies to tho Unthankfuf.
Our reply to this reasoning must be
along two lines: first. philosophical;
second. analytical
| a. Are not these increasingly large
numbers of pantheistic and atheistic
evolutionists unphilosophical? They ad-
J NIT that they have blessings far be-
| yond anything known to their fore
fathers, and they admit that their un-
happiness has increased in proportion
as these blessings and reasonings re-
speeding them have been received.
Would not true philosophy tell them