Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1911-11-28

tent what we make them. Bible stu
dents should be philosophers-ever
one of them Why? Because the Wis
dom from ADORE is the n0blest science and
best Instruction As st. Paul declares,
it tends to promote the spirit Of Il
sound mind-and sound mind is nee,
essarily a philosophical one. Murmur-
ers and complainers are not .hiloso'
pliers, but the reverse. A sOuhd 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 tchy and the tcherefOre of the
present Nign 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 tbell
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 conyeniences
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-
joyed even by the rich. Let us not
greedily 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 provt
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 railroads.&c. idea that they
should have thanked their physician
for recovery from sickness and should
not have believed In an everlasting flu
t,,ra of fortuna booeuca co for aS W.
can see that teaching Is all humbug
Intelligent people of the world have
no more knowledge than ourselves re
specting a future. We agree will
the college professors that our race is
progressing by an evolutionary law OF
nature. and that God has nothing to dc
with it, and that there is no future
life for US except ir the sense that we
In the future. will be represented on 9
higher plane of living. by our evoluted
children. You will perceive. therefore
why we consider Thanksgiving Day q
piece of medieval superstition"
Replies to the UnthankfuI.
Our reply to this reasoning must be
along two lines: first, philosophical
second. analytical
% Are not these increasingly large
numbers of pantheistic and atheistiC
eyolutionists unphilosophical? They adj
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 Feasonings re
specting them have been received
Would not true philosophy tell them
III nHNm n1 II