Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1911-12-02


(RASI0R RUSSELL in life are to a
---- considerable ex-
tent what we make them. Bible stu
dents should be phllosophers-every-
one of them Why2 Because the Wis
dom from GbOUe Is The nOblGSt science and
It tends to promote the spirit Of a
sound mlnd-and a sound mind is nee
essarlly a philosophical one. Murmur
ers and cOmplalners are not phlloso'
piers, 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 llfe's difficulties. Nor was this
thankfulness because they had master
ed the Divine philosophy and under
stood the 6hU and the wherefore of the
present reign Of sin and death. They
accepted their portion Of lifes 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.
Excusea For UnthankfulnesB.
We are ready to concede that the
world. awakening from the sleepy su-
perstitlons of the past, can readily
find many excuses for declining to be
thankful. If we mention some of
these 1t 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 skin convenlences
and comforts have multiplied about us
80 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
portutlon such as were not dreamed
of in our grandfathers days, nor en-
joyed even by the rich. Let us not
greedlly 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-
slons of nature and we thank nobody
for them. Our forefatheTs thanked
God for escape from feudal slavery,
but we see that they should have re-
belled against feudallsm 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 ratlonallstic idea that they
81, nj ~ n n
for recovery from sickness and should
not have believed in an everlasting fu-
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-
spectlng 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 1t. 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 win perceive, therefore,
why we consider Thanksgiving Day a
piece Of medieval superstition"
Replies to the unthankfuI.
Our reply to this reasoning must be
along two lines: tlrst philosophical;
second. analytical;--
a. Are not these increasingly large
numbers of panthelstlc and atheisdc
evolutlonists unphllosophical? They ad.
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-
specting them have been received.
Would not true philosophy tell them