The states-graphic. (Brownsville, Tenn.) 1???-1984, 1916-12-01
THE STATES-CRApHIC
PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY
THINK AND THANK.

s giving. think" and thank" are not
only from the same word in Old Eng
4 lish; they are the same word. "Think'
and thank" are of the same relation
to each other as "sing" and "sang."
8 The present tense of the verb think
became the expression for a mans
gratitude. An act of kindness is done
! to me, and think of it. Later thank
of it and said so. And in saying SO.
found no better word than simply the
word expressive of my thoughtfulness.
Thankless people are thoughtless
people. Gratitude is a part of intel
ligence. To be wanting in thankful
ness is unmindfulness, ignorance, in
sensibility. And thanksgiving is no
more than the extension into spoken
words of the net results of our en-
hghtened reason. Of the ten lepers re-
lieved it was only the brightest one
whose thought about the matter went
far enough with him to look back and
illumine his thanks.
So the raw materials of our thanks
giving will be the common experiences,
the ordinary benefits, the abundant
blessings of our daily lives. And the
old woman held a just even if homely
ground of gratitude, who, when asked
at the end of long and hard life on
what mercies she could look back with
most thankfulness, replied: "The most
I'm thankful for is my victuals.'
Yet if thankfulness is of the sub
stance of intelligence, its range must
be as wide as thought. And in that
immortal literature of gratitude, the
Psalms, there is hardly the bare men
ton of the petty, exceptional favors of
life. Even the hatreds and impreca-
tons are of the grand degree, and one
feels that praise is pitched to a noble
level of thinking. Always it is the
blessings of the golden sky and the
purpling vineyard, the vast stiffness c
of the night watches, the royal tumult J
of the storm, with the little hills skip |
ping like lambs, the theme Of friend
ship and food and refuge, the stead
fastness and beauty Of the outer order Z
and the inward inspiration of lse-+sa--s
pie wherein everything doth shout
GLORY" e
Think and thank Age after age,
by moment this pulsing plan b
net, spinning through its yearly jour !,
ney of 196,000,000 miles around the t
sum- hour by hour and generation af- t
ter generation the quivering machine n
cry of the involuntary muscles pump f
ing rudy health into the dusty veins "
Of our nothingness; and from ten h
thousand deaths we are daily with n
holden and upholden from the cradle Fl
IF our existence. Consider in what a s.
narrow crevice of security we have our Il
1old on life, anyway. Forty degrees a
over on the thread of mercury at O
your door and the earth cracks and tt
noans with death; fifty degrees high N
er, and life willis and gasps and falls a
n the streets, while the rivers run to
lust and the pastures fade to ashes. b
What if some careless hand should m
urn that sun lever now hairsbreadth is
100 high or too low. Or if, when it it
rains, the hand of power should press fl
100 far a fraction of a notch or the d
shower hydrant should be forgotten b
for brief ten years or two-how like d.
rats in flushed sewer or worthless o.
mold of the crannies! Three times a
each day we turn to the veritable ban
luet halls of God, our common house. A
hold boards, and the deft hands of the il
ordained deaconess of the Almighty, Il
our wives and mothers, serve us to the $,
supplies for another five hours of none m
too useful living again "Bless the is
Lord, o my soul and for F
get not all his benefts" d
But the circle of our thinking and il
thinking" widens, and we may not W
forget that to us as a people and coun- o.
try has come the unmeasured fulness IL
Of extraordinary national benefits. al
Not Ghengis Kahn or Charles the W