The Daily Alaska empire., 1927-11-23
The Pnarisee's Thanksgiving.
(Christian Herald )


 The Pharisee's Thanksgiving prayer is the classic Of it's kind. God, I thank Thee that ] am not as other men are" .s the perfect express sion of deliberate isolation Deliberate isolation is for an individual, or nation, the last end Of sefshness.
 The Phari8ee failed in two directions His gratitude was not only for what he imagined himeelf to be. Ii was also for what he wa sure the Publican was not and could never be come Here is the of deliberate isolation Men so center in what they have or think they have that their concern for the less fortunate is dissipated in their pride and selishness.
 True gratitude is always mixed with humility, and humility has in it the essence of responsi bility He who is truly thankful for the good gifts he possesses instinctively turns to share them.
 Have you ever tried to compose proper prayer for that Pharisee of Scripture? Perhaps it would have been this: God, thank The that we sinners have Thy mercy in our hands and that all men may become as we are Ht would have offered the prayer with his arn thrown over the shoulder of the Publican.
 As people. must guard against Phari saicaI Thankssiving national holiday of self, praise We see the faces of the Near East or phans as those helpless children flash across th' screen We hear the saber rattle In the Bal kans. We visualize the utter political chaos oi China We look then to our peaceful fields and bursting harvest. We cut out coupons and count the gains from rising markets. Then, al most before we know it. we are thanking God that we are not as other people are. l am suspicious of the man who boasu ian nternationalsm that makes no dlst.nctaons as am of the husband who confesses a love O. womanlind that does not begin first and remalf last with the wife of his covenant the mothe' |of his children. Thank God that you are ar American but God pity when we thank n that we are not as other peope-even these Chinese or Italians, Armenans. or Germans Tor French or Russians or British. Our national Thanksgiving prayer to pass lh' spection at the throne of the only monarch who does not tremble for His crown, must be, Ihahh God for mans comon heritage of opportunity Thank God that in the Divine purpose all men are created free and equal" That prayer must he offered with hands stretched out across the seas.
 Then, first and supremely, thank God Tor Jesus Christ Ah if He unclaimed today. If we would but set Him free. Then ignorance and suspicion, sefshness, intolerance, lust ana all destroying hatreds would quickly fade from the ways of men.
 As ii ls our grattude-our gratitude foi Temporal ay. and spiritual, blessings, our sratl- Ituae for Gods superatve gift-must be modu- lated Q the fact that vast areas of our lire are still ugly in form and pagan in practice
 Thank God for Jesus Christ. the only Suhl- |cient Saviour! But in world that peels It's thin veneer; in broken war-swept world. 8 world that after nineteen hundred years still has Tits underprivileged lands and, heather institu- ltons in so-caed Christian States. let every man of us "who follows in His train take care lest we come to prayers beside the Pharisee.