VIII

"Let the redeemed of the Lord say so."-Psa. 107: 2a

HANKSGIVING-DAY is our one, nation

ΤΗ

al, religious, holiday. Memorial day, Independence day, and the birthdays of Washington and Lincoln are our patriotic holidays. Christmas and New Years-day are common to all Christendom. Christmas, a strange compound of Christian and heathen customs, and New Years-day, the peculiarly personal day, when resolutions are made, and when account of stock is taken.

Thanksgiving-day belongs to our country; and to the Christians of our country. I have failed to find in the president's proclamation anything about football, or golf, or roast turkey; but there is something about national prosperity, and our relation to Almighty God. I am quite in sympathy with manly sports, and I am very fond of a good dinner; but Thanksgiving-day is a religious day; and the religious and family features must be made prominent or the value of this holiday will be largely lost. The Fourth of July has largely lost the place it once held in

the hearts of the American people; and Memorial day will suffer the same fate, if we allow the original purpose of the day to be drowned in the flood of commercialism and dissipation.

I am never surprised at the small attendance at church on Thanksgiving morning. It is a religious service in the midst of unusual temptation to be in the fields; and unusual demands to be in the kitchen.

What proportion of the inhabitants of the United States do you suppose will respond to the call of our president, and gather in the churches of this land for Divine worship to-day? It is safe to assume that an unusually large proportion of those who make up this audience are Christians. The text of scripture to which attention is called is from the second verse of the one hundred and seventh psalm: "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so." The idea expressed in this language is not exactly thankfulness or gratitude or appreciation, but rather the expression of appreciation. "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so." That is, let those whom God hath redeemed give expression to their appreciation. There are many ways of expressing appreciation, but not the least of which is to say so.

We teach our children to say "thank you," and we follow them up year after year with a "what do you say" and are not satisfied that they act thankful.

A big awkward farmer-boy went away from home and worked for a neighbor. At supper they had warm biscuits and the hungry boy rapidly disposed of a large quantity. Finally the lady of the house asked him how he liked the biscuits. Before he could frame any suitable reply a young lady at the table remarked, that actions spoke louder than words. She was right and yet the actions referred to expressed appreciation of the biscuits and not of the one who had prepared them. If you go home to an unusually good dinner to-day, the fact that you gorge yourself will not be an expression of appreciation to those who have prepared that din

ner.

The fear of being guilty of flattery or of being accused of flattery often frightens us into being stingy with the expressions of our appreciation. A proper and valuable part of every man's wages and every woman's wages is the expression of appreciation of good service. At Thanksgiving time we remember to be thankful; and when our

friends die we give expression to our appreciation of them.

How much brighter and happier the world would be, and how much God would be honored, if in every avenue of our daily walk we would practice more that simple virtue suggested for our religious lives in the text, "Let the redeemed of the Lord say so."

It was a dull busy afternoon in a large country school. As the tired teacher passed down the room a little eight-year-old girl held up her slate for a copy. The teacher took the slate, and for want of another, wrote this sentence, "I know a little fairy." A few minutes afterward he passed that way again and paused to see how the work progressed, and he saw that well down toward the bottom of the slate there was one line that varied from all the rest and it read like this, "I have a good teacher." Almost instantly the words were erased and the scholar is now a teacher, but the light of that line has never gone out. It was the simple childish expression of appreciation.

I do not like to say that God demands of us thanksgiving. Because thanks that come because demanded, are not thanks. I do not like