The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1910, Page 81

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Che Lutheran Pioneer,

A MISSIONARY MONTHLY.

~

PuBlisnep BY THE EvANGEnicaL LuTneran SynopicaL Conrerencr or Norriu AMERICA.
R. A. BISCHOFYF, Enpiror.

Entered at the Post Ofice at St. Louis, Mo., as second-class matter.

Vol. XXXII. ST.

LOUIS, MO., NOVEMBE

R, 1910. No. ll.

Thanksgiving Hymn.

Lord of the harvest, Thee we hail!
Thine ancient promise doth not fail;
The varying seasons haste their round,
With goodness all our years are crowned.
Our thanks we pay
This holy day;
Oh, let our hearts in tune be found!

If spring doth wake the song of mirth;
If summer warms the fruitful earth;
When winter sweeps the naked plain,
Or autumn yields its ripened grain,
Still do we sing
To Thee, our King;
Through all their changes Thou dost reign.

But chiefly when Thy liberal hand
Scatters new plenty o’er the Jand,
When sounds of music fill the air
As homeward all their treasures bear,
We, too, will raise
Our hymn of praise,
For we Thy common bounties share.

Lord of the harvest, all is Thine:

The rains that fall, the suns that shine,
The seed once hidden in the ground,

The skill that makes our fruits abound.

New every year
. Thy. gifts appear;
New praises from our lips shall sound.
J. H. Gurney.

—_———_ + +. ——--

Thanksgiving.

To give thanks unto God is a Christian duty.
The apostle writes to Christians: “Be ye thank-
ful!” Again he writes: “Giving thanks always for
all things unto God.”

Always! Not only on Thanksgiving Day, but
always, in good and in evil days. Said an old
Christian: “There is always cause for thanksgivy-
ing, as for every bad there might be a worse; and
when a man breaks his leg, let him be thankful it
was not his neck.” When a well-known Christian
writer saw his library on fire, he exclaimed: “God
be praised that it is not the dwelling of a poor man!”

For all things! “We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God,” Rom.
8, 28. In a day of great loss Job said, “The Lord
gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be
the name of the Lord!”

Especially do Christians give thanks to God for
all spiritual gifts and blessings with which He has
blessed them in Christ Jesus. ‘These spiritual bless-
ings they prize above all others; for Christ and the
salvation in Him is more to them than all the earth.
But Christians do not on that account despise the
temporal blessings which God bestows and of which
Thanksgiving -Day especially reminds us. They
appreciate them all the more, and are all the more
thankful, because they see in them gifts of-the same
merciful God who has made such wonderful pro-
vision for the soul’s salvation, and who leads His
children through this earthly life with its temporal
blessings to an everlasting life of never-ending bliss.
Regarding also these temporal blessings and bodily
gifts the Christian confesses: “All this purely out
of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any
merit or worthiness in me; for all which it is my
duty to thank and praise, to serve and obey Him.”

The Christian’s thanksgiving is not mere lip-
service. It comes from a thankful heart and mani-
fests itself, not only in words, but also in deeds.
Christians thank God with hearts, and hands, and