The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette., November 19, 1910, Image 1

About The progressive farmer and southern farm gazette. (Starkville, Miss.) 1910-1920

Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History

                
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Farm and Home Weekly for the States of Mississippi,
Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee.
FOUNDED, 1895, BY DR. TAIT BUTLER. AT STARKVILLE, MISS.
^THE TRUE SPIRIT OF THANKSGIVING
/I 1 inia season, wnen the crops are mostly gathered in, when
the season’s work is about over and we are beginning pre
parations for another year, it has become a custom for
men of all classes and conditions to pause, as it were, in the
labors of their hands and take account of the blessings that are
theirs, to give one day to enjoying and expressing their grati
tude for the good things that have come to them. It is a beau
tiful custom, too; especially so when it is made, as in many
oases it is, the occasion for the reunion of friends and families,
V, and of wholesome and grateful rejoicing.
y* Coming, as it does, at a time when the farmer it. able to take
; stock of Sis possessions and to estimate the results of his year’s
tabor, the day has __
curity, not that this world of ours is fair and good, hut that it is
our privilege and our duty to make it fairer and bttUr, to add.
to its prosperity and well being: our greatest possession still
the desire to do something worthy—
“The spirit
That can not rest nor bide . . .
But still inspired and driven,
Must seek what better may be.”
We should be especially thankful for this spirit, this desire,
because it is this that has given us to dwell in a land of person
al liberty and of National aspiration ; because it is this spirit \
that is—slowly, perhaps, but surely—bringing about in ths land I
a higher standard nf I
grown to bo associated
with the idea of pros
perity, of material
gains : we are expect
ed to be thankful be
cause crops are good
and prices high, be
cause bam and store
room are filled, be
cause, foreooth, we
have turkey on the
table and money in
the bank.
This is all well enough,
but it eeems to us that
a far finer spirit is ex
pressed in our Thanks
giving poem—that we
should be thankful,
not only for herds and
or COURSE. THANKSGIVING DAY MEANS TURKEY.
living, a finer sense of
justice, a truer di
scrimination between
right and wrong, a
nobler conception of
life, both in its attain
ments and its aims. It
is because men have
not been content mere
ly to enjoy things as
they were, because men
today are not content
merely to enjoy things
as they are, that the
progress of humanity
has been, and is, up
ward and onward.
That spirit of fretful
dissatisj action which
blinds a man’s eyes to
jiocks ana rtcn nor
vested fields, for which we have planned and worked all the year,
but also for the gifts that come to oi unsought, often almost
unheeded :
"For the morring blue above us
And the rusted gold of the fern—"
For the everyday beauty of this good old world of ours, and
“the pure joy of living” as Browning puts it.
Thankful we should be, not o.'ly for the friends who gather
with us to enjoy the season’s cheer, but also for all the men
and women of the past who toiled and strove to make the world
better and brighter:
"For those who wrought aforetime,
^ Led by the mystic strain
| To strive for the larger freedom
And live for the greater gain.”
Thankful above alt, not for any of the things we have, but
fot the things ws can do ; counting as our chiefest blessing, not
that we have goodly stores, not that we live in peace and se
l---—
me oeauiy oj nje as u
is, is a thing no one should be willing to harbor in his heart at
this season of thanksgiving ; but the possession of that “divine
discontent" which enables him to see the beauty that is not ye*
reality, and to strive to bring it into being, is a cause for thanks
giving than which no man can possess a greater.
And as there ore tvo kinds of discontent, so there seems to be
two kinds of gratitude. There is the kind that says to itself:
“See, all this is mine; is it not good to be grateful since I have
been able to get so much ? I certainly have cause for rejoicing
for I am much more fortunate than others. ” Then there is the
gratitude which makes a man glad not so much for what has
been given him as for what he can give, which enables him to
say, “How fortunate I am since I am able to do this needed
work so long left undone."
Can there be any question as to whish of these is the true spirit
of ThanksgivingD ly, or which will contribute most to the happi
ness of humanity and to the growth in the individual of those
qualities most likely to add to the joy of future Thanksgivings ?