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Image provided by: Mississippi Department of Archives and History
Newspaper Page Text
— ™E LAND OF UPS/OC DOWN"-PAGE 9. JjJ" ~ v «» 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 ?