Thanksgiving for the blessings of Nature is not peculiar to Christ-but you will find it in all religions: the Hebrew, the Greek, the Roman, and in the religions of tive peoples. Here in China a shrine erected to the spirit harvest. The great sacrifice formerly offered on the Altar of Heaven at the winter solstice had as one of its meanings thanks gi for the bounties of nature.
T want to speak especially of the Christian conception of thanksgiving as contrasted with the non-Christian.
Undoubtedly the main purpose of the non-Christian sacrifices is to get into communion, or into touch, with the gods there may be leasings which have been received. There is a feeling that if these the gods or spirits may be offended, and hence there is a desire to keep them well disposed.
1 you dry up the wellspring of thankfulness, you will also dry up the wellspring of generosity and sympathy.
Lastly the spirit-of thankfulness adds to our sense of dignity and self-respect, for it makes us conscious of our relationship to Him fand of our value in His sight. Over and over again, we feel our unworthiness and' our shortcomings, land be bow down before Him in humiliation. But this is only a part lof religion. We are not always to be assuming that penitential atti tude. "We are to stand up to offer Jour praise and thanksgiving.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.