LET US GIVE THANKS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 126, 29 May 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

LET US GIVE THANKS.

PLEA BT PREACHER. I "Taking things for granted" is the title of the opening article in a recent issue of the "British Weekly." The article was written by Dr. John Leudrum of Elgin, Scotland. Here is a timely extract:— "There are young people to-day who, having had a good home and a good education and a good start in life, take it all as a' matter of course. It never occurs to them to thank God for it. They have their music and plays and games and pleasures, yet take it all for granted. They talk as if they had a right to happiness, as if they deserved till that has come to them, and might even aek for something more—for more money, for more leisure, and for Sunday to be changed from a holy day to a holiday. "And eo, too, there are older people who took on the beauty of the earth and enjoy it, yet never think of thanking God for it. They see it, as if somehow they had had a hand in creating it. What they forget is that beauty is not just a thing that occurs. "When we see beauty in a picture, we know that it is there only because an artist, with (something of insight and imagination and perhaps a touch of genius, took infinite pains to create it. A3 we say and say rightly/ the picture is a work of art. "And so, if we find beauty in nature, it can only be because God Himself put it there, thereby showing Himself a lover of beauty and a lover of inen, providing for them beauty as well as bread, and so fashioning them that they should have the power to see and enjoy it. " 'What an infinite complexity of physical conditions,' exclaims Dean Matthews, 'and what an inconceivable period of evolutionary change lie behind this experience of the beautiful which conies to us so naturally and immediately that we scarcely recognise its mystery!' Are we then to take this exquisite gift without a word of thanks? "And the worst of all presumptions and heresies' is to take God's forgiveness for granted. Forgiveness is not a tiling that can be earned or deserved. It is a thing that is given; and at least it should be asked'for. It is a gift, and to the humble soul it is an amazing gift. That God should forgive us who are so sinful and undeserving and have nothing to say for ourselves is what we can never cease to wonder at and give thanks for."