The Changeless Basis for a Grateful Heart

The Changeless Basis for a Grateful Heart. BY PROF. J. C. HOGENSON, OF THE STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, UTAH. This is the time of the year when our hearts should naturally go out with love for all men. This is the time of the year when the mission of love and self-sacrifice of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ comes most vividly to our minds. When we realize that one of the great results of Christ's teachings will be the "universal brotherhood of man," we begin to see what Jesus did for us. When we comprehend that Jesus died for us, that through him we are saved from the sins of Adam, we have still greater cause for expressions of love and of a grateful heart. Anyone can feel cheerful when all things seem to be working for his own personal prosperity and advancement. He has a glow of creature comfort — as the cat has when it purrs so loudly in its little mistress' lap, that the sound is mistaken for an expression of love — and he may mistake his sensuous satisfaction for a spirit of gratitude to God. But the f elfish and sensuous feeling of com- fort is not a spiritual gratitude, and it will not be apt to abide in such conditions after the material causes of it have dissolved and departed. Anyone may feel gratified, if not grateful, when things seem all to be coming his way, but this is not the real gratitude to which we are invited and urged in the word of God. We, undoubtedly, have unnumbered and innumerable causes for gratitude to God, the giver of every good and perfect gift, who crowns our lives with loving kindness and tender mercies. In every department of our lives, we are enriched by his good and gracious gifts. Material blessings come to us daily in his provi-

dence, and he crowns the year with his goodness, and his paths drop fatness. Physical health and comforts, which we enjoy, and of which so many are deprived, call for gratitude and thanks- giving. Material blessings, which enrich and adorn our lives, call for grateful appreciation and regard. Social and family joys in the sweet and precious relationship of home life and friendship's ties, should awaken us to pure and exalted love for God, the Giver. The blessings of national liberty and peace and prosperity should arouse us to grateful and reverent obedience to the Great God of Nations. But what if all these were lacking? What if we should lose health, riches and friends, and should be stripped bare as was Job? Would we still maintain our steadfastness? or would we give up our faith and hope and comfort, in the despairful wail that all these things are against us, that there is nothing left to live for, and that we shall finish our days in gloom and despair? Are we to allow our spiritual state to be governed by our material circum- stances? Shall we purr in contentment when all is pleasant, and mourn and despair in the day of adversity? If so, how much bet- ter and higher is our life than that of a mere animal? What we want and need is such a life and such a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, that whatever may come and whatever may go of material comfort, we shall, like Paul, be moved by none of these things, but shall have within our souls that changeless element of serene faith and gratitude that will make all life full of gladness, even in hours of darkness and days of sorrow. We want that sense of fellowship and covenant with our Lord that shall make faith triumphant, in the assurance that all things are working together for our good, if we are the children of God. Our spirit of love must not be conditioned by the number of earthly blessings we enjoy and possess, but by the invariable fact of the gracious love and redemptive goodness of God in Jesus Christ. If we have him, we have all things. Nothing in coming to us or in going from us can separate us from the love of God. Abiding in him, we are rich. Possessed of him, we are glad. In this life nothing else or less is greatly to be considered. It was in this serene and jubilant spirit that Habakkuk could say: "Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall the

THE CHANGELESS BASIS FOR_A GRATEFUL HEART. 515 fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." He who can thus speak from the heart, enters into the very secret depths and heights of the spirit of love, and has Christmas day, the birth of Jesus, for every day of the year. Logan, Utah. Get a Rake. I knew a farmer once, in the good old days of yore, Who never rested, day or night, till the haying time was o'er. When all his precious clover crop lay curing on the ground, He'd say, "Now, Johnnie, get a rake and scratch around." When you hear the bluebirds sing, and the ground is free from snow, And the sun shines bright and warm, and the southern breezes blow; If your yard wants cleaning up, and sticks and stones abound, Do like Johnnie, get a rake and scratch around. When you've overworked your brain, and the whole world seems awry, When life's a knotty problem, whichever way you try; When you're almost worsted, wrestling with a question too profound, Go outdoors and get a rake and scratch around. When your neighborhood gets stagnant, and there's nothing doing there, Except what always has been, and the people do not care; If to make an innovation you feel in duty bound, Don't hesitate to get a rake and scratch around. — Farm Journal.