November, 1935
T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
407
M y Personal
B y W. W. CATHERWOOD* Riverside, California
I t is good mathe- .matics to become e f f i c i e n t in the high and holy art of counting your bless ings. Gratitude is one of the most beautiful and fra grant flowers that bloom in the soil of the human soul. It has been called the memory of the
counted me faith ful, putting me into the ministry.” For nearly thirty years now, I have en deavored to hold up b e fo r e men the Christ who saved me, and to preach and proclaim the unsearchable riches o f His grace. I would not exchange
1 S*»—“
Dr. Catherwood
heart, and the psalmist reminds us of the Lord’s goodness, urging us to “ forget not all his benefits.” I want this message to be a brief synopsis of my personal thanksgiving— a few of the out standing things for which at this Thanksgiving season I am deeply and definitely grateful. It is my hope that it may stimulate those who read it to examine their own lives and thus find food for thought and, therefore, thanks giving. “ Think” and “ thank” come- from the same root mean ing. We are thankless only when we are thoughtless, ’
places with any soul on earth. The privilege of leading men to Christ] o f building them up in Christ, of training them in service for Christ, is the highest and holiest calling on earth. “ Woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel !” Fourth, I am thankful that in the providence o f God I was led to come to America, land of promise and privileges to count less thousands like myself who have not had in their homelands the opportunity that America offers. As a naturalized American citizen, I thank God for the flag under which we live, for the liberties we enjoy. No people in all the world are sd favored and so fortunate as we— no people who have so much room and rea son to be grateful to God. Fifth, I am thankful for our homes and the loved ones there. Thanksgiving is a home festival. It is the season o f the year at which families are reunitedaround the old home hearth. The home was the first in time o f earth’s
First, I am thankful for the land in which I was born and for the parents who gave me birth. As I think o f my boyhood home among the green hills of Erin, I am thankful among other things for the sweetest memory a boy or girl can have—my memory of a home in which prayer was offered, in which God was honored, and in which there was given a Chris tian training and background that the intervening years have nipt been able to dissipate or destroy. Second, I am grateful that as a boy of eighteen I made life’s greatest decision— the decision to accept Christ as my personal Saviour, to crown Him as my sovereign Lord, and to put my life’s interest for two worlds, both time and eter nity, into His care and keeping. Like Paul, I can say: “ I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.” It will take all eternity to praise Him for the grace that sought me and bought me and brought me to His fold. “ One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.” Third, humbly and sincerely I thank Him “ that he *Pastor, First Baptist Church.
great institutions. It dates from the Garden o f Eden Every blow directed at the home, no matter from whal source, is a blow directed at the foundations o f oui national existence. May this Thanksgiving season stir in our hearts not only a spirit o f thanksgiving for the home, but also a spirit o f new devotion to this center with all its sacred meaning and memory. Sixth, I am grateful for the friends and the friendships that have meant and do mean much to us all. Repeatedly we have seen that life’s, richest assets are not stocks and bonds and bank accounts. The depression made most of these look pale and sickly. On the Saturday night o f life when you and I sit down to list earth’s choicest blessings, we shall be compelled to put near the head o f the list thé t Continued on page 409]
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