For blessings of the fruitful season,
For work and rest, for friends and home,
For the great gifts of thought and reason,
To praise and bless Thee, Lord, we come.
Yes, and for weeping and for wailing,
For bitter hail and blighting frost,
For high hopes on the low earth trailing,
For sweet joys missed, for pure aims crossed.
Notwithstanding all that I have suffered, notwithstanding all the
pain and weariness and anxiety and sorrow that necessarily enter into
life, and the inward errors that are worse than all, I would end my
record with a devout thanksgiving to the great Author of my being. For
more and more am I unwilling to make my gratitude to Him what is
commonly called "a thanksgiving for mercies,"or any benefits or
blessings that are peculiar to myself, or my friends, or indeed to any
man. Instead of this, I would have it to be gratitude for all that
belongs to my life and being,for joy and sorrow, for health and
sickness, for success and disappointment, for virtue and for temptation,
for life and death; because I believe that all is meant for good.