Suggestive programs for special day exercises/Thanksgiving Day/We Thank Thee
WE THANK THEE.
First pupil—
For gainful hours of pain and loss,
For strength that grew beneath the cross,
For gold refined and freed from dross.
We thank thee, Lord.
Second pupil—
For cheerful ease and calm content.
For hours in gentle gladness spent,
So sweet we ask not how they went,
We thank thee, Lord.
Third pupil—
For hours o'erlived with bated breath,
For victory in the fight with death.
For answered prayers that strengthened faith,
We thank thee. Lord.
Fourth, pupil—
For ties thou hast not torn apart,
For glimpses of thee as thou art,
For the "bright weather of our heart,"
We thank thee, Lord.
Fifth pupil—
And oh! for mercies numberless.
For succor in our soul's distress
In perils we but dimly guess.
We thank thee. Lord.
The five together—
We have no words and little wit
To frame such thanks as may befit
Thy grace, and yet—thou knowest it—
We thank thee, Lord.
As children, sometimes sudden
Run, grateful to a father's knee—
We dimly feel our debt to thee,
And thank thee, Lord.
—From Pattengill's Special Day Exercises.