CHAPTER XI
THANKSGIVING IN SONG
The note of praise was sounded at the very beginning of the 75th annual convention of the New York State Council of Religious Education, which was held in Utica, N. Y., October, 1930. The assembled delegates, whose interest centered in directing the religious life of the young people in the churches and communities of the state, lifted up their voices in singing what was once characterized by Dr. J. M. Buckley as the “most perfect hymn in thanksgiving in the English language:”
“For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies:
Lord of all, to Thee we raise
This our hymn of grateful praise.”
Each day in downtown Los Angeles, in the morning, at noonday, and again at night, a mighty choir of bells invites the hearts of merchants and bankers, tradesmen and newsboys, policemen and seamstresses to pause and reflect, to be still a moment in their hearts and receive the sacred benediction of the bells.
In the message of the bells there is joy and peace and love for all our fellow men, the love one sometimes forgets in the hurly-burly of a great city. Whenever I hear these bells I stop whatever I am doing, and my heart looks up to the great tower atop a lofty building and beyond to the vast blue sky.
My heart sings with the bells a prayer of gratitude for the gentle reminder that commerce is not all.
—Cy Lance in “The Classmate.”