This is from a sermon entitled “The Grounds of Our Gratitude,” that Lloyd C. Douglas preached at the First Congregational Church of Ann Arbor on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, November 23, 1919. (It can be found in Sermons [4], Box 3, Lloyd C. Douglas Papers, Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan. © University of Michigan.)
He gives four reasons for being grateful. I talked about the first two in my last two posts: that he and his people were alive during such an interesting era, and that they lived in the comparative freedom and safety of America.
His third reason is directed at his audience, which is made up of students, professors, and administrators from the University of Michigan. But he is especially talking to the students. He says “it is surely a ground for gratitude that so many of us are able to train our minds to think clearly and to gather up the accumulated wisdom of the ages and make it ours, at this seat of learning.
“When I think of the thousands who envy us and wish they had our chance at life’s larger privileges, and then am forced to reflect that, every day, I pass so many of these advantages by, thoughtlessly — it gives me cause for shame.
“For how many cramped lives are yearning for just a modicum of the chance we have at life — men and women who would be entirely satisfied with the crumbs that fall from the table where we sit, sometimes half-bored, jaded, and dyspeptic!
“We have even been known to rebel against the ardent endeavors of our counselors to put us into contact with the mental and spiritual energies that drive the world, and have plotted and schemed to avoid the privilege of developing the only life we have.
“Millions exist in a weary treadmill, standing all day at the mouths of white-hot furnaces, groping in the depths of dangerous mines, tending nerve-racking machinery in the shops, or eking out a wretched living in some monotonous work which they hate.
“For you and me (and just why is it for you and me, and not for them?) the ways of life have been made smooth; achievement easy; honor and high attainment not only possible but the natural order of events. Surely we have cause for thankfulness in this — a thankfulness that ought to beautify our characters and shine in our eyes, and lend us courage for whatever little labors and perplexities are incident to the rich and free and full life handed to us as a gift which we have done nothing to merit — but for whose uses we shall be held strictly accountable by the Spirit who issues and controls our destinies.”
To be continued…
The Lloyd C Douglas Page 
