You shall remember ... This is...
Illustration
"You shall remember ..." This is the big word to be remembered here: remember. Do not forget; remember what the Lord God has done for you.
A fine example of such remembrances comes to us from among the first Europeans who made a pilgrimage to America. They called themselves PiIgrims. They arrived on Christmas Day, 1620, 102 of them. During that first awful winter more than half died. During the following summer the remaining few managed to grow some grain and vegetables. Three years they hung onto that New England shore; and then in 1623 their governor, William Bradford, called them to a solemn day of Thanksgiving, to gather "at the meetinghouse on the hill," to consider their "abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes and garden vegetables ... and there render Thanksgiving to Almighty God for all his blessings."
What large words! What great gratitude for so little! Then, later, during the middle years of colonial America, the descendents of those people, annually partaking of their Thanksgiving dinner, would place on each person's plate five grains of corn, nothing more. This is to remind themselves that at one time five grains of corn had been the daily ration of their Pilgrim ancestors. When due attention had been given to this historical fact, the plates would be heaped with food and the real meal would begin.
-- Mann
A fine example of such remembrances comes to us from among the first Europeans who made a pilgrimage to America. They called themselves PiIgrims. They arrived on Christmas Day, 1620, 102 of them. During that first awful winter more than half died. During the following summer the remaining few managed to grow some grain and vegetables. Three years they hung onto that New England shore; and then in 1623 their governor, William Bradford, called them to a solemn day of Thanksgiving, to gather "at the meetinghouse on the hill," to consider their "abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes and garden vegetables ... and there render Thanksgiving to Almighty God for all his blessings."
What large words! What great gratitude for so little! Then, later, during the middle years of colonial America, the descendents of those people, annually partaking of their Thanksgiving dinner, would place on each person's plate five grains of corn, nothing more. This is to remind themselves that at one time five grains of corn had been the daily ration of their Pilgrim ancestors. When due attention had been given to this historical fact, the plates would be heaped with food and the real meal would begin.
-- Mann
