Hymns of thanks not easy to find

On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, the song selection was slim to say the least. There were just two pages in the hymnal devoted to the Thanksgiving holiday and neither pertained to anyone or anything I knew.

Every year the Methodist minister would pick up his cinnamon-brown “Cokesbury Worship Hymnal” (copyright 1938) and lead the congregation in a rousing rendition of “Come, Ye Thankful People, Come.” I was thankful – then, and now – but did not relate to “harvest homes, wheat and tares, nor gathering all in … ere the winter storms begin.”

It was even harder to relate to the second song, “We Plough the Fields, and Scatter” (the good seed on the land).

Obviously the songs were written for farmers somewhere in Iowa, but we were bound to sing them every year, their melodies the only thing familiar. At the back of the hymn book were responsive readings, clearly alternating italics for the preacher and bold for the rest of us; yet someone would invariably speak out of turn and then cough nervously when jabbed in the ribs by an embarrassed companion.

“O give thanks unto the Lord for He is good … Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness … The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy and sing.” We went back and forth from pulpit to pew, offering words of thanksgiving.

Later, another hymnal found its way into my Thanksgiving memories (and into the piano bench). “Tabernacle Hymns,” a collection of songs “for every religious use,” was favored by the local Baptist church from which the book evidently was procured in 1968. Only one Thanksgiving song is noted: number 302, boasting five flats but only two lines. “Our Prayer of Thanks” reads “For balmy sunshine, for nourishing rain, dear Lord, for Thy goodness we thank Thee; our feed and Thy care – rich blessings we share – the proof of Thy love, and we thank Thee. We thank Thee, O God.”

One of the oldest hymnals in the bench, “Gospel Hymns,” was copyrighted in 1883 by Biglow & Main, and John Church & Co., both New York publishers. The grayish-green book, signed by a family member May 17, 1890, contains not only some fine religious music, but also the widest assortment of typefaces ever compiled on one cover page, let alone throughout the other 405 pages.

The volume begins with the ultimate Thanksgiving hymn – the best-known song of gratitude – the Doxology, written in 1697 by Thomas Ken: “Praise God, from whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”

Yet the hymn that rings truest in my ears this Thanksgiving Day and all others, is the one I learned – and understood – as a child:

“For the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies. For the beauty of each hour of the day and of the night, hill and vale and tree and flow’r, sun and moon, and stars of light. For the joy of ear and eye; for the heart and mind’s delight; for the mystic harmony linking sense to sound and sight. For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child. Friends on earth, and friends above; for all gentle thot’s and mild … Lord of all, to Thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise.”