The human soul is not a mere repository of experiences.  Memory is not the true guardian of life’s treasure.  That treasure is invested in character.  In the moral world we have what we are.  So we may recall that which we have never possessed, and may possess that which we can never recall.  And it is out of that which we have become by God’s grace, rather than out of that which we have received of that grace, that the new song comes.

So, as day by day we pray for the grace of new thanksgiving, we are seeking something more than a new power to behold what good things each day brings us, a readier way of reckoning the wealth of the passing hours.  We are seeking for a larger life in God, and for a spirit able, as it were, to secrete from every experience its hidden meed of everlasting blessing.  For if the heart grow purer, the will stronger, the vision clearer, the judgement truer—­indeed, if there come to the soul each day some increase of life—­it shall surely find its way into living praise.  And a living song is always a new song.