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 THi mm WHICH m hath shewed us. 
 
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THE LKJHTS WHICH GOD HATH SHEWED US. 
 
 THANKSGIVING DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED NOV. 28, 18G1. 
 
 IN THE 
 
 West Spruce Slrcct Prcsbylerian Church, Philadelphia, 
 
 BY 
 
 \ 
 
 Rev. W. p. BREED, Pastor. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 .JOHN ALEXANDER, TRINTER, 52 SOUTH FOURTH STREET, 
 1861. 
 
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 • I 
 
 BS5 
 
SERMON 
 
 P*. 118: 27. — " God IS the Lord which hath shewed us light. Bind 
 
 THE SACRIFICE WITH CORDS, EVEN UNTO THE HORNS OF THE ALTAR." 
 
 Once more, a voice from the Executive of our com- 
 monwealth has reminded us of the relations subsisting 
 between the Church and the State. Society has two 
 grand departments of interest, the sacred, and the secu- 
 lar. Over these, God has ordained two agencies, the 
 Church, the custodian of religious truth and instructor 
 of men therein, and the State, for the protection of those 
 who do w^ell, and for the restraint and punishment of 
 transgressors. Both are ordained of God. The apostle, 
 no more truly than the magistrate is the " minister of 
 God."— (Rom. xiii: 1-4.) 
 
 The specific duties allotted to the one are, of course, 
 quite different from those allotted to the other, and yet 
 Church and State are twin sisters, both contributing 
 to the same general results. Like sunshine and shower, 
 the one is not the other, yet both concur in bringing 
 on the harvest. 
 
 tmi 
 
The Church is not the State, and the State is not the 
 Church, yet they may, and one day will both compre- 
 hend precisely the same elements. Every member of 
 the church may be a citizen, and every citizen may be 
 a member of the church. 
 
 They may not invade each others given spheres of 
 service, and yet they are bound to each other by ties 
 powerful and sacred, and are constantly affecting each 
 others interests. The Church cannot annul an iniqui- 
 tous enactment of the State, but she may, through the 
 steady operation of her hallowed instrumentalities, so 
 reach the public mind and heart as to bring about the much 
 needed reform. The State may not, formally annul 
 any decree of the Church, even one consigning atheists 
 and heretics to the flames, but she may see to it that 
 such a law remain a dead letter on the ecclesiastical 
 statute book. 
 
 The State protects the Church, and the Church prays 
 for the state. The State by its penalties, terrifies from 
 actual crime, the many would-be murderers, robbers 
 and housebreakers, who lurk like tigers in our social 
 jungles, and the Church by converting them to God, 
 relieves the State of these enemies. The Church be- 
 stows upon the State the men who most truly and 
 purely fill her various offices, and the State gives the 
 Church access to her sailors, soldiers, invalids and pri- 
 soners, and in treaties with foreign powers, negotiates 
 for the admission of her missionaries into the Ijosom of 
 
mighty heathen empires, and of nations at the ends of 
 the earth. 
 
 At all times and under all circumstances, while reli- 
 giously refraining from interference with each others 
 functions, the Church never tampering with the duties 
 of the State, the State never laying unholy hands upon 
 the altar of God, they should still sympathize with, and 
 lend their influence in furthering the prosperity of each 
 other. And in times of peculiar peril, when the State 
 is threatened with disintegration and utter overthrow ; 
 when doctrines are uttered and maintained at the bayo- 
 net's point and the cannon's mouth, which are as un- 
 scriptural as they are ruinous, and whose prevalence 
 among men would operate like the suspension of the 
 law of gravitation in nature, dispersing all things 
 in wildest confusion; and when further, the Church 
 sees in this threatened dissolution the crippling, if not 
 utter extinction of all her great agencies for benevolent 
 operation in fields domestic and foreign, every holy 
 instinct of her nature impels her, and every solemn obli- 
 gation binds her to lift up her voice like a trumpet, and 
 ply all her powers in rebuke of the ominous error, and 
 in encouragement and support of the imperilled govern- 
 ment, ordained of God for his glory and the nation's 
 good, and under whose cegis her own resources are de- 
 veloped and multiplied. 
 
 And new emphasis is added to the obligation, when 
 by the united testimony of defender and assailant, and 
 
6 
 
 also of enlightened, disinterested foreigners, the smitten 
 government is one of the mildest and most beneficent 
 ever granted to a nation. 
 
 If the State pass a law authorizing or constraining a 
 violation of the Sabbath day, it is one of the most patent 
 and imperative of the duties of the church, through the 
 press, from the pulpit and in her ecclesiastical courts, to 
 charge her erring sister Avith the wrong, and call upon 
 her, in the name of the most High, to retrace her steps ! 
 Nor may she hesitate to reiterate in the ears of her 
 membership the voice of Sinai — " Remember the Sab- 
 bath day to keep it holy." And if an unauthorized 
 body of men, larger or smaller, assume to free them- 
 selves and others from the obligations of citizenship, 
 and even of solemn and oft-repeated oaths, and go so 
 far as to set on fire the national edifice that covers the 
 heads of thirty millions of people — five millions of them 
 communicants in evangelical Christian churches — under 
 these circumstances to expect the church to hold her 
 peace in pulpit. Presbytery and General Assembly, and 
 to shrink from defining and properly characterising 
 treason and rebellion, and from warning her member- 
 ship therefrom, is to accuse her courage, loyalty, or in- 
 telligence, or all together. 
 
 Assembled to-day once more for a thanksgiving ser- 
 vice, after a most momentous year in the history of the 
 world, as well as of our own beloved country, we have 
 called your attention to a portion of that noble thanks- 
 
giving psalm the 118th, the 27th verse of which is a 
 kind of embodiment of the whole — " God is the Lord 
 whi^h hath showed us light — bind the sacrifice with 
 cords, even to the horns of the altar," 
 
 The scene here set before us is one equally vivid, im- 
 pressive and instructive. There, in the temple-courts, 
 is the altar. Above, upon his glorious throne, is God 
 the Lord, " the Father of lights" and the giver of every 
 good and perfect gift. Not far off a thanksgiving party 
 ajDproaches with their victim, singing as they come, 
 " God is the Lord which hath showed us light — bind 
 the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the 
 altar." 
 
 Beloved ! we to-day are that thanksgiving party — 
 here is the altar, yonder is God the Lord who hath 
 showed us light, and we are met to bind our sacrifice 
 of gratitude even unto the horns of the altar. God is 
 the Father of lights — the light of sun and stars; the 
 light of life ; the light of reason ; all the lights that 
 shine in our homes, in the eyes of our children, and in 
 their ruddy cheeks; the light of domestic aftection ; 
 and all the lights, greater and lesser, that hang in our 
 political sky. 
 
 Let us now proceed to enumerate and meditate upon 
 certain of these lights which God had showed us during 
 the past year. 
 
 And, first, we remark in general, that they are 
 broken lights ; lights mingled with shadows. This in- 
 
deed is true of all human lights, 
 the tale of hnman life. 
 
 The fireside storv is 
 
 " There is no flock however watched or tended, 
 But one dead lamb is there ; 
 There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 
 But has one vacant chair." 
 
 So the lights that God hath showed lis the past year, 
 have fallen on us through openings in the clouds — 
 clouds sometimes very, very dark ! 
 
 As to those of a national character, how could it hv 
 otherwise, when within the year the cloud of a gigantic 
 civil w\ar has cast its dense, awful shadow athwart 
 our affrighted land! During that time, hundreds of 
 thousands of men have gone from cottage and palace, 
 from workshop and counting-room, from fireside and 
 communion talkie, to put on the soldier's mantle, and 
 execute the soldier's bloody task ; from hillsides where 
 bleating flocks grazed, the raking artillery has thunder- 
 ed, and where childrens' voices rang in sport, men have 
 fought and filled the ground wdth the bleeding, dying 
 and the dead. Often during this year, there has Ijeen — 
 
 "Hurrying to and fro, 
 And gathering tears and tremblings of distress, 
 
 And cheeks all pale which, but awhile ago, 
 Blushed at the praise of their own loveliness ; 
 
 And — sudden sudden partings such as press 
 
 The life from out young hearts, and choking sighs 
 
 Which ne'er might be repeated." 
 
Yes, and in ow midst, widows and orphans have been 
 multiplied, and every morning, thousands of breakfast 
 tables, and every evening, thousands of firesides, lack 
 their wonted cheer, because a son, a brother, or a father, 
 is away, offering his heart to the bayonet's thrust, or the 
 bullet's merciless invasion. 
 
 And if we drop a tear amidst our joys for our own 
 sorrows, shall we forget the sorrows of those who have 
 made themselves the foes of our most precious inte- 
 rests, by making themselves the enemies of our coun- 
 try? Have we no tear for desolated Virginia? Who 
 will not join us in the lament uttered over her, in 
 one of the pulpits of our church, more than a century 
 
 ago? 
 
 "0 Virginia, my country." — For Beloved, we are not 
 patriots if Virginia, is not as much our country to-day, 
 as is Pennsylvania herself, — " 0, my country shall I 
 not lament for thee ! Thou art a valley of vision, 
 favored with the light of revelation, and the gospel of 
 Jesus; thou hast long been the region of peace and 
 tranquility, the land of plenty, ease and liberty ! What 
 do I now hear ! I see thy brazen skies, thy parched 
 soil, thy withering fields, thy hopeless springs, thy 
 scanty harvests ! Methinks I also hear the sound of 
 the trumpet and garments rolled in blood !" So spake 
 the Rev. Samuel Davies at Hanover, July 20th, 1755. 
 
 And why should we not weep for the woes of Vir- 
 ginia, and Carolina and Missouri, although those woes 
 have been so wantonly brought upon themselves ? 
 
10 
 
 Yes, the fact that a gigantic civil war now rages in 
 our country, must sorely chasten our joy, and the lights 
 that God has showed us are made tremulous by our 
 tears. 
 
 But let us not make our case worse than it is, lest we 
 tempt God to allow it to become what we report it to 
 be. Allow me therefore to caution you against an un- 
 scrutinizing admission of wholesale declarations to the 
 effect that war, even civil war, is the worst calamity 
 that can come upon a nation. General anarchy is many 
 times more fearful. And let us challenge the proof 
 when we hear it affirmed, or intimated that war, even 
 civil war is either necessarily demoralizing, or that it is 
 the most expensive of either blood or treasure of all 
 national evils. Far from it. Tb.e money and blood 
 now expended in reinstating our Ijlessed government 
 over our undivided country, may, and by the blessing 
 of God will prove the mos: economical outlay a nation 
 ever made ; for it will give a stal^le government to gene- 
 rations of ever-multiplying millions ; and to agriculture, 
 commerce and the arts, a peaceful empire, in which for 
 centuries to accumulate their treasures. And if war is 
 ever justifiable, it is a contradiction to say that it is 
 necessarily demoralizing. And that defensive war is 
 justifiable, we have only to appeal to the common sense 
 and common instincts of mankind. Only the merest 
 handful of men ever thought of denying it. And that a 
 state of war is not necessarily a state of demoralization to 
 
11 
 
 either the nation or the soldiery, we may appeal iir«t, to 
 the Old Testament history. 
 
 Joshua led some hundreds of thousands of men to the 
 conquest of Canaan. They fought most terrific battles. 
 They performed the most wholesale military executions. 
 Were they therefore and thereby demoralized ? So 
 far from this, it is generally' agreed that among the 
 generations of Israel, that which entered and conquered 
 Canaan under Joshua, excelled in ^^urity and in fidelity 
 to God. " And the people served the Lord all the days 
 of Josliua, and all the days of the Elders that outlived 
 Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the Lord 
 which he did for Israel." 
 
 Neal, in his history of the Puritans, gives us some 
 interesting testimony upon the moral condition of our 
 mother-land, during the civil wars in the middle of the 
 seventeenth century : — 
 
 '' There was an uncommon spirit of devotion," he 
 writes, " in the Pari ament quarters. The Lord's day 
 was observed with remarkable strictness, the churches 
 being crowded with numerous and attentive hearers, 
 three or four times a. day. There was no travelling on 
 the road, or walking in the fields, except in cases of 
 absolute necessity. Religious exercises were set up in 
 private families, and were so universal that you might 
 go through the city of London on the evening of the 
 Lord's day, without seeing an idle person, or hearino- 
 anything but the voice of prayer and praise." 
 
12 
 
 A daily prayer-meetiiig of one hour — there is nothing 
 new under the sun — was estabhshed in London, sug- 
 gested by the fact that requests for prayer sent to the 
 pulpit were so numerous, that there was not time so 
 much as to read them. 
 
 With regard to the army itself, we quote from Ma- 
 cauley : " But that which chiefly distinguished the 
 army of Cromwell from other armies, was the austere 
 morality and the fear of God, which pervaded all ranks. 
 It is acknowledged by the most zealous royalists, that 
 in that singular camp no oath was hea,rd, no drunken- 
 ness nor gambling seen, and that during the long domi- 
 nion of the soldier}^, the property of the peaceable citi- 
 zen and the honor of women, were held sacred." 
 
 Let us then do our duty as Christians to that noble 
 soldiery, that have interposed their bodies between 
 rebellion and our country's heart, and we need not 
 fear the return upon us, at the war's close, of hordes 
 of demoralized men. 
 
 Li enumerating the lights God has showed our nation 
 the past year, we name first of all : The sjxwing to us 
 our National Government and our National Capital. 
 
 Patients sometimes sink very low. The cheek be- 
 comes paler and paler, the eye dimmer and dimmer, the 
 pulse feebler and feebler. The sufferer, feeling himself 
 in the inexorable grasp of the Dread King, shivering 
 
13 
 
 under his icy breath, Ijids farewell to sun, moon and 
 stars, farewell to earth and friends, and resigns himself 
 to his fate. And yet after all, to the surprise of him- 
 self, his physician and his friends, he rises again and 
 goes forth from that sick chamber, a healthier man than 
 he had been for many a long year before ! 
 
 During the past year our National Government has 
 been down in the dark valley of the shadow of death. 
 We felt through our own frames the tremors of its 
 coming dissolution. A nightmare of distressing appre- 
 hension was upon us. Our last thought at night, our 
 first thought in the morning, was of our country. In 
 our dreams, Ave saw our Seat of Government in the 
 hands of insurrectionary chiefs, and over the great 
 dome of our capitol, the loathed standard of rebellion 
 waving. In our imaginations we saw State loosening 
 from State, and then itself dissolving into fragments; 
 our nation gone ; our history become a mysterious illu- 
 sion ; our hopes faded forever ! In our distress, we 
 fasted and prayed — prayed alone in the closet, and as 
 we walked the streets — prayed together in the pulpit 
 and in the prayer-meeting. 
 
 And a merciful God pitied our distress, and lent a 
 kindly ear to our petition, and to-day we rejoice with 
 joy unspeakable in the possession of our Government, 
 still, — we say it with reverence, — "fair as the moon, 
 bright as the sun and terrible as an army with ])an- 
 
14 
 
 ners ;" and that Government, blessed be the Father of 
 Lights, still at its own old home at Washington ! 
 
 Beloved — God is the Lord which has given us this 
 light — " bind the sacrifice with cords, even with horns 
 to the altar !" 
 
 Secondly. — God has sJinived us light during this ijear, 
 in the fact that the actual ravages of ivar have been con- 
 fined exclusively to those States, in ivhicli armed men have 
 th7'ust at the heart of our government. Li all the loyal 
 States, not a wheat-stalk has been trodden down hy the 
 soldier s foot, not a family has been driven by fright or 
 violence from its home, not a square foot of soil has 
 been moistened with blood. 
 
 Say we this in exultation over the miseries of our 
 fellows in the other States ? God forbid ! It broke our 
 hearts when they reloelled, and our hearts have bled 
 for them as we have read of their sufferings. But surely 
 there is a righteous justice in this infliction of the chief 
 miseries of this war upon those who have so wantonly, 
 so causelessly, so cruelly drawn the nation into it. 
 
 Thirdly. — God the Lord hath showed us light, in the 
 disclosure to us of the existence among our people of a 
 profound and universal spirit of patriotism. 
 
 So admirably adjusted was our political machinery, 
 so almost self-acting, that w^e had come to think little 
 more al)out it than we do of the ordinar}^ operations of 
 nature. It had come imperceptibly to be regarded 
 somewhat like the old family clock on the stairs; the 
 
15 
 
 solemn tick answering to any questions that now and 
 then stole into the mind, as to how long that clock 
 would run, or when the faithful pendulum would cease 
 to swing — 
 
 " Forever — never ! 
 Never — forever !" 
 
 But by-and-by the suspicion w^as awakened, that faith- 
 less men had been tampering with the old timepiece. 
 The impression gained ground and sank deeper. At 
 length the conviction flashed like lightning through 
 the land, that that pendulum, seized by rebellious men, 
 was about to cease its swinging — that the heart of the 
 nation under pressure of misled, disloyal citizens, was 
 about to cease its beatings, and twenty millions arose 
 with a wail and a shout, and ejaculated — " No ! we are 
 not ready to see our nation die !" 
 
 And such a breaking up of the fountains of the great 
 deep of patriotism as followed, this w^orld had never 
 seen ! It gushed forth from the heart of young man 
 and maiden, old men and children. We heard of one 
 old mother in Israel, who begged with her dying words 
 that her corpse might be wrapped in the Hag of her 
 country. Purses were emptied, and hands set to work 
 in a labor of as ardent a love as ever moved a patriot to 
 action. In it, every family, everyVank, every age covet- 
 ed a share. Jew^eled fingers, that had been familiar 
 thus far only with the piano-keys, the strings of the 
 guitar, now made acquaintance with the thimble and 
 
16 
 
 the knitting-needle. Even cliilclren were proud to con- 
 tribute their mite; even the very poor made heavy 
 sacrifices that our soldiers who went forth to hold the 
 shield over the nation's breast, might be furnished with 
 clothing and with Bibles ! And it is on the bosom of 
 this flood of patriotism, that the national ark is riding 
 out the perils of the hour. 
 
 And the very fact that our government had found 
 its way so deeply into the heart of the nation, demon- 
 strates that it was worthy to be thus loved — worthy to 
 be defended with all of life and treasure that we have 
 to give. Bind then the sacrifice with cords, even unto 
 the horns of the altar ! 
 
 Further — God hath showed us light, in the development 
 of a jpoiver in our government, as gigantic as it was un- 
 suspected. 
 
 It is not, Ave verily believe, a mere " American boast," 
 that there is not that other government under the sun 
 that could have withstood for one week, the shock 
 which was visited upon our own. If the Chartist up- 
 rising in England in '48, drove her noble Queen in ter- 
 ror from Buckingham palace to the Isle of Wight, an 
 uprising like ours would have overturned the British 
 throne. 
 
 Much less do we believe that any other government, 
 in similar circumstances, with the folds of that huge ana- 
 conda about its neck and body and limbs, could have 
 achieved anything like the herculean results, which in 
 
17 
 
 the past nine months have rolled from the hands of 
 ours, could have put such armies, so equij)ped into the 
 field, and launched such fleets upon the sea. 
 
 Our keen-sighted foes of the old world, whoever and 
 wherever they may be, are more thoroughly alive than 
 ever to the truth, that between the Atlantic and Pacific 
 there resides a youthful giant, Avhich must soon be 
 effectually crippled, or ere long tremblingly obeyed. 
 And we will not doubt that God has confided this 
 power to our nation for our good, and the good of the 
 race, and for his glory. 
 
 Again, God Jiath showed us light in relieving our 
 minds from distressing apprehensions with regard to our 
 poor. When the hum of the factory began to cease, 
 when every newspaper told us of twenty hands dis- 
 charged here, and fifty there, and hundreds on the 
 right hand and on tlie left, our hearts quaked with 
 fears of overwhelming calamities to the poor. The ter- 
 rible suggestions of those wliose wishes took the form of 
 prophecy, our imaginations too readily transformed 
 into stern, terrific realities; and already we saw the up- 
 turned faces of pale, starving multitudes, and our streets 
 the scene of violence and riotous outbreaks. 
 
 But what a light hath God showed us! From all 
 that we can learn by inquiry and from personal obser- 
 vation, we feel justified in saying that there is quite 
 as little, if not actually less, of suffering among the 
 poorer classes at this hour, than there has loeen at this 
 
18 
 
 time of year these last live years. And it is among the 
 astonishing compensations we enjoy in the midst of our 
 ills, that just where we looked for sorrow we find joy, 
 and where we dreaded starvation we see bread in com- 
 parative abundance. 
 
 Once more, God hath shoioed us light in our orchards, 
 cornfields and granaries. 0, had the fields proved as 
 faithless as man ; had this year been one of famine, as 
 well as of war ; had the crops proved even deficient to 
 any considerable extent, what untold ills had been our 
 lot! 
 
 But how has it fared with the toils of husbandry ? 
 How has God, in his providence measured out the trea- 
 sures of sunshine and shower, upon meadow and hill- 
 side ? What a story is told in the fact, that in addi- 
 tion a large last year's surplus, God has given us a crop, 
 including all the grains, and also the yield of potatoes, 
 of fourteen hundred millions of bushels, several times 
 as much as our nation can consume in a single year ! 
 
 But there is another ray in this beam of light. For 
 twenty years Northern Enterprize has been employed 
 in uniting our remotest West with our Atlantic borders, 
 by means of great thoroughfares of railway and lake 
 navigation, little dreaming — how was it possible even 
 to dream? — that a gigantic rebellion would precipitate 
 all the vast commerce of the Mississippi upon those 
 thoroughfares ? And now these treasures of the west 
 
19 
 
 find eas}^ access to the storehouses and markets of the 
 east. 
 
 But there are other rays still in this light-beam. The 
 day has gone by when America can find security from 
 foreign interference in her own insignificance. The 
 lightning smites the tall tree, and God has cast out the 
 heathen, and planted a tree here, against which angry 
 thunderbolts have been long in preparation from beyond 
 the seas. In the nature of things it could not be other- 
 wise. Influences that go hence to European shores 
 have been for many years elevating the masses, and 
 working a corresponding depression of those towering, 
 buttressed, ivy-grown aristocracies. There is nothing 
 that dies willingly, and least of all things, the human 
 sceptre-holder. And hence — what should no more sur- 
 prise us, than that the master should object to change 
 places with the servant — they for whom Sir Edward 
 Bulwer Lytton speaks, honestly declare that — '' The dis- 
 solution of the American Union, would be in itself con- 
 sidered beneficial to the world. America was becoming 
 too strong — so strong as to menace Europe. Separation 
 not into two, but into three or four commonwealths, 
 would relieve the Avorld of a fear." 
 
 What then was to hinder such an interference on the 
 part of foreign powers, as might seriously protract the 
 struggle in which we are engaged, if not actually plunge 
 us into irretrievable ruin ? 
 
 But God hath showed us light in this dark quarter. 
 
20 
 
 From some source, at least one hundred and forty mil- 
 lions of bushels of grain, some nine thousand cargoes, 
 must find their way to the shores of France and Eng- 
 land the present year, and of this, a very large propor- 
 tion must come from our storehouses. Is there not a 
 kindly providential light in the fact, that, for the first 
 time in the history of the world, there should concur 
 such an enormous overplus on our part, with a corres- 
 ponding deficiency on the part of western Europe? 
 Thus God has put the nations, whose interference we 
 most dreaded, under most solemn bonds to keep the 
 peace with us, and at the same time has opened streams 
 of foreign gold into our coffers, to enable us to carry on 
 the work of reinstating our noble constitution over all 
 our land. 
 
 Bind then. Beloved, the sacrifice with cords, even 
 unto the horns of the altar ! 
 
 But our country is not the only precious name in our 
 vocabularies. Another, sweeter than we can tell is 
 Home. The family is an institution more ancient than 
 civil government, and the latter derives no little of its 
 immeasurable importance from its relations to the for- 
 mer. The family is the scene alike of our sweetest and 
 bitterest hours, and whenever we are called, on thanks- 
 giving day, to enumerate the lights God hath showed 
 us, we instinctively cast our eyes along the path the 
 family has been led. 
 
 And when Ave group before our minds the families 
 
21 
 
 connected ^vitli a congregation, and make inquiry after 
 their experiences for a year, how varied is the reply ! 
 
 Here is a family, representing others fewer or more 
 numerous, on whom since last we met as we now meet, 
 the sun has risen and set three hundred and sixty-five 
 times, at each rising imprinting a kiss of blessing, and 
 at each diurnal adieu, departing with a smile ! No 
 cheek has lost its hue, no eye its lustre, no tongue its 
 voice, and this morning an unbroken band, it joined in 
 the orisons around the family altar ! how gently, 
 how sweetly those hours came and departed ! the un- 
 numbered blessings to these our homes of the year that 
 has just gone by! In what balances can we weigh 
 them — by what arithmetic can we compute their value ! 
 
 ye families, that have come up to these courts this 
 morning, through three hundred and sixty-five days and 
 nights of blessing — come with us while we bind our 
 sacrifice of thanksgiving with cords, even unto the 
 horns of the altar ! 
 
 2 . Here is a family representing another group of house- 
 holds, which during the year has sent fathers, brothers 
 and sons to this camp, and to that battle-field, and who 
 yet rejoice in the safety and health of all. The num- 
 ber that represent these families in our country's service 
 in this trying hour, is not very small. In husbands, 
 sons and brothers, we have been present in the earlier 
 actions near Harper's Ferry, in the sad affair near Lees- 
 l)urg, at Port Eoyal, and at the mouth of the Missis- 
 
22 
 
 sippi. At Ball's Blufis, one of those young men disap- 
 peared among the missing ; one, two, three, four weeks 
 rolled over his parents in the keen anguish of suspense 
 — ignorant whether he fell on the field by a sudden or 
 a lingering death, whether he was drowned, or whether 
 he was taken prisoner. At length however, the precious 
 letter came — " Dear Father, I am alive and well." And 
 we believe that after all the exposures by land and sea, 
 in camp, march and battle, not one drop of blood has 
 been drawn from the veins of those dear to you as your 
 own lives ! 
 
 Beloved — It is God the Lord which hath show^ed you 
 this light — " Bind the sacrifice with cords even unto 
 the horns of the altar." 
 
 3. Some of you during the past year, have encoun- 
 tered extreme financial embarrassments, and have ex- 
 perienced days darker, and nights of more intense 
 anxiety than you had ever feared. Fortunes have 
 melted away like frost before the sun. Many a noble 
 ship has been blown ashore in the gale; men of as 
 pure, exalted integrity, as ever blessed society, have 
 had their hearts wrung with the anguish, of wdiich only 
 lofty spirits are capable, through inability to meet finan- 
 cial engagements. And yet after all, who wdll say to- 
 day that in the darkest hour light was not given ? And 
 is there one among you all to-day, who in view of the 
 aggregate mercies of the year, does not cordially join in 
 
23 
 
 our song — " God the Lord hatli showed us light — bind 
 the sacrifice with cords even to the horns of the altar." 
 4. But what shall we say of another class of families 
 in our midst, whose homes during the past year have 
 been overshadowed with the clouds of bereavement — into 
 and out of whose doors the undertaker, and the funeral 
 company have gone? Is there not something like 
 mocker}', bitter mockery, in calling to thanksgiving 
 festivities our brothers and sisters according to the flesh, 
 wh(5 have so lately been called to deposit their dearest 
 earthly treasures in the cold, dark grave ? 
 
 We have, in imagination, stood upon a high bluff, 
 jutting out into the sea; the rain and hail, how pite- 
 ously they came down ! The tempest, how it raged ! 
 The clouds, how dense and dark ! And the sea how 
 wild its watery tumult ! And out on that tormented 
 ocean we saw a vessel — sails gone, masts gone, covered 
 with ice, and every surge we thought must be its last ! 
 And there stood a man at the wheel, resolute, un- 
 daunted! And through all, there he stood, and by 
 God's blessing he conquered the storm, wind and wave, 
 and brought that disabled vessel victorious into port ! 
 
 And we have stood, not in imagination, upon a l^luff 
 that jutted into the sea of human sorrow ! And how 
 pitilessly the storm fell ! For a time the anguish was 
 too keen for consolation, and we could only look on, 
 while our heart bled for the sufferers ! And yet have 
 we seen the strong man and the feeble woman, stand 
 
24 
 
 ull tlirougli such a storm of sorrow, with a l^row radiant 
 with light from the burning throne, cahii, trustful, sub- 
 missive, and on every feature, in every line of the coun- 
 countenance, he who ran might read — " Not my will, 
 ))ut thine Lord be done!" And those sons and 
 daughters of sorrow, have come out of that conflict more 
 than conquerors through him that hath loved us! They 
 have gone forth purified, sanctified, ennobled from that 
 baptism of distress. 
 
 And Beloved, we verily believe, that of all who hold 
 thanksgiving service with us here to-day, there is no 
 soul that responds with more profound cordiality to the 
 call — " Come ! bind the sacrifice with cords even to 
 the horns of the altar," than these very children of sor- 
 row ! For next to the gift of Jesus, in saving faith 
 Heaven, in all the affluence of her treasures, has not 
 another more precious tlian that of gracious submission 
 under bereavement. 
 
 Finally — Some of you, we are persuaded, can say with 
 an overflowing heart, " God hath shown us the light of 
 many a spiritual joy, since last we met." 
 
 Some here, whom the last thanksgivino; sun saw " in 
 the gall of bitterness and ])onds of iniquity," to-day 
 carry the jewels of Christian faitli and love in their 
 hearts, and wear upon their brow Hope's morning star. 
 (Rev. ii : 28.) Some moment of the past year has been 
 signalized by that victory, more memorable than any 
 ever won ])y the soldiery of the nations, in which n-n 
 
25 
 
 immortal soul lias Ijroken from the fetters of sin, and 
 rushed into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 
 And to all eternit}' the day, the hour, the moment of 
 this transition from death to life, Avill glow in your 
 memories ^vith a lustre, that nothing can eclipse ! Bind 
 thou then, new-]3orn soul, bind thou the sacrifice with 
 cords, even to the horns of the altar ! 
 
 And some of you Beloved, have during the year re- 
 ceived revelations, enjoyed faith-visions of the Lamb; 
 have been favored with seasons of pure, elevated devo- 
 tion; have enjoyed a conscious girding with spiritual 
 strength, that have wrought your spirits into new and 
 decided conformity with your Lord ; and now you not 
 only sing — 
 
 •> One sweetly solemn thought 
 Comes to me o'er and o'er, 
 I'm ueai'cr home to-day 
 
 Than I ever have been before." 
 
 But you can also say, " I have this year been enabled 
 more than during any other year of my life thus far, to 
 ' put on the Lord Jesus Christ.' " Noav with more unc- 
 tion and spiritual fervor than ever you can say — 
 
 •' Here Lord I give myself away, 
 'Tis all that I can do 1" 
 
 And of all the glad company that this day encom- 
 pass our thanksgiving altar, who have better reason 
 
26 
 
 tliaii such to exclaim — "' God the Lord hath showed 
 us light — bind the sacrifice with cords even unto the 
 horns of the altar !" 
 
 And what sacrifice to-day becomes us, and the altar 
 around which we gather — what but a new and solemn 
 offering, here in the presence of the Father and the Son 
 and the Holy Ghost, of body, soul, spirit, time, talents, 
 and fortune, all to "' Him that loved us and washed us 
 from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us 
 kings and priests unto God and his Father — to whom 
 be for ever and ever, amen and amen !" 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
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