glcssmgs xmM thr sip of filrssiiip in sIbk. 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 DKl.IVKHED, 
 
 
 THAKKSGIVING DAI, 
 
 NOVEMBER ;^0, 18 56, 
 
 IN THE FmST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 
 
 TO THE UNITED CONGREGATIONS OF THE FIRST 
 AND SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES 
 
 AUBURN, 
 
 BY E. A. HUNTINGTON, 
 
 PKOFE.,S0R OF BIBLICAL CRXTICISM IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, AT AUBURIT. 
 
 AUBUEN : 
 
 WM. J. MOSES' STEAM JOB PRESS. 
 
 1856. , 
 
 Tf\G- 
 
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 Special Collections & Rare Books 
 
^Imkp mtM iij sip of "ghsskp m sim. 
 
 A DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED, 
 
 THANKSGIVING DAY 
 
 NOVEMBER 20, 1856, 
 
 IN THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 
 TO THE UNITED CONGREGATIONS OF THE FIRST 
 AND SECOND PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES 
 
 AUBUKN, 
 
 BY E. A. HUNTINGTON, ^^ 
 
 PROFESSOR OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM i'n THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, AT AUBURN. 
 
 AUBURN : 
 
 WM. J. MOSES' STEAM JOB PRESS. 
 
 1856. 
 
 f^P 
 
Rev. E. a. Huntington, D. D. 
 
 Dear Sir : — Your discourse, recently delivered in the First Preshyterian 
 Church, in this place, on the occasion of the Public Thanksgiving, was listened to 
 with great interest by the large congregation in attendance ; and that the sphere of 
 that interest and instruction maybe enlarged, we respectfully request you to faraish 
 a copy for publication. 
 
 Yours, very truly, 
 
 S. "WiLLARD, 
 
 J. N. Starin, 
 H. Woodruff, 
 S. W. Arnett, 
 S. L. Bradlet, 
 I. F. Terrill. 
 
 ISSSRS WiLLARD, StARIN, AND OTHERS. 
 
 Gentlemen ;— Jt gives me pleasure to comply with your request. The 
 issue of an exciting political contest naturally leaves maiiy minds full of ominous 
 forebodings. On this account, I am willing to contribute, the little in my power, to 
 encourage those hopeful views of our country, which our national blessings wairant, 
 and which it is one sign of gratitude to the Father of our mercies to contemplate. 
 
 Yours, very respectfully, 
 
 E. A. Huntington. 
 
A DISCOURSE 
 
 " The Lord hath been mindful of lis : he will bless 
 z;^."— Psalm 115: 12. 
 
 When we are called upon, on an occasion like this, to 
 bring oiir olferings into the house of the Lord, in acknow- 
 ledgment of his benefits towards us, there are two aspects in^ 
 either of which these benefits may be gratefully contemplated 
 We may estimate their intrinsic worth, or rather their direct 
 and positive usefulness to us, and on this account we may 
 call upon our souls and all that is within us to bless the holy 
 name of Ilim from whom cometh down every good and every 
 perfect gift. It is our privilege to value them for so much 
 ^ as they will measure, or weigh, or pass current in exchange 
 for the means of supplying our wants and increasing our 
 enjoyments. In a state of remarkable prosperity, we have 
 inspired authority to sa}^, " The Lord hath done great things 
 for us ; whereof we are glad." But the text, and the whole 
 drift of the Psalm from which it is selected, and many a 
 parallel passage of the sacred volume suggest to us to con- 
 sider the riches of divine providence and grace in another 
 
light ; tliat is, not barely as riches in hand, but as pledges of 
 greater riches to come. 
 
 Nor is it unnatural, on the contrary, it is habitual and 
 agreeable to us, to take this view of many of our blessings. 
 We hail the first symptoms of recovery from sickness rather 
 as a token for good than as the proper good which we desire. 
 And this is the secret of the husbandman's joy in the 
 springing of the blade from the seed which he has sown ; for 
 he knows that the blade will be followed by the ear, and 
 '• after that the full corn in the ear." This, too, is the secret 
 of the inventor's rejoicing, when he beholds the first move- 
 ment of the machine which he has constructed ; albeit that 
 machine may be of rude workmanship, coarse material, and 
 diminutive size ; and albeit its movement may be as feeble 
 and awkward as that of a new-born child. It is not the 
 present appearance or efiicicncy of the instrument, but its 
 promise, for which the inventor congratulates himself. Y^hen 
 Israel trod the farther shore of the Eed Sea, loud vras the 
 song which they took up from the waves behind them, and 
 
 poured out over the wilderness before them. It was not the 
 
 « 
 
 triumphant end, but the auspicious beginning of their deliv- 
 erance which then they celebrated. The pilgrims coming to 
 our shores in bleak December are worn out by a long and 
 tempestuous voyage. They are ready to perish. Keverthe- 
 less, making their arduous way to land, as if it were a para- 
 dise, with one voice they lift up their hearts to God, and 
 thank him for the home which he has provided. But is that 
 
home a paradise already, or a paradise to be? Those holy 
 pilgrims on that barren rock are praising the Lord, like the 
 fugitives in the wilderness of old, in view, not so much of 
 what they see, as of what i\\cj foresee in what they sec. 
 They take up their song from the boisterous ocean, — roughly 
 kind to them, in obedience to Him who " maketh the storm 
 a calm, so that the waves thereof arc still," and who thus 
 through the treacherous deep opcneth a safe path for his 
 chosen, and " bringeth them unto their desired haven," — and 
 they pour out that song over this new world, and prepare to 
 follow its flying notes over hill and valley, across river and 
 lake, till "the day of small things," which they "despise 
 not," shill issue in a day of great things, in which their chil- 
 dren shall exult. 
 
 But it is not only in such cases as these, when the present 
 good is comparatively insignificant, that we should accustom 
 ourselves to read in it the promise, made valid by God's own 
 sign manual, of a better portion in store for us. The greatest 
 acquisition in this life is, after all, but a beginning, and 
 should be regarded more as a/>roq/'of God's good will toward 
 us than as the last and highest expression of it. Even the 
 choicest blessings of the Gospel are but means to an end 
 The very fruits of these blessings in our hearts, while we 
 remain here below, are but the first-fruits, the foretaste and 
 earnest of a more abundant harvest in heaven. Instead, 
 therefore, of bidding our souls take their ease in temporal 
 riches, we are not even to count ourselves to have apprehended 
 
 4 3 
 
TT 
 
 the grace and truth v/hich come by Jesus Christ, so long as 
 we remain in the flesh. The ver}^ gifts of the Holy Ghost, 
 however fully experienced on earth, must still be estimated, 
 not only according to their actual value, but also according 
 to their value as notes, the representatives of something more 
 precious, to be paid at a future day ; for in this state of 
 trial, " as it is written, eye halh not seen, nor car heard, 
 neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which 
 God hath prepared for them that love him." 
 
 Although then, fellow citizens and Christian brethren, we 
 might well survey our national and personal blessings, in 
 order, from their inherent excellence and immediate service, 
 to derive motives for coming before the Lord with our thanks- 
 givings and our praises, yet let us prefer to take a larger view 
 of our obligations to our Heavenly Father, and let us magnify 
 his name for the manifold mercies foreshadowed in the 
 manifold mercies enjoyed. 
 
 It will not be difficult to show, that every distinguishing 
 element and characteristic of our unexampled prosperity, as 
 a people, is more a promise than a fulfilment. It is not a 
 finished, but a growing good. Great as it now is, it is be- 
 coming greater for the morrow, and, rightly improved, no 
 human foresight can discover when it will reach maturity 
 and begin to decay. Written all over with the finger of 
 God, may be read upon it, " The Lord hath been mindful of 
 us ; he will bless us. . . . The Lor3 shall increase you 
 more and more, you and your children." 
 
I. Carrying this train of reflection along with us, let us 
 glance for a moment, in the first place, at the extent of our 
 country compared mi\\its population. Stretching from east 
 to west across the widest part of the continent, and from 
 the inland seas and their majestic outlet to the ocean, on the 
 north, to the American Mediterranean on the south — when 
 we survey this vast territory, the unparalleled increase of its 
 inhabitants in eighty years, from three millions to thirty, is 
 as nothing. This vast territory, capable of sustaining a 
 population as large as that of China, a third or a fourth part 
 of the whole race, three or four hundred millions, is as yet 
 inhabited by no larger number than crowd the little islands 
 of Great Britain and Ireland. What then is this boundless 
 domain to us, a mere handful, thinly scattered over it ? For 
 our present use and enjoyment, it is no more than that petty 
 pittance of it which we can occupy. But for our future en- 
 largement, it is everything which, known or unknown, already 
 appropriated or yet to be discovered, may be included within 
 its unmeasured limits. And to whom the Lord hath given 
 such an estate, hath He not promised an expansion to suit it ? 
 Accepting this " goodly heritage" as his allotment, and hold- 
 ing it in his name and for his glory, is it not his assurance 
 to us that we shall go on ever multiplying, as a people, while 
 *' yet there is room ?" Is it not with us as it was w^ith 
 Abraham, when the Lord said unto him, "After that Lot was 
 departed from him : Lift up now thine eyes, and look from 
 the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and 
 
8 
 
 eastward, and westward : for all the land which thou seest. to 
 thee wilM give it, and to thy seed forever. And I will make 
 thy seed as the dust of the earth : so that if a man can num 
 ber the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be num- 
 bered. Arise, and walk through the land, in the length of 
 it and in the breadth of it ; for I will give it unto thee ?" It 
 cannot be doubted that it is because God intended, on' certain 
 conditions, to make of us a great nation — as the stars of 
 heaven for multitude — that he has placed us where there is 
 ample space and verge enough for an indefinite increase. 
 
 II. We shall find a second illustration of the same point 
 in the resoiirces of this '^ goodly land and large," compared 
 wdth our ability to develope them. We have not inherited a 
 desert, the terrible sublimity of its vastness constituting its 
 most remarkable peculiarity. It is full of all the various 
 material of national wealth ; material which it is impossible 
 for a sparse population to convert into wealth, and to raise 
 to its highest value or greatest utility. We can neither 
 bring the soil nor the mine to its utmost productiveness. 
 Our lakes expand, our rivers flow, our seas and oceans en- 
 circle us on every side, and excavate our harbors at convenient 
 distances along our coasts, and roll their billows to the ends 
 of the earth, not " to waft a feather," not to facilitate our 
 present comparatively inconsiderable commerce merel}^, but 
 to invite, and foster, and accommodate a commerce which shall 
 be adequate to the demands of any population with which 
 
these States may hereafter teem and swarm. Wo have with- 
 in our own borders the means for the convenient subsistence 
 of well nigh the whole race. With husbandmen enough, we 
 may fill a granary for the world. With artificers enough, we 
 may supply the world with all the implements and fabrics 
 essential to civilized life. It is the glory of our mother 
 country to be the world's workshop. It may be our glory, in 
 coming time, to be the world's work-shop and granary both. 
 Such resources we may alienate; but we cannot* consume 
 them. We hold the title to them, but like heirs in their mi- 
 nority, we are constrained, by the circumstances of our con- 
 dition, as if by legal enactments, to content ourselves with a 
 petty allowance from these resources ; not such an income as 
 indicates their capital value, but only such as it is fit or pos- 
 sible for us to expend. Meanwhile the surplus proceeds ac- 
 cumulate, and the unproductive parts of the inheritance wait, 
 till we shall be of age, and our capacity, both for business 
 and happiness, shall be equal to the management and enjoy- 
 ment of them. Mirrored upon our many waters, embossed 
 upon our fertile fields, engraved upon the iron and copper 
 and silver and gold of our exhaustless mines, and chiseled in 
 the granite and marble of our great mountains, and etched 
 indelibly upon our interminable strata of coal, one and the 
 same sentence everywhere meets our e^^es : " The Lord hath 
 been mindful of us : he will bless us." 
 
 III. In connection with our acquisition of such a land 
 
UT 
 
 and sucli treasures in it, it may be instructive to notice in 
 passing, that, as if to enable us to keep and to improve them ^ 
 as one people, the most wonderful of all the modern discov- 
 eries in science and inventions in art have been made, ac- 
 cording to the proverb, " in the very nick of time." But for 
 these, discoveries and inventions, it may be doubted whether 
 the union of these States could have been preserved even till 
 now. Oa account of them, it is to be hoped that it will be 
 preserved, time out of mind. At all events, they constitute 
 ties stronger than the ties of blood and language, to bind us 
 together. Bars of iron, crossing each other at all angles, and 
 prolonged farther and farther, year by year, are fastening 
 down upon these States to make them "now and forever one 
 and inseparable." And stronger than bars of iron, though 
 vibrating under the foot of the lightest bird, and swaying like 
 gossamer in the wind, a net-work of paths for the obedient 
 lightning serves the same purpose still more effectually. 
 And when, through this instrumentality, at once so frail and 
 so powerful, and by means of this swift-winged messenger, I 
 hear the Pacific whispering to the Atlantic, and the Atlantic 
 shouting back to the Pacific, methinks they say. We embrace 
 one family in our arms, and our fond duty it is to compel 
 them to abide, world without end, in mutual harmony ; never 
 to suffer them to entertain the spirit of strife and division, 
 even for a moment. It is the voice of God on both sides, 
 speaking benedictions which impel us to exclaim, '• The Lord 
 hath been mindful of us : he will bless us." 
 
11 
 
 IV. More significant still, are our extraordinary mer.ns of 
 intellectual and moral education ; tlieir excellence and multi- 
 plication and diffusion, together with their perfect adapted- 
 ness to all sorts and conditions of men. Our schools and 
 Churches are the best evidence that the Lord hath been mind- 
 ful of us, and the surest token that he will bless us. Learn- 
 ing and piety are the only reliable safe-guards of any govern- 
 ment, emphatically of a popular government. More than this, 
 they are the real though often despised and forgotten sources 
 of all thrift in business, of all improvement in art, and refine- 
 ment in manners, and of all progress, in whatever direction, 
 towards a high civilization. Our theory, and in a good de- 
 gree our practice is, to educate everybody, to teach everybody 
 the wisdom which springs up at our feet and the wisdom 
 which cometh down from above. We have no exoteric phil- 
 osoj^hy. We hide no secrets in our libraries. We hang up 
 no veil before the mercy-seat in our sanctuaries. We forbid 
 no class of mankind, save one, no individual, to strive for the 
 mastery, whether in the arena of intellectual gladiatorship, 
 or in the race " for the prize of the high calling of God in 
 Christ Jesus." We throw open the doors, and go out into the 
 streets, and into the highways and hedges, and invite, yea 
 urge the most ignorant and degraded — with one exception — 
 to aspire to all. knowledge, human and divine, and to cultivate 
 every virtue of earth, and every grace of heaven. 
 
 Such is our national profession, and our national contempt 
 of this profession though in some instances outrageous, is still 
 
12 
 
 to bs regarded as exceptional, and thougli recently perhaps 
 increasing, is destined, we hope and pray, henceforth to di- 
 minish, and at no distant day to disappear. To be the world's 
 work-shop, or the world's granary, or both, is a small matter- 
 It is for us, if we will, to be the world's school-house, and the 
 " house of prayer for all people," to preach the Gospel to the 
 poor, until '' the poor of this world" shall be " rich in faith,' 
 and at sight of them, the rich of this world shall be "poor in 
 spirit," and thus both shall inherit " the kingdom which God 
 hath promised to them that love him." Surely, for this reason 
 also, and more than for any other reason hitherto mentioned, 
 it is our exalted privilege, like Abraham of old, by the light of 
 the present to gather gladness from the future, and, believing 
 God, to thank him because he hath been mindful of us, and 
 will therefore continue to bless us. 
 
 Y. Resulting in part from the foregoing reasons — partic- 
 ularly the last — for appropriating the words of the Psalmist 
 to ourselves, and, in some aspects of it stronger than any of 
 them, or than all combined, is the tendency of emigrants 
 from almost all other lands to our shores. Hardly is there 
 a tribe under heaven not represented in these States. The 
 streams of immigration wash over our country from every 
 point of the compass, on every spot to precipitate their 
 mingled freights of poverty and riches, of good and evil. 
 Such a spectacle was never before witnessed. From the 
 cradle of humanity on the banks of the Euphrates, the chil- 
 
i: 
 
 dren of men separated, four thousand years ago, some going 
 east, some west, to replenish the earth and to subdue it ; and 
 now and here, for the first time, the descendants of those who 
 vrent east meet the descendants of those who came west, to 
 dwell together under one government, and to prosecute their 
 various avocations together, in peace and quietness, as one 
 people. The motto of our national banner, E Plurihus 
 Unu7?i, One from Many, bears daily a larger import. 
 Originally expressing the union of but thirteen feeble colo- 
 nies, mostly from the same mother country, it now means a 
 vast deal more than thirty-one mighty States united. It 
 means one people formed out of all nations ; bearing at least 
 a remote resemblance to that great multitude which the apos- 
 tle saw in the new Jerusalem, redeemed out of every kindred 
 and tongue, yet speaking one language, and joining in one 
 song of grateful praise. Europe furnished the beginning of 
 our population, and is still making the largest additions to it. 
 But we have millions from Africa, and thousands and tens 
 of thousands from Asia and the isles of the sea. Here, during 
 times of civil commotion in their respective States, have fled 
 refugees from Canada, Mexico, and every part of South 
 America, from France, and Germany, and Italy, and Austria, 
 and Poland, and Hungary, and from the most distant convict 
 settlements of Great Britain. Here they come flocking, ac- 
 coiding to their most pressing wants, some for bread, some 
 for farms, some for political liberty, some for social equality, 
 and some for freedom of conscience. So it happens that 
 
TT 
 
 foreigners by birth, everywhere throughout our wide domain, 
 mingle with foreigners by descent, as we all are, in plough- 
 ing our fields, digging our canals, laying our railways, nav- 
 igating our rivers and lakes and seas, excavating our mines, 
 working our factories, exchanging our merchandise, electing 
 our rulers, framing our Constitutions, enacting, interpreting 
 and executing our laws, building and using our school-houses, 
 our academies, our colleges, our seminaries and Churches, 
 our prisons, our asylums and our hospitals ; in all possible 
 ways and by all possible means, forming and modifying our 
 national character, and evolving, if not our "manifest," certainly 
 our real and inevitable destiny. The miracle of Babel is re- 
 versed among us, and, instead of one speech confounded by 
 division, we witness many tongues made intelligible by union. 
 All the languages and dialects of men are abandoned for a 
 common vehicle of thought ; and at this moment, our strong 
 old English is spoken in greater purity and with greater 
 uniforQiity, by the mixed race of American citizens, from 
 Maine to California, than in the little island from which it 
 was imported, by the large majority of the native race, its blood 
 uncontaminated since the days of good king Arthur. 
 
 I am aware that in the eye of political prejudice and re- 
 ligious animosity, — in which I confess myself to have an am- 
 ple share, — the foreign element of our population is only 
 evil and that continually. On this question, in this place, I 
 have nothing either to deny or to affirm. This foreign ele- 
 ment may be in itself as bad as it can be regarded, and yet 
 
15 
 
 the ter.dency of it towards our country may, after all, be the 
 most conclusive proof that the Lord hath been mindful of us, 
 and is still waiting to bless us more and more. The tendency 
 of the sick to a hospital, or of the insane to an asylum, is surely 
 to its commendation, speaking unequivocally of the wisdom 
 of its management and of the blessing on its inmates. The 
 inclination of pilgrims and strangers, the world over, to come 
 here, is one thing; the effect of their presence here is quite 
 another thing. And it is only of their inclination to com.e 
 here that I am now speaking. 
 
 This wonderful phenomenon may be attributed to the incal- 
 culable abundance and value of our physical resources. But 
 in this respect the territory of these States is not superior, in 
 some things not equal to Mexico and Central and South Amer- 
 ica. There are gathered all the elements of extended and 
 powerful empires. Yet thither turn not the eyes nor the 
 steps of the needy and oppressed. We must look, therefore, 
 for some other explanation of the unanimous converging of 
 these classes to our ports as to so many havens of hope and 
 rest. 
 
 But it may be said that our republican government is the 
 explanation. And is the security which we offer to personal 
 rights our great attraction ? Are the nations drawn to us by 
 the invitation which we hold out to men of all races — but one — 
 of all ranks and of all creeds, to meet here upon the same 
 footing ; and, under no other restraints than those which are 
 necessary for their mutual protection, to compete with one 
 
anotlier for all the rewards and all the honors at our disposal ? 
 It cannot fail to occur to you, that the existence of such a 
 government is itself to be explained. If it be our liberty 
 which constitutes our charm, then whence our liberty ? How 
 happens it, that we have here no landed aristocracy, no titled 
 nobility, no lav,^ of primogeniture, to perpetuate an estate, or 
 a privilege, or a distinction, in the same family from genera- 
 tion to generation ? How happens it, that we have here no 
 established religion, no lordly hierarchy, no system of tithes, 
 no inquisitorial courts ? Why this strange difference between 
 our institutions and these of almost all other nations ? "Why 
 is it that this people alone are the State, and that they alone 
 elect and change their rulers at their pleasure, only under 
 restrictions of their own making, and teach them by very 
 rapid and summary, yet orderly and peaceful revolutions, 
 that they must rule according to law or not rule at all ? It 
 is perfectly obvious that we must carry our investigations 
 farther back, if we w^ould reach a satisfactory solution of the 
 question before us. 
 
 And who can doubt, who deny, that all nations flow unto 
 this land, for the very same reason— ^only not so strong — for 
 which they shall finally flow unto the mountain of the Lord's 
 house, saying to each other on the way, '' For out of Zion shall 
 go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 
 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke 
 many people : and they shall beat their swords into plough- 
 shares and their spears into pruning-hooks : nation shall not 
 
17 
 
 lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war ar.j 
 mare ;" for the very same reason that " in those days, ten men 
 shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall 
 take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will 
 go with you : for we have heard that God is with you." 
 
 Far be it from me to claim for my country more than a very 
 remote approximation to that glorious excellence which, in the 
 last days, shall distinguish and adorn the kingdom of God 
 among men. Oar national, and social, and personal faults, 
 our sins, we have cause to fear, are even now crying to heaven 
 for vengeance. But hy the unmerited mercy of " the Gov- 
 ernor among the nations," we still retain those divine sources 
 of all true and lasting prosperity— the law of the Lord, the 
 word of God, its righteous and benevolent and peaceful in- 
 fluences and effects, which in coming time shall make Mount 
 Zion the joy of the whole earth, a delightsome land unto all 
 the inhabitants thereof. It is, in spite of our heinous offences, 
 on account of these inestimable blessings, that all the kindreds 
 of the nations now mingle and multiply -within our borders. 
 This holy Book, known and read of all men, whosoever will, 
 is incontrovertibly the Magna Charta of our liberties. The 
 principles, the laws and ordinances which this holy Book 
 teaches us to observe, lie at the foundation of our free insti- 
 tutions, and support the -whole fabric of our republican gov- 
 ernment. Without a standing army, without a reliable and 
 efficient police even in our largest cities, and in our rural 
 districts without even locks or bolts, without any kind o^ 
 
preparation for self-defencej to what can we be indebted for 
 our unexampled safety and sense of security, at all hours of 
 the night as well as of the day, and for our bloodless political 
 excitements and revolutions, if not to the wide-spread and far- 
 reaching, interpenetrating, ofcen unacknowledged and unsus- 
 pected power of the Bible ? I grant, with sorrow, that we by 
 no means appreciate the Grospel of the grace of God according 
 to our familiarity with it as herein revealed, and I dread lest 
 our familiarity with it may be fast diminishing. But God 
 would have saved Sodom itself for the sake of ten righteous 
 men, and I am persuaded that it is because of a yet not in- 
 significant proportion, in the midst of us, of them that fear 
 Him and keep his commandments, in some degree according 
 to their knowledge of their duty, that He not only spares 
 this land, but still continues to fix the gaze of the world upon 
 it in admiration, and to make it the fondly sought refuge of 
 the world's poor and suffering outcasts. 
 
 It is not the doubtful dogma of bigotry or fanaticism, it is 
 the certain teaching of all true history and philosophy and 
 religion alike, that no outward restraints, mechanically ap- 
 plied, can so curb the passions and direct the conduct of men, 
 as to keep them from ruinous collision with one another, and 
 to guide them in courses which will lead each to the promo- 
 tion of the common welfare. There must be ^ faith inwardly 
 received and voluntarily and cordially obeyed. And no such 
 faith has ever been found in any sense adequate to the end, 
 except the faith recorded in the Bible, the faith once deliv- 
 
19 
 
 ered to the saints by holy men, who spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost. What an example of charity , in 
 the fact that God himself so loved the world as to give his 
 own Son to die for his enemies ! What a motive to imitate 
 this divine example, in the fact that the imitation of it is the 
 evidence of our interest in its fruits, of our title to eternal 
 life, as the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord ! 
 Should we not expect, that wherever the doctrines of grace 
 might in any measure prevail, there in the same measure 
 would prevail that industry, that honesty, that integrity, that 
 veracity, that equal justice in punishing the guilty and in 
 defending the innocent, that support of every man in his own 
 temporal and spiritual rights, that generosity, that kindness, 
 that forbearance, that gentleness, that humanity to instruct 
 the ignorant, help the weak, and coiifort the afflicted, that 
 purity, in one word, that piety which, let infidelity say what 
 it will, ever acts like the law of gravitation, to gather all 
 things to itself? Righteousness exalteth a nation, and mul- 
 titudes will cast in their lot with that nation in which they 
 perceive the fruits of righteousness, whether aware of the 
 origin of those fruits or not. It is because those fruits, in 
 which our conscientious forefathers abounded, are yet brought 
 forth in our land, that it is yet the retreat of the fugitives 
 from every clime. It is because the Lord hath been mindful 
 of us. But for this they would find here the sepulchre, in- 
 stead of the asylum of their hopes. These fugitives prove 
 that the Lord hath been mindful of us ; and in them, rightly 
 
received, and honorably and charitably dealt by, He will 
 bless us. I am not now speaking of their political relations 
 to us, but of our Christian obligations to them. Let us do 
 our duty to them, and they are a token that the Lord will 
 bless us — yea, the blessing itself with which he will enrich 
 us. They are the harvest, already white, spread around our 
 own doors, waving over our own fields, forbidding us to plead, 
 in extenuation of our sloth, that no man hath hired us ; com- 
 manding us, as if by the voice of the Master himself, to enter 
 into his harvest, and to do with our might whatsoever our hand 
 findeth to do, under the assurance of receiving whatsoever is 
 right. With what emphasis may it be said to the whole 
 American people, " The promise is to you and to your chil- 
 dren, and to them that are afar o/," to you and your chil- 
 dren and them together. Here, out of all lands, God seems 
 to be collecting a people, like a great river, from innumerable 
 rills ; the quality of the many waters '' melted into one," ex- 
 celling that of either of its tributaries. Evil influences may 
 defeat it, but such influences resisted, and the fair prospect 
 is, that the tree of humanity, planted in our soil and en- 
 grafted with scions from every variety of the race, shall tower 
 upwards in strength and beauty, as it has nowhere towered 
 before since it was uprooted from paradise, and shall exhibit, 
 in these ends of the earth, something of its first and final 
 glory and honor and immortality. 
 
21 
 
 In consequence of tlie large number of our sister States 
 united with us in celebrating this day, I have been led to re- 
 gard it as a national festival, and to address you thus far ex- 
 clusively in view of your relations as citizens of the whole 
 country. With regard to your relations to this city, to these 
 Churches, and to your respective families, and with regard to 
 your circumstances as individuals, you can bo at no loss to 
 determine w^herein the Lord hath been mindful of you, nor on 
 what grounds you may safely anticipate that he will bless 
 you. I will only remark, that you have the more reason, and 
 not the less encouragement, to argue from the past to the fu- 
 ture, if at the present time you are in affliction, as many of 
 you must be personally, and as I know you all to be, who be- 
 long to and constitute these Christian congregations. When 
 an interval of adversity lies like a starless and'stcrmy ni^ht 
 between two serene and sunny days, — as with those youthful 
 parents from whom their first-born is taken ; as with that 
 aged mourner whose life-long companion has left him to go 
 down alone with sorrow to the grave ; as with that widow 
 and her helpless orphans whose house is left unto them deso- 
 late ; as with you, two Churches whom I, a recent stranger, 
 found confiding and joyous in your gifted, useful and honored 
 
 pastors, but whom I now find, after the lapse of a single year, 
 
 I* 
 as sheep having no shepherds, — O ! is it not a privilege, in 
 
 such an interval of adversity, to walk by faith and not by 
 
 sight; and, remembering the day which went out in this 
 
 thick darkness, to look for the day into which this thick dark- 
 
ness shall dawn, and courageously to sing, ''' Weeping may 
 endure for a niglit, but joy cometh in the morning." 
 
 If my subject teaches any lesson plainly, my hearers, it 
 teaches that confidence in God is thanksgiving ; that to ar- 
 crue from God himself to himself, is after the manner of that 
 child-like gratitude towards Him, as our Father, with which he 
 is ever well pleased. Because "theLord hathdonegreat things 
 for us, whereof we are glad," therefore he will do great things 
 for us, whereof we shall be glad ; thus it becometh us to cel- 
 ebrate his wonderful works to the children of men, and to 
 praise him for his goodness. It is the most ungrateful dis- 
 trust and unbelief, to argue from ourselves to God, and to 
 limit his mercy and grace by our unworthiness and sinful- 
 ness. If He would not save the chief of sinners, no sinner 
 could be saved ; and no sinner ever will be saved who will 
 not pronounce himself the chief of sinners. " Trust in the 
 Lord and do good ;" that is to '' give thanks at the remem- 
 brance of his holiness." 
 
 " Though within us and without us, 
 Darkly opens life about u?, 
 Yet by faith we'll trust the bands 
 Laid and kept by other hands." 
 
 It follows, that with a race of sinners like the children of 
 men there can be no thankfulness for the goodness of God, 
 except that goodness lead them to repentance and faith, the 
 essential precedents and first-fruits of all good works. With- 
 
t 
 
 23 
 
 out repentance and faith there may be an animal enjoyment, 
 a sensual reveling in the abundance of our earthly portion, 
 but no true gratitude even for that, while our spiritual bles- 
 sings, our only durable riches, will be entirely overlooked, or, 
 worse still, despised and rejected. It is written that when 
 the king of Persia and Haman, his favorite minister of state, 
 sat down to drink together, in exultation over the enactment 
 of their bloody decree for the extinction of the people of God, 
 " the city Shushan was perplexed ;" that kind of sensual 
 and cruel sclf-gratulation threw the great capital of Persia 
 into confusion and dismay. But when Nineveh repented, 
 proclaiming a fast and putting on sack-cloth, because they 
 believed God, there was a quiet, sober joy in that " exceeding 
 great city of three days' journey," and no soul was troubled 
 save the soul of Jonah, and his soul, with but a momentary 
 flash of foolish anger. Shall we not this day praise the Lord 
 our God, and offer unto Him our thanksgivings, by puttino- 
 away our sins, our pride, our covetousness, our ambition, our 
 unbelief, our form of Godliness emptied of its power, our 
 bigotry, our superstition, our licentiousness, our intemperance, 
 our oppression ? Shall we not break every yoke, and let the 
 oppressed go free ? Shall we not feed the hungry, clothe the 
 naked, visit the sick and the imprisoned, and alleviate every 
 form of human suffering, according to our ability ? 
 
 I am happy to be able to bring your gratitude at once to 
 the test, and to give you a fair opportunity of determining in 
 what light, with what emotions, you contemplate the forbear- 
 
ance and mercy of God towards jou, by determining Low you 
 feel and are ready to act towards your delinquent fellow- 
 servants. It is your custom, on this occasion, to make an 
 offering as God has blessed you in your basket and your 
 store, to aid the Martha Washington Society, in their truly 
 benevolent work. I love to beg for anybody but myself, and 
 this feeling, I sometimes think, constitutes the most striking 
 difference between a beggar and a minister. I love to beg for 
 any class of the poor and the suffering ; but for the family of 
 the wretched inebriate, — that broken-hearted wife, those neg- 
 lected children, no wood in the shed, no provision in the 
 cellar, no fire in the stove, the roof no shelter from the rain, 
 the window no protection from the blast, that wife and those 
 children shrinking into themselves, shrinking away from the 
 world, away from their natural protector, life one incessant 
 want, and shame, and dread, — if I could think it necessary to 
 beg for such a family, before such an audience, now that your 
 barns are filled with plenty, now that stern winter is ap- 
 proaching, I should be forced to the incredible conclusion, 
 that this religious service is nothing better than a vain show, 
 an impious mockery ! If the pitiable objects of this Society 
 do not plead for themselves, no word of mine can touch your 
 hearts in their behalf. But your hearts are already impatient 
 to express themselves with all the liberality that the case can 
 possibly demand, and why should I keep you waiting ? 
 
p. SEP 
 
 1945 '