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REV. DR. BETHtJNE'S
THANKSGIVING SERMON,
1856.

SERMON

ON

THANKSGIVING -DAY,

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1856,

BY

GEORGE W. BETHUNE,
\i'
MINISTER OP THE REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH ON THE HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN.

NEW YORK:
PRINTED BY BARTON & SON, 111 FULTON STREET.
1856.

Ill Brooklyn, Nov. 24, 1856.
Rev. and Dear Sir, The Undersigned, having listened with
much pleasure, and, as they trust, with no little profit, to your
excellent Sermon on Thanksgiving Day, and being desirous not
only to extend, as far as may be, this pleasure and profit to
others not among your audience on that occasion, but also to
deepen the impression of its important truths upon their own
hearts — solicit a copy of the discourse for publication.
In complying with this request, you will gratify the very
general wish of the congregation, as well as greatly oblige
Yours, very respectfully,
John T. Moore,
J. B. Stewart,
Bauman Lowe,
David M. Stone,
Livingston K. Miller,
F. J. Hosford,
Geo. S. Stephenson,
R. Rosman,
Edward Lambert,
Ten Eyck Sutphen,
James Myers,
James H. Prentice,
Charles Jenkins,
Francis M. French,
S. B. Stewart,
Peter Duryee,
Carl G. Bolander.

Rev. Dr. Bethune,
j\Enister of the Church on the Heights.

1

IV

Brooklyn, December, 1856.

My dear Friends,

Your great kindness persuades me to
comply with your wishes; and, as my aim in the discourse you ask
from me for the press, was to preach peace and thankfulness, it
may be that its publication will further its usefulness by the
divine blessing. I consent to your request the more readily, as
I see among your names those of gentlemen holding various
views of politics, which assures me that my Sermon, though it
may not in all things coincide with the sentiments of all, is yet
free from objection on the score of uncharitable bias. With this
trust in your candor and affection, I send you the manuscript
Your servant in the love of Christ,
GEO. W. BETHTJNE.
John T. Moore, Esq. |
and others. )

SERMON.

Psalm cvii. S.

" 0, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness; for his
wonderful works to the children of men I"

We could hardly have a better preface to our
thoughts than the excellent Proclamation by his
Excellency Mykon H. Clark, Governor of the
State of New York :
The year that is now drawing to a close has been full of the
mercies of our Heavenly Father. The Providence that dispenses
the common blessings of life has not withholden its bounties.
Throughout the borders of our great and prosperous State, man
has been preserved in the enjoyment of life and health. A plen
teous harvest has been gathered in, while pestilence has only
looked upon us and departed. Never has labor received rewards
more cheering; no fear of famine, no apprehension of industrial
distress or commercial panic, no dread of impending social cala
mity mingles with our joy. Every department of honorable hu
man culture has advanced. The arts that adorn a Republican
State have not languished. The love of Freedom has burned
with a brighter flame. Our political rights have remained safe
in the care of an enlightened and order-loving people. The pub-

lie morals have not degenerated; and religion has not failed to
cheer us by her consolations, to warn us by solemn admonitions,
and to inspire us by her eternal hopes.
In view of this wonderful display of the goodness of God,
nothing can be more appropriate than a solemn act of thanks
giving by the whole people.
I do, therefore, in pursuance of established custom, set apart
and appoint Thursday, the twentieth day of November next, to
be observed throughout the State as a day of public Thanksgiving
and Praise. And I respectfully request all the people of this
State to abstain on that day from their usual avocations ; to as
semble according to their religious customs, and give thanks to
Almighty God, the giver of all good. Let us implore Him to
smile upon our future, to make us worthy of His bounties, and to
prateot and preserve thosg institutions which enable man to glo
rify God, and do His will upon earth. Let us, especially, thank
Him, that the great privilege of the American citizen, the un-
trammeled expression of opinion, the defence of truth and justice,
and the denunciation of error and oppression, is still ours. And
while we pray for forgiveness of our sins, as citizens of the State,
and subjects of the Divine Government, let us consecrate our
selves anew, on that day, to a religious life which neglects no
private or public obligation on earth, while it confides in the
grace of God for the hope of an immortal life in heaven.
In witness whereof I have hereunto signed my name and
affixed the private Seal of the State, at the city of Albany,
[L. S.J this twenty-first day of October, iu the year of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and fifty-six.
MYRON H. CLARK.
By the Governor,
George E. Baker, Private Secretary.
A better, less exceptionable, more impressive
document than this has seldom, if ever, been sent
forth from the hand of the Executive on a similar
occasion. Its thoughts and the order of them are

7
very good, fitted to the purpose and eminently
worthy of our devout consideration.
Believing as I do, and as, I trust, you all do, that
a diversion of this day to any other use than the
one to which it has been set apart, would be an
impudent disregard of civil authority, as well as a
wicked neglect of the highest and most pleasant
duty which God, our long-suffering, constant, most
compassionate Benefactor, permits us to render
him, I cannot choose but to follow implicitly a re
quest uttered in such an admirable spirit, and in
such consistence with the dictates of our holy reh
gion. There are, it is true, many things in the present
condition of our public affairs painful, humiliating,
and even alarming ; which is not surprising when
we remember the folly and sinfulness of human
nature ; yet there are quite enough that are happy
and encouraging to fill up one day with gratitude
before God their author ; and, though on various
points of political interest, there may be diversity
of opinion among us, as is natural where thought
and speech and suffrage are free, we should be un
animous in joy, because " the Lord reigneth," and
his " tender mercies are over all his works.'' The
day will be turned by not a few into one of mere
frolic or worse excess, while some will not spare it
from the toils of their business ; yet with what face
shall we deplore such criminal indifference to the
claims of Him by whose goodness we live, if teach
ers of religion leave their proper work, to put
quarrel and bitterness between their hearers and

God ! There is more than good sense in the poet's
advice to little children (and to be true Christians,
we must all become as little children) :
" Whatever broils disturb the street,
There should be peace at home."
In our home on high there will be peace, and the
nearest we can get to that home is the Church of
pious worshippers :
" 'Tis like a little heaven below;"
and the more like heaven, the more it is filled with
love to God, love to each other, and love to all men.
My discourse, therefore, as hortatory to your devo
tions, will be little else than an enlargement, such
as our time may allow, of the several suggestions
made in the call of the Governor, which has brought
us together.
" The year that is now drawing to a close has
been full ofthe mercies of our Heavenly Father."
When his disciples asked the Divine Master how
they should pray, he bade them begin by saying :
" Our Father which art in heaven." The spirit of
prayer is the spirit of sonship, for it is the
spirit of Christ, the Son of God, through whose
prayers for us our prayers are heard ; so that we
cannot pray except we look to God as children
look to a father, knowing that all things are his,

and that he knows what we need, and that he will
withhold no good thing from those that love him.
We may believe in God as the Author of all things
and the Disposer of all events ; but we cannot trust
him or give him the homage of our hearts until we
recognise him as our Father, ever watchful over us
and tenderly solicitous for our best welfare. So,
also, when this filial reverence and affection rule
our hearts, obedience to God must follow.
This claim upon God's loving care implies another
relation, the denial or forgetfulness of which shuts
us out from the access of prayer. The worshipper
is not alone in the world, nor the only recipient of
God's favour ; but, when he looks up to his Hea
venly Father, he sees the hand that is open to sup
ply his wants, open, also, to supply those of all his
fellow men. If God, our Father, be their Father,
they must be our brethren ; and we are all his fa
mily, his sun shining, his rain descending, his earth
fruitful for all. This one thought, the very first
breath of prayer, were enough, if we felt it aright,
to banish from human hearts all envy and hate and
quarrel, making the world we live in, one wide and
happy home. That this delightful idea might be
impressed on our infant hearts, God has repeated
it in the human household, where children gather
round one table, and sleep under the same roof,
guarded and provided for and governed by the hu
man parent ; that, when, as understanding increases
with years, and they go out into the world, they

10
may be led by religion to love their fellow-men as
the children of their God.
Sin has greatly marred this wise, benevolent ar
rangement of the Creator. As men have departed
from God, they have separated from each other ;
as they have forgotten the law of the household,
which made the interest of one the interest of all,
and the interest of all the interest of each, the
family has been broken up into many fragments,
nations have become jealous of nations, and factions
divided the people, and individual set himself
against individual. Still, so much of beauty and
power and union remains in the family, that philo
sophers, who speculate about human welfare, have
proposed a universal family as the highest form
of human happiness, and endeavored to imitate
it on a small scale by the establishment of com
munities, in which the industry and talents _of
each should be merged in the good of all the
associates. Every such experiment has failed,
and for the simple reason, that a religious trust
in one divine Father has been left out of their
system. The Fourierite or Communist has, how
ever, made this large stride toward the truth, that
precisely as men intelligently perceive and act in
accordance with their common interests, and be
come united under one general law, do they ap
proach the highest civilization, when discords and
wars, with their destructive wastes, will cease to
make the earth a scene of tyranny or battle. The

11
instinct of man, though greatly perverted, has ever
been aiming at this, yet, almost universally, by
methods certain to defeat it. Hence the vast em
pires, first in the eastern world, afterwards succes
sively the Roman, the Greek, and the German,
which, having been established by force, were
broken up because there was no bond but force.
The idea was farther developed in the Republic, or.
as our better English word translates it, the Com
monwealth, where each citizen has his rights gua
ranteed and guarded by his own individual action
in union with his fellow-citizen.. But the repub
lics of the old world failed, among other reasons,
because they had to defend themselves against the
jealous enmity of near neighbors, whom they were
obliged to reduce into subjects before they could
control their hostility. In exercising despotic
power over others, they soon lost, as will ne
cessarily be the case, their own liberties ; for no
one has ever struck at his fellows' rights without
impairing the security of his own. The fullest
exhibition ofthe family, hitherto' made, is our Ame
rican Union, where under one law many separate
Commonwealths, spread over a vast region, are yet
combined — the law stronger because permitting
play to the several parts ofthe systematized whole ;
warding off the danger of neighboring foes, re
fusing all subjects, and providing for the common
good without infringing upon the particular free
dom of each.
The province of our Governor does not extend

12
beyond our immediate State ; yet, in this minor
example, how beautiful is the spectacle of our
vast Commonwealth united as to its interests,
maritime and inland, agricultural, manufacturing,
and commercial ! How far more beautiful, if every
citizen of the State in all its counties, and towns,
and sub-divisions, were at this moment obeying
the pious recommendation of the Governor, and
uniting with all his fellow-citizens in giving thanks
to God as the heavenly Father of all our people !
Surely God would look down with pleasure on such
a family of his children. There is too much un
godliness among us to allow of such an exhibition
of perfect love, but, so far as it is carried out to-day,
is it not a grand and a lovely sight 1
I regret that it has not been the custom of our
National Executive to appoint a day of Thanks
giving for the United States, on which the
piously-disposed citizens of the Union might to
gether worship and praise God our heavenly
Father. Since, however, we are not so favored, we
may go beyond the limits of our State, and admire the
wisdom of Providence in leading the fathers of our
country to shun so many ofthe evils that have been
fatal to other empires and commonwealths, and
to present so large a type of that great family into
which the persuasive triumphs of the Prince of
Peace are to bring all the nations of the earth.
The world has been travailing with this grand idea
since the fall, but never has it grown into such
bigness and strength as now and here. Let us

thank God that our lot is cast in so goodly a heri
tage, and pray him for all the brethren of our na
tional family, and entreat him, for the sake of
Christ, that he would be our Lord as he was the
God of our fathers, and that by the Gospel, which
alone can subdue the jealousies and correct the
errors of sinful hearts like ours, he would make us
obedient to him, so making us love each other as a
family, whose kindly bonds no wrath of man may
break, and so perpetuating our safety, our liberties,
and our peace, until this Confederation is lost in the
Millenial union of all nations, when there shall
be no King but Jesus, and no law but the charity
of Him who died for sinners, and God be the Father
of all.
"The Providence that dispenses the common
blessings of life, has not withheld from us its
bounties." Yes, my hearers, our common blessings are from
Providence, and therefore should not be under
valued and overlooked in our thanksgivings, be
cause they are common, A miracle is generally
defined to be an act of God out of his ordinary
course, but the strict meaning of the word is, Some
thing to be wondered at ; and, in this sense,
the ordinary favors which we receive from God are
very great miracles. Thus, with what wonderful
skill and goodness has God arranged the anatomy
of our living frames — the circulation of our blood
by impelling arteries through our ramifying veins ;
2

14
the machinery of our sinews and joints and nerves ;
the apparatus of our senses, respiration and diges
tion ; and, above all, the combination of spirit and
matter in our exercise of thought and moral emo
tion ; upon the orderly preservation of all which
our health, vigor, comfort, perception and reason
depend! How many, since last Thanksgiving
Day, have been deprived of one or more of these
common blessings, while the most or all of us have
been spared such unspeakable calamity, or suffered
only in part ! Must we wait to know the value of
these blessings by their loss, before we give thanks
for them 1 Our food and drink, which we need
daily and oftener, through what wonderful processes
are they prepared and given to us by the author of
nature ; the air, which we are continually breath
ing, how wonderfully is it composed and kept salu
tary, though, as we have seen but too sadly not
long since, it may be charged with seeds of pesti
lence, or deprived of vital virtue, so that to breathe
it is death; the light, which pours its cordial
beams around us, by what a stupendous system
does it alternate cheerful day with welcome night !
yet these have been granted to us, not less really
because through the operation of steady laws
than as if they had been supplied by immediate
acts of the Almighty. Should we not thank Him
for this 1
It were unspeakable goodness in God to support
us in life by the mere necessaries sufficient to sus
tain it, but he has bountifully made those neces-

Ii

saries luxuries and delights. What happiness
there is in the very consciousness of health and
vigor! What charming sensations and percep
tions we have of taste and smell, and touch and
sight and hearing ! How varied and beautiful are
the things and orders and changes of nature, all
spread out before us as an inexhaustible heritage of
enjoyment ! How rich and exquisite are the feasts
of thought and feeling and affection ! Were any
one of these sources of blessing shut up from us,
how melancholy would be the void ! And if, after
experience of the deprivation, God should restore
the gift by a sudden act, such as men call a mira
cle, how lively would be our joy and our thanks !
Shall we then forget to thank God because his
bounty is so constant '?
'¦ Throughout the borders of our great and pros
perous State, man has been preserved in the enjoy
ment of life and health. A plenteous harvest has
been gathered in, while pestilence has only looked
on us and departed. Never has labor received re
wards more cheering ; no fear of famine, no appre
hension of industrial distress or commercial panic ;
no dread of impending social calamity mingles
with our joy."
There are some who may think tha,t the congrat
ulation, is too positive, and that some exceptions
might be made to so general a prosperity. Death
has been among us; it is never idle; and many a
house is a house of mourning. Pestilence has vi-

16
sited our city, and penetrated into the very midst
of it ; and those whose friends have been hurried to
the grave by its horrid force, will long and painfully
remember the visitation. Disappointment has ruin
ed fortunes in trade, and blighted hopes of husband- "
man and mechanic. Designing, bad men, at each
end of the Confederacy, have raised fearful cries of
alarm or threatening, as regards the safety of the
nation, or, what is the same thing, the permanence
of the Union ; and the timid, or the rash, or the
weak-minded have trembled, and are yet trembling
at dangers, not imaginary, indeed, but still under the
control of true-hearted loyalty to the organic, un
equalled law of our national existence. But our
Governor, from his magisterial height, looks over
the wide domain of our imperial State, and speaks,
as one in his position should, of the great predomi
nance of blessing in health and harvest, and busi
ness and social order. No silly .terrors reach the
elevation on which he sits, and his calm, thought
ful, hopeful, thankful voice rebukes the miserable
agitators, and the poor souls they have frightened.
It is true, as was said before, that he speaks
within his sphere, but well he knows that the
State over which he honorably presides, is a mem
ber of a giant body, which must suffer or rejoice
with each and all of its particular and fellow
members, and that schism of any part would be
fatal to the whole. We and all the citizens of the
Union are fallen sinners, prone I . do wrong and
wilfully or unwilfully to err. i I were such a

17
miracle as the world will never see until the love
of Christ rules every heart, if no evil-doers could
be found, among us ; if the heaving of passions,
excited by the jealousies of mistaken rivalry, cast
up no mire and dirt ; if different portions of the
land showed not faults and even crimes, character
ising their latitude by their variety, but their
common human nature by their sinfulness ; if there
were no collisions of insurgent evil with laws or
dained in times of sober forecast to guard against
such outbreaks of violence as rise from popular
excitement ; or if officers, chosen from sinful men
like ourselves, should not always see rightly, or,
knowing right, should not faithfully execute it.
We have been so long blessed with peace and
substantial harmony in this wide confederacy
(mainly, under Providence, because it is so wide)
that we forget, or, rather, are ignorant of the evils
and calamities which accompany other forms of
government. It is hard for our pride of opinion
or supposed interests to submit to the restraints
and disappointments which a constitutional demo
cracy and a league of sovereignties impose, by
the very law of their operation, on the minority and
the majority. But, even a constitutional demo
cracy, or the most cautiously framed confederation,
like every thing human, is not perfect ; and our
choice lies between the evils incident to our sys
tem, and the far worse evils of what men term a
strong government. Should we in this land resort
to the state of things which they have in the old

18
world, where despots, taking advantage of sectional
jealousies, parcel out nations among themselves,
and rule them by the bayonet and the cannon, we
should learn too late how much better it is to
endure every possible trial that can reach us
through the multiplied checks of our constitutional
law, than, breaking up into fragments, necessarily
conflicting, to lose, as we necessarily should, free
dom of speech and act altogether. Experience
has fully demonstrated it to be a law of Provi
dence, that those who would deny self-govern
ment to others, are neither fit nor able long to
maintain self-government for themselves. This
ruined Athens and Rome. By their conquests
and arbitrary rule of the conquered, they corrupt
ed and slew their own strength. He who makes
or holds a slave, must sooner or later submit him
self to a master. Disunion and civil hate are not
contingent merely on circumstances and events
north and south of a surveyor's line — they spring
from the natural injustice and ungoverned pas
sions of the human heart ; and the pettiest State
now in the Union would, if it were isolated, soon
have its North and South, its East and West,
with their contending factions. Men will never
lack a pretext for quarrel, if there were only two
of them on a prairie a hundred miles square. The
tribes of Indians, that once roamed over this North
ern land, lived in constant, bloody feuds, and were
destroying each other before the white men ever
trod their shores, and took advantage of their quar-

19
rels, the more speedily to exterminate them all.
When this New York of ours was New Nether-
land, under Dutch rule, there was war between
them and the Englishmen of Connecticut, and
quarrel also with the Swedes on the Dela
ware ; and Pennsylvania, under Quaker prin
ciples, was getting up a quarrel with New York,
which might have ended in bloodshed, from jeal
ousy of losing (what think you, my friends ?) the
trade of New Jersey ! Once our northern border
was desolated, and at other times in imminent dan
ger of the same calamity, by disputes with the
British possessions on the North and East; and at
the southern extremity we were obliged, with
great loss of lives, to " conquer peace" from our
next neighboring republic.
England and Scotland were struggling for su
premacy from time immemorial, until the union of
their crowns on the head of James I. Great Bri
tain and France are next neighbors, and there was
war between them for five hundred and sixty-four
out of the seven hundred and four years from
1110 to 1814, A. D.; to say nothing of war be
tween other European states which was arrested
at the fall of Napoleon by a confederation of sove
reignties for the general harmony, leaving each to
act for itself within its own sphere — the idea evi
dently taken from our own confederation. The
seven free states of Holland, in a population of
two and a half millions, were constantly in a state
of war between themselves, until they combined

20
against a common enemy bytheUnion of Ut' o cht,
the model of our own. Look at Italy, w h a
population (excluding Sardinia, the islands, the
Swiss and Corsica) of something less than twenty
millions under eleven different governments ; and
what an abject condition it is in ! Germany, with
a population of more than 40,000,000, is divided
under thirty-eight governments ; and the conse
quence is, that more than every third man, capable
of bearing arms, is a soldier even in time of peace.
I give these hurried examples to show that
to the extent of our Confederacy, under God, we
owe more than to any thing else our freedom from
the miseries and burdens of war, with the inevitable
tyrannies springing from military rule ; which evils
would be as certain to occur here, were we not
united under a common law, as that we are human
nature. Between rival nations there is no umpire
but the sword ; and war, said to be the la,st ar
gument of kings, is apt to be the first argument
of a democracy. Some years since, when New
England was temporarily inspired with the idea
of peace societies (the influence of which move
ment, though sadly counteracted by some of the
very men who then preached peace to the world,
is not yet, I hope, wholly lost, here or abroad), the
great remedy proposed for war was a universal
Congress of Nations, as ours is of thirty-one States.
It were very sad to find out that the idea of such a
Congress is but the figment of a beautiful enthu
siasm of phdanthropic hope. We have lately seen

21
the horrors which followed the breaking up of
peace on the dissolution of leagues in Europe ; and
our souls have been harrowed by the atrocities
of what may, in comparison, be called a petty fight
on the virgin fields of a new territory here. Let us
picture to ourselves the condition of things when
border ruffians (the borderers of distinct nations are
and have been always prone to be ruffians) would
ravage every state line, and the citizens of each,
like those of Rome, when assailed by their hostile
neighbors, would be compelled to surrender their
individual liberties into the hands of a dictator,
paying for safety with their freedom.
Bear with me, my friends, while I speak thus.
I have my opinions, but no wish, as I said at the
beginning, to enter upon party -politics, which I
consider, not merely wrong, but detestable in a
clergyman ; yet peace is a blessing for which we
are to give thanks ; and, in thinking ofthe blessing,
we cannot help thinking of the means to which,
under God, we owe its preservation. I am looking
less at parties than at human nature, as shown
in the history of the world. The Union is still a
fixed fact, and notwithstanding the brutal rage
of slave-holding bullies, or the ravings of impious
infidels, or the speculations of transcendental here
tics, it will continue to be a fact until the world
realizes the idea of a universal confederacy. When
it ceases to be, I pray God, if it be his holy will,
to let me die ; or if I must live, to give me an

22
asylum so far off, that I may not see the ruin
of my great, glorious, beloved country !
Aristophanes compared the trading, office-seek
ing politicians of his time, to the fishermen of Lake
Copais, who stirred up the mud, because the dirtier
the water the more eels they caught. I do not
say that the same class of men among us have
learned their tactics from the Athenian dema
gogues, — their education is not so classical, — be
cause the trick is as old as the devil, and he is
quite as busy in this country as he was in Attica.
If he can only set men by the ears, his disciples are
sure of spoil. Any fool can fight ; but it is the
excellence of Christian wisdom to make peace by
peaceful means, of which long suffering and for
bearance and patience, and that charity a sinner
should have for his fellow- sinner, are no small
part, as our Lord's blessed example shows. The
tumult of the people is compared by Holy Writ
to the uproar of angry waves ; and as Christ rebuked
the wind and the raging sea, so the spirit of Chris
tianity should always come forth inthe day of civil
commotion to diffuse its blessed peace through the
agitated passions of men. It is the duty of every
Christian man to " seek peace and ensue it ;" and
we trust that there are enough faithful Christian
men among us to secure the success of their prayers.
Let us then thank God for peace ; and that neither
the devil nor wicked men can make the waters so
dirty as to get us blindly into their basket. There

23
may be, it is true, great turbulence once and awhile,
when the dirt will come to the top ; but our public
mind is not a tideless, stagnant, rotten pool ; the
springs of thought within it are fresh and strong, and
will soon precipitate the corruption to the bottom
again. We may, therefore, safely and thankfully
before God echo the sentiments of our worthy Gover
nor, and say that " no dread of impending social
calamity mingles with our joy."

" Every department of honorable human culture
has advanced. The arts that adorn a republican
state have not languished."

It should not be doubted, that often in the history
of the world, war, over-ruled by the providence
of God, has broken the way for human progress,
because it is a glory of God to make the wrath
of man to praise him, while he restrains the re
mainder thereof; but a safe, lengthened, secure
peace, such as our country has enjoyed, partly
through the spirit of our people — partly through
our system of government, but far more from
the remoteness of foreign rivalry, and the great
extent of the confederacy — affords the best op
portunity and stimulus to education, industry,
and art. Leaving out of our reasoning the inter
ruption of trade, and consequent prostration of
productive industry, war, or that sense of inse
curity which requires preparation for war, dis
courages the virtues of social life. Men sow re-

24
luctantly the fields whose harvest an enemy may
reap after having slain the husbandman. Money
is hoarded in coin, as well from fear of taxation
at home, as from invading rapine ; the pomp and
false glory, which policy throws over military
life to hide its deformities, seduce and inflame
the popular mind, particularly of the young ; there
is excitement or uneasiness everywhere, incom
patible with patient continuance of sober useful
ness ; public burdens are increased, and men, idle
from the absence of ordinary pursuits, as well as
lust of public spoil, struggle to prey on the trea
sury. These evils are limited, if the actual seat of
war happen to be remote, but only limited.
When war comes into the midst or on the bor
ders of a State, they are proportionately aggra
vated. Hence, as it is said that law is silent
amidst the din of arms, so arts, except those that
are destructive, languish in time of war. Through
the blessing of a kind Providence, which led our
fathers to this far end of the earth and inspired
them to establish our confederacy, the American
people have been almost wholly spared from
these calamitous influences. Hence, and from
the effect of ancestral example, enhanced by en
lightened public sentiments, education in all its
branches has been stimulated and improved
among us, if not beyond a parallel, certainly be
yond comparison with any nation of equal age
and ratio of population to extent of area. We
have not the density of people, or the supply of

25
workers, or the accumulation of pecuniary means
found in some other countries, Holland and Prussia,
for example ; but the provisions fbr public educa
tion, from the lowest to the highest branches, have
been very large in the older States, and most of
the new have been apt imitators, so that, as the
value of lands, set apart for the maintenance of
schools and more advanced institutions of learning,
enhances with immigration, the foundations fbr the
training of coming generations will be immense,
and cast all other liberalities of the kind into the
shade. Already in the very foremost of sciences which
serve the need of mankind have American philo
sophers taken the very highest places. The igno
rant, who look no farther than immediate profit on
what passes through their hands, may sneer at
theoretical men, and applaud what they call the
practical; but the experimenter in his laboratory,
the student over his midnight page, the bold fol
lower of truth in field or workshop, has been felt
through all departments of manufacture, hus
bandry, and transportation; giving superiority to
our products, facility to our communications, profit
to our capital, and rewards to our industry ; which
has so rebuked the sneers of short-sighted parsi
mony, that the public suffrage is strong in favor of
every scheme for the increase of honorable human
culture and of the arts, not only those which serve
our necessities, but those which "adorn a republican
3

26
State." Our immediate exigencies have too mucfc
pressed on our powers to allow us that grateful,
cherishing care (patronage is too mean a word)
for the fine arts which they deserve ; but even in
these, and in each department of literature, imita
tion and music, there are present among us a force
and devotion of genius, which are rapidly refining
our taste, and providing the best promise of a glo
rious future. I have no tune for detail, nor is it
necessary. Yet this let us remember — that we
should live and work and found institutions of
learning and schools of art, not for our nation as
it is now with its score or so of millions, but for
our nation as it will be, when its myriads shall
thickly populate* the vast field whose boundaries
mu*t be not less than the extreme st North and the
Isthmus, the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Let the
eed sown be prolific as it may,, the harvests will
not be more than enough for the generations that
follow us. What we do now in liberal gifts for
the higher culture of our American people, will
bear a fruit never paralleled in the rewards of bene
ficence, and increasing beyond all computable
ratio, until time shall be no more. What you and
your children are to-day enjoying of these inesti
mable blessings, you owe to the wise, generous
foresight of past years. Repay it by a wise, gene
rous foresight for the centuries that are to come !
So. only, can we show our gratitude to be sincere
for God's distinguishing care ofthe education and
refining arts, which honor and adorn our people.

s

27
{< The love of freedom has burned with a bright
er flame. Our political rights have remained safe
in the care of an enlightened and order-loving
people." While we gladly accept this sentiment, it is a
matter of congratulation that we receive it from
the eminent citizen whose antecedents and party-
relations are what they are; nor can we refuse
him the credit due to the moderation of good
sense and right feeling ; for here is a theme from
which a more narrow or more reckless mind might
have drawn most exacerbating inferences. It is
true, he is speaking within his sphere as the Gov
ernor of our noble State, eminent for its love of
freedom and law; but freedom is a term which,
always in a democracy, and even in factions un
der monarchies, has been made the watchword
and battle-cry of the unjust as well as of the
just. As the name of religion has been per
verted to cover the most monstrous wrong, so we
may exclaim with an eloquent sufferer: "O, Lib
erty! how many crimes have been committed in
thy name !" If it be in the heart of the good
man, who prays to God for his country, and votes
under the dictate of a carefully cultivated consci
ence, it is also on the lips of every demagogue
and conspirator ; the text of every flatulent de-
claimer who raves for selfish popularity, and of
the unscrupulous propagandist, who defines inde
pendence to be the right to denounce and revile
every one who does not think just as he thinks.

28
Besides, the love of freedom, where it is heart
felt, like religion, takes our fellow men, all of
whom are our neighbors, into its anxious thought.
It would seem that, where prejudices from excep
tional causes do not pervert our moral logic, a
man who honestly rejoices over his own freedom
would desire every other man to be as free as
himself. Christianity, though it first uttered its
gentle accents in an age when slavery was univer
sal and of the most aggravated character, had the
promise that the doctrine of her Gospel would
break every yoke and set every victim of oppres
sion free. The process of divine Providence in
this, and in the cure of most other radical evils,
has been slow, as man's ignorance would judge it ;
but Christianity hopes and prays and works on,
confident, not impatient, of the result. She is
sure that the Gospel will accomplish it, and that
nothing else under God can. Slavery in the Uni
ted States, especially since some leading nations
and some parts of our own confederacy, which did
much in former days to introduce and cherish it,
have found it not to be for their pecuniary profit,
has received particular attention. There is worse
slavery in Russia, more grinding slavery (though
under another name) in India, more bloody in
Africa, and, at this moment, more atrocious than all
in the treatment of the kidnapped Coolies. But
aH these are practically ignored for the more pro
minent instance of its prevalence in some of our
states. This is, perhaps because of its lamenta-

29
ble contrast to our creed of fi'eedom and human
equality. It is said that, if our republicanism be
what it pretends to be, it must be adverse to such
inconsistency with the welfare of man. In this
last thought, our critics are right. Most firmly do
I believe, that the freedom of thought, freedom of
speech, freedom of press, and, last, but by no
means least, freedom of trade, which a free gov
ernment (and I know of none but a republic or
democracy) guarantees, or ought to guarantee,
must and will, as certainly as effect follows cause,
give liberty to every slave ; but, when the process
of Christianity is so gradual, we are not to be dis
couraged if the process of other remedial and ex
tirpating agents be slow also, — especially, when
they are not sufficiently pervaded by the benign
and heart-compelling grace ofthe Gospel. I love
republicanism ; I love the laws of my country ; I
have a high confidence in both; but I were false
to my God and Saviour, if I did not love and trust
the Gospel of him who died on the cross praying
for his murderers and to expiate our sins, better,
far better, than either. It is the spirit of Christ in
the mass of our people, acting through their laws,
which alone can leaven the whole lump into a
homogeneous, perfect example of free govern
ment, because, so far as its office goes, distribu
ting and securing equal blessings to all. Nay,
when the Church, or any portion of it, forgets
this, and descends from its higher advantage to
fight the devil on his own dunghill, with his own

30
dirty weapons of malice and all uncharitableness,
shameful (and the more shameful because deserved)
defeat must ensue. Nor is it enough that we ban
ish the evil from ourselves, or from our neighbor
hood. The sphere of Christianity is wider. It
covers every victim of wrong, and imposes stronger
obligations upon those whose section, and, it may
be, whose fathers in not very remote times, profit
ed by the cruel injustice, which is now thought by
some of them to be beyond their responsibility.
I am not speaking as a politician, nor am I self-
conceited enough to think that, because my calling
and duty lead me to know, perchance, a little
more of theology and ethical philosophy than your
pursuits allow you to acquire, I should set up for a
statesman and teach you politics, which many of
you understand far better than a hard-working
preacher can hope to do. They say that the Po-
-pish pastors drive their ignorant congregations like
sheep to the polls, and instances of such sheep-
driving may be found among Protestants ; but I
,am happy to know that my people have more
sense than to be so priest-ridden. Nay, I am quite
sure, that because a preacher stands up in his pul
pit and is listened to with deference and affection,
when he speaks of things belonging to his Master's
kingdom, he has no right to hope that the same
people will not turn from him with disgust when
he dictates, like a petty pope, on things in general
and other things besides. A government of philo
sophers would be, with one exception, the worst that

31
could be devised. The worst would be a govern
ment of ecclesiastics. Each philosopher would
squabble for his own hypothesis, and insist upon
squeezing every thing into his problem. The
ecclesiastic, in the face of holy Scripture, would
set up his conscience as the rule of every other
man, and, accustomed to warn sinners of the fiery
judgments of God, be impatient, like the disciples
of old, to make hell and destruction fight on his
side. Is this conjecture 1 Christians, so-called,
have martyred more Christians than all the ene
mies of the cross since Christ was crucified. Con
jecture 1 The worst government now on earth is
a government of ecclesiastics. Nero himself never
ruled Rome more vilely than does the pope with
his cardinals at this moment. " Our tyrants," said
a poor Roman artist to me, '' not content with op
pressing us here, follow us into the next world with
purgatory and Tophet." Is it because good-
natured, sleek Pio Nono, once the idol of his popu
lace, is any worse, or his cardinals any worse, than
other human beings 1 No ; the apostle Paul would,
not less now than when he did, call himself the
chief of sinners. It is the fault of the system ; and
that, not so much because it is a system of errone
ous faith, but because it puts temporal power in
the hands of ecclesiastics. You may reply, that
Popery is an abomination excluded from all com
parison with Protestantism ; but, my friends, the
tap-root of Popery strikes, deeper than heretical
doctrines and superstitious forms, into the very

32
lowest depth of the human heart — that sinful heart,
"deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked,"
which is in your bosom and mine, and in the bo
som of every man, be he preacher or be he any
thing else. "There is a pope in every man's
breast," which it requires all the grace of God to
keep down ; but he is, I fear, naturally stronger
in the bosom of an ecclesiastic who forgets that his
mission is to save souls. The zealous oppugnators
of Popery tell us its spirit is unchanged; and facts
every now and then prove it. You say the genius
of the nineteenth century is too strong for such
superstitious tyranny. The nineteenth century,
with its spirit-rappings and table-tippings and Mes
merism and Mormonism and — but the catalogue of
its absurdities is too long — is as full of superstition
as any before it. Human nature, when it is not
ruled by the grace of God, is as bad and as foolish
as it ever was. Intolerance, ecclesiastical intole
rance, is not dead. It is kept down by public
sentiment, and, I trust, still more by the humility
of Christian charity ; but it would be rampant as
ever, if you were to remove these reproving checks.
It is like a little image of the devil which we have
seen in a child's toy; while the cover is screwed
down, it is quiet enough ; but take it off, and
up starts the fiend, horrible and frightful. Was
it not when Protestantism ruled, that Servetus was
put to death . When the act of non-conformity,
that sent thousands of good ministers to the grave,
was passed 'I When, under Cromwell, saints in

33
armor went tip into pulpits to brandish curses and
fire-arms against other saints, who were afraid
only because they were in the minority 1 When
under Peter Stuyvesant, Netherlander as he was,
(and the more shame to him !) the Lutherans and
other rehgionists within twenty miles and less of
this spot, were harrassed and outraged by fine, im
prisonment and banishment 1 When witches and
Quakers were burned, and Baptists driven out like
dogs from Massachusetts and Connecticut I Years
have passed since then, and wholesome public sen
timent, and the freedom which multiplying sects
have exacted, keep the cover on the box ; but hold
him down tightly, my friends, for the devil is there ;
not an idle toy, but a raging lion, seeking whom he
may devour ! It may suit you to have preachers
declaim on your particular side of politics; but,
remember ! there are always two sides to a ques
tion; and you certainly are not so arrogant as to
think, that those, who differ from you, may not be
as conscientious as you are ; would you like it on the
other side . Yet, if the rule of "free speech" gov
erns the case, all of us preachers would be politi
cians, and furious ones too ; I say furious, for we
never do any thing by halves, unless it may be
our Master's work when we put it aside for meaner
things. It is not more than a few years since that
papers on both sides of an agitating question were
denouncing preachers on the opposite side to them,
who were silly enough to mix themselves up with

34
it, and preach about a law of man, when they
should have been preaching the Gospel of God.
No, my friends ! meet the evil at its outset, and,
when we preachers get out of our place, scourge
us back to it again. I argue the more for this, be
cause, while I love the State well, I love the
Church better ; and know that few things are more
hurtful to the cause of spiritual religion, than
a worldly ambition among those who bear
Christ's name. A union of Church and State has
always been worse for the Church than for the
State, because priestcraft soon becomes the pliant
tool of policy, and liberty, civil and religious, go
down together. Neither our Lord nor his disciples
wasted time on questions of human government ;
and so long as their example ruled, the Church
grew and multiplied, despite of most savage and
general persecutions ; but, when she sought to pre
vail by edicts and arms of civil power, she became a
painted, brazen harlot, in the lap of power, barter
ing truth and purity for place and revenue. Better,
far better, the world's hate than its friendship,
which is "enmity against God!"
My purpose and duty now are to derive emotions
of thankfulness to God from the circumstances in
which Providence has placed us — thankfulness,
not only for the preservation of our "political
rights," but also for the promise we can see of
a more universal freedom, to spread which nothing,
next to the Gospel, is so well adapted as the faith
ful application of the principles laid down in the

35
Constitution of the United States. For see how it
has worked already. When the confederacy was
formed, every State in the Union upheld slavery ;
and now, out of two hundred and thirty-four mem
bers in the lower House of Congress, one hundred
and forty-four are representatives of free States.
Nay, from irresistible laws of public economy, sla
very keeps down the increase of population, while
the natural increase, where labor is free, swelled by
the yet greater immigration of free laborers, will
overflow those territories which the slave States
have neither white inhabitants nor slaves enough
to colonize. The price of slaves at this moment
shows clearly that there are not enough to occupy
the territory where they are held. Hence the ex
travagant and hateful wish for the re-opening ofthe
slave trade, against which the whole civilized
world would rise up in arms. There may be vio
lent and frenzied struggles against the principle,
but it must be that, in time, free labor will drive
slave labor out of the land. It needs no force of
amis, no sudden revolution ; but in its certain,
though gradual working,, the veiy self-interests of
men will accomplish the change, as surely as heat
melts ice, and light chases darkness. The clown
in the fable, who killed the goose that laid him
golden eggs, was not more unwise than we, if from
impatience we should throw away the certain ad
vantage we have fbr any more violent or sudden
measures. I do not mean to enter upon any mere
party questions of the day ; but, with the calmness

36
that becomes a Christian philosopher, to look at the
long operation of steady causes. God rules in
dustry and trade and society, by laws as fixed and
uniform as he does the action of the elements;
and our national constitution, if rightly adminis
tered, is in strict accordance with those laws. Only
let us see to it, that the Constitution is faithfully
maintained and executed ; nor distrust the truth
of the instrument, because bad men in any part of
the Union violate its provisions ; for by such a rule
Christianity itself would be found wanting. Man
may commit crimes, but truth is mighty and
shall prevail. Therefore let us take the counsel
of the Governor, and thank God that " the love of
freedom has burned with a brighter flame ;" and
that, notwithstanding the mutterings and threats
of faction and treason, " our political rights are
safe in the care of an enlightened and order-loving
people." Let us pray to God for forgiveness, and for
his blessing on our country, and that all men,
through his good Providence, may be as free as we
are ; and, especially, as Christians, in the spirit of
Christ, let us strive to send the Gospel to all within
our reach, native and foreigner, bond and free — the
blessed, divine Gospel, which, like the silent but
transforming leaven, will convert all to each other by
converting all to the likeness of Christ.
My friends, if you think I have been preaching
party-politics, give me a few stripes from the scourge !
" Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness ;
and let him rebuke me, it shall be an excellent oil,

37
that shall not break my head." But I do not think
I have preached any thing of the kind. It is
my Christian duty to pray for the deliverance
of all captives, and my Christian privilege to
hope for it ; it is the part of a Christian to be a good
citizen, and loyalty to the principles of our na
tional system is the best style of citizenship. If
Paul, writing under the reign of Nero, hade his fel
low Christians to " honor the King," the nearest
that We, who have no king but Jesus, can get to
the spirit of his injunction is, to pray from our
hearts : God save the Republic !
— " The public morals have not degenerated, and
religion has not failed to cheer us by her conso
lations; to Warn us by her solemn admonitions, and
to inspire tis by her eternal hopes."
I suppose, that by public morals the Governor
means the morals of the community in general;
for, else, the corruption in high places would scarcely
allow the assertion. Yet those of us who have been
observers of things for two score or more of years,
must gratefully acknowledge that the general-
morals, especially where the Gospel has been freely
preached, have improved. Crimes against God
and man are, indeed, fearfully prevalent; and the
white-haired grandsire, with the partiality of age
for the time of his youth, may shake his head and
lament that times are not as they were. Truly they
are : not; for there are now in the United States
more than seven to commit crimes where there was
4 :

38
one then, and in the State of New York more than
twelve for one; and a large number of these have
come to us from foreign countries. Trade has in
creased, with its temptations to crime and its
opportunities. Attempts to repress personal im
moralities by extraordinary penal legislation, have,
fbr the most part failed, as a sober philosophy must
have foreseen they would. Still, the Governor is
right in Ihinking that " general morals have not
degenerated." The proportion of virtue and good
order has increased. Take the election of the other
day, as it exhibited the people ! How few were the
exceptions of riot and drunkenness, to what would
have been seen fifty or even twenty years ago;
when riot and drunkenness were rather the rale
than the exception ! Open a file of a newspaper,
printed under the administration of the first five
or six Presidents, and read an account of an elec
tion then ! The bitterness and virulence of the last
canvas were but child's play to what occurred in
those days. All the candidates together did not re
ceive half the abuse that was heaped on Washing
ton ; and as for bribery, if you think there was less in
proportion then, and bliss depends on ignorance,
you must be very happy in your estimation of those
who went before us. No, my friends ! if there has
been vice, there has also been religion ; and it were
a sad and most tincalled for acknowledgment that
the devil has gained upon Christianity. If morals
have not improved as we wish, there is yet great
encouragement to continue in the use of those reli
gious means, which have done so much, and, with

39
greater fidelity and zeal on the part of Christians,
may accomplish vastly more. If Christians kept
to their legitimate work of influencing men by
evangelical truth and example, showing the same
industry that they have shown in the use of extra-
Scriptural expedients, I believe their success would
have been far greater ; but, as it is, they have gained
not a little on the mischiefs of vice. It is not in our
cities that this is seen so plainly. Cities drain vice
from the less populated districts ; but in the rural
sections of our State, the improvement is very
striking, notwithstanding the tendency of pros
perity to breed excess. There is no equal part of
any foreign country that can excel or equal in
morals the State in which we live. Let us then
thank God that we are not worse than we are ;
and take shame to ourselves as Christians that we
are not better, when we have the Bible in our
hands and the promise of Divine blessing on the
Gospel in answer to prayer.
Above all, let us bless God for our holy religion ;
not only that he has revealed to us the grace of our
Lord Jesus Christ at such infinite cost, but that
he has given us a living in this land, where none
can interfere with the freedom of our consciences.
This is the greatest blessing that comes to us
through our principles of civil government. Let-
our religion acknowledge and repay the obligation
by charity for the religious errors of our fellow-citi
zens, and by prayers for the permanence and
greater efficiency of our free institutions. Our
highest privileges and enjoyments in this life are

40
rapidly passing away ; and, while we are here, af
flictions must reach us; but the source of divine
consolation is open to our access, and we are per
mitted to seek through faith and a godly life, that
better, eternal country, where sorrow and change
and fear will disturb us no more, because God has
prepared it for the home of his children. Oh ! my
friends, is there any thingof all we have, or desire to
have, comparable to religion ! " What is a man
profited, if he gain the whole world and lose his
own soul 1" Take heed, dear friends, that you do
not lose your souls in the abundance of your pros
perity !
Finally, my hearers, in view of all these mo
tives to thankfulness, let me ask of each of you
and myself, " How much owest thou to my Lord?"
From Him, all the blessings we have or can hope
fbr, come. What can we give to Him whose alone
are all things 1 There is one gift He asks from us —
our hearts, our adoring love, and the service which
love inspires towards him and to our fellow-men for
his sake. Let us ask Him to take our hearts now.
Let us devote our lives to his praise, imploring the
sanctification ofhis Spirit; and, as the deacons of
his church solicit from us a remembrance of the
poor, let us remember that He presents them to our
¦charity in Christ's name. "Freely as ye have re
ceived, freely give." Freely as ye hope to receive,
freely give; fbr "the poor are the Lord's heritage ;"
and "he that giveth fo the poor lendeth to the
Lord ;" and, " inasmuch as ye do unto the least of
them, ye do unto Him."