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 Copy 1 
 
 A 
 
 THANKSGIVING SERMON, 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 1 i0iii's s 
 
 mt\\, i 
 
 Rev. N. p. TILLINGHAST, 
 
 RECTOR. 
 
 ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1365, 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. : 
 
 McOII.L & WITIIEROW, PRIN'nORS AND STERKOTVPIiRS 
 18(35. 
 
THANKSGIVING SERMON, 
 
 DELIVERED AT 
 
 
 Rev. N. p. TILLINGHAST, 
 
 RECTOR. 
 
 ON THURSDAY, DECEMBER 7, 1865, 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. : 
 
 McQILL & WITHEEGW, PR'.NIERS AND STEREOTYPERS. 
 
 1865. 
 
T51 
 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 Georgetown, D. C, Dec. 9, 1865. 
 
 Rev. N. P. TiLLINGHAST. 
 
 Dear Sik : At the regular monthly meeting of the Vestry of St. John's 
 church, held on the evening of the 8th instant, a resolution was unanimously 
 adopted, requesting that you will furnish for publication a copy of the eloquent 
 and appropriate discourse delivered by you on the recent Thanksgiving-day 
 appointed by the President. 
 
 It is with sincere pleasure that we communicate to you this action of the 
 Vestry ; and in doing so we venture to express the hope that you will comply 
 with the request at your earliest convenience. 
 Very truly, yours, 
 
 C. E. RITTENHOUSE, 
 H. D. COOKE, 
 M. YARNALL, 
 JOHN MARBURY, Jr., 
 
 Committee. 
 
 Georgetown, D. C, Dec. 12, 1865. 
 Gentlemen : Regretting that the discourse, of which you are pleased to speak 
 in terms so kind, is not more worthy of those terms and of the occasion, I yet 
 feel bound to place it at your disposal. 
 
 Very truly, yours, 
 
 N. P. TILLINGHAST. 
 Messrs. C. E. Rittenhouse, 
 H. D. Cooke, 
 M. Yarnall, 
 John Marbury, Jr., 
 
 Committee. 
 
SERMOiN". 
 
 " The mountains shall bring peace to the people." — Psalm Ixxii: 3. 
 
 It was one of the loveliest evenings in tlie month of June 
 when, on a day and hour not easily forgotten, I began the 
 ascent of Mount Vesuvius. The mountain was in a state of 
 extreme agitation, and the flames that issued from its summit 
 gave it the effect of a vast torch suspended in mid-air over 
 the bay and city of Naples. During the earlier part of the 
 ascent, what chietiy struck the eye was the marvellous luxu- 
 riance with which foliage, fruits and flowers were blended, 
 or, rather, heaped together upon the mountain side. At 
 every step the vine, the fig tree and the olive entwined their 
 branches above, in one triumphal arch, converting the road 
 into an endless bower. This was due to the lava beds that 
 lay below, and still more to the quickening heat of the fires 
 that raged and roared within. These were the forces and 
 these the agencies that produced that teeming and luxuriant 
 landscape. How much that man calls destructive, both in 
 the natural and moral world, is really, in the highest sense, 
 creative. In the order of the divine Providence, " beauty " 
 springs from " ashes," and " the oil of joy " from " mourn- 
 ing." 
 
 Just above this region of marvellous fertility the gentle 
 slope changed suddenly to a steep and abrupt ascent. Ashes 
 lay piled upon the path like snow-drifts, causing the traveller 
 to sink knee deep at almost every step. A gloomy and arid 
 
6 
 
 plain succeeded, lighted only by the lurid glare of the stream 
 of lava that rolled through it, and rugged and deformed with 
 dark and jagged rocks that lay heaped on every side in wild 
 irregularity. Across this plain sufibcating vapors blew from 
 time to time, which made it difficult to breathe. It was a 
 scene dismal and desolate beyond description. The dreary 
 and monotonous roar of the destroying lava; the poisonous 
 gases with which the very air was impregnated ; the terrific 
 explosions, deafening as the discharge of a hundred batteries; 
 the fiery, deadly showers of white-hot scoriae ; the sights and 
 sounds that threw an indescribable gloom over the whole 
 region, while night hung darkly over it, banished all thought 
 of enjoyment, and filled the mind with dismal and melan- 
 choly images. But when the day broke in beauty over the 
 mountain summit and the scene below, when the morning 
 mists began to float ofiF from the vast and unrivalled land- 
 scape, revealing, by slow degrees, the city with its varied 
 magnificence, the bay, with its flashing waters and blooming 
 islands, the white-walled hamlets sprinkled along the coast 
 amidst a sea of verdure — then the magic of that wondrous 
 panorama wrought an equally wondrous revulsion in the 
 mind of the spectator, causing him to perceive that the tri- 
 umphs and the splendors of that lofty vantage ground were 
 cheaply won by the toils and terrors, the difficulties and 
 perils, that attended the ascent. 
 
 In many a moral crisis, who has not met with a similar 
 experience ? "Wlio has not been called, at one time or an- 
 other, in the mysterious providence of God, to climb, as it 
 were, some dark and difficult steep ; to face some repulsive 
 duty; to breathe, as it were, a poisonous air; to turn his 
 reluctant steps toward some scene of gloom and trial, where 
 hostile and destructive elements, that seemed almost incon- 
 sistent with the idea of the Divine benevolence, opposed his 
 progress or embittered his reflections ? It does not require 
 a very long life to make us familiar, by our own experience, 
 with sickness, and sorrow, and anguish of heart. Have you 
 not felt, at times, just like a traveller who is compelled to 
 toil up some painful ascent, where his footing becomes at 
 
every step more and more precarious, and his fatigue almost 
 insupportable ? Has not the result of such a trial sometimes 
 been to place you on a loftier vantage ground, to open to 
 you a wider horizon, to enable you to breathe a purer and 
 more healthful air ? Thus was the promise fulfilled to you, 
 " the mountains shall bring peace." When some strange 
 and unwelcome experience (whatever it was) broke in upon 
 the established associations of your life, and compelled you 
 to a new career of action or of suffering ; when some dear 
 tie was broken; when you held your dead child in your 
 arms — did you not feel that the Lord was dealing with you 
 as the eagle with her brood upon the mountain summit, when 
 she " stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over them, spreadeth 
 abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings," 
 urging them to use their inexperienced pinions, and boldly 
 trust themselves to the untried element that lies around and 
 beneath them, confident in her watchful eye and bold in her 
 protecting love ? The Lord has doubtless more than one 
 object in view when He thus deals with us. In leading us 
 up by a painful ascent to some high vantage ground, where 
 our past life seems to lie far, far beneath us, like a dim and 
 faded landscape. He sometimes prepares us for that entire 
 change in our plans and habits of life which is often the 
 harbinger of a new and happier future. Or, He may some- 
 times intend, by leading us up to dizzy heights, where we 
 painfully feel our insecurity, to teach us how powerless is an 
 arm of flesh for our welfare or protection ; to induce us to 
 lean with implicit faith on His Almightiness ; to confide in 
 His promises, rather than in human aid; to rejoice in spirit 
 when we can say, from the heart, " the everlasting arms are 
 beneath me, and the eternal God is my refuge." Is it not 
 thus that the promise is fulfilled, "the mountains shall bring 
 peace?" 
 
 And as it is with individuals, so may it not be with na- 
 tions ? They, too, may be called to tread the steep and 
 terrible path that leads up the rugged mountain slope. That 
 mountain may be a volcano. The earth may rock beneath 
 them as they advance ; the heavens may frown with portents 
 
8 
 
 of strange and fiery aspect ; they may be called to tread a 
 burning soil, and pass tbrough fire and blood, before they 
 reach tlieir ultimate and grander destiny. In dcfenec of its 
 own laws and of its own existence every government has the 
 reserved riyhi to appeal to force. When thai government holds 
 the holies and liberties of the human race in its own keeping, as 
 a sacred trust for future generations, it becomes a solemn duty 
 to guard those liberties from extinction, those hopes from disap- 
 pointment. Then, it is true, dark hours come on, like night 
 on a volcano's summit; darkness that hides the future; 
 darkness, lighted only by the fitful flashes that burst from 
 the fiery crater of war. But wherever there is a night there 
 is generally, in God's providence, a morning, and the thick 
 darkness that reigns upon the mountain top is often but the 
 precursor of an unrivalled sunrise. 
 
 " The mountains shall bring peace ! " What music is 
 there in that old Saxon *word ! " I could think of the word 
 tear," said an eminent divine, " till I wept for sorrow." 
 How many could say to-day, " I could think of the word 
 peace till I wept for joy?" But, ah ! it is not the sound, it 
 is the meaning of the word, that stirs all hearts to-day. For 
 what is its meaning ? It means the solemn termination of 
 one great epoch of tears and woe ; it means the sublime 
 commencement of another of life and light, prosperity and 
 joy. It means that the infant, in many a liamlet, will no 
 more cling to the mother's breast, scared by tlie stern fire 
 of the fiither's eye, the sound and the gleam of arms, the 
 hurried and distracted parting. It means that the home- 
 remaining bride or sister will no more lay her listening ear 
 to the earth, to be resolved whether the distant sound that 
 harrows up her soul is indeed a voice from the clouds, or 
 the more fatal voice of the cannon of battle. It means that 
 the soldier will no more l)e called to struggle in the deadly 
 conflict, or to pant beneath the l)laze of summer suns, or in 
 the night blast and the sleet of winter storms; that he will 
 no more mark the ground with his crimson foot-prints; make 
 the snow his couch and the rain his blanket ; die upon the 
 
 * Saxon, " Pais." 
 
battle-field, or implore death as mercy in the gloomy prison- 
 house. It means that the interests of education will no more 
 be sacrificed to the cultivation of the trade of arms. It 
 means that the wealth which has been employed for the last 
 four years in waging a desolating war, will now be spent on 
 internal improvements, on commerce, and agriculture, and 
 manufactures, infusing a sudden and fresh vitality into all 
 the branches of national productiveness. It means that the 
 Government which our wise and patriotic fathers established, 
 and to establish which they cheerfully endured the privations 
 and losses and hardships of a seven years' war, will continue 
 to crown the lives of a united people with the blessings of 
 plenty, prosperity and peace. 
 
 And here our text meets us, telling us significantly that 
 " the mountains shall bring peace to the people ; " that is, 
 that the very steepness and difiiculty of the ascent contribute 
 to the beauty and certainty of the result. He who would 
 tread the mountain's topmost summit, and catch the first 
 ray of the morning sunrise, miist be content with a steep 
 and rugged path, for wdiat other could lead him to a height 
 so great ? Is not this, in some measure, a type of our na- 
 tional experience ? By any less rugged path could we have 
 reached such a vantage ground ? Our national troubles 
 have, indeed, been severe and prolonged ; but without the 
 severity and even the prolongation of the trial, would there 
 have been such blessedness in the thought and such music 
 in the very sound of peace ? "Would our thanksgivings for 
 peace have been as fervent as they are to-day ? Should we 
 have been inspired with such firm convictions of its import- 
 ance, or furnished w^ith such strong guarantees for its per- 
 petuity? Had the cloud of war really discharged all its 
 lightnings in the space of a few weeks, (as was predicted at 
 the outset,) and had those lightnings been far less destruc- 
 tive, might not our national future have been darkened by 
 a frequent appeal to arms ? Might we not have come at 
 last to resemble that neighboring empire, where for many 
 years the advent of every new administration has been the 
 signal for a renewal of civil strife ? But now we may safely 
 
10 
 
 anticipate that centuries will roll over us before another civil 
 war will desolate our foir fields and fertile valleys. The 
 bright years of peace have begun their circuit; and as 
 Thanksgiving Day comes round again and again, its annual 
 celebration, we may hope, will be a day of unabated gladness 
 to our childrens' children. A disturbing element, which had 
 proved adverse to political repose in years gone by, is elimi- 
 nated from the nation's future. Whatever difterences of 
 opinion may prevail in different sections of the country, as 
 to the expediency of the measure, all will at least agree that 
 there loill he one le§s cause of difficulty in the future, and therefore 
 one more guarantee of a stable and enduring peace. Had the 
 war ceased with the first campaign, foreign nations would 
 never, perhaps, have understood our resources. Now 
 they indeed contemplate our national progress with dis- 
 pleasure ; but they are very well convinced that they have 
 no power to arrest it. In view of all these facts, are we not 
 justified in saying that the very depth and severity and pro- 
 longation of the difliculties, through which we have been 
 called to pass, form to-day our amplest and best security for 
 future peace — peace among ourselves and with all nations ? 
 Mysterious, indeed, are the divine counsels. God has led 
 us b}^ a rugged path to a splendid sunrise. He has taught 
 us that " the mountains shall bring peace to the people." 
 
 A nation that, through deep trials and painful experiences 
 reaches, at last, 
 
 " That difficult air of the iced mountain top 
 Where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing 
 Flit o'er the herbless granite," 
 
 occupies from that period a new position. She stands on a 
 conspicuous vantage-ground. The world's attention is thence- 
 forth concentrated upon her progress and her policy. She 
 takes rank above historic lands; they, indeed, have a glori- 
 ous Past, but what is that in comparison with such a na- 
 tion's Future? Below her and before her lies an untrodden 
 landscape, rich with the fairest promise of peace, prosperity 
 and plenty ; while beyond the clouds that skirt the horizon, 
 
11 
 
 unljorn ages and generations yet to come crowd upon the 
 dim and aching sight, the future possessors of the same fair 
 heritage, the destined actors on the same great arena, inher- 
 itors of all the happiness and all the usefulness of the pres- 
 ent, with the accumulated interest of intervening years. 
 
 We are far, it is true, from having reached these cloud- 
 capped summits ; far from having yet attained this sublime 
 vantage-ground. There are steeps yet to be scaled, heights 
 yet to be surmounted, the wild fastnesses of the mountain- 
 top are yet to be explored. Not yet can we fold our arms 
 and quietly survey the landscape on all sides to the horizon, 
 with the pleasing consciousness that the hour of action is 
 past, and that of fruition is inaugurated. We have not 
 fairly and fully reached the goal of our exertions, the end 
 of all our hopes, our difficulties and our trials. There is a 
 task yet to be done. The work of reconstruction remains. 
 It has to be patiently prosecuted, and successfully achieved. 
 To its complete success the cordial concurrence of both 
 North and South seems indispensable. May we not hope 
 that this concurrence will be cheerfully rendered? Why 
 should it be withheld? Where are the old issues that form- 
 erly divided us into sectional parties? Echoanswers "where?" 
 They are dead, beyond a possibility of resurrection. Though 
 neither a politician, nor a prophet, it does seem to me that 
 the hour has come when the nation might say, as a unit 
 (if God so wills,) "let the dead Past bury its dead;" and 
 start to its feet for a new career of greatness, usefulness and 
 glory. Whenever this consummation shall arrive, be it soon 
 or late, all hearts will confess that "the mountains have 
 brought Peace to the People, " and that the roughness and 
 ruggedness of the ascent are richly compensated by the 
 beautiful and grand result. The friends of free government 
 throughout the world will begin to lift up their heads and 
 take courage; the thrones of oppressors and usurpers, no 
 matter how upheld by bayonets, will begin to totter to their 
 fall; millions of longing eyes will be directed across the 
 Atlantic toward this Ark of human safety and of human 
 freedom; and millions of voices from every clime and re- 
 
12 
 
 gion of the habitable globe will hail America as at once 
 the teacher and example of the nations. 
 
 But this vision is not yet realized. It still lies in the dim 
 and shadowy future. lie whose calm, clear eyes dwelt upon 
 it more earnestly than ours; he whose wise brain and loving 
 heart were occupied more intensely than ours in consider- 
 ing how it might be brought to pass; he Avho never lost sight 
 of it day or night, especially during the last few months of 
 his mortal career; he, the language of Avhose lips and of 
 whose life was " charity toward all, malice toward none;" 
 he, to whom, at the very moment of his fall, all eyes and all 
 hearts were turned by a common impulse for counsel, sym- 
 pathy and guidance ; his lot, alas ! like Israel's leader of 
 old, was only to look upon the bright, untravelled land — and 
 die. He fell, like Epaminondas, at the very moment when 
 it seemed to him, no doubt, that he could do most for his 
 country, most for the interests of the human race. By that 
 over-ruling Providence that regulates the life of nations not 
 less than that of individuals, we see his appointed successor 
 standing to-day beside the helm of State, anxious, yet pa- 
 tient and calm, like Ulysses in the Odyssey : 
 
 "Placed at the helm he sate and marked the skies, 
 Nor closed in sleep his ever-watchful eyes, 
 Through the long night he ploughed the restless sea, 
 
 ' Till land appeared with morn's returning ray. 
 Shadowy and dim arose the distant coast ; 
 The woods, the hills in morning mists were lost. 
 All lay before him indistinct and vast. 
 Like a broad shield upon the watery waste." 
 
 There are times when a nation's welfare (including the 
 destinies of unborn millions) seems almost to hang suspended 
 on a single life. But let no Christian heart indulge in this 
 ilhision ! In his " Proclamation for the day," (whose well- 
 weighed words are so worthy of a statesman and a ruler,) 
 the President reminds ns that "righteousness exalteth a 
 nation, while sin is a reproach to any pcoj^le;" and "further 
 recommends that on this occasion the whole people make 
 confession of their national sins." Among these sins idol- 
 
13 
 
 atiy holds imdeniably a conspicuous place ; idolatry of talent, 
 idolatry of wealtli, idolatry of power. The popular disposi- 
 tion to " make flesh its arm," is a temptation to which we, 
 as a people, are peculiarly exposed, and which we should, 
 to-day especially, acknowledge and repudiate. Grod has 
 solemnly taught us, by one signal lesson at least, that, before 
 Him, all human power is but as " stubble and ashes;" and 
 that the nation alone is truly safe that can say "the everlast- 
 ing arms are beneath us, alid the eternal God is our 
 refuge;" the nation in whose van (as before Israel of old) 
 marches the guiding and protecting pillar of fire and cloud. 
 Oh let us, above all things, be a God-fearing people ! Let 
 us learn to look more to divine and less to human power ; 
 to lean more upon the everlasting and less upon the finite 
 support ; to depend more upon our God and less upon cabi- 
 nets and presidents. " Them that honor me I will honor " 
 holds true not less of nations than of individuals. What 
 thoughtful mind can fail to recognize a divine interposition 
 in the very discovery of this continent ? Who can contem- 
 plate the serene and steady faith of Columbus, under the 
 impatience of his crews, even when that impatience ripened 
 into mutinous opposition to the further prosecution of the 
 voyage; who can observe him, as the evening darkens, 
 taking his accustomed station on the top of the castle on the 
 high poop of the Santa Maria, and straining his eager eyes 
 along the dusky horizon in search of that great mystery of 
 the ocean, in regard to which the Old World of civilization 
 and history had no faith, no traditions and no evidence, who 
 can consider this and not discard the cold calculations of 
 chance, and not consent to see the finger of Providence in 
 the career of this illustrious man, and not confess that it was 
 no merely human impulse that directed and sustained his 
 unconquerable purpose? Who can reflect how long this 
 continent was concealed from the inhabitants of the Old 
 World by means of the boundless wastes which appeared to 
 them a mere watery desert, and consider that it was kept 
 thus concealed until the birth of a race of men whose ideas 
 
14 
 
 and whose characters would fit them for the great arena ; 
 men who cherished so intense a devotion to the principles 
 of civil and religious liberty, that they did not deem their 
 life-blood too costly a libation to be poured out in a cause 
 60 sacred; who can observe this and fail to perceive 
 in it the direct manifestation of an over-ruling Provi- 
 dence ? It has been justly remarked that " our forefathers, 
 who laid the foundations of those colonies which are now 
 these populous and powerful States, were the only genera- 
 tion of men that had existed since the world began who 
 would have established such institutions." Here we behold 
 the agency of Him whose Eye marks out the career of 
 nations, who surrounds them with a felicity of circumstances 
 that may contribute to their progress, and accommodates 
 their destinies to the grandeur of the designs for which He 
 called them into being. Throughout the nation's brief, but 
 most eventful history, we may trace (not with presumption, 
 but with humble awe) tokens, here and there, of the same 
 heavenly interposition. AVhenever darkness has cast its 
 shadows across the bright career of our beloved country — 
 whenever dangers have gathered around it to threaten its 
 independence, its happiness, its unity, whose arm has upheld 
 and sheltered us but His, without whose aid the Pilgrims 
 had perished, without whose cloud, often and almost 
 obviously thrown around him, our Washington had died 
 upon the scaffold ? With how much justice, then, does the 
 President enjoin on us to-day, " with one heart and one mind 
 to implore his Divine guidance." Let us see in our past 
 history the assurance, that while we look to him for protec- 
 tion, and continue to clierish the principles upon which, 
 under his Divine approbation, (as we reverently trust and 
 believe,) this newly risen empire was founded. He will still 
 make himself known to us, and stay us with His staff and 
 comfort us with His countenance. 
 
 Thanks be to Him for the peace which we enjoy to-day. 
 It is His own inestimable gift. To Him be ascribed the 
 praise that the roar of the fratricidal cannon is silent at last; 
 
15 
 
 that yonder hills no longer bristle with bayonets ; that the 
 effusion of fraternal blood is stopped at length, and forever. 
 There is peace in the land to-day. God Himself has willed 
 it. Let there be peace in our own hearts! Let the Prince 
 of Peace lay his arresting hand upon every unhallowed 
 thought or impulse ; every thought or impulse unworthy of 
 the hour; every thought or impulse not in perfect harmony 
 with the public tranquility that crowns and sanctifies this 
 day ©f national rejoicing. Let us resolve to do all that in us 
 lies to make the peace that reigns to-day over our country's 
 hills and valleys a lasting peace ; a peace not for ourselves alone 
 but for our remote posterity. This we may do by cherishing 
 in our hearts the kindly feelings, the charities, the mutual 
 forbearance, and the mutual encouragements to faith and 
 patriotic hope which this affecting occasion so emphatically 
 suggests. And if a relic of the bitterness of times long past 
 could possibly have survived in any bosom until now, who 
 will not agree with me in saying "now is the hour and here 
 is the place to bury it? " Shall I tell you one of the most 
 cherished wishes of my own heart? It is that we may be — 
 as I think I can say we once were, and as I firmly believe 
 we are yet to be — a united congregation, "zealous of good 
 works;" working all together with one pervading aim and 
 impulse for the prosperity of our beloved church. Whoever 
 shall contribute toward this great object, in any way, will 
 not have "run in vain, nor labored in vain," nor "lived in 
 vain." For my own part I regard our newly-established 
 church society as a most valuable auxiliary toward this vital- 
 ly important object. Let all to whom the cause of Chris- 
 tian unity is dear, all who would be glad to see this congre- 
 gation cemented and bound together in the sacred bonds of 
 Christian fellowship as in days gone by, lend their influence, 
 and what will be better still, their personal presence to this 
 association. Oh, that the blessed time may soon arrive 
 when each one of us will be at his post, all actuated by one 
 motive, and laboring for one great object, the temporal and 
 spiritual welfare of the church to which we belong. Its 
 
16 
 
 prosperity is in our hands. "Wlio will labor for it, if we do 
 not? Let the language of every tongue be, to-day, in regard 
 to our beloved Zion ; 
 
 " If e'er my heart forget 
 
 Her welfare, or her woe, 
 Let every joy this heart forsake, 
 
 And every grief o'erflow." 
 
 " For her my tears shall fall, 
 
 For her my prayers ascend, • 
 
 To her my cares and toils be given, 
 
 'Till toils and cares shall end." 
 
mwS.! °'' CONGRESS 
 
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